by Rod Collins
The tall agent waited patiently in front of the side door for Cletus to finish gawking and start down the walk. “Welcome, Mister Falls. I understand you’ve been here before. Agent Watkins asked me to tell you she’ll be up this afternoon. Miss Wilson, our house mother had to go into town, so I’m filling in for her. My name is Winslow Butler.” He smiled and added, “Sort of fitting today, don’t you think?”
In spite of himself, Cletus smiled and shook Butler’s hand. “Am I under house arrest, like the last time?”
Butler grimaced and said, “Well, you’ll have the run of the house, most of it at any rate … and you can walk the grounds. You can leave anytime you choose. But for your own safety, it would be a good idea to stay on the property.”
Cletus nodded. “Last time I was confined to my suite, the pool, and the gym. You guys didn’t want me talking to anyone until the raid took place.”
“That was different. This time, we just want to protect you until we settle the score with some people we think are jihadists. Come on in. I’ll show you to your room.”
“If I’m not under house arrest, I’d really like to see the view from the tower.”
“I don’t see any problem with that. Follow me.”
As they climbed the winding stairway to the tower, Butler asked, “Where did you stash your preacher friend, TJ Wildish?”
Cletus’ warning system kicked in, and he said nothing.
Chapter 14
Bad News
BUD DROVE ACROSS the irrigated farm and pasture land, heading west toward the gap in the hills that carried the swift waters of Drews Creek, before Miranda broke a very strained silence.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
“Whatever.”
“No.”
“Okay, then. Tell me about your friend Dell BeBe.”
“A fine man. A good cop. A good friend. A good father. I guess he wasn’t so hot as a husband.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all you’re entitled to.”
Bud’s cell phone vibrated in his shirt pocket. He ignored it until it stopped.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?”
“Nope.”
The vehicle climbed the first hill and up into the pine timber before crossing the Drews Creek bridge.
“I’m sorry about your dog,” she said.
“Are you always this damned intrusive?”
“You know, my first and only husband accused me of being too nosy. Although being nosy about him was the right idea. He was a philandering cheat.
“Anyway, I know I have this terrible habit of just blurting out what I’m thinking. I don’t mean to offend you, but I think you’ve been having a bad day.”
A big mule deer doe jumped out of the willows along the creek bottom and clawed her way up the steep side slope, in a hurry to get across the pavement and back into the timber. He tapped the brakes and slowed enough to let her scramble on out of the way and leap a barbed wire boundary fence.
“That’s just beautiful. What kind of deer is that?”
He shook his head, but she watched a slow smile work on his mouth. “They’re called mule deer because their ears are so much bigger than the other breeds. Must have reminded some early explorer of a flop-eared mule.”
“That’s interesting.” She paused and then added, “My mother said when I was a little girl I told her I wanted to know everything.”
“But she neglected to tell you that silence is golden?”
Miranda laughed. “I think she did say that. But I never listened.”
“How can you be a cop and have so little impulse control?”
“Oh, I have plenty of impulse control when it comes to dealing with criminals. But not with people who are hurting. I saw dog hair on the seat, and I recognized the burial box. My assumption is your dog died.”
He growled, “I could learn to hate cops, if I wasn’t one myself.”
Bud’s cell phone buzzed again and this time he answered it. Dutch said, “Has Special Agent Wright arrived yet?”
Bud growled and said, “Ask her yourself, and next time warn me about your very special agent.” He handed the phone to Miranda and said, “Your boss.”
Bud heard her say, “Miranda,” and then nothing for a good two minutes while she listened to whatever Dutch was saying. Bud couldn’t hear Dutch, but in his peripheral vision he saw Miranda start to speak and then simply nod.
Finally, she said, “I’ll tell him. Thank you, sir.”
She killed the call and handed Bud his phone. “Okay. Let me summarize. Our agents checked the rectory of the Rock of Ages Church in northeast Portland. A neighbor can see the door to the rectory from her kitchen window. She told our agents three young men entered the rectory, and a few minutes later they left carrying what looked to be a PC. Our agents failed to find a computer when they searched a short while later.
“The neighbor says she didn’t call it in because the Reverend Wildish never locks his door, and people are always coming and going. She did say the men felt wrong somehow to her, so she took pictures of them with her digital camera … just in case.”
