Hard Target

DAY EIGHT

Thoughts sped through Uzi’s mind faster than he could process them. He’d slept fitfully, and finally decided to give up the charade and get out of bed. Now, sitting at the kitchen table, he drummed his fingers on the surface, trying to process what Haldemann had told him.

He glanced at the clock and realized he had to get in the shower or he’d be late for his session with Rudnick. Fuck it. Can’t deal with it now. He pulled out his phone and texted Shepard.

He tossed his phone aside, opened his iPad, and began dictating notes when his Nokia vibrated. Return text from Shepard.

Uzi clenched his jaw. Goddamn it, Shep. Cut me some slack. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and replied:

He looked at his notes, realized he had lost his train of thought, and shut his iPad. Perhaps a cold shower would shake loose some useful ideas.

Uzi sat opposite Rudnick, his foot drumming a furious beat on the carpeted floor. Rudnick sipped his coffee and waited for Uzi to speak.

“Are you feeling okay this morning?” Rudnick finally asked.

“Me? Yeah, fine. Just a lot on my mind. Things are starting to come together, I think. You okay if we skip today’s session? I’ve got a ton of things to follow up on and very little time left.”

“When we last talked, you were having some issues with Leila. How’s that coming along?”

Clearly, skipping the session’s not an option. “So much has been going on with the investigation, we haven’t had much time together.”

“I see.”

“I did run into Jake Osborn. That didn’t go so well.”

“The agent you wrote up, yes. So you were expecting a more favorable reaction?”

“No.”

Rudnick took a long drink of coffee, then leaned back in his chair and seemed to appraise Uzi for a moment. “The FBI wasn’t your first choice when you moved back to the US, was it?”

“You’ve been spending time in my personnel file.”

“Just a bit. But there’s really nothing in there. Just a note that you interviewed with the CIA.”

“Their Special Activities Division,” Uzi said. “Secret paramilitary operators that work undercover. They do everything the military does, and more — and with deniability. I was looking at hooking up with their Ground Branch.”

“Sounds right up your alley.”

“Because of, well, because of what had happened, I’d had my fill of covert missions. Enough following orders. I realized I couldn’t handle it mentally anymore. I’d lost my edge, my mental toughness.” Uzi forced a grin. “You realize what it took for me to admit that just now?”

Rudnick didn’t smile. “You had ‘enough of following orders,’ yet you chose to work for the FBI, where protocols and procedures are vital to the performance of your job.”

The grin evaporated from Uzi’s face. “We’re back to Osborn.”

“We’ll get to Osborn in a minute. First let’s talk about ‘what had happened,’ as you put it.”

“How about… let’s not.”

“I really think it’ll help. Go back to your days with the Mossad. Was following orders something they stressed?”

Uzi’s foot was tapping the floor furiously as he decided whether or not to answer Rudnick. Realizing the good doctor wouldn’t allow him to sidestep the issue, he pressed on. “Mission success was the bottom line. They gave you the tools needed to get the job done and the rest was up to you. There were rules, yeah, but they were there to ensure survival. If you didn’t follow those rules, you ended up getting caught and embarrassing Israel, or getting killed. Or both.”

“What was your role?”

“I did what I did because it was necessary. But I’m not proud of it.”

“It?”

Uzi looked away. He pulled a toothpick from his pocket. He could feel Rudnick’s gaze on him as he fumbled with the plastic.

“Those toothpicks are like cigarettes for you, aren’t they?”

“I used to smoke. These are a hell of a lot healthier.”

“Are you embarrassed about what you did with Mossad?”

“Embarrassed? No. Not embarrassed. It was necessary. It was my job.”

“Yes…” Rudnick said. “But there’s something that still bothers you about it.”

Uzi had to give the shrink credit. He was very intuitive. He read his patients as if their diagnoses were imprinted on their foreheads. “Killing someone would bother any law-abiding citizen, even if the people you killed were terrorists, horrible people who enjoyed killing others because they were different and had different beliefs.

“During wars, soldiers sit in tanks with a ton of steel between them and the enemy. Or they fly in jets a few thousand feet in the air dropping bombs on a faceless enemy… lie on a mountainside hundreds of yards away and pull a trigger… launch a missile from a drone. Or fire a machine gun across a ravine. But what I did was up close and personal.”

A moment later, Rudnick caught on. “A kidon. A government-sponsored assassin.”

“If our operatives found out about a terrorist plot and infiltrated the cell, they would call us in. It was our job to… neutralize that cell before they could do any damage.”

“You killed them before they could kill innocent people.”

“Only if they’d killed before and posed a known risk to the general population.” Uzi chuckled. “Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? It’s not. You try to go about your business because you know what you’re doing is right. But you still wake up in cold sweats reliving the mission.”

Rudnick nodded slowly, then took a sip from his coffee, as if he were measuring his response. Finally, he said, “I would imagine it’s a very difficult thing for anyone to live with, regardless of who your… targets are.”

“Over the years I worked with other counterterrorism agents— Special Operational Forces, GSG-9s, MI5s, MI6s. We all felt the same way. Yeah, there were some who got off on it, the killing, but most did what we did for our country.” He shrugged a shoulder. “’Course, knowing that didn’t really make it any easier to live with.”

“Your last job was before Dena’s… death?”

Uzi felt his eyes tearing and looked away. He managed a nod, but couldn’t get his voice to work. He cleared his throat and, staring at the floor, said, “A terrorist cell that’d assassinated one of our interior ministers was also responsible for three other bombings. A café, a disco, and a school bus. Seventy-nine were killed. They were planning an attack on the Knesset, to take out a major portion of the Israeli government. It’d be like 9/11, if the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania had made it to the Capitol building.”

“It would’ve been… very demoralizing.”

“And it would’ve triggered a war with devastating consequences. So the agents kept a watch on the group’s activities, checked and double-checked everything. We found out how they were going to do it. They’d be able to defeat the building’s defenses and hit different parts of the structure simultaneously. But we didn’t know when it was going down.” Uzi relived the events in his head as if they’d happened a month ago. “There was one point each day when the six terrorists were in separate locations. We knew where and when, and I was given the assignment of eliminating one of them. Another five kidons were dispatched to take out the others.”

“Sounds like a pretty important mission they entrusted to you.”

“The kidon they’d originally assigned got injured. I was the backup. I’d trained alongside him, so I knew the op as well as he did. Funny thing is, if I hadn’t gone, my family would still be alive today. Strange how things work out, isn’t it, Doc?”

“Uzi, you can’t—”

Uzi held up a hand. “There are some things you have control over, and some you don’t. Nothing I could’ve done differently on that. Luck of the draw.”

“So what went wrong?”

“They didn’t tell me till the morning of the hit that I was going in. They did that sometimes so you didn’t stress over it. You trained for days, sometimes weeks, and then one day they just said ‘Get your gear, you’re going in.’ That’s when they told me who my target was. I couldn’t believe it. I knew the guy. Ahmed Ishaq, one of our best informants. I told the director general there was some mistake, that Ahmed would never do this. He told me to carry out my orders, that our intel was good. He asked me if I could handle this mission, and I told him of course.

