The dirty rotten bastard. Nobody mentioned the woman, everyone ignored it. Cade didn’t have to look at Rock to know his hands had fisted at his side, and that his boss probably wanted to punch something or someone. That woman—Sharr—had been Rock and Grif’s third… before Allie.
“There is your confirmation,” Shaun said. “That’s the tea house I was taken from.” He lifted the copy of the first photo in his file and turned it to show Rock. “If Rio’s brothers met with Sheridan before that meeting, then it’s either one hell of a coincidence or they are connected.”
“Agreed.” Rock nodded. “There is no such thing as a coincidence in our world. We just don’t know how.”
“Where did you get the first image?” Rock asked Cade.
“Kalon Roberts found it on a server that was connected to Sheridan’s desktop computer.” Cade shrugged. “It was in the Intel Noble sent with Dumb and Dumber over there.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of Shaun and Zenko.
“Okay, we have our link to connect Rio’s family, and therefore Hezbollah, to Wade Sheridan.” Rock nodded at the files. “Go through every scrap of information in those files and find me where they are hiding Rio.”
A ding on Cade’s satellite phone had him flicking through the screens to pull up the message. “Fuck.”
“What?” Rock paused mid-step. He had been heading toward his go bag.
“We have confirmation that Rio is booked on a flight out of Mogadishu, final destination Jakarta.” Cade frowned at the information, “Why the fuck have they put him on a flight that needs layovers?” He pulled up a webpage on the computer and waited for it to connect to the plane's satellite signal.
“I agree,” Danny frowned at Cade, “We flew to Jakarta out of Africa before, the only direct flight was Ethiopia… right?”
“Yup.”
“If you are going to hijack a plane, it’s probably easier to do it in Somalia right now.” Zenko said, “There are talks of a troop drawdown, locals are still at war.”
“Or they have someone on the inside in Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International.” Angelo chewed on the corner of his nail, his brows drawn together in a frown. “It makes sense, they need to get him through security.”
“We need to find that connection.” Cade shot off an email to Dreamland and copied in both Max at Red Squadron in Europe and Kalon at Delta Force Team Panther in Texas. As much as he wanted to be the one finding everything to rescue Rio, time was vital here. If he could have located Sage from Castello Moran’s Task Force Ambra, he would have called him for help too. But they were on a mission and dark, so reaching them was just not possible. “If we don’t, then as soon as we hit the airport, we are fucked, as we won’t know who will tip them off.”
“I’ll make some calls.” Rock reached for his satellite cell. “Someone somewhere knows something.”
Chapter Sixteen
“I don’t fucking believe this,” Rock slammed his shades down over his eyes and studied the bus that was waiting for them on the tarmac when the plane taxied to a stop. “How the fuck is that damn pink bus here?”
“No clue.” Grif snickered, he remembered the last time they had to ride a bus, Rock’s reaction had been similar. “Europeans sell second-hand vehicles to African countries all the time.” He shrugged as if he didn’t give a shit, “Maybe this is one of them?”
“It’s still fucking pink.” Rock grumbled as they did a sweep. Checking for bombs and tripwires was second nature for them. Especially in this part of the world.
“Still has purple flowers,” Grif agreed. “This is Baledogle Airfield. Maybe the fuckers at Ramstein sent it for shits and giggles.” He shouldered his go bag and counted heads. “Everyone on the happy bus.”
“Assholes,” Rock tossed his bag into the bus, and settled himself behind the wheel, “Swear to fuck, we look like a bunch of damn hippies.”
“Better than a bunch of commandos or mercs.” Grif was trying to be reasonable here. Seriously, Rock should be used to pink by now, their daughter fucking loved pink. Once Angelo cleared the door, Grif reached for the lever that would shut it, but froze when a fuzzy head appeared in the open space, “Hey girl, what are you doing here?”
Grif scanned the airfield, looking for her owners. He knew if this dog was here in Somalia, then her people weren’t far behind. “Where’s your daddies, huh?”
“Here.” Three men appeared around the side of the bus. Grif’s smile grew wider still. “You came.”
“You called,” Micah Kennedy pulled Grif in for a one-armed bro hug. “We always come when you call.”
“You’re family.” Hawk eyed Rock. There were times when the two didn’t see eye to eye, but respect for each other kept any rivalry between them down to a dull roar. “You call, we answer.”
“Before you start feeling all special,” Creed scratched Delta’s ears, then nudged Micah to encourage him to get on the freaking bus, “We were in the neighborhood.”
“Asshole,” Rock muttered, “Viking, you are an asshole.”
“Yup.” Creed sank into a seat next to Cade. “But I found their contact at the airport, and we just need clearance to remove him from the situation.” Hawk, Micah, and Delta took their seats near Creed.
“Can we go now?” Cade knew he sounded pissed off. Pissed off didn’t actually come close to how he was feeling, but he wasn’t quite ready to put what he was feeling into words yet.
