Hard Target (21 page)

Uzi popped a toothpick into his mouth, tossing the wrapper into the small garbage pail he kept beside his seat. The mint flavor was strangely calming. “So you want to draw this guy out.”

“I’ve got this feeling he’s dirty. But they’re good, very careful. They bury things pretty deep. I figure if we take them off their game, show up unexpected, rattle them a bit, we might come away with something.”

Uzi winced. “Three words: Waco. Ruby Ridge. I’m not sure this is such a good idea. How aggressive are you planning to get?”

“I’m not going to incite a riot. I just want to turn up the heat on Flint, make him sweat. People who are under the gun tend to take action—and make mistakes. We plant the seed, then watch which way it grows.”

“See who they contact.”

“Exactly. Let them lay down breadcrumbs for us.”

Uzi glanced sideways at his partner. “What if this leads to Knox?”

“It won’t. That’s the reason I want to do this. To prove you wrong.”

“Except that there’s no way we’ll get in to bug the place.”

DeSantos waved a hand. “Who needs bugs? I’ve got buddies at Crypto City.”

“NSA?”

“They’ve got all sorts of cool eavesdropping satellites, shit like that.”

“And of course you have a court order.”

DeSantos winked at Uzi, then turned away and looked out his window.

THEY ARRIVED AT THE American Revolution Militia compound expecting a confrontation. Uzi pulled his SUV up to their iron gate and honked with a heavy hand. The guard moved out from inside his booth, then grabbed the submachine gun slung around his right shoulder. With both hands grasping the weapon’s handles, he took a position in front of them, feet spread and eyes narrow.

DeSantos got out of the truck and slammed the door. “Tell Flint his Fed buddies, Agents Spic and Kike, are back.”

“I don’t take orders from you, asshole.”

DeSantos kept his voice restrained, yet firm. “Get Flint out here. Now. Or we’ll park our truck, pitch a tent, and set up camp.”

A filtered voice crackled over the man’s two-way radio. With his eyes locked on DeSantos, the guard shifted the gun to his right hand and keyed the mike with his left.

DeSantos looked over at Uzi, who was focused on the other men standing about thirty yards back, at the edge of a stand of redwoods, Kalashnikov rifles of their own at the ready.

Uzi got out of his car and stood with the door open. His discomfort with this fishing expedition had spiked into the red zone. It had been years since he had been in enemy territory, behind the lines, outside the confines of law and order. Yet at the moment, he stood on the very brink of anarchy. He thought of his discussion with Rudnick over following rules and obeying orders, and wondered how far DeSantos could bend those rules before they started breaking.

He wiped his brow with a sleeve, the movement being watched with scrutiny by the unfriendlies across the way.

“Santa—”

“We’re fine, Uzi. Just be cool.”

A moment later, a Hummer pulled into view and stopped in a cloud of loose dirt. Nelson Flint emerged, in dress uniform, followed by an underling who brought up the rear. Flint stepped up to the gate opposite DeSantos. He lit a cigarette nonchalantly, a man whose confidence was boosted by the firepower behind him.

Flint sucked hard on his Marlboro, then blew the smoke out the left side of his mouth. “Maybe you didn’t understand me last time. You boys ain’t welcome here. Unless you got yourselves a warrant. Got one of them bogus documents?”

DeSantos shrugged. “Well, we kind of made a wrong turn, and...here we are.”

“The fuck you want?” Flint asked.

DeSantos pulled a stick of Juicy Fruit from his pocket and folded it into his mouth. “I detect a little attitude there, Nellie.” He tossed the spent wrapper through the gate at Flint’s feet.

“That Juicy Fruit makes you look real tough, G-man.”

DeSantos took a step forward.

Uzi knew that taking issue with DeSantos’s deceased partner’s gum was the wrong tack, even though Flint could not possibly know the significance behind it. He cleared his throat. “Santa, tell the man what we came here to tell him.” The comment seemed to refocus DeSantos, but he still stood there, squinting at Flint, hatred floating on the air like teargas.

After a long moment, Uzi pressed ahead: “We know about your connections to the NFA.” He watched for Flint’s reaction. The man’s eyes quickly locked on Uzi. Direct hit.

