“How was dinner?” Casey asked, with a smirk on his face.
“Her crab cakes were okay,” Drake returned stoically. “How was your evening?”
“That’s it? That’s all you’re saying?”
“That’s all I’m saying? What more do you need to know about my dinner?”
Before Casey could interrogate his friend any further, his cell’s ringtone started up.
“Boss, trouble headed your way,” Spencer Reynolds said softly. “Four men wearing balaclavas and AK 74’s are asking for Drake at the front desk.”
Casey heard gunfire before Reynolds said, “Shit, they just shot the gal at the front desk.”
“Where are you?” Casey asked.
“Behind the bar,” Reynolds said. “I spotted them when they came in.”
“Are you and Ron still armed?”
“Just the concealed carry .45’s you issue.”
“Are they taking an elevator or the stairs?”
“The stairs.”
“You and Ron follow them up. Let’s trap them in the stairwell,” Casey said.
Drake was already taking his Kimber out of his carryon and putting two extra mags in his pocket.
“Four men with AK’s coming up the stairs,” Casey said as he grabbed his .45 from his tote bag and rushed out.
Their room was in the middle of the hallway, thirty yards from the stairwell. Drake got there first, cracked open the door and heard footsteps pounding up the stairs.
“I’ll let them get between floors then let them know we’re here,” Drake said and ran down a half flight of stairs. When he took a quick look, he saw the barrel of an AK 74 turn the corner below, before a face covered with black balaclava peeked around. The AK 74 had a grenade launcher slung under its barrel.
Drake fired one shot where he’d seen the first man’s head and ran back up the stairs and took cover on the right side of the stairwell door.
“Grenade launcher,” he whispered to Casey, as a burst of rounds from the AK struck the wall opposite from where he’d been standing a half flight below.
“Wait for them to come up, or keep them between floors?” Casey asked.
“They get this far, a lot of people will get hurt. Keep them between floors.”
The stairwell got quiet, and then they heard firing from a floor below.
“Ron and Spencer must be drawing fire,” Casey said.
“Before they figure it out, let’s end this,” Drake said and ran back down a half flight of stairs.
When he reached the corner, he stood with his back to the wall with his gun raised in his right hand. Seeing in his mind where he’d seen the first shooter, he slowed his breathing and readied himself. The thousands of rounds he’d fired in the “House of Horror”, the shooting house where he trained for close quarter battle as a Delta Force operator, prepared him for just such a moment.
Drake turned the corner and started down the stairs. The first intruder poked his head out and was knocked back by a 230 grain hollow-point round between the eyes from his Kimber. Continuing down, he saw the first man drug back. Another man jumped around the corner yelling “Allahu Akbar,” and firing wildly.
Drake shot him twice in the head and stepped over his body to reach the landing between floors. When he darted his head around the corner, he saw two more bodies sprawled on the stairs below.
“Spencer, Ron,” he called out. “You okay?”
“Clear down here,” was the answer.
Drake turned to make sure the second man he’d shot was dead and saw Casey doing the same with the first man on the stairs above.
“What the hell is going on?” Casey asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure going to find out,” Drake said. “Did someone call 911?”
“The bartender did. Police should be here by now,” Ron Larson said. “I’ll go down and make sure they know we’re the good guys.”
“Mike, you’d better go up and make sure no one comes down the stairs,” Drake said. “The police need a preserved crime scene. I’m going to look for ID on these guys.”
Drake quickly searched the pockets of the four men and found none of them were carrying anything that would help identify them. He didn’t need a driver’s license or a wallet to know who they were, but wondered if he would be believed.
He could hear the police coming up the stairs and knew they might be able to identify them from their fingerprints. The two he searched sported prison tattoos on the back of their hands in Farsi script. He remembered seeing a similar tattoo on the hand of one of the young men at the youth camp in West Virginia.
Drake joined Casey at the top of the stairs.
“Looks like I need to stay a couple more days, Mike. There’s an attorney who told me it could be dangerous here in D.C. It’s time he learned just how right he was.”
CHAPTER 50
Mohamed Hassan took the call from Jameel Marcus in Layla’s condo, standing on the balcony with a brandy snifter in his hand. The call that he hoped would allow him to celebrate the death of the meddlesome attorney.
“Where are you?” he asked Marcus.
“In the parking lot at his hotel.”
“And?”
“The police are all over the place and my men haven’t come out.”
“Is the attorney dead?”
“No way for me to know, ‘cause I’m not going in there,” Marcus said.
“What happened?”
“Your information was bad!” Marcus shouted. “That’s what happened. We waited for him to come out to the white Tahoe you tracked, but he never did. Then he drives up at midnight in a second white Tahoe and went in before we could stop him. I had to send them into the hotel.”
“Leave and get back to the camp,” Mohamed ordered. “We’re almost finished, but I may need to use you one more time.”
He stayed on the balcony, looking out at the symbol of all that he hated about America, its Capitol Building in the distance. He swore to Allah he wouldn’t leave until the attorney was dead. There were things he needed to make sure happened, though, before he allowed himself that pleasure.
