Hard Target

DAY FIVE

Soft lips against his, hands pulling at his belt buckle. He kissed back, hearing himself moan. Feels good. She was touching him, her body against his, her warm tongue on his neck, her hair falling into his face.

He awoke from his dream, a dream where he had been lying in the tall grass with Dena. He opened his eyes and saw Leila, her head back as she moved slowly, rhythmically, as if seduced by a love potion. Her breath deep and regular, her hands unzipping his pants as her tongue trailed across his cheek and penetrated his mouth.

Uzi wanted to resist, but couldn’t. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to stop. The guilt was strong — the sense that this wasn’t right tangling with feral desire. The warmth, the intimacy, the comfort of being close to someone, of being touched and caressed. Her lips wandered down his chest, slowly making their way toward his waist.

He shut his eyes and cleared his mind. It felt too good to resist. He deserved this, he kept telling himself. Enough grief, enough anger, enough feeling sorry for himself. He relaxed and let his head fall back, lost in the moment.

The morning came upon him suddenly. Uzi awoke with a start, disoriented to time and place. He glanced around the room, saw the two glasses and the empty bottle of Port, Leila asleep in his lap. He wiped his face with a hand, then blinked several times to clear his vision. Leila stirred, then moved to her left and curled up with a crushed velvet pillow that lay beside her on the couch.

Her clothes were askew, a knit afghan draped across her dark skin.

Uzi rose, stiffness in his back causing him to straighten slowly. What time was it? He twisted his watch so he could read the face, and yawned. Five-sixteen. He gathered his shirt and jacket, fastened his pants, then walked lightly to the door and left the apartment.

Downstairs, he found his car where he’d left it, no ticket attached to the windshield. A different doorman was on duty, but apparently Alec or Jiri had left instructions to look after Uzi’s vehicle. When Uzi asked for his keys, the man knew exactly where they were.

As he drove home, his mind started to clear. He replayed the evening’s events — starting from when they were sitting in the car — and suddenly flashed on Leila awakening him at some point during the night, her lips trailing across his lips, his face, his stomach. He missed his street and cursed under his breath.

“We had sex,” he said into the still air. “Or did I just dream it?”

As he turned down his street, he slipped into cop mode and thought of how he had found himself when he had awakened: his pants undone, his shirt lying on the floor. If it were a crime scene, the clues would be too few to be of value.

He pulled into a spot near his townhouse, the possibility that he had made love to Leila weighing on his thoughts. What did it mean? How could he deal with it if it were true?

Of course it was true. He remembered it: she had awoken him from a deep sleep. He was dreaming of Dena at the time— How riddled with guilt could he possibly be?

He made himself a cup of coffee, threw a couple of ice cubes in it, then downed it quickly. He still felt sluggish, and he needed his mind sharp, so he could think, try to figure out what he was feeling, what it all meant.

Having finished his drink and reached no resolution to any of his dilemmas, he pulled out his phone and found Dr. Rudnick’s home number. He did not like using it, but he figured the doctor had given it to him for just such a reason. The phone rang twice before Rudnick picked up. Uzi explained the situation and asked if he could meet him in forty-five minutes, knowing that the answer would be yes, regardless of the doctor’s schedule and despite the fact that it was Sunday.

He showered and dressed, then drove to Rudnick’s office, unsure of what he was searching for. He felt like he needed to do something.

But what it was, he did not know.

Uzi sat down heavily and stared ahead at the desk, or the wall, or whatever happened to be in front of him. His mind was a flurry of confusion.

“Talk to me,” Rudnick said. He took a seat directly in front of Uzi and rested his forearms on his knees.

Uzi rubbed his eyes with thumb and index finger. “My informant was taken out by a sniper. His bullet missed my head by a few inches.”

Rudnick studied his patient’s face. “How do you feel about that?”

Uzi merely shrugged his shoulders. “How should I feel about that?”

“We’re not here for me to tell you how to feel.” Rudnick shifted his legs. “Were you aware your informant’s life was in danger?”

“He thought it was. That’s one of the things we were discussing when he was killed.”

“But you’re not bothered by the fact that this man was killed. I’m not saying you weren’t affected by his death, but you’ve been in the trenches, this type of thing has happened to you before. So tell me what’s bothering you.”

Uzi shrugged.

“Is it Dena? Are you upset about what we talked about during the last session?”

Uzi rose from the chair, ran his fingers through his freshly combed damp hair.

“Guess my hammer still has some good aim left in it.”

Uzi turned to face the doctor. “What?”

“I hit the nail on the head. We’d touched on the source of your stress the past several years. Your feelings of guilt over the death of your wife and daughter.”

Rudnick’s words hurt. But he realized the man meant no harm; Uzi had asked his doctor to be direct and Rudnick was only doing as he had requested. “There’s more to it than that.” He hesitated, then decided to just say it. “I met someone. A woman.”

“Ahh,” Rudnick said with a knowing nod of his head. “And this bothers you.”

Uzi thought for a moment. “I feel dirty.”

“Unfaithful?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Uzi, my friend, these are normal feelings. It’s nothing to be ashamed of or upset about.”

“I think it’s bothering me because I let it happen, or because it felt good even though I feel bad about it.” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Does that make any sense?”

Rudnick grinned. “You say you’re not in touch with your emotions, but you really are. I think you’re very astute.”

“Then here’s another astute observation: being told that my feelings are normal doesn’t help.”

“I can only offer you an outlet to talk about what you’re feeling, help you understand why you’re feeling it, and let you know it’s okay. But I can’t get rid of the pain.”

Uzi sat down heavily in his chair. “You mean you’re giving me permission to feel guilty?”

“I wouldn’t exactly put it like that, but I guess the answer would be, yes.” Rudnick tilted his head. “Tell me about her.”

Uzi blew air through pursed lips. “Her brother was killed by Hamas in an ambush.”

“So you two have an instant bond, common ground. You can feel what she feels. Such bonds can make for a solid foundation on which to base a relationship.”

Uzi looked away.

“Tell me more about her.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Sounds to me like you aren’t ready to admit you’re attracted to another woman.”

If only it were that simple. “It’s more than that, doc. We… made love. Last night.”

“I see.”

“I mean, how can I tell the difference between love and just being hard up? You can talk about ‘bonds’ and ‘solid foundations,’ but maybe I’m just horny after not having been with a woman for six years. I mean, I let down my guard and I’m suddenly in bed with a woman.”

“Letting down your guard is a good thing. Sooner or later, it had to happen. Don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. Who would’ve thought six years later the guilt would still be so fresh?”

“Some people go through their entire lives lugging around excess baggage, never learning how to let go. Never coming to terms with it. You’re just now finding out how. You might want to feel proud of yourself rather than guilty.” Rudnick put the palms of his hands together in front of his nose. “I make it a point not to tell my patients how to feel, but rather steer them, help them figure out how to feel on their own. So I apologize for steering you a little bit strongly there.

“But I want you to view your actions positively, not negatively. We only get one go-round in life, Uzi. You’ve seen how fleeting it can be. Here today, gone tomorrow. Don’t let yesterday’s pain become tomorrow’s sorrow. It’s healthy to move on. Not to learn how to forget, but to learn how to remember. Remember constructively, Uzi, not destructively.” He stopped to appraise his patient. “But I think you’ve finally figured it out for yourself.”

Uzi sat there, absorbing every word Rudnick was saying. Learn how to remember. Maybe that’s the key. He sucked in his breath, rose from the chair and extended a hand to his doctor. Rudnick stood and shook it.

“Thanks,” Uzi said.

“I’m just here to listen and give you some perspective. The rest you’re doing on your own.”

Uzi arrived at the Hoover Building shortly after eight. Moments later he was exiting the elevator on the fourth floor, where the lab was located. He entered the sprawling facility and saw Tim Meadows sitting in front of a monitor, clicking through a pictorial catalog of rifles and rounds. An iPad sat propped up a smidgen to the right of his screen, a writing stylus lying beside it and electronic notes scrawled across the virtual yellow pad.

As Uzi neared, he noticed that Meadows was wearing a pair of small headphones with a molded band that conformed to the back of his head. Uzi pulled them off and slipped them over his own ears. “What is this?”

