Oath to Defend Read online

  “Mike, it’s me. Got a minute?”

  “Let me call you right back. I’m interviewing a SEAL who thinks he’s good enough to work for me. Shouldn’t take me long to convince him otherwise.”

  Drake laughed. Mike Casey had been one of the U.S. Army’s best aviators when he was with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the Night Stalkers. When his skill with a rifle, developed shooting varmints as a boy in Montana, had caught the attention of Special Operations Command while he flew support for a Delta Force unit in Afghanistan, he’d been invited to selection at Ft. Bragg. After qualification and the six-month operators’ training course for the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, he’d been assigned to a team. Another member of that team was a young operator from Oregon named Adam Drake. Their team had been recognized as one the most successful hunter/killer teams to ever operate in the Middle East.

  Drake and Casey had left the army after being interrogated by military investigators for three days. A tribal leader claimed that an al Qaeda commander killed in his village had been tortured and humiliated before being executed. But Mike had shot the terrorist from a hill 1800 meters away, with his Barrett M82 .50 caliber rifle, and the team had never been within a hundred yards of the guy. The interrogation and veiled threats of court martial, however, had been the last straw. Both men had agreed it was time to leave.

  Drake had enlisted in the army a week after being admitted to the Oregon State Bar and two days after 9/11. After leaving the army, he returned to Oregon and went to work for the district attorney in Portland. Casey had found work with a small security firm in Seattle, whose biggest client was Microsoft. Five years later, after his parents had sold off most of the family ranch and loaned him what was basically his inheritance, he’d bought the business. Since then, he had expanded the services of the firm to include executive protection, electronic surveillance, investigations, and risk management. Headquartered in Seattle, with offices in seventeen cities, Casey’s company was now the largest security firm on the west coast, with a fleet of three Gulfstream G280s. Drake’s iPhone started playing his ringtone before he even had time to walk to his bedroom and begin packing for Mexico.

  “Since you’re calling from your own phone,” Casey said, “and not from the county jail, I’m guessing you’re still a free man.”

  “For the moment. How’d it go with the swabbie?

  “I hired him. Good skill set, recently married, looking for a quieter life. I think he’ll fit in.”

  “You promised him a quieter life?”

  Casey laughed. “For a while, his wife’s three months pregnant. So what’s up?”

  “Is there a G280 available to fly me to Cozumel?”

  “Not the place to go, I hear, if you want to avoid cartel gang fights.”

  “DHS just called. A DEA agent spotted Barak’s bodyguard near Cancun. Secretary Rallings is keeping his word and letting me have a shot at him.”

  Casey whistled. “Letting us have a shot at him, you mean. That SOB almost killed me, too, you know. How soon do you want to leave? And what should I bring? Want me to bring the team we had in Portland last month?”

  “Mike, I can’t ask you to do that. I don’t know how long this might take. And I don’t know if DHS will pick up the tab. I offered to go alone.”

  “That is not going to happen,” Casey shot back. “We’ll work out the finances. This guy’s too good, and probably too well protected, for you to get him by your lonesome. Do we know anything about where he’s hiding? What protection he might have?”

  “I don’t know much at this point,” Drake admitted. “He’s staying at some resort south of Cancun. His bodyguard is the only one they’ve seen.”

  “If his bodyguard’s there, he’s there. I’ll round up the team and be at the Hillsboro airport at nine o’clock tonight. We’ll red-eye to Cozumel and find our terrorist. Get a couple more rooms where you’re staying and tell Margo not to worry. I’m going with you.”

  Drake appreciated his friend’s confidence. Based on their track record, he knew he should feel the same way. But taking down the men behind the terror plot had always proven more difficult than just stopping the foot soldiers.

  4

  David Barak, aka Malik, or Leader to his followers, took the envelope from his bodyguard, nodded his thanks, and looked out over the white sand of the beach and the blue Caribbean water. The view was stunning from the deck of the Presidential Oceanfront Suite he had rented for the month. At five thousand dollars a night and with ten thousand square feet of pure luxury, he doubted his pursuers would think to look for him hiding in the open among the world’s elite travelers.

