Hard Target (37 page)

“Tough night,” Uzi said. In truth, DeSantos had told Uzi his presence might give Meadows pause before agreeing to take part in a federal offense. Uzi felt a pang of guilt over asking his friend to jeopardize his career, but if it all came apart and Knox did his thing to shield him and DeSantos, he’d make sure Meadows somehow got the same immunity.

Meadows eyed Uzi cautiously, then looked at the thick envelope before moving to open it.

Uzi held out a hand. “Not here.”

Meadows frowned. “What do you want me to do?”

“One item is self-explanatory. I need it matched to the evidence you examined from the Bishop murder.”

Meadows nodded knowingly. “Okay.”

“The other thing is less clear cut. Give me the works—prints, DNA, cryptanalysis, alternative light source, spectrometer, and anything else you can think of.”

“Looking for...?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

“That’s damn helpful, Uzi.”

Uzi shrugged. “What can I say?”

“How about, ‘I know this is an impossible job that’ll dominate your evenings for the next week, but I really appreciate it.’”

“Here’s the thing. You don’t have a week. You’ve got two days.”

“Two days? Two days, Uzi?”

Uzi held up his hands in mock surrender. “How about this: Thanks, man, I owe you.”

Meadows grunted. “If I had a ten spot for every time I’ve heard that...”

DAY SEVEN

8:09 AM

53 hours 51 minutes remaining

With less than five hours’ sleep under his belt, Uzi reported to the task force’s new base of operations: the suite used by the standing Counterterrorism Task Force, a once-woefully small group of experts that, after 9/11, expanded faster than a filling helium balloon. Caught off-guard, the FBI revamped their thinking on terrorist groups. They reorganized with serious manpower and—something that had been lacking—budgetary support.

Uzi was there to receive status reports. At this point, he could not rally the troops behind an investigative assault on ARM; he would have to tread lightly in view of Coulter’s orders to back off—despite Knox’s covert orders to the contrary. Of more concern was that if Meadows found something suspicious in the materials he was examining, Uzi and DeSantos would have to find a legal reason for returning to the compound with a properly executed search warrant. And with the attorney general in the way, with no way of disclosing what they’d found, that would be difficult, if not impossible.

And knocking around his thoughts was that there were only two days remaining before he had to finger a suspect and report to the president. He felt something stir deep down in his stomach. He used to thrive on pressure-packed missions like these. The ARM incursion definitely rekindled a spark inside him, the pinch of spice that had gone missing in his stir fry of a life.

As Uzi left the task force meeting, he was handed a message that Marshall Shepard wanted to see him. He winced; he had known there would come a time when he’d be forced to face his boss. He’d just hoped it would be later rather than sooner.

He made eye contact with Shepard’s secretary and got the nod to continue into the ASAC’s suite. When he entered, Shepard was standing at the large window behind his desk, his back to Uzi.

Uzi took a seat, and for the first time he could remember, was nervous about seeing his friend. He unwrapped a toothpick and stuck it in his mouth as he waited for Shepard to acknowledge his presence. In the meantime, he would play it as cool as he could, hoping Shepard’s reason for wanting to see him had nothing to do with his circumventing Coulter’s direct orders.

“You were told to stay away from ARM,” Shepard finally said. Still facing the bright window, his large form was silhouetted against the glare of a gray Washington December morning. “You were told to stay away not just by me, Uzi, but by the fucking attorney general.”

“Shep, what gives? What are you talking about?”

“I have reason to believe you didn’t drop it like the AG told you to do. You didn’t drop it.”

“Look, we’re conducting an investigation. You know how that goes. It’s hard doing stuff from a distance. But if that’s what we have to do, that’s what we have to do. You hear what I’m saying?” Uzi wasn’t sure
he
understood what he was saying. Shepard must have been confused as well, because he turned around. But the window glare prevented Uzi from seeing his boss’s face.

“Uzi, you’re talking in circles and when you talk in circles it’s because there’s something going on. Tell me there’s nothing going on, because I sure as hell don’t want to find out about it from the director or AG. I fucked up once. My ass is on the line. And I like it here. I like my job. Now you wouldn’t be doing anything to put me in a bad way, would you?”

Uzi swallowed hard, but tried to disguise it by shifting the toothpick around in his mouth. “Shep, your friendship means everything to me. I want you here for as long as I’m here.” Given the covert raid of ARM’s compound, he wondered how long that would be.

“Better fucking be telling the truth, ’cause I heard things. I heard that something went down at ARM last night, and that you were involved. I just wanna know that it’s all bullshit. That you’re clean. Are you? Clean?”