Meadows grabbed back his headphones. “You’re shouting.”

“You’ve got the volume cranked.”

“You crank rock music,” Meadows said. “This is New Age. By turning up the gain, the ethereal sense of being in the woods, or lounging by the ocean, is that much more sensual.”

Uzi scrunched his brow, then indicated the screen. “Can we put the forest and ocean aside for a moment and talk about more gut-wrenching topics, like large-caliber rounds?”

Meadows frowned. “You’ve got a violent streak, you know that? A lot of bottled up hostility. Ever consider taking meditation classes?”

“I’ll put it on my To Do list. After I break this case. But that’s got no chance of happening if you don’t start talking.”

“You should cut a guy some slack. It’s Sunday, okay?”

“Tim. The rounds.”

“Okay, the rounds. Here’s what I’ve got.” He swiveled in his chair, facing Uzi head on. “Wait. If I give you this, and it’s real helpful, you owe me dinner, remember?”

“For doing your job?”

“Doing my job means you get the report in a couple of weeks, not overnight.”

Uzi grabbed a chair to his left and sat down. “Dinner, fine.” Didn’t I already agree to that?

“O-kayyy,” Meadows said gleefully, spinning in his seat like a kid on a counter stool in an ice cream shop. He faced his monitor, then hit a few keys. A highly magnified image filled the screen. “This, my friend, is a bullet.”

Uzi’s gaze shifted from the high-resolution photo to Meadows. “No shit.”

“Not just any bullet, Uzi. It’s your bullet. It’s what would be inside the brass casing you recovered at the scene last night.”

“And what does it tell you?”

“Well it brought up some very interesting challenges. First of all, it’s Russian.”

“Russian. You sure?”

Meadows gave him a look. “Yes, I’m sure. Look at the shape of the cartridge. Right here,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Russian cartridge has a rimmed case. American doesn’t.”

Uzi nodded. “Okay. So it’s Russian. Type of weapon?”

“Traditional army-issue Russian sniper rifle is the Dragunov SVD. It’s not considered to be the best choice because it’s a semi-auto, and inherently less accurate than a bolt action. A new high-quality Russian bolt-action rifle was designed in 1998, the SV-98. Here’s where it gets interesting. The SV-98 is chambered for either 7.62 x 54mmR or 7.62 x 51mm NATO rounds. The 54 mmR round isn’t used in many other rifles. The 51 NATO, however, is very common.”

“And my casing fits… which?”

“The fifty-four.”

“Less common. Good,” Uzi said. “But how rare are we talking about?”

Meadows struck another key. A different photo appeared. “The fifty-four is common to only two rifles, the SV-98 and the obsolete Russian/Finnish Mosin-Nagant. The Mosin-Nagant was the Eastern Block sniper rifle in World War Two. Both rifles have four lands and grooves in the barrel, and the rifling in both rifles twists to the right. The difference between these two rifles is that the SV-98 has a barrel twist rate of one in twelve-point-six inches, and the Mosin-Nagant has a twist rate of one in nine-point-five inches.”

Uzi looked at Meadows again. “How do you keep all this shit straight — I mean, how many hats do you wear?”

Meadows leaned close. “I gotta confess, Uzi. You know me, mister honesty. When it got down to the nitty-gritty I had to ask a buddy of mine next door. I got the Mosin-Nagant but I couldn’t accept it. It didn’t seem to fit. I was racking my brain till he told me about the SV-98.”

“So a Russian SV-98,” Uzi said, rubbing his chin with the back of his right hand.

“Probably. I did some checking with the ME, found out the round he recovered from your friend Bishop had a one-to-twelve-point-six twist ratio. That’s why I say ‘probably,’ because it’s possible to have a gunsmith change the chambering on a rifle to almost anything within reason. Just to throw us off.”

Uzi chewed on his lip. “What’s the most likely?”

“Depends on who you’re dealing with, but if you’re looking for ways to focus, I’d say you’d have to be dealing with someone who really knows his shit — and who doesn’t want to get caught.”

“None of ’em want to get caught, Tim. But maybe they’ve got significant exposure — in other words, they’re easily connected to the rifle. This is a way of disguising themselves.”

“Could also mean that by choosing a Russian SV-98, they’re trying to throw you off. They’re a tad bit rare in the US.”

Uzi chewed on that a second, then realized something. “Is the SV-98 a bolt-action rifle?”

“Yup. Why?”

“So the bolt has to be manually cycled after each shot to eject the spent case, and then manually moved forward to chamber the next round. Right?”

“Yeah.” Meadows tilted his head. “So what?”

“Just something that’s bugged me. We found a casing at the crime scene. Now I can accept that after the guy ejected the casing, it rolled away from him in the dark and he couldn’t find it and he had to get the hell out of there. But what’s bothered me is that he ejected it in the first place.”

“A pro would only need to take one shot and there’d be no need to chamber another round.”

“Exactly.” Uzi looked again at the on-screen image. “Law enforcement and military snipers are generally taught to automatically chamber a round to be ready for any eventuality, even if they don’t expect to have to shoot a second time. Target could sneeze just as you stroke the trigger and your bullet passes through thin air instead of the guy’s eye socket.” Uzi shrugged a shoulder. “Of course, that doesn’t mean our assassin is an ex-cop or military-trained sniper, but it sure makes it interesting, doesn’t it?”

“‘Interesting’ to me is a hard drive that contains encrypted data. That’s the kind of stuff that gets me going. This investigative stuff is more your speed.”

Uzi rose from his chair and gave Meadows a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll be in touch. As soon as this case breaks, we’ll do dinner, okay?”

“McCormick and Schmicks, that’s where I want to go. The lobster’s to die for.”

Uzi snorted. “Again with the McCormick and Schmicks. GS-15’s a solid salary, Tim, but isn’t their lobster like forty bucks?”

“I think it’s closer to sixty.”

“Sixty.” Uzi’s hand covered his wallet. “You’re killin’ me, man.”

“Oh — oh — wait a minute. I hear violins playing.”

“Yeah,” Uzi said with a grin. “It’s that New Age shit you listen to.”

Uzi left Meadows and took the elevator up to the sixth floor to meet with the Bureau’s expert on militia groups, Pablo Garza. Hoshi had set up the meeting but hadn’t had time to assemble a background sheet on the man. At a minimum, Uzi liked to know the agent’s FBI pedigree — most importantly, was he known among his peers as someone whose information could be trusted? Was he a diligent investigator? Did he accept the information given to him as fact, or did he dig to verify?

He located Garza’s office and rapped on the door with his knuckles. One thing was sure: Garza worked out of HQ, a floor below the director. Proximity to power meant you had some yourself.

After knocking, Uzi heard a noise to his right. Down the hall, staring at Uzi as if he were Osama bin Laden risen from the dead, stood Jake Osborn. Uzi turned back to the door, hoping to avoid a confrontation so close to the director. He wondered what Osborn was doing in the Hoover building. On a Sunday, no less.

As Uzi raised his fist to knock again, the thick wood door swung open. Uzi almost rapped Garza in the face.

“Agent Uziel,” the agent said, “come on in.”

“Call me Uzi,” he said as he glanced over his right shoulder — and saw that Osborn had moved on. He shoved his hands into his dress pant pockets and stepped into Garza’s office.

Papers were stacked haphazardly across the desk; magazines, folded back to specific articles, and a variety of textbooks sat beneath official reports and periodicals.

But Pablo Garza the man painted a different picture: with a starched white shirt and burgundy tie, charcoal suit and gold cufflinks, he looked like a show-quality FBI purebred. Crisp and professional. Self-important.

What grabbed Uzi’s attention, however, were his dark, deep-set eyes.

“What can I do for you?” Garza asked, standing behind his desk.

Uzi was tempted to sit down, more by instinct than fatigue, but with Garza remaining on his feet, Uzi felt compelled to do the same. “I was told you’re the man to see about militia groups.”

“I’ll accept that. What would you like to know?”

“I’m heading up the task force on the downing of Marine Two. We have reason to believe ARM might be involved.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Why’s that?” Uzi asked.

