Hard Target

DAY SIX

Uzi toweled off as he walked toward the living room, leaving Leila to finish showering. The sun was beginning to wake up along with the rest of the district. The evening was past him, the guilt simmering beneath the surface, new fodder for internal conflict. What had been a wonderful night with Leila had turned into “buyer’s remorse” in the morning.

He lifted the phone and dialed Rudnick’s home number. He kept his request short: he needed to talk. With the op scheduled for this evening, he needed to get this off his chest so he could be fully focused on the mission. In the past, he would’ve pushed it out of his mind and stuck it in his emotional closet, shoved back behind boxes and old memories. But if there was one thing his sessions with Rudnick had taught him, it was better to deal with such issues sooner, rather than later, before they morphed into painful, longlasting complications. He thought of the old computer monitors, and how images would get burned into the screen if left there indefinitely. He needed to avoid the burn-in factor.

As he hung up, he became aware of Leila standing behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist, her hands reaching down through the towel that draped across his front.

“I’ve gotta go,” he said. “An appointment.”

She groaned disappointment, but withdrew her hands without protest.

He kissed her lightly on the lips, then moved into the bedroom to dress.

Uzi arrived at Rudnick’s office, his thoughts in greater disarray than his rumpled clothes. He waited outside the doctor’s main entrance, pacing back and forth, absently running both hands through his damp hair. Back doors, secret entrances were no longer a concern.

He was making his third pass when Rudnick exited the elevator, moving as fast as his short legs and arthritic knees would permit. Rudnick cancelled the alarm, then nudged his patient through the door. He flicked on the fluorescent lights and they hummed loudly, as if complaining because they had been called into work earlier than usual.

Rudnick disappeared into a narrow anteroom beside the reception area. “Coffee or tea?”

“Absolution. Got any of that in there?”

Rudnick poked his head out the door. “Got some in here,” he said, an index finger pointing to his temple.

“I sure could use some,” Uzi mumbled. He walked into Rudnick’s treatment room, turned on the doctor’s desk lamp, and studied the books on the shelf: Caring for the Mind; Psychoneuroses; Handbook of Dissociative Disorders; Relationship Issues; The Psychology of Living— Uzi stopped on the last one and was tempted to page through it when Rudnick walked in, a steaming coffee mug in hand.

“If this gets any earlier, I’m going to have to buy a futon to keep in my office.”

“Sorry,” Uzi said. “I’ve got a lot of stuff on my mind and I’ve felt things I haven’t felt in years. Maybe never. I don’t know what to make of it, how to handle it. And I’ve got this important… mission tonight, and I—”

“How about taking a seat. Relax.”

“I can’t, I don’t feel like sitting. I need to… to move around.”

“Okay,” Rudnick said with a lilting voice. “Let’s start with what’s happened since our last visit.”

“It’s Leila. I know we talked about this, but I’m having problems getting past Dena. I keep coming back to her. I don’t know what it is. I mean, there’s guilt, I’ve got that one nailed. But there’s something else. There’s something about Leila. I’m drawn to her and I enjoy being with her, but every time I’m around her I get these visions of Dena.”

“And you don’t think it’s guilt?”

“The guilt hits me at other times, like when I’m thinking about going to see her. But this is different. This happens when I’m with her.”

“The mind is a very complex thing, Uzi. Sensory cues can set off visions, memories that transport us through time and space. Maybe there’s something about her that reminds you of Dena. And those cues are stimulating these memories.”

Uzi stopped pacing for a moment and was standing in front of a wall adorned with a framed lithograph of a late twenties Conde Nast cover. But he was not looking at the print. He was thinking about what Rudnick had said. “That can’t be right, Doc, to be with a beautiful woman and be daydreaming about someone else. That’s not normal.”

“The way we process our senses is not completely understood, Uzi. But we know the brain forms associations with certain sensory memories and imprints them so that when we get a sensory impulse — a scent, a sound, a certain song — the brain references the memory we’ve associated with that sensation. Maybe by unlocking these emotions, you’re discovering all sorts of imprinted sensations you weren’t aware even existed.”

Uzi listened intently to Rudnick’s explanation, paced a bit more, and then stopped. “Maybe.” He found the chair beside him and sat heavily, draping his long arms over the armrests.

“Perhaps we need to explore the concept of guilt more closely. It’s a very powerful emotion. It can motivate or it can suffocate. It can remain beneath the surface, or come to the forefront with such a vengeance that it can affect our ability to socialize. It can permeate every facet of our life, including how we relate to coworkers, friends, significant others.” He waved a hand. “But you didn’t come here for a lecture. It’s best if you do most of the talking.”

Uzi sat there, lost in thought as the seconds passed.

Finally, Rudnick said, “How do you feel about this woman?”

“How do I feel about her?”

“First thing that comes to mind.”

A grin broadened Uzi’s face. “You don’t want to know the first thing that comes to my mind.”

Rudnick raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Okay. So there’s a sexual component to your feelings. Completely understandable.”

“I find myself thinking about her. I want to be with her. My heart aches when I want to be with her, and can’t. Is that ridiculous or what? I mean, how can a heart ache? But it does…”

Rudnick leaned back in his chair. “Yes, Uzi, the heart can ache. With pleasure as well as with pain.” He seemed to be waiting for Uzi to continue. “I think this all comes back to letting go of emotional ties to your past. Not the memories. The emotional baggage. Including the guilt.”

Uzi pulled a wrapped toothpick from his pocket, fiddled with the plastic and finally poked the point through. He leaned forward, gathered himself, and rose from the chair. “Thanks, Doc. I’ve got a lot of shit to take care of and very little time. But I’ll work on it.”

“I’m serious.”

Uzi stuck the toothpick in his mouth. “So am I.”

Uzi met with his task force group heads and exchanged information on what each was working on and where it was leading. He had other meetings and briefings scheduled for this afternoon, but while there were various theories and angles being pursued, there was little in the way of evidence or leads that could be considered “promising.”

He explained to them their investigation was being closely watched by many heads of state, the president, their own director, the director of Central Intelligence, the attorney general, and the director of Homeland Security. Though he was stating the obvious, hearing the stress in his voice would hopefully make them feel the pressure he felt.

