Special Forces: The Operator

“Hi, Rebel,” he said quietly so as not to startle her.

She glanced up at him just long enough for color to bloom on her cheeks. Interesting. An autonomic response to him, huh? Good to know. Particularly since he was deeply intrigued by her, too.

“Whatcha working on?” he asked.

“Check this out.” She handed him a crude diagram she’d drawn on a piece of paper. A rectangle took up most of the sheet of paper, and it was filled with tiny numbers—hundreds of them from zero to nine.

“What am I looking at?” he asked.

“I’ve spent the day asking every injured athlete I can get a hold of how bad their injuries are—I developed a scale from zero to nine to log the severity of their symptoms—and where they were in the pool when they first noticed them. Then I mapped all of that information in a rough diagram of the pool. Notice anything interesting?”

It leaped out at him right away. All of the nines were clustered tightly together about halfway down the east side of the pool. The eights and sevens clustered around that bunch of nines, and the numbers grew steadily smaller the farther away the victims had been from that spot of origin on the east side of the pool.

He looked up at Rebel. “What do you make of this?”

“I don’t think the excessive chlorine in the pool was introduced through the automated chlorination system. I think it was put in the pool by an individual standing beside it, right about there.” She jabbed at her drawing where all the nines were centered.

“The IOC has already closed the investigation,” he commented.

“Of course they have,” she replied scornfully. “They don’t want any hint of sabotage or an attack of some kind to sully their games.”

“They also don’t want to panic anyone by having wild rumors or unsubstantiated accusations floating around,” he observed.

She looked up at him, her gaze frustrated. “I get that. But I think the evidence is clear. We are, in fact, dealing with an act of sabotage. Combine that with my spotting Mahmoud Akhtar and Yousef Kamali at the east side of the pool last night, and you do the math.”

He sighed. “We don’t have a positive ID on either man. We can’t even confirm they’re here.”

“Is that what your Mossad contacts said?”

“They said they’ve heard nothing to indicate that Akhtar or Kamali is outside of Iran, let alone here and active.”

“That doesn’t mean they aren’t here. It just means your people don’t know they’re here,” she countered.

“What does the CIA have to say on the subject?”

She shrugged. “Zane is due to land in about an hour. I’ll let you know what he says.”

Tonight, Avi had chosen a more formal restaurant for them. He’d made a reservation for seven thirty, and it wasn’t the kind of place that held a table for a party if it was late. “We need to go,” he announced.

Rebel stood up, and he glanced at her dark, tailored business suit. It was expensive fabric and well made, but it did nothing to enhance the body beneath it.

They were outside the village and close to the restaurant before he asked, “Why do you wear suits like that? Do you want to make yourself look like a man?”

“I find that men are easily distractible creatures. Also, as a group, they’re not generally taught to judge a woman by her intellect or skill at her profession, but rather to judge her by her looks. If I want them to think of me as a professional, I have to look like one. And that means not girl-ing up.”

“You don’t think it’s possible for a woman to be attractive and do a job?”

“Of course I think it’s possible. I just don’t think it’s possible for men to perceive an attractive woman as a professional.”

“That’s a pretty dim view of men, Ms. McQueen.”

She shrugged. “I call it as I see it.”

“You really have been surrounded by stupid chauvinist jackasses, haven’t you?”

Her gaze jerked up to his.

“Why do you look surprised that I might have liberated views of women?” he asked. “Women have served side by side with men in the IDF since the founding of Israel in 1948.”

“Apparently, I was born in the wrong country,” she responded dryly.

“A mistake that can be rectified. I’m sure there’s a place in my country for a woman with your special abilities.”

She laughed. “Thanks, but I’m good with where I’m at. The Medusas are unique.”

“Other countries are training women Special Forces operatives.”

“True. But none of them are fielding entire teams made up of women who do the same sorts of missions as men. Most add a single woman to a team here and there. Also, not many countries are giving women full SF training. They’re modifying the training for women and not making them meet the same standards as men.”

“You had to meet men’s standards?” he exclaimed, startled.

“What would be the point if we didn’t?” she snapped.

He absorbed that in silence as they reached the restaurant. He held the door for her, and as she slid past him he muttered, “All the men’s standards?”

“All of them.”

“But...you’re so tiny.”

“Lower muscle to weight ratio for me to overcome. And I fit into small spaces my male counterparts don’t. Makes for great sniper nests that hostiles don’t spot.”

“You’re a—” He broke off, realizing belatedly that they were standing in a posh restaurant, and it probably wasn’t the ideal place to blurt out that his dinner companion was an assassin.

“Not my specialty,” she murmured. “I’m mainly a photo intelligence analyst. I look at live video images from drones and interpret them in real time.”

“So you have an eye for detail?”

“You could say that.” Her voice was as dry as the Negev Desert.

Their table was ready, and he followed Rebel and the maître d’ into the private dining room Avi had reserved for them. The decor of the room was dark, with paneled walls and burgundy carpet. Crisp white linen covered their candlelit table, though, and the places were precisely set with Limoges china and Lalique crystal. The table looked like a glittering jewel nestled in a bed of dark velvet. It was impossibly romantic.

Which was exactly the point. He’d set a personal goal of teaching the overly serious American commando how to loosen her collar a little and enjoy the finer things in life.

The maître d’ seated Rebel and then retreated, leaving the two of them alone. He sat down across from her and unfolded his crisply starched linen napkin, spreading it across his lap in anticipation of the culinary delights to come.

“Where have you brought me?” she asked in alarm. “I’m afraid to breathe hard, lest I break something.”

