The Lost Codex (OPSIG Team Black Series Book 3)

by Alan Jacobson

  “How’s your hip?”

  Aksel was a stocky man, about five foot eight, but exuded the body type and constitution of a tank—a battle hardened outer shell and something of a mystery inside.

  “Just a flesh wound. I was fine.”

  Uzi didn’t know if Aksel was playing off the famed Monty Python line—when the Black Knight had both arms chopped off and claimed it was “just a flesh wound”—or if he merely meant to play down the severity of the injury. Knowing Aksel’s toughness and pigheaded steadfastness, Uzi surmised it was likely the latter. At the same time, he knew the injury—a bullet wound to the hip—required surgery and substantial rehabilitation. But the Mossad chief was walking along the White House wrought iron fence and showing no signs of a limp.

  “You said you need a favor.”

  Uzi squinted. “I said I needed some help on a case.”

  “Same thing.”

  Uzi did not agree, but he did not want to get into another argument with Aksel. He stopped and faced the man. Behind them stood the front entrance to the White House, the small flower-rimmed fountain in the center of the expansive tree-dotted lawn.

  “We captured a recording of two individuals, one here in DC and one in Gaza.”

  “And you’re trying to ID the Gaza caller. You need a voiceprint match.”

  “Actually, I need a biometric automatic voice analysis. And acoustic and phonetic analyses while you’re at it. I have to be sure about this.” Uzi handed Aksel a USB thumb drive. “If you know who the other voice is, the DC suspect, that’d be helpful too.”

  “You could’ve handled this through the normal CIA-Mossad channels.”

  “This is very important, Gideon. I didn’t want to trust it to lower-level analysts.”

  Aksel studied Uzi’s face a moment, focusing on his eyes. “The explosion near 14th Street. That’s what this is about.”

  Uzi’s face sagged—and he immediately realized he had already answered Aksel’s question. Then again, he didn’t know why he was surprised. Aksel had an uncanny ability to know things very few others knew, to put unrelated events together and to find significant commonalities that led to key intel—or an arrest. Uzi shifted the leather jacket on his shoulders. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Oh, but you did, Uzi. You’ve always had that weakness.”

  “Don’t start with me, Gideon.” He clenched his jaw, let the anger subside, and refocused. “Will you help us ID the voice?”

  “Of course.”

  Uzi glanced at the four men standing nearby. “Can you guys give us a little more space?”

  They all seemed to glance at Aksel, who nodded. They backed up a few steps but maintained their formation.

  “Have you heard any chatter about a collaboration between Hezbollah and the Mexican drug cartels?”

  Aksel’s eyes narrowed. “That’s one of the reasons why I’m here in Washington. One of our men inside Hezbollah warned us a month ago that he heard a major cartel was making large sum payments into Hezbollah accounts. We’ve been trying to verify it.”

  “All that money. In exchange for what?”

  “We can speculate, but speculation isn’t actionable intelligence. One thing he said is that it sounded like this arrangement had been going on for some time. Years.”

  Years? Uzi stepped closer and dropped his chin. “Have you heard anything about suicide bombers setting up shop in the US?”

  Aksel’s face remained impassive, but he looked off into Lafayette Park, beyond Uzi’s left shoulder. “That’s the second reason for my trip to Washington. Be careful, Uzi, you’re coming close to impressing me.”

  Uzi forced a grin. He was not going to let Aksel goad him into an argument. “When do you think you can get back to me on that recording?”

  “I’ll have the lab get right on it.”

  “Oh—whatever you find, the only people authorized are Knox, Tassett, and me. Don’t put it through normal channels. Is Roni still there? Can you give it to him?”

  Aksel unfurled a handkerchief from his wool overcoat, removed his glasses and huffed on them, then wiped away the smudges. A long moment passed before he set them back on his nose and peered at Uzi with a tilted head. “I thought you gave up covert ops when you left Mossad.”

  Uzi had no answer to that other than the truth. “So did I, Gideon.”

  10

  Uzi was standing in the Washington field office elevator with Vail and DeSantos when his phone rang.

  “Whoa, hang on a sec, Hoshi. I’m in the building on my way up. Can it wait?” He glanced at the floor number. “Thirty seconds.”

  “What’s the deal?” Vail asked as he dropped the phone back in his pocket.

  “One of my task force agents. Something urgent.”

  “How is Hoshi?” DeSantos asked with a wink.

  “Why are you looking at me like that? She’s fine.”

  “Yes, she is. Very fine.” He held his hands up. “Hey, you know she likes you, Boychick.”

  The doors slid apart and they followed Uzi through the glass security doors and into the large open room where Hoshi’s cubicle was located.

  “I remember you,” Hoshi said. “DeSantos. Hector.”

  “Well, I prefer Hector DeSantos. No pauses between the names. But yeah, that’s me.”

  “And I’m Karen Vail, BAU. I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “Hoshi Koh. I’m Uzi’s right-hand man.” She glanced at Uzi, then added, “So to speak.” Hoshi grabbed a set of headphones and handed them to Uzi. “This call just came through. I took it and started recording as soon as I realized what the guy was talking about. I missed the first ten seconds.” She struck a few keys on her computer and Uzi listened, then said, “Okay, stop. Send this to my desktop.” He motioned Vail and DeSantos to follow him into his office.

