Surrender to Temptation (Agent Lovers Series Book 1) by Harper Steen, Lesley Schuldt Read Free Book Online Page A

anti-guerilla warfare and sabotage were all part of her “class schedule,” and she also underwent frequent psychological and physical tests.
    The most alarming experience of her training period was the first simulated interrogation she was put through, to prepare her in case one day she was captured. As part of the experience, several men Liz didn’t know dragged her from her bed in the middle of the night, knocked her unconscious and hauled her off to an obscure location. When Liz regained consciousness, she was sitting in only her underwear, shackled to a chair in an ice-cold, dark room. Her feet and legs had already begun to go numb from the cold. A man in a ski mask walked up to her chair and began to question her about her training. No matter how much he abused her and hurt her, she didn’t say a word. Eventually, Liz crumpled over unconscious on the chair: bloody, with two broken fingers, her body peppered with bruises. Some time later she awoke on something soft and white: a bed in a military hospital. Townsend even came in person to tell her that she had passed the test.
    Liz had to endure this kind of interrogation two more times and in the process discovered that her weird sense of humor well served the goal of surviving the torture. Liz drove the interrogators to desperation by speaking nonsense in several different languages. In French, she told them about the Eiffel Tower and other points of interest located in Paris; in Spanish, she explained how to make delicious paella; and in German, she recited important historical events in chronological order, from the Middle Ages to the present.
    Admittedly, each interrogation still ended with Liz in the hospital, but, despite the pain, she felt much better now that she’d found a way to cope. She had paid them back in the only way her shackled condition would allow. And because of that, she had managed to pass every test.
    Altogether, Liz’s ruthless training lasted four years, since she hadn’t had any previous military experience. The training that had been drilled into her made her what she had become three years ago: Special Forces Agent Elizabeth Gibson, member of the maverick Top Secret Special Unit known as TDA:
Townsend’s Dozen Agents.
She had a SFSU-IV security clearance—Special Forces Security Unit level four—and she’d been licensed to kill
.
Just like James Bond, except not in the service of Her Majesty.
     
    Once they got to the control room, Liz took a deep breath. She pushed back the memory of her training period and set her backpack down next to the door. Her eyes darted towards Gray, who sat in front of a computer monitor.
    This man was in close contact with her family. For a brief moment, she again felt a wave of fear that he might inadvertently reveal her secret to her father or John, but Liz quelled this concern immediately. There was no point in worrying unnecessarily about something that would never happen; Gray was sworn to secrecy; he had taken an oath just like she had.
    Her family could not—and never would—learn anything about her true job. That would only put them in danger by linking them with a Special Forces Agent, a TDA, who had her security grade. This was why Liz had kept her distance from them for so long. It was the only way she knew to protect her family.
     
    ***
     
    “Twenty AGM-88D type air-to-surface missiles were stolen a week ago from a US Air Force convoy. The AGM-88D are tactical anti-radar missiles with fragmented warheads that can be guided by GPS. Your mission will be to destroy them before they’re brought out of the area and sold.” Chris brought them up to speed while Gray stayed in the background. “Unfortunately, we’re dealing with special circumstances that make retrieval impossible in this case. All we can do is cut our losses. What’s essential is that we keep them from falling into the wrong hands.”
    “As if they weren’t already in the wrong hands,” Liz said sarcastically. “Why