They watched as Danny pulled weapons out of the overnight case, before dipping his hand in again,“Two Glock 19s, extended mags, a bunch of passports. US Currency.”
“DRC, Afghanistan, Germany, Iran.”Serge flicked through the passports, letting Rock and Grif know the countries involved.
“Cade’s boy is no freaking boy scout.” Rock muttered to Grif.
“One, this is TOC.”
“Go ahead, TOC.”
“Three is logging into the systems.”
“I’ll go.” Grif stepped back from the table. Cade heading to the safe room instead of standing guard with Angelo was not following orders. He would kick his ass out of the house.
“Nah,” Rock shook his head, “He’s going digging, if there is something there, he’ll find it.”
“You trust him?”
“You don’t?”
Grif shrugged, “I trust very few apart from you, our girl, and my brothers.”
“And I thought I was the cagey bastard.” Rock winked at Grif, “Recon, get your asses back here.”
“Yes, Sir.”The body cameras kept rolling as Danny and Serge put the items they had removed in the case and pushed it between the seats. Only once their truck was moving did Rock step away from the screens.
* * *
Cade knew he was being a dumbass, knew he had no reason to act like a grumpy toddler who needed a nap, but it didn’t stop him. Slamming the door to the room, he paused in the corridor between the garage and the rest of the house. He paused for a second, fingers squeezed into the bridge of his nose, ears straining to hear what was happening in that room. Argh, he knew better than to get attached. It was one freaking night of sex. Awesome sex, sure, but still only one night. There was no reason for him to act like a possessive dom. No reason for him to want to protect Rio, but everything inside him screamed at him to do just that. Protect him.
His name isn’t even Rio, he reminded himself,it’s Felipe.Yeah, telling himself that didn’t help either. He had known from the second the man had said his name in the club that Rio was not his actual name. Given the location they had met, and the reason, he could not fault the other man. Besides, who was he to bitch about using a false name. He’d been doing the same fucking thing for years. With the exception of Rock, Grif, and Allie, all of the Ghosts did.
In his head, he kept hearing the soft sound of Rio sleeping, the little soft snores, repetitive noises that should have made him batshit, but hadn’t. It was enough to kick his ass into gear. Go stand guard outside? Nopie, not frick fracking happening. He had to know what Rio’s story was now. Had to be the one to find the intel.Sorry, Boss, not following orders today.Saying a silent apology in his head to Rock for not following the directions he had been given, he took off for the safe room, located off the bedroom he had claimed for himself just a couple of days ago. Eh, he had never been very good at following orders. Why start now?
Cade pushed pressed a hidden spot on the wall behind the free-standing wardrobe with his thumb. The mechanism on the switch automatically read his thumb print and the wall swung silently outward, revealing the entrance to the safe room. Long and narrow, it ran the length of the bedroom. But he didn’t need much space. Shelves lined one side of the re-enforced concrete exterior wall at the end of the room. Here was where they had back up equipment, weapons, MREs, and all the other bits and pieces they had found useful to have on hand over the years. He ignored them all in favor of the hard-backed suitcase on the bottom shelf.
This military-grade case protected the laptop inside. They were mostly seen on military-grade laptops and computers when on battlefields everywhere from Afghanistan to China. Not that the US were meant to be in China, of course. But eh, what the officials didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. “C’mon baby, power up for Papa.” Cade went through the process of firing up the device. He probably should have checked that the system was up to date when he got here. He pushed the internal reprimand aside. He would worry about it in a couple of minutes, if it didn’t do what he wanted it to. Even so, he breathed out a sigh of relief when the tiny circle appeared on the blue screen before he was presented with the log in point.Thank you, sweet baby Jesus.
He quickly logged in and went through the systems to pull up F.R.E.D., the Find, Recon, Evaluate, and Decide program he had built specifically for Ghost Protectors. This program was his baby. It allowed him to access intel from every satellite across the globe. FRED helped himself to access to whatever the hell he wanted. Russian Satellites, piece of cake. North Korea? Why, don’t mind if I do. USA, well, those were granted with permission of the person in the Oval Office. FRED was a whiz at finding information on anyone, anywhere. Facial recon using Interpol and every available country’s databases, FRED either had legal access or had found a back door into the systems required. He could predict everything from potential targets for terrorist activities, to the probable location of POWs in the Middle East.
Accessing the information Harper had sent to Rock and Grif earlier, Cade pulled up Rio’s image and plugged it into FRED for a reverse search. Harper was good, she had enough training on the systems to find the intel on the upper layers of each program FRED had access to. But Cade knew FRED’s quirks and habits; he should, he’d built this program from the ground up. He briefly scanned the information Harper had provided, and yeah, on the surface he could see why Rock and Grif were pissy. He hoped like hell it was his instincts telling him to dig deeper.
Doing a quick flick of the screens, he pulled up the cameras in the room off the garage. Refusing to look at Rio, instead his eyes studied Rock and Grif. Reading their lips, as they had a conversation at the table.
“Nah,”Rock shook his head,“He’s going digging, if there is something there, he’ll find it.”
Damn it, that sounded like Harper had spotted his login on the systems. On the one hand, he should be thrilled that his confidence in her abilities was justified. On the other, he internally winced, because the words he lip read from Rock meant that his bosses were aware there was another order he hadn’t followed. Oh well, he had already been caught with his dick in the warm apple pie. He may as well go the whole hog and do an American Pie on it. He dragged Rio’s image across from its location and into FRED’s black box reverse search engine. Doing it cost him precious seconds, where he missed the next bit of the conversation. Fuckballs, but at least it sounded like Rock wasn’t going to bust his balls over being here.
Within five minutes of plugging the information into FRED and typing in his password to hit all the secure databases, FRED started spitting intel into the output box. Cade could feel his heart sinking at the number of files. Anything more than bank records, social media accounts, and email was rarely a good thing. He pulled the laptop off the table and sank down to sit on the floor. Okay, maybe Rock was right to be pissed with him. Without even opening the files from the DEA, Interpol, and a couple of other security systems, as much as he wanted to be able to support Rio, if these files showed he was a criminal, then Cade would not be associated with him.
He clicked on the first file and got to reading. FRED would give him the evaluation report as soon as he had finished gathering information. But in the meantime, he could start looking to see what was there.
Cade squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard. God fucking damn it, he was barely three pages into the DEA file, and already the information he was reading made him want to puke. Rock was right, everything pointed to Rio being involved with his father and brothers. The DEA had made multiple connections to the family for bombings and drug running and arms deals with terrorist fractions in the Middle East.
FRED squawked out his ‘Danger Zone’ tone, telling Cade that he had finished the evaluation report. Cade swiftly flicked through the screens until he reached the relevant one and hit the link.
Risk Level—Low to None.
“Huh?” Was FRED sick? Did he have a virus or similar? After reading the report he had been in, which outlined all the nefarious connections Rio had, there was no freaking way that risk assessment should have come out at low. Cade scanned the assessment file. Halfway down the page his eyes widened. Clicking on the link, he already knew what he would see, a quick glance through it confirmed the intel. He hit print and got to his feet. Rock was going to shit a fucking camel.