“You don’t know shit, ’cause if you did, you wouldn’t be standing on the other side of the fence like fags. You’d be on my property, crawlin’ all over this place.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Flint. We’re not storm troopers. We don’t just bust in. There are rules we have to follow. But we do have some good stuff brewing. The background files we’re amassing on William Ellison and Russell Fargo are leading us right here. See, what you don’t comprehend is that we’ve got an army of agents trolling the supersecret databases the government keeps on everyone. They’re going through everything with a fine filter, and they’ve been sifting out little pieces to the puzzle. Pretty soon, before you know it, we’ll have enough to see the whole picture. That’s when we come busting in.”

“All talk, is all.” Flint turned and took a step toward his Hummer.

“We’re connecting the dots. We know about Skiles Rathbone and his connection to—”

“Uzi,” DeSantos shouted, “that’s enough. He’ll find out when the time is right.”

Uzi looked at DeSantos, then hesitated for a moment before acquiescing. Uzi stepped closer to the gate, only a few feet away and outside the earshot of the other armed men. “We’re after the bigger fish, Mr. Flint,” he said in a low voice. “Help us out now and you’ll get the deal. They’ll get fried. If you send us away and we find out the info ourselves, or if one of the others sings first, the deal’s off the table.”

Flint took a couple of steps toward the gate, then sucked a long drag on his Marlboro, appearing to consider the offer. But then he pulled the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it through the bars at Uzi, who swatted it away. “Fuck you, Fibber. Get away from my land.” He turned and got into his Hummer, the truck leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.

10:59 AM

123 hours 1 minute remaining

Uzi dropped DeSantos at the gate of the Pentagon, preferring to keep off its visitor logs until he could be sure how deep the potential Douglas Knox/National Firearms Alliance bond extended. With Knox’s roots well entrenched in super-secret spy groups, Uzi figured the director had to be aligned to some extent with NSA-types—officially or unofficially.

Leaving DeSantos to work that end of the investigation—it was, after all, DeSantos’s area of expertise—he broke away to meet with Karen Vail, who had left a voicemail five minutes earlier.

The profiling unit’s receptionist buzzed the security doors and Uzi proceeded down the maze of hallways to Vail’s office. He stepped in and saw Vail sitting at her desk, her elbow on the armrest and her chin nestled in her hand.

Uzi took a seat in the chair beside her wall of bookshelves and crossed a leg over his knee. “What’s wrong?”

“I think the branch is about to break.”

Before Uzi could ask for clarification, a man walked in with a scowl on his face. His attention was focused on Uzi.

“Agent Uziel. I’m Thomas Gifford. ASAC of the behavioral analysis units.”

Uzi sensed this visit was not going to be cordial, so he did not offer his hand to shake. “We’ve met,” Uzi said, leaving the comment ambiguous to retain an advantage. If he knew or remembered something Gifford didn’t, it would bother the man and give Uzi a sense of control.

“Agent Vail has been doing some work for you,” Gifford said.

“We’ve talked about a case, yeah. She was helping me understand a few things from a behavioral perspective. But I wouldn’t say it was for me. It’s for the Bureau. For the investigation into the veep’s assassination attempt.”

“There’s a protocol around here, Agent Uziel. The unit chief and I assign the cases. Agents don’t get to call their friends and have them do work for them. Understand?”

The word “protocol” sent a dart into Uzi’s heart. He of all people understood the importance of following procedures. He did not know how to respond.

“Frank,” Gifford called down the hall, into the adjacent office. “A minute.” He turned back to Uzi. “Frank Del Monaco is the agent assigned to this case.”

“With all due respect, sir, I did not mean to cause problems. Agent Vail was at the crash site. I have a relationship with her. I trust her abilities, and trust is an important issue with me.”

A heavyset man appeared in the doorway behind Gifford. Gifford nodded at Uzi’s comment but was clearly not swayed by his explanation. “It’s not her job to get touchy-feely with the law enforcement officers she serves. Our entire unit is trustworthy, with all the abilities Agent Vail has.” Gifford took a step into the cramped office and indicated Frank Del Monaco with a nod of his head. “This is Frank Del Monaco. Frank, this is Agent Uziel. He’s from WFO, head of JTTF, running the task force investigating the chopper incident.”

Del Monaco nodded at Uzi, but his eyes were narrow and his arms folded across his chest.

Gifford continued, “Because of all the work Agent Vail’s done behind my back, and because of the amount of time invested in this case, I’m going to allow her to remain on. She’ll work with Agent Del Monaco.”