When he returned to his office, Madeline informed him that he had a call holding.

“Who?” he asked as he settled in behind his desk.

“Supervisory Special Agent Garza.”

The mention of Garza’s name caused a flurry of mixed emotions as Uzi reached for the phone. Is the guy going to help me, or scold me again for ratting out his buddy?

Uzi hit the line button and leaned back in his chair. “Uzi.”

“We need to talk,” Garza said. “Off-site. How about Union Station in twenty minutes?”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Stuff. Stuff we discussed yesterday. I need to ask you some questions.”

Uzi looked at his desk, littered by a stack of unreturned messages and a running list of emails. Still, Garza would not have called him if it wasn’t important. He set a specific place to meet, grabbed his coat from the corner stand, and minutes later was leaving the parking garage.

Union Station was an intriguing architectural marvel: old-world charm melded with the sleek lines of high-tech design and function.

Uzi made his way up the ornate staircase to the second level, sauntered over to the Ann Ricard boutique, and pretended to browse the window. He figured a male wouldn’t look out of place standing in front of a storefront casually perusing female lingerie, but when his eye caught the one in white lace, he flashed on Leila, and his emotions were off and running again.

He realized he was staring when he suddenly became aware of the warmth of someone’s body standing beside him.

“A guy looks hard-up when he stands in front of a storefront staring at lady’s lingerie.”

Garza’s voice was like an alarm clock blaring at five AM.

“I wasn’t… I’m not—” Uzi turned and saw that Garza was sporting a large grin. Uzi relaxed and smiled as well. They turned away from the window and fell into step with the mass of travelers scurrying along the walkway.

“I’ve been thinking about Bishop,” Garza said. His head bobbed from side to side as he shoved his hands into his suit pant pockets.

Uzi watched Garza go through his gyrations and figured he was performing casual surveillance of his surroundings, ensuring no one had followed either of them. His movements made Uzi suddenly paranoid.

“I was trying to make sense of his murder,” Garza continued. “I mean, on the surface, it seems obvious someone affiliated with that organization he was tracking was responsible.” His head rotated some more, glancing from left to right and then back behind them. “But things don’t add up. I was wondering if you were involved somehow.”

Uzi slowed his pace, causing Garza to take a few steps forward before matching Uzi’s smaller strides. “You called me here to ask if I was involved in Bishop’s murder?”

“No, no,” Garza said, motioning with his hands for Uzi to keep it down. “I mean, did anyone else on your team know what Bishop was looking into?”

“Just Agent Koh, you spoke to her a few days ago—”

“Other than Agent Koh.”

Uzi continued striding in silence. He couldn’t think of anyone else he had told about Bishop. Had he mentioned Bishop to DeSantos before the night they went to meet him? He couldn’t remember. “Why would you assume I’m the link? There could be a shitload of other people Bishop had told. Colleagues, employees—”

“He had no employees, and he was a paranoid shit who didn’t trust his mother. If he talked to you about it, he must’ve felt he needed some help.” Garza stopped in front of an ice cream stand and glanced into the display case. “Rum Raisin,” he said to the vendor.

Uzi was thinking about what Garza had said when he noticed the man looking at him, waiting for his order. “Uh, mocha chip. Small.”

While the man went to work digging his scoop into the tub of ice cream, Uzi turned his back to the glass counter and watched the commuters shuffle past. Across the way, a crowd of school kids was being corralled by their teacher, who was using her arms to herd them against the far wall. The girls cooperated, but a group of boys preferred to continue goofing off, grabbing each other’s gloves and hoods. The teacher dropped her arms, tilted her head in anger, and moved into the epicenter of her frustration to separate the boys.

“My informant tells me he overheard something,” Garza said. “I don’t have any specifics, but I thought you should know your name came up.”

“My name?”

“This person doesn’t know you, probably doesn’t even know you exist. Said he heard the name ‘Uzi,’ and I got to thinking, there aren’t too many people with that name.”

“In case you didn’t realize it, there’s a very popular submachine gun—”

“It was in the context of a person — an agent, not a weapon.”

Uzi took the cones from the vendor and faced Garza. “Your contact?”

“Someone on the inside. That’s all I can say.”

Uzi licked away a dollop of mocha chip perched on the cone’s edge. “On the inside? Inside of what? What the hell does that mean?”

Garza took a bite of his ice cream.

“You’re supposed to lick it,” Uzi said.

“I bite mine, you mind?” Garza took another mouthful as they moved off into the crowd again. The teacher had gotten her group sorted out and was moving them off in single file.

“Anyway,” Garza said, “I just thought you should be aware of things, people around you. People close to you.”

Is Garza trying to tell me something? People close to me. Shepard? With the weird things going on, with what DeSantos and Knox had asked of him, his relationship with Shepard felt strained. But his friend, mixed up in a plot to assassinate citizens? On the other hand, Knox and his cadre…

He became aware of Garza again doing his surveillance scans of the area as they neared a bookstore at the end of the station. Could DeSantos be involved in an assassination plot? He had participated in numerous black ops for just that purpose. But all were carefully orchestrated missions on foreign turf to take out rogue leaders, dictators, or terrorists — people who had designs on killing others, or whose purpose was to harm America, her citizens, or allies. Carrying out targeted hits on US soil was unheard of, even for his group of operatives.

That aside, why would DeSantos want Bishop dead? And how did the NFA/Rathbone/Knox connection figure into this? How much could he tell Garza, and how far could he trust him?

“I need to know more about your contact,” Uzi said.

“Can’t. Not without jeopardizing his life and others around him.”

Uzi’s cone had begun to melt, so he lopped off a coagulating hunk with his teeth.

“I thought you’re not supposed to bite ice cream.”

“You’re not giving me much to go on. How can I take this seriously when I don’t know the source? You’re passing on unconfirmed hearsay and expecting me to accept it as fact.”

“Hearsay?” Garza said. He stopped walking. Uzi faced him. “This isn’t a court of law, Uzi. We’re talking a series of murders here, carried out by someone who could be entrenched in our own infrastructure.” His eyes danced around the area. “You hear what I’m saying?”

