Page 41 of Red Line

“Good enough.” Nomad planted his foot on the wall, then walked his way down, moving hand over hand for the second time in less than twelve hours.

“That’s the one,” T-Rex signaled him.

Nomad locked the rope between his feet. A bit more and Nomad dangled from one hand as he used the other to block the light to see in.

A woman sprawled half on the bed, half draping off, one foot on the floor. Fully dressed, boots on her feet, she was white with plaster dust. Reaching up to grab the rope above a knot, Nomad called up, “I’ve got her. He pressed his toes onto the sill, adjusted his grip into a less awkward position, then pulled one foot back, slamming it into the line that held the two sides of windows together with a locking latch.

The windows flew apart, hitting against either side of the wall, shattering the glass.

Swinging through, Nomad landed on the blue tile floor in a crouch.

Glass shards crunched under his soles as Nomad quickly cleared the room, then moved to the woman’s side, not at all sure she was still alive.

He licked the back of his hand and held it under her nose.

Her exhale felt cool on his skin as the moisture evaporated.

Over his years in combat zones, Nomad had learned to go slow and not touch unless and until it became absolutely necessary. Extremists sometimes hid grenades or other incendiaries under the sick and the dead. That tactic took out the helpers and dropped morale among the survivors. It made it less likely that anyone would run in to render aid in future attacks.

Covered in dust so thick that Nomad couldn’t see her skin color, her hair was powdered to seem gray. A pool of dried blood stained her ear and neck.

Alive but unresponsive.

If this was merely sleep, his entrance would have brought her around.

Nomad moved to her door, where he checked for any booby traps she might have laid or other complications. An unused door wedge with a triggering alarm was set off to the side. She must have come in, locked the door, and dropped onto the bed, he thought as he turned the old-fashioned key and swung the door open for his team.

“Is it her?” T-Rex asked.

“Right lips.” Nomad stepped to the side. His heart was pounding. What about this situation was triggering him?

He didn’t know her, but his system was reacting in a way completely foreign to him. Nomad wished he had a moment to regroup.

Staying frosty meant surviving the day.

As T-Rex pulled out his phone and opened the fingerprint app, he called, “Ma’am? Ma’am, can you hear me?”

Her lids fluttered.

“Ma’am, don’t open your eyes yet.” Nomad calibrated his voice to a tone that would slide behind the veil of semi-consciousness. “Let me wash your face first so you don’t scratch your corneas.” He moved into the bathroom. It looked exactly how he had expected it to, clean but primitive and aged.Reaching for the small cloth hanging on a hook, he held it under the warm water, wringing it out. He filled the pitcher and grabbed up the trash can. Looking in, he didn’t see anything that might give them information. Nomad brought it into the room just as T-Rex announced, “She’s a match.”

T-Rex shuffled from a squat to take a knee. “Johnna Red, American support is here to rescue you. I’m going to reach under you to make sure there are no surprises left by combatants.”

Nomad stepped past T-Rex while his teammate swept under her legs and torso. “Clean.”

“Red,” T-Rex said slowly and clearly. “Did you buy Johnny new crayons for school?”

T-Rex leaned his ear right over her lips.

Nomad could read that she tried for “First grade.”

“He loves to color,” T-Rex finished. Since T-Rex had identified Red through the fingerprints, Nomad knew he’d moved through that series to let Red know this team was on her side. She could trust them.

Dropping to the floor, Nomad leaned in. “Ma’am, I’m flushing your eyes with warm water. Just keep them closed.” He wasn’t sure how much she could hear or understand him. That coagulated blood by her ear might indicate a perforated ear drum.

As he poured the warm water over her eyes, letting it slowly stream down the side of her face into the bucket, Nomad went through a mental list of things that might have happened to her. Obviously, she’d been on-site during the explosion; bomb dust coated every inch of her.

Surviving the initial detonation was only half the battle. Then came the after-concussion. She didn’t need to be that close to the bomb detonation to suffer the wave of energy that followed. If that were the case, she could have stumbled to her room and succumbed.

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