Uzi’s phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket, glanced at the screen, and said, “Shep, I need to take this.” Without waiting for permission, he answered the call. “Yes. Yes sir, Mr. Director.” He held out the Lumia toward Shepard, who hesitated, then snatched it up.
“Marshall Shepard.” His large lips thinned, his face tightening in anger. “Yes. I understand. I’ll be here.” He hung up and handed the cell back to Uzi. “He’s on his way up to meet with us.”
They stood there staring at the floor, the walls, the ceiling, their fingers … no one speaking — until the door opened and Douglas Knox entered.
11
Knox stood in the modest-size office, the lines in his face deeper, his complexion grayer than last they saw him.
“Agent Shepard and I will talk privately in a moment,” he said, his dark tone mirroring the long look he gave Shepard. “But we need to address the current situation. Brief me on the conversation with Kadir Abu Sahmoud.”
I know better than to ask how Knox knew about a conversation that just happened.
Uzi summarized the exchange as Knox began to pace. He absorbed the information in stride, his face expressionless.
“I’d like to recommend we go public with this before they do,” Vail said. “We should control the message.”
Knox did not reply, but he nodded at DeSantos.
“We bought some time to get a handle on things,” DeSantos said, “which I assume was the idea behind being black. We now know what, and who, we’re dealing with. Now when we release a statement, we’ll sound like we know what’s going on. Less chance of a panic.”
Knox stopped, considered his comments, and said, “Agent Uziel?”
“Raise the threat level and mobilize the task force. I can have them up to speed in thirty minutes. There was no evidence of nuclear material in the safe house or the bomb-making factory we raided. But given their work in Gaza building tunnels, and Hamas being a proxy for Iran, and Iran having nuclear material, and al Humat residing in the same neighborhood as Hamas … I think we should pay close attention to our radiation sensors deployed in major cities. And maybe even get some more of the mobile units on the streets of DC, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles.”
Knox resumed pacing. “A lot of connect-the-dots there, Agent Uziel. But I agree. I’ll make the case to the president.” He stopped, turned, and faced them, then set his gaze on Uzi. “Are we overlooking al Qaeda?”
Uzi thought a moment. “I don’t see their fingerprints on this, sir. A few years ago AQ was funding a number of al Humat’s activities, but I think they’ve outgrown that dependence. No, I think for once AQ doesn’t have its hands dirty here.”
“I agree. But if your assessment changes, I want to know ASAP.” He turned to Shepard. “Anything to add?”
Shepard looked like he had plenty to say but kept his mouth shut. “No sir.”
Knox rocked back on his heels. “Sounds like we have a plan of action. I’m having a dossier assembled on Sahmoud. You’ll have it in half an hour. Assuming the president agrees, you can disseminate it to your task force.”
“Anything on the three who escaped when we raided the safe house?” Uzi asked.
“On my way over here I was given the names of two men identified by Interpol based on fingerprints lifted from the townhouse: forty-three-year-old Tahir Aziz, co-conspirator in the Madrid bombing who’s been active in recruiting Dutch youths for the war in Syria, and thirty-nine-year-old Esmail Ghazal, who helped plan the Paris Métro bombings in ’95.”
“So these are seriously bad dudes,” DeSantos said. “And we had them.”
“I emailed each of you photos Interpol had on file.”
They reached for their phones simultaneously. Vail pulled up the pictures and committed them to memory. “Surveillance photos? From when?”
“Ghazal from two years ago and Aziz from six years ago,” Knox said. “An important question for DHS to answer is how they got into the US without setting off alarms. Director Bolten is handling that. And I—”
The door swung open and Hoshi stuck her head in. “Sir — sirs, there’s been an explosion at Metro Center.”
“Casualties?” Vail asked.
“Don’t know yet. Comms are down, not all the cameras are operating. Metro PD and first responders are en route and I just dispatched a team.”
Uzi, Vail, and DeSantos started for the door.
“Have a car ready for us downstairs,” Uzi said. “We’re on our way.”
12
Vail jumped from Uzi’s Tahoe SUV, which he parked on F Street near 12th Street NW. The three of them ran across the wide avenue toward the vertical brown landmark Metro Center Station sign and underneath the open skeletal structure of the office building that rose above the district’s second busiest subway station.
People were streaming out, running up the stairs and escalators, fighting amongst one another, pushing forward and climbing over others who had fallen in the surge to evacuate.
Jesus, they’re freaking out. Just like Sahmoud said. Just like I said … people afraid of when — and where — the next explosion would come. He’ll be looking for news reports and uploaded smartphone videos on YouTube and Facebook.
“He’s probably got one or more guys onsite,” Vail said, “filming, gauging our response. You see anyone who’s too calm or seems more interested in watching or recording it than getting their butts out of danger, check ’em out.”
They struggled to move against the tide, trying to get down into the belly of the station.
It did not take long for them to see the devastation. The previously majestic arching eggshell colored ceilings were charred black. Emergency lights were on but were glary and too few in number. Plenty of them had been damaged and were out of commission.
Large chunks of the brick concourse were lifted up, carved away by the force of the impact. Most tellingly, five cars were derailed, forming a jagged line one in front of another. Dozens of metal ball bearings lay scattered about the wreckage.
A smoky pall hovered in the air above the damaged trains. First responders were setting up Jaws of Life to pry open twisted doors, taking axes to the windows, and helping passengers to safety. The flow of people toward the exits was constant, bottlenecks occurring at the lower platform areas where the masses funneled into the narrow escalators.
Vail stopped along the elevated bridge between tracks and looked out among the commuters, tourists, businesspeople, children … searching for the two middle-aged men featured in the photos they had been given.
Wait — is that Ghazal? She leaned forward, saw what appeared to be one of her suspects, and headed toward his location.
She pushed her way down the escalator until she hit the platform. But all she saw was the back of his head, bobbing up and down as he went.
Is that the same guy? Black jacket, dark hair, about five foot ten.
Vail wished she had a radio to alert Uzi and DeSantos — because as she moved in the man’s direction, he was headed away from her. And given that he was not near one of the exits, there were fewer people there, allowing him to move faster without running.
Vail fought forward, reached a clearing, and sprinted around broken chunks of concrete, metal, glass, and brick. She lost sight of him for a second — stopped, glanced left, then right — and found him. She tackled him from behind and took him down hard. His shoulder slammed into a canted section of cement and she landed atop him.
But it was not Ghazal.
“What’s wrong with you,” the man said, pushing at her face with his free hand. “Get the hell off me!”