“Yesterday you wanted to ram your fist down my throat for ratting out your buddy Osborn. Now you’re passing me info you say you got from a confidential informant. Info you say will supposedly help me out. But things have to make sense to me, Garza. If they don’t, I tend to go fucking crazy. It eats at me, so I get out my shovel and dig as deep as I have to dig to get at the truth. You hear what I’m saying?”

“I shouldn’t have brought Jake into this. That was personal, and we’ve got a job to do. I’m sorry, it was unprofessional. I’m better than that.”

Uzi looked him over, trying to assess Garza’s intentions.

“I was wrong, Uzi, okay? You may still be a type-A, constipated, by-the-book bureaucrat with his finger up his ass, but I need to trust someone on this. And you’re it.”

Uzi looked away. “I’m not type-A.”

Garza laughed. “That still doesn’t excuse what you did to Jake, but you and I can deal with that when this case is over. Right now we’ve got some bad shit that needs our attention.”

“But you still won’t tell me who this insider is.”

Garza tossed his nearly finished cone in the garbage pail to his left. “Keep me in the loop. I promise to do the same for you.”

Yeah, in the loop. A loop with so many knots it was impossible to tell which strings tightened the noose and which ones loosened it. Uzi licked at his melting cone, watching with overt disinterest as Garza headed off into the crowd. But inside, his mind was churning.

Following a briefing at Homeland Security, Uzi emerged from the parking garage as the longer shadows and yellow-tinted hue of afternoon daylight began the lazy transition to dusk. He needed to meet DeSantos in ninety minutes for pre-op planning.

As he drove toward the hangar at Quantico, where they would review and then commence their operation, he tried to sort out his thoughts on DeSantos. Before initiating a risk-filled mission, it was crucial to know the people you were going in with, the people to whom you were trusting your life and career. Until recently, Uzi had no doubts whatsoever. While his newfound unease was based on suspicions and spurious information, it still bothered him.

Adding to his uncertainty was the discovery of the surveillance chip in his coat. How had it gotten there? It appeared to be constructed of sophisticated materials to make it impervious to detection by most sensing devices, including the one with which Uzi had rigged his cell phone — the one DeSantos knew about, the one he’d seen in action. Coincidence?

DeSantos made no effort to disguise his disdain for Bishop; were those his true feelings, though, or was he attempting to discredit the informant in Uzi’s eyes? From what he knew of DeSantos, he could make a case for both: the man clearly had seen things, had participated in missions, that would be fodder for fantastic action movies, things the average citizen would discount as being beyond belief. Little did they know that stranger things happened in real life, under the cloak of black ops.

Still, DeSantos was like Uzi in that things had to make sense to him. Unlike Uzi, however, if he sensed that theories and unrelated incidents were being fabricated and strung together into fanciful scenarios laced with conspiracy, he would point his efforts in the opposite direction, build a wall and be closed to anything that person had to say. Uzi himself had come dangerously close to alienating his partner in this manner, he now realized.

But if he was spying on Uzi, what would he hope to accomplish? Was it to keep Knox informed of his progress on the case — or was Knox running a parallel investigation, using leads and information Uzi was gathering to accomplish some other result? But what would that result be? Help Rathbone, and therefore ARM, escape scrutiny? Or something worse: was Knox involved with Rathbone and Flint in a plot to kill Rusch to help further NFA’s agenda? Or did it have something to do with Whitehall’s covert peace talks?

Uzi shook his head. He was falling into the conspiracy theory trap. He had spent his life analyzing intelligence, sorting out who the enemy was, then working on ways to neutralize them. In his latter days with Mossad, he was often given his assignment, provided background information, and pointed in the right direction. For the rest of the op, he was on his own. Clarity of thought, the ability to peel away layers to get at the truth, lay at the core of his talents.

It was a skill he had largely abandoned — or lost — when Dena and Maya were murdered. He refused to accept that he no longer possessed the skill set, however. He wanted to believe that if the situation arose, he could slip back into that mode. But it was not as easy as flipping a switch. It was a mind-set, a way of operating, with which he had now been out of practice for several years. In many ways, though the FBI had saved his life, it had retarded his skills.

And now, as he approached the main gate to Quantico, he couldn’t shake the nagging sense that he was missing something.

Uzi drove into the hanger, killed his headlights, and shut off the engine. DeSantos was already dressed in his mission attire, a black divers’ skin sheath that conformed to the curves of his toned body. He was talking with another man in a weathered brown-leather bomber jacket and jeans, who stood a few inches taller than DeSantos.

As Uzi moved toward his partner, he wiped all doubt about him from his mind. Not only would DeSantos read it on his face, he didn’t want it influencing his actions on the mission. He felt reasonably certain DeSantos wanted this op to succeed — given the invested resources and effort, DeSantos could’ve devised a simpler ruse to throw Uzi off the trail. He would keep his eyes open — but his mind had to be totally committed to mission success. He’d reassess and sort things out after the op was in the books.

DeSantos turned as Uzi approached. He elbowed the man standing beside him, then indicated Uzi with a tip of his head. “Aaron Uzi, this is—”

“Troy Rodman.” DeSantos’s colleague’s voice was deep as James Earl Jones’s, though not as rich and resonant.

Rodman’s dark eyes were devoid of emotion. “You’re a tough dude, I hear.”

“That’ll be on my headstone some day: Uzi. Tough dude, didn’t know when to quit.”

Rodman didn’t react. Uzi, usually a quick judge of character, didn’t get much from this man. Either Rodman wasn’t sure what to make of Uzi, or the big guy didn’t warm up to people easily.

DeSantos indicated Rodman with a tilt of his head. “Hot Rod’s going to be flying the bird.”

Uzi pulled his eyes off Rodman and turned to DeSantos. “How are we doing?”

“Team’s assembled and ready for the briefing.”

“Black Hawk?”

“Fueled, prepped, ready to go.” DeSantos reached into the back of an adjacent pickup and pulled out a medium-sized gym bag, then shoved it into Uzi’s chest. “Go change.”

