Hard Target (31 page)

“I signed a nondisclosure agreement.”

“Give me the abridged version. Nothing classified. Just some highlights and background.”

“Highlights and background.” DeSantos pursed his lips. “Don’t you know this stuff?”

“Probably some of it. But our agencies aren’t exactly best pals. Assume I’m a blank slate.”

“Okay. Let’s start in 1919.”

“We’re talking serious background here.”

“It was called The Cipher Bureau, or The Black Chamber, in those days. I think it was a one-room vault that held all the intelligence we had at the time, stuff we’d collected by cracking codes we intercepted from the Japanese and Russians. But the Chamber didn’t exist, at least not as far as the government was concerned. Know why?”

“Uh, because it was a secret?”

DeSantos chuckled. “You’re being a wiseass, boychick. But you’re close. The Cipher Bureau operated out of New York and was a front business for The Black Chamber’s real work, which was breaking codes. They were doing some great work until the secretary of state found out about it and shut it down because he didn’t believe in reading others’ letters and mail.”

“You’re joking.”

“No joke. The Chamber closed up shop. The data they’d collected was thrown into a vault and remained on ice until 1930 when the Army realized it needed an advantage over unfriendly governments. They asked their chief cryptanalyst, a guy named William Friedman, to build the Signal Intelligence Service with the help of three of his math teacher buddies. He hid the SIS, its employees, and its budget from everyone. And we were back in the spy business.”

DeSantos turned away. He seemed to be lost in thought, but then said, “Just like the Black Chamber was a closet, the NSA is literally the size of a city.” He turned the stereo up a bit more and leaned closer to Uzi. “Crypto City’s got 10 million square feet of offices, warehouses, factories, labs, schools, and apartments. Tens of thousands of people live and work there—and no one outside its walls knows what they do for a living or that the place even exists.”

“Tens of thousands?” Uzi had known it was a lot, but that was a number far exceeding even his highest guestimates.

“Bigger than the CIA and FBI. Combined, by a long shot. And growing.”

DeSantos continued his dissertation for another twenty minutes, until they arrived in Annapolis Junction. Uzi turned off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway onto a hidden exit ramp bounded by berms and dense foliage, then drove through the maze of barbed-wire fences, where yellow signs warned against taking photographs, making notes, or drawing sketches.

“Typical intelligence agency,” Uzi said. “A bit paranoid.”

“That’s like saying the US Army has a few guns.”

Uzi laughed. “Bet their surveillance cameras are better than ARM’s.”

“Trust me. You don’t want to find out.”

UZI PARKED NEAR Operations Building 1 and waited for DeSantos to complete his business. In the twenty minutes he sat there, three different guards approached, inspected his identification, then questioned his reason for being on-site.

When DeSantos mercifully returned, he said, “If they come up with anything, they’ll let us know.” DeSantos shut his door. “Actually, they’ll let
me
know.”

They left Crypto City and made their way to Uzi’s office at WFO. After parking in the underground garage, they took the elevator up to the third floor. While DeSantos used the restroom down the hall, Uzi did a complete sweep of his work area. Satisfied it was clean, he set the scanning device on his desk and reached for a toothpick.

“Nice digs,” DeSantos said, his neck craning around to take in all the wall hangings.

Uzi turned slowly, taking in the décor. “Guess it’s a work in progress.” Despite lithographs from noted American artists, there were only three personal items in the office: a framed photo of Dena, Maya, and himself standing among the ancient ruins of Beit She’an, south of the Sea of Galilee; a six-inch square Lucite block containing one of the first Pentium 4 chips to come off the Intel line bearing the inscription: “In recognition for a winning design, this is hereby presented to Lead Engineer Aaron Uziel, Intel Pentium 4 Willamette Development Team”; and a ratty, battle-worn canteen with a large bullet hole in the side, from Uzi’s required duty tour with the Israel Defense Forces.

DeSantos lifted the canteen from the bookshelf. It clattered like a baby’s rattle.

“Canteen from my Efod.” Noticing DeSantos’s confusion, Uzi said, “An Efod is an equipment vest.”

DeSantos shook it a bit, then held it up and looked through the hole. “What’s in it?”

“Syrian sniper’s bullet. That hollow piece of tin saved my life.”

DeSantos returned the canteen to the shelf. “I ever tell you you’ve got strange keepsakes?”

Uzi sunk down into his leather chair. “You’ve never been here?”

