They moved from the front of the factory to the back, clearing the rooms as they went, using hand signals to avoid giving away their presence in case someone was in the deeper reaches of the building.
Seconds later, Uzi called out. “Found something!”
They joined him at the rear of the facility. The smell was distinct and rancid. Vail brought a forearm up to her nose as she made her way over to the wall on the left, where she found a window. She pulled open the shutters, flooding the area with light. “What the hell is that?”
Seated on a chair in front of a portable table with folding metal legs was a body. A burned body.
“Not what,” DeSantos said. “Who.”
66
Exactly,” Vail said. “Who is this?”
“I’d ask the two guys who were out front, but they’re a little under the weather,” DeSantos said.
Zemro used the tip of his Beretta to move the bones of the body’s incinerated hand. “This was a really odd fire.”
DeSantos took a step back and tilted his head, taking in the scene. “Judging by the condition of the body, it almost looks like a controlled burn. The table is intact, as if the intent was just to kill and burn the person but not anything else in the room.”
“Raph, would you keep a lookout, make sure no one drops in on us?”
“Sure thing.” He adjusted the submachine gun strap and moved off, toward the front door.
“He’s only partially burned,” Vail said. “Mostly from the waist up.” She crouched behind the body, reached into the rear pocket of the still-intact jeans, and extracted a leather wallet. She set it on the melamine surface in front of the deceased and splayed it open. “This is Sahmoud?”
Uzi moved beside her and looked it all over. “Appears that way.”
Vail shook her head. “I’m not buying it.”
“Me either,” DeSantos said. “Can we get some DNA? Or was it destroyed in the fire?”
“Because his lower extremity’s intact,” Vail said, “we can get some cells. The problem is the timing. It’ll take a while to get a profile.”
“Three days,” Uzi said. “But there may be another way. A buddy of mine told me he heard that life scientists at the Weizmann Institute have developed an experimental method that could get us an answer within twenty-four hours, but it’s not 100 percent accurate. It can check for certain markers but not produce an entire profile.” He pulled out his satphone and moved to the window. He put it on speaker, dialed, and waited while it connected.
“Gideon, it’s Uzi.”
“Tell me you’re on your way to the airport.”
“We found something and I need your help.”
“That sounds like a ‘No, we decided to ignore your warnings and do something stupid.’”
Uzi and Vail shared a look.
“We’ve got a body, badly burned.”
“Where?”
“Nablus. Sahmoud’s office.”
“Dammit, Uzi. Did you not understand me when I said—”
“Gideon. You know me. Did you really think I’d leave?”
“How’d you find his place? From one of my people?”
“Not important. You want to help or not?”
There was a long pause. Then Aksel said, “I’m listening.”
“This body appears to be Sahmoud — he had a wallet in his back pocket with ID, but we have doubts.”
“As you should.”
“Weizmann,” Uzi continued, “has that experimental DNA—”
“That was a rumor. But we’ve got something else. And yes, the test is already in progress.”
Uzi looked at DeSantos, whose mouth slipped open.
“You know about the body?”
“Uzi, you know better than to ask that question, no? One of your ex-colleagues went in the back door at 4:30 this morning, took the cells, and left. The guards never heard a thing. At this point, I’ll have the findings in about five hours, maybe sooner.”
“Will you share them with us?”
“If you’re on the next flight out of Ben Gurion, you have my word.”
67
This doesn’t make sense,” Vail said.
Uzi stood there, phone in hand, staring at the body. “The burn pattern?”
“There’s that, yeah. But also motive. Who’d do this? And why? And why just when we’re about to close in on him?”
“First impression?” DeSantos said. “It’s a decoy.”
“Second impression?” Uzi asked.
DeSantos took a position in front of the corpse. “Someone had to know we were hot on Sahmoud’s trail and left this body for us, hoping we’d take the bait.”
Vail chuckled. “You mean hoping we were stupid.”
“You think it was Khaleel?”
“That’s probably a question for Raph,” Vail said, “but just going by personality, he’s someone who’d sell anything to anyone for money. So he could be a double agent of sorts. Informs for both sides.”
DeSantos glanced around the room. “If this was a setup, there’s no way Sahmoud would’ve left anything behind. But we’re here, we should search the place just in case.”
“I don’t know how long we have,” Uzi said, “before someone comes looking for the two missing guards. Not to mention there’s a fair amount of blood out front.”
“Just a few minutes, then we can go.” DeSantos knelt in front of the body and examined it. He moved around the side of the table and then behind the corpse.
Vail turned and began along the adjacent wall, looking for hidden rooms or compartments. She had not gotten very far when DeSantos called out.
“Got something. Right here, the body.”
Uzi stepped closer and shined his phone’s flashlight where DeSantos had indicated. Three fine wires were visible protruding from the seat of the chair.
DeSantos took the phone and angled it closer to the area. “Looks like a pressure sensor. If we move the body, we’ll be in a million pieces.”
“If that was rigged,” Uzi said, “other things might be too. Don’t touch anything. We need to get out. Raph!”
“Yeah. Coming.” They heard him walking down the hall — and then felt the walls shake as a loud blast filled the room. Dust clouds swarmed the air.
“Raph! Raph — you okay?”
But Vail already knew the answer without waiting for a response. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
“You go. I need to find Raph.”
“We’re not leaving without you.” DeSantos swatted away the fine debris that hung in the air and rode along the shaft of light that streamed in through the lone open window.
“Raph!”
Vail moved alongside them. Like car headlights in thick fog, the phone's illumination was both diffused and reflected back at them by the dense, relentless wall of dust.
Uzi suddenly stopped. DeSantos and Vail likewise froze in midstep. Ahead of them was a partial body. The skin was black — save for the chalky dust that covered his arms and close-cropped Afro.
Vail grabbed Uzi and hugged him, turned him away from Zemro’s destroyed corpse. He squeezed her back and it was clear that he did not want to let go. “I’m sorry,” she said by his ear.
He sniffled loudly, then pushed away. “No time. We need to get out.”
“Which way?” Vail asked.
“We’re closer to the back,” DeSantos said. “But we don’t know if the door’s rigged. We’ve gotta go out the way we came in.”
They moved an inch at a time, single file, DeSantos leading the way, clearing the space in front of him as they advanced.