Chapter 20 Picasso
TWENTY
PICASSO
The Humvee’s engine growled low as it ate up the broken road, headlights cutting a narrow tunnel through the dark. The rest of the world beyond that beam was just shadow and threat.
Picasso sat in the front passenger seat, headset snug against his ears, carbine resting muzzle-down between his knees. His eyes never stopped moving, dash, windshield, side mirror, then down to the small tactical tablet mounted to the console.
A blinking red icon marked the old concrete plant Tex had tagged as the most likely hiding place. It was less than five klicks out now. Too close. Not close enough.
“Atlantic One,” crackled the radio, Tex’s drawl threaded with static. “You’re comin’ up on the outer edge of my coverage. I’ve got one more sat crossin’ overhead in about three minutes. I’ll give you last-known before she slips behind them hills.”
“Copy,” Picasso said. His voice sounded calmer than he felt. “Any change to that heat signature?”
“Negative. Van-sized blob’s still parked right where I saw it. Smaller signatures movin’ around it but can’t tell if they’re guards, hostages, or stray dogs. Resolution’s mush from this angle.”
Picasso’s jaw flexed. He forced his focus onto what he could control. “Wolf, status?”
“In position,” Wolf replied over the net. “We’ve set blocking points at Alpha and Bravo.” His voice came through steady, just like always. “Roads are clear. No unexpected traffic in or out.”
“Camp?” Picasso asked.
Mozart answered this time, from the comms station back at the refugee compound. “Perimeter is green. No unusual movement since you rolled. Liaison says Mexican army roadblocks are up and checking vehicles.”
“Understood,” Picasso said.
He thumbed the mic away and stared ahead. The silhouettes of ruined industrial buildings rose on the horizon, jagged teeth against the star-streaked sky.
Gabriella.
He saw her in his mind the way she’d looked last: standing in the doorway of the command tent, jaw tight, eyes blazing, and refusing to back down about the kids.
The way she’d looked even later, in the privacy of her canvas walls, when both of them had let anger and exhaustion burn into something else.
He’d told himself it was a lapse. An anomaly.
Now she was in a van, in the dark, with cartel animals who specialized in breaking people.
You did this.
He’d sent her to her tent alone. He’d let himself believe she was safer inside the perimeter than out in the open. But he knew better. He should have walked her back. Safety was a story you told civilians to help them sleep.
“Chief,” Falcon said softly from the back seat, voice low. “You’re tapping a groove in that tablet.”
Picasso froze mid-drum and realized he’d been drumming again, the same restless rhythm he’d worn into the map back at the tent. He forced himself to stop.
A low growl slipped from his throat.
Falcon smirked but softened his tone. “She’ll be okay. We’re going to find her.”
The Humvee jolted over a pothole, shaking everyone inside. Ahead, the GPS marker inched closer to the target.
Tex’s voice came back, a little clearer.
“Alright, boys, this is my last good look for a bit. Concrete plant’s showin’ one big warm hunk.
That’s your van or somethin’ like it, parked just inside a partially collapsed bay door on the north side.
I’m seein’ at least four, maybe five smaller heat sources movin’ slow near it.
Two more further out in the yard, near what used to be a conveyor tower.
Could be sentries. Could be nothin’. But my money says you got company. ”
“Copy all,” Picasso replied. “Mark those likely sentry positions on the grid and push it to our tablets.”
“You got it. After this pass, I’m blind on that plant for at least twenty. Terrain’s gonna eat my angle.”
“Twenty minutes is enough,” Picasso said.
It had to be.
He forced his breathing to slow. Fear wanted to claw up his throat, morph into rage, into something reckless. He wrestled it back down. He couldn’t afford distraction. Not now.
And still, every time his mind slid sideways, it found her.
Distraction.
She had been a variable from the start. A bright, chaotic force that didn’t fit neatly into his boxes. He’d told himself that made her dangerous to the mission.
Now he wasn’t sure if that was the whole truth—or just the part that made it easier to keep her at arm’s length.
“Three minutes out,” the driver said quietly.
He exhaled slowly. “Wolf?”
“Pacific One, green,” Wolf answered. “We have eyes on the access road to your north and east. If anything moves fast, we’ll see it.”
The net went quiet again.
From the back of the Humvee, Dude leaned forward, resting a forearm on the seatback between Picasso and Grizzly. In the dim red glow, his face looked carved from stone, but his eyes stayed clear.
“You’re runnin’ hot, Chief,” Dude rumbled.
Picasso didn’t meet his gaze. “Focus on the objective.”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” Dude paused. “Objective includes her.”
Picasso’s fingers tightened on his rifle. “And the kids.”
“And the kids,” Dude agreed. “But you’re not exactly compartmentalizin’ like usual.”
Picasso shot him a sideways look. “You got a point, or just in the mood to analyze my psyche on the way to a hostage rescue?”
Dude huffed something close to a laugh. “Got a story, if you’ll shut up long enough to listen.”
“We’re about to roll into a hostile site,” Picasso reminded him.
“Exactly,” Dude said. “Which is why you gotta have your head right before we hit the line.”
Picasso bit back a retort and jerked his chin once. “Make it quick.”
Dude settled in, eyes drifting toward the dark horizon. “You know how Wolf met Caroline?”
Picasso shook his head. “I just heard he found someone.”
