“My guess is that’s what Frank is working on.”
“No, you. Can you tell me anything about this guy?”
“Uzi, we’re all trained to profile offender behavior. Frank’s been on the case since he got back in town. I turned all my stuff over to him. He can answer your questions better than I could.”
Uzi leaned forward. “Karen, not all profilers have the same skill sets and abilities. Some have book knowledge and training, and some are intuitive. It just comes to them. I’ve seen you work, I know that you’re intuitive. Plus, I don’t trust people easily. You, I trust.”
Vail leaned back in her chair and rocked a bit. “If I help you, I’m going to get in trouble. How’s that for an intuitive prediction?”
“Here’s what we’ve got so far, which isn’t much.” He handed her a manila envelope. “Just give me what you can, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”
“I have a hard time saying no to you, Uzi. Why is that?”
Uzi stood, then grabbed the door knob. “Hey, you’re the psych expert. But if I had to guess, I’d have to say it’s my striking good looks.”
Uzi walked into Marshall Shepard’s office ten minutes late. He pulled a fresh toothpick from Shepard’s private stash in his top left desk drawer, and stuck the mint-spiced piece of wood between his lips.
“Do you always go rummaging around your ASAC’s desk without his knowledge?”
The voice came out of nowhere. It was authoritarian and stern, but not excessively loud. Uzi nearly dropped the toothpick from his mouth. In that instant, he flashed on his childhood, when he was caught with a Playboy magazine he’d found in his father’s drawer.
Standing in the doorway was FBI Director Douglas Knox.
Uzi cleared his throat, gained his wits, and tried to act as if the daylights had not just been plucked from his skin. “ASAC Shepard keeps toothpicks—”
“I’m not interested,” Knox said, then entered the room and moved behind Shepard’s desk. With a quick flick of his wrists, he fanned aside his suit coat and shoved his hands deep into his pants pockets. “Good that you’re here. I need to bring you up to speed on what I’ve set in motion the past couple of hours. I’ve assigned a total of three hundred agents to this case. Four squads—”
“And I’ve also tasked each member of the JTTF with naming additional agents from their own agencies,” Uzi said.
“Very good.” Knox began pacing behind Shepard’s desk. “I’ve asked Assistant Director Yates to put together an interagency unit — the Marine Two Task Force — or M2TF, to support the efforts of JTTF. Hector’s a logical choice to sit on it, and he’ll report directly to me and the secretary of defense. Within the hour, the Rapid Deployment Logistics Unit will have found a place to hunker down. It’ll be staffed with another two hundred agents from NSA, CIA, DOD, Secret Service, and Homeland Security. It’ll run concurrent with your investigation and report directly to ADIC Yates.”
Knox stopped talking, but continued pacing behind the desk. “Homeland Security is monitoring everything. I have a standing phone appointment with Secretary Braun twice daily to keep us both up to speed. Until we know more, we’re treating this as an act of terrorism. It could also turn out to be personal revenge, or even a politically motivated assassination. The term ‘terrorist’ has become a colloquialism for anyone with radical ideas and I don’t want it thrown around unnecessarily. Not until we have some proof.”
“Our operating definition of a terrorist has been someone who kills or intimidates innocent people,” Uzi said. “And if the target was in fact Glendon Rusch, they took a whole bunch of other people with him in their attempt. That fits the definition close enough for me.”
Knox stopped and turned on his heel, facing Uzi. “Was the target president-elect Rusch?”
“I don’t know yet, sir. It’s a starting point. When you hear hoof beats—”
“Think horses. I’m familiar with the saying. You keep chasing the horses, Agent Uziel, but I don’t want the zebras or bulls getting out of the pen either till we’re sure they’re not involved.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How does all this tie in with Congressman Harmon’s murder?”
Uzi shrugged. The congressman’s body was barely cold. Did Knox really expect him to have answers? “No compelling, direct evidence the two are related. Yet.”
Knox resumed his pacing. “Then indirect.”
Uzi thought of mentioning the possible C-4 connection, but until he got more info from the lab, he decided to keep it to himself. Instead, he said, “We’ve got some things in motion. But my gut tells me they’re related.”
“Your gut? That’s all we’ve got?”
“At the moment.” Uzi shifted his weight. “I can’t manufacture evidence—”
Knox’s head snapped up. He stopped moving, his cold eyes penetrating Uzi’s, as if he were trying to bore right through his skull and peer into his brain. “I’m not suggesting you do, Agent. Just get me answers. The right answers.”
Get me the right answers? What the hell does that mean? Was it a plea for Uzi to bring him the correct suspect, or the correct suspect for Knox’s needs? He flashed back on his conversation with the president, the ambiguous innuendoes leaving him at a loss to fully understand what he was saying. Or am I reading too much into it? Heeding his boss’s prior advice, Uzi merely nodded at Knox, then added, “Of course, sir.”
“Director Knox,” Shepard said, lumbering into the room. “Started without me. Good. I was talking with the lab—”
“Yes. Fine. I was just informing Agent Uziel here about the expansion of his task force.”
Shepard gave Uzi a serious look, as he would any other field agent who was not his personal friend. Turning back to Knox, he said, “Just so you know, Mr. Director, Command Post is now staffed and operational. Revised plan calls for JTTF to hit three-hundred—”
“ADIC Yates has kept me fully briefed,” Knox said with a wave of his hand. “But let me make something perfectly clear, Mr. Shepard: the number of bodies we’ve got assigned to this case doesn’t matter if we don’t break it. And soon. I don’t want a failed investigation on my watch.”
Shepard answered without hesitation. “Yes, sir.”
Uzi shuffled the toothpick in his mouth but did not say anything. He was busy observing the interplay between Knox and Shepard.
“You have a problem with this?” Knox was focused on Uzi, his gaze deep and stern.
“Not at all. It all makes perfect sense.”
Knox squinted a bit, no doubt trying to read the body language and attitude that underscored Uzi’s comment. He turned back to Shepard. “I’d like an update by oh-nine hundred.”
Shepard sat down heavily into his seat. “I hope to have something substantive to report by then.”
“Make sure you do.” Knox turned and left the room, failing to make eye contact with Uzi on the way out.
“He doesn’t like me,” Uzi said after the door had clicked shut.
“Douglas Knox doesn’t like most people in the Bureau. I should say, he doesn’t trust most people in the Bureau. I think it’s been the same wherever he’s been. It’s his way of keeping his distance. Part of the power trip.”
“How come you’re not into that scene?”
Shepard reached into his drawer to pull out a toothpick. “You been in my desk again?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I am into the power trip scene. That’s why I’m an Assistant Special Agent in Charge. In Charge, get it? That’s all about power, my friend. And within a couple years I plan to drop the ‘assistant’ from my title. Difference between me and the director is that I don’t believe in stabbing people in the back to get where you want to go.”