Shepard assured Uzi the conference was well covered and highly secure. But he would alert all the involved parties. Uzi gave Shepard’s secretary his cell number, then hung a left onto New Hampshire Avenue. As he pulled up in front of Hamilton House, workers were using a bulldozer and dump truck to cart away the shattered chunks of pavement left behind by the explosion of Uzi’s Tahoe.
As Uzi removed his helmet, his cell phone began ringing. It was DeSantos.
“Could’ve used your help,” Uzi said. “Big shit’s gone down.”
“Sorry, boychick, I didn’t know this was your number. I ignored the calls. I’ve been coordinating stuff with Knox. You put the scare into Whitehall—”
“Then he told you about Larchmont?”
“About your suspicions.”
“Yeah, well, they’re not suspicions anymore. He and his thugs just tried to kill me. We need to meet. Where are you?”
“Headed to the Hay-Adams. Me and my colleagues are there as support. Just in case.”
Uzi knew that meant his OPSIG buddies. Made sense.
“Just so you know, Phish and Mason got something on Danny Carlson,” DeSantos said. “A voicemail on your cell, left a little before he died. A warning about Leila and that you were in danger. He also said he’s onto something big. He mentioned a DLB ‘where the tracks meet.’ I know the drop, I used it with him a couple of times. I sent Phish over to grab the package.”
“Not looking much like a suicide now, is it?”
“If it ever did. I’ll meet you at the hotel.”
The moment Uzi hit End, the phone rang again.
“Agent Uziel, this is Dr. Rudnick.”
“Doc? How’d you get this number?”
“You weren’t answering your phone, so I called your office.”
Uzi instantly realized he had missed his appointment. “Geez — I’m sorry, Doc, I totally spaced out my session. Things are coming to a head and I had to—”
“Uzi, listen to me. I need to see you, right away.”
Rudnick’s voice was unusually tense. Uzi got the sense the doctor was not simply admonishing him for missing his session. Someone’s there with him. Leila.
“You sure it’s gotta be now?”
There was a second’s pause, then a muffled noise as if the handset was being covered.
“Yes. Come now. There’s something I have to discuss with you, something we discussed during your last session. But we can’t do it over the phone. How soon can you get here?”
“Fifteen minutes. On my way.” He hung up the phone, shoved his helmet back on, started up the bike, and twisted the throttle.
In reality, Uzi was five minutes away — but in the likely event Leila or someone else was using Rudnick to lure him there, he didn’t want them expecting him when he was scheduled to arrive. He hung a right on M Street and twisted the throttle, accelerating hard toward Rudnick’s office.
Uzi arrived with the engine off, gliding to a stop on the slate tiles of the building’s exterior entryway. He pushed through the cherrywood-framed glass doors and nearly slipped on the slick marble of the lobby. He decided to forego the elevator — the logical place for him to emerge on Rudnick’s floor — in case his visitor was wise enough to know he had padded his ETA.
He took the steps two at a time. When he reached the fifth floor, he removed his helmet and set it down, withdrew the Puma with his left hand and the pilfered .40 caliber Smith & Wesson handgun with the right. He pushed up against the metal fire door and listened.
Nothing. Uzi opened it a crack and peered into the empty hallway. He moved out of the stairwell and stopped beside a fire alarm pull box. He threw his back against the wall and inched along the corridor, his eyes and ears tuned to any and all noises. He approached the taupe door — the “secret” confidential patient entrance — his best shot at a stealthy entry.
Slowly, he pulled it open. Again, all was quiet. He was now standing in the anteroom to Rudnick’s office. He stopped and listened, heart pounding, mouth desert dry — and made his way across the floor to the opposite door. It was ajar. He crouched low and pushed it open with a foot.
In one motion, he stepped inside and swept the room from left to right with the Smith & Wesson. All clear. Except that sitting in the center of the office was the doctor, bound and gagged.
Uzi cleared the entire area, and, convinced there was no one else present, turned his attention to the bound psychologist.
“Doc, are you okay?” He slid his knife blade behind Rudnick’s head and sliced away the bandana. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to involve you.”
Rudnick spat out the gag, and then looked up at his patient with sad eyes. “I should be the one apologizing. I didn’t want to call you—”
“Who did this?”
“I believe it was Leila. And an associate.” He swallowed hard. “They wanted information on you. About the investigation. They thought I knew something.”
“What did you tell them?”
Rudnick lifted his head proudly. “Nothing.”
