“I thought these were only available to the military,” Drake said, as he examined the goggles.
“I still have connections,” Casey answered proudly. “How do you think I got a hold of that Special Forces Precision Sniper Rifle I used in Oregon at the Top Gun training?”
Drake put the goggle headset on and turned the system on. “This is something,” he said as he switched from image intensification to thermal imaging.
Casey strapped on his preferred Colt M45 CQBP pistol in a drop leg holster, and slung a tactical rifle across his chest in a tactical harness. “And this is a Les Baer ‘Police Special’ tactical rifle I’m trying out for the company.”
“You sound like a kid in a candy shop,” Drake said. “Trying out any piece of new gear that catches your eye.”
That made Casey laugh. “You’re catching on, amigo. I love my job. Why don’t you join me? Come be my in-house attorney. You could help me evaluate all the cool new stuff vendors keep trying to sell me.”
Drake checked his watch, put on his black watch cap, and started across the road. “Let’s go, Mike. We can talk about it later. I’d like to be out of here before the sun comes up.”
The road provided the northeast boundary for the youth camp, and ran along a heavily wooded section of Red Spruce. From the Google Earth views Drake had seen, beyond the fifty yards or so of trees the property opened onto a small flat meadow about the size of a football field. It then rose steeply to the top of the camp and the buildings there.
Drake signaled for Casey to follow on his right flank and moved into the cover of the forest. The spruce needles on the ground provided a soft and scented surface that allowed them to move quietly through the area. When they reached the edge of the meadow, both men stopped and stared ahead.
The sight was a familiar one. At the far end of the meadow, a shooting range was backstopped by the steep slope rising above it. Targets were set close to the firing line for pistols, on a range set in front of a bank that had been dug into the bottom of the hill.
To the left of the shooting range was a PT area, complete with an overhead climbing ladder and a 20-foot rope climbing wall. A sand-floored fighting pit lined with sand bags and a crude roofless “shooting house” made of green-painted plywood walls was to the right of the shooting range. There was an equipment shed beside the “shooting house”.
“Looks like they’re training these kids to be good little soldiers,” Drake heard Casey say through the bone conduction microphone in his ear canal linked to the Motorola 2200 Combat Radio on his belt.
“The camp manager said they were teaching them skills they needed to survive. He forgot to mention it was survival on the battlefield.”
Drake searched the meadow to see if any of the soldiers-in-training were lurking about.
“You see anyone?” he asked Casey.
“Not down here. Look up on the ridge.”
Drake saw movement on the ridgeline behind a line of trees. When he switched to thermal imaging in his goggles, he saw the red center mass of bodies spaced every twenty yards along the ridgeline. Their extremities were shades of green and blue, and in flashes he saw faces in white where heat escaped in the cold from their uncovered faces. When he switched back to night vision, he saw they were armed.
“You see what they’re carrying, Mike?”
“Looks like AK-74’s to me. Are they practicing guard duty or waiting for us?”
“Only one way to find out. I’ll go left, you go right. Let’s see how close we can get. Their reaction will give them away.”
Drake moved from tree to tree until he reached the side of the meadow and started toward the PT area at the far end.
“You ready to advance?” he asked.
“Ready when you are,” Casey answered.
Drake sprinted to a spruce twenty yards away at the side of the meadow and stopped. He looked across the meadow and saw Casey find his own tree to hide behind.
In the next ten minutes, they leap-frogged along the sides of the meadow until Drake reached the climbing wall and Casey was behind the equipment shed on the other side.
“What now?” Casey asked.
“There’s a path leading from this side of the PT area to the ridge above. They would expect us to use it. Let’s meet at the shooting range and see about that slope below the ridgeline.”
Drake crouched down behind the climbing wall. From there, he watched Casey dart to a raised platform at the far end of the shooting range. It looked like the camp used a range master on a platform to maintain range safety, which meant the kids here were getting a better training than most of the jihadi camps in the Middle East he’d seen.
“Mike,” he said softly, “work around your side of the range. I’ll meet you behind the middle of those target stands.”
Drake got there first. Looking up, the ridgeline rose sixty or seventy feet above the meadow where more red spruce stood sentinel. The slope up to the ridgeline was thickly covered with an evergreen shrub he recognized as a species of rhododendron, standing six to ten feet tall.
“When we get up there,” Casey said, as he moved next to Drake and looked up, “we’ll be right under them. If they turn those 74’s on us, these rhodies won’t provide much cover.”
“Then what about just poking the hive, see how it reacts?”
“Poking them with what?”
“I’ve got Crimson Trace laser grips on my Kimber,” Drake said. “I could sneak a little closer and light one up. Put a red dot, center mass, on one and watch.
“And you might start a war. They’re not going to know you don’t intend to shoot.”
“If I’m right about this place, they will come after us, but they won’t shoot. They’ll want to catch us and find out how much we know.”
“Hell of a way to confirm your suspicion.”
“Do you have a better idea?’ Drake asked.
“No.”
