Oath to Defend

by Scott Matthews

  “I just heard a guy say something to another guy in Arabic.”

  “Where, on Al Jazeera news?”

  “No, on a ranch here in Oregon. I thought I’d see if that brochure about the polo match I found in the villa in Mexico had anything to do with the nuke they detected in San Diego. I think it does, and I’m going to need your help to prove it.”

  “Whoa, back it up a bit,” Casey said. “You didn’t tell me about a polo brochure you found in the Mexican villa.”

  “It was in the room upstairs, the one we thought Barak might have slept in. It’s for a polo fundraiser here in Bend this weekend, starring some hotshot polo player from Argentina. I thought it was odd that a drug dealer in Mexico, or even Barak, would be interested in polo, so I took it. When I mentioned it to Liz Strobel, she told me if I found it had anything to do with the missing nuke to let her know. So I drove up to Bend today and started poking around.”

  Casey thought about this for a second or two. “What does the polo star have to do with the nuke?”

  “I don’t know. The brochure was about this fundraiser. He’s the big attraction. They found radiation in a van abandoned next to the San Diego Polo Club. At the ranch I just left, I saw an International RXT truck with California plates towing a luxury horse trailer with the polo star’s name on it. The trailer has enough room for four horses, all the equipment…and a nuke or two. No one would suspect an international polo star of hiding a nuclear device in his horse trailer.”

  “But why would a guy like that get involved in nuclear terrorism?”

  “Who knows why the uber-rich do anything. Maybe he loaned them his horse trailer. Maybe he doesn’t know anything about a nuke.”

  “Who are they?” Casey asked.

  “Maybe it’s Barak. Maybe it’s Hezbollah. They dig tunnels under the border in San Diego for the drug smugglers. Maybe it’s the guy who owns this ranch, Michael Abazzano. I don’t know.”

  “Abazzano…the Hollywood guy with the gorgeous wife half his age?”

  “Beautiful, young and extremely anti-Semitic, yeah. Her parents were killed in the Shatila massacre in Lebanon.”

  “Home of Hezbollah, what a coincidence! So, buddy, what is it you want me to do?”

  “Abazzano’s ranch is in a narrow canyon, with rimrock on both sides. Video surveillance of any activity there won’t be difficult, but I’m hoping we can get audio surveillance as well. Did you go ahead and buy those Draganflyer surveillance drones you were talking about?”

  “I bought two,” Casey said. “We equipped one with a Nikon SLR for still photos and the other with a Sony Handycam for video and sound. The Draganflyer’s motors don’t make any noise so if someone’s talking we’ll hear them. In hover mode at fifty meters, they won’t see it either.”

  “That’s what I was hoping for,” said Drake.

  “How big a team do you need this time?”

  “Are you able to get away?”

  “Well, I do need a reason to take my new helicopter on a cross-county flight,” Casey said. “Seattle to Bend really isn’t cross-country, but it’s a start.”

  “What new helicopter?” Drake asked.

  “With all the new customers we’re getting since you put ISIS out of business, I upgraded our capabilities a bit and bought a new Bell 525 Relentless. It was delivered when we were in Mexico. Wait’ll you see it, Adam. There’s nothing like it in the air.”

  “How many passengers can it carry?”

  “Sixteen. You need that many?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Maybe you and three others. If we find this polo angle has anything to do with the nuke the government is looking for, I’ll call in the cavalry.”

  “When do you want me there?”

  “Okay,” Drake said after doing a quick mental calculation, “today is Wednesday. How about tomorrow sometime? That gives us two days before the polo match on Saturday. You and your guys plan on staying with me at the senator’s place at Crosswater. There’s plenty of room.”

  “I’ll land at the Sunriver airport, about noon. You buying lunch?”

  “Sure, why not. Meet me at Hola! at the Sunriver marina. We can eat on the deck and watch the tourists trying to paddle their canoes on the Deschutes.”

  26

  Barak was sitting in a red cedar Adirondack chair on the deck of the hangar house when Saleem, the head of the Hezbollah team, called him.

