Oath to Defend

by Scott Matthews

  Then, if they made it safely through the city, they had a hundred and three miles to travel to reach their target. It was open road that passed through two small communities. Just a couple of stores and gas stations, nothing that should present a problem. Restricted budgets for most rural counties in the U.S. fortunately meant limited, if any, law enforcement on the roads to interfere with his convoy.

  The weakness of his plan, the weakness of any plan like this, he realized, was that he had to rely on men to react to an unforeseen event they weren’t trained to face. What if they encountered some off-duty cop on vacation with his family, a cop with a thing about bikers? A hick with a rifle in his pickup? Anyone who flags one of his men down to ask for directions and spooks a deadly reaction from a man trained to shoot first and ask questions later?

  Saleem’s men were Hezbollah terrorists who had traveled up and down the West Coast as enforcers for the drug cartels. But they were also simple men who were never asked to think beyond the instructions they were given. They were willing to die, but simply dying wasn’t enough to guarantee the success of this mission.

  What Barak really needed was for Saleem to lead the men himself. The young Lebanese-Mexican American was smart, brilliant in fact, but he was also far too valuable to Hezbollah to risk his loss. Barak had thought about leading the mission himself, but his face was on wanted posters everywhere. Just being in Oregon was a huge risk. But it was a risk he had to take.

  No, Barak thought, he’d planned this carefully. Now he had to trust Allah, peace be upon him, to bring success to the mission. He had failed last time because the man he had chosen to oversee the assassination had attracted the attention of a man with the experience and exceptional skills to defeat them. That, however, was fortuitous. It would not happen twice, which was why he had decided the man who had visited Marco Vazquez and escaped Saleem’s ambush could not be the attorney from Portland.

  But he couldn’t afford to take any chances. He walked out onto the deck and sat down under the patio umbrella that provided shade for an elegant teak table and four chairs. He opened his phone.

  “Saleem,” he said when his lieutenant answered his call, “I don’t want to risk having this man, whoever he is, interfere with my plans. Do you know where he’s staying?”

  “He was followed to a resort just south of you. Crosswater. It’s a gated golf community. My man couldn’t follow him in.”

  “See if you can find out exactly where he’s staying,” Barak said. “Maybe we can get a clear shot at him from a distance. Or have one of your men sneak onto the golf course. The whole place can’t be gated.”

  “If I locate him, do you want me to kill him?”

  “Call me first. It has to be a clean kill that can’t be traced to us. We’re too close.”

  Barak ended the call and sat quietly in the shade, enjoying the warm afternoon and the pots of flowering red geraniums and assorted annuals that adorned the deck. The thought of revenge brought a smile to his lips. If the man staying at Crosswater was the same man who had interfered last time, he was about to become a very satisfying casualty in their war on the West.

  33

  After he collected Liz’s bag at the Sunriver airport, Drake led the way to Crosswater, a short drive away. The two white Yukons followed him past the gatehouse and around the golf course before parking beside his Porsche in front of the Senator’s cabin.

  Liz got out and looked up at what was really a rustic mansion. “Are you sure this place is big enough for all of us?”

  Drake led her up to the front door. “I’m sure one of the guys will share a room with you if you ask nicely,” he said. “But if you want your own room, I suggest you go upstairs and pick the one with the queen bed. The other three rooms have two twin beds each.”

  Casey and his men trooped in behind them. After everyone found his sleeping quarters, they came back downstairs and Drake led them into the kitchen.

  “The Senator had the refrigerator stocked for me,” he said, “and there’s a well-supplied bar, too. Help yourselves to anything you need. I know Mike will. We’ll pick up more steaks for tonight, and if you think of anything else we need, tell Mike. He’s the grill master. Okay, now grab a beverage of your choice and let’s go out on the deck and coordinate our afternoon.”

  Liz selected a bottle of wine from the dual-zone wine cabinet that stood at one end of the black granite bar in the great room. The men all grabbed bottles of beer from the stainless steel cooler under the bar.

