The Assassin's List (2 page)

There was more to this than just walking a constituent through some crisis, Drake thought.

“All right, Sir. Tell your friend I’ll call him tomorrow when I get back to town.”

“Actually, I invited him to come over tonight. Could you be here by seven? We’ll have dinner. Meredith has been asking when we’ll see you.”

“Okay, I’ll try to be there by seven,” Drake said and ended the call.

He knew he couldn’t put off seeing Kay’s parents forever. Tonight was as good a night as any to get the meeting behind him. They lost a daughter, he recognized that, but hugs and kisses weren’t going to help him sleep through the night, or make anything matter again.

Drake walked back to his table to finish his coffee. His father-in-law was used to getting his way, in politics and life in general, but he never interfered in his life. He appreciated that. If the Senator wanted his help now, he’d get it, whether it was politics or his mother-in-law asking to see him. Either way, it didn’t matter. They were all that was left of his family, and he’d do what he could.

Drake’s father died in Vietnam on his second tour, wearing a green beret. Aside from the legend that went with his Distinguished Service Cross, Drake only knew his father from his mother’s stories. She raised him as a single mom, working as an emergency room nurse, until she died in a car accident caused by a drunken teenager. He’d been a sophomore in college then. There was no other family, and he’d been on his own after that, until Kay.

Chapter 3

Senator Hazelton’s home was in Lake Oswego, an old money suburb of Portland. He and Meredith moved there shortly after he became the managing partner of the most powerful law firm in the city. He wasn’t born rich, but the careful and graceful use of his legal skills soon made him one of the most respected and wealthy men in the city. Encouraged to enter politics, he served two terms in the state legislature before he was asked to run against the incumbent U.S. Senator, Willard Monroe. Despite the incumbent’s five terms in the Senate, the younger attorney connected better with the citizens, won the election, and hadn’t been seriously challenged since.

Two hours later, after driving his Porsche 993 as hard as the absence of detectable State Police would allow, Drake approached the exit for Lake Oswego. He thought about the night he met Kay. It was after law school, after his time in the army and after working in the District Attorney’s office for five years. The athletic club he belonged to was hosting a dinner and dance for participants of a triathlon he had just finished. Kay had attended and asked him to dance.

“I’ve seen your picture in the paper. Are you as good a prosecutor as you are a triathlete?” she asked him.

“I’m a better prosecutor,” he answered, as she led him to the dance floor. “I don’t come in second as a prosecutor.”

She introduced herself simply as Kay Hazelton, but he knew who she was, just as she knew he knew. The papers called her the brightest flower on the Portland social scene. She didn’t seem to care. She appeared in more newspaper photos working a soup kitchen line in jeans and a sweatshirt than at charity events in a fancy dress. She was attracted to people and causes that mattered, she told him later. What attracted Kay to him that night was still a mystery.

“Does that mean you’re willing to send innocents to jail, just to win? Do young men, trying to survive by selling drugs, deserve a lifetime behind bars? Why not restorative justice instead?”

“Miss Hazelton, if you and your father want to restore felons, whatever that means, you’re welcome to try. You’d be making a mistake, in my opinion. Drug dealers have a choice to make, just like the choice you made when you decided to become a teacher. They make bad decisions. Those decisions hurt people. Your decision to teach helps people. Both have consequences, and it’s my job to deal with the ones that hurt people.”

They danced for a moment before she asked, “If I made bad decisions in my life, would you still dance with me?”

“Miss Hazelton, I can’t imagine any decision that would keep me from dancing with you. Of course, I might still have to put you in jail.”

That had been the beginning of a courtship that lasted almost a year before he asked Kay Hazelton to marry him. Then, of course, he’d had to talk with her father.

“I’ve been expecting you,” the Senator said, when he led Drake into his den. “Would you like something to drink?”

A couple of double whiskeys, Drake remembered thinking, would be nice.

“No, thank you, I’m fine, Sir. I’d like permission to marry your daughter,” he blurted out. No use beating around the bush, the Senator was expecting him.

“I appreciate your good manners, son, but I’m afraid you’re too late. I gave my daughter permission to marry you months ago,” the Senator said with a smile. “Now, would you like that drink?”

That was four years ago. Now, driving to the house where he had that first drink with the Senator, his memory flashed scenes of their outdoor wedding. The manicured lawn sloping down to the lake from the brick Victorian Kay lived in most of her life, a reception with bridesmaids dancing barefoot in front of a bandstand after the guests had left, and finally, following the curving cedar-lined driveway when they left on their wedding night.

He hadn’t been back to the Hazelton’s home since Kay’s funeral. He had talked with her mother on the phone, of course, and had lunched with the Senator once, but he’d declined invitations for dinner.

The house looked the same as he turned in. Lit by the soft glow of wooden luminaries, he saw Kay’s old upper bedroom window between the tall western red cedars that lined the drive. It was the very best of the six bedrooms, she had proclaimed. On the northeast corner of the house, it offered a view of the lake and of Mount Hood’s snowy peak in the distance. She didn’t mind that it was the smallest of the six bedrooms, it was the room she picked when she first walked through her new home.

As he neared the turnaround in front of the house, Meredith Hazelton stood at the open front door. She hadn’t changed a whit, but her vigilance told him that they must have added security cameras since his last visit. His mother-in-law was, in his opinion, the best looking seventy-year-old woman he had ever seen. With light brown hair and sparkling eyes, she was a vision of what Kay would have looked like in another thirty-three years.

Rolling to a stop, he got out and waved over the roof of his car. Drake stretched to get rid of the tightness in his shoulders, and gave himself a moment to compose his emotions.

