Oath to Defend

by Scott Matthews

  Drake smiled. “I’ll save the rest of the bottle for you,” he said. He came closer to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Other than a headache, not too bad right now. When he starts removing those little pieces of glass with tweezers, I think I’ll be feeling a lot worse.” Gonzalez had found tweezers in the bathroom cabinet and had already removed several large shards.

  “When he gets the bleeding stopped,” Drake said, “we should get you to the hospital.”

  “No. Then we would have to get the police involved, and I don’t want to spend a whole day answering questions about what I’m doing here. Ricardo assures me I’m not going to need major plastic surgery…although,” she admitted, “I was kind of looking forward to a little touch up. And you need my help if we’re going to get these creeps. I want to find that nuke. Adam, I’m starting to feel that you’re right that it’s here.”

  “What about your boss? Want me to call the Secretary and fill him in?”

  “Not yet. I’d like to be the one to tell him what happened. After I tell him we found the bomb, or whatever it is. You go do what you need to do. I’m fine. I’ve been hurt worse than this and lived.”

  “Ricardo, are you okay with this? Does she need to go to the hospital?”

  “Her wounds are bloody but superficial,” the medic said. “I’ll keep an eye on her concussion, but if Ms. Tough Guy says she’s okay, I can’t argue. She wants to finish this. She’s earned the right to do it.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll go check on Larry and see if Billy was able to find anything across the river.”

  Larry Green, the former LAPD officer, was patrolling the perimeter of the cabin when Drake found him.

  “How’s Liz?” Green asked.

  “She’s being brave while Ricardo picks the glass out of her face. She refuses to go to the hospital. Doesn’t want the police involved.”

  “She’s tough,” Green said. “Some FBI guys I’ve met are wimps, too used to wearing suits and not getting their hands dirty. But FBI women are tough. They have to be, to put up with the BS they get from crashing the federal boys club. I think she’s right about not getting local law enforcement involved. If they found out the DHS Secretary’s executive assistant was here and wounded on their turf, they’d be changing their diapers every five minutes and taking statements from now to Christmas.”

  Drake laughed out loud. “Big fan of the F.B.I., are you?”

  “Got tired of fighting with them. We’d do the work, and they’d take over and get all the press.”

  As they rounded the front of the cabin Montgomery, the former Green Beret sniper, drove up in one of the white Yukons. Like Green, he held his HK416 rifle down against his right leg as he approached them.

  “I found where he shot from,” Montgomery said. “Right where you said he was. He was a little too anxious to get out of there, though. I found this in the deep grass.” He held up a rifle cartridge. “Seven-point-sixty-two millimeter hollow point boat tail. I’d say he was using a Dragunov, the Soviet SVD sniper rifle. That wasn’t a stray shot from some hunter.”

  Drake took the cartridge. “Favorite sniper rifle used by the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “I’ve been shot at with one of those before. Let’s get inside and talk. We need to come up with a plan to flush these guys out. I’m tired of being in their sights and not knowing for sure who they are.”

  He stopped at the bedroom to check with Gonzalez and found that Liz seemed to be resting. The medic had used the tweezers, and now the side of her face and neck were covered with small red cuts that had been treated with antiseptic ointment. Her right arm and shoulder were bandaged. Her lips were pressed together and her jaw was clenched, but her eyes were closed and she was breathing evenly.

  “She needs some pain meds,” Gonzalez said, “but she says she doesn’t want anything. What she said is she doesn’t want to be doped up and miss all the fun. That’s one tough lady. I used the medical adhesive glue that I always carry on her cuts. It’s better than stitches and there’s less infection.” He smiled down at her. “She may have some minor scarring, but she can get that touched up later.”

  “Join us in the kitchen,” Drake said. “We’ve got some planning to do.”

  The others were waiting for him. Their weapons were lying on the marble kitchen countertop behind them and Casey was brewing a pot of coffee.

  “It’s time we go on the offensive,” Drake started. “We know about the bunch at the ranch, and we know where Marco Vazquez is staying. But we still don’t know where the guy is that rented the Escalades. What I want to do is stir the pot and see what bubbles up. See what we can learn. Ricardo and Billy, you think you can get back to the ranch tonight and set up surveillance?”

