Uzi ran the back of a hand across his beard stubble. “Why are we giving the codex and scroll a higher priority than capturing the number three most wanted terrorist?”
There was a prolonged pause. Just when Vail thought they had lost him, Knox began speaking.
“President Nunn wants to control the documents for his own strategic reasons. My sources tell me he plans to use them to force concessions from Israel to win the peace.”
“I thought that’s what the Palestinians are doing,” DeSantos said.
“It carries a great deal more weight with the president as the driving force behind it. And to Nunn, being the only president who successfully brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians would cement his legacy. But you know what? I don’t give a shit about a president’s legacy. If there’s peace it should be a negotiated agreement, not some leveraged form of blackmail. Despite best intentions, negotiated agreements sometimes fail. But extortion never works.”
“Take the documents out of the equation for a minute,” Uzi said. “The administration could just withhold military aid loans to Israel and leverage them that way. Wouldn’t that have the same effect?”
“Not that simple,” Knox said. “Those military loans are required to be spent in the US, so taking that money out of the US economy, and the jobs it would cost, would not be very popular at home. Congress would never go for it, anyway. No, this is Nunn’s only shot. They’re secret negotiations, which means no one’s supposed to know what he’s planning to do with these documents. So if you repeat what I’ve just told you, it’ll be clear who leaked the information. I’m the only one who knows what’s really going on outside a very small, well controlled circle.”
Apparently not as well controlled as you think. And now not as small a circle as it was before.
“Secretary McNamara and I don’t buy into this strategy. It’s the wrong approach and won’t lead to a healthy peace.”
Vail squirmed in her seat. Defying — and undermining — the president? This feels dangerously close to treason.
“That’s why you’re not going to bring the codex and scroll home,” Knox said. “Give them to the Israelis. Bring them to the Shrine of the Book building at the National Museum. We have to ensure that this leverage — this undue influence that these documents provide — is taken out of the equation.”
DeSantos signed off and Vail texted Fahad to tell him to resume the operation.
“Showtime,” Uzi said.
DeSantos gave him a fist bump. “Good luck.”
Uzi left the SUV and followed the path that Fahad took to the guard booth along the sidewalk, using the cover of bushes and hedges where possible. From fifteen feet away, he watched through the window in the front of the small brick structure as Fahad greeted the officer.
From what Uzi could tell in the descending darkness, there was some discussion between the two men. A moment later, Fahad was the only one visible.
Uzi advanced and found the militant seated in a chair, dressed in an al Humat uniform, his head resting on his forearms. He looked like he was asleep. But Uzi knew better.
Conspicuously absent was an array of video screens for surveillance monitoring — a good sign and hopefully an indicator of whether or not the residents of the neighborhood felt the added level of paranoia was necessary.
Fahad began searching the small desk drawers while Uzi examined a spiral bound log book that contained Arabic writing. Visitors were required to sign in. Their license plate numbers were recorded along with their names and addresses. “Looks like they have regularly scheduled check-ins with someone — someone on Sahmoud’s personal detail. Probably one of the guys in that house.”
“Makes sense. What’s the interval?”
“Every thirty minutes. Last one was … eighteen minutes ago.” Uzi checked his watch. “So we’ve got twelve minutes. That’s cutting it close.” He texted DeSantos and Vail and gave one last look around. “Let’s go. We don’t have a lot of time.”
70
Rudenko is our third priority,” DeSantos said, “and only because he may have the scroll. If it’s clear he doesn’t, we let him go unless taking him down won’t jeopardize our primary objectives: the two documents first and Sahmoud second. You okay with that?”
Vail frowned. “You mean because I’d like to put a bullet behind Rudenko’s ear?”
“Because of that, yeah.”
“I understand the mission priorities, Hector. But forget about Rudenko. What if it comes down to the two docs or Sahmoud?”
“You heard our orders,” DeSantos said. “Codex and scroll are number one. That said, I’m betting Sahmoud is in the bunker — the most secure room in the house. Which means he’ll have the docs there too. Assuming I’m right, we should be able to grab both the docs and Sahmoud.”
I hope you’re right.
DeSantos looked out at the guard booth. From what he could see in the failing light, he told her, Fahad and Uzi had been successful. “Let’s take a minute for a dose of reality.”
“I kind of assumed I was living a nightmare.”
“Most of the time,” he said, ignoring her, “a Special Forces operator aims to get in and out. He avoids contact with the enemy. We don’t have that luxury. We’ve got vests but no head gear. We have guns but no suppressors. No comms and limited intel. So to keep the advantage of surprise, the Glocks stay in our waistbands until we don’t have any choice. This is close quarters combat. Use your knife. And your hands.”
“We’ve already gone over this.”
He twisted his body to face her. “I need to know if you can handle yourself. This isn’t going to be yelling at some perp a block away to stop while sighting him with a .40-caliber. This is in your face, kill or be killed.”
She looked into DeSantos’s eyes and absorbed what he was saying. There could be no doubt. No hesitation.
“I’ve been involved in close quarters combat. You know that.”
“Al Humat chooses its guards from its best fighters, Karen, those who’ve proven themselves by killing innocents — which shows their commitment to the cause. These aren’t rent-a-cops.”
Sahmoud and Rudenko are two of the worst offenders I’ve come up against. I want them. Badly. But can I do it?
She had the training. She had the weapon. She had gone hand to hand with serial killers and deadly assassins. But would she have the killer instinct in a situation where she was the intruder?
She had crossed the line in the past, sometimes purposely and sometimes inadvertently. This felt different. There wasn’t a question of if she would encounter tangos. They were going in to purposely engage them.
Vail realized DeSantos was waiting for an answer. She held his gaze and said, “We’re taking down one of the world’s worst. Two of them if we’re lucky. I’m in.”
DeSantos nodded slowly. “Let’s do it, then.”
71
Ten minutes passed and the light was fading rapidly. Over the Mediterranean, the sky still had some life to it. But to DeSantos's right, the death of cloud-covered darkness had settled in.
Most importantly, he had difficulty seeing the landscape around him: just how he wanted it.
He moved slowly to keep from tripping motion sensors, a painstaking process but one he had perfected during years of similar missions.
Waves crashed in the distance but his auditory sense was focused on those noises that would mean the difference between life and death. His field of vision had narrowed, his concentration was deep.