Hard Target (32 page)

Uzi appreciated DeSantos’s words. But Dena and Maya were innocent victims. They didn’t know what he did for a living and they had no such pact with him. In an insane world where going to a café could end with a suicide bomber blowing a dozen citizens to bits, terrorism was a fact of life. But leading the enemy to his family’s doorstep was an error for which he could never be absolved.

He turned toward the window and looked out. The FBI director and the president of the United States were supposedly backing this mission. A big part of him wanted in, and if he continued to show conflict, DeSantos would go to Knox, and Uzi did not want that.

“Let’s do it,” he said.

“You sure?”

Uzi pulled out his chewed toothpick and tossed it in the garbage. “That diversion will make or break us.”

The corners of DeSantos’s lips lifted slightly. “I’ll show you what I’ve got so far.”

5:26 PM

92 hours 34 minutes remaining

Uzi sat through DeSantos’s presentation, which was laid out point by point in hushed tones at his desk. DeSantos’s OPSIG comrades were to fly a Black Hawk helicopter to the front gates of ARM’s headquarters. They would take an erratic flight path and dump gray smoke out the rear, courtesy of the countermeasure ports designed to create a smokescreen for pursuing enemies.

But this would be a smoke screen of a different sort: simulated damage to the fuel tank that forced the helicopter to land. ARM’s front gate sat in a small clearing considered too narrow to set down a Black Hawk. For OPSIG’s crack pilots, however, it was another skill-sharpening exercise.

Uzi saw where the plan was going as DeSantos continued: once the chopper was over the compound spewing smoke, conveniently illuminated by the helicopter’s aftermarket rear spotlights that were now being installed, Uzi and DeSantos would infiltrate the grounds half a mile away, on the far side by a stretch of double chain-link fencing topped with coiled barbed wire.

DeSantos tapped the screen, indicating the exact point of entry. “Piece of cake.”

Uzi had to admit, the plan looked good. The diversion would be effective—and would no doubt cause all of ARM’s “troops” to scurry to the main gate to defend their property. The sight of “black government helicopters” landing at their front door was tantamount to their worst paranoiac dreams coming true. By the time the ruckus quieted and the OPSIG troops explained they were having mechanical problems, Uzi and DeSantos would be inside the compound looking for proof of the group’s involvement. At least, that was the plan.

After DeSantos left, Uzi played it through in his mind, employing a technique a senior Mossad agent had taught him many years ago: treat the planned action as a film, going through each step of the operation as if he were watching it on a screen, seeing every detail, considering all possible scenarios. That way, when a drama occurred, he wouldn’t have to think; he’d simply react based on what he had visualized in his “film.” In theory, this method of visualization worked. In practice, it helped the team leader prepare his team. But because there were myriad variables, each with its own inherent problems, there was no way anyone could predict with certainty what was going to happen.

Uzi would leave the planning of the Black Hawk portion of the operation to DeSantos; he would have to pour over the satellite images DeSantos had left on his PC and devise a plan of action from their own point of entry to the selection of targets, successful penetration, and extraction—all without leaving sign.

Now alone in his office, Uzi saw Hoshi appear in the doorway.

“Got a minute?”

“Before I forget,” Uzi said, “I just emailed you a profile drawn up by Karen Vail at the BAU. Have someone cross reference all known offenders and see if it gives us anything worth following up. I meant to get it to you sooner, but I haven’t been at my desk long enough to make sense of my dictated notes.”

“Will do.”

He struck a key to close the encrypted satellite photo he had been studying, then swung his feet off his desk and faced her. “Okay, now you.”

She entered carrying a folder and grabbed a seat.

“I’ve done some more digging. And it definitely gets interesting.” She flipped open the file to a well-organized stack of papers, then paged to a specific document. “President Whitehall was basically elected on the strength of the NFA. Not just money, like they contributed to Knox’s senatorial war chest. They did that for Whitehall, too, for his first campaign—and in a very creative way. They set up a nonprofit, the American Liberties Consortium, which was allowed to raise unlimited funds—in Whitehall’s case, the tally was twenty-seven million dollars. The ALC then contributed all twenty-seven mil to the Committee for Preservation of American Liberties, which can spend an unlimited amount on getting Whitehall elected.”