  They stepped inside and Vail closed the door. Uzi sat down at his desk and turned on the two speakers. He pressed play and the recording started: “… long you think you can pull off this charade about calling it a gas main explosion.”

  “Sir, I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

  Hoshi’s voice.

  “You the fucking FBI? The Joint Terrorism Task Force?”

  “Yes sir. You said you had information for us on—”

  “I want to talk to someone who’s in charge.”

  “You can talk with me. I’m in a position of authority. I’m a supervisory special agent.”

  “Not good enough. I’m going to call back in twenty minutes. If you don’t put me through to someone in charge, you and your FBI are going to be sorry.”

  The recording stopped.

  A knock at the door, and Hoshi appeared. “Assuming he’s punctual, he’ll be calling in about seven minutes.”

  “What tipped you off?” Vail asked. “Why’d you start recording?”

  “The first thing he said to me was, ‘I have information about the bombing last night.’”

  “Let’s be ready to record when he calls again.”

  “That sounds like the same voice,” Vail said.

  “Same voice?” Hoshi asked.

  Uzi glanced at DeSantos. “Uh, can you give us a moment, Hoshi?”

  She stepped back. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

  DeSantos turned to Vail. “No one is—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Got it. Sorry.”

  “Yes,” Uzi said. “Same voice. So how do you want to play this?”

  “See if we can find out why he’s doing this, what his plans are, and who he is.”

  DeSantos stifled a laugh. “We should just ask him? And you think he’s going to tell us?”

  “He’ll tell us,” Vail said. “Maybe not everything, but he’ll want us to know who’s behind it and why they’re doing it. They know we’re going to find out sooner or later, so why play game
s? Remember, they’re not afraid of us.”

  Uzi checked his watch. “They’re not afraid of dying, that’s for sure.”

  “Except for the guys in charge,” Vail said. “They don’t want to die. They claim it’s because they need to stay alive to play quarterback and continue the cause. But everyone below them is expendable.”

  The light on Uzi’s phone console lit up. He stabbed at the line button.

  “He’s on,” Hoshi said. “I’m recording and running a trace.”

  “Got it.” Uzi pressed the line button. “This is Agent … Shepard, special agent in charge of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. Who am I talking with?”

  “You’re talking with the people responsible for the explosion last night.” The voice was accented, confident—almost cocky.

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Tell me something, Agent Shepard. Does the FBI really think it was a gas main that blew up?”

  “You know the answer to that question,” Uzi said.

  “How many of these are you going to be able to explain away?”

  “How many attacks are you planning?”

  “Tell you what. Why don’t we help you out and go public on al Jazeera and then everyone will know you were hiding the fact you’re under attack.”

  “I’m still waiting for your name. You know we’re going to find out sooner or later.”

  “Then it will be later.”

  Uzi glanced at Vail. It was a telling look letting her know she got it wrong. “What do you want?”

  “You call us terrorists. So it’s obvious, isn’t it? We want terror. But that’s so simplistic. Here’s the truth: some of us want to kill the infidels. Some want revenge for how you treat and defile Islam. We don’t all agree on what we want—except for one thing: all of us want the Jews out of Palestine. We don’t want a two-state solution. We want it all, all the land. Jews will not be allowed to own even one square meter.”

  Uzi shook his head, threw a quick glance at Vail and DeSantos. “And you think that suicide attacks in the US will help you, how?

  “Some of us enjoy killing. And like I said, some want revenge. Me? I like seeing fear, I like seeing the mighty America crumbling, cowering in fear. Like on 9/11. When the towers fell, hundreds of thousands of my people danced in the streets.”

  Scumbag. I look forward to meeting you someday. In a dark alley.

  “I remember,” Uzi said. “I watched your celebration on TV.”

  “And I want to see your talking heads shouting at one another on your stupid news channels. I want to create division in your country. But it’s not a fair fight. You’re all so brainwashed by your freedoms and democracy that you’ve got 300 million opinions, all convinced you’re right. Your political system is corrupt, bought by lobbyists.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got a long list of things you don’t like about us.”

  “What do I want, Agent Shepard of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force? I want to expose your country for what it is. I want to destroy your economy. I want to bring you to your knees.”

  “How about we get together over a beer, talk this out?”

  DeSantos and Vail looked at Uzi.

  The man laughed. “That would make your job too easy.”

  “No, seriously. We can meet at your safe house in southwest DC.”

  There was silence.

  “Listen to me, Kadir. Mind if I call you that? We both know how this is going to play out. You’re gonna set off some bombs, innocent people are gonna die, and you’ll celebrate for killing the nonbelievers. But then we’re gonna track you down and send a Hellfire missile crashing into your car. Or your house. So why don’t you and I meet and we can settle this, man to man?”

