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Find the plan. Kill the plan.
What did that look like? Above her pay grade. Those decisions had absolutely nothing to do with her.
She was a field officer who discovered the dangers. That washerkind of treasure.
And now, she was on the hunt.
Chapter Seventeen
Nomad
Nomad lay on his bed in the American barracks. At the end, he’d positioned a chair with a stack of pillows to give himself the extra inches he needed so his feet weren’t dangling off the mattress.
T-Rex stood at the open door and caught Nomad’s gaze. “Up and at ‘em. Looks like rest time has come to an end.”
Nomad swung his legs around, sliding his feet into the boots he always kept prepped for a quick transition. He pulled the laces into efficient bows and followed along behind T-Rex.
“Where’s Echo heading next?”
“Not Echo.” T-Rex pointed. “You.”
Me? Interesting.Nomad silently followed T-Rex out the door into the hallway to the elevator and pressed the button. “Did the CIA update you on how she’s doing?” Nomad wouldn’t speak Red’s name outside of the mission. But T-Rex would know exactly whom he was asking about.
With his hands on his hips, his lips pressed tight, T-Rex shook his head, and Nomad felt a vice tighten around his heart.
During the extraction, Nomad had taken charge of Red. In the back of their vehicle, Nomad had cradled Red in his arms from the hotel to the docks with her head resting on his chest. He’d carried her to the boat and held her, draped across his lap, as he protected her from the swells while T-Rex motored them farther out to sea where the rescue helicopter could reach them.
Red had been oblivious to all of it.
Nomad had been scared; he’d admit it. He’d felt her clinging to life. They had arrived when she held to the lastthread, and it was probable that their last push was too little, too late.
Throughout the race to get her to an American hospital on an American base, Nomad had this crazy thought that if he held her tight, he could hold her in her body. That if he sang her name and just plain asked, “Can you reach down deep? Can you find the thing that can get you through and anchor yourself to it? Can you listen to my voice and stay with me?” she would try harder to stay alive. Like when his buddies were hurt on the battlefield, and he’d yelled at them to keep their eyes open, “Stay with me.” He just kept asking, terrified that he was watching her take her last breath. Angry that this rescue was taking too long.
Yeah, it had been bad.
When T-Rex walked through his door to get him, Nomad had been lying there staring at the ceiling, flinging those questions out into the universe. “Red, are you trying? Are you holding on?” In his imagination, Nomad had been reliving the relief he’d felt as the helicopter crew sent the basket down. Arranging her as comfortably as he could, Nomad had pulled the straps securely into place to keep her safe.
As the rope lifted her, Nomad steadied the swing of the basket. It was an honor to do it. He’d felt that acutely. And it was his privilege to fly back to the base with her, to be the one who got an I.V. into her arm, to run beside the gurney as the rescue EMTs took over her care.
But as the ambulance receded from view, a sensation flooded Nomad’s system, rocking him like a rogue wave.
It was a lot.
Big.
Hard as hell.
He didn’t know her name.
He’d never get to talk to her.
He’d never see her smile.
This mission was the embodiment of those damned lines from Longfellow:
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;