by Barry Becker
“What do you want from me?” Bullock asked.
“If you cooperate, we could perhaps recommend to the Justice Department to reduce some of the charges, but you better act now because if either of these men kills anyone, you’ll be an accessory to murder.”
“I don’t know what they’re doing in Portland. They told me they’re planning on departing from Oregon, but I don’t know when or where in Oregon.”
“How do they get in touch with you?”
“They contact me via my secure smartphone.”
“Good. You’ll be coming with us. We’re placing you in a safe house in Santa Monica and waiting for Al-Bustani’s call.”
70
Ericksen’s Home
t 5:30 pm, Khalid and Dawkins, wearing Hakkinen NW Doors and Repairs uniforms, opened the van bearing the same name. They took their tool chests and walked along
the side of the home on Rawhide Drive. One of Khalid’s sleeper cell operatives parked the van along the curb between Ericksen’s home and his neighbor’s house. Most of the homeowners parked their vehi- cles in their garage or in their driveway. Vehicles parked along the curb belonged to individuals or companies hired to perform service.
Khalid followed Dawkins to the garage entry door on the side, and in a matter of seconds opened the lock to the garage. They entered and used the same burglar tools to open the door to the laundry room. On the wall next to the door sat the home security alarm module. Their inside man at the alarm company had provided them with the access code to neutralize the alarm – 6498. They checked the lower level of the house and eventually made their way up the stairs. Khalid entered Ericksen’s master bedroom and opened some of the drawers.
“We’ll stay up here until he comes home.” His smartphone rang. ‘Yes.”
“He just left the office. He has a Belgian Malinois dog with him.” “Follow him and tell me when he is close to the house.”
“Yes, Sheikh.”
Ericksen drove a few miles north on Southwest Parkway and pulled into the Costco Warehouse parking lot.
At 6:20 pm, the Hakkinen NW Doors van took off from Rawhide Drive.
Khalid’s smartphone rang. “Yes. Where is he?”
“He spent fifteen minutes at Costco in Wilsonville. Just turned off the West Linn 10th Street exit. He’ll probably be there in ten minutes.”
“You and your buddy get here at 7:00 pm. Get room reservations for us tonight in Eugene.”
“Yes, Sheikh.”
Dawkins took out his handgun. “I’m going to enjoy seeing Erick- sen’s face when he sees us.” Khalid turned to him. Khalid took out his pre-paid cellphone and made a call.
Bullock’s smartphone rang. “Hello.”
“This is Falcon Dancer. I want you to have your jet available for take-off from the Medford Airport tomorrow afternoon at three sharp. Make sure the jet is fueled-up.”
“Okay.”
Ericksen drove the Porsche into the garage, opened the door for Thor to get out, put his house key into the lock to the laundry room, and opened it. He deactivated the alarm, went back to his car, and brought in the groceries. When he re-entered the house, he heard Thor growling. He walked into the kitchen and put the groceries away. Thor continued growling, and Ericksen bent down, patted him,
and gave him a dog bone. “Calm down, Thor. Good boy.” He went to the cabinet and took down Thor’s favorite dog food. After placing the dog food in the bowl and filling another bowl with water, he removed a Carlsberg beer from his fridge.
Ericksen picked up his landline phone and placed a delivery order for Chinese food from the Pine Garden Restaurant in Cascade Summit. He picked up a book, Up Country by Nelson De Mille. He slumped down in his recliner in the family room. Thor joined him, lying alongside the recliner.
Ericksen’s smartphone rang. “Hello.”
“Phantom speaking. A private jet owned by a wealthy architect, Vance Bullock, flew Dawkins and Khalid Al-Bustani to the Aurora Airport several days ago.”
“Shit!” Ericksen blurted out.
“We established Bullock’s architectural firm does a lot of business with Al-Bustani Construction in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Just got off the phone with Geiger. The Portland FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team should be there any minute.”
Thor started barking. Ericksen heard a noise, looked up, and saw two men entering the kitchen from the dining room with weapons drawn.
