“Huh?” Cade’s hands froze in the middle of snapping close the clasps on the hard-back case that housed his in the field laptop. “What?”
“That’s what Harper said.”
Cade shook his head, should he kick his own ass now? Or were his doubts of a couple of seconds before still valid? Damn it, he just didn’t know.
“Move your ass, Cade,” Rock grabbed his ruck from the ground and fit it over his arms. “We get to Dreamland and figure this shit out. Got it?”
“Yeah.” Cade shoved all the crap running though his head into the mental box in his brain. He forced his body to keep moving, to continue packing. “We’ll do that.”
Less than ten minutes later, he was scanning the clearing they had used as their base camp, ensuring they had left nothing behind. They had a couple of hours to hike to hit their extraction point. Once the helo dropped them in Jalalabad, then he could log into FRED and start hunting.
Chapter Fifteen
24 hours later
Cade barely waited for the helo to touch the ground before his ass was out of the bird. He raced through the corridors of Dreamland, headed for the War - Room. He needed to see the information on the main hub of the War - Room. “Come on, come on.” Since when did the combination locks on the freaking doors take so long to open.Argh.
“Show me.” He yelled the command the second the War - Room lock gave. He didn’t wait for the door to shut behind him, racing down the steps to the floor. “Put it on the main screen now.”
“Cade—”
“Now, Harper.”
“Yes, Sir.” Harper hit the button to send the video footage she had harvested from the hotel security cameras in San Diego onto the main screen and hit play. They watched a black-and-white image of Rio loaded down with bags, entering the hotel. Followed his route across the foyer to the elevator and to his room.
“Fuck. Bastards.” Cade growled his frustration as they watched two men approach Rio’s back as he fumbled with the lock on the door. Cade wrapped his fingers around the back of a chair. His knuckles whitened, showing the pressure he was using to hold his temper in place. He had never thought himself to be short-tempered before. But hell freaking yes. Seeing this, he wanted to throw the chair at the screen. He stopped himself from doing it. Barely. Maybe they gave medals for self-restraint? If not, he was totally going to request that Rock put it on the plan from now on. The camera footage jumped to the parking garage, where it showed Rio being pulled out of the elevator and stuffed into the trunk of a car. “Did you find that car?”
“Yeah, it was abandoned in a parking lot about a mile away.” Harper told him.
“Fuck.”
“What did local cops say?” Shaun asked. He stepped up beside Cade, offering silent support.
“As we already determined from the security footage.” Harper pressed the buttons on the keyboard, sending two images onto the screen. “The two men are his half-brothers, Haaz and Saad Kassem.”
“I’m guessing he’s not besties with his brothers.” Danny pulled out a chair at his desk and powered on his computer, going through the protocols. That the Canadian hadn’t even changed out of his fatigues told Cade that his teammate was willing to do whatever it took to find answers for him.
“No.” Cade answered. He looked at Rock, asking a silent question. Can I tell them? When Rock nodded in response, he continued. “Rio had been sending intel to the CIA for years. He helped Krystal Shaw and her kiddos escape a few months back. From the conversations we have had, that’s when he thinks his family started to suspect him.”
“Fuck.” Danny went through the protocols to log into the system. He wasn’t amazing on computers, but he spoke and read Arabic well enough to scroll through the chatter sites. Within minutes, the whole team was situated at desks, searching, looking for intel. All they needed was a break, damn it.
“Uh, Grif,” Danny called after a couple of hours. “Can you look at this for me?”
“Sure.” Grif pushed out with his boots, sending his chair rolling across the floor to Danny’s desk. “Does that say Diego Garcia in three days?”
“Yeah, it does.” Grif nodded, “Is this verified?”
“As much as any of us can,” Danny nodded to the screen. “They say they have a new martyr.”
“My ass,” Grif grunted. He spun around in his chair to ask Cade to send an alert to the relevant people but shut his mouth again when he spotted him asleep. His head on the desk next to the keyboard. He would do it himself.
“We know the target is Diego Garcia,” Zenko shifted from where he sat cross-legged on the floor. Ghosts may be used to using all the latest equipment, but he still preferred the old school style of shuffling the pages until what he was looking at made sense.
“Yup.” Shaun handed Zenko coffee and sat beside him. “If it were you, where would you kick off from if you wanted to target it?”
“Probably Madagascar or Jakarta.”
“Neither of those make sense.” Cade lifted his head off the desk, telling them he had been resting his eyes rather than sleeping. He scrubbed his hand over his face, his fingers digging into his eyes. He had to find Rio, needed to find him, sleep could wait. “We can find no connection to Hezbollah or the cartels, except for what Rio told me.”