Uzi couldn’t stand it anymore. He hated lying; it was something he hadn’t had to do since his black ops days with Mossad. Worst of all, he had to lie to his close friend. And he had to do it by placing his complete faith in Douglas Knox, a man he did not trust.

But he also knew that telling the truth would have dire consequences. Uzi looked his boss in the eyes, squared his shoulders, and said, “Clean, Shep.” He wondered if he had been successful at maintaining a poker face.

Shepard turned back toward the window. “I sure hope so, Uzi. Sure hope so.” A few seconds passed in silence. Finally, Shepard said, “We’re done here.”

Uzi chomped hard on the toothpick, then pushed himself from the chair and turned to leave. He stopped in the doorway, wondering if he should tell Shepard what had happened last night. Could he be trusted? Would he keep a lid on it? Would Knox really stand by him, defend him, shield him from Coulter’s inquiry? Was Knox as powerful as DeSantos seemed to think—enough to deflect Coulter? If not, Uzi’s career was over—including those who had participated knowingly—and unknowingly. But Knox had not given him a choice. For the time being, it was best to keep it to himself. Even if it meant lying to his friend.

Uzi bit the toothpick in half, then walked out, leaving Shepard staring out the window.

12:22 PM

49 hours 38 minutes remaining

“Tango is on the move again.”

Echo Charlie was standing in front of a street vendor’s cart, ordering up a hot dog and Coke, the Sat phone pressed against his ear, his bodyguards scanning the area with trained eyes.

Charlie held up a hand. “No mustard.”

“What?” Alpha Zulu asked.

“Nothing.” Charlie switched ears as he handed the man a five dollar bill. “How are you able to still keep tabs on our man without the...device?”

“We’re doing it. That’s all you need to know.”

“Then why are we talking?”

“I need some help understanding where he’s been. I need the big picture.”

Charlie tucked the handset between his shoulder and ear, then took his food from the vendor. It was a brisk day, and steam from the juicy, sauerkraut-smothered frank was fluttering away on the breeze. He wished his comrade would make it quick—before his hot dog was no longer true to its name. “What places?”

“Private house off King Street, Alexandria. Five-twelve Jasper. But the one that had us most concerned was a location just outside Vienna.”

That caught Zulu’s attention. “Vienna?”

“Yes, but our residents there don’t know anything about it.”

“I don’t like that.” Charlie started toward his bodyguards. “I’ll check on both.”

“He could be getting too close. You know what’s at stake.”

Charlie motioned one of his men to take the Coke from him. He shifted the phone back to his hand and turned away. “Then we need to throw him off. But be smart about it. If Tango...disappears now, it’ll bring problems that we don’t need. Even though he’s only a thorn, if we cut it off, suddenly the whole bush will be in our face.”

“Not if we do it right.”

Charlie ground his teeth. “Let me dig around. Need be, we’ll erase the trail. That works, our problem may be solved. If not, we can take it a step further. I’ll be in touch.”

Before Zulu could object, Charlie ended the call. He took a large bite of his hot dog, and then dumped the rest in the garbage. “Gentlemen,” he said as he chewed, “let’s get moving.”

1:01 PM

48 hours 59 minutes remaining

Uzi headed down to his car. He needed to see DeSantos, find out how Shepard knew about their visit to ARM. Was Knox playing both sides of the fence? He wouldn’t put it past him.

Would DeSantos tell him the truth even if he knew it? What if DeSantos was the leak? Uzi dismissed the thought, feeling that DeSantos wouldn’t place his team in jeopardy. But the bond between Knox and OPSIG was inseparable, and even if Knox wouldn’t keep his promise to defend Uzi, he would go to war to protect DeSantos and his men.

As Uzi turned onto M Street, his secretary called. He was to report immediately to headquarters to meet with Pablo Garza. His chat with DeSantos would have to wait.

WHEN UZI ARRIVED at the Hoover Building, he was cleared by the FBI Police and drove over the retractable metal barrier, down the ramp, and into the underground garage. His mind was adrift with thoughts, trying to make sense of the facts they had amassed, when he entered the lobby.

But his eyes locked on a man standing in an elevator fifty feet away as the doors slid closed.
That face— I’ve seen it somewhere.

There was something wrong with this man being here, like he was out of place, in the wrong context, or the wrong time. But Uzi couldn’t fight through the mental cobwebs to figure out why.

He took the stairs up to the fourth floor, allowing his mind to sort through facial images stored in his memory—like a massive binder of mug shots of people he had met during his law-enforcement careers. Someone from his past? Or more recently, from his FBI tenure?

