Oath to Defend (24 page)

59

Sitting comfortably in a brown leather armchair next to a picture window looking toward the mountain range to the west, Barak caressed the bottle of his favorite single malt scotch he was holding. An empty crystal tumbler sat on the glass-topped end table next to him.

He had waited patiently for a call. His man riding the last of the four Harleys had been instructed to call once the demolition device was out on the dam. He’d been promised a nice reward for making the call, a payoff Barak knew he would not have to make. Still, he thought, the sum was large enough that he felt sure the man would call him shortly before the detonation took his life.

But the call had not come. Had he failed again? He had waited twenty years for the green light to start working down his assassination list of prominent Americans. He had begun a month ago, but he had failed at the last moment to kill the Secretary of Homeland Security. And now the
coup de grace
that he’d designed to panic America and earn him respect as the leader of the worldwide jihad might not have happened.

How could he have failed? No one could have known the nuke they had purchased from Venezuela, courtesy of Iran and Russia, was in Oregon. No one except the men who’d brought it here for him. No one knew the dam was the target, either, except for those same men. And of those men, only Saleem had the opportunity to betray him. But there was no reason he could think of that the young Hezbollah leader would disobey him. Nothing would be gained by doing so.

If Allah had allowed him to fail again, Barak told himself, it surely must be that his years living in Las Vegas while he developed the security firm that concealed his team of assassins had corrupted him. It was true that he had enjoyed some of the pleasures of the West his religion despised—he abruptly set the bottle of scotch on the end table—but he had decided it was necessary to hide his mission and his true identity. He didn’t know how else he could have developed the business clientele he had without pampering and hosting all the American businessmen, plus more than a few Muslims who supported the cause.

With a shout of hot rage and icy despair, Barak rose from his chair and threw the bottle of Glenmorangie against the face of the river rock fireplace.

“Get the Hawker ready to leave,” he shouted at his pilot, who was watching TV in the next room. “I want to be airborne in fifteen minutes.”

Then he calmly walked to the closet in the master bedroom and retrieved the two black duffle bags of Semtex, the detonator caps, and a disposable cell phone. Each duffle bag held five pounds of Semtex. That was more than enough to level the two-story house and its hangar. When he was safely out of the house and ready to takeoff, he would dial the pre-set number and detonate one duffel bag of pre-wired Semtex. The explosion that would eliminate any trace of evidence he’d ever been in Oregon. The other duffel bag would travel with him for the next battle.

He carefully set both of the duffle bags on the floor in the middle of the great room, then returned to the bedroom to load his travel bag and collect the nylon range bag with his other weapons. His next stop was going to be Toronto, Canada. Its cooler climate would require a different wardrobe, so he tossed just a few items of clothing in his bag along with his leather shaving kit.

He had a safe house in Toronto that was three adjoining apartments in one of the densely populated, high-rise buildings that were overwhelmingly occupied by Muslim immigrants. He would have no trouble hiding in Toronto. The city had the highest concentration of Muslims living in North America, but he thought he would grow a full beard…just in case.

For now, though, it was just a matter of getting out of Oregon and in the air before anyone knew he was involved with trying to blow up the dam in the mountains.

Taking a last look around the master bedroom, he carried his travel bag to the top of the stairs leading down to the hangar.

“Tim,” he shouted to his pilot, who was cleaning out his own bedroom, “Take my two personal bags to the jet and get ready to leave. I have one last chore to complete here, and then I’ll join you.”

When his pilot acknowledged the order, he walked to the window and looked out at the airport runway. This small airport didn’t have a tower, and there were just a few planes below him that looked like they might be leaving any time soon. Well, he thought, leaving as soon as they were ready shouldn’t be a problem.

His immediate concern, aside from leaving the resort, was whether he should let anyone know where he could be reached. He had no intention of calling Ryan, his contact with the Alliance who had brokered the delivery of the nuclear demolition device from Venezuela, or his sponsor at the Brotherhood in the Middle East. All three would know of his failure soon enough and expect an explanation he was unwilling to provide until he was safely out of their immediate reach.

