“Sit your asses down and listen up!” Rock yelled over the rumbling noise of his team pushing and shoving each other like little fucking schoolboys.
He gave Cade the briefest hint of a nod as he started handing out folders of information. If they were back in the War - Room of Dreamland, all this information would be on screen for them to memorize.
“You have until we reach Somalia to have the information in these packets memorized,” Rock told them. “I want every little detail checked and double checked. As always, this mission is highly classified; however, given what the tango’s target is, we need to be extra careful with who we reach out to. The last thing POTUS wants is panic on a Navy Base.”
Rock nodded to Cade, who immediately tapped his keyboard and the laptop screen flickered to life. The image of Rio flashed up on the screen.
Cade spun the laptop around so it faced the team. “Our High Value Principle is mine.”You admitted it. Finally!He coughed to clear his throat—he hadn’t meant to make that declaration. But it was true, he figured all the guys knew it. If they hadn’t known… they did now.
Cade had barely finished speaking when he once again pressed a button on the keyboard and Rio’s image minimized to the top left corner while the rest of the screen showed a military base.
“This is Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.” Rock gestured toward where Shaun was sitting next to Zenko. “When those two assholes met, it was after Shaun was captured by terrorists because he had overheard a plot to highjack a commercial plane and crash it into the base, in a similar style to nine-eleven and the twin towers.”
Cade could see the flash of rage that crossed Zenko’s face as his brows drew together. Former Commander Wade Sheridan was a fucking traitor who not only arranged to have Shaun kidnapped, but he almost killed Zenko too, when a lucky shot had hit his neck during the mission to capture the asshole. Shaun had ended that job by putting a bullet in Sheridan’s brain.
“Shaun reported the information to Sheridan and two days later he was taken captive during a fuel run to Baghdad.” Rock gave the intel in a matter-of-fact tone. He knew they were all still pissed about it. In their jobs, assholes were a fact of life. Traitors, on the other hand, didn’t happen often. Thank fuck.
“We know who captured you, Shaun?” Danny shoved the square metal Canadian Military tag he still wore under the collar of his shirt and sat forward in his seat. He tapped the pen he held off the notepad in front of him. “Besides Sheridan.”
“ISIS,” Shaun answered.
“What’s the connection to Hezbollah?” Zenko didn’t doubt the intel Max had sent them, he just wanted to know the steps, “Or to El’ Mencho’s cartel in Mexico?”
“I am guessing drugs.” Cade muttered. “The DEA has been clamping down on narcotics crossing into CONUS. I have Red Squadron’s Max tracking money, it’s bouncing through a shitload of bitcoin wallets, but at least one of those payments we have traced in connection to an order of poppy from a known ISIS sympathizer.” He nodded to the files he had handed out, “The intel is in the packs.”
The images on the screen once again changed, thanks to Cade’s fingers on the keyboard. This time it showed the faces of the two men they had seen when Rio was taken in San Diego… his brothers. Cade didn’t know much about blood family, his had been small, but these men on this plane with him, they were more his brothers than teammates. These men he would go to the wall for. As they had for him on way too many occasions to count.
“These are the two men who we know for sure are connected to Rio.” Rock nodded to Cade. “We confirmed it?”
“I have a definitive connection between them and Rio.” Cade’s confirmed. “They are his half-brothers. Rio’s mother was some relative of El’ Mencho’s. Rio was raised in Mexico. His father decided he wanted him when Rio hit about seventeen. He sent his brothers to get him.” He relayed the information Rio had given him over the last few weeks. “Then El’ Mencho had Rio’s grandparents and mother killed.”
“Fanculo,” Angelo muttered. “At least in Italy…” He trailed off, and shook his head to stop himself talking. Now was not the time to get into this stuff. Italy could wait. Italy assumed he was dead.
Rock narrowed his gaze on the Italian. “Is this relevant to our op?”
“Nope.”
“Then clear that shit out of your brain,” Rock ordered. He gritted his teeth and refused to let his temper blow. “Because I swear to fuck, if you screw up this op because your brain is taking a trip down memory freaking lane, I will kick your fucking ass.”
“I’m good, Boss,” Angelo told him. He paused for a second and added on, “Swear.”
Rock studied him for a couple of seconds before he nodded. Okay, he would believe him. For now. But there was going to be some therapy shit in Angelo’s near future. He was going to fucking kill the idiot if he got hurt on this op. He’d kinda gotten used to having his crazy ass around Dreamland.
He turned to Cade, instinct and years of working with his Intel Specialist telling him there was more that Cade had to tell them. “Show us what you found,” he ordered.
Cade clicked through the screens, pulling up the information on the laptop.
Grif stood and moved a couple of steps forward until he was crowded against Rock’s back. They both peered at the screen.
Even though all the information was in the packages Cade had handed out a few minutes before, both Rock and Grif read through the information on screen, nodding or grunting each time they wanted Cade to move to the next page. The second to last page was a photograph taken from a long-distance lens. Grainy and fuzzy, they tilted their heads. Cade knew the second the significance of that image hit them, from the harsh inhale of breath.
“When was that image taken?”
“About two hours before this one.” Cade pulled up an image of a tea house and from the signs on the wall, even if he hadn’t looked it up to be sure, he would have said it was somewhere in Iraq.
“I’ve seen that image before.” Zenko whisper-shouted to Shaun.
“Yup.” Shaun agreed. “That asshole sitting at the table is Wade fucking Sheridan!”
