As Uzi ascended the three steps to the canopied street-level entryway, he saw Alec in the Tahoe’s driver’s seat as the door closed and the glow of the dome light went out.
But before Uzi could take another step, a searing fireball exploded upward and outward. Heat slammed against his face, the blowback throwing him to the pavement like a rag doll. Metal and rubber flew past him. He curled into a fetal position and buried his head, trying to make sense of what had just happened. His brain was sluggish, his hearing muffled by the blast.
He felt someone grabbing his arms, dragging him along the rough brick, the heels of his boots scraping and kicking up with the jagged surface, bouncing down the three steps, and across a threshold.
The helping hands then dropped his arms. Cool air breezed across his face. Uzi looked up and saw the high, taupe ceiling of the lobby. His senses started to come back to him. He fought dizziness and rose to his knees, using the large, adjacent flower pot for leverage and support.
He touched his face, felt something thick and slippery, and immediately identified it as blood when he saw his smeared hand. The elevator doors opened and Leila came running out. She looked to her right, out the large windows, and saw the still-burning Tahoe. Uzi’s vision was slightly blurred, and he wasn’t ready to venture the few steps toward her, but at the moment all he wanted to do was run to her arms. He needed something — support? Confirmation that he was still alive? He wasn’t sure what it was, but he reached out to her with his left hand while leaning his full weight on the flower pot.
She was still staring out the window, watching the car burn. Why wasn’t she coming?
“Leila,” he managed. “Leila—”
She turned and saw him, confusion crumpling her face. “Uzi! Oh, my God!” She ran toward him, grabbed his body and hugged him tight. “What happened— Are you all right?”
“Car bomb,” he said. “I’m… okay. I’m alive.” He looked at her eyes. “I am alive… aren’t I?”
“I’m calling an ambulance. Come, sit down on the couch.”
She disappeared behind Jiri’s concierge desk. Uzi heard her talking, reporting the incident. A moment later, she was back at his side. When she sat down, her weight tilted the couch cushion toward her body. He started to fall into her, then stuck out his hand to steady himself. “Just a little off balance.”
“Ambulance is on the way. I paged Shepard, too. We’ll get you taken care of, don’t worry.”
“You’re going to be fine,” the paramedic said. “You’ve got a minor concussion, but you’ll recover fully. Meantime, you might have some headaches and dizziness. If there’s someone who can wake you every couple of hours, check your pupils, just to make sure—”
“I’ve got it covered.” The voice came from behind him. Uzi turned and saw his partner standing there.
“Santa, glad you could make it.”
“C’mon, let’s get you out of here.”
Uzi was feeling better — not as weak, his mind clearer, his hearing more distinct. “Where’s Leila?”
“Outside, briefing Shepard.”
“I should say good-bye—”
“I already took care of it.”
“You? No, let me—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But what about Shepard? I should check in—”
“No.” DeSantos’s grip on Uzi’s arm was suddenly firm. “Come on.”
Uzi followed DeSantos into the garage, where a large black limousine was parked.
“Where’s your ’vette?”
“You’re lucid now, that’s a good sign.” DeSantos nodded at the limo. “This is our ride.”
Uzi glanced at his partner seeking an explanation.
“Get in. There’s someone inside who wants to talk with you.”
Uzi tilted his head. DeSantos opened the door and nodded at the backseat. DeSantos followed Uzi inside, then shut the door. The driver accelerated, headed for the exit.
Uzi could make out a large figure sitting several feet in front of him, and another, broad-shouldered figure to the man’s right. With the tinted windows and darkness of the garage, he couldn’t see anything else.
The electronic door locks clicked. “Am I supposed to guess who’s in the car with us?”
“You should tell him, Mr. DeSantos. He’s not smart enough to figure it out.”
Had he not just been blown ten feet by a car bomb, he would’ve exploded across the car’s interior and pounced on the man.
Uzi knew the voice. Though he wished otherwise, it was one he would never forget.
DAY NINE
Uzi turned to DeSantos, anger battling the fog clouding his thoughts. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“He’s come to help.”
“Bullshit. That man doesn’t help me, Santa.”
DeSantos pressed a button on the panel to his left and three interior lights came on. One, a ceiling-mounted halogen above the visitor’s head, threw harsh shadows across the face of Mossad Director General Gideon Aksel. With coarse skin and stubby but strong arms and legs, Aksel was built more like a truck than a human, the years of battle-hardened maneuvers from numerous war fronts wearing on him like the bleaching effects of the sun on an abandoned car’s hood.
“You were my best kidon, Uzi, and you threw everything away. First your family, then your career, then your life.”
Uzi started to charge forward, but DeSantos grabbed him and threw him back into the seat. Aksel remained still, his face impassive.
Uzi struggled a moment, then relented. “Fuck you, Gideon!”
Aksel folded his thick hands across his lap. “Go ahead, let it out, if it’ll make you feel better. Who knows, maybe you’ve done good things for the FBI. Then again, maybe not.”
“Enough,” DeSantos said. “Uzi’s one of the Bureau’s top agents, Director General.”
Aksel turned away, waving at the air with a dismissive hand.
Surrounded by Iran, Libya, and Syria — with Hezbollah and Hamas a constant threat and Egypt’s government under pressure — Israel’s survival was dependent on an effective Mossad. And Gideon Aksel had adeptly restored the agency’s tarnished reputation; no one was more aware of this than Uzi.
Still, after Uzi’s personal tragedy, Aksel moved swiftly to dismiss him, to disgrace him publicly for causing the debacle that left his family dead. Right or wrong, Uzi felt it shouldn’t have been made public — and it certainly was not something Uzi needed when he himself had been so close to the edge.
“This man has no business being trusted with things of importance to national security,” Aksel said.
“I don’t have to take this, Santa.” Uzi looked toward the front of the limo. “Let me off,” he shouted in the direction of the driver.
“Yes,” Aksel said, “run away again—”
“I didn’t run away, Gideon. I made a mistake. I blew it. I just thought we should’ve given Ahmed a chance to explain. I was wrong.”
Aksel’s brow hardened. “It’s taken you six years to admit it.”
Uzi looked away. “All that killing. On both sides. Maybe we should’ve given the Palestinians what they wanted.”
“You have a short memory,” Aksel said. He leaned forward in his seat. “We offered them almost everything. Everything. Arafat said no. Because he wasn’t interested in the West Bank and Gaza. He wanted the entire state of Israel, and that was never going to happen.”
“Maybe if we’d given them something, as a show of good faith—”
“Good faith?” Aksel pulled out his smartphone and began stabbing at it with a thick index finger. “We gave them a police force and armed them. They used the weapons against us. We gave them infrastructure, and they used it to build bombs to attack our people. We pulled out of Gaza and turned over the entire territory. We said, ‘Here, it’s yours.’ What have they done? They’ve fired six thousand rockets and four thousand mortars at our homes and schools.”