Garza waved a hand dismissively. “Just a feeling. After a while dealing with these people, you get a feel for who might be capable or inclined to do what to whom.”

“Just a feeling?”

“You want evidence? Can’t help you. You’ll have to do your job yourself.”

Uzi felt his face flush. What was this guy’s problem? He’d never asked anyone to do something for him he could do himself. “How about just telling me about ARM— Any unusual activity in recent months?”

Garza thought for a second, then shook his head. “Nope. Nothing comes to mind.”

“So you feel ARM is capable of bringing down Marine Two.”

“Like I said,” Garza said with a shrug, “just a feeling.”

Uzi twisted his lips in frustration. “What can you tell me about them?”

“Don’t you have someone on JTTF that handles domestic militia groups? Osborn, right?”

Uzi forced a grin. “I’m interested in your perspective.”

Garza hiked both shoulders, then launched into a monologue that lasted a solid two minutes, delineating the beginnings of ARM, including the rise to power of Jeremiah Flint, and how son Nelson succeeded him. It was all info Uzi already knew, most of which he’d gotten from DeSantos, the Internet, or Bureau database.

Uzi realized he was wasting his time. Either the Bureau was horrendously ill informed about ARM, or his colleague Garza was purposely withholding information. He was inclined to think it was the latter, but his FBI loyalty forced him to conclude it had to be the former.

Uzi thanked Garza for his time. Don’t ever come knocking on my door, pal, he felt like saying. But he kept his mouth shut.

He was in the elevator, heading back to his car, when a thought occurred to him. There was another source of information on extremist groups, one whose sole purpose was keeping tabs on organizations like ARM. He just about ran the rest of the way to his car, buoyed by the possibility that he might actually gain some insight that would help push his case to the next level.

The Washington offices of the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, were located in a nondescript highrise in the heart of downtown. The building’s only distinguishing characteristic was the modern entrance that conspicuously jutted out onto the sidewalk.

Uzi flashed his credentials at the lobby guard, then took the elevator up. He slid his badge and ID through the bulletproof glass pass-through, along with his business card. The receptionist examined them, then picked up a telephone to make a call.

There was no shortage of surveillance cameras — those he could see, as well as those he couldn’t, even though he knew they were there.

He figured the woman was calling the number on the card, verifying his identity. At least, that’s what he would be doing if he were them. And because of who they were — the target of just about every racist, hate-mongering group in the world — they had to exercise extreme caution. Some considered their safeguards paranoiac, but Uzi knew better. He sat down and absently thumbed through a magazine while his mind ticked through the various facts he had thus far amassed.

Ten minutes later, the receptionist ushered him down a hallway, past several dark and vacant offices, to a modest-sized room. The door was slightly ajar, as if the room’s occupant was expecting him. The woman pushed it open, stepped back, and cleared the way for Uzi to enter. “Would you like something to drink? Coffee, juice, water…?”

“Coffee would be great. Black, two sugars, if you don’t mind.”

The woman nodded and moved off.

“Agent Uziel.” The voice came from the man behind the desk.

Uzi stepped in and extended a hand. “Call me Uzi. Sorry to drop in on you like this.”

“Uzi,” repeated the man. “I’m Karl Ruckhauser. Karl, if you don’t mind. And it’s not a problem. It gives me a break from the daily grind.”

“Even on a Sunday?”

“‘Hate’ doesn’t take weekends off.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Uzi took the seat to his right and gave the office a quick once-over. Like Garza’s office, there was a storm of paperwork, journals and books — but Ruckhauser’s desk was organized as if it sat in a model home of a new tract of houses. Uzi wondered if the comparison between the two men’s offices bore any significance to the extent of their knowledge base.

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m here about American Revolution Militia. I’m in the middle of a sensitive investigation, so I can’t go into details. But I have reason to believe they may be… involved.”

“Involved in what?”

Uzi squirmed a bit in his chair. “I can’t say.”

Ruckhauser nodded. “But it doesn’t take a genius to put the recent assassination attempt together with your question about a large, well-armed domestic militia, now, does it?”

“Guess not.”

Ruckhauser took a seat behind his desk. “So you want some background information. Who they are, who’s in charge, who they’re in bed with, what they’re capable of, what they’ve been up to lately. Right?”

A small smile tickled the corners of Uzi’s lips. “Exactly.”

“Kind of like a newspaper article: who, what, when, where, how, and so on.” Ruckhauser waved a hand in the air. “I was a journalism major. They stamp it in your brain.”

“Got tired of writing stories?”

“I saw the demise of the newspaper business a mile away. Decided to jump ship before others got the same idea. But what I do here is pretty much the same thing when you get down to it. I dig for information, do my investigative stuff, and use it to help people like you keep tabs on people like ARM.”

The door opened and the receptionist entered with two steaming, jacketed paper cups. She set one down on the desk beside Ruckhauser, the other in front of Uzi; they thanked her and she left.

“Why don’t we start with some basic background on domestic extremism? That’ll help you put it all into perspective.” Uzi nodded for him to continue. “How much do you know about it?”

“With all that’s gone down the past several years, foreign threats have taken all my time. But after Fort Hood, we’ve scrambled to beef up a separate group within my task force dedicated to homebred terrorists. But their focus has been on Americans who’ve got ties to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia… wherever training camps spring up. My own knowledge base is limited to what we get in our threat assessments.

“But all of us have studied Oklahoma City. And obviously I’ve been fully briefed on the more recent stuff, like Nidal Hasan at Hood, the Hutaree in Michigan, Faisal Shahzad in Times Square, the Northwest Airlines underwear bomber, and a bunch of other attempts we cut off at the balls and were able to keep out of the media. That good enough?”

“Not really,” Ruckhauser said, “but let’s start with Oklahoma, because it opened our eyes to well-armed, obsessively antigovernment fanatics and neo-Nazis. Basically, we’re looking at disaffected loners who frequent the gun-show circuit and camouflaged paramilitary ‘officers’ who dress in fatigues and go out into the backwoods of the South and Midwest. They used to get together to play soldier, but now they go on extended maneuvers and train hard for combat like a serious militia, with high-tech gear and high-powered weapons. And they’re angrier and more volatile than they used to be. They see themselves as revolutionaries, plotting to attack America in order to save it — no matter how many innocent people they take with them.”

Ruckhauser sipped his coffee before continuing. “But let’s back up a bit, because there’s a deeper history here. People know Oklahoma City because of the sheer magnitude of the carnage. But if you’re asking if a militia is capable of doing what you’re asking, my answer is definitely.”

“Let’s hear the deeper history.”

“History can be boring, so I’ll hit the high points. You’ll catch the pattern. Blue Ridge Hunt Club, which was really a militia, recruited a gun dealer into its ranks so they could get their hands on all sorts of untraceable firearms. The dealer, a sympathizer, would merely ‘lose’ the paperwork. When ATF raided their compound, they found illegal machine guns, suppressors, grenades, and explosives. Not to mention elaborate plans on a computer for raiding a National Guard Armory, blowing up bridges, airports, and a radio station.”

Ruckhauser swirled his coffee cup and leaned back in his chair. “Then there was the Tri-State Militia in South Dakota. It was going to bomb several buildings that belonged to civil rights groups, including an ADL office in Houston, abortion clinics, and welfare offices. Luckily, the Bureau got a tip from an informant. Sure enough, when arrests were made, the plans — and explosives — were found. The White Patriot Party. Ever hear of them?”

“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

“You’re not the only one. They were led by an ex-Green Beret. They stockpiled thousands of dollars of stolen military hardware and got active-duty military personnel to train its members to use antitank weapons, explosives, and land mines. The leaders were arrested and got short prison terms. But that only pissed them off. When they got out, they planned to rob a restaurant to fund the purchase of stolen military rockets so they could blow up the office and kill the attorney who prosecuted them. When that plan fell apart, they tried to blow up a hydroelectric power dam. Dumb luck led police to a dozen of their explosives stockpiles.” Ruckhauser sipped his coffee.

“Another group,” Ruckhauser continued, “had plans — and explosives — to detonate bombs at the Olympics. During the raid, your colleagues also found a hit list containing the names of a dozen prominent citizens they had a beef against. You get the point?”