“Any idea why they wanted the computer?”
“Yes, and it isn’t good. Dell BeBe told my boss he sent the reverend several pictures of his new house and the directions to find it. That’s why our agents went to the rectory in the first place – to make sure the bad guys didn’t find his PC.”
Bud took a deep breath and said, “So someone got there ahead of them.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Hmm … how much time does that give us to prepare a surprise party?”
“Like you did with the thugs Ortega sent your way?”
Bud frowned. “Something like that. I had a lot of help from your SWAT team that time.”
He paused, watching a dark brown Jeep coming at them. The driver waved and Bud waved back. “That’s Jake Abernathy. He owns a house on Drews Reservoir.”
He took a deep breath and said, “I’m thinking I get the reverend and BB safely out of the way, then we bait the trap with an email from BB to TJ saying he’s glad TJ finally decided to come and visit. Finish with something like ‘See you this afternoon.’ I think they’ll be watching for messages, trying to identify TJ’s circle of friends.”
Amanda nodded in agreement. “It will take them at least twenty-four hours to plan an attack, and maybe another twenty-four to forty-eight hours to execute the plan.”
“And what if we’re wrong? What if they come earlier?”
Miranda shrugged. “If they think we don’t know they’re coming, they might get careless. We trap them, whoever they are, and take as many as we can alive.” She nodded. “Yes, alive. These are arrogant people and we might squeeze them for some good intel.”
Suddenly she grinned. “I’ve never been on a stake out.”
“Never?”
“No. I’m an analyst. I sift intel and try to make sense of it – look for patterns to give us a chance to head off terrorist attacks.”
“You any good?”
“If I tell you that, I’ll have to shoot you.”
“And are you armed?”
She patted the briefcase. “I carry a 9mm Sig Sauer auto.”
The big pickup crossed the culvert that carried Dog Creek to Drews Valley, and Bud shook his head. “Ever shoot a shotgun?”
“I have, but I’m more comfortable with one of those,” she said, pointing at the AR-15 clipped to the dash, company for Bud’s 10-gauge shotgun.
“Well, your job for the moment is to help TJ remember who he told what, and to protect the Right Reverend TJ Wildish, if he’s here yet – not get involved in a gun fight.”
***
The deck of the big white house perched halfway up the West Hills of Portland overlooked the downtown skyline and a piece of the Willamette River. Al-Alwani, tall and bearded, in his mid-thirties, watched distant traffic roll across the Ross Island Bridge �
�� before his gaze settled on tree-covered Mount Tabor.
He thought about the open reservoirs on the west flank of the small mountain, huge open cement pools that stored part of the city’s drinking water, and then turned to the small slender man who was his personal servant.
“What do you think, Ali? Shall we poison their water supply?”
The little man shuddered and shook his head. “No. We have to drink the same water, and we might kill our brothers and sisters if we did that.”
“Tempting, though, isn’t it? So easy. They don’t even guard their water utilities.”
He gave the little man an affectionate hug and kissed the top of his head. “Go see if they have had any luck with the Christian’s computer.”
His cell phone buzzed and he opened to a text message. They have pictures of your men who searched the Rock of Ages Church.
“Infidels,” he snarled and threw the phone across the room. The phone smacked a framed picture of the Ayatollah, glass shards spraying across the soft white wool carpet.
“Ali,” he shouted. When Ali poked his head back through the door, he said, “Get the vacuum and clean this up. I have a call to make.”
Chapter 15
Dog Lake
AT THE SIGHT of the clear waters of Dog Lake, Miranda was her voluble self. “Oh, perfect. I can see why Dell BeBe likes this place. Are those pelicans? And look at that green A-frame. It just fits the scenery somehow. Do you know who owns that?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“You actually get to live out here?”
“I have another house close to town, but I spend some of my off-time out here.”
He drove past the driveway to the A-frame, and then turned down a second gravel lane that wandered out through a stand of pine trees to a reddish-colored two-story log home on a point of land pushing out into Dog Lake. BB had the house oriented to catch the morning sun, and to give him a splendid view of the lake.
“Oh, my,” Miranda said. “This is Dell BeBe’s? It’s simply gorgeous.”