“But in the back of my mind, I had doubts. I thought that if I could just talk to Ahmed, find out what was going on….” Uzi shook his head. “I just couldn’t believe Ahmed was a terrorist.”

“So you went to meet him.”

“I should’ve followed mission protocols,” Uzi said, pounding the knife-edge of his right hand into the palm of his left. “Everything was mapped out. Mossad had reconfigured their training facility to match Ahmed’s safe house, so I knew the layout before I went in. I’d practiced the maneuvers so many times I could’ve done it in the dark.” Uzi chuckled sardonically. “My grandmother used to say, ‘Man plans and God laughs.’ Because when emotions enter the equation, everything goes to hell. The best kidons leave their emotions at the door. That’s the way I’d handled all my missions. Except this one.”

“I take it the Director General was right about Mr. Ishaq.”

Uzi was staring at the floor. Finally, he spoke without raising his eyes. “I wanted to give him every opportunity to come clean. But he couldn’t, because… yes, the director general was right. And it all blew up in my face. One of his buddies was in the back room. I didn’t approach the mission like I was supposed to do. I should’ve scoped out the house, known everyone who was in there. Bottom line, Ahmed was guilty and trapped. They started shooting. I got caught in the cross fire, pinned down. I couldn’t even get a shot off. But Ahmed got hit, probably by a ricochet from his partner’s gun. The other guy took off.”

“What about the other five terrorists?”

“Eliminated.”

“Then I don’t understand,” Rudnick said. He took a sip of coffee. “May not have gone as planned, but it sounds like the mission objectives were met.”

Uzi was still staring at nothing.

“Right?” Rudnick asked after a long silence.

“We stopped the terrorist attack. So, yeah. But the guy at Ahmed’s place who got away. That’s where the problems started. When Dena and Maya were killed…” Uzi stopped, his voice choking down. He looked up at the ceiling. His eyes were moist. “A note was left. It read, ‘For Ahmed.’”

“But you didn’t kill Ahmed,” Rudnick said. “His colleague—”

“His buddy couldn’t admit he’d shot one of his own. I’m sure he told the others in his cell that I’d killed him. That is what I was supposed to do. I’m sure it wasn’t hard convincing them that I was the one who’d killed him. Why would they question it?”

Rudnick nodded. “I see. So one of the remaining members of this terrorist group tracked you down and… effected revenge. And you blame yourself.”

Uzi said nothing.

“Well, my friend, this explains a lot, doesn’t it?”

The toothpick bobbed up and down on Uzi’s lips. He was trying his hardest to fight back the tears. But a knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.

Rudnick’s brow crumpled. He rose from his chair and cracked the door open.

Just then, Uzi’s phone rang. The caller ID told him it was Marshall Shepard’s private cell phone. “Yeah.”

“Uzi, listen carefully. Some bad stuff’s going down. I don’t know the whole story, but I’m working on it. It’s gonna take some time. Just cooperate and don’t make it any harder—”

Uzi turned in his seat and saw a gray-and-black uniformed law enforcement officer through the doorway. The man and Rudnick exchanged a brief, muffled conversation — during which Uzi heard his name.

This is about me. Shepard’s phone call suddenly made sense.

“I’m a psychologist,” Rudnick said, louder. “I’m not at liberty to disclose who’s a patient—”

“It’s okay, Doc,” Uzi said. He was on his feet, moving toward the door. “I’m Aaron Uziel.”

A suited man nudged the door open and pushed through. It wasn’t until he had entered the treatment suite did Uzi see there were a handful of officers in the anteroom. And their guns were drawn.

Definitely not a positive sign.

“Aaron Uziel, Detective Jack Paulson, Fairfax County Sheriff’s Department. I’ve got a warrant here for your arrest. Do you have any weapons on your person, sir?”

“What’s going on?” Rudnick asked. “You can’t just barge into a doctor’s office and arrest his patient—”

“We can and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Paulson said matter-of-factly. “Now step back, sir, and don’t interfere or we’ll have to take you in, too.”

Uzi slowly spread his arms like an eagle, his Nokia still in his right hand. An officer stepped forward and patted down Uzi’s body, removing the Glock from its holster. Next he found the Puma tactical knife in Uzi’s pocket and then the Tanto hanging around his neck.

“I’ve got a boot knife, too.”

The officer handed it all to Paulson, who squinted as he eyed the weapons cache, no doubt wondering why an FBI agent was so heavily — and unconventionally — armed.

“I’ll ask you not to make any sudden moves,” Paulson said. “You know the drill.” Paulson turned around. “Chuck.”

A man in a brown windbreaker stepped through the crowd of officers. He opened a small toolkit on the carpet and peeled a couple of wide swatches of adhesive tape from a plastic wrapper. He applied the strips to Uzi’s hands, then removed and carefully packaged them.

Uzi knew what they were doing, and he didn’t like the implications. “What’s the charge?”

The technician nodded at Paulson.

Paulson nudged Uzi around, then pulled his prisoner’s arms down one at a time and affixed a set of handcuffs.

“Aaron Uziel, you’re under arrest for the murder—”

“Murder?” Uzi craned his neck to look at Paulson. “Of who?”

“John Quincy Adams.”

“Is that a joke?”

“No, sir, no joke. And you have the right to remain silent.”

“Spare me,” Uzi said. But Paulson continued nonetheless. Uzi zoned out, searching his memory for the name John Quincy Adams — beyond the obvious American history reference.

Then it hit him.

Uzi was driven by squad car to the Mason District station of the Fairfax County Police Department. A modern brick and stucco structure, it had the flavor of a small-town police station with all the technology and creature comforts of a metropolitan facility.

A single deputy manned the booking desk, where clipboards and files were stacked on end, with memos and rosters taped to walls. Everything Uzi expected to see that he had seen when he’d visited other police departments as a guest — phones ringing, keys clanging, printers spitting out documents — were absent.

He was led to a counter-mounted camera, positioned in front of a wall with measured hash marks, and given a metal identification sign to hold in front of his chest. The flash sparked and he was ushered over to a metal bench. Ahead stood several jail cells with thick, yellow bars.

“Wait here,” Paulson instructed. He handed some paperwork to another deputy, who was operating the free-standing LiveScan electronic fingerprint unit. Uzi’s ridges and whorls were recorded and stored digitally in an expansive electronic database. Uzi thought of the tour he’d taken of the Bureau’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, a state-of-the-art fingerprint facility in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The technology contained in the 100,000-square-foot computer center fascinated him. Uzi had wanted to spend more time learning about it, but never had made the trip. Now he was experiencing the front-line centerpiece of the system firsthand.

Paulson led Uzi across the hall to a small room where a rack of forms sat beside a Sony television. Mounted atop the TV was a PictureTel video conferencing unit linked with the magistrate on duty. The bespectacled judge was leaning back in her chair listening to Paulson outline the charges.

Uzi followed his better sense and kept his mouth shut. Mostly, he didn’t know what to say other than to deny everything — something he was sure the cops and the magistrate heard often.

Paulson glanced down at his notepad. “Evidence includes a ballistics match to Mr. Uziel’s Glock forty-caliber sidearm—”

“What?” Uzi looked at Paulson, his mouth agape.

