The Lost Codex (6 page)

8

V
ail waited for Uzi to elaborate. When he did not, she nudged DeSantos, who shrugged. “Uzi, who is it?”

“If I’m right, he was a senior al Humat operative when I was”—he hesitated, then turned to Rusakov. “Alex, can you give us a minute?”

“Boychick, she’s part of OPSIG. She’s got full clearance.”

Vail examined Uzi’s face—she knew he was uncomfortable with more people knowing his secret. It was one thing for Knox to know, and for her, DeSantos, and Rodman to know—he hadn’t had the choice when it was disclosed. Adding to that list did not seem like a good idea, and Vail had to agree.

“Alex,” Vail said, “I think it’d be best.”

Rusakov squinted dissatisfaction, then nodded and backed out of the room.

“Where’d you find her?” Vail said as the glass door clicked shut. “The latest Miss World pageant?”

“She’s tougher than you think. Lethal, in fact. Her beauty gets her close to HVTs,” DeSantos said, using the military acronym for high value targets. “Go on, Boychick. Who does the voice belong to?”

“When I was in Mossad, this guy was working with Hamas, smuggling rockets and mortars through the Sinai. He designed the network of tunnels they spent years building—sophisticated tunnels with reinforced cement walls, ventilation, electricity. They eventually built hundreds of them crisscrossing Gaza, stretching from the Egyptian border all the way into Israel.”

“Like the drug cartels,” Vail said, referring to their method of smuggling drugs from Mexico into San Diego.

DeSantos sat up straight. “Like the drug cartels. Ekrem’s intel—and NSA’s intercept—suggested Hezbollah might be working with the Cortez cartel. What if you’re right, Boychick? What if they showed Cortez how to build their tunnels?”

“Then we might have problems.” Rodman rose from his chair and walked over to the near wall, where a map of the United States was illuminated on one of the screens. Rodman said, “What if they’ve built a network of tunnels under the US?”

“It’s expensive and time-consuming,” Uzi said. He thought a bit, then added, “It’s possible to do because they build shafts inside other structures—warehouses, garages, houses—that eventually resurface inside another building on the other side of the border. If they do it well, the presence of equipment and the removal of dirt—and lots of water, because tunnels flood while they’re being built—isn’t really noticed. Still … it’s a tremendous amount of work. They’d need a really good reason to do that.”

DeSantos joined Rodman at the map. “Like moving one or more dirty bombs around the country without our sensors—which are now in a lot of US cities—picking them up?”

They were quiet while they pondered that. “Before we get too far down this road,” Vail said, “let’s back up. Uzi, you said you know this guy, the Gaza voice. How about a name, description, some background?”

“Kadir Abu Sahmoud.” Uzi rubbed at the stubble on his cheeks. “He’s probably about fifty now, bearded, dark complected, about five-nine. He’s a violent psychopath. As if that’s not bad enough, he’s a religious zealot who, like all extremists, interprets the Koran as a violent call to arms. We all know the type.”

“Got some stuff here,” Rodman said as he scrolled down a page on his laptop. “Comes from a well-to-do Palestinian family. Father a doctor, mother a lawyer. Discovered jihad when he killed a Jewish family in the Golan Heights as they farmed their watermelon patch. He was sixteen years old. With that multiple murder on his resume, he was asked to join Force 17 in Lebanon, as one of Yasser Arafat’s personal bodyguards. That was 1981.”

Rodman’s eyes moved across the screen. “A year later, Arafat’s PLO was forced to leave Lebanon—but Sahmoud stayed behind and joined Hezbollah. At nineteen he did some training in Iran under the Revolutionary Guard, where he was recruited by Hamas. He rose through the ranks quickly in the early to mid-1990s when he helped plan drive-by shootings and firebombings in Israel. Then the suicide bombings began, and he was one of the lead planners for the Afula attack, along with the bomb maker, Yahya Ayyash, when a teenager rammed a car packed with explosives into a commuter bus.

“Sahmoud disagreed with Hamas leadership a few years later and formed al Humat with Abu Hassanein, an equally violent former Hamas militant. Their first act was sending a youth into a school with a suicide vest. Fourteen kids were killed, sixty-nine were wounded. Seventeen lost limbs.”

“I’m already liking this guy as our prime suspect,” DeSantos said.

“I’ve seen all the general FBI briefings,” Vail said, “but I’m far from a Mideast expert. I know what I read in the papers about Hamas and al—”

“Bottom line,” Uzi said, “is that the extremists believe their purpose in life is to fight a holy war to kill the Jews and take over Israel. They don’t want a two-state solution. They want a one-state Islamist country.”