“The food is outstanding, and we can speak in private, here. And my government is picking up the tab, so don’t worry about the cost.”

“Cost? I bet his place doesn’t even put prices on the menu.”

He smiled. “They don’t. Shall I choose a wine for us?”

“You’d better. All I know about wine is it’s bad if it’s still bubbling.”

He laughed, shocked. “Still bubbling? That’s obscene.”

“That’s Boone’s Farm in a box.”

“Boone’s Farm? That’s not actually wine. It’s—” he searched for a proper description “—corn syrup, food coloring and rubbing alcohol.”

She laughed, and he stared, shocked at what happened to her face when her customary intensity gave way to actual joy. Her eyes sparkled, color came to her cheeks, and the fineness of her bones, the soft perfection of her skin came to life. It was as if her entire being smiled for a moment.

“You should laugh more often,” he declared.

The laughter faded from her eyes, and determination to make her laugh again came over him. But first, their waiter arrived, and Avi ordered a ridiculously expensive bottle of wine to go with the chef’s choice.

The waiter left and Rebel leaned forward, looking distressed. “What are we eating tonight?”

Avi shrugged. “Whatever the chef serves to us. I’ve eaten here several times and he has never disappointed me.”

“But what if it’s something weird?”

“I thought you Americans do a half-decent survival school. After eating bugs and worms, are you really that worried over what a Michelin three-star chef is going to make for you?”

She leaned back, looking disgruntled. In a heartbeat, she’d gone from stunningly beautiful to fluffy kitten cute.

“You’re quite the chameleon, Rebel.”

“How so?”

“I’ve identified at least four versions of you so far, and each one is entirely different.”

“Do tell.” She sipped the wine the waiter had poured for her, and abruptly, her attention riveted not on him but on her glass. “Holy crap,” she muttered.

“Is it ruined?” he asked quickly. “Cork in the wine? Soured?”

“No. I had no idea wine could taste like this. I don’t even like wine. But this is...amazing.”

He leaned back, grinning. “Ahh. Welcome to the civilized world. Where pleasure is more than fleeting and people achieve actual happiness.”

She scowled at him, back to being a hedgehog—prickly, but still adorable.

He sipped at his wine, savoring the complex bouquet. “So tell me this. Why would men like Mahmoud and Yousef bother dumping chlorine in a pool? It’s a far too low-level attack—too amateur for men of their training and skill.”

“Agreed. Unless it was some sort of test run. Maybe they were checking the emergency response. Or maybe they wanted to see if any sophisticated monitoring and detection equipment was brought out and used.”

An interesting theory. He replied, “It’s not as if poisoning a bunch of people with a chlorine attack is likely to succeed without being detected. It stinks to high heaven, and people have some time to run away from the fumes, and in this case skin burns, before they’re seriously injured or killed.”

“Obviously,” she retorted. “But what if they’re planning to use some other poison gas in a larger attack? Why go to all the trouble of setting up a lethal attack if you know the Olympic security team is prepared to detect it and stop it?”

“But we are prepared to identify the usual nerve gasses.”

She shrugged. “I know that, and you know that. But do the Iranians know that? Or are they testing the edges of our defenses to measure what we can and can’t respond to?”

“Or maybe a few drunk hooligans thought dumping a bunch of chlorine in the pool would be a funny joke.”

She studied him long and hard enough that he began to wonder what she was thinking about him. Only perverse stubbornness stopped him from asking. The same stubbornness frustrated his parents to no end, but had also saved his life on countless occasions when he refused to give up in the face of impossible odds. Hell, he was beginning to think getting this woman to relax and enjoy herself a little was one of those damn near impossible tasks.

Clearly, she intended to keep the talk over dinner entirely business. So be it. For now.

“Fine,” he conceded. “If it was, in fact, an attack, you’re likely right. It probably wasn’t random drunks. Have you considered the timing of the attack? Could it even have been your terrorists?”

She shrugged. “Mahmoud and Yousef left the pool about thirty minutes before everyone started reacting to the chlorine. They would have had to use some sort of dissolving packaging or pellets that melted slowly for the timing to work.”

“Okay,” he replied. “That’s a plausible hypothesis. Do you have any proof of it?”

“There are no lights in that pool, hence no underwater video. I’ve checked the security cameras for last night, but the crowd is so dense around the pool I can’t make out anyone who might have dumped anything in the water.”

“So your theory will have to remain just that. A theory.”

“A scary theory that you and my bosses would do well to take seriously,” she retorted.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry,” he murmured.

“I’m not angry. Just worried.”

“Fair enough. If you’re worried, I’m worried,” he responded gallantly.

“Really?”

He met her gaze squarely. “Yes. Really. Even if I don’t know you that well, yet, I do know Gunnar Torsten. And anyone he trains is someone to take seriously.”

They waited in silence as the first course of their meal was served, hors d’oeuvres of wild mushrooms stuffed with crab, escargot and truffle paté.

He silently took pleasure in watching the orgasmic expressions crossing Rebel’s face with each new flavor she encountered. She was a great deal more expressive than she likely thought she was. But then, a man like him was adept at catching every nuance of facial and body language, too.

Eventually, he leaned forward. “I did get one interesting piece of intel from my people this afternoon.”

She looked up expectantly from her potato-leek soup, abruptly all business, food forgotten. He sent a silent mental apology to the chef.

“I’ll share it with you, but on one condition,” he murmured.

“What’s that?”

He stood up, went around the table and held out his hand to her. “Dance with me.”

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