The Lost Codex (41 page)

69

G
aza was everything Vail had expected—and
none
of what she expected when they first boarded the plane to Israel. She figured she would see what had been shown on news reports following the most recent war: total devastation, destroyed buildings, a landscape flattened by mortars and artillery and bombs, a poor and destitute population.

There were areas like that—shells of structures that once stood, piles of rubble still littering the scenery, residents in simple clothing and looking the worse for wear. But by and large, that was a fraction of what she saw as they drove toward the address that Fahad’s informant had provided.

They entered Gaza from Israel through the Erez Crossing along the strip’s northeastern border. As Uzi and Fahad explained to Vail, the sixty million dollar pedestrian and cargo portal was built by Israel when it withdrew all its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in what was envisioned by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a land-for-peace deal in 2005. If all went well, it would serve as the template for negotiating a similar pact for the West Bank, with the goal of establishing a Palestinian state.

But four months after the Erez terminal was completed, Hamas won the popular election for the territory, its reign of terror began, and all hopes of a negotiated peace deal were put on hold.

Blockades were put in place to stem the flow of weapons from Iran, and Egypt closed the southern border to prevent Hamas and al Humat terrorists from entering the Sinai and collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood. Passage into Israel from Gaza was restricted to curtail suicide attacks and into Gaza from Israel to prevent the smuggling of contraband that could be used to build bombs.

Gaza became isolated and the people became a society controlled, manipulated, and intimidated by their elected government.

“I remember when my mom and I would take a bus into Gaza once a week to buy vegetables and fish,” Uzi said. “No checkpoints. No problems.” He glanced around. “That was before the intifada, before the suicide bombings.”

“A lot of things changed,” Fahad said. “If only we could turn back the clock, start again. Maybe things would be different.”

Vail glanced at Fahad.
Is this an act, or is he sincere?

With a scarf again covering her face, Vail took in Gaza City’s high-rises and businesses, hotels, museums and bustling avenues. Apartment buildings and homes. Fahad told her there were theaters and several universities as well as beautiful beaches along the Mediterranean coastline with resorts and sophisticated restaurants.

The sun was starting its descent as the winter afternoon passed. Despite the gathering clouds, there was still considerable light left to the day.

DeSantos’s phone rang and he dug it out of his pocket. “Hot Rod, talk to me … Yeah … Okay.” He pressed a button and said, “You’re on speaker.”

“I got a hit on something. Not sure if it means anything, but I haven’t seen any recent sit-reps from you guys, so I’m a bit in the dark. In case it’s significant you should know that Hussein Rudenko’s back on the grid. And he’s in your area.”

Holy shit. Rudenko!

“I knew we hadn’t heard the last of him,” DeSantos said.

“Hussein Rudenko, the arms dealer?” Fahad asked.

“Weapons trafficker wasn’t bad enough,” Uzi said. “He added terrorist to his resume. Karen, Hector, Hot Rod, and I got into it with him in London a couple of years ago.”

“As soon as we heard there were rare manuscripts and antiquities in play,” Vail said, “I should’ve known Rudenko was involved.”

“Hang on,” Uzi said. “We don’t know for sure he’s got anything to do with the codex or the scroll. Hot Rod, exactly what do you have?”

“I asked NSA to point their ears to Gaza and the West Bank in case anything came up that’d be important to you guys,” Rodman said. “They trapped a cell call ten minutes ago and got a voice match to Hussein Rudenko.”

“We’re in Gaza right now,” DeSantos said. “We need to know if Rudenko just happens to be in the area or if he’s selling weapons or planning an attack with al Humat.”

“I’ll see if NSA can track the phone’s GPS. Give me a few minutes.”

DeSantos ended the call and set his phone down on his thigh. “This is no coincidence.”

“If we look at this logically,” Vail said, “the most obvious reason for Rudenko to be here, now, is that he has possession of the scroll.”

“We know that al Humat—or one of their representatives—has the codex,” Uzi said. “That phone conversation we intercepted in Paris from Borz Ramadazov after he left the Louvre—he said he had it and was bringing it to the safe house. He had no reason to lie because he had no idea we’d tapped his phone.”