  “Someone just visited the ranch, looking for Vazquez,” Saleem reported. “Want me to find out who it was?”

  “Yes, but discreetly. It could be someone from the polo club. Check it out and call me.”

  It wasn’t unexpected that someone would be looking for Vazquez. But with all that was at stake, it would be foolish to ignore any approach to the weakest member of his team. His pilot didn’t know anything about the plan, and the Hezbollah men were used to keeping their mouths shut. In their world, life ended quickly for someone who talked too much. Vazquez, on the other hand, loved to talk to his fawning fans and the press. The only secret he was good at keeping was which rich man’s wife he was sleeping with in any given city. It would give Barak great pleasure to dispose of the young infidel when he had served his purpose.

  Until now, Vazquez had not been aware of the arrangement his father had made with the Alliance. The respect he had for his father, and the financial backing his father provided for his polo career, had been enough to persuade the boy to do whatever his father asked him to do. But the addition of the amateur polo match in Oregon, which was such a departure from the circuit the elite polo players of the world traveled, had led to an ill-tempered rebellion on the part of Vazquez. To quell it, his father had threatened to withdraw his sponsorship and reclaim the four polo ponies he had purchased for his son.

  Since then, Vazquez had been behaving like the spoiled man-child he was, drinking and womanizing his way along the polo circuit until he arrived in Oregon. Barak had passed along a request for Ryan to instruct the father to tell his son to start behaving or there would be consequences. That hadn’t worked, so he had added his own warning.

  ~~~

  Saleem Canaan, the leader of the Hezbollah task force in Tijuana, had replaced Jameel Nasr when Jameel’s efforts to establish a network in Mexico were discovered and he was arrested. Jameel had been sloppy. He had failed to use different identities to conceal his frequent travels to Lebanon, Venezuela, and the Tri-Border Area in South America to meet with Hezbollah and Alliance leaders. But Saleem, or Sal as he had been known to his classmates at San Diego State University, wasn’t going to be so easy to discover.

  Saleem’s father was Lebanese and had immigrated to America during the Lebanese Civil War. His mother, who was Mexican, had been born in San Diego as a so-called anchor baby and as such was an American citizen. Saleem’s father and mother were not aware of his passion for jihad, which had been cultivated at the mosque they attended. Nor were they aware of their son’s position within Hezbollah. Although he had received a scholarship from an Islamic foundation to attend the university and obtain a master’s degree in computer science, Saleem had never shown any interest in computers before. He had always preferred playing soccer to studying. But his imam had persuaded him that his mission was to prepare himself for a future Hezbollah that would be more sophisticated and able to employ cyber warfare against its enemies. Saleem had been promised that he would be just as useful with a computer as he would be with a gun as a holy warrior.

  He was thus the perfect homegrown terrorist. He could travel anywhere and, with his natural good looks and athletic ability, blend into any academic or professional setting involving his field of study. What Hezbollah had discovered in grooming him as a cyber terrorist was that Saleem also liked to hurt people. Especially people he thought stood in the way of a worldwide caliphate and didn’t deserve to live long enough to enjoy its blessing.

  Which was why Saleem had been chosen to lead the team accompanying Barak to Oregon with the demolition nuke. He was smart, capable,
and could slip into any setting without attracting attention. Like the posh Pronghorn golf resort.

  Saleem parked his rented Escalade in the visitors’ lot near the clubhouse and walked into the Trailhead Grill, where Barak had found the polo star drinking. An older couple occupied two places at the bar, laughing at something on the woman’s iPad. The only other person in the restaurant was the bartender.

  Saleem approached the bartender with a smile on his face.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Marco Vazquez.”

  “He’s at the pool,” the bartender said and pointed outside, “working on his tan.”

  The swimming pool behind the Trailhead was ringed with patio tables with maroon umbrellas and chaise lounges covered in a matching maroon fabric. Vazquez, wearing nothing but a skimpy Speedo and lying on a chaise lounge, was hard to miss. He looked like he would be right at home on a gay beach in San Diego or strolling down Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro.

  Saleem sat at an empty table near the polo star and motioned for a waiter. Even in the shade of the table’s umbrella, it was a hot afternoon. The heat required one to keep hydrated. Beer was good for hydration.

