The Assassin's List (20 page)

He saw a long hallway with unfinished concrete walls, doors on each side, and industrial-type lighting overhead. Drake moved quietly to the first door on the left and listened. Easing it open, he found the room empty except for a bed, a small desk and a military gray, portable metal closet against the far wall. It looked like some of the barrack quarters he’d occupied over the years.

The door across the hall opened onto a large sleeping bay, with enough empty bunks lining each wall to sleep twenty or thirty men. He saw showers and sinks at the far end. Whatever this place is, Drake thought, it’s built to accommodate a lot of people.

Back in the hallway, he checked the next two doors on the left. Both rooms looked like the first he had entered. The next room on the left, however, looked like it was being used. The bed was made in military fashion, and on the desk was an open Koran. He saw a prayer rug on the floor and, on the side of the gray metal closet, a uniform was hung. Stepping closer, he saw that it was a security staff uniform with a Umatilla Depot patch on the left shoulder. The name tag sewn above the right pocket said the uniform belonged to Jameer Williams.

Drake felt a chill run up the back of his neck. The Umatilla Depot was one of seven U.S. Army installations in the United States currently storing chemical weapons. It was located two hours east, six miles south of the Columbia River. A new chemical agent disposal facility had been built in 2001, to incinerate the twelve percent of the nation’s chemical weapon stockpile housed there. So far, only thirty percent of the stockpiled Sarin (GB), nerve agent (VX), or mustard blister agent (HD) had been destroyed.

While he didn’t consider himself Islamophobic, learning that ISIS was housing or training security personnel from the nearby chemical weapons depot unnerved him.

In the next room, Drake found another prayer rug and another security staff uniform belonging to one Mohammed Marcus. As he started to search Mohammed’s desk, he heard voices in the hallway. Two men, who sounded like they were headed his way.

“You see them girls? Those brothers having themselves a time tonight.”

“Just a taste of paradise, like Kaamil said. Gonna be all I can do to let them party alone.”

Drake stood behind the door, hoping he wasn’t in one of their rooms. When the two men passed, he eased the door open and watched them walk toward the sleeping bay. They were wearing tricolor camo fatigues and desert combat boots, like the ones worn by the National Guard units in and around Portland. Both men were tall and appeared to be in their twenties, black, with close-cropped hair.

Before they entered the sleeping bay, one of them said “Kaamil only gave us five minutes to hit the head, we better hurry. Hope Yousef hurried up his smoke break. He won’t wanna miss the show.”

As soon as both men were out of sight, Drake slipped out and turned left. He wanted to see the party area the two men were talking about. Just then, the double doors at the end of the hallway started to open. Another man in camo fatigues was backing through the door, holding a large cardboard box in his hands.

Drake had just enough time to open the next door on his left and duck into the room. It was the same as the other two, except for a framed picture of a beautiful woman on the dresser.

When the man with the box passed the room, Drake inched the door open and snuck a quick peek down the hallway. The first two men were just coming out of the sleeping bay. The man with the box stood waiting for them to clear the doorway.

“You two better hurry, you’re going to be late. I’ll make sure Yousef is back.”

Drake pulled the door closed as the two men came running past. If someone went looking for Yousef and found the manhole cover unsecured, he’d have to find another way out. He had to make a run for it and hope the man with the box didn’t come out before he reached the other end of the hallway.

In college, he was first team, weak side linebacker, and the quickest on the team in closing a hole or chasing down a runner. He could still run a mile in five minutes and fifteen seconds. But tonight, when he needed to reach the tunnel in a hurry, it seemed like he was running in quicksand.

“Hey, what the hell you doing here,” the man with the box yelled, as Drake ran past the sleeping bay door. “Stop or I’ll shoot your ass.”

Drake barely broke stride, seeing the box man wasn’t armed, and pushed through the steel door. He ran down the long tunnel and scrambled up the ladder out of the underground bunker.

“Mike,” he whispered loudly, as he threw open the manhole cover and broke into a run, “I’m gonna have company shortly. Where should I go?”

“I see you. Lights are going on all over. Angle to your left, toward the shooting range, where it’s dark. From there, you have a pretty clear path to my ridge.”

Drake ran toward the covered firing line of the shooting range, then angled up toward the ridge. No one seemed to be chasing him. Another hundred yards and he would reach the fence, then the ridge beyond.

“Bad news, Amigo. They’re sending dogs. Three packs of Dobermans, one of them is headed your way, be there in half a minute. You want me to take them out?”

“No, I’m gonna make like Mel Gibson,” Drake said between pants, “and stare them down. Hell yes, shoot them.”

From the ridge, Drake was two hundred yards away and covering ground quickly. The Dobermans, though, were closing faster. The problem was one of timing. Mike would have to hit all four dogs in a matter of seconds.

“If I say ‘down,’ get behind a rock or something. You may have to help me here. Commencing fire now.”

Behind Drake, four large Dobermans were running straight at him, like greyhounds chasing a mechanical rabbit. The lead dog was slightly ahead. The other three were flanking him.

Twenty yards behind Drake, the lead Doberman went down in a rolling tumble, knocking the dog to his right momentarily off course. Then the dog on the left did a somersault when his head exploded.

Drake didn’t turn to look, but he heard the sound of another dog fall. He knew he wouldn’t hear the whisper of the 7.62mm rounds coming from Mike’s suppressed M24A2.

“Down,” he heard, and dove behind a small boulder. He looked up as the last Doberman went airborne, like a guided missile aimed straight at his face. He rolled to his right, looking up in time to see the last dog’s head explode.

“Come on,
Kemo Sabe
,” Mike said, “no time to be lying around. You have more dogs headed your way.”

Drake got up and ran for the fence, deciding to tell his friend he thought he’d cut it a little close with that last dog.