Ericksen dropped the smartphone on the hardwood floor. He got out of his recliner, stood, and held his book. They both stared at him. In heavily accented English, Khalid said, “I’ve been watching you.”
“Khalid!” He thought, Fight to the death. ‘What a surprise, or should I call you Ignacio Martinez?”
Khalid held an Israeli Desert Eagle handgun in his right hand, and Dawkins had a Glock with the suppressor on, both aimed at Ericksen’s head.
“I don’t give a fuck what you call me. Your friend Ziad transferred thirty million Swiss francs of mine into your bank account. All of my money in your account has been seized by your government. You and the CIA pigs destroyed my operations, killed my colleagues, and my son Faisal. You were rescued from certain death on my ship, but today Mr. Ericksen, you are going to die!”
“Shane, you were always a fucking, unethical asshole, but to align yourself with an Islamic Jihadist terrorist is outright insane.”
Dawkins’ face turned red with anger. “Fuck you, Ericksen.”
Thor barked and growled. His menacing large canine teeth were in full view of both men.
“If he doesn’t stop, I’ll kill him.”
A loud horn startled Khalid as he turned to look at Dawkins. The sound of bullets broke the silence outside.
“Angribe!” Ericksen yelled in Danish.
Thor charged Khalid and jumped onto him. He grunted and yelled as the dog knocked him down. The gun dropped near the fire- place. Dawkins took aim at Thor, but the hardbound book hurled by Ericksen hit his hand. He bolted toward Dawkins, delivered a karate chop to his wrist, and the gun dropped on the floor. He threw a left- hand punch smashing Dawkins’ right ear, then followed up with a closed-fist punch to the solar plexus, sending Dawkins into the kitchen cabinet. Ericksen kicked the gun away. Dawkins momentarily recovered, got into a martial arts stance, and caught Ericksen with a blow to the chin, forcing him back to the kitchen granite countertop island.
Dawkins followed with a menacing right-hand shot to Ericksen’s left eyebrow, cutting him with a deep gash. Blood spurted out and down his cheek. He kicked Ericksen in the knee and drove him into the kitchen table. When Dawkins attempted a roundhouse kick to the head and missed, Ericksen threw a hard right to Dawkins’ temple. He followed up with a palm thrust against his nose, knocking him back into the family room. Dawkins collapsed to the floor. Ericksen dove on top of him, pummeling him with shots to the face and head. Blood covered Dawkins’ entire face.
Loud sounds were heard from the firefight outside Ericksen’s house between the terrorists and the FBI’s HRT counterterrorism unit. Thor kept biting and clawing at Khalid’s face and shoulder. Suddenly he pulled out a knife and slashed the dog’s shoulder. The dog began whimpering, blood pouring out of Thor’s wound.
Ericksen heard Thor’s cries of pain, got off Dawkins, moved into a martial arts stance facing Khalid, who charged him holding a sharp
ten-inch knife in his right hand. Ericksen quickly grabbed his wrist with his left hand and exerted pressure on his forearm with his right hand, pushing Khalid off balance. In a split-second his right hand reached for the back of Khalid’s head while holding the knife at bay with his left hand. Ericksen pushed his head down, kneed his head and kicked him in the groin. Khalid dropped the knife, got hammered with a right hook and fell backward onto the desk. He slammed Khalid’s head against the desk, threw him on the floor, landing elbows to his head and face. He turned him over, placed his forearm around his neck, and clamped down with all his strength. Within seconds the chokehold rendered Khalid unconscious, an
d ten seconds later, he was dead.
Dawkins regained enough strength to stand. He spotted the gun twenty feet away, raced over and picked it up. Ericksen heard him and pushed Khalid off him to his left, reached into the bottom drawer of his desk, grabbed his Heckler & Koch 45, and rolled to his right. Dawkins fired three shots that missed Ericksen, who hid behind the desk. Ericksen spotted him, took aim, and fired two shots, hitting Dawkins in the head and heart. He dropped dead onto the hardwood floor. Blood splattered out on the wall, cabinets, island, and floor.
