Page 15 of Red Line

The other representatives scheduled for the Ankara outreach—the ones who had to walk by Johnstone’s side and climb into a car with him—were fearful but unwilling to back out of the trip lest they seem cowardly.

And so, one of the delegates called his brother, a top brass with JSOC, and requested Delta Force protection. Though the FBI’s CIRG was full of retired Delta Force operators, and both groups had similar skill sets, Echo was handed the assignment.

Dressed, albeit atypically and uncomfortably, in suit and tie, Echo took on the mission of guarding the politicians.

The job of tamping down the political backlash belonged to the State Department.

Politics wasn’t Nomad’s sphere of present expertise. In the military, as with his parents, who ostensibly worked for the State Department, Nomad had served under both parties’ administrations. His loyalty was to the American people. His job was to use his skills to protect American interests. And right now, that meant focusing on the three feet around him. Or, in this case, the fifteen meters of hallway.

Back and forth. Back and forth, he paced the hall.

Nomad was vigilant.

Protection was boring, but it was never light duty.

A great deal of pre-planning and groundwork was included in any protection plan. Every moment of every day. Every stop—and that didn’t mean hotel to meeting space, that meant every light, every roundabout, every tunnel, everything—was researched and assessed. And while Türkiye was a NATO member, the team understood there was a war raging just a hop, skip, and a jump away.

Echo team weighed each threat made against the American contingent and mitigated it.

The meme war aside, from the point of embarking on their commercial flight out of D.C. until now, nothing had stood out as particularly dangerous. But that was the thing with mental health and violence; sometimes, there was nothing to see until it was playing out. Nomad knew that you don’t focus on the dog that barks; you focus on the one that will stalk and bite.

Back and forth. Back and forth, Nomad strode.

The four days had come and gone with him pacing this hall.

Nomad was the newest member of Delta Force Team Echo. And this happened to be his first Echo mission. A proud member of the United States military since he was old enough to sign on the dotted line—Army boot to Ranger School to Green Beret, and recently a move to The Unit—he’d served both in combat and in peace.

But a military record didn’t matter much when you joined a new team.

They tested you.

And rightly so.

Nomad had no expectations that he’d walk through the door with his battle rattle and Echo would embrace him as a brother.

When their lives were on the line, the team needed to know Nomad’s character as well as the skill sets listed in his file.

Did it amuse him to be a burr in somebody’s backside?

Would he snatch at the cream assignments and try to snake his way out of doing crap jobs?

Would his ego jeopardize a good outcome?

Would he go along to get along? Sometimes, that was a good thing; sometimes, it was deadly. You had to know when to speak up and when to shut it.Everychoice had ramifications.

Nomad absolutely understood why Delta Force Team Echo needed to test him and see how he performed under stress. And there were few things as good as sleep deprivation coupled with boredom to assess someone’s capacity to stay even-keeled and focused.

When assignments were handed out, and Nomad’s schedule looked like he was basically on duty twenty-four/seven for the duration, Nomad had planned to hit exhaustion by the time they wrapped up this four-day handshake mission.

Nothing new in that.

Taking night shifts, walking the halls in a five-star hotelwasn’ta crap job. It was low bandwidth.

Yeah, there were far worse things he could be doing right now. One that came readily to mind was the day Nomad had slithered through a minefield on his belly, wearing a wounded Ranger buddy on his back like a turtle shell. Or the day his Green Beret unit was in Hatari, East Africa, and they raced into the fray as guerilla fighters, hopped up on khat leaves, attacked a village of women and children. That was one of the most horrific days of his life. He still had nightmares about it. He still felt guilty that only one person from that village, his friend Hailey, had survived.

Comparatively, this assignment was cake.

But Nomad didn’t have much of a sweet tooth.

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