“Shit no,” DeSantos said. “We always meet somewhere. You’ve never been to my office either. It’s always a park or a restaurant or a car or something.”

Uzi, sucking on the toothpick, spread his arms wide. “Welcome to my humble office.”

“Humble?”

“For a peon task force head.”

“Oh, yes. A peon.” DeSantos said, using his fingers as quotation marks in the air. “Right. That’s why you have an office instead of a cubicle.”

“Well it ain’t because everyone here likes me.”

“I like you. Doesn’t that count?”

“I think that may work against me.”

DeSantos took a seat in front of Uzi’s desk. “Go to hell.”

Uzi pushed aside the stacked messages on his desk and asked, “So...where are we?”

“Given what we found in your jacket,” DeSantos said, “maybe now’s the right time.”

“Right time for what?”

“May I?” He indicated the laptop Hoshi had been using, then sat down and logged on to the Pentagon’s Intelligence Support Agency database. He played the keys for a moment, then leaned back and turned the laptop so Uzi could see the screen.

“I had my buddy at NSA take some photos of the ARM compound.”

“Sat photos?”

“With those KH-12s,” DeSantos said, referring to the Strategic Response Reconnaissance Satellites. “The ones usually trained on Cuba. I had them rotate their axis a bit.”

Uzi’s brow rose. “No shit?”

“No shit. Had my guy do something like this a few months ago for Karen. Worked like a charm.”

Spying on US citizens was not a good road to travel. But when terrorism was suspected and lives were at stake, well... Uzi had struggled with that issue on many occasions. But each time information led to the preemption of an attack, and he knew it was the right call. But it still bothered him. He glanced at DeSantos. “And?”

“There are three buildings that pique my interest.” He struck a sequence of keys and a split screen of four images appeared. “Two sheds and a garage. With some unusual activity the night of the ninth. Trucks backing up to it making what I’d guess were deliveries.”

“Deliveries? What kind of trucks?”

“Trucks. Plain cab-over cargo deals.”

“So? Could’ve been delivering food. Or office supplies for the compound.”

DeSantos peered over the tops of his glasses at Uzi. “Yeah, right.”

“Wait a minute. The ninth. The hospital was bombed on the tenth.”

DeSantos elevated his eyebrows and tilted his head.

“But what would they need trucks for?”

“Don’t know. But we need to get onto the compound, take a look around those three buildings.”

Uzi lifted the phone. “I’ll get a warrant.”

DeSantos reached across the desk and disconnected the call. “Put that thing down.”

“Why?”

“No judge in his right mind would give us a warrant. For what? What’s ARM done that we have proof of? Besides,” DeSantos said, lowering his voice, “even if Knox said to continue investigating them, I’d rather not tip our hand yet that we’re still on their case. Not till after we’re in and out, and hopefully know more about what to look for.”

Uzi’s intestines twisted and turned. This was wrong—even if the director of the FBI gave the order, and even if President Whitehall had told him to do “whatever it takes to get the job done.” He stared at the screen, attempting to rationalize his involvement. No matter how he turned it over, this was outside his comfort zone. “They’ve got security cameras all over that damn compound,” he finally said.

“Not a problem.” DeSantos returned to his seat and struck another series of keys. “We go at night, wear dark clothing and ski masks.”

“Those cameras are infrared. They’ll definitely pick us up.”

DeSantos found what he was looking for and clicked on a file. “Take a look.” A grainy photo appeared on the left, a line diagram with callouts and descriptions to its right. “They look like Night Prowlers, manufactured by CCT. Computerized Camera Technologies. Standard motion sensor activation, sensor range up to fifteen feet at night. No night vision capabilities.”

“Looks like them, but how can you be sure?”

“Because I’m sure.”

Uzi studied the image on the display, then said, “They might have motion-activated spotlights. If that’s the case, image clarity rises and the range of the cameras just about doubles. Sometimes that’s better than night vision.”

“Right on both accounts. But we’ll be fine if we move carefully and wear the new light-absorbing clothing DARPA’s been working on,” DeSantos said. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency developed all sorts of new—and often futuristic—technology for the DOD. “B-one stealth technology.” DeSantos clicked again, and another four photos appeared: uniformed soldiers acting like the military’s equivalent of GQ, depicting the latest in warfare garb.

