“Finally, we’ve got a high-security section, Camp Echo. Troublemakers in every group of people, you know. You won’t be going anywhere near there. Now, if you agree with all that, we’ll give you the tour. If you don’t agree, we’ll show you the gate. Your choice, ma’am. What’ll it be?”
Katz realized she had no bargaining chips. She did what lawyers do reflexively.
“I’ll go to court,” she said. “I’ll get an order from a judge ordering you to let me meet with my clients.”
“I’m sure you will, ma’am,” Maj. Dancer replied, confident that for today, at least, he held all the cards. “And when you do, I’ll do whatever I am ordered to do. But for today, what’s your choice? My way or the gate?”
She knew she’d lost this round. Katz stood, hoisted her briefcase strap on one shoulder, her laptop strap on the other.
“Let’s start the tour, for today,” she said.
The uniformed man sprang from standing at attention and raced for the office door, holding it open for her. Before she could leave the office, however, the other man, the one in jeans, cleared his throat loudly.
“Major, what we discussed?” he said.
“Right. Forgot,” Maj. Dancer said. Looking at Katz, he said, “Ma’am, no electronic devices, cell phones, cameras, cell phones with cameras, tape recorders or”—he looked at the black nylon bag with Katz’s laptop computer—“computers. Security, you know. Captain Howard here will take all that from you for safekeeping.” He nodded to the man in jeans. “And of course you’ll be searched, thoroughly. We’ll try to find a female to do the search, if we can.”
Katz looked at the man skeptically, then handed over her computer and, reaching in her briefcase, extracted a cell phone.
“Want to check my shoes for hidden cameras?” she asked the man.
“Already did, ma’am, already did. Passed with flying colors,” he said with a grin. He reached for her bag and phone and took them from her. Katz and the uniformed soldier left the room.
“Good thinking there,” Major Dancer said to the man after the door closed. “You Echoes do have your tricks, don’t you? So what’s your plan for that?”
“First thing, I’ll do a mirror image of the hard drive,” he said. “Whatever’s on the computer will be captured in the image. Then I’ll download the memory from the phone. Should give us every number she’s dialed and every number that called her, at least in the last few months—depends on how much memory the phone has.”
“Nothing like having a good lawyer around,” Maj. Dancer laughed. “And a good interrogator, too, I suppose. Take care of her things, now.”
The interrogator carried Katz’s phone and computer to the Echo office, located behind the internal razor wire enclosure at Camp Echo. He linked Katz’s laptop to a powerful HP server and started the mirroring of her hard drive, creating an identical copy of every keystroke on the laptop.
Just as he was finishing, and before he could work on her cell phone, the telephone on his desk rang.
“Echo office,” he said tersely.
“Lieutenant Williams here, sir,” the voice on the phone said. “Major Dancer said I should let you know. This lawyer woman. Seems like she’s had enough. She’s pretty pissed at being given the celebrity tour. She’s pulling the plug. Wants her stuff back. Major said to get it all back to HQ now, sir.”
“Thanks for the call. Tell the major I’m on my way.”
The interrogator disconnected the cable from the laptop to the server, checking to make sure the download had completed. Before shutting the power off on Katz’s computer, however, he walked to the office door and looked down the empty hallway.
Returning to the desk, he pressed the keyboard button marked Eject on the laptop and waited for the compact disc drive door to open and the disc carrier to slowly slide out.
The man then walked to a rust-colored canvas barn jacket hanging from a peg on the wall. He reached into one of the pockets and withdrew an unmarked, gold-colored compact disc, which he placed carefully on the disc carrier on Katz’s computer. He pressed the Eject button once again and watched as the carrier withdrew into the computer, taking the CD with it.
CHAPTER 63
“That’s me. Oh my God, that’s my picture. Turn up the sound,” Debra Reuben shrieked, pointing at the small television.
Shapiro was closest and jabbed at the volume button.
“Debra Reuben,” the voice on the television said, “the highest-ranking surviving member of the Israeli government, is believed to have secretly entered the United States more than a month ago and conducted a covert rendezvous with the special forces team that smuggled an Israeli nuclear bomb into this country.
“President Quaid directed Attorney General Harrison to spare no effort to locate Reuben. The FBI announced that capturing Debra Reuben shares top priority with its efforts to locate the Israeli nuclear weapon. Hundreds of agents were reassigned to locating the woman. Find Reuben and you’ll find the bomb, President Quaid is reported to have told the attorney general.”
The television image shifted to a bullet-riddled windshield of an automobile, a man slumped forward against the steering wheel.
“Reuben is believed to have met along the coast of Maine with Lt. Chaim Levi, the Israeli special forces genius who captained the stolen sailing vessel used to sneak the bomb past a Coast Guard cordon. Levi was shot dead by police while attempting to run a security roadblock in New Hampshire.”
“Turn that thing off,” Reuben screamed. “I can’t look at that picture of Chaim.”
Nobody spoke.
Sarah rose from her chair and stood behind Reuben, bending forward to place her arms around the immobile woman.
“I’m so sorry, Debbie,” Sarah said. “For everything, for Chaim, and now that they have that picture of you.”
Sarah looked at the others, still seated around the table.
“Well?” she asked.
“Debra, you can’t go outside, not at all. Is that understood?” Shapiro was frightened. The FBI was looking for her, now, in addition to him.
All eyes focused on Abram Goldhersh. He sat, shaking his head.
“Use it or lose, that’s all I have to say. We use it or we lose it, damn soon, too. They’re closing in on us.” He walked to the living room.
Sarah followed her husband out of the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway.
“We need to talk. Talk more. Talk enough to reach a decision,” she said. “My husband, in his own stubborn way, makes a convincing argument.”
Shapiro and Reuben sat on either end of the living room sofa, Sarah on the recliner. Abram Goldhersh stood, facing the others. He spoke as if he were delivering a lecture.
“I say the time has come. We either dump the thing in the ocean, which in my mind would be a sin, a sin to God, a betrayal of Israel and of every Jew on the face of the planet, but that’s my opinion.”
“In your humble opinion, that is,” Shapiro interrupted. “Sorry. Go on, Abram.”
“We either dump it in the ocean or we use it in whatever way we all decide is best for the Jewish people. That’s what I say. No more waiting. That time has ended.”
“Can’t we threaten to use it, Abram? We don’t really want to kill people, do we?” Sarah said, sadness in her voice. “I say we threaten to use it unless the United States frees Israel, or… or something.”
“That’s a little vague, Sarah,” Reuben said. “I think we need to make a specific demand, something they can do right away and then, well, we’ll make another demand, and then another.”
“This is a bomb, Debra,” Shapiro said, “not a magic wand. We’ll be lucky if this works once. I’m skeptical that Quaid will give in to a threat, even a real one like this. I think the man has lost his sense of reality. There’s something missing from him.”