Ericksen checked Thor. The dog continued to bleed from his shoulder injury. Two minutes later, several HRT men ran around to the back of the house and spotted Ericksen. He saw the team and opened the kitchen door. They entered and viewed the bodies. “The ambulance should be here momentarily,” one HRT man said.
Ericksen placed a towel over Thor’s shoulder wound and applied pressure to stop the bleeding until the EMT arrived. He sat on the hardwood floor next to Thor and waited.
71
ive days later, Ericksen opened the door, and the heavily bandaged Thor jumped into the back seat of his Chevy Silverado pickup. The veterinarian who performed the
surgery told him the recovery period could take up to several months. Thor had saved Ericksen’s life, and he wanted him along for the trip.
He was driving along the Columbia Gorge when his smartphone rang. His SUV had Bluetooth, and he checked the caller ID.
“Sullivan here. The dental records have confirmed Khalid’s ID. What are you going to do with the fifteen million dollar reward money?”
“I haven’t given it too much thought; however, two things come to mind, a vacation home on Maui for my family, one million dollars to Jannan’s family, one million dollars to Fico Delgado’s family, one million to Jeb and one million to Lars.”
“Sounds good. One last thing, Dave Jacobson handed his resigna- tion this morning to Director Norstad. It’s not every day someone decides to no longer head up the National Clandestine Service. I talked with him, and he told me you hired him to be your company’s new Executive Vice-President and COO. I hate to see the CIA lose a good one, but I’m sure he’ll be happy in Portland working with
people he loves and respects. He’ll be overjoyed to be called by his real name.”
“I informed Cyberburst Communications that Lars Wahlberg would be joining us as of September 7. I’ll have to get used to calling him by his real name.”
“Good luck and say hello to Kate for me.”
After a day of driving along the Columbia Gorge, up through Tri- Cities to Spokane, they stopped at a dog-friendly motel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. After breakfast, he gassed up and left at eight in the morning. An hour later, he reached a house at 7550 Schweitzer Mountain Drive. He rang the front doorbell, and a moment later a pleasant looking woman in her mid-sixties opened the door. He iden- tified himself as a personal friend of her daughter and she gave him directions to her son’s ranch where he would find her.
Ericksen drove toward Hope, Idaho, climbed some hills, and finally reached a dirt road. He turned at the entrance to McDonald’s Alpaca Ranch and drove up the gravel road to the top of the hill over- looking Lake Pend Oreille and the Cabinet Mountain Range. He looked up at the sky and spotted a bald eagle flying over the lake, perhaps in search of a Kokanee salmon.
One hundred yards away, Ericksen spotted McDonald. Her broth- er’s little daughter, probably five or six-years-old, stood next to her. McDonald’s horse and the little girl’s pony were tied up by the fence, while a yellow Lab strolled nearby.
McDonald recognized Ericksen as he drove within sixty yards of her. He opened the door of his pickup and he and Thor got out. The little girl looked up at her Aunt as Thor walked briskly alongside him. McDonald and Ericksen stared into each other’s eyes for several seconds, and embraced each other in a long hug. He gently moved back, holding her hands. She looked at him with tears in her eyes, and said, “I love you.”
They both smiled, as he pulled her closer to him. “Kate, I love you too.”
And then they sealed their lips with a kiss.
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed reading my novel “The Ericksen Connection.” If you would like to review and rate my book on Amazon.com please click on the link below:
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When you reach The Ericksen Connection page please scroll down to the section [write a customer review].
Thank you, Barry L. Becker
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks go to my good friends Jack Rieber and Dennis Porter for providing me with their feedback. Over the past many years I have been fortunate to attend the Willamette Writers’ Conference in Port- land and absorb the words of wisdom on the craft of writing from many well-known and successful writers. Finally, special thanks to my wife, who provided me additional editing, constructive criticism, unwavering love, and support.