“When we get through these rhodies, find a place to cover me. Be on the side of the slope above the shed where you took cover. I’ll get as close as I can, mark one with my laser and join you as fast as I can. If they come after me, they’ll come down the trail over there. We’ll make our way out the way you came in and watch from the forest.”
“Rules of engagement?” Casey asked.
“Survive, evade, and escape.”
CHAPTER 38
Drake moved up the slope, picking his way around tall, wild rhododendron plants. The earth was soft and he was able to move quietly, stopping every ten yards to search for movement. If he didn’t see any, he switched from the green-tinted night vision view to thermal view by reaching up and switching his NIV goggles. If it was clear, he moved on.
The steep slope leveled off above him and a stand of spruce trees provided a barrier separating the lower meadow and training area from the rest of the camp. The bodies he saw standing guard duty were stationed in a line among the trees, their AK 74’s at port arms twenty-five yards away.
Drake dropped to the ground and low crawled to his right until he had a clear line of sight to the sentries. They were all dressed alike; dark colored berets, dark military fatigue jackets, pants, and boots.
One sentry, taller than the others, walked slowly behind the line from one end to the other. He stopped occasionally and leaned his head close to the ear of one of his sentries, like a drill sergeant instructing his troops. He would be the one to target, Drake decided.
He slowly pulled his Kimber from its holster. When his target moved between the two sentries closest to Drake, he took aim and switched on his laser.
The man took three steps before he stopped and dropped his chin to look at the red dot on the middle of his chest. It took a split second to recognize the red dot for what it was, and then he darted behind the closest tree and blew a whistle.
Drake scrambled back a couple of yar
ds and took off running diagonally down the slope, dodging the tall rhododendron plants like a running back breaking clear of the line of scrimmage. From behind the line of trees at the top of the slope, he heard the sound of multiple 4-stroke engines firing up.
He reached the edge of the slope and ran into the cover of the spruce trees bordering the meadow.
“Keep heading down,” Casey instructed in his ear bud. “And move deeper into the trees. They’re coming down the trail on ATV’s with lights blazing. They think you’re still on the slope and they’re trying to block your escape.”
Drake ran on and joined Casey at the far end of the meadow. From there, they watched as four ATV’s raced down and took position along the shooting range line. Each ATV had lights on its front brush guards and atop its roll bars. Facing the slope above, the combined candle power from all the lights lit up the area, casting tall shadows all the way up the slope.
One man in each ATV stood from the passenger side and sighted his AK-74 over the top of the roll bar at the slope above. The driver in each ATV kept the engine running, waiting to chase down the intruder.
“They were waiting for us,” Drake said, when he’d caught his breath and reached his friend.
“This isn’t a boy scout camp,” Casey whispered. “These guys are well-trained.”
“Well-equipped, too,” Drake said, as he watched the driver in the first ATV down the trail step out with a bullhorn and walk out in front of the others.
“There’s no place to run,” the man shouted. “You are trespassing. We have the right to use deadly force against you. Come out now and we’ll talk.”
The man with the bullhorn returned to his ATV and stood beside it. He remained there for another minute, and then walked back out in front of the line and raised the bullhorn again.
“In three minutes,” he announced calmly, “my men will begin shooting. Come out now or suffer the consequences.”
Drake leaned closer to Casey and said, “Let’s get out of here. They’ll figure it out soon enough that I’m not up there.”
Before they reached the road, they heard the AK-74’s open up on full auto and keep firing until their 30 round magazines were empty.
When they reached their Tahoe, Casey stowed his rifle on the floor behind his seat and had the engine running before Drake slid in beside him. Both men kept their night vision goggles on as they drove off without turning on the SUV’s headlights.
“Let’s keep the lights off until we’re down to the paved road,” Drake said. “We shouldn’t run into a sheriff on patrol this far out.”
“As soon as we’re clear, we need to get out of these clothes,” Casey said. “Someone will report hearing the shooting. We’ll be suspected of hunting at night if we’re stopped. I’d rather spend the night back at our hotel than in some local jail.”
Casey drove down the dirt road as fast as he dared, until they came to the intersection with the paved country road that led to the city of Romney and the highway back to D.C.
“Mike, turn left. This road will run back to the highway about twenty miles east of Romney. Turning right takes us back through the town, and they probably have someone there spotting for them. They weren’t surprised to see us tonight.”
“Maybe they were hoping you’d bring Liz back with you,” Casey joked. “All these horny adolescents cooped up out here.”
Drake started to remind his friend of what they’d learned about the sexual practices of young men in Afghanistan, and thought better of it. There was plenty to think about on the drive back, without polluting their minds with those thoughts.
CHAPTER 39
Mohammad Hassan was in his office in the Evening Star building in D.C. when Jameel Marcus reported in from the youth camp in West Virginia. He took out the burner phone he was using at the moment and listened.
“The trip north was successful. I’m home.”
“I saw of your success,” Hassan said. “Was your return uneventful?”
“Completely.”