“You’ll get your chance in a moment,” the magistrate said to Uzi. She gestured toward Paulson, and the detective continued.

“That should be enough for now, Your Honor.”

“Indeed,” the magistrate said. “Agent Uziel, now you may speak.”

Uzi faced the monitor. He was a bit unnerved over pleading his case to a television screen, but pressed on without hesitation. “Your Honor, what time was Agent Adams murdered?”

The magistrate consulted her paperwork. “ME estimates five to seven hours ago.”

Uzi knew the gunshot residue test the forensic technician had performed on him was only valid for up to six hours after firing a weapon — which meant he was right on the cusp of the timeline. Regardless, he was confident the GSR would come back negative since he hadn’t fired his sidearm in nearly two weeks. But a negative finding might not do him any good because a good US Attorney would merely point out the test’s limitations and the fact that several hours had elapsed since the murder.

Uzi looked directly into the camera. “Your Honor, I only met Agent Adams once — actually, twice,” he said, realizing he had first seen the man on the ARM compound. “I had no animosity toward him. I’ve got no motive.” He figured it would be best not to mention the argument in Garza’s office, though he knew, of course, it would eventually surface.

“And how do you explain the ballistics match?”

Uzi absentmindedly shook his head. That was a good question. He couldn’t. “I don’t know, Your Honor.”

“Well, for now we’re just going to go with what we have. I’m sure you would want me to do the same thing if you were in Detective Paulson’s shoes.”

Uzi sucked the inside of his cheek. He wanted a toothpick desperately, but given the circumstances figured he would be better off asking for a phone call to an attorney.

“Okay then,” the magistrate said. She looked down at the paperwork on her desk and scrawled her signature. “Officer Paulson, we’re a go on this one.”

Paulson nodded, then took Uzi by the elbow. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Your Honor, I’m running the investigation into the vice president’s assassination attempt. I can’t just—”

“Agent Uziel, as a rule of law, my hands are tied. They’ll have to carry on without you. I hope, for your sake, you get this straightened out.”

That makes two of us.

The detective led Uzi back across the hall to Room 162. He pulled open the door, and they walked into the quiet chamber that held six empty jail cells. Paulson grabbed the handle on unit number two and slid the gate aside. Uzi knew that was his cue to enter.

“I’ll get you a phone in here as soon as I can. Meantime, make yourself comfortable.”

Uzi sat down on the cot and watched Paulson close the door. His first thought was what this meant in terms of his task force and the investigation. He had barely a day left — not a good time to be locked up in a cage.

Then, as he stared at the cold iron bars, a weightier question gnawed at him: who had framed him— And how did they do it? But as the minutes ticked by, the reality of being imprisoned began to eat at him like necrotizing bacteria. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that whoever was behind the downing of the VP’s chopper was probably responsible for putting him in this cell. And though the wheels of justice ground slowly, sometimes they got off-track, and bad people got away. Which meant, in his case, the good guy didn’t.

He laid back on the cot and stared at the ceiling. Shepard said he was working on it. Uzi hoped to hell he was working fast.

Alpha Zulu sat in a 2004 Dodge Stratus and watched Tim Meadows pull away from the curb in front of his Alexandria home. When Meadows’s Ford disappeared down King Street and then turned, Zulu set his watch and waited. Because of the Fibber’s expertise in detecting sensors and bugs, Zulu had to resort to low-tech human methods to track his target.

Sierra Bravo, in his equally nondescript and untraceable gray 2007 Mazda 6, was now following Meadows. If the Ford did an about-face and started heading home, a phone call to Zulu would alert him.

They used the same procedures to track Agent Uziel when they tailed his SUV around town. Zulu’s people were skilled in city surveillance and kept reasonably close to their target. But determining what Uziel did once he arrived at his destination was more difficult.

But that was where strategically placed state-of-the-art equipment played a role: high-tech concepts with low-tech applications. Nevertheless, Zulu’s extensive training taught him that relying less on devices and more on intuition, logic, and reasoning were more reliable methods of gathering accurate intelligence.

He pulled the baseball cap further down over his forehead, got out of his car, and quietly closed the door. He walked briskly across the street, keeping his eyes straight ahead, and went directly into the yard, where he had previously identified his method of entry: the basement window. Using a diamond-edge circle cutter and a suction cup, he scored an opening. After making additional slices, he removed enough glass for him to crawl through, bypassing the alarm.

The surveillance, the intelligence gathering, the mock maneuvers… they had their moments. But this was the part of his job he enjoyed the most; each situation was designed to confuse the authorities. Throwing a fastball when they were expecting a curve was pure art. No, it wasn’t just art. Working covertly in a target’s own home and manipulating law enforcement provided an indescribable sense of power.

But not the power politicians craved. It was more than that. It was the ultimate violation. And when executed to perfection, a rousing — no, explosive — culmination of a job well done.

An hour and a half passed. Paulson had not brought the phone and Uzi hadn’t heard anything from Shepard. He was fighting to contain his anger, but panic was worming its way into his thoughts. Scenarios were running through his mind, becoming more nightmarish as the moments passed.

Why had they arrested him? Sure, he’d had an altercation with Adams, but so what? That’s suspicion, not evidence. They were running a gunshot residue test on him — but that was being done to bolster the evidence they already had.

Uzi tried to compartmentalize his anger and fear to reason this through. If Adams was killed, it had to be someone from ARM — someone who’d discovered Adams was a government agent. But Adams had been there two years. Who would suddenly betray him — and why now? Fallout from his and DeSantos’s incursion on their compound?

Perhaps the incident had been captured on film and Adams was killed for incompetence — an example to the others of what would happen if they didn’t do their jobs properly.

He stuck to known facts. They were running a GSR and had recovered a slug from Adams’s body. It was from a .40 caliber Glock — the weapon Uzi, and just about all FBI agents, used. Combined with the altercation they’d had, someone must have convinced a judge to issue an arrest warrant. Yet no judge would authorize the arrest of a federal agent unless he had damn good proof. But the magistrate had said there was a ballistics match.

A ballistics match. How can that be?

He stood up and grabbed the bars, closed his eyes and leaned his head against the painted metal. This was not helping. He needed to know what the cops knew.

Suddenly the main door to the room cracked open. And Uzi’s head snapped up. DeSantos pushed through.

“Boychick… I came as soon as I heard.”

“What the hell is going on?”

DeSantos settled himself in front of the cell, placed his hands on the bars. “I wish I could tell you everything’s under control, but things are all fucked up.”

“What could possibly be fucked up? I didn’t kill Adams. What could they have on me?”

“All I know is Coulter signed an order authorizing Fairfax PD to access the Academy’s ballistic profile database. They ran the slug they pulled from Adams. It’s a match.”

“For my gun.”

DeSantos hiked his eyebrows. “Apparently.”

“That’s impossible, Santa. How could someone steal my gun, kill Adams, and then return it to me?”

“Unless the Glock you’re carrying isn’t really your Glock. If it was switched at some other time, say a few days ago, you wouldn’t have known.”