  “I recognize that it’s a long shot the nuke Liz is looking for is here,” Drake began as the team joined him outside. “But if it is, then the man who brought it here has to be the one we were hunting in Mexico. He was cozy with the cartels down there and maybe Hezbollah, too. There are too many dots that connect for it not to be him. So it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway—be careful. He’s a fanatic who has to be stopped.”

  “Do we know what Barak looks like?” Larry Green, the former L.A. cop, asked.

  Liz answered this question. “We have his driver’s license photo and some video of him coming and going from his office building in Las Vegas and passing through the executive air terminal at McCarran International the day they tried to kill the Secretary,” she said. “They’re on my iPad, but who knows what he looks like now.”

  “Do we have any idea where he’s staying here in Bend?” Green continued.

  “The only two leads we have are Wyler Ranch and the resort where Marco Vazquez is staying,” Drake answered.

  Bill Montgomery, the young Ranger sniper had some questions. “And Mike said you think this polo player might have brought the nuke to Oregon? Why is that? And how’d he do it?”

  “The van that was found abandoned near the polo field in San Diego was positive for radiation,” Drake said. “We know that. And I found a brochure in the villa in Mexico advertising the polo match here in Bend. Using the big horse trailer Vazquez uses to haul his polo ponies around in would be one way to get a nuke up here.”

  Ricardo Gonzales, the Green Beret captain, turned to Liz. “Ms. Strobel, if we know where the horse trailer is, couldn’t you test it to see if it carried that nuke up here?”

  “I’m here on my own, Ricardo. DHS doesn’t think Drake’s evidence is worth pursuing. And the trailer’s on private property, so we’d need a search warrant. But we can buy radiation detection devices. There are companies that supply them to law enforcement and first responders.”

  “Mike,” said Drake, “if we can buy a detection device, could you use one of your drones to fly it over the trailer at Wyler Ranch?”

  “I don’t see why not,” he said. “We put video cameras on them, so we should be able to outfit one with a small detection device. I’ll call my purchasing agent and see how quickly we can get one here.”

  Drake summed up the meeting. “That’s it, then,” he said. “I’ll show Ricardo and Billy how to find Wyler Ranch. Guys, find a place to set up video monitoring, then we’ll launch a drone to get a closer look. Larry, I’ve got a friend running down the license plate on the pickup that tried to run me off the road. He’s also searching for an address for the black Escalade. After I call him, why don’t you and Mike see where that takes us.” The ex-cop nodded. “Okay, men. Liz and I will talk to Marco Vazquez. Let’s all meet back here tonight for dinner, say six o’clock, and watch Mike burn us some steaks.”

  As his team walked back inside, Casey signaled to Drake they needed to talk. “Liz said she was here on her own,” he said, “but she’s still a fed. How much of what we’re doing do you want her involved in?”

  “She knows why I’m here,” Drake replied. “She invited herself to join us. I’ll let her decide how involved she wants to be. Besides, your guys aren’t complaining that she’s here.” He grinned.

  “Neither are you, as far as I can see.”

  “Come on, Mike. I agreed to help the Secretary from time to time. She’s my liaison with DHS, nothing more.”

 
“Whatever you say, buddy.”

  Drake just shook his head. What had he done to make his friend think he cared one way or the other that Liz Strobel was there? He and Casey walked into the cabin’s great room, where he showed Ricardo and Billy how to find Wyler Ranch. After they left, he called Paul Benning in Portland.

  “Paul, any luck with the license plates?”

  “Luck has nothing to do with efficient law enforcement.”

  “Yeah,” Drake said, “but it has everything to do with knowing the right people.”

  “There is that. Okay, here’s what you need to know. The one Escalade Timothy O’Neil rented is actually one of two he rented. Both are the same make and model from Enterprise Car Rentals at the Sunriver airport. Maybe they can tell you where he’s staying. The pickup pulled out of the river was stolen from a farm near LaPine earlier in the week.”