Five minutes later, Uzi emerged from the head, clad in the same skin-tight insulated material DeSantos was wearing. He was glad he kept in shape, as this outfit hid nothing. He tossed the sack, now filled with his clothing, in the back of the truck and joined the rest of the team in the corner of the hangar.

There were six other men gathered around DeSantos, each of them wearing what Uzi thought were Army paratrooper garb. He didn’t know if they were authentic or not, and didn’t care: in all the confusion they would generate, all they needed to do was look and act the part while Flint’s team tried to figure out what was going on and what to do about it.

As Uzi approached, the jovial jousting came to an abrupt halt. Uzi thought of the old saying, “Don’t stop laughing on account of me… unless you’re laughing on account of me.” He figured with his investigation of Knox, their fearsome leader and the object of their diehard loyalty, Uzi was not their favorite mate just now.

“Listen up,” DeSantos said. “Final mission briefing.”

Uzi would not be formally introduced to the other six members of the team. He needed to know Rodman’s name because he would be running the show from the chopper. Other than that, these men’s identities were classified, on a need-to-know basis. For now, Uzi did not need to know.

DeSantos, his right foot on the lower rung of a metal chair, motioned for Uzi to join him by his side. “My partner and I will enter the South fence, make our way toward the two storage sheds marked A and B on the Sat photos we reviewed. You guys will do your thing at the front gate.”

DeSantos spent the next couple of hours reviewing the full complement of aerial images and briefing the team on mission details, escape routes, local law enforcement response times, commo procedures, and perhaps the most important element of a covert operation: the FUBAR scenario — Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. If the situation suddenly degenerated, the team needed a predetermined set of guidelines to minimize collateral damage and exposure of the group’s assets, affiliations, and identities.

DeSantos rose from the ladder and stretched. “You each know your roles. Bottom line: make it convincing. Be confrontational because they’re paranoid shits and that’s what they’d expect. But we don’t want to provoke a gunfight. Remember, some of these militia guys are ex-Army Special Forces, so they know what they’re doing and they probably trained their comrades. We’re landing just outside their front porch with a huge fucking machine. It’ll intimidate without us lifting a hand. So keep your guns stowed. And remember: do not dismount under any circumstances.” DeSantos turned to Uzi. “You got anything to add?”

“I’m good. Let’s do it.”

DeSantos hit a large green button on the wall and the hangar doors rolled open. Beyond them was the Black Hawk, its still rotors drooped in repose. The group high-fived each other, then moved off. One of the larger men stared Uzi down as he brushed past him on the way out.

“Just a crazy question,” Uzi asked, appraising the helicopter from a distance. “Our FUBAR scenario. Every part of that bird is traceable. Not to mention our team.”

DeSantos shook his head. “We’ve got complete deniability. None of these guys will show up in a print or biometric database. All taken care of by a techie holed away in the bowels of the Pentagon. As for the bird, it was decommissioned five years ago. The guts have been totally stripped, completely changed out with untraceable parts. Not a fingerprint to be found anywhere. Officially, no one owns this thing.”

“I’ve seen some of those aftermarket parts,” Uzi said, his voice staying level despite the whine of the helicopter’s engines starting up. “Not very airworthy.”

“It’ll fly. For a mission like this one, we should be fine.”

Uzi’s head whipped over to DeSantos. “Should be?”

“A lot’s gone into making it a deniable craft. OPSIG wouldn’t be too happy if they lost it.”

“They’re landing outside their property line, right? You’re sure Hot Rod won’t hot dog it.”

“Man, you worry too much. Yes, outside the property. Despite what I said to the team, Hot Rod’ll make it as nonthreatening as he can. He’ll be walking a fine line, but I’ve put my life in his hands lots of times. He knows what he’s doing.”

DeSantos received a thumbs up from Rodman, who was now settled into the pilot’s seat. DeSantos acknowledged the sign, then slapped Uzi in the chest with an open hand. “You ready?”

Uzi looked his partner in the eyes, trying to read them while disguising his own. He wasn’t picking anything up other than a squint of deep focus. He pushed his residual doubts about DeSantos from his mind and nodded. “Ready.”

The chopper was over its position twenty minutes later. Uzi and DeSantos rappelled into forested land a mile outside the compound. They would hike their way to the perimeter while Rodman moved off, returning when DeSantos signaled that he and Uzi were nearing their target.

Aside from his stint in the Israel Defense Forces, Uzi had never been on a mission in which he had to dress in military garb. He had always operated in the backstreets, alleys, and shantytowns of the Middle East and Europe, wearing whatever the natives wore, his first objective being to blend in with the locals, to be invisible. Here, his goals were the same, with an important distinction: he needed to be not only figuratively invisible, but literally as well. He and DeSantos couldn’t be seen by anyone. Hence the need for stealthy infrared- and light-absorbing clothing.

They carried nothing that could identify them in any way. Of course, if they ran into Nelson Flint or his lieutenant, Rodney McCourt, identity would be the least of their problems. Uzi and DeSantos were banking on their assumption that the men in charge would be busy at the main gate with Rodman and his group.

Their equipment was sparse as well; they were unarmed except for a multi-purpose Navy Mk III Combat Knife. A versatile weapon capable of surgical incisions and slicing through bone as well as cutting through brush, its stainless, black-coated finish was both durable and anti-reflective. The knives were concealed by a slim resin sheath that strapped to the outside of their left thighs. While Uzi usually carried a Puma tactical knife, as well as a Tanto around his neck and a smaller boot knife — habits from his days with the Mossad — this mission demanded a versatile weapon that could be explained away.

From this point forward, they would employ only commercially available two-way radios, using their squelch bursts as a crude form of code. It was far from ideal, and from Uzi’s high-tech perspective a throwback to the dark ages of the fifties or sixties, but it was a wise precaution. If they were captured by roving guards, any high-tech gadgets would put them in Flint’s crosshairs regardless of what Rodman was doing — and perhaps because of it. Should their movements be detected, they felt confident they could split up and each successfully make their way to a predetermined location two miles from the perimeter of the ARM compound where, earlier in the day, DeSantos had left an unmarked car.