Uzi walked into Garza’s office; the agent flipped a file folder closed and asked Uzi to shut the door. He took a seat and waited for Garza to speak.

“So you’re a risk taker,” Garza said. He opened another file and appeared to be perusing its contents. But Uzi could tell the man’s heart was not in it.

“Is that a question or a statement?” Uzi asked. He kept working through the virtual photos in his mind.

“You’re also very, very stupid. You can’t skulk around behind the scenes. There are rules. You know that. We’ve discussed that as it related to Osborn—”

“Yes, Garza. I know that. Your point?”

“My point?”

The office door opened and in walked the man from the elevator. Bringing up the rear was Jake Osborn. Uzi’s intestines immediately knotted.

And that’s when it hit him, as hard and fast as a rubber bullet to the thigh. The mysterious elevator man Uzi had seen was almost certainly “GI Joe” from the ARM compound— the one who had stopped him before he reached the fence, the one DeSantos had handcuffed.

At first pass through his logic, that didn’t make any sense. It was nearly impossible for an ARM member to be a Federal agent. How could anyone have access to both FBI Headquarters and one of the most notorious militia compounds in the US? Unless—
Holy shit... They’ve got an undercover operative at ARM.

And he saw us there.

Nausea swept over Uzi as his mind raced through permutations on how to handle this. He needed to know what Garza knew, and what he was going do about it.

One thing was clear: he’d be getting answers soon enough.

Uzi tried to keep his facial expression impassive. “Yes, Garza. What’s your point?”

“Let me lay it out for you. This is Special Agent Adams. Recognize him?”

Uzi looked at the man, then turned back to Garza. “Should I?”

Garza slammed the file closed. “Let’s cut through the bullshit, Uzi. I know you were on that ARM compound last night. Adams was there. He works for us, he’s an infiltrator. We placed him with ARM after they merged with Southern Ranks. He’s been there two years, feeding Flint stuff here and there to keep his position with ARM intact.”

“Some key insight offered at just the right moment keeps me in Flint’s good graces,” Adams said. “He thinks I’m a freakin’ genius, a brilliant strategic planner.”

“We’ve given him some useless stuff along the way, then backed it up with some action to give it legitimacy. Flint thinks he’s gotten away with something. And he thinks Adams is someone he needs to keep close.”

“The militias started to get wise to us,” Adams said. “They were on the lookout for infiltrators and informants. Some in the movement advocated splitting into small cells to make the groups harder to crack. If you’ve got five members in your closed militia cell, and they’re all family or longtime friends, there’s no chance any of them’s a government plant.”

Cell-based structure... Exactly what a lot of Islamic terrorist groups use
. “Obviously,” Uzi said, “ARM doesn’t like that model.”

“Most of them don’t,” Garza said. “With small cells you can’t have leaders. Some call it leaderless resistance. But militia leaders are like preachers. Take away their followers, you take away their pulpit. No audience, no needy masses to look to them for guidance. No stage to preach from. Fortunately for us, the typical militia leader’s ego is his own undoing.”

“They don’t suspect anything?”

Garza shook his head. “There are three things the militias are trained to look for in spotting infiltrators. Most obvious is the guy who tries to push the group into illegal activity. Infiltrators tend to volunteer for things like selling or purchasing illegal weapons, drugs, bombs, shit like that.”

“I do the opposite,” Adams said. “I try to point out the danger in getting too aggressive. That way, when I do suggest they go on the offensive, it’s got credibility. Because there may be five other times I’ve steered them away from doing something risky.”

“You’ve been there two years. Don’t you have enough on them?”

“Flint may seem like an idiot, but he’s got decent instincts. He’s very careful to insulate himself. He never directly gives the orders to do something. The weekly radio address, streamed over their website, comes from someone called “The General.” I don’t know who he is, and no one’s talking, if they even know. He’s the guy we want.”

Uzi shook his head. “If we’d moved on them sooner, the attempt on the veep never would’ve happened—”

“There are other reasons for taking it slowly,” Garza said. “If we moved against ARM based on what Adams gave us, and the prosecution failed—”

“How could it fail?”

“A sharp defense attorney convinces one juror Adams was trying to entrap them. It’s happened, more times than I wanna admit. We couldn’t take the chance.” Garza leaned back, satisfied he’d quieted Uzi. “If they got off, our internal source is gone. We’d never get another mole in. But if we move on them based on other evidence, stuff that can’t be traced back to Adams, our ears stay in their organization until we’ve got enough to take another shot at them.”

“So far it’s worked real well,” Adams said.

Uzi grunted. “Yeah, it’s worked so well that our veep and more than a dozen other people were blown out of the sky. Did you know about those plans—before it went down?”