His Egyptian lover confirmed that the CIA had the sheikh from Bahrain on its short list of suspected proxies working for Iran. It was only a matter of time before they found the money trail he created that linked the sheikh to the MANPADS being used by Allah’s Sword.
Then, with the president’s closest advisor whispering in his ear that it was time to deal with Iran, once and for all, he could sit back and enjoy his accomplishment. He would be remembered as the warrior who single-handedly destroyed the Persian threat, and restored Sunni Muslims to their rightful place as the true heirs of Muhammad, peace be upon Him. America would do what they lacked the might to do, for now.
When America’s strike on Iran was underway, there were some unfortunate sacrifices that had to be made. His cousin, Mark Hassan, and his boss, John Prescott, would have to be killed. Indirectly, they both knew too much about him. They were easy to manipulate; Mark with his eagerness to please the Muslim Brotherhood, and Prescott with his pride and insatiable greed.
The youth camps spread across America would also need to be sacrificed. It had been costly over the years to provide the resources that helped Sheikh Qasseer build up his army, but with the destruction of Iran, the Brotherhood would stand supreme in the Muslim world.
The real debate among the leadership was over the future of Layla Nebit. Her career was carefully crafted and promoted, and her influence in America was greater than they ever dreamed it could be. On a personal level, she knew too much about him and that was a threat to his own future. Despite the wishes of the council, he’d decided she would have to die accidentally in a way untraceable to him.
Until then, he would enjoy a taste of the rewards he knew would soon be his.
Re
turning inside, he went to the bottle of excellent cognac on the side bar and refilled his snifter.
“Are you coming back to bed?” he heard Layla say from the bedroom.
“In a moment, I have one last call to make.”
Mohamed returned to the balcony and called the head of security at the Venezuelan embassy.
“Raul, it’s me,” he said. “You need to collect the tracker you were using before it’s found. It didn’t go as I’d hoped.”
“So I hear. My information is that you lost four men and the target is still alive.”
“True,” Hassan admitted. “Thanks for your help. Allow me to return the favor.”
“Oh, I will, my Muslim friend. We share a common enemy. I’m sure we’ll find a way for you to return the favor.”
Mohamed finished his cognac and headed to the bedroom. His work was not yet finished for the night.
CHAPTER 51
After hours of being questioned by first the Metropolitan Police and then by the FBI, Drake secured their release early the next morning by calling Liz. He asked her to call in any favors she might be owed by the FBI or her former employer, the Department of Homeland Security.
Fortunately, her former position at DHS and her current as the national security advisor for Senator Hazelton was enough to gain their freedom, with a stern admonition not to leave the city.
Drake convened an after-action debriefing at an all-hours diner nearby. When they all had coffee and were waiting for their breakfast orders to be delivered, he began by thanking Casey’s two men for being alert.
“If you hadn’t let us know they were coming, we wouldn’t have made it to the stairwell in time. You saved a lot of lives last night, including ours,” Drake told them.
“We were lucky, that’s all,” Spencer said.
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Drake said. “Mike hired you because of your training and experience. You’re good at what you do.”
“From what I saw, you and Mike handled things pretty efficiently as well,” Ron added.
“Well, I’m just glad you’re all safe,” Liz said. “The FBI will probably call this drug-related or gang activity. Did you tell them what you thought was going on?”
“We didn’t think that was a good idea,” Casey said, “after our trip to West Virginia. Besides, what are the local cops going to do about a terrorist camp?”
“Mike,” Drake asked, “How well stocked is that armory you keep on the jet? I doubt we’ll get any of our weapons returned anytime soon, even though Puget Sound Security is licensed as a Private Protective Services company.”
“And as such, we’re well enough stocked to equip all of us with M45 CQBP’s, if we need them. There’s also a box of the CRKT G10 knives if anybody wants one.”
“What now?” Liz asked. “It sounds like you’re gearing up for war.”
“Just being careful,” Drake said. “We didn’t ask for this, but were not going to walk away from it either. There’s a lawyer at the Prescott Group I need to see, and then we’ll go from there. The police and FBI just want the shooters. I want to know who sent them and why.”
After the adrenaline rush from the attack at the hotel, the four men attacked their food when it arrived as if they hadn’t eaten in days.
With a forkful of steak and eggs halfway to his mouth, Casey asked, “Liz, did you find any connection with the sheikh in Bahrain to these camps?”
Liz shook her head. “Not yet. We know the first camp in New York was started by the sheikh, but it was later purchased by the foundation. The name changed a few times, but the American Muslim Youth Camp Foundation picked up the ball and expanded the project as a non-profit charitable program all across the country. It’s received awards for working with inner city youth, mainly from Muslim groups. After his initial involvement, it doesn’t appear the sheikh was involved. It was probably too public a venture.”
Drake raised his coffee cup to a passing waitress, asking for a refill, and said, “I imagine these same Muslim groups were the ones who complained about the FBI keeping an eye on the camps, and got the administration to cancel the surveillance.”
“Probably,” Liz acknowledged. “The administration bends over backwards to reassure Muslims they aren’t being profiled as terrorists because of their religion.”
