She dabbed at her lips with the napkin. “I’m looking into the crash. Like you.”
“But you can’t discuss it.”
“I’m limited in what I can say. I’m sure you understand.”
“The idea’s to pool information, Leila. If there was a takeaway lesson from 9/11, that’s it right there.” She had no response, so he continued. “Guess that means we’re back to personal stuff. Are you married?”
“Not anymore.”
Uzi grabbed a piece of cornbread and placed it on his plate. He pulled off a corner and asked, “But you were. Divorced or widowed?”
“Divorced.”
“Children?”
“No.”
Uzi nodded, wishing the one-word responses would morph into more thoughtful answers. It was beginning to feel like an interrogation. “Siblings?”
“One brother.” She pointed to the small plate by Uzi’s elbow. “How’s the bread?”
“Good,” he said. “It’s always good.”
They spent the next hour sparring and discussing elements of the crash, Uzi supplying some of the facts they had amassed and hoping for an in-kind exchange from Leila. But she did not offer up the detailed intel he felt the CIA should have developed by now. To be fair, however, neither had those members of his task force who were with the Agency.
They eventually settled onto the more neutral ground of complaining about bureaucracy and sharing stories of the battle scars each had endured during the rise to their current positions. Underlying the evening, however, was the sense that the attraction Uzi felt was mutual — at one point he caught her reflection in a mirror watching his butt when he got up to use the restroom.
After arguing over who should pay the bill — they ended up splitting it — Uzi rose from his chair. “Can we do this again?” he asked as he helped place the cape onto her shapely shoulders.
“The work part or the part where your friends cancel and it’s just you and me?”
“The part where my friends cancel.”
She pursed her lips, a slight smile tickling the corners of her mouth. Looking out at the lights on 20th Avenue beyond the window, she said, “I think so.”
Less than an enthusiastic response, but for now he would accept it. “Great. I’ll call you.”
He pulled out his Nokia and entered her number into his contacts list. Then he watched her walk out into the chilled DC night.
“She’s quite beautiful,” Clarence said behind Uzi’s shoulder.
Uzi did not bother to turn around. “Yeah,” he said. “I noticed.”
DAY THREE
Uzi pushed through the maple-framed glass doors to Leonard Rudnick’s building, ascended the paneled lobby’s steps, and then ran up the five flights to the doctor’s special entrance. He preferred taking the stairs whenever possible — not because he didn’t like elevators, but because his grandmother had ingrained in him the value of exercise. She religiously walked several flights daily to and from her fifth-story Brooklyn apartment, well into her nineties.
He took a few deep breaths to calm his lungs, then walked into the small waiting room, where he found Rudnick standing with the door open.
“Right on time,” the doctor said.
Uzi followed Rudnick into his office and sat down heavily in his chair. “Look, Doc, I don’t know if this is going to work. This case is taking all my time. Even meeting at seven AM… I need to keep my mind focused on the investigation—”
“Are you the only agent working this case?”
Uzi snorted. “We’re up to about five hundred. But I’m in charge of more than half of them, and there’re leads I’m following up myself.”
“I understand. That’s a tremendous amount of responsibility. Some thrive on it. But I want to know about you. Tell me what brought you to the FBI,” Rudnick said with a casual wave of a hand.
Uzi blinked, realizing the doctor had just gently, yet abruptly, changed the subject.
“Was it the prestige?” Rudnick asked.
Uzi sighed in concession. He pulled a protein bar from his leather jacket and tore it open. “Breakfast. Hope you don’t mind.”
Rudnick gestured for him to continue. “I understand your time is short. Eating and talking is fine. So, to my question.”
Uzi swallowed, then said, “I needed a job, and I wanted something that would fit with my professional background.” He took another bite from the bar.
“I see. But that could describe a lot of jobs.”
“The Bureau has a great retirement plan,” he said as he chewed.
Rudnick grinned, as did Uzi. But then the doctor’s face hardened as he leaned elbows onto knees and said, “I think it’s time we talked about what happened to your family.”
It was the most direct Rudnick had been, and in the instant the doctor finished his sentence, Uzi felt a surge of fear rattle his body. Had Rudnick been a boxer, he would’ve been dinged for hitting below the belt.
Uzi knew his body language had betrayed him. His eyes had widened, if only for a second, and then he had looked away. He swallowed hard. “If you know to ask,” Uzi said, “then you already know what happened.”
Rudnick remained stone-faced. “That’s not how this works, Uzi. What I know or don’t know is ultimately unimportant. But let me put you at ease. I was only told that you suffered a terrible family tragedy, and that as a result you moved back to the United States.”
Uzi nodded but did not speak. The two of them sat there in silence, Uzi’s gaze directed at the carpet, his mind sifting through tortured memories.
“It will help to talk about it.”
Uzi looked down at the protein bar, no longer felt like eating, and shoved it back in his pocket. “I don’t think I can.”
“I see,” Rudnick said. “How about I ask you a question I usually ask my patients who’ve gone through a ‘terrible family tragedy.’ He interlocked his fingers and leaned back. “Why haven’t you committed suicide?”
“What?”
“Your answer could prove valuable in shaping our treatment.”
Uzi’s eyes found the ceiling. He didn’t even know how to approach such a question.
“Have you ever considered it? Suicide?”
“The answer to your question, Doctor, is that I don’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t commit suicide.”
“Okay. Some people have an answer for me, and others, well, others discover the answer in the weeks that follow. So let’s start with something a bit easier. Were you born in Israel?”
Uzi began bouncing his right knee. “My father was. He met my mother on a visit to New York and ended up staying there. I was born in Queens but he moved us back to Israel after I turned three. When I was about ten, we started living in both places. My aunt, who lived in Brooklyn, had Cerebral Palsy, and my mom didn’t wanna be so far away from her.
“So we lived in New York during the school year and Israel during the summers. After doing my three years in the IDF, I ended up staying there. I got my degree from Braude College of Engineering.” He laughed. “Because of my performance with the defense forces, my first job offer actually came from the Shin Bet security service. It’s like our FBI. I was with them for three years before Intel offered me a full-time position working on the first NetBurst microarchitecture CPUs. They’d just opened Fab18, a new manufacturing facility in Israel and I had an ‘in’ through a friend, so it was perfect.” He stopped, reflected for a moment. “Around that time, my father had also gotten sick, so my mother had all she could handle.”
“And then what?”
“Spent almost five years with Intel as a design engineer. Five really good years. And then one day, things changed.”