  “Sure we can,” Montgomery said.

  Drake nodded. “Fine, Mike and I will trade off and guard things here tonight and keep an eye on Liz. Tomorrow, I want to put some pressure on Vazquez. He knows more than he’s told us. He might run back to the ranch. If he does, we can use the drone to listen in on conversations there. I also want pictures of the guys taking care of his polo ponies. Liz can run them through the facial recognition and iris scanning biometrics they have at DHS. Its database will tell us if these guys are terrorists or innocent polo pony grooms. I’m betting on the former.”

  “What about that O’Neil who rented the Escalades?” Casey asked. “What are we going to do about him?”

  “Good question. Any ideas?” Drake asked the rest of the men.

  “I’m not sure how we’d do it,’ Casey said after a moment’s thought. “But Escalades come with OnStar. The rental agency can locate its vehicles that way and block the ignition or slow down a stolen car. I might be able to get one of my IT guys in Seattle to hack into the Enterprise Car Rental computer at the Sunriver airport and locate those two Escalades.”

  “Do it,” Drake said. “We need to know who this guy is because he’s involved in some way. Anything else? What am I forgetting?”

  “Me.” The men turned to see Liz standing just outside the kitchen. With one hand on the wall to steady herself, she came forward. “What am I going to do while you boys are finding my nuke?”

  Although she looked like the right side of her face had been attacked by a swarm of angry bees, her glued-together wounds did little to hide the smile on her face as she watched the men’s reaction to her appearance. Drake was the first to reach her. He took her hand and led her to a chair.

  “How’s the headache?” Gonzalez asked.

  “Not too bad. I’m not dizzy or nauseous.” She sat up straighter. “What do I get to do?”

  “Nothing tonight, except get a good night’s rest,” Drake said. “If you’re up to it, you can go with me to see Marco tomorrow.” He smiled. “Your wounds might scare him into telling us what he knows.”

  “Thanks for confirming what I didn’t want to know,” she said, gently punching him in the stomach. “I was going to hide under a ton of makeup, but if you insist, I’ll go au naturale.”

  “Where I come from,” Gonzalez began, “that means—”

  “It means without makeup, Ricardo. Most of your women….”

  “All right, gentlemen,” Drake said. “Let’s leave Ricardo’s love life out of this. It’s time to get Ricardo and Billy ready to go to the ranch. Larry, why don’t you stand guard for now while Mike calls his guy in Seattle and I get Liz a cup of coffee? Tomorrow’s game day.”

  When the rest of the team had left the kitchen, Drake handed her a cup of coffee and said, “Are you sure you feel up to going with me tomorrow? No one will blame you for taking a day to get back on your feet.”

  Liz took a moment to savor the sweet mellow taste of the Kona coffee Drake preferred. “I have a confession to make,” she said, looking up at him. “When I called to tell you about the detection of a nuclear device in San Diego, I really just wanted to know how you were doing. I wanted to thank you again for what you did in Portland. I never intended to get you involve
d like this. I never meant to put you in harm’s way again.”

  He wasn’t sure how to reply. Then, “You gave me the tip about Barak being in Mexico. I’m just returning the favor. Besides, if we find your nuke and I get Barak, we both win. I used to do this kind of thing for a living. You’re the one I’m worried about being in harm’s way.”

  “Adam, do you know why I joined the FBI after law school?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I joined the FBI for the same reason you enlisted in the army the day after 9/11. I chose the FBI because I knew it would be tasked with counterterrorism duties here at home. I wanted to fight them here, just like you wanted to fight them over there. I haven’t regretted my decision, either, so don’t you worry about me being in harm’s way. It’s where I want to be.”

  “What about getting married?” he asked. “Having a family and kids? Do you regret missing out on that?”

  She gave him a tiny smile. “I haven’t given up on that just yet. When I meet the right guy, well, then I guess I’ll have to make a choice. Hopefully, there’s a little time before I have to choose.”