DeSantos swung around in his seat, taking in the city streets, no doubt doing some surveillance due diligence. “But we just missed Doka Michel, who supposedly was transporting the codex to Sahmoud’s office. Someone tipped Sahmoud, so when we got there, there was no codex and no Sahmoud, and the place was rigged. He knew we were coming.” DeSantos glanced at Fahad. It was subtle, and Fahad was looking out the window, so he probably did not notice.

“Rudenko could be buying it,” Uzi said. “Or the scroll.”

“Does this change anything?” Fahad asked.

“Yeah,” Uzi said. “I doubt Rudenko’s going to be alone. He’s going to have a small, well trained security detail with him.”

Vail curled some hair behind her right ear. “What do you make of the fact that he’s come to Sahmoud rather than the other way around?”

“Sahmoud’s ability to move in and out of the territory is restricted,” Uzi said. “And he’s at the top, or near the top, of just about every intelligence agency’s most wanted list. Much safer for Rudenko to come to him. Into Egypt, through the Sinai, then the tunnels into Gaza.”

Fahad pointed at the road ahead. “Slow down, we’re getting close. Turn left.”

Uzi followed the instructions and decelerated. Ahead, about seventy-five yards away, was a guard booth and two metal pillars that rose from the roadway. “Gated community.” He pulled the car to the curb.

DeSantos leaned forward to study the uniformed security officer, who appeared to be alone in the small brick structure. “We should hang out here till we hear back from Hot Rod.”

Rodman’s assessment came in a moment later:

he’s in gaza blocks from you
will send address


“That goes with what my CI told me,” Fahad said. “We’ve got the right place.”

A second later, it came through on DeSantos’s phone. “This doesn’t match the one your CI gave you.”

Fahad consulted the screen, then leaned back, his face twisted in confusion. “That’s easily two blocks away.”

“We go with Hot Rod’s intel,” DeSantos said. “Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Uzi said. “We can always double back to Mo’s house if we don’t find anything.”

“The numbers are transposed,” Fahad said. “Two digits are reversed. Maybe that’s it.”

And maybe not.

Vail looked out at the street. Large houses with adobe tile roofs and solar panels were set back from the road. None of them had perimeter walls or metal gates. “If we know Rudenko’s there now, we shouldn’t wait. We’ve got no idea how long he’s going to stick around.”

DeSantos tapped away at his phone. “Operationally, it’d be better to wait till it’s completely dark. I just asked Hot Rod to let us know if Rudenko moves.”

“How are we tracking him?” Uzi asked.

“NSA and NGA,” he said, referring to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. “Combination of cell phone intercepts, GPS data, and infrared heat signatures from a drone equipped with FLIR sensors.”

“Those sensors can be defeated.”

“So far we’ve got a fix.” DeSantos’s phone vibrated. He took a few seconds to read the text, then paraphrased it: “Apparently there’s a bunker-like room that’s hardened and shielded to some extent. They can see four men along the building’s perimeter and outside that room, but the others are less distinct. They think there are a total of eleven in and around the house. Rudenko’s one of them and, presumably, Sahmoud.”

“Wife and kids?” Vail asked.

DeSantos looked long and hard at her, then texted Rodman back. The response was near-immediate, despite the ten thousand miles separating them. “He wants to know if we’re serious. And he wanted to know who asked.”

Vail shook her head. “Yes, I’m serious. And I want an answer.”

Six minutes later they had a response. “Best they can tell, his wife and two boys are out of town in Italy at their villa.”

“Any backup?” Fahad asked. “Or just us?”

DeSantos glanced down at his phone. “Just got blueprints. And real-time images with infrared signatures. Check your satphones. Let’s make sure we all have the same feed.”

Uzi and Vail pivoted in their seats, pulled out their devices, and called it up on their small screens.

“Can’t really see inside that room,” Vail said.

“That’s the shielding,” DeSantos said. “Probably layers of concrete, maybe metal. We know men are in there but they look like blobs rather than well defined human outlines.”

Great. We’re not quite blind, but close to it. Kind of like being severely nearsighted and having your glasses smashed.

Fifteen minutes later, they had devised an operational approach to infiltrate the house, and although they had the layout and location of the tangos, they were guessing about who and what was inside the hardened room. They also did not know al Humat’s security protocols and what obstacles they were going to face.