  “So the pickup is a dead end,” Drake said. “I’ve asked Larry and Mike to locate where O’Neil’s staying.” He paused. “You and Margo okay?”

  “I’m fine. She’s getting harder to live with, though. She needs to be back to work, full-time. Any chance of that happening any time soon?”

  “I’ll be back in the office next week. I’ve got a couple of things to do here, including attending a polo match on Saturday. Then I’m driving back.”

  “You must have mentioned that polo match to Margo. She’s reserved a room for us at the Eagle Crest Hotel. Said it would do us good to get out of town. I suspect she plans on running into you to make sure you’re coming back to work.”

  Drake laughed. “I’ll keep an eye out. See you Saturday. And thanks for tracing those plates for me.”

  He stopped in the kitchen to make a list of the items he needed to pick up for dinner and wondered if Liz was ready to drive to the Pronghorn Resort. He didn’t like to wait for a woman, any woman.

  34

  He found her standing next to his car when he walked out of the cabin.

  “What mountain is that?” she asked, pointing at the snow-capped summit of a distant volcano.

  “Mount Bachelor.”

  “It’s beautiful. Do they ski there?”

  “Most of the year. I think they still operate a chairlift during the summer. Get in. Let’s find out if Vazquez can help us find your nuke.”

  As he started the Porsche, Drake couldn’t help but remember skiing on Mount Bachelor with Kay. Why is it, he thought, that whenever I’m around this woman I think of my wife and feel guilty? Liz is just a colleague, a coworker, a contact person assigned to me by Secretary Rallings. It’s not like I’m taking her out on a date or something.

  He did a quick, three-point turn out of the parking area in front of Senator Hazelton’s cabin and sped down the road along the golf course.

  “When we find Vazquez,” he said to Liz, “let me do the talking. I didn’t tell him who I am, so let’s let him think whatever he wants. Then I’ll introduce you as someone from the government who has some questions for him. You can ask him about the men who are taking care of his horses. Ask him about who hired them for him. Ask him if he knows if they have criminal records. He should start to feel uncomfortable by then.”

  “Isn’t there a speed limit here?” she asked. “You’re driving awfully fast.”

  He slowed down. “There is a speed limit and I was breaking it,” he said. He steered the car past the security guard, who had stepped out of his booth and was motioning for him to slow down.

  “Look, Drake, if you don’t want me here, just say so.”

  “What does my driving fast have to do with not wanting you here?” he asked. Nodding at the guard, he turned onto the highway and accelerated until the tachometer soared toward seven thousand rpms in third gear. “I never said I didn’t want you here.”

  “No, but your face did. It’s registering somewhere between anger and disgust. I once taught a class in emotion recognition from facial expressions for DHS agents.”

  Pondering what she had just said, he continued to exceed the speed limit. He knew there had been a lot of studies of human facial expressions and that computers were now able to read and catalog emotions. That she was able to peg his emotion from the look on his face didn’t surprise him at all. What surprised him was that he was angry and didn’t know why.

  “Look, there’s a lot going on right now,” he dissembled, turning to look out the driver’s side window for a moment. “You think there’s a nuke loose in the country, and I think the guy who tried to kill me is the one who brought it here. Sure, I’m angry. But I’m not disgusted. I’ll get him.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “Won’t happen.”

  “I want you to understand something” she said. “When we first met in Portland, I thought you were a cowboy who represented all the things I hate. But then I saw what you were willing to do when you thought we weren’t doing anything. Then you saved Secretary Rallings’ life and took out his assassin. So now I’m your fan. I just don’t think you’re right this time…but I don’t want to be wrong again.”

  “For your career, or for the country?”

  “You don’t know much about me,” she said, “so I’ll let that pass for now.” She paused to let that sink in. “I will do everything possible to protect this country, regardless of how it might impact my career.”

  Neither of them spoke the rest of the way to the Pronghorn Resort.

