“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.”
5:26 PM
92 hours 34 minutes remaining
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.
6:36 PM
91 hours 24 minutes remaining
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.”
Hard Target Page 27
