Cindy Dees: Medusa’s Master

The men’s movements looked jerky and forced as they moved through joint locking and choking exercises. However, in a real fight, it wasn’t about beauty. It was all about putting the other guy down before he put you down.

She set down her gear bags and rifle case to watch. The men finished the sequence and climbed to their feet, breathing hard. They began to spar in a standing position, trading kicks and punches.

One of the men, a good-looking guy with blond-streaked hair and a surfer’s tan, glanced over at her, then did a double take. His partner took the opportunity to clock him with a fast kick to the side of the head. Surfer guy went down like a ton of bricks.

She bit back a smile at his expense. That had to have hurt. He rolled onto his back and executed a nifty back-arch and flip that landed him on his feet. Showboating for her, no doubt. The move took stomach strength and looked good in the movies, but was impractical in most actual fights. Any half-decent ground fighter would never give you a chance to get back to your feet at all, let alone in so flashy a fashion.

She studied surfer guy as he swaggered over to her. Strong. Lean. Fit. Lacking in flexibility if she had to guess. And in subtlety, for that matter. The grinning leer in his gaze was beyond obvious. According to her Eastern upbringing, it bordered on insulting. In the West, it was a mild flirtation. She sighed. Yet again, her two worlds collided. She had to admit, though, he was cute. No, strike cute. He was hot.

“Hey, baby. Y’all new in town?” he drawled with a hint of New Orleans in his voice.

“You’re not talking to me, are you?” she replied smoothly. “Because I don’t recall giving you permission to call me that.”

“Whatchya gonna do about it…baby?” Were it not for the utterly charming grin and devastating dimples that accompanied the comment, she’d have flattened him on the spot. As it was, she stepped forward politely and held out her hand.

“My name’s Katrina Kim-”

He smiled triumphantly over his shoulder at the other men, who’d all stopped sparring to stare at her. Still grinning confidently, he took her hand.

In a flash, she spun and yanked, twisting the guy’s entire arm and flipping him neatly over her hip. He slammed heavily to the floor. Before his bulk had hardly finished smacking the mat face-first, she pounced, kneeling on his neck with her knee and yanking his arm up and back uncomfortably behind him.

“-and don’t call me baby,” she finished coolly. Inside, she churned. She hated being forced into having to reveal a glimpse of her martial arts skills. Hidoshi had always considered it a grave failure of Shin , the Mind, to be forced into using violence. But sometimes a girl had to do what a girl had to do.

The other men gaped, equal parts stunned and appalled.

Without letting the man on the floor go, she asked them pleasantly, “Is one of you Captain Steiger? I was told I might find him here.”

The guy beneath her lurched, and she gave a sharp jerk on his arm, effectively and completely subduing him. Grins were beginning to spread across the other men’s faces.

One of the men answered gravely, “You’re standing on him, ma’am.”

A thoroughly unladylike curse shot through her head. Great. She’d just taken down and humiliated the man she was supposed to work for on this mission. Why was it the Medusas always seemed to get off to a rocky start with the men they worked with? She sighed. At least she and the good captain had established that she didn’t like being called baby. It was probably handy to have gotten that out of the way, at any rate.

Lying facedown on the floor, Jeff Steiger tried wiggling something small-he started with his pinkie finger. Mistake. Pain shot down his arm and exploded in his shoulder. Man. So much for impressing the hot chick in the gym. She was a little thing, not particularly heavy kneeling on his neck, but damned if she didn’t have him tied up practically in a pretzel.

Thankfully, she released his arm and let him up without him actually having to cry uncle. He climbed painfully to his feet, eyeing the young woman warily.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that she’d taken him down, she was also a drop-dead eyeful. Exotic, definitely part Asian. Maybe Korean. Her features were refined. Delicate even. But that grip on his hand had been pure steel, and the strength behind it that had put him on the ground had been shocking.

He smiled at her ruefully. “How ’bout we start over? My name’s Jeff Steiger. But you can call me Maverick if you like.” Putting on his best Sunday church manners, he added, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

She nodded briefly.

“You said you were looking for me?”

She frowned, and even that was a delicate thing, her finely drawn eyebrows arching together over an elegant nose. Her eyes were a clear, sweet tea brown.

“General Wittenauer sent me to work with you.”

Wittenauer? The Old Man himself? He was the commander-in-chief of the entire Joint Special Operations Command. Jeff had sent a request up channels for a Special Forces operator who was unusually agile and had expertise in electronics. Why in the hell had the general sent down this girl instead?

Jeff cursed under his breath. It could only mean one thing. Wittenauer thought his theory on the robberies was a load of bull. He hadn’t even taken Jeff’s report seriously enough to send him a real operator, let alone the one he needed.

He realized the girl was staring at him expectantly. He mumbled, “Uh, sorry. Did the general send me a message or something?”

“No. Just me.”

What the hell? “If you’ll pardon my bluntness, who are you?”

She lifted an eyebrow at that. “Captain Katrina Kim. U.S. Army. Joint Special Operations Command, Medusa Project. Sniper, linguist, electronics and black ops specialist.”

He stared. He didn’t even know where to begin reacting to that mouthful. Her? A sniper? No way . Black Ops? Get out . Finally, he sputtered, “What the hell is the Medusa Project? Never heard of it.”

She pursed her mouth into a Kewpie-doll pout and said mildly, “You must not have a high enough security clearance to have heard of it.”

“Are you dissing my security clearances?” Indignation started low in his gut. “I’ll have you know the name of my security clearance is classified, lady.”

Somehow, even with her face completely devoid of expression and her body utterly still, she managed to convey complete disdain for him and his clearance.

“What the hell kind of clearances do you have?” he challenged.

She shrugged. “I’m allowed to carry firearms in the presence of the president of the United States.”

Jeez. He was familiar with such a clearance, and they didn’t come much higher than that. “And have you ever been armed in the presence of the president?”

She answered evenly. “Several times. He awarded me my first combat medal.”

Who in the hell was this lady?

“Perhaps we can go somewhere more…private…to talk?” she suggested.

He glanced over his shoulder at their avid audience. “My guys are okay. They’re all operators, complete with fancy security clearances. They won’t tell tales.”

One of them piped up drolly. “But we’re bloody well telling everyone in the bunker that an itty bitty thing in a skirt tossed your happy butt on the floor.”

Jeff scowled. Damn. There went his reputation. To the itty bitty thing in a skirt in question, he said, “Let me clean up. And then we can go to my office and talk.”

She was waiting for him when he emerged from the locker room five minutes later. He’d intended to take a long, hot shower and make her wait, but inexplicable curiosity, eagerness even, to learn more about her had turned his shower into a hasty affair lasting barely two minutes.