Special Forces: The Operator

In the bright light of the office, he got a good look at her face. She had smooth, soft-looking skin, regular features that grew more pretty the longer he looked at them, and those big, blue eyes of hers. They were her best feature, for sure. Her hair was a soft chocolate brown shot through with strands of gold, like she spent a fair bit of time outside. He already knew she was stronger than her small stature suggested.

She pulled out her credentials again and this time he did the same. Silently, they exchanged badges.

“Rebel McQueen,” he read aloud. “That’s an unusual name. Did your mother dislike you?”

“No. She was a fanatical Steve McQueen fan. He was an actor—”

“I know who he was. The Great Escape is one of my favorite movies.”

She mused, “Allied prisoners break out of Nazi prison camp. I could see why that movie would be popular in Israel.” The woman continued, “Anyway, McQueen’s nickname was ‘the American Rebel.’”

He commented sympathetically, “You must have to explain that a lot.”

“You have no idea.” She rolled her eyes, and they traded brief smiles of commiseration.

She glanced down at his identification. “Avi Bronson. Israeli Defense Forces? Mossad?”

“Sayerat Matkal,” he replied. Not that she would have any idea what that was. Which was the point. His team didn’t advertise their existence, let alone their presence at a venue as public as the Summer Olympics.

“Unit 269?” she blurted.

“You know who we are?” he blurted back, shocked that she’d heard of his special operations unit. It wasn’t the sort of thing most civilians knew about.

“Yes,” she replied impatiently. “You guys are the primary hostage rescue unit for the Israeli Defense Forces. I’d have thought most of you security types here would be Mista’arvim—counterterrorism units.”

He shrugged. “I did a stint with them a few years back. I also rolled with Shayetet 13 early in my career.”

“The Navy SEAL equivalent, huh? Well, aren’t you the overachiever?”

He frowned down at her “Okay, so you know more about Israeli Special Forces units than the average bear. How is that?”

“It’s my job?”

“Don’t be cute with me. What do you do as a member of the American delegation, Miss McQueen?”

“Lieutenant McQueen. US Navy. Roving security for the American delegation. Sometimes it’s handy to have female security guards. We can go places men can’t.”

He frowned. “Regular US military personnel aren’t assigned to Olympic security details.”

She shrugged, offering no further explanation of why she, a military member, was here on a distinctly civilian assignment.

His mental antennae wiggled wildly. She wasn’t telling him the truth. Or at least not the full truth.

“Why did you flee the village without scanning out properly?” he tried.

“I told you. I was following someone. I didn’t have time to mess with scanning my ID.”

“And who were you following?” he asked gently when she didn’t continue.

She huffed. “I thought I saw a guy named Mahmoud Akhtar.”

“Akhtar? Here?” Mahmoud Akhtar was the kind of guy who made men like Avi lose sleep at night. Akhtar was highly trained, highly intelligent and highly radicalized. He was a known agent of the Iranian government and believed to be a wet operator—meaning his skills and missions covered everything up to and including terror and assassination. It could not possibly be good news for the Israeli delegation if Akhtar was here in Sydney. “Are you sure?” Avi asked the woman curtly.

“No. I’m not sure.” She sounded exasperated. “I was trying to get close enough to make a positive identification when you decided to go all Neanderthal and tackle me.”

“I didn’t tackle you. I merely stopped you for questioning.” She opened her mouth, obviously to argue, and he took an aggressive step forward to loom over her. He had nearly twenty-five centimeters—ten inches—on her in height. “If I had tackled you, you would have been smashed flat on the ground. And I would have handcuffed you.” He added, “As it was, I probably should have tackled you. But I was exceptionally restrained.”

She snorted. “You should have been even more restrained. Mahmoud and his buddy, Yousef Kamali, got away, thanks to you.”

He frowned, reluctant to believe her claim that an international terrorist had been strolling around the grounds of the Olympic Village. But caution dictated that he take her seriously, of course.

She didn’t seem delusional.

And the fact that she even knew who Mahmoud Akhtar and his sidekick, Yousef Kamali, were, meant she had some sort of access to classified material—also indicative of a not delusional female.

Still. Akhtar here? It would be a huge risk for a terrorist of his notoriety.

She interrupted his skeptical train of thought, demanding, “You said you could get me video from that nightclub. I want to see it right away. I might be able to make a positive ID from that.”

“Come with me.” He led her into the main room and gestured for her to sit at his desk. Reaching past her shoulder, he typed into his keyboard quickly, calling up the Israeli link to the entire Sydney CCTV—closed-circuit television—system.

Clicking on the map of downtown Sydney that popped up, he selected the nightclub. It took a moment, but then his screen flashed up black-and-white imagery of the exterior of the disco where Rebel had finally stopped running.

“Do you have interior video feed?” she murmured up at him.

He glanced down at her and was close enough to see that her eyelashes were long and silky, a soft brown that matched her hair. And she smelled good. A gentle, sweet scent like vanilla, warm and inviting. A study in contrasts, she was turning out to be. Sharp words, sweet mouth. Hard elbows, soft skin. Tough attitude, gentle eyes.

“Interior video?” she repeated.

Oh. Right. He shook himself out of staring at her and typed again. Planting both hands on the desk, he leaned forward beside Rebel to study the crowd gyrating on-screen. He hit the pause button and froze the image. Face by face, he scanned all the people in the frame. He didn’t see anyone resembling the Iranian terrorist.

Rebel leaned back. “This is hopeless. The crowd is too thick to spot my guys without a full forensic analysis of this video. What if we run the video in real time and see if we can spot Mahmoud and Yousef entering the club?”

He estimated it had been fifteen minutes since he’d detained her, and he backed up the video twenty minutes to be safe. He hit Play.

He pulled up a rolling chair from the next desk over and sat down beside Rebel. Their shoulders rubbed together as they both leaned forward, staring intently at the moving images in front of them.

Both of them jolted at the same moment as two men wearing black tracksuits entered the frame. They bumped into each other, and Avi mumbled an apology at the same time Rebel did. Their gazes met, startled, and she looked away immediately, a blush staining her cheeks. Was she shy, or did she find him attractive, or both? Hmm. Interesting.

She stabbed at the video monitor. “Those are my guys.”

“Unfortunately, that’s only the back of their heads,” he commented. “Let me see if there’s another angle.” He advanced the video frame by frame in search of a good facial shot of the men.

Nothing.

He pulled up the second camera in the club, and damned if the men weren’t moving through the space with their heads turned to the side, avoiding being seen clearly on that camera, too.

Rebel leaned back in disgust. “They did that same trick when they were leaving the village. They turned their faces away from the surveillance cameras as if they knew exactly where they were.”