But lives were at stake. Whatever heat she took — if any — she would sort out later.
She walked back into the building just as Uzi was on his way out.
“Get anything else?”
Uzi pulled his keys out of a pocket. “Let’s go. Hector’s staying behind.”
“You didn’t answer me.”
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “No. We didn’t get shit.”
13
Vail sat across from Robby at dinner. Their home was quiet without Jonathan around — although he was a frequent participant for a home cooked meal when they could coordinate their work and school schedules. Jonathan had pledged the Beta fraternity, which took up a number of his evenings when he was not studying.
Vail’s aunt, who lived in a separate part of the house, ate early dinners and went to bed hours before they did. Her presence in the home was hardly detectable.
Robby sliced at his steak, then stabbed a chunk with his fork. “I think you did the right thing. It wasn’t according to the book, but this is bigger than the book. It’s about saving lives. And since no one knows when this dirty bomb will go off, and exactly where, bureaucracy has no viable place in the equation.”
“There’s another part to this.” Vail took a sip of her Hall Cabernet. “We got some intel that one or more of the Islamic extremist groups might be collaborating in some way with Cortez.”
“Cortez.” Robby studied her face as he chewed, trying to process the reference. “The drug cartel? The one that—”
“Yes.” Vail knew that mere mention brought a personal note to her comment because of Robby’s past brush with Carlos Cortez, his men, and their affiliates. “We don’t know the details. Some unconfirmed intel from a well placed CI. He’s not always been reliable, which is a problem. But so far some of what he’s told us has been right on the money.” She set down her glass. “Uzi and Hector think it could involve tunnels. And if Hezbollah is involved and they’re proxies of—”
“Iran.” He chewed on that a moment. “I sat in on a briefing awhile back about Hezbollah, Hamas, al Humat, Islamic State. All the bad actors. Money laundering schemes, stuff like that. Sounds like it might be even worse than I thought.” He played with the broccolini on his plate. “Islamic extremists and drug cartels. Murder and mayhem. Never gonna be peace on this planet.”
“We need confirmation of the connection.” Vail set her glass down.
Robby must have realized the conversation had paused because he suddenly looked up from his plate. “What?”
“We need to know if that intel is reliable. I imagine DEA can find out.”
“DEA has agents sitting on Uzi’s task force. Why doesn’t he ask them?”
“He has. They’re working on it. But I don’t know how good they are. I know how good you are. And if I ask you to look into this, you’ll do it and you’ll do it well. And fast.”
“Did I miss something? Did you just ask me to look into it?”
“I am now.”
Robby chewed his steak slowly, appearing to mull the compliment — and the request.
“Problem?”
“No,” he said without looking up.
“While you’re at it, see if your DEA sources have heard anything about nuclear material being smuggled in from Iran through South America using the drug tunnels that cross into the US.”
“Hezbollah is well connected with the leadership in Venezuela.”
“That’s a start. I need more. I need actionable intelligence.”
“I’ll check with my ASAC, see if we’ve got anything.”
“Do that and they’ll give it to someone else to look into. Or he’ll just tell you it’s covered by the guys on the JTTF.”
Robby swallowed his food, set his fork down, and leaned back in his chair. “Look, I’ve only been on the job a couple of years. I’m doing well, working my way up. But DEA is pretty strict about its regs, maybe more so than the FBI. And they’re really respectful of chain of command. Pushing the envelope may not be such a good idea.”
Vail played with her wine glass. “Obviously I don’t want you to get in trouble. Forget it.”
“You won’t be angry?”
Vail thought about Robby’s own words, uttered moments ago: this is bigger, more important, than following procedure. It was about saving lives. Still, she did not want to pressure him.
Vail reached over and took his hand. “I don’t want you to do anything that’ll jeopardize your job. I know how important it is to you, how hard you’ve worked to get where you are. Uzi’s people will come through. If not, I’ll get the info some other way.”
Robby continued eating, but he appeared to be mulling over what Vail had told him because he was uncharacteristically quiet.
Perhaps he was thinking about his ordeal at the hands of Cortez. Maybe he was using his knowledge of the drug trade to consider the long-term implications of the cartels working with terrorists: criminals and religious extremists in cahoots.
It was hard to know the full impact of such alliances, but one thing was certain: whatever it was, it was not good.
14
Vail parked her car in front of the large National Counterterrorism Center complex, which was dominated by a modern butterfly shaped six story glass-and-concrete edifice. Before she opened her door, Robby called.
“Only got a minute,” he said. “I found a guy at DEA, in SOD, our Special Operations Division, who’ll meet with you, give you a briefing on that thing you asked me to look into.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I’d enjoy yanking your chain — just to return the favor — but no, I’m serious. Name’s Richard Prati. He was scheduled for a DHS CT briefing at the NCTC, so it worked out well. He’ll go early to your meeting, then stick around for his.”
He briefs the Department of Homeland Security on counterterrorism. Robby scored. And tonight, he may score again.
“Just got off the phone with Uzi. He cleared it with Knox. Sorry you weren’t the first to know, but things are moving fast.”
“Thanks, honey. I really appreciate it.”
“I’m emailing you a quick bio on Prati. And yes, you can make it up to me later.”
Vail got out and joined Uzi and DeSantos as they strode along a wide gray, tan, and sand colored cobblestone walkway that led to a plaza formed by the V of the building’s two forward-facing wings.
They passed between the vertical cement-and-steel security barriers and beneath the American flag, which hung limp on its pole in the still air.
The NCTC, as it was known in government acronym parlance, was originally established in 2003 as the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, part of a constellation of solutions outlined in a scathing 9/11 Commission report that excoriated the intelligence community. They were tasked with creating and maintaining a database of known and suspected terrorists, and collecting and coordinating terrorism-related material from all sources. Most importantly, they were in charge of sharing the information with the affiliated agencies domestically and overseas and working with the FBI’s JTTFs and the Defense Department’s combatant commands to ensure a coordinated flow of alerts, data, and trends.
Given the importance of its mission, it was remarkable nothing like the NCTC existed prior to 9/11—and in retrospect it was no wonder that an orchestrated attack could be noted by so many disparate agencies yet stopped by none — solely because each knew nothing of what the other had discovered.