“Loud and clear.”

“None of that is common knowledge. It gets a small blurb in the morning paper, but because no one was killed, because there were no gruesome images on TV playing over and over for weeks at a time, everyone forgets about it. But when McVeigh hit…”

“It caught everyone’s attention.”

“Even the FBI seemed to have a short memory. It treated McVeigh like an anomaly, as if the threat of homegrown radicals who would act on their fantasies to take down government institutions was either never going to happen again, or a distant reality.”

Uzi was under no illusions that the Bureau was perfect. Mistakes were inevitable. The key was doing your best to prevent them, and learning from those you did make so they weren’t repeated many years later when institutional memory faded. “There must’ve been a reason why we thought that.”

“After 9/11, Islamic radicals and the war on terror became the big deal — along with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear program, the hunt for bin Laden, unmanned drones, and so on. But there were factors that seemed to support the FBI’s theory about domestic groups posing a lesser threat. The economy was going strong, people were prospering, the militias were suffering from infighting, and there wasn’t much of an increase in their influence after Oklahoma City. Certainly nothing like what happened after Ruby Ridge. If McVeigh meant it as a call to arms, it fell on deaf ears. For the most part.”

“But you gave me the impression Oklahoma City was significant.”

“Personally,” Ruckhauser said, shifting uneasily in his chair, “Timothy McVeigh scared the crap out of me. Not because of what he was, but because of who he was.”

“I don’t follow.”

“He didn’t exactly fit your typical far-right race-hating workingman. He came from a middle-class upbringing; he was articulate and polite. This guy was different from, say, Nelson Flint. That’s what made him so scary. He didn’t fit the profile of the people we watch — not unless you dug deep and looked at him after the fact. He slipped under our radar. He had loose affiliations with a few militia groups, but did most of his work alone — a brilliant strategy, actually. Small, independent cells are harder to track.”

“Sounds like a tactic out of the Middle East book of terrorism.”

Ruckhauser’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting observation. On September tenth, 2001, your typical militia considered all people of color — Arabs included — to be the devil. Suddenly, on September twelfth, the average Neo-Nazi and militia member thought of the al Qaida terrorists as heroes. Anyone willing to fly a plane into a building to kill Jews had to be admired.

“Since then, I think we’ve seen a convergence between the radical right and some elements of the radical left — conspiratorial anti-globalists and hard-core anarchists in particular; and, most recently, support for foreign anti-American terrorists. It’s a disturbing trend. Even mainstream, nonviolent movements— At the fringes of the Occupy Wall Street movement, people were spouting stereotypical rhetoric about the Jews being the bankers who took their homes away.”

Uzi took the wood stirrer and sloshed his coffee. Steam rose like a ferocious snake suddenly awakened from its sleep. “Anti-Semitism’s been around for centuries. It’s not going away anytime soon.”

“Do you know the basics of ARM’s history?” Uzi nodded. “Okay then. Stop me if I start wasting your time. ARM had been stuck in a financial rut. They’d made a lot of their money by robbing banks— Took in a little over three million until four of them were caught and thrown in jail.”

“Around ’99 or 2000, right?”

Ruckhauser nodded. “The money was seized, and the heat was on, but their comrades refused to roll on them. So they were cash-strapped until about six years ago when they merged with SRM, Southern Ranks Militia. SRM’s leader, ‘General’ Lewiston Grant, was a progressive thinker who realized they needed to expand their reach.

“After the merger, they had big membership numbers, but money was still an issue because their plans grew more grandiose. But Grant wanted to raise the funds legally, if possible, because it wouldn’t do the group much good if any of them got thrown in jail. He saw an opportunity and took them into business. Instead of selling copies of their racist manifesto, they bought low-end servers and embraced the Internet. They started an entity called Southern Ranks Internet, doing business as SRI—”

“The web-hosting service?”

“That’s the one.”

“Holy shit,” Uzi said. “I had no idea who was behind that.”

Ruckhauser’s lips spread into a sardonic smile. “That’s why they call it SRI. You won’t find Southern Ranks Internet spelled out anywhere. We only knew because we were plugged into what they were doing. Their outlay was minimal but the payoff was great. Grant was a self-taught computer whiz, and he set it all up on his own. Within months, they had a steady inflow of money from their members and other white power/neo-Nazi/militia groups. They got everyone to be their marketing force, talking up SRI as a low-cost web-hosting service. Their members who were businessmen switched their websites over to SRI and they had a steady stream of cash coming in every month to cover their maintenance and startup expenses.”

“That can be a cash cow business.”

“Exactly— Especially when they started getting businesses from beyond their own circle. They started buying cheap server space in India and reselling it. Pure profit. That’s when the money really started to flow. That’s also around the time when we got some intel that they were purchasing less traceable foreign weapons.”

Uzi had taken a drink of coffee, but suddenly pulled the cup from his lips. “Foreign weapons? From where?”

“I don’t know.”

Uzi nodded slowly, realizing he might have finally found the connection he needed to start building a case against ARM. “If you had to make an educated guess?”

“The field is relatively narrow. Russia, China, and North Korea top the list.”

“How much money are we talking about?”

“SRI’s obviously privately held, so they don’t have to file financials with the SEC. But my people feel it’s enough to give them serious spending money — and with that, comes influence.”

“Influence. With who?”

Ruckhauser smiled. “You like mystery novels, Uzi?”

“Thrillers mostly. My life can get a little boring at times. Fiction adds some spice.” Uzi hesitated, realizing the depth of the truth behind that statement.

“Then here’s something that’ll raise your eyebrows.” Ruckhauser leaned forward in his chair and the spring squeaked. “How about ARM and the NFA in bed together?”

Uzi leaned forward as well, resting his forearms on the desk. “Really.”

“I don’t know if you heard about it, but there was a guy killed yesterday who was looking into it. You should check it out. Name was Tad Bishop.”

“You knew Bishop?”

“Judging by your reaction, I take it you did, too.”

“Not well. Met him a couple of times. Was the guy legit?”

“Oh, he lived in his own world. Used to be a private investigator. He left because he couldn’t pay his bills, but I think deep down he loved the hunt.”

“Credibility-wise—”

“A bit quirky, but he was a straight-shooter. From what I could tell, he was well grounded.”

Uzi nodded. “So he was looking into the ARM-NFA connection?”

“Suspected connection,” Ruckhauser said. “We had lunch a few weeks ago. He mentioned the players he was looking into. I put two and two together. He wasn’t a good friend or anything, just someone I could get together with and shoot the breeze about common stuff.”

“Did you know what Bishop was working on — what he’d found out?”

“No.” Ruckhauser hesitated. “But based on what he was telling me, I started poking around myself.”

“And?”

“And I think there’s probably some money laundering going on, a way of passing the cash from the NFA to ARM. I’d guess they’re doing it through one of their companies or subsidiaries. Or a well-to-do member who owns a lucrative business.”

“Any proof? I can’t do anything with theories.”

“I gave everything I had to one of your guys at the Bureau. I talk to him a few times a week. Everything I know, everything I’ve got, he gets. Name’s Pablo Garza. Good man.”

Uzi thought of his encounter with Garza an hour ago. “Good man” were not the words Uzi would use to describe him. “When did you give him this info?”

“Couple of days ago. Delivered it myself.”

Uzi sat there, getting as hot under the collar as his coffee. He rose from his chair. “Then I guess I should go talk with Agent Garza.”

“You need anything, give me a holler. Or stop by. When I’m not out sleuthing, I’m right here.”

“Yeah, well, be careful. The people who took out Tad Bishop don’t want anyone sniffing around their business. You gave us the ball, let us run with it now.”

“That’s not the way a former journalist thinks.”

“Tell that to Daniel Pearl.” The Wall Street Journal reporter had been kidnapped and murdered by al-Qaeda terrorists — a videotaped beheading shown on the Internet.

“I knew Danny,” Ruckhauser said. “The Journal lost more than a reporter that day. It lost a brilliant mind and a gentle soul.” He looked down at his desk. “Point taken. I’ll be careful.”

