“We need to meet. I stumbled onto something this morning you need to know. Can we meet for a drink, say in an hour? It’s important.”
There was a long pause. She was either trying to compose herself or considering whether to have him arrested.
“I’ve borrowed an FBI office in the Crown Plaza building. Is there somewhere close?” she finally said.
“Yes, but I don’t want to be questioned by anyone from that office just yet. I know most of those guys. We need somewhere a little farther away. Are you staying downtown?”
“I’m staying at the Marriott.”
“Why don’t you go there? I’ll meet you in Champions, the sports bar, say 4:30 p.m.”
“All right, I’ll be waiting to hear what you’ve learned. We’ve discovered a few things ourselves.”
Drake hoped the things she’d discovered were more than just the names of the three dead guys. He didn’t care who they were. He was anxious to know who sent them and why. That would give him a target.
Before he turned off I-84 an hour later, in Portland, Drake called his office. The afternoon traffic was starting to build, slowing him to thirty-five miles per hour as he crawled along through the east side of the city, with the bright afternoon sun in his eyes.
“Margo, I’m meeting the person from Homeland Security at the Marriott in a few minutes. I’ll be back before the end of the day.”
“Everything’s quiet here. I may be gone when you get here. Paul’s taking me to the coast for the weekend and wants to beat the traffic.”
“Great idea, Margo. Tell Paul I said so. We’ll pick up the pieces at the office next week when you get back.”
“I’ll try. Sorry if I’ve been snippy, I wasn’t prepared for all of this. I’ll be better next week.”
Drake could hear the relief in her voice that she was getting out of Dodge for the weekend.
“You’ve been great, Margo. I wasn’t prepared for it either. Have a glass of wine, enjoy a sunset and don’t worry about any of this.”
Margo had worried through too many nights, wondering if her husband would come home. Worrying about her own safety was something new. He was proud of the way she was handling it.
The Marriott was only a block away from Drake’s office, but he decided to park the Land Rover at the hotel. The only place to park at his office was his reserved space, labeled with the unit numbers of both the office and his condo, where Paul and Margo were living. If someone ran the plates on the Land Rover, he didn’t want them crashing through Margo’s door to arrest him.
He tossed the keys to the valet parking attendant and walked directly to the elevator on the south side of the lobby. The hotel was busy for an early Friday afternoon. While he waited for the elevator, he looked around and saw the reason why. The hotel was hosting a day-long seminar with the catchy title “21st Century Health Insurance Trends.” Most of the attendees were wandering around, probably looking for the nearest bar. Who could blame them, he thought. The best speakers never got scheduled last on a Friday afternoon.
When Drake’s elevator stopped on the second floor, he saw that Champions wasn’t crowded yet. Windows ran along the length of the east wall. Bar-height pub tables were placed to take advantage of the view of the river, and Mount Hood in the distance. The other walls were covered with sports posters, framed Trail Blazer uniforms, and sports memorabilia. Drake chose a table towards the rear and sat facing the door to watch for Liz Strobel.
Portland was known as America’s Microbrew Capital, but when the waitress asked him for his order, he asked for a pint of Full Sail Pale Ale, brewed in Hood River. Should have joined Kaamil and Roberto and had a glass there, he thought. It might have saved a lot of time, for all of us.
Drake took a drink of beer and saw Liz Strobel walk in. With a quick look around the bar, she spotted him and walked briskly to his table before he could wave to her. She was wearing a black skirt and a creamy, long-sleeved blouse, and didn’t look like someone who had just left her office. She looked like someone going out for dinner. Drake wondered if she had changed her clothes just for him. Whatever the reason, she had most of the men in the bar watching her walk to his table. If they knew this was just business, he thought, most of them would be lining up to introduce themselves the moment he left.
“Thanks for coming. I appreciate it,” he said, as he stood and pulled out a chair for her. “Get you something, or are you still on the clock?”
“A glass of wine, please. Yes, I’m on the clock. I still have quite a mess to clean up, thanks to you.”
“I didn’t invite them to pay me a visit, remember? What’s this about the imams raising hell? I thought you were going to put things on ice for a while.”
“We tried,” she said. “Someone with the FBI or the morgue must have tipped the press and the press contacted the imams for a comment or something. I don’t know. My relationship with the FBI isn’t as smooth as it could be. They think we’re poaching on their turf. Someone in the office may have leaked it, to make us look bad. Your sweet little Portland hasn’t helped the situation much either by ending their partnership with the FBI in the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Now the FBI is afraid to offend anyone in this city, especially Muslims,” Strobel said.
The waitress returned and asked for her order.
“Wine please, 2002 Chateau St. Jean Chardonnay Reserve, if you have it,” she said.
“You know your wine. You will have to try Oregon’s chardonnays. We have some excellent ones,” Drake offered.
“I grew up in California. Sonoma wines have always been my favorite. Didn’t mean to offend Oregon,” she said. “So tell me what you think you stumbled onto. I’d like to think there’s something that makes sense of all of this.”
“In a moment,” he said as the waitress set her glass of wine on the table. “First tell me what you found out about my three visitors.”
“The JTTF would like to meet with you tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. They’re going to tell you what they want you to know. I can tell you that your three visitors have criminal records and were Muslim men who apparently converted to Islam while in prison. That’s no surprise. We’re trying to find out what they were doing here in Portland, but the imams are making that difficult with the ruckus they’re raising. No one in the Muslim community is willing to talk to us. Now it’s your turn.”
It was about what Drake expected. Sam Newman had suspected a couple of the ISIS security guards were ex-cons. The men he’d killed had the scraggly facial hair of young Muslim men. He couldn’t connect the two directly, but he doubted it was a coincidence Kaamil was a Muslim. All Muslims weren’t criminals, of course, but it was a connection.
Drake took a drink of his ale and told Strobel what he’d seen in Hood River.
“You know about my suspicion that ISIS and its manager are somehow involved. I followed their head guy up to Hood River today. It’s about an hour or so up the Columbia River Gorge. When he got there, he drove to an old warehouse down by the river and picked up a man for lunch. Someone I know, because I prosecuted him for smuggling drugs. When they finished lunch, Kaamil headed back to Portland. I followed the other guy out to the ISIS Regional Training Facility. The drug smuggler drove right in, past the security guard at the gate. There’s no way in the world this guy should be anywhere near a legitimate security firm.”
Liz Strobel turned to look out the window toward Mount Hood.
“Who’s the guy you saw up there?” she asked, turning back.
“His name is Roberto Valencia. He’s supposed to have skipped on his parole and be in Mexico, with his dad. I could report him and have him arrested, but we might never know what he’s doing with Kaamil and ISIS.”
“And his dad, who’s he?”
“Armando Valencia, head of a powerful drug cartel in Mexico,” Drake explained.
“And you think this guy or his dad is somehow involved? That’s all I need right now. Drug cartels and terrorists trading drugs for weapons is one of our biggest headaches.”