They had one advantage: the element of surprise—at least for the moment—so the idea was to maintain it for as long as possible.

They assumed there would be motion sensors that would set off perimeter lighting and video cameras linked to a hard drive recording mechanism. That was a reasonable supposition, though by no means guaranteed.

“If it’s cloud-based,” Uzi said, “it could be a huge problem.”

“Odds?” DeSantos asked.

Uzi considered the question. “Al Humat isn’t known to be tech savvy—and a lot of the extremist groups take al Qaeda’s lead and avoid tech whenever possible because they know it can be tracked by the good guys. So I’d gamble that their video is, at best, recorded on a local hard drive. More likely it’s just live feeds with no archival storage. They’re not worried about catching or prosecuting intruders by identifying their mugs from a recording. They just want to prevent someone from doing what we’re going to do. But since camera feeds can be hacked, they may avoid them altogether and rely only on security personnel.”

“I’m more concerned with how we’re going to coordinate with each other once we leave the car,” Vail said. “We don’t have comms devices.”

DeSantos nodded. “As we work our way toward Sahmoud, if something goes south, text will be our quietest and quickest way of communicating.”

After walking through the plan a final time, they initiated their first line of attack: removing the security booth guard from the equation.

Fahad was the logical candidate to approach the man given his native appearance and language skills. Uzi would follow a moment later as backup and support in case there was someone else nearby.

A minute after Fahad left the SUV, DeSantos’s satphone rang.

“It’s Knox. Text Fahad, tell him to wait.”

Uzi yanked his phone out and started typing as DeSantos answered and placed the call on speaker. “Yes sir.”

“Are we secure?”

DeSantos looked around and made sure no one was in earshot. “You’ve got me, Uzi, and Karen. We’re in a car.”

“I’ll be landing in a matter of minutes. Status?”

DeSantos gave him a quick update. “We’re getting ready to go in.”

“Getting those docs is job one. Sahmoud is a secondary priority, but a priority nonetheless.”

DeSantos glanced at Vail and Uzi. “We’ll take care of both.”

“Just make sure you secure those documents,” Knox said. “Keep your emotions in check, temper your desire for justice. I want that fucker to pay for the American lives he’s taken too. But the codex and the scroll … while their strategic and historic value is obvious, there are other considerations. And because of that, after taking possession of them, you’re to turn them over to Mossad.”

Vail kinked her neck. “If we’re going to give them to the Israelis, why not just have
them
infiltrate Sahmoud’s compound. They’re much better equipped—”

“Because you’ve got your mission and you’ll carry it out. And because if I thought that pulling out now would work, I’d call the director general and tell him what we’ve got and let him deal with it. But there’s no time for that. You’re down the street from two prime targets. You bug out now, we may never find those docs again.”

Uzi ran the back of a hand across his beard stubble. “Why are we giving the codex and scroll a higher priority than capturing the number three most wanted terrorist?”

There was a prolonged pause. Just when Vail thought they had lost him, Knox began speaking.

“President Nunn wants to control the documents for his own strategic reasons. My sources tell me he plans to use them to force concessions from Israel to win the peace.”

“I thought that’s what the Palestinians are doing,” DeSantos said.

“It carries a great deal more weight with the president as the driving force behind it. And to Nunn, being the only president who successfully brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians would cement his legacy. But you know what? I don’t give a shit about a president’s legacy. If there’s peace it should be a negotiated agreement, not some leveraged form of blackmail. Despite best intentions, negotiated agreements sometimes fail. But extortion
never
works.”

“Take the documents out of the equation for a minute,” Uzi said. “The administration could just withhold military aid loans to Israel and leverage them that way. Wouldn’t that have the same effect?”

“Not that simple,” Knox said. “Those military loans are required to be spent in the US, so taking that money out of the US economy, and the jobs it would cost, would not be very popular at home. Congress would never go for it, anyway. No, this is Nunn’s only shot. They’re secret negotiations, which means no one’s supposed to know what he’s planning to do with these documents. So if you repeat what I’ve just told you, it’ll be clear who leaked the information. I’m the only one who knows what’s really going on outside a very small, well controlled circle.”