Uzi felt his heart skip a beat. He slumped down onto the cot. “Either way, I’m fucked.”

“Not on my watch.”

The two men turned to see Douglas Knox standing in the doorway to the cell block.

“Mr. Director,” Uzi said, quickly rising to his feet. He glanced at his partner for an explanation, but DeSantos seemed just as surprised.

“Obviously, there’s been a mistake,” Knox said. “Detective?” He turned to the open doorway.

Paulson walked in, keys dangling at his side. He didn’t look pleased. He unlocked Uzi’s cell, then walked away without saying a word.

Knox shut the door to the room and stood toe to toe with Uzi. “GSR was negative.”

Uzi knew that was a bullshit explanation— the GSR could’ve been negative even if he had killed Adams. And if that was the reason for his release, Knox would not have wasted his time showing up at the local police station.

“I’ll leave you to get your belongings,” Knox said. “Hector, with me.”

DeSantos gave Uzi’s shoulder a shove, then left with Knox.

As Tim Meadows made a U-turn, he took another glance at the sedan down the block from his house. It was one he hadn’t seen before. Although some considered his self-preservation measures paranoiac, he had seen more of humanity’s seedier slices than most individuals would experience in a lifetime.

And this car bothered him. Sure, its windows were tinted, but there was an intangible something about it that set off his internal alarm.

He checked his mirrors, then got out of his vehicle and hustled up the path to the front door. He disabled the house alarm and descended the basement steps to grab a pair of binoculars. He’d find a safe place where he had a clear view, get the license plate, and call it in.

As he lifted his Leupold Mark 4 tactical glasses from their case, he noticed something in the darkness. Rather, it was what he didn’t see that caught his attention: the lack of green power LEDs that normally glowed from his PC across the room. He flipped on the lights. The computer — and a couple of projects on the workbench — were missing. And the door to his gun safe was ajar.

Meadows bit his lip. Someone had broken into his home and stolen his PC. Why? Was it related to the Russian 7.62 round Uzi had brought him? As he reached for his cell phone, his eye caught sight of a red light on the floor, attached to a device that wasn’t supposed to be there: a detonation unit piggybacked by what looked like multiple blocks of C-4.

“Jesus Christ!”

Meadows darted forward, as fast as his thick legs would carry him, toward the basement’s side wall. He grabbed the heavy gun safe door and pulled it open, then shoved his body inside, rotating his beer gut and squeezing himself against the velour interior.

He struggled to swing the door shut. But he couldn’t lock it— This was a safe, with hardened steel lugs that latched into the frame. As long as he didn’t secure the handle, he could get out. But if the mechanism engaged accidentally, or if debris piled in front of the door, he’d die from asphyxiation.

If the blast didn’t kill him outright. He gambled the explosion would push the door tight enough for the duration of the pressure wave, then leave the path free of rubble for his exit. Gambling. With his life. Damn it…

Images flicked through his mind like an out-of-control movie projector. Calm yourself. Think!

He pictured the device, analyzing its setup. Reviewing his options. What options? Defeat it. Difficult, but not impossible. If he had time to study it. But if he guessed wrong, or if it was booby trapped, the fat lady would be singing so loud everyone in the neighborhood would hear her.

Then there was that car. If the bombers were sitting out there waiting for the right second to set off the device, they’d probably shoot him dead if he tried to leave the house.

No, there was no defeating it and no escaping. The only thing left to do was hope the safe would survive the explosion. It was fire resistant and blast proof. But even though the force would be directed upwards, he was so damn close to the bomb.

Just how blast proof was “blast proof”?

He was sure whoever planted it had to be associated with Uzi’s case. Who else would want him dead? He was a likeable guy. No enemies, aside from that sixth grade bully he popped in the eye—

So freakin’ hot in here. He struggled to breathe, wishing he’d stuck to the diet and exercise plan he’d started two years ago. Would’ve been a lifesaver in more ways than one.

Nothing to do but wait. His skin was clammy and fear-slick. Mere seconds had passed, but it felt like hours.

His arms ached from pulling on the door to keep it closed— but not locked — not locked!

Cell phone— Would it work in here? Call EOD. Yes! Before the damn thing goes off. But in the next second, that thought vanished.

The blast was deafening.

Uzi retrieved his belongings — sans his Glock — and met DeSantos in the parking lot. His partner started talking before Uzi reached him. “Knox said your palm had trace barium and antimony.”

“From handling my weapon, putting it in my holster.”

DeSantos nodded. “That was all they found. Otherwise, GSR was negative.”

They got into DeSantos’s vintage Corvette and swung the doors shut. “Santa, you and I both know they’re not throwing out a murder charge based on a negative GSR. What gives?”

DeSantos turned the key and the massive engine roared to life. “Knox took care of it.”

“Knox made a murder charge go away?” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”

“Don’t worry about it, boychick. Just forget it. Let Knox do his thing, okay?”

“But—”

“He takes care of his people. I told you that. That’s how he builds loyalty.”

Uzi considered this as DeSantos headed out of the lot. Was this Knox’s way of getting Uzi to back off his investigation of the director’s NFA links? I take care of you, you take care of me?

“From what I know of Knox,” Uzi said, “if he does something like this, it’s gotta serve his interests. So I guess the question is, What are his interests?”

“Despite what you might believe, he only tells me what he thinks I need to know. And why he did what he just did is not something he thinks I need to know.”

Uzi looked hard at DeSantos, trying to determine if his partner was being straight with him. “I’m not comfortable with this. Another thing for him to hold over my head.”

“Were you more comfortable in that prison cell with a lethal injection in your future?”

“No.”

“Then don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“No shit. In this case I might find rotten teeth.”

DeSantos frowned. “You’re a hard man to please, you know that?”

As they approached the exit, a black Lincoln Continental pulled in front of the Corvette, blocking their path.

“What the hell is this?” Uzi asked, his right hand moving toward his empty holster.

DeSantos touched his partner’s arm with calm assurance.

The Lincoln’s blacked-out rear window rolled down, revealing the silver-haired Douglas Knox. DeSantos threw the gear shift into Park and got out of the car, Uzi close behind.

Knox, tracking Uzi’s movements, said, “Agent Uziel, do you know who Danny Carlson is?”

Indeed he did. Danny Carlson was Nuri Peled’s cover name. Was this a test? Or a trap of some sort? Unsure as to why Knox would bring up Peled’s name, Uzi simply said, “Yes.”

When Knox’s expression did not change, Uzi concluded the man already knew the answer to his own question.

“Mr. Carlson was found dead an hour ago. In his garage, apparent suicide. He was a former colleague of yours, I believe, so I thought you might want to know.” Knox waited a beat, then said, “JTTF should confirm cause of death. See to it.” When Uzi did not respond, the window rolled up. A second later, the car drove off.

The air in front of Uzi turned Everest-thin, a dizzying array of colored pinpricks dancing around him, sparkling, swirling, shifting. In the next instant Uzi was sitting on the asphalt, DeSantos kneeling in front of him.

“You okay? Uzi. Look at me, man, look at me.” He gently slapped Uzi’s cheeks and, over the next few seconds, Uzi focused on his friend’s face.

