If he wanted to stay ahead of this mess, he needed some answers, fast.
In the lead Secret Service Suburban, John Mason unloaded on Liz Strobel. “Liz, I’m not sure what we’re doing here, but I think we just stepped in a big pile of shit. We’re removing evidence from a probable crime scene. We can’t hide these bodies for long, and I don’t know what to make of this guy Drake. You don’t take out three men the way he did without special military training. That dog looks like it’s just about as well trained as he is. We’re going to have to know a hell of a lot more about Drake and the men he killed tonight, before I’m willing to let the Secretary come here,” he said.
“I know, John. When we get back to the city, I want you to take the bodies to our field office. See if we can identify any of them. I’ll request a full background check on Drake and arrange to meet with the local Joint Terrorism Task Force sometime today. We have some leeway here, but I want to make sure we’re not just doing a political favor for an old friend of the Secretary.”
In fact, that was one of her biggest concerns. The Secretary and Senator Hazelton were allies in the battle to make the country safer from terrorism. She knew they traded favors from time to time, but that was the way things worked in Washington.
What concerned her now was that Secretary Rallings had involved her in something that might not have anything to do with national security. Drake was smart enough to get his father-in-law to help him cover up manslaughter, at the very least, by pretending it had something to do with terrorism.
She wished she knew more about the man. When she was with the FBI, she’d been around men who had killed in the line of duty. Tough as they were before a shooting, she’d seen numb shock on their faces afterwards. None of them had been as calm as Drake. He didn’t seem to have any reaction or feelings about what he’d done. The only thing she’d noticed was a smoldering look of controlled anger in his eyes.
He hadn’t tried to impress her in any way. She was used to the effect her looks had on men, especially when she was flashing her DHS credentials. Drake hardly seemed to notice. He just made sure she understood what had happened on his farm.
Fascinating, she thought, as she settled back in her seat beside Mason in the lead Suburban. She had a job to do, but if getting to know Adam Drake was part of it, well then, that was just a plus.
Chapter 20
Kaamil stood in the dark, looking down at the lights along the street below that wound through the office park. It was the quiet hour before sunrise. He had spent the night in his office after leaving the house where his three jihadists were preparing to go after the attorney. The three were among the first group of ten trained at their facility east of Mount Hood. Each had proven to be proficient with the weapons they were provided, from knives to rocket-propelled grenades. There was no reason they should have had any trouble killing one attorney asleep in his farmhouse.
But something was wrong. They should have called as soon as the man was dead. A slight delay might be expected, but not a delay of two hours. Kaamil felt the creeping dread of failure swirl around him, like fog rising at sunset.
His cleanup team handled the security chief at Martin Research without a problem, and he expected this team to dispose of the attorney just as easily. If they were arrested, they had the number of an attorney who would immediately notify him. If the mission had to be called off for some reason, they were instructed to call before turning back. None of these things had happened. None of them.
Kaamil took a deep breath and turned back to his desk. He sat down and began another encrypted email to Malik.
The men I sent after the attorney haven’t returned. They haven’t contacted me and I fear they won’t. What do you suggest? K
Twenty minutes after he hit send, his screen signaled a message.
These men must not be traced back to us. Find out what happened and where they are. If they aren’t dead, make sure they are. If they are dead, create a diversion. Call our friends and have them protest Muslim discrimination, profiling and police abuse of deadly force. Turn up the heat and the media will do the work for us. We only need less than a week without interference. Use the fear of bad publicity to slow the police down. M
Kaamil pulled up the list of friends Malik referred to, and began a series of calls. By the time the morning commute was over, there would be an outcry from the Muslim community about three brothers who were missing. The media would pick it up in time for the evening news, and would make the weekend a busy one for every law enforcement agency eager to prove they weren’t responsible.
Once again, Kaamil marveled at the wisdom of their leader.
Chapter 21
Drake woke, after three hours of sleep, and headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Most of what he’d brewed the night before was still in the pot. After two minutes in the microwave, it almost tasted fresh. He added a splash of milk and sat down at the counter to think.
He’d replayed the night in his mind over and over again, from the moment Lancer alerted him to the moment when the Secret Service left. It wasn’t the three men he killed that had troubled his sleep. It was the unknown person who sent them that kept his mind racing through the night.
That and the anger he felt at the return of violence to his life. He had walked away from it in disgust after politics took over the war in Iraq. Now it had returned, uninvited. Tonight had been about reacting, a response learned from experience, and he didn’t regret what he had done. They just picked on the wrong guy. What bothered him most was knowing it wasn’t over, and that he couldn’t walk away from it this time. It wasn’t going to leave him alone until he put a stop to it.
Which meant he had to find out who killed Richard Martin’s secretary. If he found her killer, he would also find out why someone wanted him dead. The only lead he had was ISIS and its manager. He would just have to keep an eye on them, especially the manager.
After a shower and shave, Drake dressed in his casual best-jeans, dark blue T-shirt and his favorite Nikes. He reloaded his.45, threw two spare clips in his gym bag, along with half a dozen protein bars, two liters of bottled water and a pair of old Zeiss binoculars. On the way out, he made sure Lancer had food and water for the day, and left for town in Kay’s Land Rover LR3. If they were watching for his Porsche, her white Land Rover wouldn’t attract their attention.
It took him almost forty-five minutes through morning traffic to reach the office park across SW Meadows Road from the ISIS office building. He found a parking spot with a clear view of the underground parking entrance and exit for the ISIS building, and settled back to watch. It was something he had done many times before.
For an extraction or targeted killing, he and his team would spend weeks watching their target before they made their final plans. In the Middle East, they often watched from a distance, sometimes as far away as half a mile. In Europe, they were able to set up surveillance much closer, being able to blend into the environment. It had been much the same in Central and South America. But the watching was always the same, learning the movements of their target, the comings and goings of the people around him, the routines they followed. Some of the time there were unexpected occurrences, and plans had to be adjusted. But they usually knew enough to know how the target would react to the unexpected.
This time, Drake didn’t know anything about his target, if that’s what he was, and didn’t have a clue about his routine. All he had was a hunch that the ISIS manager, or his company, was somehow involved. Drake watched as cars started driving into the underground parking lot of the ISIS building. Just before the cars turned to descend