  “You’ll find your guy, Liz. You’re young and beautiful. I’m sure you have a hundred guys in D.C. who would love to settle down with you and raise a family.”

  “Not so young and not so beautiful, especially with all these cuts on my face.” To cover feelings she felt stirring somewhere down deep, she took another sip of coffee. “You really think my face will scare Vazquez into telling us what he knows?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I just said that to encourage you to stay here and rest. You watch the way you turn heads at Pronghorn tomorrow. Tonight, you need to rest and get rid of that headache. You go ahead and sleep in my bed tonight. I’ll find a bed upstairs.”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. “Go get Ricardo and Billy on their way. I’ll finish my coffee and then get some rest.”

  After he left, she relaxed against the back of the chair. With a little luck, she might have to make her choice sooner than she had expected.

  41

  It was two thirty in the morning, three hours before sunrise, by the time Gonzalez and Montgomery reached their observation post on the rimrock above Wyler Ranch. Both men were equipped with night vision optics. Gonzalez was using ATN night vision goggles, Montgomery, an ATN night vision rifle scope mounted on his M24 sniper rifle. They were concealed beneath camouflage netting that matched the brown hues of the rocks and grasses around them.

  Nothing moved below them. The polo ponies were in their stalls, and the ranch hands were asleep in the bunkhouse. But they had already spotted four men sleeping on the ground in sleeping bags beside the long horse trailer.

  “Wonder why these guys are sleeping outside,” Gonzalez muttered.

  “Maybe they don’t get along with the ranch hands,” Montgomery whispered back. Drake said he overheard a couple guys speaking Arabic. A couple of no comprendes from the regulars might have hurt their feelings.”

  “Or they’re practicing for their hajj pilgrimage. Don’t they sleep on the ground under open sky one night before they get up the next morning to gather pebbles to throw at the devil?”

  “Something like that,” Montgomery said. “How good are you with that drone? Will you be able to get it close enough to hear what they’re saying?”

  “I should be able to. With any background noise at all, they won’t hear the seventy-two decibels the drone makes. I can put the thing right over them and the built-in zoom mike on the Sony Handycam will focus the audio recording right on them. Yeah, we should hear them loud and clear. Then we’ll just feed the recordings to Drake and he can translate whatever they’re saying.”

  “Good.” Montgomery took another look around. “We won’t need the drone for awhile, so why don’t you get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye on things. There’s enough moon light, I don’t think I’ll even need to use night vision.”

  “Thanks, Billy. Wake me in an hour.”

  Gonzalez laid his head on his forearm and, like a good soldier, was asleep in minutes.

  His companion studied the area below. The bunkhouse was on the left, fifty yards east of the stables. He could see the door at the front of the long, single-story structure, but he couldn’t tell if there was another door to the rear. There was one window at the end of the building closest to him, and he thought there would probably be another at the other end. There were no windows along the front of the bunkhouse.

  The stables were ahead of his position at eleven o’clock, a hundred yards from the bunkhouse. The paddocks for the horse stalls were empty, and he could look down the open center of the stables to about the middle of the building. There were two overhead light fixtures that lit the interior, and there was a dog that looked like a border collie curled up on a hay bale near the door.

  To the right of the stables at two o’clock was the longest horse trailer he had ever seen. It was silver with black lettering that proclaimed it carried the polo ponies of Marco Vazquez. There were four windows at the rear of the trailer, and a door on the side near the front that opened into what looked like a small sleeping quarters and tack room. Unhitched nearby was an International RXT towing pickup. It was painted in the same silver as the trailer and had the same black lettering.

  In the distance, sitting on a small rise overlooking the fenced pasture that ran along a small creek and single lane road, was the main ranch house. There were no cars that he could see and no indication that it was occupied.

  Montgomery was surprised when Gonzalez suddenly raised his head and checked his watch.

  “You let me sleep for two hours! It’s almost sunrise. You want to grab a few winks before things get started down there?”

  “Looks like it’s too late for that, one of the guys on the ground is getting up.”

  Both men watched as the first horse groomer woke the others and spread a prayer rug on the ground next to his sleeping bag. The others slowly followed, each man spreading a prayer rug and facing toward the southeast.

