Hard Target (40 page)

“Is that a joke?”

“No, sir, no joke. And you have the right to remain silent.”

“Spare me,” Uzi said. But Paulson continued nonetheless. Uzi zoned out, searching his memory for the name John Quincy Adams—beyond the obvious American history reference.

Then it hit him.

8:25 AM

29 hours 35 minutes remaining

Uzi was driven by squad car to the Mason District station of the Fairfax County Police Department. A modern brick and stucco structure, it had the flavor of a small-town police station with all the technology and creature comforts of a metropolitan facility.

A single deputy manned the booking desk, where clipboards and files were stacked on end, with memos and rosters taped to walls. Everything Uzi expected to see that he had seen when he’d visited other police departments as a guest—phones ringing, keys clanging, printers spitting out documents—were absent.

He was led to a counter-mounted camera, positioned in front of a wall with measured hash marks, and given a metal identification sign to hold in front of his chest. The flash sparked and he was ushered over to a metal bench. Ahead stood several jail cells with thick, yellow bars.

“Wait here,” Paulson instructed. He handed some paperwork to another deputy, who was operating the free-standing LiveScan electronic fingerprint unit. Uzi’s ridges and whorls were recorded and stored digitally in an expansive electronic database. Uzi thought of the tour he’d taken of the Bureau’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, a state-of-the-art fingerprint facility in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The technology contained in the 100,000-square-foot computer center fascinated him. Uzi had wanted to spend more time learning about it, but never had made the trip. Now he was experiencing the front-line centerpiece of the system firsthand.

Paulson led Uzi across the hall to a small room where a rack of forms sat beside a Sony television. Mounted atop the TV was a PictureTel video conferencing unit linked with the magistrate on duty. The bespectacled judge was leaning back in her chair listening to Paulson outline the charges.

Uzi followed his better sense and kept his mouth shut. Mostly, he didn’t know what to say other than to deny everything—something he was sure the cops and the magistrate heard often.

Paulson glanced down at his notepad. “Evidence includes a ballistics match to Mr. Uziel’s Glock forty-caliber sidearm—”

“What?” Uzi looked at Paulson, his mouth agape.

“You’ll get your chance in a moment,” the magistrate said to Uzi. She gestured toward Paulson, and the detective continued.

“That should be enough for now, Your Honor.”

“Indeed,” the magistrate said. “Agent Uziel, now you may speak.”

Uzi faced the monitor. He was a bit unnerved over pleading his case to a television screen, but pressed on without hesitation. “Your Honor, what time was Agent Adams murdered?”

The magistrate consulted her paperwork. “ME estimates five to seven hours ago.”

Uzi knew the gunshot residue test the forensic technician had performed on him was only valid for up to six hours after firing a weapon—which meant he was right on the cusp of the timeline. Regardless, he was confident the GSR would come back negative since he hadn’t fired his sidearm in nearly two weeks. But a negative finding might not do him any good because a good US Attorney would merely point out the test’s limitations and the fact that several hours had elapsed since the murder.

Uzi looked directly into the camera. “Your Honor, I only met Agent Adams once—actually, twice,” he said, realizing he had first seen the man on the ARM compound. “I had no animosity toward him. I’ve got no motive.” He figured it would be best not to mention the argument in Garza’s office, though he knew, of course, it would eventually surface.

“And how do you explain the ballistics match?”

Uzi absentmindedly shook his head. That was a good question. He couldn’t. “I don’t know, Your Honor.”

“Well, for now we’re just going to go with what we have. I’m sure you would want me to do the same thing if you were in Detective Paulson’s shoes.”

Uzi sucked the inside of his cheek. He wanted a toothpick desperately, but given the circumstances figured he would be better off asking for a phone call to an attorney.

“Okay then,” the magistrate said. She looked down at the paperwork on her desk and scrawled her signature. “Officer Paulson, we’re a go on this one.”

Paulson nodded, then took Uzi by the elbow. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Your Honor, I’m running the investigation into the vice president’s assassination attempt. I can’t just—”

“Agent Uziel, as a rule of law, my hands are tied. They’ll have to carry on without you. I hope, for your sake, you get this straightened out.”

