Vail and DeSantos glanced at one another, then followed Uzi toward the front door.
“Thank you,” Vail said.
“Aaron, wait. When will I see you again?”
Uzi stopped, his hand gripping the knob. He did not turn around — and did not answer. He pulled the door open and walked out.
33
Outside, they walked to their car in silence. DeSantos was on the phone, following a dozen feet behind them.
Walking by Uzi’s side, Vail looked over at him and saw that his brow was hard, his jaw set. He was either angry or concentrating — she could not tell which.
“You can’t blame your father.”
“I know,” he said, keeping his gaze straight ahead.
“Hey, hang on a second.” She took hold of his leather jacket and gave a tug. He stopped and reluctantly turned to face her.
“Life is full of these ‘what if’ alternate realities, Uzi. If only I’d taken the earlier train. If only I’d caught that killer a day sooner, if only I’d seen the car run the red light, if only I’d fired my Glock a millisecond sooner. There’s no end to these scenarios. You can go nuts — literally — trying to live life like that. What happened, happened. Your father did what he thought was right for you at the time, trying to make you happy. He had no way of knowing the consequences.”
“I know. It’s just — I thought I was over it, you know? I thought I’d come to terms with it. Then something like this happens—” He held up a hand. “I’ll get past it. It’ll scab over again. Meantime, we’ve got a job to do.”
DeSantos came up from behind them. “That was Knox. He knew Gideon paid Roey a visit. And obviously he knew the scroll existed — but he didn’t know who had it until he found out the codex was being held hostage.” DeSantos glanced at each of them, then said, “Everything okay?”
“He’s working through what Roey told him about Dena and Maya.”
“I’m good,” Uzi said. “Reopened an old wound is all. Did Knox give us anything useful?”
“Just an order: find the documents.”
Uzi’s phone rang. He glanced at the display and backed away. “Gotta take this.” He tossed DeSantos the car keys. “Be right there.”
Uzi answered the call when he was comfortably out of range of Vail and DeSantos. He felt bad not including them in his fishing expedition on Mahmoud El-Fahad. But until he had more concrete information one way or the other, he felt it best not to accuse their missing team member of anything improper.
“Hot Rod, talk to me.”
“So you’re right, Amer Madari has a suspicious history of travel to terror hotbeds. But I couldn’t find anything indicating he’s been radicalized. No bank transfers, no questionable business dealings, no known associates who have terror backgrounds, no trips to terror camps, no Facebook posts showing a tendency toward extremist thinking.”
“So you’ve got zip.”
“Basically, he looks clean as far as I can see. That doesn’t mean he is, it just means I can’t see anything that would raise a red flag.”
“Is he too clean?”
Rodman paused a moment. “Interesting question. I’ll keep that in mind as I poke around.”
“Anything turns up, let me know.”
“What’s up with this guy? What are you looking for?”
Uzi nearly shared his concerns with Rodman but held back. “He’s working with someone I’m keeping an eye on. If he’s bad, the guy I’m watching could be a problem too.”
He thanked Rodman and rejoined Vail and DeSantos in the car.
“All good?” DeSantos asked.
All good — maybe that was the problem. “Yeah, let’s get going.”
Vail turned over the engine. “Got some good news and some bad news. Which you want first?”
“Give me the good.”
“Heard from Mo.”
“Really,” Uzi said. “Where’s he been?”
“Didn’t say. But he’s on his way to meet us.”
“And that happens to be the bad news,” DeSantos said. “We’re meeting him at Maguire Air Force Base.”
“Why is that bad news?”
“Because we’re going to London.”
Uzi turned to Vail. “But we’re banned from England. We can’t go to London.”
Vail yanked the gear shift into drive. “That, Uzi, is why it’s the bad news.”
34
They arrived at New Jersey’s McGuire Air Force Base, also known as “Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst” an hour and twenty minutes later, using lights and siren and riding the shoulder of the turnpike when possible.
Vail and Uzi stood outside the PX, a Walmart-size store that sold everything a soldier and his family would need. They went on a quick shopping spree, buying three days’ worth of toiletry essentials, underwear and socks, 5.11 tactical pants and belts, locking plastic ties, and canvas duffels to carry it all in. DeSantos used his Department of Defense credentials to make the purchase.
He joined them outside and tossed them their khaki-colored bags. An extra one sat on the ground at their feet in preparation for Fahad’s arrival.
They turned in unison at the chopping noise of helicopter rotors off to their left. An FBI Black Hawk hovered, then dropped in place to a gentle landing in a field a couple hundred yards in the distance.
Moments later, Douglas Knox joined them at the periphery of the parking lot.
“You obviously can’t fly a commercial jet into Heathrow,” Knox said as he used his right hand to brush his hair back into place. “A C-17 Globemaster III is fueled and ready to go.”
“Going back to London,” Uzi said with a shake of his head. “That a good idea?”
“Since it came from me, Agent Uziel, yes, I do think it’s a good idea.”
“With all due respect,” Vail said, “Given our history, I didn’t think any of us would be setting foot in the UK any time in the near future.” More like never.
“We were operating under the same assumption. But circumstances demanded that we reexamine that.” Knox glanced around. “Where’s Fahad?”
“Supposedly en route,” Vail said. “Should’ve been here already.”
DeSantos checked his watch. “You were saying that circumstances demanded our involvement.”
“Qadir Yaseen, al Humat’s master engineer, the one likely responsible for all the bombings so far, is in London. Tahir Aziz, one of the men who escaped from the safe house, is with him.”
“Why not alert MI5?” Vail asked.
Knox frowned. “Aden Buck and I are not exactly on good terms. He took a great deal of heat when I had to clean up the mess you three created. He resisted calls for his resignation, so he came out whole — but not without a considerable loss of political capital, which left him vulnerable and open to criticism by those in the government who smell blood. They know he’s down so they think they can push him around. Bottom line, I did tell Buck we had intel indicating that Yaseen and Aziz had entered the UK.”
“Then what’s the problem?” DeSantos asked.
“He said they could not verify that our intel is accurate. In fact, he virtually denied either man is on UK soil. And we know he’s wrong. We’ve got strong confirmation. CIA is backing us up, as is the NSA.”
“But MI5 isn’t acting on the intel.”
“No. And here’s the problem: Yaseen is too important an asset for us to lose. If he were somewhere in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, we’d locate him and take him out with a drone and a Hellfire. Can’t do that in the UK.”
“Which might be why he’s there,” Vail said.
Knox tilted his chin back. “We think he’s there to oversee another attack.”