Uzi thanked him, then headed out. He suddenly had an unscheduled appointment, and he had a feeling it was not going to be pleasant.

Uzi did not even acknowledge the sixth-floor receptionist as he breezed past her desk.

She rose from her chair. “Hey, you can’t—”

“Watch me,” Uzi said under his breath as he rounded the corner. He grabbed the knob of Garza’s office and flung open the door.

The room was empty. “Shit,” Uzi said. He set his hands on his waist and stared at the empty chair twenty feet in front of him.

“Back so soon?”

The voice came from behind him. He spun, his right hand instinctively reaching for the handle of his Glock, as he’d done so many times before when his brain screamed “imminent danger.” But he stopped himself before he’d drawn the weapon, the adrenaline subsiding a bit when he saw Garza standing behind him.

Uzi clenched his jaw. “You’re an asshole, Garza.”

The agent slid past Uzi into the office, making his way toward his chair. “No, I’m really not. I’m actually well liked by my staff and colleagues. Unlike yourself.” He stopped, looked at Uzi, and grinned.

“What’s your problem? What did I ever do to you?”

“Why are you here?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Garza took a seat behind his desk and lifted the phone. Uzi flashed across the room like a bobcat, his hand slamming the handset back onto the receiver.

“You seem a bit pissed.”

Uzi kept his hand firmly atop Garza’s. “You think?”

“Guess I’d better be careful. I don’t want to get a visit by OPR,” he said, referring to the Bureau’s internal affairs police.

Uzi stood up, releasing his grip on Garza’s hand. “What?”

“Jake Osborn isn’t just my friend, he’s a top-notch agent.”

Osborn. That’s what this is about. I should’ve seen it coming.

“Jake’s paid his dues to get where he is, and then some punk foreigner comes along—”

“Stop right there, asshole. I’m a US citizen. I was born here. Even if I wasn’t, so what? Osborn fucked up. He was unsafe. People could’ve gotten killed. He didn’t follow established protocol, which means that if I look the other way, I’m as guilty as he is. It’s bad for me, bad for the Bureau. It isn’t what we get paid to do.”

“We get paid to make the country a safer place. That’s what Jake was doing.”

“I could’ve referred him for an OPR, made things a lot worse for him. But I didn’t.”

“He engaged the suspect against orders because he felt the asshole was dangerous and could’ve killed others if he’d gotten away. Jake did what he thought was right.”

“So did I.” Uzi looked away. He had important matters to discuss with Garza, and this wasn’t one of them. “I’m here to talk about ARM and the NFA.”

Garza spun his chair to face the large picture window that looked out over downtown DC. “We already had that discussion.”

“We’re gonna have it again. Only this time you’re not going to bullshit me. You’re gonna tell me what you know.”

“What makes you think I didn’t already do that?”

“Obstruction of justice is an ugly thing to appear on your resume,” Uzi said. He leaned both hands on Garza’s desk, and waited.

“You’re so good, I figured you’d find out whatever you needed on your own.”

“I’m not kidding, Garza. You hindered an investigation, obstructed—”

“Give me a break. Where’s the harm? A couple hours of your time? You’re back here, asking questions. Maybe it proves you’re a smart guy, a decent agent.” He turned to Uzi and grinned a one-sided smile. “Then again, maybe it doesn’t.” He turned back to the window.

“Agent Garza, it’s my responsibility to direct the investigation into the attempt on the president-elect’s life. Do you understand the implications of all this? If you don’t cooperate, the next time I give my report to the director — or the goddamn president — he’s gonna know I’ve hit a roadblock. Call it ratting out, call it tattling, call it whatever the hell you want. I’ve got a thick hide, and I’ve heard it all. But I’ve gotta get to the truth, and no one, not some two-bit punk — and certainly not another agent — is gonna keep me from it. You understand what I’m saying?”

Garza seemed to be weighing the risks. His gaze still on downtown, he said, “I hear you.”

“Good. Then tell me about the ARM-NFA connection.”

“What do you want to know about it?”

“Karl Ruckhauser sends you all the info that ADL gets their hands on, their intelligence data. You’ve seen it all. There anything Karl doesn’t know about?”

“There’s no connection. I couldn’t find anything.”

“Ruckhauser seemed to think there might be. You sure about your conclusions?”

“All he had were theories. Theories are good for conspiracy theorists like your dead informant. But they don’t do jack for us.”

“How far did you look into it?”

Garza spun his chair and drew a bead on Uzi’s face. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It was a simple question.”

“I did what I was required to do, what we all do to investigate an allegation. I went as far as I could. Without something substantial, there was nothing more to do, nowhere for me to go.”

“What do you know about Lewiston Grant?”

“Guy’s a dead end. He died in a fire in Utah.”

“Find a body?”

“No. But with the level of destruction—”

“How hard did you look into his death?”

“Hard enough. Guy’s credit card, bank accounts, apartment, everything went dormant after the bombing. No one’s seen him. He’s dead.”

Uzi reserved judgment on that statement, but let it drop. “What’s your gut say? On ARM.”

Garza turned back to the window. He seemed to be giving the question some serious thought. Or maybe he was deciding whether or not he wanted to share his opinions with Uzi.

“I think they’re involved. If there was a way to get at them, I’d be all over their case.”

Uzi pushed off the desk. He had not gotten what he had come for; however, though he still had no hard evidence against an ARM-NFA alliance, he at least had another supporting opinion from someone with knowledge and experience in dealing with these groups. And that was more than he’d had only a few hours ago.

Uzi answered his cell phone as he entered the Hoover Building’s elevator, headed toward the parking garage.

“I found something,” Tim Meadows said.

“Cool. What do you got?” Uzi pressed the elevator button to stop the car at the next floor. If Meadows had something significant, he could be there in a couple of minutes.

“After you left, I ran those brass casings through the spectrometer. Turned up some really interesting readings. So I took it upon myself to do some more digging.”

“That’s what I like about you, Tim. Always going the extra mile.”

“Yeah, that’s what the section chief says. He loves my work ethic.”

“Least you could do after twisting my arm over dinner.”

“Well, I think by the time I’m done with this case, I’ll have made it worth your while.”

The elevator stopped at the next floor. “I’m listening.”

“Come by. I’ll show you.”

Uzi pressed the floor button for the lab. “I’m headed up now. I’m in the building.”

“That makes one of us. I’m supposed to be off today, remember? I went home. Come by my house.”

“You’re working at home? On your day off?”

“That’s what the section chief loves about me. My work ethic.”

“You said that already.”

Meadows chuckled. “He really means it.”

After jotting down the directions to Meadows’s house in Arlington, Uzi called DeSantos and invited him along for the ride. They arrived at the small two-story colonial residence half an hour later. A tattered American flag hung on a brass flagpole cemented into the front corner of the brown lawn that was dotted with hearty green weeds. Uzi found the doorbell and rang it.

Meadows’s voice came from nowhere. “Who is it?”

“Uzi. And my partner.”

A buzzer sounded. “Come in and go directly down the stairs to your left.”

“Nice setup,” DeSantos said to Uzi.

“Thank you,” Meadows responded through the hidden speaker.

As they descended the staircase, the scent of mildew poked at Uzi’s nose. “Jeez, Tim, you should do a little disinfecting.”

“You talking about bugs, or bugs?” Meadows asked from somewhere behind a line of free-standing, floor-to-ceiling metal shelves.

“The mildew kind.”

The basement was unfinished. Curtained windows poked through the tops of the cement walls at ten-foot intervals. Spider cracks in the concrete extended in several directions, like tree roots branching out in search of water.

Their heels clicked against the brown tile flooring as they strolled down one of the rows, taking in dozens of half-finished projects that lay in various stages of completion.

“What is all this stuff?” DeSantos asked.

“I dabble in my free time,” Meadows said. He squinted at DeSantos. “You are?”

“Sorry,” Uzi said. “Hector DeSantos, DOD. He’s on the Marine Two task force, coordinating with JTTF.”

Meadows cocked his head, sizing up DeSantos. “DOD, huh?” He extended a hand, and DeSantos took it.

“Uzi said you found something.”