“I just saw him, Santa. Just spoke to him.”

“Nuri was a good man. A good operative.”

Uzi licked his lips. “You knew him?”

“You weren’t the only guy in Mossad I worked with.”

“After the chopper went down, I reached out,” Uzi said, his voice coarse with pain. “To see if he knew anything about a Mideast connection. Nuri said there was nothing as far as he knew. But he’d heard a whisper that a new group had a sleeper operating in the States. He was checking it out for his employer. Not Mossad… He called it a ‘friendly ally.’ He shifted things into high gear because of the chopper crash.”

Uzi lifted himself off the ground and straightened his jacket with a wiggle of his shoulders. “I spoke to him again the night I dropped by your place. He hadn’t found anything but was working it. Obviously, the rumor was true and the group he was tracking is here. They must’ve found out he was on their tail.” He looked up at his partner, his face lacking color. “Santa, did I get him killed?”

DeSantos held up a hand. “Before you slop another helping of guilt onto your plate, let’s add this up. Knox said it looked like suicide. Gassed himself in his garage. Not exactly your typical hit.”

“I know Nuri. He wouldn’t do that. And he gave no indication of being in distress. It’s bullshit.”

“I agree. Then if it was a hit, they wanted to keep it low key, to minimize suspicion. So they staged it. But that’s not a terrorist’s typical MO, either.” He regarded Uzi, then asked, “Your reaction to the news tells me Nuri was more than just one of your sources.”

Uzi nodded, then looked skyward as if God could provide an answer. “He was my mentor when I joined up. Taught me a lot about staying alive. But I hadn’t talked to him since I left Mossad. It was good seeing him. I didn’t realize how much I missed talking with him.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

“I have to call Knox, tell him what Nuri was working on. If it wasn’t suicide, and if a sleeper was involved, Homeland Security needs to know. And I need to get some people assigned to it. You call Knox, I’ll call Shepard.”

DeSantos nodded and rooted out his BlackBerry as Uzi dialed. But before Uzi could hit Send, the phone rang. It was Shepard. He started to brief his boss on Peled, but Shepard interrupted him. Uzi listened for a moment, then turned to DeSantos, who was ending his call. “How fast can this thing go?”

“My ’vette?” DeSantos chuckled devilishly. “How fast do you want it to go?”

Uzi started toward the car. “Fast.”

Uzi and DeSantos ran into the Virginia Presbyterian emergency room, where Uzi flashed his credentials and asked where Tim Meadows was being treated. The nurse gave them resistance, but Uzi was in no mood for delays, and he made sure she understood his urgency. A moment later, they were striding down the hall looking for treatment suite four.

Gauze bandages covered Tim Meadows’s head and hands. A moment passed before Meadows opened his eyes.

“My old pal,” Meadows said, “the man with the cool name. Uzi. Aaron Uzi.” He licked his dry lips. “It’s got that license-to-kill feel.”

“Tim, I really—”

“Feel guilty? Don’t. I’d hate for you to feel responsible for nearly getting me killed.”

“Tim… I really am sorry.” He looked at the monitors attached to Meadows’s body. “Are you okay?”

“What? You’ll have to speak up because my hearing is, like, how shall I put this? Severely impaired. I was thinking of having a nametag made up to wear around the office: Speak up ’cause I’m freakin’ deaf. What do you think?”

Uzi frowned. “What I said was—”

“I know what you said, I read your lips. So you want to know if I’m okay. Hmm. Let me think about it for a second. Several freaking blocks of C-4 exploded in my basement a few feet from where I was standing. I can still hear the explosion in my head. ’Course, I can’t hear anything else.”

“I’d say you escaped relatively unscathed.”

“Yeah? Easy for you to say. Would you like a concussion and two broken hands?”

“Care to tell us what happened?”

“A bomb exploded. Specific enough?” He must have noted Uzi’s pained expression, because he continued: “I saw this car on my street. Didn’t look right to me. I went into my house to get my binoculars so I could grab the plate, have it run.

“I realized someone had stolen my PC and broken into my safe. That’s when I saw it. Blocks of C-4 connected to a detonation device. I hid in the safe. But it took out a good chunk of my house. My goddamn house, Uzi.”

“If you were in the safe, how’d you get so banged up?”

“I stayed put to make sure they weren’t waiting around to finish off the job. There was so much garbage all around me I had a hard time pushing open the door. I finally got it open and climbed out, but twisted my ankle and went down hard, broke my fall with my hands — then all sorts of crap hit me in the head. I blacked out. Metro PD pulled me out of the rubble.”

“Do you know who did this?” DeSantos asked.

Meadows’s eyes moved over to DeSantos when he saw Uzi look at his partner. DeSantos repeated his question.

Meadows tilted his head. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? I assume the same person who wanted my PC and backup files. And, if I might guess, the same person who wanted that Russian round you gave me to analyze.”

Uzi glanced at DeSantos, then looked at Meadows. “Your PC is missing?”

“I’m the one who’s near deaf, Uzi. Do you really need me to repeat myself?”

Uzi rolled his eyes. “Are you sure they got the bullet?”

“Your concern for my health is flattering.” He turned to DeSantos. “I thought he’d ask if I’ll regain my hearing, and how long I’ll be laid up here. Instead he asks about his bullet.”

Uzi leaned on the hospital bed, getting closer to Meadows. “Tim, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I didn’t mean for you to get dragged into this. And I sure as hell didn’t want you to get hurt. You know that.”

Meadows looked away. “Yeah, I know it.”

Uzi ducked down, got in front of his friend’s face. “You need somewhere to crash, I’ve got room at my place.”

“I may take you up on the offer. But first things first.” Meadows kicked back the thin blanket and swung his legs over the side of the cot.

“Where are you going?”

“Going? Nowhere without a freaking wheelchair.” He pointed. “There’s one over there in the corner.”

As DeSantos turned to retrieve it, Uzi grabbed Meadows’s arm.

“You sure it’s a good idea for you to get out of bed?”

“First of all, I hate hospitals. Second, if you give me a hand, I might be able to access the data that was on my PC — including the ballistics results I took from that round.”

Meadows looked at DeSantos. “You’re all business, Mr. DeSantos. I can tell. Tell your buddy to get me over to a computer that’s hooked up to the Internet, and not to waste any time because whoever stole my PC knows what he’s doing. He’ll be going through the hard drive. And that’s when he’ll find my trail.”

“Your trail?” DeSantos asked.

“His online backup account,” Uzi said.

“If it’s still there. Our bomber may try to delete it. We should hurry.”

“Where do we find a computer?” Uzi asked.

Meadows shrugged. “Doctor’s lounge?”

Uzi helped him off the bed and into the wheelchair while DeSantos sorted out the wires and tubes so he could unhook Meadows from the monitors and take the IV stand with them.

“I tried to get the nurse to get me to a computer, but she clearly didn’t understand what was at stake.” He grabbed the armrests of the chair. “Whoa.”

“You okay?”

“Just dizzy. They’ve got me a little doped up.”

“If you weren’t in such a bad way, I’d say that you’re always a little dopey.”

