Page 100 of Red Line

His heart slammed against his chest.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Nomad

When Nomad’s phone rang, he snatched it up and swiped the call open.

Without preamble, Red said, “Simone called Kamal and spoke to him as if she were Elena. Simone accused him of trying to kill her to take the ring and not have to pay the prize.”

“Could Simone actually believe that?”

“She might. I mean,” Red was speaking in Turkish again, making herself heard over the sound of traffic. “It’s possible. Simone may have no idea about the treasure hunters that came after Elena at the ball, and honestly, we don’t know what happened. That’s speculation, right?”

“I don’t think they had anything to do with Joel if that’s what you’re asking me. Too many easier ways to handle that. And those men had vengeance in their eyes. That wasn’t a mission tasked to hired help,” Nomad said. “That was personal.”

“I agree. So Simone told Kamal she was not going to the garden. And Kamal was pissed. Simone blew the whole ‘perfect circle through time’ scenario that Kamal wanted to draw. It was apparent that he wasn’t used to someone saying no to him. And honestly, Simone is in the catbird’s seat. Forty million euros would be nice. But if that doesn’t work, there are other buyers. She could get at least four million on the merits of the diamond. Disappointing, sure. But not chump change.”

“What did Kamal end up telling her? Are you walking?” Nomad asked.

“Sitting.” Her words drowned in the blare of horns. “Simone told Kamal to meet her outside of police headquarters,and they could make the exchange there. She wasn’t playing games, and she wasn’t taking chances.”

“Yeah, I saw that her pin has been there for about ten minutes now. What’s she doing?”

“She’s perched on the wall.”

“You think he’s going to buy it that Simone is Elena?”

“I think that entirely depends. If Kamal has only seen Elena’s photograph, it could work. It’s hard to tell a real-life, moving, breathing person from a person in a photo. Especially if it’s a still photo that the person posed for. That’s why front-facing grinning photos are terrible to take. They remove the humanity. Now, if Joel is with him, there would be a problem. Elena danced in Joel’s arms. He’d know right away.”

“So what are you doing?”

“Having a pistachio ice cream across the street, picking construction materials off my clothes. And you?”

“I have some things I’m following up on. I’ll update you later. How’s the ice cream?”

“Oddly, it’s tasteless. But I think that my senses are still in fight-or-flight. That’s twice in one week where I lost someone who was mission-critical just feet away.”

“I thought about that. You’re going to have to take some time to process it.”

“Once I’ve saved the world.”

“Agreed, world-saving takes priority,” Nomad said lightly, but these weren’t nameless tangos squirting out the back of a terror nest. These were humans. They had voices, emotions, and faces that Red had interacted with over time. Nomad knew enough people who pushed that shit down and pressed on, and they paid a heavy price for it. He didn’t want that for Red.

“Out of curiosity, do you have any idea how the team got the scaffold to fall? I didn’t hear an explosion. There was no fire flare.”

Nomad was aware that she’d gracefully but purposefully changed the subject. “Yeah, I have a pretty good picture of what happened. There was a steel cable around the base of the scaffold. It was attached to a motor that was attached to the building.”

“Battery-powered winch?”

“Exactly, no noise. I’d imagine the team’s job was to get Elena under the scaffold. My guess is that the guy at my three o’clock had the motor running silently, waiting for her. Then, as she stepped under, he pressed the app button that would make the cable drag the leg out. It was a temporary structure. Workable but not all that stable.”

“You saw all this?”

“I saw the guy at my three o’clock tap his screen a second before the structure came down. I saw a cable attached to the leg,” Nomad said. “Not wanting anyone to mark my face as the one who figured out the cable, I didn’t trace it to the wall. But the cable was thick, the kind you might use to pull someone out of a ditch if you’re in an off-road vehicle.”

“That’s some sinister stuff. And creative.”

“The three men took all the rings off Elena’s hands while the guy with the broken arm blocked people’s view.”

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