“Yes, yes,” Meadows said, then motioned them to follow him across the room.

As they passed a six-foot-tall black lacquer safe, Uzi said, “You in the banking business?”

“More like munitions,” DeSantos said. “This is a gun safe. A big gun safe.”

“I keep my projects in there. And my backup data. Media’s kept in a smaller compartment, though. Had to build it myself. Tolerance to one hundred twenty-five degrees. Otherwise the SSD drives melt.”

“SSD?” DeSantos asked.

Uzi said, “Solid State Disc drives. Flash memory. Safer and more stable than a regular hard drive, which is an electrical-mechanical device that’s destined to fail.”

DeSantos tilted his head back and looked at Uzi through the lower half of his glasses. “I knew that.”

“Yeah,” Uzi said. “Of course you did.”

“And yes, before you ask, I’ve also got cloud backup.” Meadows moved a few paces to his right, where an LCD monitor stood on a makeshift table that consisted of a plywood board resting on two beat-up sawhorses.

They followed Meadows and stopped behind him, then watched as he tapped at the keys. “After you left, I did some more digging on those large-caliber rounds.”

Uzi turned to DeSantos and explained what they had learned about the Russian SV-98 sniper rifle and the spent brass casing they’d recovered from the scene.

“I found an unusual residue on the inside of the casing.”

“How unusual?” Uzi asked.

“Unusual enough to be able to give you a specific location of manufacture. Like the former Eastern bloc. Czech Republic.”

DeSantos nodded. “That goes with the weapon. And begs the question of who these people are, who they’re affiliated with. This is all good stuff. We need to get this info over to the Agency, have them start working it up.”

“I’ll give it to Leila. She’s now on the M2TF, liaison to JTTF.”

DeSantos leaned back. “Is that right.”

“Don’t give me any shit. I had nothing to do with it. Shepard’s idea.”

“Uh huh.”

A series of long, shrill beeps emanated from across the oblong room. Meadows’s fingers played across the keyboard and a three-dimensional diagram filled the screen. He leaned closer to the monitor and studied it, as if trying to locate a small side street on a city map. He struck another key and the beeping stopped. “Sorry about that.”

“What was that?” Uzi asked.

“‘That’ was that.” He swiveled in his chair to indicate a ten-foot-long table on the other side of the room, barely visible behind one of the rows of shelving. “My crown jewel.”

“Part of your dabbling?” Uzi asked.

“I’ve got twenty-three patents already.”

DeSantos raised an eyebrow. “Any of them worth anything?”

“Not a dime. Yet. But I don’t do it for money, Mr. DeSantos, I do it for the challenge.”

“And what kind of a challenge is your crown jewel?” DeSantos asked.

“Come, I’ll show you.” He rose from his chair and led the way. He stopped in front of the long table. Old-fashioned vacuum tubes projected from wood and metal boards, which were crisscrossed several times with multicolored wires bundled at regular intervals with plastic lock-ties.

“What does it do?”

“It’s a new kind of sensor that can detect all kinds of nasty stuff.”

“‘Nasty stuff’?”

“Bombs, guns, knives, trigger mechanisms, you name it. If it can be made into a weapon, this thing will find it.”

“Even plastic resin or carbon fiber composites?” DeSantos asked.

“Yup.”

“Don’t we already have something like that?”

“Yes and no. We’ve got all kinds of fancy sensors, most of them developed after 9/11. But they can’t do all the things this can do. Most check for metal or metal alloys. Some sniff for explosive materials. Some can detect certain kinds of resin composites. But this thing can find it all. Along with the software I’m writing for it. Best yet, it’ll do it for a fraction of the price these companies are charging the government for their high-tech gizmos. With an off-the-shelf Intel chip, this thing’ll only run a couple hundred bucks, assuming it’s mass produced with economies of scale.”

“Yeah, but does it really work?” Uzi asked.

“Seeing is believing. Here, I’ll show you.”

DeSantos checked his watch. “We really should get this info over to Leila—”

Meadows turned to a shelf behind him and dug into a shoebox full of parts. “It’ll only take a couple of minutes. You gotta see this.”

Before DeSantos could object, Meadows was handing Uzi a tiny square of light gray plastic. “Hide this somewhere.”

Uzi did as instructed, dropping it into his left jacket pocket. Meadows lifted the screen of a nearby laptop and hit a button that woke it from sleep. He poked another key, then grabbed a thick, brushed stainless steel wand fitted with blue LEDs. “It’s all wireless,” he said proudly.

Meadows started at Uzi’s head and brought the wand down slowly. The device was silent, until the same shrill beep they had heard moments ago blared from a console on the table.

“Hmm,” Uzi said. “Impressive.”

But Meadows’s gaze was still directed at the wand. He continued to wave it over Uzi’s coat, two LEDs flashing blue, then three, then four. And then the wand began vibrating.

“Take it off for a sec,” Meadows said.

“This is all fun stuff, I’m sure,” DeSantos said, “but we really should go.”

But Meadows had already grabbed the collar of the coat and was peeling it off Uzi’s body.

“What’s the problem?” Uzi asked as he pulled his hand through the sleeve.

Meadows turned the jacket around and continued to wand the inside lining, watching the LED patterns change. “What have you got in here?”

“Just my phone.”

“No, it’s not your phone. See, this is your phone here.” He wanded the right pocket and the pitch of the alarm changed. “And this is the resin block I gave you.” Again, the sound changed. “Here,” Meadows said as he glanced over his shoulder at the laptop, “is something else.”

“Something else?”

Meadows pulled a Leatherman from his pocket and opened the knife.

“Whoa,” Uzi said, “wait a minute. What are you doing?”

Meadows sliced through the lining of the jacket, along the lower seam.

“Jesus, Tim, that jacket cost me five hundred bucks—”

“Here, look.” Meadows prodded and poked at the silk lining with his fingers and produced a plastic disc the size and thickness of a dime. He held it up between thumb and forefinger, then brought it close to the wand. The shrill beep sounded, the wand vibrated strongly, and the lights flickered and flashed as if it were a Geiger counter passing over uranium.

Uzi squinted at the small device. What the hell is that?

Meadows contorted his brow. “Jesus, Uzi, you didn’t tell me you had a spare phone battery in your pocket.” He put his index finger to his lips, then nodded across the room where his PC sat.

Clearly, Meadows felt the small device was a bug, and until he proved or disproved his theory, they had to operate as if it was. “My Nokia sometimes goes into roam and drains the battery in forty-five minutes,” Uzi said, hoping to make the conversation seem realistic. “Hasn’t happened in a while. Sorry. Forgot I had it in my pocket.” Why didn’t my own sensor pick up the bug?

Uzi and DeSantos watched as Meadows pulled a microscope from the shelf below the computer and plugged it into the PC’s USB port.

“Not a problem,” Meadows said. “But I told you this thing worked.”

“When do you apply for a patent?”

“Already applied for.” Meadows turned the knob on the microscope and an image appeared on the screen. “Takes a while to get a number. That’s why you always see ‘Patent Pending’ on products. But I think it’s too sensitive.” Meadows found the area of the device he was looking for, then pointed at the monitor. “I need to make some refinements in the design. Mind if I take down a few notes? Only take me a minute.”

“Go ahead,” DeSantos said, squinting at the hyper-enlarged image.

Uzi pulled out his smartphone and pressed a couple of buttons, then moved it over the device Meadows was examining. Nothing.

Meadows double-clicked the Word icon on his desktop. He typed at the cursor:

Yeah, no kidding. Uzi moved in front of the keyboard and typed:

Meadows:

Uzi leaned over the keyboard:

DeSantos nudged Uzi aside and typed:

DeSantos rooted out his BlackBerry and moved off to the far corner of the room.

Meadows said, “Almost done with these notes. Give me another minute,” as he typed to Uzi:

Uzi tapped out:

He clapped Meadows on the back. “We’ve really gotta go, Tim. Always a pleasure.” Uzi winked. “If you find anything more on that ammo, let me know.”

Meadows removed the listening device from the microscope and handed it to Uzi, who dropped it into his intact jacket pocket.

“Wish I could’ve done more.”