“I’m glad you restrained yourself. Your lack of humor might depress me even more.” He closed his eyes for a second. “Head’s killing me.”

“Let’s get going so we can get you back to bed as soon as possible.” DeSantos gave the chair a push toward the doorway.

“So, since it damn near cost me my life, I’m a tad bit curious. Just what is at stake here?”

Uzi shared half smiles with DeSantos, and then leaned in front of Meadows so his friend could read his lips. “Believe me, Tim, you really don’t want to know.”

“You said the same thing to me when you gave me that Russian round to analyze. Still sticking with that line, huh?”

“It still applies.”

The third floor doctor’s lounge featured four computers sitting on a long work shelf against the far wall. Uzi pushed Meadows in front of one of the keyboards, and Meadows lifted his splinted hands. “Oh, Christ. This isn’t gonna work.”

Uzi pulled over an adjacent chair and followed Meadows’s instructions to log into his SafeStor online data storage account. As Uzi scrolled down the list of hyperlinks, Meadows scanned the items, mentally ticking off each one.

“Well?” Uzi finally asked.

“There,” Meadows said, pointing at the screen with a bandaged paw.

Uzi looked at Meadows’s hand and then at the screen. “Can you be a little more specific?”

Meadows scowled. “Click that box where it says, ‘Select all,’ and then that green button that says ‘Download.’”

Uzi did as instructed.

“Where are you going to put all of it?” DeSantos asked. “It says there’s nineteen gigabytes of data. I may not know much about computers, but my former partner did, and I do know that when you’re talking gigabytes, it’s an awful lot of shit.”

Meadows bobbed his head. “Yes and no. It’s all relative.” He pointed. “We’re going to borrow some room on the hospital’s server. I’m sure they won’t mind.”

“Anything sensitive in here?” Uzi asked. “We really shouldn’t—”

“Would you rather lose it? Because unless we move fast, in the time it takes for me to argue with you, all our data could vanish.”

“Do it,” DeSantos said. “Now.”

Meadows directed Uzi to download all the data to a special folder they created on the hospital server. The green status bar began moving from left to right at a rapid pace.

“Looks like they’re on a DS3 connection,” Meadows said, “so this should go quickly.”

Uzi swiveled his chair toward Meadows. “Give me the lowdown on that Russian round. Did it match the one pulled from Bishop?”

“It sure did. One hundred percent.”

Uzi shared a look with DeSantos. Regardless of what his partner thought of Bishop’s paranoia, the informant’s fears were clearly justified. “Only one thing bothers me.”

Meadows’s brow hardened. “Only one thing?”

“How did they find him?” Uzi asked DeSantos.

DeSantos shrugged. “Good question. I’m sure he didn’t broadcast the fact that he had the stuff we gave him.”

Meadows’s gaze shot back and forth between the two men as if he were watching a tennis match. “Will you two stop talking about me like I’m not here? And talk louder!”

“If we were tailed…”

Uzi nodded. “I’ll check the car when we get out of here.”

As the last bytes of data were being transferred to the Virginia Presbyterian server, a red dialogue box popped up. “Connection to SafeStor server lost. Authentication cannot be verified. Attempt to log in again or contact administrator for assistance.”

DeSantos stepped closer to the screen. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means we’ve either got a security issue on the hospital’s end, or… we were a tad bit late getting this done.”

“How much did we get?” DeSantos asked.

Uzi leaned back in his seat. “Ninety-three percent.”

“Try logging off and signing in again,” Meadows said.

Uzi did so — but upon returning to the SafeStor account, the files were gone.

“Looks like our friends didn’t want us getting at your data.”

Meadows sighed. “If they were a few minutes faster we wouldn’t have gotten anything.” He nodded at the screen. “Click on our folder, let’s see what we got.”

A moment later, after scrolling through the file names, Meadows concluded they had retrieved everything that was important — both to him and to Uzi.

Uzi blew a mouthful of air through pursed lips. “So who would’ve gone to all this trouble?”

“That, boychick, is the million dollar question.”

“We need a cover story,” DeSantos said. “For him.” He nodded at Meadows.

Meadows threw up his bandaged hands. “Again with the third person.”

“You mean leak something to the press that Tim was killed in the blast. Or critically wounded and died here after surgery. We’ll need to dummy up the records. What about the staff?”

DeSantos nodded. “Would’ve been easier at the military hospital. I’ll have to see if we have anyone here on the payroll.”

Uzi logged off the hospital’s network. “You take care of that. I’ll get a guy over here from CART to retrieve and wipe the data. Meantime, Tim, let’s get you back to bed.”

DeSantos pulled out his cell phone. “And a few agents to sit watch outside his door until he dies his unfortunate death in the OR.”

Meadows’s gaze bounced from Uzi to DeSantos, his mouth agape with horror. “Remind me never to get on your bad side. You guys are very dangerous, do you know that?”

The Metro doors slid apart and Uzi walked out. He headed up the long escalator and emerged a block away from WFO. DeSantos, meanwhile, stayed at the hospital to supervise Tim Meadows’s untimely death and the secure transfer of his data from Virginia Presbyterian’s server.

Uzi knew he should check in with Shepard but didn’t feel like dealing with the questions he would ask. Instead, he went straight to his office to collect his messages — and his thoughts.

He draped his jacket around the back of his chair and rolled up his sleeves, ready to dig in. He wasn’t at his desk three minutes before Hoshi appeared in the doorway, notebook in hand.

“You get my text about Tim Meadows?”

“Just got back from the hospital. Been a bit preoccupied. Sorry.”

“How’s he doing?”

Uzi glanced at his clock. “Officially, he’s dying in the OR right about now, complications from the explosion. Unofficially, he’ll fair a bit better. Probably be off work awhile.” And he may need a hearing aid.

She took a seat in front of his desk. “I’d been trying to reach you for about three hours. Where were you all day?”

“What are you, Agent Koh or Mother Koh?”

Hoshi frowned. “Fine, be that way.”

Uzi looked down at his desk and shuffled some papers. “I had… a problem that needed to be dealt with.” He trusted Hoshi, but an innocent mention of his arrest could cause a tidal wave of rumor to sweep through the building — and the Osborn fallout had already caused enough damage. “I need two agents assigned to the death of someone named Danny Carlson. Shepard’s got the details. Metro PD probably caught it, but we need to take it over ASAP. Do it gently— I don’t want any hard feelings with MPD, okay?”

“Related to our investigation?”

“Hard to say. Could be a hit by a sleeper cell of Islamic terrorists, staged to look like suicide.” His eyes found hers. “Get me two of the best agents we can spare, Hoshi. This guy was a friend of mine, I owe it to him to do a thorough job.” Uzi grabbed for a toothpick, shoved it in his mouth. That was all he cared to say on the matter, and he hoped she would sense that. “How are we doing on Wheeler?”

“Nothing. I hate to say it, but unless we get access to the NICS, we’re in a holding pattern. Surveillance hasn’t given us anything. We’re at a dead-end.”

“Speaking of dead ends, anything on Lewiston Grant? He might be ex-Green Beret.”

“Nothing more than Garza had. He basically disappeared. I put Cindy Caruthers on it.”