“Why bother with the nonprofit shell?”

“It keeps their donor list private.”

“Of course.” Uzi frowned. “Sounds like legal money laundering.”

“There’s more. They also donated three-point-five million directly to the Republican National Committee, another fourteen million to support ‘unaffiliated’ groups, TV and radio ads, you know the drill.”

Uzi reached into his drawer for another toothpick as he absorbed the numbers. “Go on. You said their ‘contribution’ wasn’t just money.”

“Right. While still governor of Texas, after Whitehall declared, he corralled some key NFA people. Haven’t been able to confirm it yet, but I’d guess he called in some chips. NFA had their own agenda, too, so it might’ve just been a mutual feeding frenzy. They knew the threat to their values the Democrats would’ve forced down their throats, and they knew that Allen Moore, the Democratic challenger, was a major force. So they mobilized a grassroots get-out-the-vote campaign against Moore. They used the gun issue to win votes. It was a brilliant tactic, really. They went right to the heart of the Democrats’ support—and monetary—network.”

“Organized labor?”

“Yup. They polarized the union members by playing to their fears about losing their rights to own guns. First line of attack was the media: magazine articles drumming home the point that NFA was not antilabor, using smoke and mirrors to point out everything they did to protect jobs. Their reasoning was circular, but it didn’t matter: they repeated the lie so many times it was eventually accepted as fact. Second line of attack was convincing the members that the only difference that mattered between the Republicans and Democrats was their position on gun policy. They developed a catchy phrase: Vote Whitehall. Keep your jobs. Keep your money. Keep your guns.”

She flipped another few pages. “The strategy was extremely effective. According to a friend of mine who worked on Moore’s campaign, the split of the union vote was like a dagger to the Democrats’ heart. Basically, NFA was pivotal in defeating Moore in West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. If Moore had won even one of them, the White House would’ve been his. And the gun lobby would’ve taken a big one on the chin. They’d probably still be on their heels today, playing defense instead of offense.”

Uzi leaned back in his chair, chewing on his toothpick. “So their strength comes from their alliance with Whitehall’s administration?”

“That’s only part of the story. They took their victory and power and parlayed it into more of both. They’re well funded and very well organized. And they have millions of members committed to the same goal. They took in two-hundred-fifty-thousand new members in the last eighteen months alone. These are people who tend to feel threatened by the government—and they’re willing to take action to secure their rights and maintain their power base.”

“Sounds like a militia mentality.”

“That’s because they were in danger of becoming extinct, but were “saved” by 9/11. Fear swept over the country. People from the fringes of society—the militias—found strength in numbers, so they took matters into their own hands. They joined in droves. They all shared a common mentality: they loved guns, cherished conspiracy theories, distrusted government, hated gun control, were politically active—and united against a common enemy.”

Uzi shook his head. “Still, the mix doesn’t seem like a formula for rising to power like they’ve done. Militias have been around for ages, but they’ve never advanced beyond a certain point. How did NFA go from militia ally to right-wing powerhouse?”

“There was another big shift,” Hoshi said as she flipped back to the front page of the file. “Nine years ago. They merged with the American Gun Society. AGS was a small, growing organization that wasn’t on our radar. The merger seemed insignificant at the time, and nobody paid attention to it. But it brought an influx of new leadership, which was important because they were battling a powerful adversary: the NRA. Both were going after the same base. But the merger with AGS gave the NFA critical mass. Within a year, after a nasty grab for the top spot, Skiles Rathbone rose out of the dust.”

“This was around the same time Knox became director?”

Hoshi did not need to consult her notes. “Six months before.”

“So Rathbone and Knox rose together. Coincidence?” It was a rhetorical question, Uzi thinking aloud, but Hoshi was sitting on his words.

“Possibly.” She closed the folder. “NFA is now the leading lobbying organization in the country. It’s got its own national newscast, over a million political organizers, an army of pollsters, and its own telemarketing company. It’s a lobbying machine.”

Lobbying.
“Do me a favor, check on Russell Fargo’s lobbying firm, see if there’s a connection—any at all—to NFA.”