“Hey,” Uzi said, “you earned yourself an appetizer.”

Meadows’s face brightened considerably. “Oysters?”

Uzi threw a protective hand over his wallet. “You’re killing me, Tim.”

Meadows indicated Uzi’s jacket pocket and said, “I think that may be someone else’s job.”

The drive to Annapolis, Maryland, was strained. Uzi had removed his bugged coat and placed it in the rear compartment, then turned on the stereo and faded it to the back of the SUV as a cover.

“I’ve never been here,” Uzi said. “Tell me about the NSA. Behind the scenes stuff.” He turned onto the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and accelerated. Noting his partner’s questioning eyes, Uzi explained: “We’ve got at least another half hour to kill.”

“I signed a nondisclosure agreement.”

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

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

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

“Okay. Let’s start in 1919.”

“We’re talking serious background here.”

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

“Uh, because it was a secret?”

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

“You’re joking.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Humble?”

“For a peon task force head.”

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

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

“I like you. Doesn’t that count?”

“I think that may work against me.”

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

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

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

“Right time for what?”

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

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

“Sat photos?”

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

Uzi’s brow rose. “No shit?”

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

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

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

“Deliveries? What kind of trucks?”

“Trucks. Plain cab-over cargo deals.”

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

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

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

DeSantos elevated his eyebrows and tilted his head.

“But what would they need trucks for?”

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

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

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

“Why?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Because I’m sure.”

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

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

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

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

Uzi leaned back in his chair.

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

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

“It matters to me.”

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

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

“How?”

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

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

“I didn’t exactly say that—”

“But it’s true.”

DeSantos shrugged. “Yeah.”

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

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

“Yeah, that was then. This is now.”

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

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

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

“It’s not like that.”

“Sure it is.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Even if it means breaking protocol?”

Uzi looked away.

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

Uzi appreciated DeSantos’s words. But Dena and Maya were innocent victims. They didn’t know what he did for a living and they had no such pact with him. In an insane world where going to a café could end with a suicide bomber blowing a dozen citizens to bits, terrorism was a fact of life. But leading the enemy to his family’s doorstep was an error for which he could never be absolved.

He turned toward the window and looked out. The FBI director and the president of the United States were supposedly backing this mission. A big part of him wanted in, and if he continued to show conflict, DeSantos would go to Knox, and Uzi did not want that.

“Let’s do it,” he said.

“You sure?”

Uzi pulled out his chewed toothpick and tossed it in the garbage. “That diversion will make or break us.”

The corners of DeSantos’s lips lifted slightly. “I’ll show you what I’ve got so far.”

Uzi sat through DeSantos’s presentation, which was laid out point by point in hushed tones at his desk. DeSantos’s OPSIG comrades were to fly a Black Hawk helicopter to the front gates of ARM’s headquarters. They would take an erratic flight path and dump gray smoke out the rear, courtesy of the countermeasure ports designed to create a smokescreen for pursuing enemies.

But this would be a smoke screen of a different sort: simulated damage to the fuel tank that forced the helicopter to land. ARM’s front gate sat in a small clearing considered too narrow to set down a Black Hawk. For OPSIG’s crack pilots, however, it was another skill-sharpening exercise.

Uzi saw where the plan was going as DeSantos continued: once the chopper was over the compound spewing smoke, conveniently illuminated by the helicopter’s aftermarket rear spotlights that were now being installed, Uzi and DeSantos would infiltrate the grounds half a mile away, on the far side by a stretch of double chain-link fencing topped with coiled barbed wire.

DeSantos tapped the screen, indicating the exact point of entry. “Piece of cake.”

Uzi had to admit, the plan looked good. The diversion would be effective — and would no doubt cause all of ARM’s “troops” to scurry to the main gate to defend their property. The sight of “black government helicopters” landing at their front door was tantamount to their worst paranoiac dreams coming true. By the time the ruckus quieted and the OPSIG troops explained they were having mechanical problems, Uzi and DeSantos would be inside the compound looking for proof of the group’s involvement. At least, that was the plan.

After DeSantos left, Uzi played it through in his mind, employing a technique a senior Mossad agent had taught him many years ago: treat the planned action as a film, going through each step of the operation as if he were watching it on a screen, seeing every detail, considering all possible scenarios. That way, when a drama occurred, he wouldn’t have to think; he’d simply react based on what he had visualized in his “film.” In theory, this method of visualization worked. In practice, it helped the team leader prepare his team. But because there were myriad variables, each with its own inherent problems, there was no way anyone could predict with certainty what was going to happen.

Uzi would leave the planning of the Black Hawk portion of the operation to DeSantos; he would have to pour over the satellite images DeSantos had left on his PC and devise a plan of action from their own point of entry to the selection of targets, successful penetration, and extraction — all without leaving sign.

Now alone in his office, Uzi saw Hoshi appear in the doorway.

“Got a minute?”

“Before I forget,” Uzi said, “I just emailed you a profile drawn up by Karen Vail at the BAU. Have someone cross reference all known offenders and see if it gives us anything worth following up. I meant to get it to you sooner, but I haven’t been at my desk long enough to make sense of my dictated notes.”

“Will do.”

He struck a key to close the encrypted satellite photo he had been studying, then swung his feet off his desk and faced her. “Okay, now you.”

She entered carrying a folder and grabbed a seat.

“I’ve done some more digging. And it definitely gets interesting.” She flipped open the file to a well-organized stack of papers, then paged to a specific document. “President Whitehall was basically elected on the strength of the NFA. Not just money, like they contributed to Knox’s senatorial war chest. They did that for Whitehall, too, for his first campaign — and in a very creative way. They set up a nonprofit, the American Liberties Consortium, which was allowed to raise unlimited funds — in Whitehall’s case, the tally was twenty-seven million dollars. The ALC then contributed all twenty-seven mil to the Committee for Preservation of American Liberties, which can spend an unlimited amount on getting Whitehall elected.”

“Why bother with the nonprofit shell?”

“It keeps their donor list private.”

“Of course.” Uzi frowned. “Sounds like legal money laundering.”

“There’s more. They also donated three-point-five million directly to the Republican National Committee, another fourteen million to support ‘unaffiliated’ groups, TV and radio ads, you know the drill.”

Uzi reached into his drawer for another toothpick as he absorbed the numbers. “Go on. You said their ‘contribution’ wasn’t just money.”

“Right. While still governor of Texas, after Whitehall declared, he corralled some key NFA people. Haven’t been able to confirm it yet, but I’d guess he called in some chips. NFA had their own agenda, too, so it might’ve just been a mutual feeding frenzy. They knew the threat to their values the Democrats would’ve forced down their throats, and they knew that Allen Moore, the Democratic challenger, was a major force. So they mobilized a grassroots get-out-the-vote campaign against Moore. They used the gun issue to win votes. It was a brilliant tactic, really. They went right to the heart of the Democrats’ support — and monetary — network.”

“Organized labor?”

“Yup. They polarized the union members by playing to their fears about losing their rights to own guns. First line of attack was the media: magazine articles drumming home the point that NFA was not antilabor, using smoke and mirrors to point out everything they did to protect jobs. Their reasoning was circular, but it didn’t matter: they repeated the lie so many times it was eventually accepted as fact. Second line of attack was convincing the members that the only difference that mattered between the Republicans and Democrats was their position on gun policy. They developed a catchy phrase: Vote Whitehall. Keep your jobs. Keep your money. Keep your guns.”

She flipped another few pages. “The strategy was extremely effective. According to a friend of mine who worked on Moore’s campaign, the split of the union vote was like a dagger to the Democrats’ heart. Basically, NFA was pivotal in defeating Moore in West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. If Moore had won even one of them, the White House would’ve been his. And the gun lobby would’ve taken a big one on the chin. They’d probably still be on their heels today, playing defense instead of offense.”

Uzi leaned back in his chair, chewing on his toothpick. “So their strength comes from their alliance with Whitehall’s administration?”

“That’s only part of the story. They took their victory and power and parlayed it into more of both. They’re well funded and very well organized. And they have millions of members committed to the same goal. They took in two-hundred-fifty-thousand new members in the last eighteen months alone. These are people who tend to feel threatened by the government — and they’re willing to take action to secure their rights and maintain their power base.”

