She gave the device to him, and he carried it to the van’s side door and passed it to the fifth member of the team. In the dim light from the van, Nicole watched as the man walked it to the building, then set it on the ground, making sure the wires were still secure. Then he covered it with a ratty tarp and a torn bag of garbage. No need to worry about the rigged alarm. It would continue to show itself armed until someone discovered the tampering.

It was quiet as they drove off, the communications guy at the wheel. Despite the victory they’d just achieved, Nicole had found it unsettling to still be in the heart of the beast. After a ten-minute journey, they pulled into the parking lot of an empty office building. Three cars waited. As soon as she stepped out, Yusif waved to her and then hustled her to his car. She slipped into the back seat, and off they went.

Now, two hours later, Nicole closed her eyes again. It would be wonderful if she could sleep, but her nerves would never allow her to completely shut down. Once she reached Chalus, she could take a nap in her hotel room before her afternoon photo shoot. As much as she would like to bail out on the shoot, it was important to maintain her cover as a model. This gig got her into Iran, and if she suddenly disappeared after this major act of espionage, someone might get suspicious.

Well, maybe not this first time, but if it ever became a habit… Smart people out there could add two and two together and get Mossad.

For perhaps the thousandth time, she marveled over how she had ended up working for the Mossad. Yet the facts never changed. She’d been 20, her only modeling experience local to Cape Town. Tall, olive-skinned, and with dark curly hair, full lips, and ice-blue eyes, she’d determined to use her looks to get out of the hometown that held so many bad childhood memories.

That was when the Israeli intelligence agency came knocking on her door. They weren’t there because they were eager for her to do a photo spread for them. Her other pastime had brought them all the way down to South Africa. Nicole smiled as she remembered how terrified she was when they confronted her about hacking into the legendarily unhackable computers of the Mossad. She’d been sure they were about to bury her at sea.

But then they surprised her by presenting to her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Come use your incredible computer skills to work for Israeli intelligence…or else. It was hard to say no to a proposition like that.