That was when Uzi noticed it. A large black resin box behind Rudnick’s chair that sprouted gray metal flex conduit which snaked to a flat device below the doctor’s right shoe.
“Is that what I think it is?”
Rudnick bowed his head. “I’m afraid so.”
Uzi grabbed the doctor’s phone on the desk — but there was no dial tone. He dug out his cell and called his office. “Hoshi — it’s me. Get EOD to 2311 M Street. Fast — we’ve got a hot one, and there isn’t much time!”
“I’ll try, but they’re on special assignment because of the conference—”
“I don’t care how you do it, just get them over here — now!”
He hung up, ran into the hallway, and pulled the fire alarm. At least there was a chance some of the building’s occupants would get out in time. He ran back to Rudnick, got down on all fours, and began studying the devices.
There was a red LED display that read 5:58. The seconds were ticking down. Shit! He had six minutes to get him out of the building. But his foot was on what appeared to be a pressure sensitive device. Lift the shoe, the bomb detonates.
He dialed Tim Meadows. “Tim, it’s Uzi.”
“Good timing. I was about to call you. I found something—”
“You know something about bombs, right?”
“That’s a bit of a sore subject, especially coming from you—”
“My friend’s wired to one and I’ve got five minutes before it blows. There appears to be a spring-loaded pressure sensitive device under his foot. It’s got a very small trigger, otherwise I’d try wedging something under his shoe—”
“Don’t do that. Devices like that have redundancy mechanisms that’ll make the whole thing blow if they’re tampered with.”
“There are no exposed wires— I’m guessing they’re inside a length of electrical conduit that connects the two devices. Can I open the bomb’s casing? Looks like a composite material, about two feet square—”
“These people know what they’re doing when it comes to bombs, Uzi. I can tell you that from personal experience. It’s booby trapped, I’m sure. If you touch it without knowing what you’re doing, they’ll be picking you up with a vacuum cleaner.”
“Shit.” He fisted a clump of hair and pulled. “Shit. So what do I do?”
“How about a fire extinguisher? Spraying it with CO2 might freeze the trigger mechanism long enough for you to take cover.”
Uzi’s knowledge of microcircuitry told him this wouldn’t work. “The drop in temperature will contract the metal. It’ll change the tolerance of the components. That alone may set it off.”
“Jesus, Uzi, this is a tough one.”
“Tim, I can’t just… I can’t just let him die.”
“How about amputating his leg? You’d have to secure it to the chair with duct tape so it doesn’t move — if that’s even possible, which I don’t think it is. You’re talking about cutting through a big freakin’ bone. Unless you cut through the knee joint. No,” he said, discounting his own suggestion, “best thing to do is call EOD.”
“This thing’s history in a little over four minutes.”
“Then I’ve got one last suggestion: get the hell out of there.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m sorry, man. If there was something you could do, I’d tell you—”
Uzi ended the call. He bit his lip and stared at the black and red screen as the numbers cascaded downward. Maybe this was just an elaborate joke to scare the hell out of him. Meant to send him a message. Yeah, that’s it. It’s really not a bomb. It’s fashioned to look like one, but it’s really not. It’s really not.
Damn you, Leila. Damn you!
“Uzi,” Rudnick said softly, “you must leave.”
He got down on all fours and peered at the black resin housing. “Can’t do that, Doc. But thanks for your concern.”
“That wasn’t a request, Uzi. It was an order. You need to follow your doctor’s orders.”
Uzi continued to study the device. “Always the joker. Have you always had such a keen sense of humor?”
“Uzi, look at me. Look at me,” he said, schoolteacher stern. “At my eyes.”
Uzi stopped what he was doing and looked up. “I’ve lived seven decades longer than God intended, my friend. I should’ve died as a scrawny kid in Buchenwald. Somehow, I survived and lived a whole lifetime. The time has come for me to join my parents and sisters.”
“No, I can’t just—”
“Yes, Uzi. You can. Promise me one thing — that you’ll be the one to tell my son Wayne at the BSU. Tell him I love him, that you were with me and that I wasn’t afraid.”
“I will. I’ll tell him.” But Uzi was not ready to give up. He searched his brain, trying to think of a solution. He needed something — a stray thought from his training. Or—
“Doc, did they say anything about the bomb? When they were talking to each other. Anything at all.”
“Just that it would take down a good part of the building. And that if I lifted my shoe even just a bit, I’d set it off.” Rudnick hesitated before continuing. “The man was in a hurry, though. I think they were going to plant another bomb, a car bomb.”
