Page 111 of Red Line

In French, the news castor droned through information about an ongoing terrorist attack taking place at a sporting complex just outside of Moscow.

“Nomad!”

“I heard.”

“They didn’t stop it. Black said that Russia had the information. Could it have been wrong? Did we not get it to them fast enough?”

“More likely, it was America handing it over, and the Russian government didn’t want to believe we knew something they did not. Or maybe they’d rather take the attack and not be beholden.”

Red dropped her head into her hands. “I knew it,” she whispered.

“Yes, we knew,” Nomad’s voice was patient. “We warned them.”

“That’s not what I mean. I knew that nothing would come from our intelligence.”

Nomad’s body tightened as he drove down the road.

“I’m getting a little superstitious, I think,” Red whispered. “Premonitions.” She waved a hand by her ear.

“What are we talking about here?” Nomad asked.

“I’ve started to see a pattern. I guess pattern is a better way to say this than premonition in this case. There’s a pattern in the names they give me when I am handed a temporary identity.”

“Beyond Red? This is Cassandra? I remember it upset you when you saw it in the papers at the Amsterdam airport.”

“Cassandra, the Greek goddess who knows the truth but is cursed that no one ever believes her. She told Troy about the Trojan Horse.”

“And Black mentioned a Trojan horse. That’s a little too spot on. It actually sent a chill down my spine.”

“I am so angry right now,” Red clutched her chest. “I am so angr—”

A sudden shriek of rubber against asphalt filled her ears. Her world was a swirl of color and pressure and pain.

Then crazy amusement-park-ride pull of centrifugal forces stopped as abruptly as it had started.

Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut. This was all so familiar.

She’d been through this before—the same sounds, the same sensations. Just like when she was in the explosion in Lebanon, she simply needed to give her brain a second to identify what was going on.

Back at the hospital under sedation. Red had dreamed about the two women. She dreamed she was sent on a wild ride up and down. As Red walked through the desert following Simone, Red thought that that dream had been a premonition.

And at the end of that dream, Red now remembered, had been a car accident.

Back at the hospital, Red couldn’t feel her legs but had decided that was the effect of sedation.

But this…they were the same sensations as in the dream.

In the dream, someone had been beside her; she’d reached out.

There had been blood.

“Are you okay?” Red had asked in the dream.

Holding very still, her eyes closed, Red forced her lips to move. “Nomad, are you okay?” When he didn’t answer, she managed to reach a hand toward him. “Are you okay?”

Epilogue

Two years later

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