Aside from their low-tech squelch code, the mission demanded silence going forward, so all close-contact communication would consist of hand and arm signals. While they had been able to evaluate ARM’s video surveillance capabilities from the heavens, they did not know what other security measures the compound sported. This was the part that bothered Uzi most. They were taking calculated risks and making educated guesses, but they were risks nonetheless.

Twenty-five minutes later, they approached the South fence, along the back end of the property. They pulled black ski masks over their heads and settled nonreflective infrared sunglasses over their eyes. The glasses would not only block shine and sparkle, but the lens coating focused all available light to brighten the visual field. While they were not nearly as effective as NVGs — night vision goggles — to the untrained eye, they were indistinguishable from regular sunglasses, preserving their low-tech look. Of course, wearing sunglasses and neoprene tights at night might raise some suspicion, but anyone detaining them would be more concerned about their presence and assessing their potential threat than their odd clothing or eyewear.

DeSantos signaled Rodman with three short commo bursts followed by a long one. To anyone listening in, it would merely sound like background static. Ten seconds later, Rodman responded with two short bursts.

Per their plan, Uzi checked the fence for anticlimb sensors like the ones he had seen at the front gate. Because of the expense of deploying such technology over miles of land, he did not expect to find them — and as suspected, they were absent. He signaled that they were free to proceed, and then reached into the rucksack DeSantos was wearing and pulled out a coarse, densely woven fiber roll they would use to traverse the barb-tipped fence.

Inside Uzi’s pack was another low-tech solution to the ten-foot chain-link wall: a homemade device consisting of a wood dowel with protruding nails. The nails served as hooks, providing Uzi and DeSantos purchase while they positioned the fiber roll over the barbed wire.

Three minutes later, they were grasping their makeshift claw hooks with one hand while holding the fiber roll with the other. DeSantos used a bungee cord and holes in the fiber to secure it in place, then nudged his partner. Uzi would go first. He shifted his weight carefully, trying not to cause too much shake and rattle in the chain link. Noise of any sort was their enemy.

While Plan B would have involved using a bolt cutter to peel away a section of the fence, their goal was to leave the grounds without any physical evidence of having been there.

Uzi hooked his homemade claw around the chain links, and boosted his right leg up and onto the fiber sheath covering the barbed wire. He maneuvered his left leg over the fence, then steadied himself while DeSantos repeated the movements Uzi had just completed.

They had done this once before over a decade ago in Estonia, when Uzi was with Mossad. The stakes were far greater then, as they were attempting to snatch-and-grab a Russian scientist who was threatening to provide the Iranians with blueprints and enough enriched uranium to construct their own nuclear reactor. Although Uzi and DeSantos were successful, Iran eventually obtained their information and materials through other means.

This particular mission also carried far-reaching implications: if ARM was involved in the attempted assassination of the vice president, they had vaulted onto another plane of domestic threat— with no limit to what they would try next.

They unhooked the bungees, then lowered themselves to the ground and tightly re-rolled the fiber before covering it with pine needles and branches. If things went sour and they had to get out fast, they would use a set of mini-bolt cutters they were now burying by the fence line. At that point, leaving any physical sign would be moot, and their priorities would shift: escaping without discovery of their identity would become paramount.

Packed up and ready to part, they gave each other a gloved thumbs-up, then set off in opposite directions: DeSantos headed for Target A, Uzi for Target B.

Uzi’s deliberate movements made him feel as if he were watching a baseball game in slow motion. But that’s what this op demanded. They had to keep from triggering the motion sensors. While light-absorbing clothing was an advantage, defeating motion detection was an inexact science; a passing animal, or merely brushing against a branch, could set it off.

So Uzi moved with caution, staying in the path of tree trunks — natural obstructions to the sensors. He slowed his movement in those areas where surveillance measures and other sensing devices were most likely to be placed. Ten minutes later, he came upon a clearing that contained a structure a bit larger than a modular trailer. His projected method of entry had also been determined by aerial surveillance. Though the doors were padlocked, they contained external hinges. Uzi circled to the back of the structure, shrugged off his rucksack, and removed a screwdriver. Using the back end of his knife, and limiting his movements, he used short, firm strikes that he shielded with his body. The screwdriver handle was coated in rubber, absorbing much of the noise.

After half a dozen blows, Uzi had the oxidized brass hinge pins in his pocket. He entered the building, flipped on his quarter-size red-beamed LED flashlight, and began taking inventory.

Across the compound, DeSantos was approaching his target, a twenty-foot-tall, flat-roofed structure that appeared to be a modestly sized storage facility of about a thousand square feet. DeSantos opened his backpack and removed a coiled length of thick rope, fitted with a grappling hook at one end. With a looping, underhanded toss, he sent it to the top of the building.

As feared — and expected — the quick movement of his arm was more than enough to stimulate the motion sensor. A tree-mounted spotlight snapped on.

Uzi divided the building’s interior into grids and methodically carried out his search. Thus far, he had found a cache of weapons with filed-off serial numbers, ammunition, and boxes of spare computer parts. He wished he could take photos — or better yet — that he could make arrests based on what he found. But he was there illegally, trespassing at best and breaking and entering at worst.

After finishing his survey, he returned to Grid 3 and stuck the flashlight in his mouth. He was looking for ammunition with Russian markings — a potential link to Bishop’s murder.

Uzi finished rummaging through the cartons, taking care to replace everything the way he’d found it. If he had the time, he would’ve used his phone to take photos of the interior after breaching the shack. That way, he could replace everything the way it had been with reasonable precision, then reformat the memory card to delete the pictures. But he had to be quick and be gone. No time to be perfect — and he could not afford to make any blatant errors, either. He had to hope that no one would notice a book or box slightly ajar.

Frustrated at not finding what he came for, he turned to make one last sweep of the area. As he pivoted, he noticed a removable floor panel that shifted under his weight. He knelt down and studied the seams of the metal plate, then removed the knife from his thigh holster. Using the sharp tip, he pried up the edge enough to get his fingers underneath.

When he lifted the panel, he saw four steel steps leading down to… What? A basement? A crawl space? After descending the stairs and lowering the hinged plate back into place, he took his flashlight and shone it around his immediate vicinity. Not a basement. Not a crawl space.