  Barak was used to luxury, at least for the last fifteen years or so. But he still felt guilty for living like a king. He had committed himself to a warrior’s life at an early age after watching his father gunned down by Jews in Egypt. His father had worked with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to liquidate the Jews on behalf of Adolf Hitler. When that war was over, the Jews had found them living under the protection of Gamal Abdul Nasser. At the age of four, young Barak had witnessed his father being beaten and killed in the street in front of their house by a team of Jew assassins. And he had vowed that day, and each night thereafter in his evening prayers, to become just like the young Jews: a merciless assassin killing his enemy.

  The message was from a man who called himself Ryan and was his current liaison with the Aryan organization operating out of South America. For a fee, the Alliance, as it called itself, coordinated the enterprise of the drug cartels with the goals of the Islamic worldwide jihad. The Alliance also supplied its clients around the world with armament and materiel.

  Not often like the armament Barak had recently ordered, however. He needed a Soviet tactical, nuclear, demolition device. It was designed to be carried in a special backpack by one man. This particular device, which had gone missing after the breakup of the Soviet Union, had been purchased by the Alliance from an element of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Iran had been eager to find someone who would use it against America, and Barak was chosen to be that someone. He had a plan that would make the death toll from the Twin Towers look insignificant in comparison. Ryan was bringing him the details of the nuke’s voyage to America.

  Barak opened the envelope and read the note, which was nothing more than a telephone number for the Intercontinental in Cozumel and Ryan’s room number. Barak opened his cell phone to call his contact.

  “Hello, Ryan, welcome to the Riviera Maya. I won’t be able to meet you today. I suggest you take the nine a.m. UltraMar ferry tomorrow and go see the wonderful walled city of Tulum. When you return, call me and we’ll arrange to meet.”

  “I did not come all this way to see a ruin.”

  “And,” Barak replied, “I did not arrange for you to come all this way so that I could be found by our friends. Make the trip, have a good time, and prove to me that all will be well for us to meet here in Mexico.”

  “As you wish.”

  Barak closed his phone, smiling at the annoyance he’d heard in Ryan’s voice. The last time they had met, he had been the one summoned to Aruba to receive orders from his Muslim Brotherhood sponsors. The Brotherhood had guided his early career in terrorism, loaned him the money to start his security firm in Las Vegas, and suggested the assassination plot to kill the Secretary of Homeland Security. Barak had understood their need to use a courier to bring him instructions, but he resented Ryan’s condescending tone. The Nazis had used the Arabs as their servants in the Middle East to carry out Hitler’s commands, but the Nazi progeny seemed to forget they were the servants now.

  “Jamal,” he called out to his bodyguard, “bring a bottle of Scotch and some ice. Let’s discuss your trip to Tulum tomorrow before we have dinner. I’m going for a quick swim.”

  Barak learned to swim at an early age. Now, at sixty five, he swam whenever he had the chance, especially when it was in the ocean. Walking back across the warm white sand a
fter an invigorating fifteen minutes in the Caribbean, he saw that Jamal had a towel waiting for him on his deck chair and ice in a crystal tumbler on the table beside it.

  “Ryan will arrive at Playa Del Carmen ferry terminal at ten a.m. tomorrow,” Barak said as he dried off. “Follow him to the ruins and see if anyone is following him. Alliance men are careful, but their enemies are everywhere. It would be ironic, to say the least, if he led the Israelis to us after all these years.”

  Lowering himself into the deck chair, he inhaled the aroma of citrus and ripening peach from the ten-year-old Glenmorangie Scotch Jamal had poured for him.

  “What do you want me to do if he’s being followed?” the bodyguard asked.

  “Do nothing tomorrow. If he’s being followed, we’ll arrange a meeting with him that will end any trail back to us. Now call the restaurant and have them send over a grilled grouper dinner with a side of garlic shrimp for me and order whatever you want. The possibility of a little action is making me hungry.”