“Sounds like a militia mentality.”

“That’s because they were in danger of becoming extinct, but were “saved” by 9/11. Fear swept over the country. People from the fringes of society — the militias — found strength in numbers, so they took matters into their own hands. They joined in droves. They all shared a common mentality: they loved guns, cherished conspiracy theories, distrusted government, hated gun control, were politically active — and united against a common enemy.”

Uzi shook his head. “Still, the mix doesn’t seem like a formula for rising to power like they’ve done. Militias have been around for ages, but they’ve never advanced beyond a certain point. How did NFA go from militia ally to right-wing powerhouse?”

“There was another big shift,” Hoshi said as she flipped back to the front page of the file. “Nine years ago. They merged with the American Gun Society. AGS was a small, growing organization that wasn’t on our radar. The merger seemed insignificant at the time, and nobody paid attention to it. But it brought an influx of new leadership, which was important because they were battling a powerful adversary: the NRA. Both were going after the same base. But the merger with AGS gave the NFA critical mass. Within a year, after a nasty grab for the top spot, Skiles Rathbone rose out of the dust.”

“This was around the same time Knox became director?”

Hoshi did not need to consult her notes. “Six months before.”

“So Rathbone and Knox rose together. Coincidence?” It was a rhetorical question, Uzi thinking aloud, but Hoshi was sitting on his words.

“Possibly.” She closed the folder. “NFA is now the leading lobbying organization in the country. It’s got its own national newscast, over a million political organizers, an army of pollsters, and its own telemarketing company. It’s a lobbying machine.”

Lobbying. “Do me a favor, check on Russell Fargo’s lobbying firm, see if there’s a connection — any at all — to NFA.”

Hoshi nodded, gathered up the folder, and rose. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, get with Pablo Garza at HQ on a guy named Lewiston Grant. Supposedly died in a fire in Utah, but I’ve got my doubts. Garza won’t be much help, but he might tell you more than he’d tell me. Charm him.”

Hoshi lifted her brow. “Okay.”

“Anything comes up, let me know.”

She turned and headed out, stopping only when Uzi called her name.

“Excellent work,” he said.

She smiled, then shut the door behind her.

Echo Charlie reclined in his car seat, the Sat phone pressed to his ear. In the failing daylight, he watched a man dressed in threadbare jeans and a ragged cloth jacket search trash cans in the park, extracting a few spent Coke bottles and shoving them into a ratty canvas bag in his shopping cart.

“He knows about our… instrument,” Charlie said into the encrypted handset. “Our route of information is compromised.”

After a moment of silence, Alpha Zulu asked, “Can you replace something like that?”

“My people have some ideas.”

“Ideas? Things are in play. If you can’t fix it — soon — we’ll take care of it ourselves.”

Even though it was chilly inside his car, beads of perspiration were forming across Charlie’s brow. He flapped his overcoat to cool himself. “We’ve got it handled,” he said, only half believing his own assurance. He hoped his voice was not betraying him.

“If you’d let us do it our way in the first place,” Zulu said, “this wouldn’t have happened.”

Charlie blew some frustration through his lips. “Give us a day to get it fixed.”

“A day is all you have. The time is—”

“I’m aware of the time, thank you very much.”

The man with the shopping cart was headed in his direction, drawing Charlie’s attention. Charlie tucked his chin and started to turn away — but something about the guy’s face seemed wrong. It took a moment, but he finally realized what it was: the man was clean shaven.

“I’ve gotta go,” Charlie said. “I’ll contact you when I have something to report.” He ended the call, then tapped his brakes three times, signaling his colleague dressed in a park police uniform thirty yards back. If this homeless person was, in fact, someone sent to spy on him, within five minutes he would be questioned and killed, his body expertly searched, ID confiscated, fingerprints and DNA samples taken.

And then the corpse would be disposed of with Jimmy Hoffa efficiency.

Uzi remained at the office another two hours, stopping only to grab a snack to maintain functional blood-sugar levels. With less than twenty-four hours before they infiltrated the ARM compound, he logged off his PC and closed his mind to further intrusion. He was tired of thinking and needed to unwind.

He left the WFO parking lot, driving without thought to where he was going. Ten minutes later, he found himself stopped at a traffic light at 21st and N Streets, half a block from Leila’s apartment building. He leaned forward, chin kissing the steering wheel, and trained his eyes on the eighth floor of her building, peering through the barren tree branches, wondering if she was home.

Remembering that her living room looked out over New Hampshire, he tried to estimate which balcony would be hers. One was lit, while several adjacent windows were dark.

He waited for the green light, then pulled in front of her building and saw the tall, wiry Alec in the lobby, jotting something into his journal on the stand by the door. Uzi parked his car in the passenger loading zone and tossed Alec the keys. Jiri, standing behind the reception desk, raised a bushy eyebrow in surprise, then told Uzi he would take care of his car for him.

Uzi proceeded up the elevator to Leila’s floor, all the while wondering why he was there, and if Dena was looking down on him with disdain. As the doors slid apart, he stood there, lost in thought, until they started closing. He stuck out his hand and they snapped back. He walked out of the elevator and strode the twenty feet down the carpeted hall to Leila’s apartment.

Uzi raised his hand to knock, but left it there, poised but inactive. Showing up unannounced, after only their first intimate date, was a bit strange, for sure. Would it show weakness, that he couldn’t go a full day without seeing her? If so, was that bad — or was it good?

How could he be thinking of such things? How could he betray Dena like this? She would want me to get on with my life; she’d want me to be happy. But I got her killed. I was responsible. How can I be with Leila? I don’t deserve to be happy—

Uzi turned and started down the hall, back toward the elevator. Five long strides and he had pressed the down button.

But before the car came, he heard a latch throw and the jiggle of a doorknob. Rather than turn around, he focused on the closed doors, willing the elevator to arrive.

“Uzi?”

He twisted his neck. Dressed in a suit and high heels, Leila had one foot inside the apartment and one in the hallway, a bulging Hefty bag in her hands and the door resting against her buttock. She put the garbage down in the middle of the threshold, then started toward him.

He turned his body fully toward her, regretting the question he knew would be on her lips.

“What are you doing here?”

And there it was. “I thought I’d stop by, surprise you,” he said, taking the honest approach.

“I didn’t hear the doorbell,” she said, looking back at the door as if the glance would explain why it hadn’t worked.

“Did you eat?” he asked.

“I just got home,” she said. She took another few steps toward him, her long legs grabbing his eyes and refusing to let go. “I was going to cook up some eggplant parmigiana. Why don’t you stay, have some with me?”

He stood there, his feet riveted to the ground as if stuck in cement. The arriving elevator dinged. He turned his head to look, but before he could make a move, he felt fingers hook his left elbow, gently urging him forward, toward her apartment.

Leila called to Uzi to turn on the oven while she changed out of her work clothes. He stood there staring at the digital readout, trying to make sense of the display. He was a whiz with a keyboard or circuit board, but in the kitchen, it was like the intelligence got sucked out of his brain cells. After several failed attempts, he pushed the right buttons and the oven began to heat.

Looking over the LED readout, satisfied he had initiated the preheat process and not a countdown toward a nuclear launch, he let a smile of accomplishment creep across his lips.

He found a bottle of Niebaum-Coppola Estate Merlot and poured two glasses, flashing on the first day when he had met Leila at the crash site. Aloof, unwilling to let him into her life — and now, a warm savior, taking him by the arm and pulling him to safety.

He lifted the wine glasses off the counter, then turned toward the living room. He nearly slammed into Leila, who was right behind him, standing there in a white lace negligee and spiked high heels. Her hair was tousled and she was wearing glitter lip gloss.

Uzi had to fight from losing his grip on the glasses. She leaned forward, between his occupied hands, and let her lips brush his. He could hardly breathe. His chest was tight, the heat from the oven suddenly unbearable.

She reached up to each of his hands, removed the glasses, and placed them on the counter. She then turned and walked out of the kitchen, her buttocks sliding beneath the short negligee, pulling him forward, inviting him to follow.