Chapter 35

In the ISIS command center, Kaamil stared at the surveillance monitors. Someone had broken into the bunker and wandered around in the martyr’s rooms. Malik would kill him for allowing this to happen. Kaamil moved closer to the monitor and replayed the video. The hooded man entered from the steel door that was supposed to be locked. He had come down through the escape tunnel, which was never to be used unless their survival required it. How had this happened? He watched as the man moved from room to room, until he was frightened off.

He replayed the video once more, this time running it back ten minutes before the intruder entered. There, six minutes before the intruder entered, one of the new trainees opened the steel door a crack to make sure no one was in the hallway, and then dashed into the sleeping bay. Unbelievable! After all the screening and tests the men went through, how had one so stupid made it this far?

Kaamil slammed his hands down on the console and punched on the computer audio microphone.

“Abed, Rashid, get to command center immediately. Bring Ibrahim and the new man Yousef with you. Now!” he shouted.

The problem was twofold; find out who the intruder was, and make sure Malik didn’t hear about him before he returned to Las Vegas. The first problem was the hardest by far. The intruder wore a black balaclava and black clothing. There was nothing obvious in his outward appearance. He looked fit, over six feet tall, and he moved like some of the combat instructors he’d trained with. The man could be one of Roberto’s competitors, someone who learned about the ranch and came to spy.

It could also be someone Malik had sent to test them. Which meant it was already too late to keep Malik from hearing about the intruder. There was one thing he wasn’t concerned about, though. The intruder wasn’t from the government. A government man would get a search warrant first and come in through the front door. And he wouldn’t wear a balaclava, he’d have FBI, in big white letters, on his jacket.

Before his two lieutenants arrived, Kaamil took a 9mm Glock from a drawer in the command console and stuck it inside his belt. When they entered the room, he watched each of them carefully. He’d known both men in prison, and they had proven their loyalty to him time and time again. But, he’d put them in charge of the dormitory wing and ultimately they were responsible. They were nervous. The small movements of their hands and the stiffness in their postures gave them away. They were not so afraid they refused to meet his withering glare, and he knew it was because they trusted him.

The other two men were also nervous and afraid. Kaamil addressed them first.

“Someone broke into our bunker tonight, and was allowed to escape. Do either of you know how that happened?”

Ibrahim, the one carrying the box into the sleeping bay who had confronted the intruder, stared at the wall behind Kaamil and said, “No.”

Kaamil stepped in front of Yousef. “Do you know how the intruder got in?”

“How would I know?” Yousef said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Maybe he got in when the Mexican brought the girls.”

Kaamil wanted to laugh at the man’s stupid attempt to blame his action on someone else. The smell of tobacco was still strong on him.

“Do you know the Koran, Yousef? Do you know that the Prophet commands us to do what is just and forbids us to do what is evil? You know that, Yousef?” Kaamil asked quietly.

“Of course, and ‘allows them as lawful what is good, and prohibits them from what is bad,’” Yousef said, finishing the sura Kaamil had paraphrased.

“And do you consider lying something that is good, or is something that is bad?”

In that moment, the look in Yousef’s eyes signaled he understood Kaamil knew and that he was about to die. It was also the moment Kaamil whipped the Glock around and shot the man in the heart, took a step to his left and shot Ibrahim.

“Let that be a lesson,” he said to Abed and Rashid, as he put the Glock down on the command console. “Lying to me will kill you. Not being a warrior and stopping an intruder when you have the chance, will kill you as well. Now, no one else knows someone broke in tonight, and no one else is ever going to know. We failed to secure this facility. It will not happen again. Keep these two here until the men are in bed. Then remove them with the party trash. If anyone asks, they were selected for a mission and haven’t returned yet.”

Kaamil walked out of the command center and headed back to the ranch house. He had a growing suspicion that someone had him in his sights, and was about to pull the trigger.

Chapter 36

It took twenty minutes to reach the Yukon and another fifteen minutes for Drake to walk point and lead the way back to Hwy. 35. When he climbed in, they turned left to follow the Mount Hood Loop back to Portland.

Drake pulled off the balaclava and sat back in his seat for a moment with his eyes closed.

“You were a little slow with that last dog. Just wanted to mention that, in case there’s a next time. Age and all, though, you did all right.”

“Come on, man, you gotta love the beauty of it all. I waited until that last dog was in the air, so you’d remember how much you need me. How much fun would it have been for you, if I’d shot those dogs when they were a hundred yards back?”

“You’re right, Mike. Foolish of me to think you’d take the shot when it would be a challenge, when you could wait and take the easy shot.”

“Oh, man, that is not fair. I had your six. You used to sneak into a place and not wake everybody up.” Mike laughed when he glanced over and saw the feigned look of hurt on his friend’s face. “So, what’d you see down there?”

“Not what I expected. There was a sleeping bay, like on a military base, then a string of private rooms. Reminded me of our old Delta quarters—a bed, a small desk and a wall locker. In two of the rooms, there were Korans on the desks and prayer rugs on the floors.”

“So what’s ISIS doing, training Saudi security guys?” Mike asked as they drove past the Mount Hood Ranger Station.

“I don’t think they’re training Saudis. The guys I saw are American blacks. The rooms with the prayer rugs had security staff uniforms for the chemical weapons depot in Umatilla hanging on the lockers.”

In the ensuing silence, both men thought about what that could mean.

“You’re going to have to tell someone about this,” Mike said. “We’ve had enough homegrown terrorism in the Northwest to know these nut cases are a menace. They’re just stupid enough to hit an Army chemical depot. I have clients in and around the depot red zone. I know how dangerous that shit is. With thirty-seven hundred tons of old chemical weapons stored there, an explosion or fire in the storage area with a strong wind blowing and a lot of people are going to die.”