Uzi leaned close to the screen, examining the images with the care a jeweler uses to appraise a gem. He moved the toothpick to the other side of his mouth, then leaned back. “I still think it’s too risky. Even with this special clothing, even if we’re careful, we’re letting it all hang out. No backup. Not to mention the law’s working against us. We’d be totally on our own. Anything happens, no one will sanction what we’ve done. It’ll be like we jumped in a tub of horseshit. No one will go near us.”

“That’s why we have to make it work,” DeSantos said. “That’s why we’ll need a diversion.”

Uzi leaned back in his chair.

“Are you hesitating because you don’t think we can pull it off,” DeSantos said, “or because it’s a black op on US soil?”

Uzi smiled out of the corner of his mouth. “Does it really matter what I think?”

“It matters to me.”

Uzi’s tongue played with the toothpick. After a long moment, he sighed deeply. “What do you have in mind?”

“My buddies, at OPSIG. They’ll help us out.”

“How?”

“Got some ideas, nothing definite. But these guys are the best of the best. Whatever we come up with, they’ll execute it. They’ll make it work.”

“Aren’t these the same guys you said would protect Knox to the end of time?”

“I didn’t exactly say that—”

“But it’s true.”

DeSantos shrugged. “Yeah.”

Uzi stood up and walked over to his office window. He didn’t know who was in whose pocket: the NFA, Knox, apparently Coulter to some degree... OPSIG. DeSantos? “I’m not real comfortable with this.”

“What happened to you, boychick? You used to be ready to go and do. If the plan made sense, you were on the next bus.”

“Yeah, that was then. This is now.”

DeSantos joined Uzi at the window. “That’s a bullshit answer.”

Uzi knew DeSantos was right. He sighed. “Remember at the crash site you asked me about Leila, and my wife? And I told you it wasn’t something I wanted to get into?”

“It’s important we don’t have any secrets from each other. If there’s something that’ll affect the way you’d react—”

“It’s not like that.”

“Sure it is.”

Uzi hesitated, then shoved his hands into his back pockets. “Yeah, I guess it is.” He sighed, then decided to press on. After spilling his guts to Rudnick—and then Leila—it didn’t feel like sacred ground anymore. “My wife and daughter were killed by terrorists six years ago. A Palestinian terror cell affiliated with al-Humat found out where I lived, and slaughtered them. Tortured them first, then slashed their throats, nearly down to the spine. Then they set off a small bomb to announce what they’d done.”

Uzi stared out at the city below, seeing not Washington but his little villa in Israel, the police cars and emergency vehicles strewn at odd angles in the street out front. The cloths draped over his family’s bodies, then the body bags as the Israeli medical examiners and rabbis, in well-practiced fashion, carted away the corpses.

“I hadn’t followed orders. I broke with protocol. And because of that...” A tear coursed down his cheek. “Because of that I’m here. And my family isn’t.”

DeSantos swung his left arm around Uzi’s shoulders and pulled him close. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know.”

Uzi was in another world, sorrow and longing numbing his body, the pain of nightmarish memories stinging his soul like a poisonous spider. Wishing he was alone, or with Rudnick.

“If you don’t want to do this, I’ll talk to Knox. Maybe he’ll understand and let me pull someone from OPSIG to take the point with me.”

Uzi pushed away, then wiped his sleeve across moist eyes. He was never one to shirk his job responsibilities. And Knox wouldn’t understand: he’d interpret it as a psychological inability to perform, impacting his position as head of the Joint Terrorism Task Force—perhaps even costing his job as a field agent. Right now, he had enough to lug around without adding the loss of a career to his burden. He sniffled, then squared his shoulders. “I’m in, Santa. My job is to defend the United States against terrorists, and no one’s going to prevent me from doing my job.”

“Even if it means breaking protocol?”

Uzi looked away.

“Uzi, we all make mistakes in life. I made one that left my partner dead and his wife widowed. You met her. Trish, back at the house, with Presley. My goddaughter. I don’t blame myself because I know Brian wouldn’t blame me. We went on missions with the understanding that we’d always do our best no matter what. We’d watch each other’s backs like brothers. But nobody’s perfect. Missions get fucked for reasons beyond your control. Sometimes it’s because of what you do. You make a split-second decision and react. Most of the time you’re right. But that one time you’re wrong...” He shook his head. “We knew all that. We’d even talked about it a few times. We told each other that if one of us made a mistake and only one of us walked away, those are the risks. We do a very dangerous job. Death comes with the territory.”