“Holy shit.” Before he could take another step to explore, the storage building began rattling, followed by a rumbling deep in his gut.

DeSantos stood with his face and body pressed up against the side of the building, the dark stealth clothing protecting him from detection. If a guard was watching his security monitor, he’d see the light snap on — but, theoretically, would not see a black-clad male figure trespassing on their property. DeSantos had been told that in such a situation, if he remained absolutely still, he would probably appear to blend into his surroundings. He had told his DARPA buddy that he didn’t like the “probably” part of his comment, but knew that with so many variables and limited field testing of the new technology, he would have to hope for the best.

As he waited for the lights to turn off, he realized he was wasting valuable minutes. One thing they couldn’t determine from satellite reconnaissance was the length of time the motion sensors were set to burn. And with each second he remained pinned to the side of this building, the less time he would have to look around inside it. If he could just move his left hand a few feet, he’d be able to click his squelch key and signal Rodman to make his approach.

As he debated what to do, he felt the thumping of the rotors followed by the roar and whir of the Black Hawk’s engines. The chopper blades’ pounding of the air was intense, vibrating deep in his throat and hammering away at the inside of his chest like a heart stimulated by a massive adrenaline infusion — which wasn’t far from the truth.

As if his airborne team had read his mind, Rodman was beginning a zigzag descent over the compound, stirring up all sorts of shit in wind buckets and dramatically lighting up the night sky with black and gray smoke spewing from the chopper’s tail. DeSantos had hoped to be inside the structure by this point, as the strong wind generated by the Black Hawk would set off the motion sensors all over the compound. Instead, he counted to five, allowing all the members of ARM’s security detail to get a good long glimpse at the noisy chopper putting on its show over their land. Then he grabbed the rope, and with catlike quickness, pulled himself up.

Rodman wiggled the control stick, giving the appearance of substantial instability in the chopper’s flight path, then lowered the bird with lurching movements toward the ground. The performance was spectacularly frightening, particularly if you were a group of paranoid militia members who spent every waking moment obsessing about this very event. In some ways, it was a dream come true for them — a chance to grab their high-tech rifles and semiautomatic submachine guns to defend their property from an onslaught of invading black-helicopter Feds.

In another sense, it was their ultimate nightmare — for the very same reasons. They had powerful weapons and a common conspiracy-laden mind-set that kept them banded together, aligned against an overwhelmingly virulent enemy — ingredients for a potentially explosive environment. Rodman knew this. Trained or not, it was the inability of these men to properly analyze a situation under duress that made this situation so volatile.

Yet the same factors that infused this mission with risk were precisely the things that each of the OPSIG operatives craved. Whether on foreign or domestic soil, adrenaline was a drug for them.

As the chopper neared the ground, Rodman positioned the cockpit as close as he dared to the main gate without risking danger to his craft from the surrounding trees. He landed parallel to the fence line, clearly outside their property, taking care not to antagonize more than necessary. He sat there calmly in his seat, throwing switches that needed to be thrown, and some that didn’t. Drawing out the moment and soaking up as much time as he could until he received the squelched signals from his land-based team indicating they had achieved mission success.

Like famished ants finding food, guards poured out of the nearby structures, Kalashnikov assault rifles slung over their shoulders. They hit the ground in choreographed fashion, dropping to one knee and pointing their weapons with practiced precision. Perhaps DeSantos had misinterpreted their level of expertise. Rodman’s heart beat furiously as his outward calm belied his sudden sense of anxiety. He tried to ignore the troop maneuvers taking place in front of him as he spoke into his encrypted headset. “Uh, boys, we’ve made contact. They’re well armed and seem to be itching for us to make a hostile move. Stand by.”

Rodman engaged the external speakers. Phase two of their charade was about to begin — a bit earlier than planned.

Uzi had felt the chopper approaching before he heard it; the vibrating rumble in his gut told him he needed to get moving. But he couldn’t, not yet — not after finding this hidden chamber. He walked down a long, narrow tunnel that led to another set of steps — and what appeared to be a larger, deeper room. After assuring himself that no one was there, he stepped down into the darkness.

Beyond a fire door lay an area that stood in stark contrast to the environs of the building he had just left. Rows of polished stainless steel racks held computer modules stacked neatly one above the other, color-coded cables feeding each of the units. Uzi knew exactly what he was looking at, having played a role in developing the earlier generation microchips running these very servers.

The chill of air conditioning and metal honeycomb flooring told him that whoever designed this facility for ARM clearly knew what he was doing. According to Ruckhauser, Lewiston Grant was a self-made computer expert. Looking at this subterranean setup and its advanced technology, Uzi had to agree. Unless they hired a contractor who could be trusted with their secret — or unless ARM had another networking guru in their ranks — Grant was alive and well, and keeping his knowledge base sharp.

Uzi did a quick walk-around, his knife clenched in his right hand, ready to be thrown or thrust should someone challenge him. He made his way to the end of the room, looking for the administrator’s desk. It could be anywhere, really, but Uzi had a feeling they would have someone down here overseeing the equipment. He turned down a corridor created by the rows of shelving, and saw a free-standing PC resting on a desk against the bunker’s cement wall.

He didn’t have much time. But the thought of poking around and hacking the server was so tempting he would almost be willing to risk getting caught to see what he could find.

On the desk was a half-empty Styrofoam cup of coffee. He removed his glove and stuck his index finger into the drink. It was relatively hot. Whoever had left it had done so to respond to the chopper out front. They could return at any moment.

He rummaged through the desk drawers and found standard office supplies and various computer peripherals: a mouse, networking cables, a discarded hard drive. He reasoned that ARM used a RAID setup, which stored data redundantly, spread out over multiple disks. If one failed, a replacement could be slipped in and the system would automatically recover, without any data loss. While the drive in his hand had likely been trashed, he was certain CART could retrieve its information. But if he got caught, his cover would immediately be blown. There could be no excuse for having it in his possession.

