He looked over at Cullen and saw that he had just done the math as well. Kane, meanwhile, was looking down at his tablet. He probably had the entire Azua family tree pulled up, and knew all of their ages, middle names, eye color, and favorite foods.
“Has anything new happened?” Lenora asked her granddaughter.
“I need you to stay calm, can you do that?” Cynthia asked when they got to the top of the stairs.
“Just tell me, child.”
“Mama has a slight injury. She tells me she is fine, but she’s having some trouble talking. Sometimes, the translator is helping us to understand her over the phone. There is one saving grace, and that’s now she’s at our bank, not the Central Bank.”
“What do you mean she’s at our bank, Señora?” Max interrupted.
A gangly teen shot out of the front door.
“Whoa, hold up.” The kid raised his hands as eight guns were pointed in his direction.
The old lady jumped—as well as an old lady was able to—in front of the boy. “Put your guns down, this is Suzanne’s sister’s son, my grandson Rafa. He’s harmless.”
“Tia, I’m not harmless,” the kid lamented. “That’s the last time I arrange wheels for you.”
“He is harmless and lacks common sense, but my grand-nephew is brilliant with computers.” She patted his head.
“You guys are American Special Forces, right? What branch? Delta? Raiders? SEALs?” The kid was jazzed.
“What’s your name?” Max asked with a blank face.
“Rafael Azua,” Kane answered for him. “He’s good, he’s the nephew. Real hustler. He owns the food truck. Just turned sixteen,” Kane said, looking up from his tablet. “He’s already got a record with Maduro’s men.”
“Explain,” Max demanded.
“They brought him in for questioning on their system being hacked. Because of his aunt’s pull, he got out before the questioning began getting intense.”
“Jesus, how old were you kid?” Max asked.
Rafa had paled. Cynthia had stood on the other side of the young man when Max started grilling him. But when that incident was brought up, her expression changed. She slapped Rafa on the back of the head.
“Hey, what’s that for?” he gave her a disgruntled look.
“You could have gotten yourself killed. It didn’t matter that you were twelve. They would have tortured and killed you if it hadn’t been for Mama. You remember to be good.”
“Fine,” he gave a long-suffering sigh as he rubbed the back of his head. “But they’re going to need me. You know that.”
She shook her head in exasperation as she looked at Asher’s team. “Come inside, gentlemen. Rafa’s right, he’s been talking to Mom and the translator, getting information together. It should help.”
Max motioned for them to lower their weapons. Asher glanced over at Kane—he was looking at Rafa with interest. “What kind of information, kid?”
“I have everything,” the teenager boasted. “I downloaded a ton of stuff from Tia Suzanne’s bank after she gave me her computer code.” He rubbed his hands together. “Do you know much about computers?” he asked Kane.
“A little,” Kane answered.
Asher kept his laugh inside, but Cullen laughed out loud. Max sent him a sharp look. Rafa was oblivious, but Lenora didn’t miss a trick.
“Well, after I got her code, I was able to get into everybody else’s computer in the bank. That included IT, security, and maintenance. We won’t even need access to keycards to get in because we can override the locks. Except for the gate surrounding the bank, but I’ll figure out something.” Kane smiled at Cynthia and Lenora as he fell into step with Rafa to enter the house. The last thing Asher heard was Rafa saying, “…otherwise the bank’s security sucks donkey balls if you know what you’re doing.”
Now the kid was sounding like a cross between Cullen and Kane. Even Max was laughing at that. Everybody but Nic, that was. He was going to have to bone up on his Spanish.
“We need to get your mother back on the phone,” Lenora said to her granddaughter as she put a comforting hand on the pregnant woman’s lower back.
“The President’s secret police are butchers, Abuela. I don’t understand why they haven’t broken in and killed them.” The pretty young woman’s voice was trembling.
“Honey, they won’t. Your mother and her friends are too important. It would cause an international incident,” Lenora assured the scared woman as they made their way inside.
Asher wished that was true. Cynthia was right, they were butchers. The President’s secret police had been recruited from many of the deadliest street gangs in all of Columbia and Venezuela. They had no regard for human life. They needed intel from Carter from CIA, and Kane better be getting it quick. As it was, everything going on here on the ground was so fluid it felt like they were in the middle of a flood. It was making his head hurt worse than it had been when he was riding in that blasted food truck.
Asher looked around the great room the women led them into. It was huge. These people definitely had money. Of course, if Lenora’s daughter owned a bank, what else could he expect?
“Where’s Marta?” Lenora asked Cynthia as she looked around the room.
“I told her to take the day off,” Cynthia said. “We didn’t want anyone here but family when the Americans arrived. Don’t worry, I’ve already made refreshments. They’re in the fridge,