“What about the party when you returned?” Hassan asked.
“We were not able to celebrate as planned.”
“Did your guest arrive?”
“He did, but didn’t stay long.”
Hassan swore, set the phone down on his desk and paced around it. When he regained control of his anger, he sat back down and picked up the phone.
“Are you’re sure it was the guest we expected?”
“My spotter at the truck stop recognized him when he stopped for coffee,” Marcus answered.
“What did he see?”
“The training facility on the meadow.”
“Nothing else?”
“I’m told that’s all.”
“Are you sure?”
“I met with each of my men separately. They told the truth.”
Hassan knew how Marcus sought the truth from his men; with a gun to their head.
“Send four men to me at daylight. Have them call when they arrive. I’ll locate your guest so they can deliver the party gifts he didn’t stay around for,” Hassan instructed and ended the call.
He looked at his watch, a new Patek Philippe Calatrava he treasured, and saw that he was late for his tryst with the lovely and demanding Layla. Knowing how the White House reacted to the third jetliner being shot down was critical to his plan.
The president followed the advice of his advisor and pointed the blame for the acts of terrorism on Syria. The MANPADS launch tubes recovered from the first two downed jetliners had, indeed, provided evidence for that. The MANPADS were from the same lot smuggled out of Libya by the Brotherhood. They were not the ones that were sold back to the CIA for supply to the Syrian rebels. They were the ones from the same batch he sold to the crazy Sheikh Qasseer in Bahrain.
The next step was to get the MANPADS traced back to Sheikh Qasseer, and not Syria. He needed the U.S. to take a closer look at the sheikh’s relationship with Iran. The endgame was to get the U.S. to wake up and get serious about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Muslim nations in the region could not afford to have a nuclear Iran dominate the region.
It was a dangerous game, to be sure, but if a few hundred passengers on these jetliners had to be sacrificed to provoke the sleeping giant, so be it. They were, after all, infidels who would be sacrificed eventually when the caliphate was restored.
Before he left his office, Hassan made a quick call to a man only few knew served the cause as he did.
“Raul, do you recognize my voice?” Hassan asked. Raul was the cover name the man used.
“Yes,” Carlos Mora, chief of security for the Venezuelan embassy in Georgetown, said.
“I need to have a man followed. He’s staying near you in the Savoy Suites Hotel.”
“How soon?”
“Tonight if possible,” Hassan said.
“It will be expensive. I’ll have to pay my men personally.”
“Your fee will be deposited in your Cayman account.”
“Send his picture to me, and I’ll see to it.”
“A pleasure as always, Raul,” Hassan said. He met Carlos Mora through the man he knew as Ryan Walker, their financial facilitator.
Hassan took a moment to think through the list of things left to do. He considered, and then decided against, warning Walker about the need to sacrifice the foundation. The link from the youth camps to Sheikh Qasseer needed to be discovered by the Americans if the plan was to work. Walker was the best in the world at illicit money transfer, and didn’t need a warning to be careful. It was still a risk, though. If Walker’s link to the foundation was discovered, it would eventually lead to a money trail connecting most of the major terrorist groups and drug cartels in the world.
Warning Layla about the need to sacrifice the foundation was another matter. They used her relationship w
ith John Prescott to set up the foundation, as a conduit for funding the various Muslim Brotherhood front groups in America.
Prescott was omnipotent in Washington as a lobbyist, and his reputation was above reproof. He might survive and be able to insulate himself from the fallout when the true nature of the youth camps was discovered. If he didn’t, he would be sacrificed along with the foundation.
Layla’s influence and role as a trusted advisor of the current president in the White House probably would not survive. As much as he enjoyed her beauty and the pleasure she gave him, he wasn’t willing to risk his plan to save her position. He also wasn’t completely confident she would willingly sacrifice her position of power so his greater plan could be successful. The problem was keeping her loyal to him and not to herself.
She was committed to the Muslim Brotherhood’s long-term goals for subverting America from the inside out, the Project, as they called it. He too shared the belief that America would eventually destroy itself from within, with its decadence and greed. But the events of the Arab Spring had advanced the timetable for dealing with an even greater threat to the vision of the Brotherhood; the resurgence of the Shias. Iran had to be dealt with, and the might of armies of the West were regrettably necessary to do that before it was too late.
He was humming Eric Clapton’s “Layla” as he drove out of the basement parking garage on the way to her condo. As sad as he felt about the woman’s future prospects, he intended to make the best of the situation, at least for one more night.
CHAPTER 40
Monday morning, after hearing about their exploits in West Virginia, Liz invited Drake and Casey to meet her for breakfast at the Tabard Inn on N Street NW. The 1880’s town house was converted into a hotel and restaurant and, according to Liz, remained one of the best places in Washington to enjoy breakfast and a little history.
When they were seated near a window at the far end of the main dining room, Liz was anxious to talk about the American Muslim Youth Camp Foundation.
Call It Treason (The Adam Drake series Book 4) Page 13