He gave one last look around the desk and was about to close the drawer when he saw a small yellow notepad tucked beneath a book. He scanned the pages, which contained scribbled notations at varying angles. Whoever took these notes had no use for ruled lines. As Uzi read the various entries, he realized it was a scratch pad, kept by a phone, where reminders, names, and events could be scribbled, transferred later to their respective repository: a calendar, a contact list, a database program.

While it would not be something someone would miss, he played it safe nonetheless. He removed the second and fourth pages, figuring Tim Meadows could use alternative light sources and other forensic techniques to raise the imprinted notes taken on the pages directly above them.

Uzi grabbed a pen from the drawer, unscrewed the two halves, and removed the refill. He deftly rolled the two sheets of paper into a tight tube, then slid it into the hollow case. He slipped the pen into his backpack, then checked to see how much time had elapsed. He was three minutes behind schedule. Patience. The easiest way to find trouble is by cutting corners.

He positioned the chair the way it had been before he sat, then retraced his steps toward the tunnel, moving swiftly. Rodman and crew were now doing their thing. He needed to do his.

The militia members began pouring out of a pedestrian gate several feet to the left of the guard house. The men fell into position encircling the grounded chopper, with several peering into the cabin glass. But the windows were deeply tinted, and with the near total darkness inside and the security spotlights brightening the front of ARM’s compound, they would be staring into mirrors.

Rodman waited, drawing it out, not making a move until forced to do so. Finally, one of the men walked up to the cockpit and rapped on the front side window with the muzzle of his assault rifle.

Rodman keyed the mike. “Back the fuck away!” He needed to establish authority without delay. Although he was accustomed to relying on his size, in this case broadcasting his deep baritone voice over the external speakers served as his sole means of intimidation, leaving him less confident of success — particularly considering the neutralizing roar of the copter’s turbines and rotors. But the sooner they realized they didn’t have a pushover in the command chair, the less likely they would be to aggress. Yet he had to be careful not to incite them. It was a fine line.

The man behind the submachine gun quickly dumped his own testosterone into the mix by bringing his Kalashnikov up to his cheek and taking aim through the side window, in the general location of Rodman’s head.

Rodman knew his chopper was made to fly soldiers into combat. It had a built-in tolerance to small-arms fire and most medium-caliber high-explosive projectiles. His team could withstand an assault, but he doubted the cockpit glass was impervious to a high-powered round fired at such close range.

He flipped the commo to the internal channel and informed his crew of the situation and ordered them to stand ready for countermeasures: the release of more smoke from the specially-installed exhaust pipes near the tail. The parasoldiers would likely back off for fear of explosion or asphyxiation.

Rodman switched back to the external speakers. “We’ve got problems with our bird. Didn’t mean to land in your front yard, but we didn’t have much choice. We’re making repairs, but there’s still danger of explosion. Keep back.”

He kept his explanation and warnings incomplete and cryptic, to make them think — and waste time while they debated what to do. But at some point his friends would become frustrated with one-sided communication. How long did he have?

He got his answer faster than he had hoped: ten more armed men moved into position and brought their weapons to eye level. Beads of perspiration oozed from Rodman’s forehead. Their sudden and unexpected reaction made him feel weak — an emotion he did not often experience. Whoever was calling the shots for this group was either a battle-tested military commander, or a decisive and impulsive individual. Either scenario was not good.

Rodman’s eyes stung from dripping sweat. He scraped a shirt sleeve across his face and tried to remain clear-headed. He told himself it wasn’t fear so much as nerves — the lack of control over an unstable situation with an unknown, and unpredictable or underestimated, adversary. If he was only free to deal with these yahoos the way he’d been trained to do, he’d feel much better.

But for now, he had to stare the enemy in the eye and refuse to blink. Action was his strength, not diplomacy. He silently urged DeSantos and Uzi to hurry — then dabbed at the pimples of sweat, and waited.

DeSantos lowered himself into the small building through the roof vent. He landed on the floor with both feet, leaving his rope dangling in midair as he started his search. He was aware of the time limitation but pushed it out of his mind, focusing on his mission objectives: searching the interior’s contents as quickly as possible, without leaving trace evidence behind.

He turned on his mini flashlight and moved through the storage building, which he estimated at twenty by fifty feet. Large, free-standing rusted shelves were arranged end to end and back to back, dividing the space into aisles. He took mental inventory of the shelves’ contents — primarily sequentially numbered boxes stacked atop one another — then pulled down one of two unmarked cartons. After slicing through the tape with his knife, he lifted the flaps— and froze.

Having made his way back through the tunnel, Uzi closed the floor panel and gave one final pass around the interior. After he shut off his flashlight, two long squelches blurted from the radio: he was out of time. He fumbled with the brass pins to get the door lined up and restored to its original state, then took off in a sprint, less concerned now with the motion sensors. He figured — hoped — that at this point everyone on the compound would be dealing with the Black Hawk.

But he was wrong.

Twenty or thirty smaller boxes emblazoned with Cyrillic letters stared back at DeSantos. He pulled one out, stuck his thumb under the edge of the flap, and pried it open.

Egg crate packaging separated and protected the three-inch Russian rounds. Match-grade ammo — the kind used by snipers for accuracy. He removed one, bagged it, and shoved it into an inside pocket of his underwear. Positioned properly, despite his skintight outfit, it might pass as a part of his anatomy. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

He rummaged through his backpack for the roll of packaging tape. He resealed the box, restoring it to the condition in which he’d found it, and rotated it to the bottom of the stack.

As he packed himself up to leave, two squelches puffed over his radio transceiver. Time to go. He grabbed hold of the dangling rope and pulled himself up toward the roof.

Uzi was nearing the rendezvous point when he stepped in a camouflaged hole and went down hard, smashing his head and right shoulder into a sawed-off tree trunk. Sharp pain shot through his face and neck. He tried to pull himself to his knees but lacked traction on the wet leaves and slippery pine needles.

A flashlight beam hit him in the face.

“Who the fuck are you?” the voice behind the light said.

Uzi raised his left hand as a shield — his right was pinned behind him, preventing him from reaching his knife — and tried to make out the silhouetted figure against the glare. Is he armed?

“I said, ‘Who the fuck are you?’”