  In the first thirty minutes, Vazquez moved just once to turn over. As soon as he did this, a young woman wearing a pair of white shorts and crisp white blouse walked out of the Pronghorn spa next to the pool. She was carrying a white towel and a bottle of sunscreen. When Vazquez waved to her, she knelt beside him and began rubbing the lotion over his back and legs. Saleem stared as she carefully massaged the sunscreen all the way up his legs until her fingers stopped at the narrow band of the Speedo.

  Saleem wasn’t a virgin by any means, but he couldn’t remember any lover rubbing him down as suggestively as this woman was rubbing Vazquez’s backside. If this was a prelude to an afternoon tryst, he thought, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about any visitor from the ranch meeting with the Argentine Romeo any time soon.

  Thirty minutes after being lotioned up and turning over to tan his chest, Vazquez stood up, stretched languidly, signaled a waiter for a drink, and dove into the pool. Two laps across and back and he was out again, toweling himself off and sitting at a table not far from Saleem’s. When his drink that looked like a Long Island iced tea in a chimney glass arrived, the polo star sat back in his chair and gazed at the mountains in the distance. He seemed unaware of everything around him except the drink in his right hand and the small gold cross on the chain around his neck. He was twisting it back and forth with the fingers of his left hand.

  From what Saleem could see, Marco Vazquez might be a big shot polo player, but he wasn’t enjoying his stardom.

  27

  Drake also found the polo star at the pool, now with the empty glass on the table next to him. Wearing his apple green Speedo and wrap-around sunglasses, Vazquez looked every bit the international celebrity he was. After watching him for a moment while polishing his own sunglasses, Drake walked over and sat down across from him.

  He gestured to the waiter. “May I buy you a drink?” Drake asked.

  Vazquez hardly opened his eyes. “Long Island iced tea with double shots of everything,” he murmured with a slight slurring of his words. As the waiter left, he sat up straighter and asked, “Do I know you?”

  Drake gave him a self-effacing smile. “I’m just a guy wanting to have a drink with you.”

  “Okay, then. Why do you want to have a drink with me?”

  “You’re Marco Vazquez! Doesn’t everyone want to have a drink with you?”

  “They used to. Not so much anymore. Except for the women.”

  Drake looked surprised. “Don’t you have men you drink with? What about the guys you travel with? The men who take care of your horses?”

  “I don’t drink with them. They don’t drink alcohol. They don’t even speak my language. They just take care of my ponies.”

  “Well, then—fire them and hire men you can drink with.”

  Vazquez shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Didn’t you bring these men with you from Argentina?”

  “No, they were given to me in San Diego for this match only. I won’t have to deal with them after this.”

  “Why is that?

  “You would need to talk with my father about that.” His new drink arrived and he stopped speaking.

  “I went out to the ranch where your horses are,” Drake said. “Are those guys who speak Arabic the ones who came up from San Diego with you?”

  Vazquez took off his sunglasses and turned to look more closely at Drake. “How did you know that? How did you know I came from San Diego? And why do you think these men came with me? I flew here. They just drove my horses and equipment here.”

  “From the San Diego Polo Club?”

  Fear flashed in the eyes of the young polo star as he stood up. “I have a massage now. Thank you for the drink.”

  Drake gave him a cordial nod, then turned and watched Vazquez walk to the door of the spa. As he pulled the door open, he paused to look back and went inside.

  Vazquez wasn’t what Drake had expected. For one reason, he was alone at the pool. Drake had thought he would have to wade through a bevy of young lovelies wearing even less than Vazquez and trying to get his attention. There were half a dozen other people scattered around the pool, sunning themselves or reading, but none of them appeared to be paying any attention to anyone else. Drake also recalled that Vazquez excelled at a dangerous sport that required athleticism and steady nerves. But, no, this kid looked like a horse off his feed; listless, out of shape, and jumpy.

  Drake sat back and considered his options. If Vazquez had smuggled a nuke into the country, he had good reason to be jumpy. But why would an international polo star get involved with something that would jeopardize his career and his life? A ten-goal player like him made big bucks, a hundred thousand dollars a tournament. He lived the life of a rock star. Most terrorists, at least the ones Drake had come across, were fanatical Islamists and hated everything Western celebrities flaunted; their wealth, their promiscuity, their alcoholic drinks, and especially their scantily clad women.

  There was something about Marco Vazquez that wasn’t right. Drake needed to find out what it was.

