But sometimes following your impulses doesn’t work out so well, he thought as he touched the long, faint scar by his left eye. It had come in a bar fight, courtesy of a member of the Fulger Battalion, a division of the Moldovan Special Forces. At least he bought me a round when it was all over.

But typically, his instincts were spot-on. That’s what made him dangerous. That’s what kept him and the teams he led safe. In this situation, though, he wondered whether he could trust himself. Maybe Tzadik was exactly right, saying he was acting like a cowboy. Still, it took everything he had to not put himself, his career, and even his men at risk by rotating up a helicopter and crossing the border.

“She really does mean something to you.”

Nir turned to his left and saw Elnur Isayev. “The woman, Nicole le Roux. She’s more than just a colleague.”

Nir’s first impulse was to tell this guy to mind his own business, but he realized this might be another time when his own instincts couldn’t be trusted. “Yes, she is.”

The man appeared to think for a moment, then leaned forward, indicating that Nir should do the same. The smell of stale cigarettes was almost unbearable. “I am going to trust you with something, some information that needs to remain between you and me. Okay?”

“I can’t fully give you my word. But if it’s nothing I’m obligated by duty to share with my superiors, then it will remain between us.”

Isayev chuckled. “Right out of the manual. Okay, that is good enough for me. You need to know that we have people already on their way to Marzanabad. If necessary, they will rescue her.”

Nir nearly reacted to this news, but the thought that Tzadik could be watching him held him still. “He doesn’t know this?” he asked, nodding toward his superior.

“He does not. We assist your Mossad, but we are our own people, and we will act according to what we think is right.”

Nir was both happy and concerned. “Why are you telling me this? Why would you think I wouldn’t go to Tzadik with this information?”

“Because I believe the safety of your woman is more important to you than following protocol. From what I can tell, a lot of things are more important to you than following protocol. That is why I trust you to do the right thing.”

Nir smiled. “That’s probably true. But why would your people do this? It’s such high risk.”

“Let me put it this way. If a gang of ruffians kept coming into your village, attacking the residents and destroying their property, you would try to stop them. But what if there were too many of them?”

“You would eat the elephant one bite at a time.”