“She’s sharp. Good call.” He sighed, dipped his chin and began massaging his temples. “What about Vail’s profile?”

“Cindy’s in charge of that, too. So far, nothing on that front, either.” She hesitated. “I’ve got another problem for you. Or is this a bad time?”

Uzi’s low-level headache was graduating and rapidly making a bid for migraine status. “It’s a bad time. But there’s never a good time for a problem.” He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Hit me with it.”

“I put together a background on Congressman Harmon, then did a cross match with all the other vics, and basically came up empty. On the surface, at least, there’s no connection. Your software program didn’t find anything, either.”

“Dig deeper.”

“Felder and Brown are on it, but they’re getting some resistance. I hope to have something on your desk in a couple of days.”

Uzi groaned. “We don’t have a couple of days, Hoshi. Tell them to get me an answer by tomorrow morning.” He pushed harder on his temples, but it only increased his headache. “That’s not the problem, I take it.”

“No, the problem is that the congressman seems to be one huge contradiction. I mean, at first look, he appears to be a left-leaning moderate, I guess. His policy speeches support a woman’s right to choose, he’s soft on the death penalty, and prefers fiscal responsibility over cutting taxes across the board for votes.”

“Okay,” he said, still massaging his head, searching for some magical headache release button.

“But when I examined his voting record, the legislation he either authored or voted for tells a different story.” She paused, but Uzi’s eyes remained closed as he poked and prodded. “Strictly far right,” she said. “In fact, he wrote an article for The Southern Sentinel on gun control. The Southern Sentinel is a newsletter that used to be published by Southern Ranks Militia.”

Uzi’s eyes snapped open. “What?” He leaned forward, the arms of his chair slamming into his desk. “Do we have this article?”

She opened her notebook, pulled out a printed document, and handed it to him.

He set it down on his desk. “Give me the executive summary.”

“The article probably went over most of his readers’ heads. It’s written like a law review article, with references and footnotes. But the gist of it attempts to use the Constitution to justify the right to bear arms and stand up against our government should it begin to repress the people.”

Hoshi thumbed to a page of her notebook. “And he was quoted a number of other times. Get this: two years ago, he said, ‘We can only have a true democracy when the Federal government is afraid of its citizens.’ Or this one, after Oklahoma City: ‘Sometimes a government pushes people too hard, makes it too tough for the average hard-working American to earn a decent wage. I think we have to stop squeezing the average Joe, and stop it now, because we’re going to have a thousand Timothy McVeighs trying to stop us if we don’t do it first.’”

“We can’t condemn the guy for his opinion,” Uzi said. “Still… this is a connection. Did you give all this to Felder and Brown?”

Hoshi gave him a look.

“Okay, of course you did.” He rooted out a bottle of Excedrin from his drawer. He pulled out his toothpick, threw two tablets into his mouth, and began chewing.

Hoshi cringed. “Don’t you need water?”

Uzi was staring ahead at his desk, his teeth crunching the pills and mind crunching the information she had just given him. “So what does this mean? Was Harmon an ARM collaborator? Just a sympathizer? Was he killed because he knew something?”

“Whoa. I don’t think I’ve seen horses leap as high as you just did. Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself?”

Uzi settled his forearms on the desk. “Am I getting desperate? Maybe a little. But look at the facts: at the very minimum, Harmon was a sympathizer with the militia cause, and ARM, a major player in the militia movement, is suspected of trying to take out the veep. But the plan goes south, and suddenly Ellison, Fargo, and Harmon are killed. And Bishop. And Adams, who’d infiltrated ARM.” What he almost told her is that ARM was definitely responsible for Bishop’s murder — but he caught himself in time.

“Adams?”

“John Quincy Adams. No, I’m not joking — Special Agent Adams. He was working out of HQ. You’ll be briefed on it tomorrow morning.” Uzi moved the toothpick around his mouth with this tongue. “They’re getting rid of people who knew something, Hoshi, I’m sure of it. We just have to find out what they knew. What’s ARM afraid of? Some other part of their plan they’re about to implement?”

“Who’s handling the Adams investigation?”

“Fairfax PD. And possibly someone out of HQ. But we need someone from the task force looking things over. Do me a favor, call Jake Osborn, ask him if he wants it.”

Hoshi’s eyebrows rose. “Jake Osborn?”

“Yes. Osborn. I think he’d appreciate it. Adams was a friend of his.”

“Are you feeling okay?”

Uzi looked at her. “No, actually, I’m not. Please, just give it to Osborn.”

After Hoshi left his office, Uzi leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, hoping the Excedrin would win the battle with the headache mallets pounding away inside his head. Fifteen minutes later, his cell phone jolted him awake. He rooted it out of his jacket pocket. It was Leila.

“How about dinner at my place? Chinese takeout. Soft music, a bottle of Rombauer Zin. Full bodied, fruity, with hints of sensuous raspberries. Irresistible, actually.”

Uzi pulled his feet off his desk and sat up. “Are you describing the wine — or yourself?”

“I think you should take a tasting and decide for yourself.”

“I’m there. Around seven?”

“Make it six. Then we’ll have time for a bath, too.”

He dropped the phone back into his pocket, then realized that the Excedrin had reduced his headache to a dull jab. He could live with that — and after the day he’d had, he could use a romantic evening to take his mind off Nuri Peled, the death and destruction of the past eight days, and the pressure that came with having few answers and many questions on the eve of an important deadline. Re-energized, he lifted his phone and began to dial.

The next ninety minutes seemed to crawl. He approved Hoshi’s choice of agents for the Peled investigation — Danielle Phish and Bob Mason — then met with various task force members, cleaned up several dangling issues that needed to be addressed, and got status reports from a number of agents, including Felder and Brown, who were less than pleased with their newly imposed deadline. Heat at the top always trickled down to those below, Uzi told them.

Hoshi assured him they would find another way of getting the NICS database info, but Uzi wasn’t so sure. He hated being handcuffed — literally and figuratively. As soon as the meeting broke, he went back to his desk and breezed through his emails, leaving him fifteen minutes to get to Leila’s.

He paused at Madeline’s desk long enough to say good-bye, but not long enough to get sidetracked. He wanted to get to the elevator, then his car, then the front door of Leila’s apartment.

He pulled up in front of the Hamilton House at six, took his familiar spot in the passenger loading zone by the front curb, and dropped his keys with Alec.

“Miss Harel told me to expect you, Mr. Uzi.”

“Thanks, Alec. I appreciate your help.” Uzi hurried toward the bank of elevators, making a mental note to pick up a gift at the FBI Academy’s PX shop — an FBI or DEA baseball cap or gym bag would no doubt make Alec and Jiri big shots with their friends.

He was at Leila’s apartment moments later, his knuckles rapping on her door. He heard high heels clacking against the tile entryway, followed by the metallic slip of a lock sliding open.

She greeted him in a red negligee. Uzi stood in the open doorway, his mouth salivating like a wild cougar licking its chops as it looked down on a young doe. Leila reached out and took his hand, then pulled him inside.

They lay in the hot water, candles flickering around them, their glasses of Zinfandel — and the empty bottle — sitting precariously on the tub edge. Leila spread oil across his shoulders and rubbed, working out the knots with her strong thumbs.