“And that’s the problem with Hamas and al Humat,” DeSantos said. “They shoot rockets into Israel knowing Israel has to retaliate. But Hamas uses women and children as human shields to show a large casualty count. Their operations manual explains the strategy and why it’s such an important tactic. The Gazans, meanwhile, are caught in the middle, used, abused, intimidated, and harassed. Hamas tells them that this jihad is Allah’s will. Instead of focusing on building a future for their people with infrastructure and jobs and commerce, they carry out terrorist attacks using militant violence.”

“You said their main purpose is to wage a holy war,” Vail said.

“Two groups, similar philosophies. Hamas has three branches: one provides funding for schools and health care, one deals with political and religious mandates. Then there’s a terrorism-based military unit that gathers information about Palestinians who’ve violated Islamic law and others who are informing for Israel. Their Izzedine al Qassam squads carry out the attacks. They’re organized into small, covert terror cells that operate independently of each other.

“Al Humat was born from Hamas and shares its religious and political views—violence aimed at destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state. Its virulent hatred of Jews and Judaism is deeply rooted in the anti-Semitic writings of the Muslim Brotherhood—which is where Hamas got its start back in 1987. Hamas is a more militant Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and al Humat is a more militant offshoot of Hamas. Al Humat doesn’t dabble in politics. Its sole focus is the death and destruction of those who stand in the way of Sharia law.”

“Like the US,” Vail said.

“Like
all
civilized, democratic, western countries,” Uzi said. “Some of its leaders have gone on record saying that democracy is the exact opposite of Sharia law. When they talk about taking over Europe, they talk about converting everything and everyone to Islam. Because no other religion or belief structure can coexist with it.”

“That’s an important point right there,” DeSantos said. “This isn’t a regional issue. It’s not about what’s happening in Israel with Hamas and al Humat and Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. This battle’s being fought in dozens of European cities. The scope is global—because their
plans
are global. And unless something’s done, Europe has about thirty years before it starts turning into a group of third world countries. It’ll fundamentally change the world. It’s the single biggest threat to democracy in modern times. Sharia law will set back civilized society centuries.”

“So that brings us back to Ekrem’s intel,” Uzi said. “Sounds like he was giving us good information about al Humat’s involvement.”

Rodman took his seat. “And that brings us back to Kadir Abu Sahmoud.”

“Yeah.” Uzi swallowed hard. “Sahmoud was the bastard who trained Batula Hakim.”

Vail knew—as did DeSantos and Rodman—that al Humat’s Batula Hakim was the terrorist who murdered Uzi’s wife and daughter eight years ago.

She also knew, without it needing to be stated, that if Sahmoud was in any way involved with the current plot, capturing Sahmoud would be a priority—and it had nothing to do with exacting justice. Knowing DeSantos, such a “capture” order may involve lethal force, as it did with Osama bin Laden.

Rodman glanced at the printed translation. “How sure are you that it was Sahmoud’s voice?”

Uzi pondered that for a few seconds, then said, “Not enough to hold up in a court of law. I
think
it is. But I’m not completely sure.”

“Let’s get a voiceprint analysis,” DeSantos said. “Do you think Mossad has a clip of Sahmoud on file?”

“Very likely. I’ll look into it.”

“The director general is in Washington,” DeSantos said, “meeting with Tasset this week.”

Uzi’s jaw muscles tensed. “I know.”

“You could just request a voiceprint through the usual channels within the CIA—”

“Better to go to the horse’s mouth. Faster, less bureaucracy. No filters.”

“But I’m sensing you don’t really want to deal with Aksel,” Vail said.

Uzi pulled his gaze away from DeSantos and took a seat. He leaned back and closed his eyes. “It’s complicated. Let’s just say that Gideon and I didn’t always agree on things. Oil and water personalities.”

DeSantos tilted his head. When Uzi did not elaborate, DeSantos added, “Among other things.”

“Then why don’t we just send the request over to Tasset and—”

“No.” Uzi was on his feet. “I’ll meet with Gideon.” He gathered his black leather jacket off the seat back and slung it over his shoulder. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

9

U
zi met Mossad director general Gideon Aksel by the Delta security bollards at the west end of Pennsylvania Avenue, across from the Blair House. Because the street fronted the White House, it was under constant surveillance by the Secret Service and Metropolitan police. In fact, two white, blue, and red cruisers were parked in the middle of the roadway at forty-five degree angles to each other, a hundred yards ahead, opposite the White House lawn.

As Uzi approached, the four agents in the foreign dignitary Secret Service detail perked up. He held up his FBI creds and they relaxed—slightly.

“Gideon.”

Aksel tilted his head back and peered at Uzi through his glasses. But he did not return the greeting.

“Wearing glasses now, Gideon?”

“I’m getting old. Shit happens.”

A grin broke Uzi’s face. He surprised himself. Because of all the previous bad blood that existed between these two men, he had been dreading this meet. But it seemed to have gotten off to a nonthreatening start. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Uzi had saved Aksel’s life a couple of years ago.

“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.”