Special Forces: The Operator. Cindy Dees

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.”

      He pushed away from the desk and leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head as he stared at her. “Let’s say you’re correct, and that’s Mahmoud Akhtar. How did he get into the Olympic Village?”

      “Obviously, the Iranians gave him credentials.”

      “Their entire delegation undergoes thorough background checks by the International Olympic Committee. And my people run our own background checks above and beyond the IOC’s. We would have spotted him.”

      She threw him a “duh” look. “Obviously, the Iranians substituted him after the fact in place of someone who passed the background check.”

      “Or he could have stolen the credentials. But either way, the next question is why?” he asked reasonably.

      “Because the Iranians have something planned to disrupt the games.”

      “Like what?” he asked, interested to see how she answered. The Israelis had spent the past four years running possible scenarios of their own and preparing to stop each one.

      She shrugged. “He won’t be operating alone. Last time we had contact with him, he was the leader of a six-man cell. The man I saw with him tonight, Yousef Kamali, was one of those men. My guess is Mahmoud has reconstituted his team.”

      Avi jumped all over her slip of the tongue. “We? We who? What group are you really a part of?”

      She threw him a withering glare. “A group you don’t need to know about.”

      He arched a skeptical eyebrow at her. “Did you not hear who I work for?”

      She shrugged. “I stand by my statement.”

      Huh. So she worked for some superclassified security team the Americans had put together—that included women. His Mossad buddies would find that interesting.

      “You never answered my question,” he pressed. “What do you think Mahmoud and this hypothetical team of his are up to?”

      “I have no idea. But I know a guy who might be able to make an educated guess.”

      “I know several guys who’ve spent the past few years making educated guesses,” he snapped. “Give me more than that.”

      “I don’t have more. But I can tell you one thing. If Mahmoud Akhtar is here, he’s up to no good.”

      “On that, we are agreed.” He met her gaze grimly, and this time her big blue eyes were brimming over with worry. An urge to rock his chair forward onto all four legs, gather her into his arms and comfort her shocked him into stillness. This woman was the last person he would expect to accept comfort from him. Such a prickly little thing, she was.

      “Would you like to come with me to my security team’s meeting?” she said all of a sudden, surprising him mightily.

      “Do I have the proper clearance to attend it?” he asked, his voice as dry as the desert.

      She