“I was out hiking and got lost. You know how I can get out of here?” Uzi knew it was a bullshit excuse, but he figured it would buy him some time while he sorted out his jumbled thoughts and tried to reason a way out of the jam. Keep the captor talking and you had a chance. If he made you lay down and tied you up, the guy was a pro and you were in deep shit.

The man lowered his flashlight a bit, but still kept it pointed at Uzi’s face. Dimly lit by the penumbra of the beam’s errant light, his face sported sharp features and thin lips. Combined with military-short hair, dark stubble, and pseudomilitary accouterments, he fit Uzi’s image of GI Joe.

“Take off your glasses and mask,” Joe said. He waved his light as if underscoring his words.

It was an expected request. See your adversary, watch the language of his face. People inadvertently give away a lot about themselves and their motives by the simple involuntary ticks, creases, squints, and frowns woven into subtle facial expressions. Uzi was going to try to do the same with Joe.

“Now! Take ’em off!”

Uzi reached up with his left hand and complied. Joe took a step forward, his head creeping forward and tilting slightly, studying Uzi’s face as if he recognized him from somewhere. If Joe was one of the ARM members who’d seen him on one of his prior visits, Uzi was in for a rough time. Uzi again thought of the knife and began moving slowly in an effort to free his right arm.

“Do you know how I can get out of here?” Uzi asked again.

Joe tilted his head left, then, with his eyes locked on Uzi’s, lifted his chin toward Uzi’s right.

Was he showing him the way out? Letting him go? Or was he toying with him, planning to shoot him in the back when he turned to leave?

But before Uzi could test the veracity of his new friend’s offer, DeSantos appeared at Joe’s side, his knife drawn, the rough tooth-edged blade jammed up against the man’s neck.

“Down!” DeSantos said into his ear.

Joe complied, the sharp edge being most persuasive. He lay prone on the ground, remaining completely still while Uzi did a quick search of his body and removed his weapons and radio. Joe obviously knew the drill. He had figured out that they had control of the situation, and the best thing he could do now was to comply and wait for an opportunity to bolt. DeSantos was making every effort to ensure that never happened.

Uzi emptied the ammo and then dumped the rounds into the camouflaged hole while DeSantos, with his left knee squarely in Joe’s back, loosely fastened flexcuffs to their captive’s ankles and wrists.

That done, he motioned to Uzi to follow him toward the fence. Joe’s bindings weren’t permanent, but would last long enough for them to make their escape. The man would then be able to free himself before anyone got to him. Partly out of embarrassment and partly out of a desire not to admit he had failed at his job, Joe would never speak of his adventure — unless it had been caught on video. Uzi hoped that was not the case.

As they stood in front of the fence, they pulled their homemade clawhooks from their backpacks, uncovered the fiber mat, and went to work.

Rodman’s parasoldier adversaries were getting restless. He knew the feeling. He wished he would get some indication from either DeSantos or Uzi that they were free of the compound so he could lift off.

But his radio remained quiet.

Rodman tapped his foot, perspiration continuing to pour from his face. But his hands tightened on the controls when he saw the ARM team leader tug at his shoulder mike. Something was happening. Rodman watched with rapt attention as the men simultaneously touched their earpieces as if straining to hear their orders.

A few moved first, then the others got the idea and followed suit. They charged the chopper en masse and slammed the butts of their weapons against the doors and windows.

“Goddamnit!” The chopper rocked violently from the angry mob’s fury. “Do not engage,” Rodman said. “Bravo, give me more fog!”

Thick black smoke again poured from the chopper’s rear jets. Rodman couldn’t see their response, but he knew the men had to be choking pretty well about now. The banging slowed, then stopped.

Rodman accelerated the rotors, as he would normally do in preparation for liftoff. The mob instinctively recoiled, some abandoning their weapons as they ducked and ran a haphazard retreat.

They had waited as long as feasible. Rodman needed to get airborne. He switched the frequency on his radio, then squeezed off two long squelches. They blew some last coughs of smoke out the tail, then the chopper lifted off, banking sharply and paralleling the periphery of ARM’s boundaries.

While in the car on the way to Tim Meadows’s home in Alexandria, Uzi and DeSantos inventoried their ill-gotten goods. This “evidence” could not find its way onto FBI grounds, or it could mean the end of their careers with a fanfare from which the Bureau itself might never recover.

“I like the pen idea,” DeSantos said.

“Works well unless the person who interrogates you tries writing with it.” After a moment’s reflection on what had happened with the militia guard, Uzi asked, “Why do you think that guy was gonna let me go?”

“It was all in your head. You thought he nodded at the fence. But it was dark, man. Maybe he heard me coming and tilted his head, but couldn’t place the noise.”

“Doesn’t matter. Lucky for me, you saved my ass.”

They turned on King and Uzi quickly located Meadows’s street.

As DeSantos pulled against the curb, he said, “Basement light’s on.”

Meadows, a night owl by nature, took the materials without asking where they had come from, but Uzi told him they were never to be brought onto Federal property, nor would he acknowledge ever having given them to him.

“You’re putting me in a tough spot,” Meadows said. They were standing on his porch, the tech dressed in a pair of threadbare jeans and an FBI sweatshirt with a pair of Wal-Mart reading glasses hanging from his neck on a gray pull-chain necklace. “What’s the deal with this stuff?”

“You don’t want to ask that question,” Uzi said. He gestured at the light in the basement window. “How’s your project going?”

Meadows folded his arms across his chest. “Don’t change the subject on me, Uzi.”

“You can have the oysters, okay? Two orders.”

Meadows arched backward. “Two appetizers?”

“Maybe that way you won’t order an entrée.”

Meadows took the package. “Don’t count on it.” He nodded at Uzi’s car, where DeSantos was seated, leaning back against the headrest, staring at them with glazed, disinterested eyes.

“What’s wrong with your partner?”

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

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

Uzi held out a hand. “Not here.”

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

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

Meadows nodded knowingly. “Okay.”

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

“Looking for…?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

“That’s damn helpful, Uzi.”

Uzi shrugged. “What can I say?”

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

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

“Two days? Two days, Uzi?”

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

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