  ~~~

  Saleem watched Vazquez’s visitor get up and leave before he called Barak.

  “I don’t think the guy who just bought Vazquez a drink is a polo fan,” he said. “He didn’t look like a cop, either, but he asked a lot of questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Did the men who take care of his horses speak Arabic. Did they travel with him from San Diego.”

  Saleem could sense Barak’s anger during the long silence that followed.

  “Describe the man for me,” Barak said.

  “Six feet tall, maybe a little more, mid to late thirties with dark hair. Wearing jeans, a white polo shirt and running shoes. He moves like an athlete and looks like he’s in good shape. Well tanned, probably spends a lot of time outdoors.”

  “Follow him,” Barak said. “See if you can find out who he is.” He disconnected.

  Saleem left ten dollars on the table for his beer and hurried back through the clubhouse to the parking lot. As he got into his Escalade and closed the door, he noticed a metallic gray Porsche turning the corner out of the lot on the road leading to the gatehouse. A flash of white in the open window of the car matched the color of the shirt worn by the man talking to Vazquez.

  Keeping the big SUV at a discrete distance behind the Porsche, Saleem turned on the SiriusXM radio to Hip-Hop Nation and cranked up the volume. He might as well enjoy himself, he thought, as he prayed quickly to Allah that he was following the right car. He increased his speed past the posted twenty mile an hour speed limit at the resort.

  By the time he reached the gatehouse, he saw that the Porsche had turned south and was headed toward Bend. Saleem let a car pass, then pulled onto the highway and followed. According to the map on the Escalade’s GPS navigation screen, he had fif
teen miles to get closer and make sure he was following the right man.

  To the right, as he drove down Highway 97, he could see the white peaks of the Three Sisters in the distance. Small acreage home sites, with enough room for several horses, lined the route. Stands of juniper and sagebrush dotted the rolling landscape, with yellow wildflowers and outcroppings of lava and rimrock adding color to the scenery. Having grown up in Southern California, Saleem wasn’t used to the feeling of vast space the high desert provided, but he thought he could get used to it. He wondered if the deserts of Saudi Arabia would make him feel the same way. When he made his hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, he told himself, perhaps he could find out.

  As the city of Bend drew nearer, the traffic increased and forced him to concentrate to keep the Porsche in sight. Five cars now separated him from the man who had visited Vazquez, but the Escalade’s height gave him a clear view of the smaller sports car. The afternoon traffic was fairly heavy as it passed through the city, but it was nothing like he was used to in San Diego. Traffic. That was one thing about Southern California he definitely did not miss.

  Just as the cars ahead began to speed up as they reached the southern edge of the city, Saleem saw the Porsche turn off the highway and pull into the small parking lot in front of a Deschutes Property Management building. He slowed, too, and drove into the lot of the Rimrock BrewPub and Grill next door. When he turned to look, he saw that he had been following the right man. White polo shirt, jeans, running shoes. The man was now wearing aviator sunglasses.

  He turned the volume down on the radio and sat back to wait. In less time than it took to change the radio from SiriusXM to a local station, his target returned to his car and got back in. Before he did, however, he put a cell phone to his ear and talked with someone for several minutes. At one point, the man turned toward the Escalade and seemed to look right through the darkened window at Saleem.

  When the Porsche backed up and got back on the highway heading south, Saleem followed again. This time, feeling slightly uneasy with the way the man had stared at him, he stayed farther behind than before. Whoever this guy was, he could not be allowed to interfere with their holy work. No infidel alive could be allowed to do that.