  “This is their pre-dawn prayer, the fajr,” Gonzalez muttered. “They’re facing toward where they think the Ka’aba in Mecca is located.”

  Montgomery gave an almost soundless whistle. “No wonder they’re sleeping outside. If they woke up the ranch hands each morning before sunrise, someone was bound to get hurt.”

  “Yeah. Keep an eye on them while I get the drone ready.”

  Gonzalez slid back out from under the camouflage netting until he was out of sight from the canyon floor. The Draganflyer X8 drone was carried in a round, black, carbon fiber tube. After unscrewing the cap on the top of the tube, he pulled the drone out and laid it on the ground. With its four arms folded, it was just over twenty-seven inches long. Each arm had two rotors on the end, one above and one below. When the four arms were locked into place, the miniature aircraft was three feet long and three feet wide and had two landing skids and a bullet-shaped body packed with sensors, gyros, GPS, and a lithium polymer battery. Beneath the body of the drone was a mounting bracket for the video camera that was stored in the backpack Montgomery had carried. It also contained the handheld controller and the high resolution video glasses that would allow Gonzalez to see exactly what the drone was seeing.

  When he had the video camera attached, he slipped on the video glasses and held the drone chest-high in front of him. When he switched on the rotors, he gently lifted it into the air and sent it on its way. Using the handheld flight controller, he flew the Draganflyer straight up until it was a hundred feet overhead, then he aimed it out over the rimrock. A minute later, he put the drone in a GPS position hold directly above the four men, who were standing in line waiting to perform their ablutions before they prayed.

  One man held a hose as the others washed their right hands three times, then their left hands three times, then swirled water around in their mouths and rinsed their noses three times. Then they washed their faces, then their arms and hair, their ears, and last their feet. When the
first three men had finished, one man held the hose for the fourth man until he was finished, and then all four returned to their prayer rugs.

  Montgomery used the handheld controller to swing the video camera slowly around the area below, looking for anything that might explain what these Muslim so-called groomers were up to. There were no black Escalades in sight, no weapons lying around, no crate labeled Nuclear Device, Danger.

  As he crawled back under the netting, he saw that Montgomery was watching the telemetry feed from the drone on a handheld ground control station that was recording the video it received in its internal memory.

  “I’ll keep the drone up for another five minutes or so,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t think we’ll hear much from them until they’ve finished their prayers.”

  Montgomery nodded. “We might as well save as much battery life as we can. I think Drake expects us to watch this place until we learn something. Other than confirming these four are Muslims, there’s nothing to report so far, although I’m tempted to call in and see if anyone’s up yet at the cabin.”

  “Not a good idea. The only person awake is likely to be Liz. You get her out of bed with nothing to report, and Drake might keep you out here until it snows in December.”

  “You think he likes her?”

  “Like? I haven’t been around him long enough to answer that. But he’s trying too hard not to look at her like the rest of us do. That tells me he’s trying not to like her, which tells me he does but doesn’t want to allow himself to admit it.”

  “You learn to think like that in counseling or something?” Montgomery asked.

  “Careful observation and a lot of experience. Keep your eyes on our friends. They’ll be finishing up soon.”

  42

  Drake was awake early enough to see the rising sun shining through the slats of the rustic oak plantation blinds in the upstairs bedroom. He’d found an empty bed in Gonzalez’s room and had stretched out fully clothed. But he hadn’t been able to sleep much in the five hours since saying good night to Liz. His Kimber .45 was on the night stand to his right, next to the night vision binoculars he had borrowed from Casey. When he wasn’t standing alternating guard duty, he had searched the area across the river several times to see if the sniper had returned, and when he wasn’t kneeling at the window with the binoculars, he was lying on the bed with his eyes closed, seeing again that flash of reflected light from the sniper’s rifle scope and shoving Liz down. Finally, an hour ago, he had forced himself to close the blinds and get a little sleep. Now, with the sun rising, he was alert and eager to move ahead. This was going to be the day he found out what Marco Vazquez and his friends were up to.