He also briefly considered alerting Saleem to be extra cautious on his way back to Tijuana. While he wasn’t altogether sure he could trust the younger man, he had delivered the nuke from Mexico to Oregon successfully. Perhaps it was only the difference in their ages that made him wary of Saleem’s loyalty, that and his mixed Lebanese and Mexican blood. He concluded that Saleem had enough of a head start and would be fine.

Grabbing the duffel bag of Semtex that was going with him, Barak walked downstairs to his Hawker. As he always had, he would trust his fate to Allah.

60

After a sprint back up the ridge above the dam, Casey prepared the Relentless for a dash back to Sunriver. Seated next to him, Drake waited until they were in the air before asking for help in using the helicopter’s Garmin avionics to acquire satellite images of the hangar house.

With a touch of the display screen in front of him, Casey switched the touch screen in front of Drake. “This’ll give you the global connectivity option,” he said. “Touch the icon for Internet access and select Google Earth, then enter Sunriver Airport. It won’t be a live shot, but it will show you our options when we get there.”

After following these instructions, Drake leaned closer to study the shot of the southern end of the runway and the adjacent row of hangar houses. “Looks like the only place to land is right next to the house on the taxi way,” he said. “The other side has houses for a hundred yards, then trees. The good news is the noise we make on approach won’t be unexpected at an airport.”

“The house faces a street on one side and the airport taxi way on the other,” Casey said after a glance at the display. “Do you want to wait for Larry to block the street if Barak’s there and makes a run for it?”

“I think we’ll get there before Larry does. He’s with Liz at the command center she set up in Bend.”

“Adam, if Barak is there, he’s not going to just sit around and wait to be caught. Remember how he slipped out of that resort in Cancun? And then the villa south of Tijuana? I think we should lock the place down and then go after him.”

It was good advice, and Drake knew he should listen to his friend. They had survived more than one close call by playing it safe. But he also knew he didn’t want to chance letting the man get away again. In a month’s time, Barak had tried to kill him, a sitting cabinet member, and what remained of his family. If Barak was behind the massacre at the polo field and the attempt to blow the dam and kill a hundred thousand innocent people, he needed to be stopped. It was a risk Drake was willing to take.

“Let’s see what it looks like when we get there,” he said. “The last thing I want is to let this guy live to kill another day.”

They flew low and fast down the eastern slope of the Cascades toward the Sunriver Resort without talking for several minutes. Both men were thinking about the actions they might have to take shortly.

Casey touched the communication icon on his display screen and called Green at the command center in Bend. “Larry,” he said, “we’re five minutes from the Sunriver Airport. Let Liz know we’re hoping to make a surprise visit to our friend with the jet. If we find him, she needs to be ready with a story to match the other stories she’s putting out.”

“Just you and Drake? I heard from Ricardo, he’s still at the dam.”

“Just the Lone Ranger and Tonto,” Casey said, “and the element of surprise.”

“Hope you find him, boss. Good hunting.”

Drake looked down ahead and to his right and saw the golf courses ahead that crisscrossed over the Little Deschutes River at the Crosswater Resort.

“We chase Barak to the Mexican Riviera and back and find he might be less than a mile or two from where we’ve been staying,” he said. “Amazing!”

“You think he came back to Oregon to get revenge?” Casey asked as he dropped down to five hundred feet and touched the display panel to activate the Nav/Com functions and make sure there weren’t any other planes landing or taking off from the small airport he needed to avoid.

“He had to have been planning this for longer than a month,” Drake replied. “Arranging to get a nuke smuggled here had to take awhile. At least I hope it did.” He got up and walked back through the passenger cabin to the storage locker and switched out the magazine in his HK assault carbine for a fresh thirty-round one. Then he returned to his seat beside Casey.

“Veer to the west of the hangar house over those other homes,” he said after taking another look, “and then flare around and set down on the taxi way so we block his plane from coming out. I’ll make my way to the side of the house next to the hangar door. I’ll cover you as you move in.” Casey nodded. “It looks like you can boost me up to reach the bottom of the railing on that deck. I’ll enter through the sliding doors up there. You make it around to the front door on the other side. If I take fire, shoot your way in.”