  “‘Innocent people’? There are no innocent people in America. You are all infidels! And you’re going to die for your sins against Allah. You get fat earning your money, stuffing your faces, and flaunting your cars and houses. You’re comfortable moving about the streets without a worry. That’s going to end. You will be afraid. Afraid to go outside, afraid to be inside, not knowing when someone in your market will blow up, when someone in a movie theater will blow up. When a student in school is going to blow himself up, when someone in the subway is going to blow herself up. You call us terrorists. You’re right. Because if there’s one thing we know well, it’s how to terrorize. Remember that.”

  The line went dead.

  Uzi sat down heavily.

  “That went exceedingly well,” Vail said.

  Uzi’s head snapped up. “You think so?”

  “No.”

  DeSantos shrugged. “At least we know where we stand with him. He hates us.”

  Vail rolled her eyes.

  “I think it’s safe to say we’re dealing with Kadir Abu Sahmoud. He was shaken when I called him Kadir.”

  “I’m going to inform Knox,” DeSantos said, pulling out his phone.

  Uzi’s Lumia rang. He answered it, listened a moment, and said, “Thank you. I appreciate it … No, I’m not surprised.” Uzi laid it on the desk and sat down heavily. “That was Gideon Aksel. Positive confirmation on the voiceprint. It’s Sahmoud. Don’t know yet about the other person on the call.” Uzi sighed, then said, “Do you think I shouldn’t have revealed that we know who he is?”

  Vail took a seat opposite Uzi. “I can make a case for handling it both ways. Obviously there are more risks in telling him we know his identity. But there are so many variables in this thing that I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer. If he’s a psychopath, it won’t freak him out. It may’ve surprised him, but he recovered quickly. A guy like that, you might try to build him up next time, tell him how great he is, how impressed with him you are, how he’s been able to set up these cells without our knowledge. Make it real or he’ll see through it. He might bite. It’ll feed his ego and he’ll eventually make a mistake. Can’t guarantee it’d work, but you never know.”

  DeSantos’s phone vibrated and he consulted the display. “Knox is on his way over.”

  “Bottom line,” Vail continued, “is that the more we engage him, the more conversations we have with him, the better. We might be able to pull some forensics from something he says, a background noise. It’s better than not having any contact with him at all. You’ve started a relationship with him. That’s a positive.”

  Hoshi knocked, then pushed the door open.

  “You get anything?” Uzi asked.

  “He used cloud bouncing.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  Vail looked at Uzi, then DeSantos, who shrugged. “Cloud bouncing?”

  “There are services that route calls and internet to other clouds, removing identity and routing randomly. It’s the latest in obfuscation. Good for baddies, bad for goodies.”

  “So, in English,” Vail said, “the trace didn’t work.”

  “Come in, Hoshi.” Uzi gestured at the door. “And close it.”

  It clicked shut. Hoshi scanned their faces, shoulders tense. “What’s going on?”

  “There are some things I can’t tell you. You’re just going to have to trust me. Are you okay with that?”

  “Did you seriously just ask me if I trust you?”

  “Fair enough.” Uzi reached into his drawer and pulled out a toothpick, studied it a second and then popped it between his lips. “You heard the phone call so you have an idea of who I was talking to and what’s going on. This involves the explosion last night—which I know you already figured out.”

  “Thanks for giving me some credit.”

  “Kadir Abu Sahmoud is mixed up in this. As you heard, he’s planning attacks on the country.”

  “So you want me to—”

  “I want you to keep it quiet. This is not to be discussed with anyone. Including Shepard and the rest of the task force. Can you do that?”


  Hoshi’s face scrunched in confusion. “We’re the JTTF and Sahmoud is a major terrorist on our Ten Most Wanted who’s about to launch suicide bombings on the United States. And you don’t want anyone on the task force to know about it? Or our boss?”

  “That’s right.”

  Vail had to laugh. “I’m sorry. It sounds just as bad when you say it.”

  “You’re not helping,” Uzi said to Vail.

  “We’ll eventually lift the veil on what’s going on,” DeSantos said. “We just need some time.”

  Hoshi thought a moment, then nodded. “Just don’t get me fired, okay?”

  Uzi gave her what looked to be a strained, almost pained smile. “Of course.”

  After she left, Vail turned to DeSantos. “Lift the veil? You trying to be funny?”

  He shrugged. “Best I had at the moment. It was awkward.”

  “Whole thing’s awkward. She’s right—that’s why we have a JTTF. We should be using every member on that task force—and dozens more.”

  “Leave it be,” DeSantos said. “If that’s what the president wants, that’s what we do. We’re just soldiers in a bigger war. There’s stuff we don’t know. There always is.”

  “Nice digs you got here.” Vail glanced around the room. “You said you wanted us to come to your office so you could give us something.”

  “Right.” Uzi rose from his chair and went over to a bookcase against the wall. It was filled with a number of objects including a couple of framed photos of a woman and a young girl.

  His slain wife and daughter. A pang of pain struck Vail deep in her stomach.

  To the left of the pictures sat a Lucite block encasing what looked like a computer chip and an Intel logo above an inscription recognizing Uzi for his work on the Pentium 4 processor. A bullet-holed canteen lay on its side, a worn olive military canvas pouch covering its bottom half.

  Uzi moved a couple of other items aside and revealed a very dangerous-looking knife.