operator. Avi frowned. Who was this woman?
She was speaking again. “...join us after you fish the women’s softball team out of the pool and tuck them back in their rooms.” She added, “Oh, and their clothing is in a pile at the northwest corner of the pool. Yes. All of their clothing. It’s an orgy over there. Thanks. Bye.”
She pocketed her phone and glared up at him. “Let’s make this fast. I have someplace to be.”
He crossed his arms and smirked down at her. “All right. Let’s try this again. Who are you?”
“This is still far too public an environment for me to answer that. And I’m certainly not telling you anything without you showing me proper identification.”
“Fair enough. Come with me.” He turned and headed toward the Israeli security operations center. Returning the favor from earlier, he glanced back over his shoulder and asked wryly, “Are you coming, She-Woman?”
The woman lurched into motion, scowling. Smiling a little to himself, he led her to his delegation’s headquarters.
The atmosphere was all business inside the Israeli security operations center. Ever since Munich almost fifty years ago, the Israelis operated on the assumption that their athletes were active terror targets. And it was up to the men and women in this room to protect those athletes—the finest flowers of Israel’s youth.
He didn’t stop in the main area crammed with desks, video monitors, computers and mostly big, capable men. Spying an empty office, he stepped inside, turned on the light and waited for his prisoner to join him. Not that he would call her that to her face. His ribs and foot still ached from her initial assault. She might be tiny, but she had sharp elbows and knew how to use them.
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
