“Let’s hope that one day the Hamases, al Humats, al Qaedas, and Islamic States of the world will go away, that the extremes on both sides will find common ground and see the benefit of working together. Of living together in peace where each side recognizes the legitimacy of the other.”
“I share that hope. But after all you’ve seen? You really believe that can happen?”
Uzi considered the question. “A friend of mine, a peace negotiator during the Oslo talks, a vocal supporter of Palestinians having their own country, used to say, ‘You never know. Anything can happen.’”
“Used to say?”
“He was killed in a suicide bombing.”
Fahad looked at him.
“No, I’m not kidding.” Uzi took one last glance around the street. “It’s quiet. I think we’re safe to take a poke around. If everything looks good, we can break into the flat and go hunting.”
Fahad checked his Glock, then pulled his jacket around to cover the handle. “Let’s do it.”
Uzi grabbed Fahad’s arm. “I’m sorry. For how I acted after we met, not trusting you with Amer Madari.”
“Hey, I’m not only your sworn enemy but I’m CIA — no one trusts us.” He winked. “Apology accepted.”
Uzi entered the building first, followed two minutes later by Fahad. They proceeded separately up to the flat, Uzi by stairs and Fahad by elevator. They both wore their eyeglasses and baseball hats in case there were cameras.
When Uzi and Fahad met down the hall from the apartment, Fahad said that he had not seen any surveillance devices.
“I didn’t either. What about the dark blue minivan down the block?”
“Couldn’t get a read on who was inside. Looked like two men but there was too much reflection off the glass.”
“That’s about what I got too. Could be trouble. But we’re here, let’s go as far as we can. You’re up. Go knock.”
Fahad would be the “face” of this phase of the operation because he was of the same nationality and could more easily pass for a nonthreatening presence.
He balled his fist and rapped on the wood door. After waiting a long minute, he tried again — but got the same response.
“Hey, it’s me, open up,” he said in Arabic. A moment later he signaled Uzi down the hall.
Uzi removed a small toolkit from his pocket and proceeded to jimmy the lock. A few seconds later, they were inside. They split up and began searching the flat, which looked like the one in Greenwich: sparse furnishings, a computer, and the detritus of bachelors living in close quarters: the acrid smell of Turkish cigarettes lingered in the air and dirty clothing littered the bedrooms, where bare mattresses sat on worn wood plank floors.
They reconvened in the den five minutes later.
“I’ve got a desktop,” Uzi said, “which means if we want to pull anything off it I have to do it here.”
“Can you copy the data and take it with us?”
“I can try.” He sat down on a folding chair at the makeshift desk, a coffee table with a couple of thick phone books piled on top of one another to bring the monitor up to eye level. A webcam was attached to a nineteen-inch widescreen LCD.
Fahad checked the time. “I’m gonna stand watch in the hall. I see or hear something, I’ll knock twice. It’s a small building so I probably won’t be able to give you more than a few seconds’ notice.”
“Understood,” Uzi said as he tapped away at the keyboard.
“Think you can you be done in five minutes?”
“If it’s a simple drag and drop, yeah. If they’ve got things encrypted, no way.” Uzi looked up. “You’re worried about that minivan.”
“I’m naturally paranoid.”
“If there’s one thing I learned a long time ago, Mo, it’s that a little paranoia can be an operative’s best friend.” Uzi glanced at the clock in the computer’s system tray. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll grab what I can, then we’ll get out of here.”
Uzi had been at it for seven minutes, keeping one eye on the time as he worked to decrypt the data. It was as he had feared: if the cell in Greenwich secured their documents it was likely al Humat’s standard operating procedure. It made sense: they were a sophisticated organization, disciplined, intelligent, well organized.
He was perspiring profusely, decrypting on the fly and loading the data onto his flash drive as he went, when something caught his eye. He pulled his phone and dialed Richard Prati.
“I don’t have a lot of time so just shut up and listen.”
“I’m listening,” Prati said.
“They’re bringing nuclear material in, but they’re not using a tunnel. They’re coming across the Atlantic, then going down the St. Lawrence River between Canada and the US. About 125 miles southwest of Montreal — near Hill Island — they’ll be offloading it onto a truck and crossing into the US on Interstate 81 which runs south through upstate New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. They could be taking it into Jersey or Philly but I’m betting they’re gonna take another shot at Manhattan.”
“I’ll run with this,” Prati said. “You know when it’s going down?”
“No. If I find anything else I’ll let you know.”
Uzi hung up and flicked his eyes to the system tray’s clock. He had less than a minute before he had to leave. As he dragged several more documents onto his drive, an email hit the inbox. It was in Arabic, so he did a quick translation.
Meet me at noon, roof of the Arc de Triomphe. Don’t be late.
I have new orders for you from KAS.
It was not signed, and the email address was merely a string of numbers at Gmail. KAS. Uzi searched his memory — who the hell was KAS?
And then it hit him: Kadir Abu Sahmoud.
Uzi looked again at the time: noon was twenty-one minutes from now. What to do? He had promised he would be out of there in ten minutes — which was smart regardless of whether or not he had made a commitment to leave.
The decision was clear: take what he had, shut down, and get over to the Arc de Triomphe.
He and Fahad could return and finish going through the files later, assuming it was safe. But the ability to intercept a message from Sahmoud — and potentially capture one of his lieutenants — was now the priority.
He pulled out his USB flash drive and powered off the PC. Seconds later he stepped out into the hallway.
Fahad was not there.
48
Vail joined DeSantos in the Denon wing on the first floor — Room 6, known simply as “the Mona Lisa Room.”
Vail had texted him when she left the document restoration laboratory and he suggested this location as an innocuous place to rendezvous: it was crowded and one of the busiest exhibits in the museum, not to mention the most famous.
Vail entered the large, high-ceilinged space. There was an echo of hushed voices off the tall, flat, patterned gold walls. Aside from two rows of framed Renaissance paintings hanging by chains from channels in the walls, the room felt bare.
A crowd of a couple hundred people was concentrated in front of one modestly sized work, however, that hung alone — the Mona Lisa.
Arms extended up from the masses, digicams and cell phones aimed at the painting, almost as if she were conducting a press conference and the cameras were microphones recording every word. Off to the right and left were large red and black signs warning people that pickpockets operated in this room: while you studied the famed portrait, criminal elements emptied your person and pockets of euros, watches, jewelry — anything of value. They did not discriminate.