That makes two of us.

The detective led Uzi back across the hall to Room 162. He pulled open the door, and they walked into the quiet chamber that held six empty jail cells. Paulson grabbed the handle on unit number two and slid the gate aside. Uzi knew that was his cue to enter.

“I’ll get you a phone in here as soon as I can. Meantime, make yourself comfortable.”

Uzi sat down on the cot and watched Paulson close the door. His first thought was what this meant in terms of his task force and the investigation. He had barely a day left—not a good time to be locked up in a cage.

Then, as he stared at the cold iron bars, a weightier question gnawed at him: who had framed him— And how did they do it? But as the minutes ticked by, the reality of being imprisoned began to eat at him like necrotizing bacteria. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that whoever was behind the downing of the VP’s chopper was probably responsible for putting him in this cell. And though the wheels of justice ground slowly, sometimes they got off-track, and bad people got away. Which meant, in his case, the good guy didn’t.

He laid back on the cot and stared at the ceiling. Shepard said he was working on it. Uzi hoped to hell he was working fast.

9:04 AM

28 hours 56 minutes remaining

Alpha Zulu sat in a 2004 Dodge Stratus and watched Tim Meadows pull away from the curb in front of his Alexandria home. When Meadows’s Ford disappeared down King Street and then turned, Zulu set his watch and waited. Because of the Fibber’s expertise in detecting sensors and bugs, Zulu had to resort to low-tech human methods to track his target.

Sierra Bravo, in his equally nondescript and untraceable gray 2007 Mazda 6, was now following Meadows. If the Ford did an about-face and started heading home, a phone call to Zulu would alert him.

They used the same procedures to track Agent Uziel when they tailed his SUV around town. Zulu’s people were skilled in city surveillance and kept reasonably close to their target. But determining what Uziel did once he arrived at his destination was more difficult.

But that was where strategically placed state-of-the-art equipment played a role: high-tech concepts with low-tech applications. Nevertheless, Zulu’s extensive training taught him that relying less on devices and more on intuition, logic, and reasoning were more reliable methods of gathering accurate intelligence.

He pulled the baseball cap further down over his forehead, got out of his car, and quietly closed the door. He walked briskly across the street, keeping his eyes straight ahead, and went directly into the yard, where he had previously identified his method of entry: the basement window. Using a diamond-edge circle cutter and a suction cup, he scored an opening. After making additional slices, he removed enough glass for him to crawl through, bypassing the alarm.

The surveillance, the intelligence gathering, the mock maneuvers... they had their moments. But this was the part of his job he enjoyed the most; each situation was designed to confuse the authorities. Throwing a fastball when they were expecting a curve was pure art. No, it wasn’t just art. Working covertly in a target’s own home and manipulating law enforcement provided an indescribable sense of power.

But not the power politicians craved. It was more than that. It was the ultimate violation. And when executed to perfection, a rousing—no, explosive—culmination of a job well done.

10:53 AM

27 hours 7 minutes remaining

An hour and a half passed. Paulson had not brought the phone and Uzi hadn’t heard anything from Shepard. He was fighting to contain his anger, but panic was worming its way into his thoughts. Scenarios were running through his mind, becoming more nightmarish as the moments passed.

Why had they arrested him? Sure, he’d had an altercation with Adams, but so what? That’s suspicion, not evidence. They were running a gunshot residue test on him—but that was being done to bolster the evidence they already had.

Uzi tried to compartmentalize his anger and fear to reason this through. If Adams was killed, it had to be someone from ARM—someone who’d discovered Adams was a government agent. But Adams had been there two years. Who would suddenly betray him—and why now? Fallout from his and DeSantos’s incursion on their compound?

Perhaps the incident had been captured on film and Adams was killed for incompetence—an example to the others of what would happen if they didn’t do their jobs properly.

He stuck to known facts. They were running a GSR and had recovered a slug from Adams’s body. It was from a .40 caliber Glock—the weapon Uzi, and just about all FBI agents, used. Combined with the altercation they’d had, someone must have convinced a judge to issue an arrest warrant. Yet no judge would authorize the arrest of a federal agent unless he had damn good proof. But the magistrate had said there was a ballistics match.

