Chapter Fourteen

Nomad

T-Rex was back with an old-fashioned brass key.

"What's the plan?" Havoc asked.

"You stay here, Havoc. I'm taking New Guy upstairs with me. There's someone in the room above, but I was able to get the one above that."

"No rope," Nomad said. "On the way in, I checked. There's not enough ledge for me to hang from the window and get my toes on the sill."

"We make do." There was a twinkle in T-Rex's eyes. "We tie the sheets together. I hold them on one end, and you dangle from the other. You should be able to see and report the situation."

Sheets. Fair enough. While he trusted T-Rex's strength, Nomad weighed in at two sixty-five. Those sheets had better have a damned high thread count, or he'd be plummeting from the fourth floor.

Once they were upstairs and dragging the comforter off the bed, it was evident that pulling those sheets off was a no-go. They were threadbare and patched already. Instead, the men yanked down the drapes, cut them into strips, lashed them together, then braided them into a rope.

The shutter-style window opened inward; Nomad straddled the ledge. Looking over his shoulder, it was a long-damned way down, and there was nothing, not even a heap of garbage, to break his fall.

Those thoughts came and went as Nomad adjusted into position, moving with the precision of a man who had done this a thousand times before.

Nomad felt the pressure of time and knew he had to get to Red now .

He dropped the roping down the wall, checking that there was sufficient length.

"Good?"

"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.

The effects of blast injuries weren't always immediate.

Primary blast injuries, beyond blast ear, could mean the barotrauma affected her brain, eyes, lungs, or gastrointestinal tract.

Perforations, hemorrhage, and even a rupture of the globe of the eyes were possible.

As he cleaned her face, Nomad discovered that, thankfully, the blood wasn't coming from her ear canal but was a superficial cut. Luckily, that ear hadn't pressed into the pillowcase, so the scab was unaffected when Nomad turned her onto her back.

Red had sweated and thrashed enough that the plaster dust had formed a paste, and that paste had dried. He was afraid to pick it off lest he scratch her skin. He had no idea what kinds of microbes were involved here, and she obviously didn't need anything more in her system to fight off. Oddly, her belt was unbuckled, her zipper unzipped, but she was buttoned at the top of her pants. In Nomad's experience, women unbutton before unzipping when getting undressed.

Did this scene make sense?

Havoc was gathering her belongings and shoving them into a suitcase.

T-Rex was on the phone getting in touch with Command and apprising them of the situation.

"Ma'am," Nomad rested his hand on her shoulder. "May I have permission to cut you out of your clothes to ensure you have no hidden bleeds?"

She gave him the slightest of nods. But he appreciated the go-ahead. Even if this was a medical emergency, Nomad didn't ever want to touch a woman in a way that didn't have her knowledge and permission.

Using his trauma sheers, Nomad got her outer clothes removed and performed the usual assessments.

"I have Colonel Watts on the line. What have you got, Nomad?" T-Rex asked. "I'm putting you on speaker."

Nomad lifted his voice. "Sir, there are no open wounds. She has heavy bruising on either side of her body. No signs of serious crush injuries. No palpable broken bones. She's feverish, only semi-conscious. She's murmuring unintelligibly."

"She can't go to the hospital then," Colonel Watts's voice came over T-Rex's speaker. "I need Grey in on this. Hold."

T-Rex caught Havoc's eye, "Make sure you get everything in the bathroom. They'll want any meds or supplements in a separate bag to hand off to the doctors so they can assess. Nomad, get her as comfortable as possible while the colonel loops the Color Code into the call."

Havoc went into the bathroom to get soap and refill the pitcher with warm water and brought it to Nomad T-Rex found a loose pair of harem-styled pants and an oversized t-shirt in her suitcase and handed it off. Nomad thought they'd be comfortable for her to wear and easy for him to get her into.

As Nomad cleaned Red up, he tried to understand the scene she'd survived.

From the placement of Red's bruises, Nomad could imagine her being thrown to the ground and something crushing in on her. The high fever was worrisome, and as Nomad washed her, she shivered violently.

"T-Rex," Nomad said softly, "if she has sepsis, any extra time might crash her system. I say, grab her up and get her out of here ASAP. Let the closest hospital take over." Nomad tried to advocate. "Time is of the essence."

"The local hospitals are full," T-Rex reminded him. "She won't get immediate attention."

"Beirut?" Nomad asked.

"Not if she's out of it and talking, no," Colonel Watts was back on the speaker. "Grey? Thoughts?"

"If we send her to the airport for a private flight, her illness would be probed by customs officials. Even if the team somehow got her awake and upright, getting her out would be delayed. The questions they'd ask would be problematic, especially if they had a doctor inspect her, and she's suffering from blast trauma."

Nomad thought of the sub that picked up Poole. It might be able to pop back up. But it had been over near Cyprus. That, too, would be a long route. They couldn't get her loaded until dark and the sea clear. No guarantees there. He'd put it out there anyway. "A water exfil?"

"Boats, Grey?" Watts asked.

"I can get hold of a boat." Grey's voice sounded as purposeful and stressed as Nomad felt. "If Echo can navigate the vessel northwest into International waters. We can send a helicopter from the eastern Turkish base to pluck Red—who is your medic?"

"Nomad," T-Rex said.

"Red and Nomad come out and fly to the same base Echo started from yesterday evening," Colonel Watts said, "Hell of a twenty-four hours, gentlemen."

Nomad thought his last twenty-four hours were a cakewalk compared to what this woman had been through.

"Looking at the complicating factors, the sea looks like the fastest route to get her to medical help," the colonel said. "So the team knows, the instructions to keep Red out of a non-American hospital under the circumstances that you've described came from the Situation Room. Those orders are not from JSOC nor Color Code."

Interesting. Red going missing went up to the Situation Room? Not only had someone signed off on Delta Force pulling Grey out of the prison, but now they'd prioritized the secrets Red knew over her wellbeing. That meant the work she did was high stakes.

"I think a sea extraction is our fastest route," Watts said.

"Grey, this is Nomad. We were told she was ill prior to the bombing." The heat radiating off her body was alarming. Nomad's medical training had to do with battle wounds and basic humanitarian interventions. This was way past his knowledge and the equipment he had available to keep her safe. He felt like Red could very easily slip away. He worked to keep the urgency out of his voice. "Do you know what was wrong? Did she tell you any symptoms?"

"Negative." Grey paused. "She's not coming around?" Yeah, his voice sounded like Nomad felt—vexed and frightened by an inability to fix this.

"I have nothing beyond she's dangerously hot." Odd that Nomad wanted a clear definition of Red's relationship with Grey. Was this a worried teammate, or were they more to each other? Why would Nomad care? "She's dehydrated, sir. We don't have saline bags with us."

"We're moving," T-Rex ended the discussion. "We'll do what we can."

"I'll get that boat lined up. You get Red into your vehicle and aim for the coast." Grey's voice was thick with emotion when he added. "And thank you."