Bud pulled up beside a plain green Dodge Neon. A rental, he thought. “Well, it looks like TJ made it.”
The garage door powered up and BB came walking out of the garage. He didn’t wave – just stood there until Bud and Miranda stepped out.
He waited until Miranda closed the pickup door, then said, “You must be Special Agent Miranda Wright.”
“She is,” Bud interrupted. “Talks all the time about everything – non-stop – and asks really personal questions. You two should get along just fine.”
BB raised his eyebrows in question, but all that earned him was a frown from Bud and a smile that made Miranda’s eyes twinkle. She winked and said, “You can learn a lot about a person by their reactions to intelligent questions.”
Bud shook his head and suggested, “It’s the FBI’s new interrogation technique. Talk until the perp confesses just to have some peace and quiet.”
BB smiled. “Pay no attention to the grouch. Welcome to the back of beyond, Agent Wright. TJ is upstairs watching the ducks and complaining it took him a week to make the trip down here.”
He glanced at Bud. “I think you should write him a ticket. He doesn’t even have a driver’s license.”
Bud shrugged. “The car doesn’t look like he hit anything. In Lake County, kids drive before they are old enough to take the driver’s test.”
“TJ said he just followed the slowest car he could find. And the rental car is almost out of gas. He said he gassed up in La Pine, but forgot to gas up in Lakeview.”
Bud laughed and said, “I’ve got a couple of extra gallons in my garage. We’ll get him back to town.”
“Detective Blair,” TJ said when Bud walked into the living room. “It’s been a long time, but I have seen your name in The Oregonian a time or two.”
Bud smiled and held out his hand. “I haven’t been a detective for quite a few years, Reverend, but it’s nice of you to remember me. Let me introduce FBI Special Agent Miranda Wright.”
The sight of the slender, attractive woman had TJ standing as tall as his sixty-seven inches would allow. He thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen: unblemished mahogany complexion, hazel eyes, gleaming white teeth behind lips that even the Right Reverend TJ Wildish thought he might like to kiss.
Miranda smiled and held out her hand. “Reverend. How has your day been going? I understand you drove down. That must have taken quite a few hours. Glad you didn’t get lost getting out here. I was lost from the time we drove into the timber until we found the lake. I was thinking Sheriff Blair might have nefarious designs.”
She took a breath and TJ rushed in with, “Nice to meet you. I understand you’ve come a long way to interview me. I’m working on that,” he said and pointed to a writing tablet open on the granite island, a list of names running down the left side of the page, “trying to remember who I talked to about the Muslim community.”
“That’s a good place to start, but right now I’d die for a good cup of coffee.”
BB said, “I can’t guarantee you’ll like it, but I just brewed a fresh pot.”
Bud smiled and said, “He’s gone Western. Reads too many novels about coffee strong enough to float a horseshoe.”
“You’re just jealous, Honky, because you don’t know how. That weak coffee you brew won’t even float a toothpick.”
Bud just shook his head and walked to the black, granite-topped island. He turned TJ’s notes so he could read the list of names penciled there. One caught his eye and he said, “Tyson James. I remember him. Did some time for a gang shooting.”
TJ nodded. “And converted to Islam while he was in prison. You do know that a great many brothers are recruited and led astray by Muslim convicts. Tyson fell under their spell, but he and I are still friends. I keep trying to help him see the true light.”
“Amen,” Miranda said, and then asked, “Is he the source of your information?”
“Well, I know a great many people in the black community who have gone over to what I call the dark side. The name BB gave to the FBI came to me anonymously, so I’m not sure who helped us.”
BB slid a cup of coffee in front of Miranda. “Thank you. That smell’s wonderful.” She pulled a stool out, sat down, and retrieved the notebook. “Well, Reverend, let’s go over it. Maybe you can remember something or someone you might have overlooked. So … start from the beginning.”
***
Bud caught BB’s eye and pointed to the deck that overlooked the lake. When they were outside, Bud said, “We have a problem. Our old friend, Dutch Vanderlin, called. Said the people looking for TJ searched the rectory before the FBI could get there. A neighbor said three young men took what looked to be a personal computer away with them. So, it’s likely they have copies of your emails, photos of this place, and directions on how to get here.”
