“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.”
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.