“Yeah.” Dude’s voice dropped a notch, taking on a weight Picasso had heard only a handful of times.
“Team had time off. Wolf, Abe, and Cookie flew to Virginia to catch up with Tex. They flew commercial, booked late, got separated on the plane. Wolf ended up sitting next to Caroline. When drinks came around, she caught a smell, something off, and told Wolf not to drink. He signed to Abe and Cookie not to drink, either.”
Picasso listened despite himself.
“In the end, they thwarted hijackers. Caroline didn’t even tell them one of the hijackers had cut her side with a knife. That woman was strong as hell.”
Dude shook his head. “Wolf’s smitten, love at first sight. But damn, the idiot tried to let her go. SEALs can’t have relationships. Then she was kidnapped. They wanted to know how she knew about the ice. Sound familiar?”
Picasso’s chest turned cold.
Dude stared straight ahead. “They worked her over, hard. She didn’t give ’em a damn thing.”
For a moment, only the engine filled the silence.
“Point is,” Dude said finally, turning to Picasso, “Wolf called her a distraction. She messed with his clean lines. Changed how he worked. But she’s the reason he, Abe, and Mozart weren’t droolin’ in a hijacked coffin at thirty thousand feet.
The right woman? He shook his head. She ain’t no distraction, Chief. She’s a force multiplier.”
Picasso stared at the windshield, Dude’s words settling like gravel in his gut.
The taste of pond water, thick with algae and fear, coated his tongue.
He was twelve, all sharp angles and endless energy, standing on a splintered pier.
“Dare ya to do a backflip, Tommy!” he’d yelled, his voice echoing in the summer stillness.
Tommy, smaller than the others, always eager to prove himself, had grinned, launched himself, and twisted wrong.
The sickening crunch of bone, the splash, then the eerie silence as Tommy floated face down.
Picasso had screamed at his other friends to run, to get help, then plunged into the murky water, the bizarre calm of crisis settling over him.
He’d held Tommy’s head above the surface, whispering desperate, meaningless reassurances to a boy who’s eyes were glazed over in shock and unbearable pain.
Paralyzed from the waist down. Not dead, but broken.
Broken because of a dare, a thoughtless act, a breach of every rule their parents had laid down about that pier.
From that day on, the world resolved into a series of risks, a constant calculation of consequences.
‘Just in case,’ became his mantra. ‘Protocols’ his religion.
‘Control’ his only god. The image of Tommy’s limp body, the splintered wood, the shattered innocence was etched into his soul, demanding a lifetime of vigilance, a lifetime of never letting a variable go unchecked.
Never again would he be responsible for a single, preventable fracture.
Force multiplier.
Gabriella had seen things he hadn’t. Pushed for speed when he wanted control. She got in his way, yes, but she also dragged him toward people he might’ve missed if left to his own devices. That little girl, Ana. The nebulizers. The buddy system.
“You sayin’ this is my fault?” Picasso asked quietly.
Dude didn’t flinch. “I’m sayin’ she went out there ’cause that’s who she is. Same way Wolf goes through a door first even when he doesn’t have to. You don’t blame a man for doin’ what he’s built to do. You just make damn sure you’re there when he needs a hand.”
Picasso let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Tex says traffickers move assets fast,” Dude added. “But Caroline held longer than anyone had a right to. Gabriella?” He shook his head once, firmly. “She’s built from the same stuff.”
The Humvee slowed as they approached their final turn. Ahead, the ghostly outline of the concrete plant loomed larger, jagged walls and a crooked conveyor tower etched against the night sky.
Suddenly the world jumped.
For half a heartbeat Picasso thought they’d hit a mine as the vehicle lurched sideways, suspension groaning, gravel spitting under the tires. Then the ground rolled again, a hard, nauseating shove that came from everywhere at once.
“Earthquake!” the driver barked, wrestling the wheel.
“Stop. Hold position,” Picasso snapped. “Stay clear of structures. Now.”
The convoy ground to a halt. Concrete groaned in the distance, a low, grinding roar that rose into a sickening crash. In the green wash of his NVGs, the plant seemed to ripple, dust pluming up in ghostly waves as chunks of the upper walls sheared off and disappeared into darkness.
“Wolf, status?” Picasso said, keying his mic. His voice stayed level by force of habit.
“Holding,” Wolf answered, a breath later. “We’re clear of overhangs. Took a shake but no rollovers. Roads look stable from here.”
“Camp?” Picasso demanded.
Mozart’s voice cut in, tinny with interference. “Perimeter’s still up. Got some tent collapses, generators flickered. We’re checking for injuries.”
Picasso braced a hand on the dash as another aftershock shivered through the chassis. The concrete plant groaned again, then settled into an uneasy stillness.
Great. A crumbling kill-box just got less predictable.
He forced his breathing to even out. Quake or no quake, Gabriella and the kids were somewhere inside that mess—or under it.
“We continue,” he said. “Drivers, keep ten meters off any walls or towers. Eyes up for secondary collapse. Once we dismount, no one hugs hard cover unless you’ve checked what’s on top of it.”
He hesitated a fraction of a second, then added, “If anything came down on the interior, it may have taken some of their guards with it. Assume shaken, not neutralized.”
“Copy,” came a chorus of replies.
Picasso watched a new cloud of dust billow from a collapsed corner of the plant, grit sparkling in his night vision.