“If they’re out there training kids to be martyrs in the name of their religion, they’re terrorists in my book,” Casey snorted. “Will we ever pull our heads out of the sand and wake up?”
“I know, Mike, I know,” she said.
“All right,” Drake interrupted, “let’s focus on what we need to do next. Arguing the pros and cons of profiling isn’t going to help us. Although, I think we could learn a lot from the Israelis about identifying the enemy.”
“Liz,” he continued, “I asked Senator Hazelton to see what he could find out about Mohammad Hassan. Do you know if he’s learned anything?”
“Not that I know of, but I’ll check.”
“Mike, you were going to see if Kevin could follow the accounts in the London bank to the foundation. Did he find anything yet?”
“I’ll check after breakfast, unless you want me to do it now.”
“Let’s finish eating,” Drake said. “It’s been a long night. I’m going back to the hotel and take a shower, before I visit Hassan Number One. We’ll regroup this afternoon.”
As they were leaving the diner, Liz put her hand on Drake’s arm and pulled him aside.
“Mark Hassan threatened you, so please be careful,” she said.
“I will. He may know something, but he’s not the type to get his own hands dirty. I’ll be fine.”
“Make sure you are,” she made him promise.
CHAPTER 52
Mohamed Hassan left Layla’s bed early in the morning and drove to McLean, Virginia. His cousin, Mark, lived in a modest townhouse he’d leased for the last several years, and Mohamed wanted to arrive before he left for his office.
It was just a matter of time before the police or the attorney questioned his cousin about the young men killed at the hotel. They would quickly discover they were from the foundation’s youth camp in West Virginia. His cousin was a true believer, but he was also a liability.
Mohamed parked a white Camry in front of the red brick townhouse. He kept the car in a storage unit for times when he didn’t want to be identified. He walked to the front door. Cousin Mark lived alone and Mohamed knew he didn’t have a current lover. He hoped this morning there wasn’t a new one to complicate things.
Mark Hassan wore a white shirt and tie when he opened the door, with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Cousin,” he said with surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Mohamed brushed past him. “We need to talk.”
“Sure, would you like some coffee?”
Mohamed nodded and walked on to the kitchen at the back of the first floor. While his coffee was being poured, he took off his coat, hung it over the back of a chair at the dining table and remained standing.
“Has the attorney from Oregon been back to see you?” he asked when his coffee cup was handed to him.
“He came to my office yesterday, why?”
Mohamed tasted his coffee and asked, “What did he want?”
“He informed me his client wasn’t willing to sell his ranch so it could be used as a paramilitary training camp.”
Mohamed choked on the coffee he was swallowing. “How could he possibly know that?”
“How should I know?” Mark Hassan said defensively, and leaned back against the kitchen counter.
Mohamed searched his cousin’s face for any sign that he was lying, and saw that he wasn’t. After last night, it wouldn’t be long before he concluded that cousin Mark and the foundation were more than a charitable nonprofit working with Muslim youth.
“Mark, you put me in a very difficult position,” he said and set his cup of coffee on the counter. “Jameel sent four of his best men to kill the attorney last night at his hotel. The attorney survived, but all four of Jameel’s men were killed.”
“What? Why would Jameel do that?”
“Because I told him to,” Mohamed said softly.
He watched his cousin process the news.
“You’re the one shooting down the planes, you and Sheikh Qasseer?”
“I’ve been planning this operation for three years,” Mohamed said calmly. “The council approved the plan and put me in charge.”
“But why involve me and the foundation?” Mark Hassan asked. “You could have left us out of your plan and worked directly with the sheikh? This will ruin everything we’ve worked on here.”
“Sometimes it’s necessary to sacrifice smaller plans, so that bigger ones can succeed.”
“Does that mean sacrificing me as well?”
Mohamed moved in front of his cousin. “I’m afraid if does, cousin.”
“Is that why you’re here, Mohamed?” Mark Hassan asked, standing up straight and glancing toward the front door.
Mohamed put his hands on his cousin’s shoulders and answered sadly, “I wish there was another way. Your choice is to die for Allah this morning and go straight to paradise. Or, you can wait to be arrested and waste away in an American jail until you eventually die. Then you’d spend time in hell praying for your sins before being allowed into paradise.”
Mark Hassan slumped back against the counter and began sobbing. After several minutes, he regained his composure and asked his cousin, “Will you allow me to purify myself?”
“Of course.”
After the rite of ghusil was performed and Mark Hassan’s full body was washed in the required manner, he prayed and did as Mohamed Hassan directed.
Sitting in a chair in his bedroom upstairs facing Mecca, he put the pistol he was given to his temple and shot himself.
Mohamed Hassan rushed downstairs to a laptop in his cousin’s study and prepared a suicide note. The note contained a confession for taking a small commission from money received from contributors to the American Muslim Youth Camp Foundation. The note also asked forgiveness for interfering with the work and the goals of Sheikh Qasseer in Bahrain.
Call It Treason (The Adam Drake series Book 4) Page 17