  Drake dropped her off in front of the Clubhouse to look for Vazquez while he parked the Porsche. When he joined her poolside, the polo star was nowhere in sight.

  “Stay here in case he shows up,” Drake said. “I’ll see if he’s in the bar,” Drake said.

  Liz walked toward an empty table and motioned for a waiter.

  When Drake entered the Trailhead Grill, he found the same bartender behind the bar who had pointed out Vazquez before.

  “Is Vazquez around?” he asked, sliding a Jackson across the bar.

  “If he’s not at the pool, he’s probably in his room.”

  “And which room would that be?”

  The bartender looked down at the twenty dollar bill on the bar.

  “Which room?” Drake asked.

  The bartender shrugged, took the twenty, and said, “He’s in Unit Ten. Follow the path.”

  Unit Ten was a second-floor suite overlooking the eighteenth hole of Pronghorn’s championship golf course. Drake noticed a foursome putting out on the green. Another four players stood by carts, waiting to make their approach shots. They all looked to be serious golfers, judging by the way they were studying their score cards. Either that, he thought, or they were playing for money and were calculating how much the round was about to cost them.

  Drake turned off the path and started up the stairs that led to the second floor, Units Ten and Eleven. When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw that Unit Ten was on the left and that an elevator faced the two second floor units across a red-tiled hallway. A rustic log railing ran the length of the hallway on each side of the elevator above the golf course and a paved path. A man was standing, leaning against the railing and gazing at the mountains in the distance.

  The carved oak door of Unit Ten had an etched, oval, glass panel at eye level. Next to the door was a round, wrought iron door bell button that Drake pushed as he studied the pronghorn logo in the glass panel. He was starting to raise his hand to push the door bell again when he saw the man at the railing reflected in the etched glass. He had moved silently toward Drake and was holding a knife, blade down, in his right hand.

  Drake pivoted on his right leg toward his attacker and blocked the knife strike with his right hand, deflecting it away from his body. At the same time, he threw a hard left jab at the man’s face, striking him between his eyes and knocking him back several steps.

  The attacker shook his head and squared off. Drake recognized the knife he was holding. It was a Gerber fighting knife. He’d had one himself in his paratrooper’s kit. It was a survival knife sold in Army PX’s around the
world.

  Drake waited in his fighting stance for the man to strike again and sized up his enemy. Five-seven, dark hair, Middle-Eastern in appearance. The attacker was in his late twenties, with darting eyes and a sneering smile on his lips.

  Without a sound, he lunged, aiming the knife at Drake’s chest.

  Drake stepped out of the line of the attack and blocked the thrust with his left forearm. As he grabbed the man’s wrist above his knife hand, he landed a smashing kick to his groin with his right foot. Then he added his right hand in a wrist lock and, using his planted left leg as a fulcrum, spun to his left and threw his attacker back.

  Trying to regain his balance, the man fell against the log railing and flipped over it.

  Drake looked over the railing. His attacker was lying on the cart path on his back, his head twisted to one side. Drake ran down the stairs at the end of the hallway and knelt beside the man. He found no pulse and looking around, saw that no one appeared to have seen the man fall. Pulling the knife out of the hand that still gripped it, Drake walked quickly to the visitor parking lot. When the body was discovered, it would look like he had accidentally fallen to his death…if the damage to his right eye was overlooked.

  Drake held the knife against his leg, and when he reached his car, wrapped it in a white cloth he kept in the glove box. The man’s fingerprints on the knife might identify him and probably confirm what Drake suspected; the man was on someone’s terrorist watch list. His knife fighting style was the fighting style of the Russian Special Forces, but the man was not Russian. More likely, he was Hezbollah and trained by the Russians.

  35

  A few minutes later, he found Liz sitting with Marco Vazquez near the deep end of the pool. From the way the polo star was looking at her, Drake could see she had quickly charmed the young man. He hoped that would work to their advantage when they played good cop, bad cop, because he did not intend to be nice to someone who might have just tried to have him killed.