Scott Matthews - The Assassin's list

On his flight back to Las Vegas, Barak thought about his young lieutenant, and how easy he was to motivate. Telling him that jihad was his way to take revenge against whitey was all it took. Inflaming his anger had been easy, once he discovered Malcolm X was the young man’s hero. Convincing him that martyrdom was noble had been harder, but Kaamil’s fear of returning to prison guaranteed the end would be the same.

Looking out his plane’s starboard window at the verdant mountains stretching south toward California, Barak wondered how America was going to react when it realized the racial violence rising up against it was being mobilized by its enemy.

After dinner in Dundee, Drake answered Mike’s careful questions about life as a widower and his law practice as they were driving to Hood River. When they arrived, he gave his friend directions to a drive-thru coffee shop just off the interstate.

“Sunset’s at 8:59 p.m. tonight, so there’s time to kill before we head out to the ISIS ranch,” Drake said. “It’s not your beloved Starbucks, but maybe it’ll keep you awake while I’m prowling around.”

“Forty-four million customers, ya gotta be proud. Changed the world since 1987, that’s more than we were able to do.”

“Yeah, but we sure tried, didn’t we?”

A sunset painted thunderheads pink and purple as they piled up against the eastern flank of the Cascades. Mike drove them through the old downtown section of Hood River until they turned south onto Highway 35. The scattered lights from rural homes and small ranches soon gave way to the darkness of forested land, broken only by the headlights of the SUV.

“There’s a road just south of the ranch. It ends at a trailhead into the national forest. We’ll park there. If we see anyone, we’re hikers out overnight,” Drake said. “We’ll hike in and when we get as close to the ranch buildings as possible, I’ll make a quick insertion. We’ll be back in Portland by breakfast.”

“Plan’s a little short in details, but then yours always were. Let me hear your voice now and then, in case I get scared out here with the coyotes and such.”

Mike had concealed himself as a sniper for days, while snakes and all sorts of insects crawled over him. A night in the open, for him, was a piece of cake.

When they drove past the unmanned ISIS guardhouse a short time later, a surveillance camera tracked their passage. A quarter of a mile beyond the guardhouse, a country road turned east, and ran parallel to the southern boundary of the ranch. When they found the trailhead, Mike pulled his Yukon into the small graveled parking area. The darkness of the night was brightened only by a panoply of stars. A new moon did little to help illuminate the ground. Both men moved silently to the rear of the Yukon where Mike unloaded their gear. They pulled on black balaclavas and positioned the headset headbands on their heads.

After a final check of their equipment, Drake spoke softly into the boom-arm mike of his tactical headset.

“This headband is new. Wish we’d had something like this when we were running around in Iraq.”

“Latest equipment, designed for special ops, private security and private military work. I’m looking into some of the Blackwater-type contracts available around the world. Thought I’d better check out some of the equipment they use,” Mike said.

“You sure you want to get into that line of work?”

“Have to. If you do executive protection work these days, clients want to know you can mount an operation if one of their people is kidnapped. You remember the hand signals, in case you can’t talk to me?”

Drake raised his hand to his forehead, as if he was looking into the distance, the signal for “watch.” He then signaled “sniper,” by making a looking glass with his left hand at his left eye, and pointing his right hand like a pistol ahead at the ground. With his left hand he made the A-OK sign for “I understand.”

“Let’s stay together until we reach the decline that slopes down to the ranch buildings. From the topographical map I bought, it looks like there’s a fairly steep drop-off ahead. From there, we’re below the tree line. Find a high point where you can cover me, and I’ll move in.”

“Ready as ever,” Mike said, tapping his chest twice with a closed fist. “Just don’t take too many chances.”

“If I run into trouble, you’ll be the first to know.”

A carpet of pine needles provided silent passage. When the pine trees began to thin out and the lights of the ranch buildings were visible three hundred yards away, Drake told his friend to cover him.

“I’ll work my way down through the boulders and sagebrush below us. When I get to the bottom, tell me what you see ahead.”

Drake moved down through the large boulders scattered just below the timberline, looking for signs of intrusion detection devices. Mike had told him about the newest perimeter security devices he wouldn’t be able to spot. With the size of the ISIS ranch and its extensive perimeter, they were fairly confident he wouldn’t be detected, if at all, until he got close to the ranch buildings.

When he reached the bottom of the slope below the timberline, he keyed his mike.

“You seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked Mike.

“Looks like the flat area ahead of you might have a few surprises. Twenty-five yards across, flat like it’s been leveled and treated with weed killer. I can’t see anything growing on this side of that barbed-wire fence.”

“You see anything on the other side of the fence?”

“Can’t see anything, but I suspect it’s infrared. The open area must have sensor pads.”

“I’m going to my left, by that small cluster of trees. From here, it looks like that’s the end of this open area. Maybe I can find a way in from there,” Drake said.

Moving laterally, he worked his way through the sagebrush until he reached the small cluster of juniper trees. From there, he could see the ranch house and other buildings clearly.

“What are you scoping?”

“I don’t see anything between those trees and the fence. From the fence to the buildings, it’s clear. No one’s moving around. There are lights on in the ranch house and the largest of the three buildings below it.”

Drake studied the open ground ahead of him, sector by sector. He didn’t see anything to contradict Mike’s assessment.

“I’m going to chance it. If there are sensors on this side of the fence, deer and coyotes would drive whoever is monitoring their system nuts. They’re probably trying to make us think there are detection sensors out here.”

“Of course, they could just use dogs to keep people out,” Mike suggested, knowing how Drake loved Bullmastiffs, Dobermans and Rottweilers trained as guard dogs.

“Thanks for that, bolsters my confidence immensely. I’m going over to the fence to see what it looks like.”

Drake moved quickly to the fence. He was in the open, but unless someone was watching this particular sector of the ranch perimeter with night vision binoculars, he wouldn’t be noticed. The fence was a typical barbed-wire fence, four strands running between cedar fence posts.

Crawling under the bottom strand of barbed wire, Drake stood up and whispered into his mike.

“I’ll stay here for a couple minutes to see if that triggered anything.”

When Mike saw no activity below, he directed Drake to move to his left to a slope that ran down to the ranch house and other buildings.

“It looks like that’s your safest way in,” Mike said.

Drake ran across sixty yards of old pasture land to the bottom of the slope before he crouched and scanned the area. Ahead at ten o’clock, he saw the outline of the largest of the three buildings on the lower level, below the ranch house.