“Adam, I hoped I would see you today,” Meredith said, as she hurried to greet him with a kiss, wrapping her slender arms around him. She didn’t let go, and Drake felt her sadness as she rested her head on his chest.

A year of loneliness swept through him.

“I shouldn’t have stayed away so long, I’ve missed you. I’m sorry.”

“We knew,” she said, taking his hand and leading him up the front stairs. “You’re here now. Come say hello to your father-in-law. He’s missed seeing you.”

He found the Senator in his study standing at the window, looking at the lake with a cell phone held to his ear. Walnut paneling above a caramel Berber carpet gave the room a serious, solid sense in contrast with the framed black and white political cartoons adorning the walls. The desk was red oak topped with glass, a legal pad, and a flat-screen monitor.

The Senator waved to Drake and ended his conversation. Even in jeans and a V-neck sweater, the sleeves pushed up over tanned and still well-muscled forearms, the man looked like a senator. His silver hair framed a face that made you think of Cary Grant, with a smile that said everything was going to be all right. Tonight, the smile was familiar, but the eyes were different. They attempted to match the smile, but didn’t make it.

“Adam, thanks for coming,” he said, giving Drake a quick hug. “How are you?”

“I’ve had better days.”

The Senator nodded and put his hand on Drake’s shoulder. “Let’s go outside and talk before my friend gets here. We have time for a drink while Meredith finishes the dinner.”

The terrace at the rear of the house was red brick, with a waist-high wall lined with flowering planters. Sweet smells of flowers mixed with the scent of freshly mown grass. Sadly, it was all just as he remembered.

“Here, hope you’re still drinking bourbon,” the Senator said behind him.

Not just bourbon, Drake recognized with the first sip, but Jim Beam Black, his favorite. The Senator preferred single malt Scotch, but this was the first time he’d served him bourbon.

The Senator looked out over the lake, and finally said, “I met Richard Martin twenty-five years ago when I first ran for the state legislature. He’d just started his company here and was promoting Oregon for high-tech industry. We became friends, and he’s been one of my most loyal supporters. His company’s doing research for Homeland Security. I helped him get the contract, and I’d like you to help him.”

“Does his secretary’s murder have anything to do with his work for the government, or you for that matter?” Drake asked.

The Senator turned and seemed to be surprised by the question. “No, no, this has nothing to do with me. He’s developing monitoring systems for chemical and biological weapons we don’t want smuggled into the country.”

So this was something more than just helping an old friend whose secretary had been murdered.

“We think the work Rich is doing will be a real breakthrough, but he says they’ve been having security problems. He brought in a new firm to tighten up security, and now this. He’s worried the death of his secretary and the security problems could mean the end of top secret projects he’s been awarded. I’m worried about the loss of the technology he’s capable of developing for us.”

What did the Senator think he could do about his friend’s problem, Drake wondered.

“Why do you think Martin can’t trust the police to handle this? They’ve done good work on cases like this. They’ll find out who killed his secretary.”

The Senator turned and leaned against the terrace half wall. He appeared to have expected the question, but also appeared to be undecided about how to answer it.

“Adam, Homeland Security would like to keep this matter out of the news as much as possible if this turns out to have something to do with national security. We also don’t want to blow the whistle too early and call in the FBI. The Secretary of Homeland Security is a friend. I chair his oversight committee. I suggested that you take a look first. You have the background to know if there’s more to this than a homicide.”

Drake knew the Senator wasn’t referring to his experience as a prosecutor.

“You’ve seen my military records?”

“When I saw Kay was serious about you, I checked out your background. There were missing years after you graduated law school. You passed the bar exam two days after 9/11, so I thought you might have enlisted. The Army said there was no record of you ever being in the service. So I pulled a few strings. When I saw your file, I understood why it wasn’t initially provided to me. Delta Force personnel records don’t officially exist.”

At least it had taken a senior U.S. Senator to get his records, Drake thought. His training, his missions, were not for public consumption. America didn’t want to know how it was able to sleep soundly in a troubled world. Its warriors knew, but they were forbidden to tell.

“Does your friend know my background?” Drake asked.

“No, it’s not something he needs to know. If you’re concerned, it’s not something Meredith or I share with anyone. We’re proud of the way you served and the sacrifices you made. But there are things some people will never understand, and don’t ever need to know.”

“Did you share my file with Kay?”

“No, we didn’t. We felt that was something you would do, if you felt it was necessary.”

Drake nodded his thanks and looked out over the lake and the lights beginning to twinkle across the way. Kay had known there were secret places in his soul that he hadn’t shared. She’d never pushed, waiting for him to open up. He had wanted to tell her about the army, how he idolized his father, memorized “Fighting soldiers from the sky, fearless men who jump and die” from the lyrics of “The Ballad of the Green Beret” as a young boy, and hated that his father wouldn’t be around to pin silver wings on his chest. How proud he was when he was invited to selection and survived to become a member of Delta Force. He’d wanted to tell her all of it, but had never found the right time before she died.

“All right. I’ll talk to your friend and help him if I can. If this involves more than theft and murder, I want your promise you’ll call in the troops. I’m not going to play Lone Ranger on this.”

He didn’t resent the Senator asking for his help, but if the reason centered more on his military training than his legal skills, the two of them were headed for trouble. Politicians had a habit of getting soldiers into trouble, eager to stick their noses in someone’s mess and then not being around when things got rough.

Chapter 4

“Let’s walk down to the boathouse before Martin gets here,” the Senator said, changing the subject as he led them off the rear deck.

Drake knew what the Senator had in mind. Before she’d left them alone, Meredith warned him her husband would try to slip off and have a cigar.