“It was supposed to be.” They got into the SUV and Uzi fired up the engine. He navigated his phone’s screens, then handed it to DeSantos. “Page down through the spreadsheet.”
“Is this thing secure?” DeSantos asked, taking the device.
Uzi chuckled. “I’m using Serpent-Twofish-AES encryption, which is three ciphers in a cascade—”
“Uzi. Uzi — I don’t know what that shit means.” He quickly raised a hand. “And I don’t wanna know. Brian was a technogeek. He thought a good time was finding a way to hack into government and corporate computer systems. I never had the head for any of that crap.”
“I spent five years working on chip design for Intel. I led the team that designed and built the Pentium 4.”
DeSantos winced. “Why do I attract people like you?”
“Other way around. People like us are attracted to know-nothings like you. Makes us feel superior. Besides, I’m not a total techie. My motorcycle’s a thirty-year-old dinosaur. Suzuki 450. Air cooled engine. Sat in my parents’ garage for a dozen years till I moved back to the States, dug it out, and gave it mouth to mouth.” He flashed on the rides in the hot New York summers— frigid wind rippling his shirt, intense acceleration as he twisted the throttle, the engine roaring with power. When he had told Dena he missed his motorcycle, she forbid him from buying one in Israel because it was too dangerous. If she only knew what I really did for a living.
“Wife bought me a Harley last year for my fortieth.”
Uzi eyed his partner. “Nice gift.”
“That’s what home equity lines are for. Guess I should be thankful we’re not underwater,” he said absentmindedly as he sifted through the names on Uzi’s phone. “This shit’s gonna take a while to go through.”
“Start with our missing Marine.”
“Corporal William Ellison.” DeSantos continued scrolling through the document until he found the entry. “Got it. Lives on base, a lettered apartment on John Quick Road. Couple miles from here.”
He gave Uzi directions, then started reading the backgrounder on Ellison.
Uzi departed the Air Facility, then turned onto Barnett Avenue. “Anything pop out?”
“Guy’s a model soldier, like Warren said.” His eyes flicked right and left through the summary. “Could be a dead end.”
Uzi accelerated. “We’ll find out real soon.”
Uzi turned onto John Quick Road and drove up to the 2000 block, then pulled in front of Corporal Ellison’s residence. The three-story, six-family base-issue apartment building, with its thirties-style architecture and red-brick masonry, reminded Uzi of the school he attended in New York.
Two anonymous-gray aluminum gang mailboxes rose from the sidewalk like sentries guarding the entrance. Concrete-and-wood park benches stood astride the front walkway.
A patrol car sat parked at the curb, its radio crackling with dispatch chatter. Uzi craned his neck to look at the cruiser through the passenger window. “Looks like we’ve got company.”
“Marines wouldn’t let the FBI get the jump on their investigation,” DeSantos said. “Despite my relationship with Warren.” He handed Uzi back his phone, then got out and followed his partner to the front door. “How much of a lead you figure they got on us?”
“If they were on patrol and passing by, five or ten minutes.”
Uzi led the way across the threshold, holding out his credentials case as he encountered the first military police officer stationed in the entryway.
“FBI. Aaron—”
“I know who you are, sir.” The MP was a couple of inches shorter than Uzi, but his crisp uniform and formal demeanor gave him an air of control. “They’ll be done in a few minutes.”
Uzi said, “We’ll just head on in and look around. I’m sure Major Vasquez wouldn’t mind.”
“Ellison here?” DeSantos asked.
The MP, his jaw tight, answered with a terse, “No.”
DeSantos shouldered past the officer, followed by Uzi. After passing through the hallway, Uzi and DeSantos split up, each taking opposite ends of the rectangular apartment. Five minutes later, Uzi entered the family room and caught DeSantos’s eye. They walked out of the apartment building together and stopped behind the Tahoe. Uzi glanced over his shoulder to make sure the base police were not within earshot. “Anything?”
“Nothing,” DeSantos said. “You?”
“There was a message. On his answering machine.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“I lowered the volume. If this turns into something, I wanted to make sure this time we got the jump on our ‘buddies.’ With nine days to get to the bottom of this, we can’t afford to waste time with turf battles.”
Uzi glanced back at the apartment again before continuing. “It was a female voice.” He pulled out his phone, tapped and swiped at the screen several times with a finger and said, “He’s got a younger sister, lives off-base. Could’ve been her. She was reminding him of her doctor’s appointment at eight. She also wanted him to pick up some groceries on the way to work.”
DeSantos squinted. “Groceries? Strange favor to ask a brother, don’t you think? Especially when he lives on base and she doesn’t. Not exactly ‘on the way.’”
“Maybe she’s laid up and he’s helping her out. Hence the doctor’s appointment.”
“Time stamp on the message?”
“Nope. Old microcassette deal. Rewind the tape to the beginning and record over the messages. It was right at the beginning, so it’s recent. He’s missing this morning, so maybe she left it last night.”
DeSantos indicated the apartment with a nod of his head. “You got anything else you want to look at in there?”
“I’d rather go check in with the sister.”
“Let’s do it. Before our friends get the same idea.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Uzi tapped his pocket, where the tape was safely buried. “For the moment, this is our lead.”
Katherine Ellison lived in Dumfries, Virginia, a small, backward-leaning town fifteen miles from her brother’s apartment. Her house was a dilapidated clapboard, with weeds and gravel in place of a lawn, and weathered siding that was once blue but had long lost most of its pigment. Still, the surrounding land was wooded and green, pleasant and quiet.
Uzi pulled against the curb, blocking the short driveway where a red Dodge Ram was parked. “Does the corporal own a pickup?”
“In fact, he does.”
Uzi’s eyebrows rose, an understated movement intended to punctuate the fact that Ellison was there and that something had to be amiss. “He hasn’t called into work.”
DeSantos thought for a second, then said, “Sister’s ill and he took her to the hospital.”
“His pickup is blocking the driveway.”
DeSantos’s eyes darted around as he sought another explanation. “They took her car, which was parked at the curb. Or an ambulance came and took both of them to the hospital. Or—”
“When you hear hoof beats,” Uzi said, “think horses, not zebras.” It was an old medical school saw his father had drummed into him: when presented with the unknown, first consider the most obvious explanation before turning to the obscure ones.
DeSantos reached beneath his jacket and pulled out his Desert Eagle. Uzi was doing the same with his Glock. “Ready?”
Uzi nodded, then quietly popped his car door. Crouching low, they hurried up the broken concrete walkway, hands on their weapons and eyes scanning the windows for movement. As they stepped onto the wood porch, a floorboard creaked loudly under their weight. Uzi winced.
They took positions on either side of the door. DeSantos pointed at the doorbell. Uzi shrugged. At this point, if a nefarious sort was inside, he’d probably know they were there. Uzi nodded for DeSantos to continue. He pushed the button and a tinny, high-pitched bell sounded.