“What about his pilot?”

“If Barak’s pilot is here, he’s been helping the wrong side. He’ll have to make a choice.”

Casey dropped the Relentless down until they were flying just above the tree tops for the last three hundred yards. As he swung around to land on the other side of the hangar house, they saw there were no vehicles in the driveway.

As soon as the helicopter’s rear wheels touched the tarmac, Drake sprang for the door behind Casey and jumped to the ground, fifty yards from the hangar house.

~~~

At the other end of the runway, Barak stared out the window next to the copilot seat in his jet. His pilot had just turned the jet around for takeoff at the north end of the runway when he’d seen the red and black helicopter come in low and swing around to land beside the hangar house.

Allah was on his side. Another ten minutes, and they wouldn’t have been able to pull the Hawker out of the hangar and onto the taxi way. He didn’t know who was pursuing him in the sleek helicopter, or how they had found him, but he didn’t really care. In another minute they weren’t going to find a trace of him in this cursed land.

He gestured for the pilot to takeoff and watched as a man ran to the side of the hangar house and turned to wave back at the helicopter. With his cell phone in his hand, Barak waited until they had raced down the runway to liftoff. As he flashed past the hangar house, he sent the message to the disposable phone inside the house to detonate the Semtex surprise he had left there.

Turning to look back as the Hawker gained altitude, he saw the hangar house explode and felt the shock wave hit the plane.

~~~

Casey stepped down from the Relentless and saw Drake wave him forward. As he ran around the red nose of the helicopter, the hangar house erupted in a flash of fire. Instinctively, he turned his head away from the blast. When he looked back, the side of the house where Drake had been crouching was now a just a pile of debris.

