normal man would step back from the tiny virago now throwing painful elbows at him, kneeing him dangerously close to his groin and scratching at his face. But he was a trained Special Forces soldier, and the last thing he dared do was let this woman get an arm’s length between them where she could really wind up with a fist or foot and actually damage him.
He leaned in against her, using his superior size and weight to mash her even flatter against the wall at her back, silently thanking his wool suit coat for absorbing the worst of her attack.
She went still abruptly.
“Are you done?” he asked cautiously.
“Yes.” Her tone was surly. Not even close to subdued.
“If I step back from you, will you stop attacking me?” he tried.
Too long a pause. Then, “Yes.”
Liar.
He jumped back all at once, throwing up his fists to defend himself. And just in the nick of time. She flew at him like an angry bird.
But then she surprised him by spinning away and taking off at a dead run down the street. Genuinely irritated now, he gave chase.
Crap, she was fast.
Of course, she had the advantage over him in weaving through the heavy crowd, being as small as she was. He struggled to keep sight of her as she dodged among the civilians ahead of him.
Then she did a weird thing,
She came to a dead stop in front of a giant discotheque, staring at it in what could only be utter disgust.
Avi screeched to a stop beside her. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me—”
“Oh, save it,” she muttered, yanking out a set of Olympic credentials from inside her jacket. The holographic ID card hanging from a lanyard around her neck and declaring her to be from the American delegation, certainly looked authentic.
“Nonetheless. I need you to come with me,” he repeated.
She finally turned her full attention on him, and he was taken aback by her giant blue eyes, glaring at him as indignantly as if he’d kicked her puppy. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Olympic security,” he said shortly.
“I showed you my credentials. Let’s see yours,” she challenged.
“Not here,” he muttered. A lifetime of being reviled and targeted for being Israeli had taught him to be deeply reticent about announcing his nationality in crowded, public settings. Not to mention, he was not about to air Olympic security business on a street full of half-drunk spectators.
“Why won’t you show me your credentials?” the woman demanded.
“Just come with me, will you?”
“I can’t. I need to get surveillance video from inside this club.”
“I can get you the footage faster than anyone in there can if you’ll come with me.” He said the last few words through gritted teeth. This woman was really starting to get under his skin. She was blithely ignoring him as if she didn’t give a flip for being stopped by Olympic security.
“Fine,” she declared. “There are at least four exits from this place to three different streets, and thanks to you, I have no way of knowing which direction the men I was following went. I’ve lost them.”
“Lost who?”
She blinked, as if abruptly becoming aware of being closely surrounded by dozens of Olympic guests. “Uhh, nobody I care to talk about out here in the open.”
“Hence my request that you come with me.” He emphasized the word request to make it perfectly clear that this was, in fact, not a request at all.
The woman took several quick strides away from him, back toward the Olympic Village and then had the gall to stop and look over her shoulder at him. “Are you coming or not, He-Man?”
He lurched into movement, not sure whether to be amused or fantasize about strangling her. He fell in beside her, matching his long stride to her shorter one. “Are you always this touchy?” he murmured.
“You haven’t seen anything, yet. We’re in public and I have to behave myself.”
“Good Lord.”
“Oh, praying won’t save you from me.”
He glanced down at her in something approaching shock and she continued, smiling sweetly all the while, “When we get back to the village, I’m going to give you a piece of my mind...and chew off a chunk of your hide while I’m at it.”
Amused. He was definitely amused. A grin crept across his features. She reminded him of a little angry sparrow—her feathers all puffed up and flapping her wings furiously at the big bad hawk. She looked ready at any second to fly at his head and peck at him.
“You’re cute when you’re mad,” he murmured as he took her by the elbow to guide her through a particularly thick cluster of drunks spilling out of a bar into the street.
Her biceps flexed under his fingers and he noted that her arm was rock hard within his grasp. She definitely worked out. But then, the Olympics drew the fittest people on Earth into one place.
Leaning in close to her and using his big body as a shield, he protected her from jostles and errant hands as they passed through a group of loudly singing young men wearing Irish national soccer team paraphernalia. One of them, carrying a brimming full pitcher of beer in each hand stumbled, and Avi spun in front of the woman, taking a hefty slosh of beer down his back for his trouble.
While the drunk mumbled a slurred apology, Avi merely rolled his eyes and ushered the woman onward. Cold, sticky wetness made his shirt cling to his back as the beer soaked through his suit.
“Thanks,” she muttered reluctantly.
“You’re welcome.”
There was a bit of a delay getting her scanned into the village since she hadn’t scanned out properly when she left, but the guard sorted it out quickly enough when Avi flashed his own senior security credentials.
“I have to make a phone call,” she announced, stopping just inside the fenced enclosure surrounding the large campus of dormitories, dining halls, workout facilities and delegation headquarters. Sighing in frustration at yet another delay, he nonetheless stopped and waited while she pulled out her cell phone.
He listened with interest as she said, “Tessa, it’s me. I need one of you to head over to the north village pool and take over babysitting the women’s softball team. I’ve got another situation to sort out right now.” A pause, then, “I’ll tell you about it when I get back to Ops. Speaking of which, could you call Major T. and have him meet me at the ops center ASAP?”
Avi heard an exclamation that sounded like surprise from the person on the other end of the call.
The woman snorted.