  As his bodyguard went inside to order their dinners, Barak sipped his scotch. If his Alliance contact was clean, he would soon know if he possessed a weapon that would cripple America.

  5

  The flight from Oregon to Cozumel in the Gulfstream G280 Casey had borrowed from his company took them less than six and a half hours. They landed at the Cozumel International Airport at sunrise and took a hotel van to the InterContinental Cozumel as soon as they cleared customs. The Yucatan Peninsula and the Mayakoba Resort were just twelve miles across the Cozumel Strait.

  As they entered the lobby of the five star hotel, Drake pulled his friend aside. “I checked the ferry schedule on my iPhone while we were in the van,” he said. “There’s a ferry over to the Playa Del Carmen terminal that leaves at nine a.m. I’d like to be on it. Why don’t we get checked in and meet in the restaurant for breakfast?”

  “Great. My stomach needs attention. I’ll let the guys know.”

  “Your stomach always needs attention,” Drake said.

  Like a lot of tall, thin men, Casey’s metabolism allowed him to eat whatever and whenever he wanted. Lying in a sniper’s hideout for days on end had been hell for him, and he’d been making up for it since leaving the army.

  Drake put the three pool-view rooms his secretary had reserved for him on his credit card and gave Casey the room keys for his team. The rooms weren’t the most expensive in the hotel, but he knew they’d be more than adequate for men accustomed to far less. He didn’t plan on being in them that much, anyway. If they found Barak, this would be over in a matter of days, if not hours.

  Twenty minutes later, six men sat at a table looking out over the Cozumel Strait. In the custom of men who didn’t know when they might eat again, each man had a plate piled high from the breakfast buffet.

  As soon as their waiter had filled their coffee cups and left, Drake began his briefing.

  “The only information we have is that Barak’s bodyguard was seen in Cancun. He was followed to a resort south of there. Each of you has a picture of Jamal James on your iPhone. It’s from DHS, taken in the Las Vegas airport some time ago. Not the best, but you’ll recognize him. At his size, he’ll be hard to miss.

  “When we get off the ferry,” he continued, “I’ll meet with the DEA agent who spotted Jamal. He may have some new information I haven’t heard about, but if he doesn’t, he’ll lead us to the resort. Then we’re on our own. Captain Gonzales will then have the honor of finding someone we can bribe and learn where Barak is staying.”

  Roberto Gonzales, a former Green Beret, had been born in Mexico and had the sharp features that showed his Aztec ancestry. Taking advantage of his perpetual smile that women loved, it would take him less time to find a maid and locate their target than it would take the team to drive around the large resort once.

  “Dangerous duty,” Gonzales said, smiling, “that I will take delight in. Gracias.”

  “I asked Steve, our pilot, to meet us at the ferry terminal,” Drake said. “He’ll have a fanny pack for each of you with a Glock 21, a clip holster, and two mags. The 21s are used by the Mexican Army, so ditch them if you have to. Guns are not allowed down here, as you no doubt know. We have no information about what support Barak has, so be careful. Our story, if we’re questioned, is that we’re here for sailfish and marlin and seeing the ruins.”

  Their waiter reappeared and refilled their coffee cups, giving Casey the time he needed to make a second trip to the buffet. When he returned, he had a question.

  “Should I make arrangements to fly Barak out of the country after we find him?”

  “DHS would like to take him to Gitmo. I personally don’t think he’ll let us take him alive, though, so I’m not worrying about it. It’ll be his choice, not ours. When we leave the ferry, we’ll split up in three teams. Decide among yourselves who you’ll work with.

  Meet in the lobby in five and we’ll leave for the ferry.”

  Drake signed for their breakfast, and Casey left to arrange transportation. As he walked through the lobby trailing the others, his phone vibrated. He saw that Liz Strobel was calling.

  “When do you want to meet the man I told you about?” she asked.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “Come on, Drake. I knew when you were wheels up in Oregon. This is your government you’re talking to.”

  “Right. Okay, we’re taking the nine a.m. ferry from Cozumel to the Mayan Riviera. Can he meet us there?”