He was running to the place where he had last seen his friend when the jet that had just taken off exploded in a burst of flame and began falling to earth just past the end of the runway.

~~~

A Hispanic man in his late forties and smoking a fat Cuban cigar was standing beside a black Chrysler 300c. He held a cell phone in his left hand. As he watched the white Hawker jet explode and burn before his eyes, he raised his right hand in a universal salute of disrespect. A just and fitting death, thought Hector, for the assassin who had killed the head of his cartel.

61

His first sensation when he regained consciousness was that his head hurt and the light was too bright. When he tried to lift his head, dizziness was added to the list along with a throbbing pain in his left arm and most of the rest of his body.

A familiar voice told him to relax.

“You’re in the emergency room,” it said. “You have a concussion, a broken arm, contusions, and lacerations. And you look like hell.” The voice turned into Mike Casey. “But you’ll live because I’ve seen you hurt worse than this.”

Drake tried to open his eyes again, but promptly decided it wasn’t worth it. “What happened?”

“The house blew up and fell on you.”

“Whose house?”

“You don’t remember?”

A voice he didn’t recognize saved him from admitting that he didn’t remember.

“Let’s let Mr. Drake rest now,” someone said. “We’re almost finished here. He’ll be moved to Ortho-Neuro, third floor and you can visit him there.”

Other voices, different smells, and a ride in an elevator to a room with dimmer lights brought Drake to a place where it felt like it would be a really good idea to sleep for awhile.

Soft voices in the room woke him later. Looking up very carefully, he saw Mike and Liz standing on one side of the bed and his secretary and her husband standing on the other.

“How are you feeling?” Margo asked as she straightened the blue sheet that covered him.

He managed a smile. “Two aspirin and a good shower and I’ll be fine. I might not be in the office tomorrow, but I’m fine.”

She shook her head. “The doctor said it might be longer than that. He wants you to rest for a day or so, then he’ll run some more tests. You were unconscious for close to half an hour. I told him to keep you as long as he needed to, that I’m used to running your office by myself.”

Drake looked at her husband. “Paul, you’re married to her. What does a guy have to do to get a little sympathy?”

“I haven’t been married long enough to find out,” Paul said with a smile.

Drake carefully turned his head. “Mike, you asked me if I remembered what happened. Last thing I remember is landing at the hangar house….”

“You ran to the house and stopped against the wall under the deck. When the house exploded, the shock wave blew the wall out. When we dug you out, you were unconscious. You stayed that way till we got you to the ER.”

He considered this for a minute. “Was Barak in the house?”

“No, we think he was in his jet at the other end of the runway. He flew over just as the house exploded. We think he detonated Semtex in the house, enough to bring down a building three times that size.”

“So he got away?”

“Not exactly,” Casey said. “His jet climbed to maybe five hundred feet and then it exploded too. Liz and her people haven’t confirmed from the remains they found that Barak was on board, but I think he was. Preliminary report is someone rigged Semtex under the copilot’s seat.”

“It’s over then,” Drake said. He closed his eyes and asked, “What about the bomb at the polo field?”

Liz took a turn answering his questions. “It was Semtex, same as the hangar house. It was a shaped charge planted in a storage compartment on the side of Vazquez’s horse trailer. We think Barak was tying up loose ends and creating a diversion so they could run the nuke to the dam.”

Drake opened his eyes again. “If Vazquez was the target, someone had to wait for him to get next to his trailer. Do we have a suspect for that?”

“No, but we’ve collected everyone’s cell phones and we’re hoping there are pictures that will help identify the bomber. We have a team at Wyler Ranch and we’re interviewing Mr. Abazzano in Los Angeles. It all leads back to that ranch and the people there. It might take some time, but we’ll put it all together.”

“While they’re doing that, ole buddy,” Casey said, “I’m going to fly my guys home and get reacquainted with my wife. Liz has been gracious enough to ask for my bill for all the help we provided you. She’s also offered to stay over while they continue the investigation here and drive you home when you’re ready.” He reached across the bed to give his friend a secret handshake.

“Thanks Mike, tell your kids Uncle Adam will visit them before Christmas.”

“I expect I’ll see you before then, if you continue working with this lady.” Casey nodded toward Liz and walked out of the room with a wave to Margo and Paul Benning.

“We should be going too,” Paul Benning said. “Margo’s had enough excitement for one weekend, and I need to get back to work.”

“Thanks for running down that license plate for me,” Drake said, “and for working with Larry at the polo field. Burgers and beer on me when I get back.”

Margo leaned down and kissed him quickly on the cheek. “I don’t like seeing you in a hospital bed. Come back to work soon, because your desk is a mess,” she said. There was a trace of moisture in the corners of her eyes when she turned to leave.

“I should go too,” Liz said. “Paul got the sheriff to let me use an office. I need to make a full report to the Secretary on what we learned about the nuke and Barak. He’ll want to talk with you when you’re feeling up to it, and he wants to update you on the company he wants you to visit in San Francisco.”

“Stay at the Senator’s place tonight, if you want,” Drake said, “and use my car. If you’re sure you want to drive me home, you should get use to the racing clutch in it.”

“All right, I will. Now rest and enjoy the Jello and juice. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said and gave his hand a squeeze.

Drake watched her leave. He had never let anyone else drive his Porsche.

After a moment, he raised his right hand and opened his fist close to his eyes to see the challenge coin Casey had passed to him with the secret handshake. It was from Casey’s old Night Stalkers unit, the 160
th
Special Operations Aviation Regiment that provided helicopter aviation support for special operation forces. Under the unit insignia on the shiny medallion was the Night Stalker motto,
Night Stalkers Don’t Quit
.

If you wore a military uniform, you carried a challenge coin and could produce one immediately any time you were challenged drinking inside an NCO or officers’ club on any military post or base anywhere around the world. Once a challenge coin was slapped down on a bar, tradition demanded that everyone else had to quickly answer the call by slapping down their own coins or pay the price and buy drinks for everyone.

Drake smiled and closed his hand over the coin. With the secret handshake and the unseen exchange of the challenge coin, his friend had acknowledged their victory that day and thanked him for not quitting. Casey knew he couldn’t quit. They had both taken the same oath to protect the country and it was an oath that never expired.