“You’re a mess,” she said. “Even after the wine…”

“I didn’t take this job because it was dull and boring. Stress comes with the territory. I’m sure it’s the same with you.” He thought of telling her about Nuri Peled’s death, but as quickly as it leapt into his consciousness, he shoved it aside. He didn’t want anything spoiling the moment.

“I know how to ease the tension. It usually works really well. Want to know my secret?”

Eyes closed, he absorbed the kneading relief of her hands. “You’re killing me with the suspense.”

“Yoga. Yoga is the key.”

“Yoga.”

“And meditation.”

Uzi reached over and lifted the wine glass to his lips. “Yoga and meditation. Good to know.”

“I’m serious. Have you ever tried them? I can teach you some moves.”

“I can think of some other moves I’d like you to teach me.”

She leaned forward, her chest resting against his back, as she drew her arms around to his front. “Are you ready? Here’s the first one.”

Uzi awoke at 11:20 and reached for his phone to make sure he hadn’t missed any important texts or emails. It wasn’t in his pocket or coat — but he had to pee badly, so he ran into the adjacent bathroom. On returning, he checked his jacket again — and noticed Leila stirring. He gave her a peck on the lips and she looked up at him, then smiled.

He knelt beside her, took her warm hand, and smiled back. “I didn’t think I’d find happiness again,” he said. “I figured I’d be alone the rest of my life.”

“The pain must be unbearable, constantly thinking about your wife and daughter.”

Uzi nearly jerked backwards. “Yes.” How could such a heavenly moment come crashing down to reality so fast? “Unbearable.” He could feel tears welling up in his eyes. Shit. Why’d she have to bring that up?

“You okay? Did I upset you?”

“No,” he said. He remembered his phone, and needing a diversion before he started bawling, said, “Can’t find my phone. Must’ve left it in the car. If anyone’s trying to reach me…” He leaned on the bed and pushed himself off the floor.

“You’re coming back?”

“Of course,” Uzi said as he pulled on his pants. He slipped on his V-neck sweater, then grabbed his jacket and headed out.

His ride down to the first floor seemed to take longer than usual: alone with his thoughts, the guilt burrowed into his gut. Making such a precipitate emotional descent left him feeling like he was skydiving without a parachute.

He wiped the tears from his eyes as he stepped out of the elevator, then walked to the concierge’s desk, where Jiri was reading a magazine.

“Mr. Uzi, is everything good?”

“Everything’s fine. I think I left my phone in the car.”

“Alec went to move it. Limo coming with the Chilean ambassador. We need the front curb open.” Jiri craned his head to peer out the large windows that fronted the street. “You might catch him soon. He just leave.”

Uzi turned toward the ornate lobby and took off toward the front doors, sidestepping the overstuffed chairs and sofa. “Thanks,” he yelled over his shoulder.

If Alec drove off before Uzi could reach the car, he’d have to wait till the doorman parked the car and made his way back to the lobby through the parking structure on the other side of the enormous building. Then Uzi would have to get his keys, find his Tahoe, and retrieve the phone. This late at night, in his current frame of mind, he was not in the mood to go searching through a parking garage. He cursed himself for leaving it in the car. He shouldn’t be out of touch.

As Uzi ascended the three steps to the canopied street-level entryway, he saw Alec in the Tahoe’s driver’s seat as the door closed and the glow of the dome light went out.

But before Uzi could take another step, a searing fireball exploded upward and outward. Heat slammed against his face, the blowback throwing him to the pavement like a rag doll. Metal and rubber flew past him. He curled into a fetal position and buried his head, trying to make sense of what had just happened. His brain was sluggish, his hearing muffled by the blast.

He felt someone grabbing his arms, dragging him along the rough brick, the heels of his boots scraping and kicking up with the jagged surface, bouncing down the three steps, and across a threshold.

The helping hands then dropped his arms. Cool air breezed across his face. Uzi looked up and saw the high, taupe ceiling of the lobby. His senses started to come back to him. He fought dizziness and rose to his knees, using the large, adjacent flower pot for leverage and support.

He touched his face, felt something thick and slippery, and immediately identified it as blood when he saw his smeared hand. The elevator doors opened and Leila came running out. She looked to her right, out the large windows, and saw the still-burning Tahoe. Uzi’s vision was slightly blurred, and he wasn’t ready to venture the few steps toward her, but at the moment all he wanted to do was run to her arms. He needed something — support? Confirmation that he was still alive? He wasn’t sure what it was, but he reached out to her with his left hand while leaning his full weight on the flower pot.

She was still staring out the window, watching the car burn. Why wasn’t she coming?

“Leila,” he managed. “Leila—”

She turned and saw him, confusion crumpling her face. “Uzi! Oh, my God!” She ran toward him, grabbed his body and hugged him tight. “What happened— Are you all right?”

“Car bomb,” he said. “I’m… okay. I’m alive.” He looked at her eyes. “I am alive… aren’t I?”

“I’m calling an ambulance. Come, sit down on the couch.”

She disappeared behind Jiri’s concierge desk. Uzi heard her talking, reporting the incident. A moment later, she was back at his side. When she sat down, her weight tilted the couch cushion toward her body. He started to fall into her, then stuck out his hand to steady himself. “Just a little off balance.”

“Ambulance is on the way. I paged Shepard, too. We’ll get you taken care of, don’t worry.”

“You’re going to be fine,” the paramedic said. “You’ve got a minor concussion, but you’ll recover fully. Meantime, you might have some headaches and dizziness. If there’s someone who can wake you every couple of hours, check your pupils, just to make sure—”

“I’ve got it covered.” The voice came from behind him. Uzi turned and saw his partner standing there.

“Santa, glad you could make it.”

“C’mon, let’s get you out of here.”

Uzi was feeling better — not as weak, his mind clearer, his hearing more distinct. “Where’s Leila?”

“Outside, briefing Shepard.”

“I should say good-bye—”

“I already took care of it.”

“You? No, let me—”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But what about Shepard? I should check in—”

“No.” DeSantos’s grip on Uzi’s arm was suddenly firm. “Come on.”

Uzi followed DeSantos into the garage, where a large black limousine was parked.

“Where’s your ’vette?”

“You’re lucid now, that’s a good sign.” DeSantos nodded at the limo. “This is our ride.”

Uzi glanced at his partner seeking an explanation.

“Get in. There’s someone inside who wants to talk with you.”

Uzi tilted his head. DeSantos opened the door and nodded at the backseat. DeSantos followed Uzi inside, then shut the door. The driver accelerated, headed for the exit.

Uzi could make out a large figure sitting several feet in front of him, and another, broad-shouldered figure to the man’s right. With the tinted windows and darkness of the garage, he couldn’t see anything else.

The electronic door locks clicked. “Am I supposed to guess who’s in the car with us?”

“You should tell him, Mr. DeSantos. He’s not smart enough to figure it out.”

Had he not just been blown ten feet by a car bomb, he would’ve exploded across the car’s interior and pounced on the man.

Uzi knew the voice. Though he wished otherwise, it was one he would never forget.