Page 53 of Red Line

Foreign spy or not, this kind of operation didn’t align with his ethics. He didn’t lie to a woman for manipulation—kidnapping. Nomad taught fighting skills and blew shit up. This op was someone else’s bailiwick. “Is there a reason that JSOC is turning to Delta Force instead of CIA or DIA?”

“You know how this works,” Hasan must have caught something in Nomad’s tone. “The number of people who have to sign off if we shift to a new team. The pebble hits the water, and the rings expand outward.” Hasan glowered through the camera. “For myriad reasons that I don’t feel compelled to share with you, we’d like to limit the number of pebbles that get tossed. Frankly, we think your unique situation and … attributes will make it more likely that you will be successful. Those officers in the area might have less hair on their heads than you and more jowls. You’ve already been read in on Poole. The more people who know, the more chance that this might somehow, for example, get into the ears of a reporter and the story finds its way into the papers. That would be a bullhorn blaring out our position when we want to sneak up on the tigers, catch them in our nets, and turn them to our will.”

“Yes, sir.” So they needed someone young and fit to try to attract her enough to move her to a place where the laws were more plastic.

But did that make sense? The CIA, after all, knew about Poole. They had developed the intelligence packet for Echo to find him that was dead on. Of course, having handed off thepackage to JSOC, the field officer would have no idea what had come of it.

“Need to know” meant the players often had no idea how a puzzle fit together.

If Echo had missed, JSOC might have asked the officer to work their asset and try to get their next coordinates but that was about it.

“The problem,” Hasad said, “is getting you in there. Security is tight. Tickets to the Secret Order of the Raven’s Gate Gala are impossible to come by.”

“We reach out to the American embassy,” Nomad offered. “Surely, the ambassador would have procured tickets when they became available. My parents went to that ball when they worked in Vienna. I remember them talking about it.”

“We called the ambassador. State confiscated their tickets for national security reasons. Others needed them.”

“But not us?” T-Rex asked. “Some other team that needs to be there for a different reason?”

“The CIA might be on hand, possibly the FBI. But they’d be working a different case.”

Ah, here was another reason for tapping him for this mission; Nomad might have some strings he could pull. “Some of my parents’ society friends will be going, I’m sure,” Nomad said. “Do I have permission to reach out to my mother for contact names and numbers?”

“You do. Other than that, you might end up needing to come down the chimney like Santa Claus.”

Chapter Eighteen

Nomad

Growing up, Nomad’s unusual childhood exposed him to a plethora of languages that he tucked under his belt—some more fluent and others more at a survival level—he thought that was probably why his commanders tapped him for Delta Force assessment.

Born Algernon Leeland Kesling—yeah, that was a mouthful—Nomad renamed himself when he was in high school.

Moving from country to country, embassy to embassy had been a life he’d liked.

Nomad’s father’s work meant he often took off at a moment’s notice, sometimes for extended periods. His dad was unreliable when it came to a presence in his life but was never undependable with his love and concern.

His parents’ devotion to each other, him, and his twin brother was probably why being a nomad was adventurous instead of disorienting.

It had been like having family scattered around the world to have his parents in the diplomatic (or so he’d thought) profession.

Nomad’s last assignment - providing close protection to the group of legislators in Türkiye - felt like old home week. It had been 30ish years, but he knew the woman who sat in the front room. She used to sneak him pieces of candy, and she’d bring her pet rabbit for him to play with. Nomad knew that she wouldn’t remember him—after all, he’d been five years old at the time—but Nomad looked enough like his dad that he could tell she was trying to place him.

Nomad had noticed that front-room assistants at the various embassies had a remarkable knack for remembering names and faces. Knowing it would continue to bother her, Nomad had decided to reintroduce himself before the team left to fly back to the United States.

As Robert Burns observed, “The best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.”

Plan B: Nomad’s mother kept copious notes about people and connections. He’d call her and get the right name and home address to send the lady a note with his memories of her kindness to a young kid.

Having added that task to his mental to-do list, when Nomad made the DIA-sanctioned call to ask his mom for help getting into the ball, Nomad had decided to lead with Ankara since they weren’t on a secure line, and he couldn’t just say what he wanted to say.

He talked about missing the embassy life and the fun he’d had going to the balls to dance. She’d know that was bunk. But his mom could read between the lines.

The conversation wended lazily into the “Hey, by the way …”

And by the end of their call, Nomad had concluded that his mom would find some way to get him into that ball, even if it meant he was going in as catering staff. Of this, Nomad had no doubt. But the means to that entree wasn’t tip of the tongue; his mom would have to make some calls.

“Love you, Mom. And thanks for this.”

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