Page 102 of Red Line

“What’s the goal? Wait.” She paused and looked at the floor. “Okay, that clarifies their last phone conversation. So Simone will break off from Gustav and go with someone else to Algeria.”

“Exactly. And I think I’ve figured out how they’re going to pull it off without alerting anyone on the Moroccan side. Command wants us to take pictures of the people that connect with Simone.”

“That’s it? Pictures in Algeria of Simone making contact?”

“Sarcasm?”

“I’m waiting to hear how you think this going to go down. How are we going to accomplish the goal of photographing people meeting Simone in Algeria?”

Nomad pointed at the boxes on the nightstand— a honking big smartphone zoom lens. “Photography is my hobby. I can’t wait to capture sunrise on the Sahara dunes.”

“You do love it so much.” She hung up the towel. “What’s the range? I’m guessing we can probably hang out—What?—like a kilometer away with a lens like that?”

“It depends on the atmosphere. But on a good day, that might be true. Of course, it’s going to depend on topography, too. If we’re still in the dunes, and they’re down in the trough, things could get sketchy. The rallying point isn’t that far distant from our ATV tour. Look at this map. Nomad scooted to the end of the bed and held up his tablet. “This is the glamping site.”He pointed at a picture of two rows of cloth tents with a cement sidewalk and footlights.

“That’s romantic.”

Nomad popped his brows. “They have bathrooms.”

“Bonus. Where does the water come from?”

“My question, too. I discovered that there are deep wells dug out in the desert, and they have pipes that lie across the top of the sand that bring the water in. The itinerary. Eleven-hour bus ride. Take camels to our tents. In the morning, we take ATVs to watch the sun rise over the dunes, and then we return to the bus for a ride home.”

“I don’t think I’d have chosen a twenty-two-hour bus ride for camels, tents, and ATVs.”

“You get to see the breadth of Morocco. And Simone gets to go to Algeria.”

“You said rallying point?” Red reached for an oversized T-shirt that covered her to her knees, and Nomad was disappointed when she pulled it on.

“Gustav got a GPS meeting point ping in his messages.” Nomad moved back to the map. “Here. This other pin is the well. This one is our tent. And this one is the nearest town.”

“Close.”

“If you get to the well and head east—”

“Which would be apparent if you’re going to watch the sunrise.”

“Exactly. This is the red line that would move us from the Morocco to Algeria. It’s a hard kilometer of walking the dunes.” Nomad moved the tablet to the side table, then scooted back in the bed with his head resting on a stack of pillows. “Come here, please.” Nomad held out his hand. “I’d like you to come lay down for a few minutes.”

“Why, what did you have in mind?” She crawled on top of him and lay down with her head to his heart.

“I had in mind that we have a lot of planning to do, but it can wait for a bit. I’ve had a chance to turn off the engines and rest. You haven’t.”

“When did you have this time? I’m calculating all the things you were up to, and I was eating ice cream.” She didn’t sound like she minded this. But maybe she wasn’t used to someone helping her to stop and take a breath.

He was part of a team; they looked out for each other. From what Nomad could tell, Red’s team was all over the place, and she worked solo on missions.

Since Red seemed to be resting but not sleeping, after a while, Nomad ventured, “Have you ever found love?” He’d said it from out of the blue, without thinking through how Red would hear that question. But honestly, he knew nothing about her. She could be married, have someone at home…

Love had been on his mind a lot these last few days. He’d listened to plenty of “How I Met Your Mother” stories. But he couldn’t recall anyone ever telling him how they knew they were in love. He wondered if it was a gradual awakening or if it were a flash of lightning.

“I have loved in my lifetime, yes.” She kissed his chest. “Loved deeply. Loved hard. Loved many. But one by one, they’ve slipped out of my arms until my arms were left empty.”

He was sure by her tone that she wasn’t talking about couple relationships that had come and gone but love in general. And it expanded his heart to know that she had the capacity to love and to keep on loving. That took courage. “And then what do you do?” he whispered, pressing the clasp of her claw open and setting it on the side table so he could comb his fingers through her hair.

“I have all that love and nowhere to put it. It piles up around me, and I stumble over it all the time. I try to shift it to the side to make room and space to move freely. But it’s liquid –a thick sticky ooze, and it slides right back in my path, gets on my shoes, and I track it wherever I go. I find that it’s easier to wash off if I have a hard outer shell. But it’s still there, nonetheless.”

“And you’re aware of it.”

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