“Aren’t they partners anyway?” Uzi asked.

“That didn’t sound like an apology,” Gifford said sternly.

Uzi dipped his chin. “I won’t muddy the protocol again, sir. I apologize and accept full responsibility for dragging her into this. In all fairness, she told me right up front I should be speaking with Agent Del Monaco.”

“Did that make you feel better, getting it off your chest?” Gifford glanced at Vail, who still had her chin buried in her hand, eyes examining the carpet. “I’ve dealt with Agent Vail how I’ve seen fit—in essence, you’ve boiled some water and stuck her hand in it. Maybe next time you’ll consider the consequences.”

Gifford was now twisting the dagger he’d thrown earlier. Uzi struggled to shrug off what Gifford was saying.

“It won’t happen again.”

“No, Agent Uziel, it won’t. I’ve spoken with ASAC Shepard and made sure of it. You guys come to us for help, we’ll give you everything we’ve got. Just don’t run over my toes again or this’ll be the last time you see the inside of my unit.” He pushed past Del Monaco and left the room.

Del Monaco frowned at Uzi, then followed Gifford’s exit.

Uzi exhaled, then rubbed his forehead. “Sorry.”

“My fault. When I told you ‘no,’ I should’ve meant it.”

“How bad?”

Vail shrugged. “Nothing I won’t get over. Gifford needs me. We’ve had our rows in the past, much worse than this one, and we’ve gotten past it. I’m dealing with it. Besides, I’m dating his son. That kind of limits the blows.” Vail cringed. “So to speak.”

“I think I’ll leave that one alone.” Uzi sat forward in the chair. “Anything you can tell me on the stuff I sent over?”

Vail rested her elbows on her desk. “Lots. I pulled in a guy from ATF. Turk Roland. He’s with ABIS, their Arson and Bombing Investigative Services subunit.”

“He as good as you?”

“If we’re talking bombs, he and Art Rooney are the best. Rooney’s out on medical. We call Roland the Turkmeister.”

“The Turkmeister?”

“He just co-authored a new study for the NCAVC,” she said, referring to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. “I read through it, learned a lot.”

“So maybe getting you into trouble was a good thing.”

“Let’s not go there.” She pulled a file from a stack beside her computer and splayed it open. “Here’s the deal. As much research as there is on serial killers, there’s very little on bombers. That’s why this new study was so important. Basically, bombers are classified by motive. There’re several categories, from experimentation to vandalism, excitement, revenge, diversion, political-ideological, and criminal enterprise. Let’s focus on the last two, since my impression is that whoever’s done this is operating in a group and has gone through significant effort to blow up the veep’s choppers. The planning alone rules out a lot of our potential suspect pool.”

“Cool. Then what does that leave us with?”

“Assuming we’re not dealing with some Middle Eastern terrorist sect, bombers in general tend to be white males, averaging five-ten, a hundred eighty-five pounds. Your UNSUB will likely have one or more body tattoos. He might have some form of disfigurement because of accidents while building or testing his bombs. So look for facial scarring or missing fingers.”

“So we’re looking for an average white guy with tattoos and missing fingers. Shouldn’t be too hard to find. Reminds me of this play I once saw about a one-eyed woman from Guadalajara with a wooden leg.”

Vail tilted her head. “Are you mocking me?”

Uzi leaned forward in his seat and rested his forearms on his knees. “Yes. I’m making fun of you, but this is good stuff. Go on.”

“I take my work very seriously.”

“Me too. Go on.”

Vail eyed him for a moment, then continued. “He’ll live in a middle-class neighborhood. He’ll be heterosexual. You’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance that he’s married. If he is, he’ll have one to three kids.”

Uzi’s eyebrows rose. “You’re shitting me.”

“Here’s the kicker. Unlike serial killers, these guys tend to come from fairly stable home environments. Your UNSUB’s parents earned a decent living, and both parents were probably present through his childhood. In fact, he likely had a warm relationship with both of them, though it was a bit better with the mother—”

Uzi began lifting papers and file folders, as if searching for something.

Vail stopped talking and watched Uzi rifle through her desk. “Uh, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m looking for your crystal ball.”

She turned away. “Look, Uzi, you’ve been through this process before. You know what a profile consists of.”

“He’ll have one to three kids? He had a warm relationship with his mother, but less so than his father? Come on. I mean, how accurate do you think this is?”