Uzi sat up straight. A car bomb? “Where? What makes you think it was a car bomb?”
Rudnick’s gaze tilted toward the ceiling as he struggled to remember. “He said something about the axle, getting it on the axle by the brake. That it’s set to go at two. Whoever gets in that car, Uzi, they’re dead. You have to find out whose car, before more people die—”
Uzi closed his eyes. First things first. Concentrate. He looked at the display: three minutes left. The piercing fire alarm siren blared in the background. He sat there, frozen, watching the numbers tumble lower. There’s gotta be something I can do!
“Uzi, it’s time to go. You must live your life, just as I did. You still have many questions that need answers. But I’m going to leave you with one answer. I usually let my patients figure it out themselves — and I’m sure you would have — but time is a bit short.” He forced a smile. “That question I kept asking you, about committing suicide. I’ll tell you why you didn’t do it. It’s the same reason why I didn’t do it after getting out of the death camp.”
Uzi’s eyes moved from the red numbers to Rudnick’s face.
“I needed to preserve their memories, of my parents and sisters and my aunt and uncle. Because I was the only one left. Inside me, they lived on for another seven decades. I thought about them, told stories about them. Talked to them, if only in my mind.” He fought back tears. “If I’d committed suicide, their essence would have died along with me. Now, Wayne will pass on those memories. Do you understand?”
“Dena and Maya.”
“There isn’t much time,” Rudnick said calmly. “You must go.”
Uzi looked down at the bomb. Ninety seconds left.
“Honor a dying man’s request,” Rudnick said. “Would you do that?”
Uzi could not bring himself to look at him.
“Find the people who did this, Uzi. Find them and make them pay.”
With this uncharacteristic request from such a gentle person, anger welled up in Uzi’s chest. He looked up and met Rudnick’s gaze. He didn’t know if this kind-hearted man actually meant for him to take vengeance, or if it was a clever psychological play to get Uzi to leave. Whichever it was, it worked.
Uzi stood up. His lips started to tremble. Tears sprouted spontaneously, and he cried. He wanted to hug the old man, to give him strength to face what was coming, and to thank him for all he had done for him. But Uzi knew that any movement could set the bomb off prematurely. Instead, he leaned over and kissed his forehead. “I’ll keep your memory alive. I’ll tell Wayne. And I’ll find the people who did this to you.”
Rudnick smiled, the kind of grin a proud father gives his son when he has accomplished something of great value.
And then Uzi tore himself away, and he backed out of the room, away from the man who, up until recently was unknown to him, someone he now felt he had known all his life. Someone he had come to respect as much as he had respected his own father.
He turned and ran into the hallway, where the piercing siren was incapacitatingly loud. He hit the fire door with his shoulder and entered the staircase, slipping twice as he turned landings.
Uzi wasn’t sure how much time he had left, but his gut told him it was no more than mere seconds. He counted down from ten as he ran the steps, taking two or three at a time, using the handrail to propel himself forward.
He rounded the second floor when he hit five seconds and kept on going, then reached the lobby at the moment he figured the bomb would go off. A dense crowd packed the area, moving slowly, clearly unaware the building was about to come down.
“Get out,” Uzi shouted, darting toward the glass doors. “Everyone out!”
He hit the sidewalk and ran into M Street just as the EOD van pulled up in front. Farther down the block, a fire engine was approaching, its siren wailing and lights flashing.
The fifth story windows blew out first, a massive explosion sending dust and glass and metal and cement cascading down toward the street below. People darted in all directions, car tires groaning to a stop as the debris rained onto the pavement.
Uzi joined the bomb squad technicians, who had taken cover beside and beneath their truck. Though he struggled to corral his thoughts, to push his sorrow aside, his oxygen-starved voice was nevertheless edged in pain. “I called it in. Device was on fifth floor. Might be another… a car bomb.”
The commander, back pressed against the glossy black truck, asked, “Where?”
“No idea.” Then it clicked. Oh, shit. He took off down the block, heading for the spot where he had left the BuCar.
“Wait!” the commander called after him.
As Uzi turned the corner, he was relieved to find the Crown Vic still there, a ticket flapping against its windshield. He fumbled for his key ring, got in the car, and drove off.
Though he tried to focus on where he was headed, his mind would not let go of Rudnick. The image of him bound to the chair, bravely facing death as Uzi backed out of the room, was too powerful to push aside. It would take time for him to absorb the impact of his loss. He would have an empty space in his life. Again. But now he knew how to get through these things.
Unfortunately for him, he had experience in such matters.