Hoshi nodded, gathered up the folder, and rose. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, get with Pablo Garza at HQ on a guy named Lewiston Grant. Supposedly died in a fire in Utah, but I’ve got my doubts. Garza won’t be much help, but he might tell you more than he’d tell me. Charm him.”

Hoshi lifted her brow. “Okay.”

“Anything comes up, let me know.”

She turned and headed out, stopping only when Uzi called her name.

“Excellent work,” he said.

She smiled, then shut the door behind her.

6:36 PM

91 hours 24 minutes remaining

Echo Charlie reclined in his car seat, the Sat phone pressed to his ear. In the failing daylight, he watched a man dressed in threadbare jeans and a ragged cloth jacket search trash cans in the park, extracting a few spent Coke bottles and shoving them into a ratty canvas bag in his shopping cart.

“He knows about our... instrument,” Charlie said into the encrypted handset. “Our route of information is compromised.”

After a moment of silence, Alpha Zulu asked, “Can you replace something like that?”

“My people have some ideas.”

“
Ideas
? Things are in play. If you can’t fix it—soon—we’ll take care of it ourselves.”

Even though it was chilly inside his car, beads of perspiration were forming across Charlie’s brow. He flapped his overcoat to cool himself. “We’ve got it handled,” he said, only half believing his own assurance. He hoped his voice was not betraying him.

“If you’d let us do it our way in the first place,” Zulu said, “this wouldn’t have happened.”

Charlie blew some frustration through his lips. “Give us a day to get it fixed.”

“A day is all you have. The time is—”

“I’m aware of the time, thank you very much.”

The man with the shopping cart was headed in his direction, drawing Charlie’s attention. Charlie tucked his chin and started to turn away—but something about the guy’s face seemed wrong. It took a moment, but he finally realized what it was: the man was clean shaven.

“I’ve gotta go,” Charlie said. “I’ll contact you when I have something to report.” He ended the call, then tapped his brakes three times, signaling his colleague dressed in a park police uniform thirty yards back. If this homeless person was, in fact, someone sent to spy on him, within five minutes he would be questioned and killed, his body expertly searched, ID confiscated, fingerprints and DNA samples taken.

And then the corpse would be disposed of with Jimmy Hoffa efficiency.

8:29 PM

89 hours 31 minutes remaining

Uzi remained at the office another two hours, stopping only to grab a snack to maintain functional blood-sugar levels. With less than twenty-four hours before they infiltrated the ARM compound, he logged off his PC and closed his mind to further intrusion. He was tired of thinking and needed to unwind.

He left the WFO parking lot, driving without thought to where he was going. Ten minutes later, he found himself stopped at a traffic light at 21st and N Streets, half a block from Leila’s apartment building. He leaned forward, chin kissing the steering wheel, and trained his eyes on the eighth floor of her building, peering through the barren tree branches, wondering if she was home.

Remembering that her living room looked out over New Hampshire, he tried to estimate which balcony would be hers. One was lit, while several adjacent windows were dark.

He waited for the green light, then pulled in front of her building and saw the tall, wiry Alec in the lobby, jotting something into his journal on the stand by the door. Uzi parked his car in the passenger loading zone and tossed Alec the keys. Jiri, standing behind the reception desk, raised a bushy eyebrow in surprise, then told Uzi he would take care of his car for him.

Uzi proceeded up the elevator to Leila’s floor, all the while wondering why he was there, and if Dena was looking down on him with disdain. As the doors slid apart, he stood there, lost in thought, until they started closing. He stuck out his hand and they snapped back. He walked out of the elevator and strode the twenty feet down the carpeted hall to Leila’s apartment.

Uzi raised his hand to knock, but left it there, poised but inactive. Showing up unannounced, after only their first intimate date, was a bit strange, for sure. Would it show weakness, that he couldn’t go a full day without seeing her? If so, was that bad—or was it good?

How could he be thinking of such things? How could he betray Dena like this?
She would want me to get on with my life; she’d want me to be happy. But I got her killed. I was responsible. How can I be with Leila? I don’t deserve to be happy—