  “No problem. He knows what you look like, he’ll find you. You need anything?”

  “If things go wrong, you can get us out of jail. I understand they don’t have TV and WiFi in Mexican jails.”

  “Then make sure things don’t go wrong, ’cause if they do, you’re on your own,” she said. “That’s what you wanted.”

  “Lighten up, Liz. We know what we’re doing, so nothing’s going to go wrong. I’ll call when I know more.”

  Ending the call, he joined the others getting into a tour bus to the Mayan ruins. He had been on enough missions to know that things never went as planned, but he also knew that Liz had been right to remind him of the stakes. Mexico was sick of the cartels’ violence. If six Americans were caught adding to the mayhem, they’d be lucky to ever get out of jail.

  The team filled up six seats in the rear of the bus, while couples and a few families took up the rest. It wasn’t hot outside, at least not yet, but the driver had the air conditioning on in anticipation of another hot and humid day.

  The nine o’clock ferry was a sleek mini-cruise ship that carried 550 passengers to and from Cozumel six times every day. Drake signaled to Casey to lead the way to the upper deck, where they could enjoy the fresh sea air and a little privacy, as most of the other passengers stayed below to enjoy the video showing highlights of the ancient city of Tulum and the surrounding ruins.

  When the ferry docked, Drake led his team into the terminal. Groups were forming around tour guides holding signs, and his men spread out to blend in. Gonzalez made his way over to a young woman seated at the information kiosk to find out about transportation to the Mayakoba resort.

  “Interest you in a guide for the ruins, Mr. Drake?” a tall red-headed man in a lime green guayabera shirt, shorts, and hiking boots asked.

  “Actually,” Drake replied, “I was hoping to find a friend of a friend here.”

  “And that friend would be a lady, first name Liz?”

  Drake reached out and shook the DEA agent’s hand. “Adam Drake, and you are?”

  “Randy Johnson. My orders are to help you find the bodyguard, but I’m afraid that won’t be necessary.”

  “Don’t tell me they’ve left already.”

  “No sir. What I meant was, he’s standing right over there. The large black man with sunglasses, reading the brochure.”

  Drake glanced over at the bodyguard. No question, it was Jamal James. “Is he alone?”

  “He came in alone. He’s been wandering around, probably waiting
for the ferry to arrive.”

  “Any idea who he’s waiting for?”

  “No sir.”

  “This place you followed him to, the Mayakoba. Were you able to locate which unit he was staying in?”

  “I didn’t try,” Johnson said. “It’s a very exclusive resort and spa. I figured they’d be pretty tight lipped about their guests. I didn’t want to let them know we knew they were here.”

  Drake caught Casey’s eye and signaled to him to join them.

  “Mike,” he said, “this is Agent Johnson and that,” his eyes went to the bodyguard, “is the man we’re here to follow. Let the others know. And make sure we have tickets for whatever tour he’s on, if that’s what he’s doing here.”

  “Roger that. This is almost too easy, finding him waiting for us.”

  Casey walked over to the information kiosk and told Gonzalez to position the others.

  “Agent Johnson,” Drake said, “thank you. We wouldn’t be here without your keen eyes spotting him. We’ll take it from here. How do I reach you if I need to?”

  “My number’s on the back of this Mayakoba brochure. I thought you might need it.” Johnson touched two fingers to his temple in a quick salute and walked away.

  Drake focused his attention on the man he hoped would lead them to their target.

  6

  For the next two hours, Drake’s team followed the big bodyguard to and around the Pre-Columbian Mayan city of Tulum. Driving a black Range Rover, Jamal had followed the string of tour buses and taxis along the coastal road south to the walled city. The team watched him walk along the massive wall that had protected the city on three sides, then visit the two remaining temples and the castle, El Castillo, perched on the tall cliffs over the beach. Built like a fortress, the ancient city had also been a trading post for the Mayans, with the highest building serving as a lighthouse for merchants arriving by canoe.

  Less than an hour after arriving, the bodyguard walked swiftly back to the parking area and drove off. Drake and the team had to scramble to follow him.