A ballistics match
.
How can that be?

He stood up and grabbed the bars, closed his eyes and leaned his head against the painted metal. This was not helping. He needed to know what the cops knew.

Suddenly the main door to the room cracked open. And Uzi’s head snapped up. DeSantos pushed through.

“Boychick... I came as soon as I heard.”

“What the hell is going on?”

DeSantos settled himself in front of the cell, placed his hands on the bars. “I wish I could tell you everything’s under control, but things are all fucked up.”

“What could possibly be fucked up? I didn’t kill Adams. What could they have on me?”

“All I know is Coulter signed an order authorizing Fairfax PD to access the Academy’s ballistic profile database. They ran the slug they pulled from Adams. It’s a match.”

“For my gun.”

DeSantos hiked his eyebrows. “Apparently.”

“That’s impossible, Santa. How could someone steal my gun, kill Adams, and then return it to me?”

“Unless the Glock you’re carrying isn’t really your Glock. If it was switched at some other time, say a few days ago, you wouldn’t have known.”

Uzi felt his heart skip a beat. He slumped down onto the cot. “Either way, I’m fucked.”

“Not on my watch.”

The two men turned to see Douglas Knox standing in the doorway to the cell block.

“Mr. Director,” Uzi said, quickly rising to his feet. He glanced at his partner for an explanation, but DeSantos seemed just as surprised.

“Obviously, there’s been a mistake,” Knox said. “Detective?” He turned to the open doorway.

Paulson walked in, keys dangling at his side. He didn’t look pleased. He unlocked Uzi’s cell, then walked away without saying a word.

Knox shut the door to the room and stood toe to toe with Uzi. “GSR was negative.”

Uzi knew that was a bullshit explanation— the GSR could’ve been negative even if he had killed Adams. And if that was the reason for his release, Knox would not have wasted his time showing up at the local police station.

“I’ll leave you to get your belongings,” Knox said. “Hector, with me.”

DeSantos gave Uzi’s shoulder a shove, then left with Knox.

AS TIM MEADOWS MADE a U-turn, he took another glance at the sedan down the block from his house. It was one he hadn’t seen before. Although some considered his self-preservation measures paranoiac, he had seen more of humanity’s seedier slices than most individuals would experience in a lifetime.

And this car bothered him. Sure, its windows were tinted, but there was an intangible
something
about it that set off his internal alarm.

He checked his mirrors, then got out of his vehicle and hustled up the path to the front door. He disabled the house alarm and descended the basement steps to grab a pair of binoculars. He’d find a safe place where he had a clear view, get the license plate, and call it in.

As he lifted his Leupold Mark 4 tactical glasses from their case, he noticed something in the darkness. Rather, it was what he didn’t see that caught his attention: the lack of green power LEDs that normally glowed from his PC across the room. He flipped on the lights. The computer—and a couple of projects on the workbench—were missing. And the door to his gun safe was ajar.

Meadows bit his lip. Someone had broken into his home and stolen his PC. Why? Was it related to the Russian 7.62 round Uzi had brought him? As he reached for his cell phone, his eye caught sight of a red light on the floor, attached to a device that wasn’t supposed to be there: a detonation unit piggybacked by what looked like multiple blocks of C-4.

“Jesus Christ!”

Meadows darted forward, as fast as his thick legs would carry him, toward the basement’s side wall. He grabbed the heavy gun safe door and pulled it open, then shoved his body inside, rotating his beer gut and squeezing himself against the velour interior.

He struggled to swing the door shut. But he couldn’t lock it— This was a safe, with hardened steel lugs that latched into the frame. As long as he didn’t secure the handle, he could get out. But if the mechanism engaged accidentally, or if debris piled in front of the door, he’d die from asphyxiation.

If the blast didn’t kill him outright. He gambled the explosion would push the door tight enough for the duration of the pressure wave, then leave the path free of rubble for his exit. Gambling. With his life. Damn it...

Images flicked through his mind like an out-of-control movie projector. Calm yourself. Think!