The Lost Codex (42 page)

Apparently not as well controlled as you think. And now not as small a circle as it was before.

“Secretary McNamara and I don’t buy into this strategy. It’s the wrong approach and won’t lead to a healthy peace.”

Vail squirmed in her seat. Defying—and undermining—the president?
This feels dangerously close to treason.

“That’s why you’re not going to bring the codex and scroll home,” Knox said. “Give them to the Israelis. Bring them to the Shrine of the Book building at the National Museum. We have to ensure that this leverage—this undue influence that these documents provide—is taken out of the equation.”

DeSantos signed off and Vail texted Fahad to tell him to resume the operation.

“Showtime,” Uzi said.

DeSantos gave him a fist bump. “Good luck.”

UZI LEFT THE SUV and followed the path that Fahad took to the guard booth along the sidewalk, using the cover of bushes and hedges where possible. From fifteen feet away, he watched through the window in the front of the small brick structure as Fahad greeted the officer.

From what Uzi could tell in the descending darkness, there was some discussion between the two men. A moment later, Fahad was the only one visible.

Uzi advanced and found the militant seated in a chair, dressed in an al Humat uniform, his head resting on his forearms. He looked like he was asleep. But Uzi knew better.

Conspicuously absent was an array of video screens for surveillance monitoring—a good sign and hopefully an indicator of whether or not the residents of the neighborhood felt the added level of paranoia was necessary.

Fahad began searching the small desk drawers while Uzi examined a spiral bound log book that contained Arabic writing. Visitors were required to sign in. Their license plate numbers were recorded along with their names and addresses. “Looks like they have regularly scheduled check-ins with someone—someone on Sahmoud’s personal detail. Probably one of the guys in that house.”

“Makes sense. What’s the interval?”

“Every thirty minutes. Last one was … eighteen minutes ago.” Uzi checked his watch. “So we’ve got twelve minutes. That’s cutting it close.” He texted DeSantos and Vail and gave one last look around. “Let’s go. We don’t have a lot of time.”

70

R
udenko is our third priority,” DeSantos said, “and only because he may have the scroll. If it’s clear he doesn’t, we let him go unless taking him down won’t jeopardize our primary objectives: the two documents first and Sahmoud second. You okay with that?”

Vail frowned. “You mean because I’d like to put a bullet behind Rudenko’s ear?”

“Because of that, yeah.”

“I understand the mission priorities, Hector. But forget about Rudenko. What if it comes down to the two docs or Sahmoud?”

“You heard our orders,” DeSantos said. “Codex and scroll are number one. That said, I’m betting Sahmoud is in the bunker—the most secure room in the house. Which means he’ll have the docs there too. Assuming I’m right, we should be able to grab
both
the docs and Sahmoud.”

I hope you’re right.

DeSantos looked out at the guard booth. From what he could see in the failing light, he told her, Fahad and Uzi had been successful. “Let’s take a minute for a dose of reality.”

“I kind of assumed I was living a nightmare.”

“Most of the time,” he said, ignoring her, “a Special Forces operator aims to get in and out. He avoids contact with the enemy. We don’t have that luxury. We’ve got vests but no head gear. We have guns but no suppressors. No comms and limited intel. So to keep the advantage of surprise, the Glocks stay in our waistbands until we don’t have any choice. This is close quarters combat. Use your knife. And your hands.”

“We’ve already gone over this.”

He twisted his body to face her. “I need to know if you can handle yourself. This isn’t going to be yelling at some perp a block away to stop while sighting him with a .40-caliber. This is in your face, kill or be killed.”

She looked into DeSantos’s eyes and absorbed what he was saying. There could be no doubt. No hesitation.

“I’ve been involved in close quarters combat. You know that.”

“Al Humat chooses its guards from its best fighters, Karen, those who’ve proven themselves by killing innocents—which shows their commitment to the cause. These aren’t rent-a-cops.”

Sahmoud and Rudenko are two of the worst offenders I’ve come up against. I want them. Badly. But can I do it?

She had the training. She had the weapon. She had gone hand to hand with serial killers and deadly assassins. But would she have the killer instinct in a situation where
she
was the intruder?

She had crossed the line in the past, sometimes purposely and sometimes inadvertently. This felt different. There wasn’t a question of
if
she would encounter tangos. They were going in to purposely engage them.

Vail realized DeSantos was waiting for an answer. She held his gaze and said, “We’re taking down one of the world’s worst. Two of them if we’re lucky. I’m in.”

DeSantos nodded slowly. “Let’s do it, then.”

71

T
en minutes passed and the light was fading rapidly. Over the Mediterranean, the sky still had some life to it. But to DeSantos's right, the death of cloud-covered darkness had settled in.

Most importantly, he had difficulty seeing the landscape around him: just how he wanted it.

He moved slowly to keep from tripping motion sensors, a painstaking process but one he had perfected during years of similar missions.

Waves crashed in the distance but his auditory sense was focused on those noises that would mean the difference between life and death. His field of vision had narrowed, his concentration was deep.

He had one objective at the moment: the man on the other side of the door. According to his screen, the guard was two and a half feet away, only a one inch slab of wood separating them.

He had little choice but to permit Fahad’s participation: although he had strong suspicions, he had no proof. With a force of four against eleven, they had a chance of success. With three the odds dropped significantly. DeSantos had to trust him.

But not completely. He had texted Rodman and asked him to make sure Fahad’s regular cell phone and satphone were monitored. If he made a call to anyone other than the three members of his team, they were to be notified immediately.

It was enough fighting eleven men; he did not need one of his own working against them.

DeSantos knew from the infrared imagery that the guards were armed with what looked to be AK-47s. They probably also had small arms and even bladed weapons. The objective was for him, and his team, to strike unexpectedly. And fast. It took time and effort to move a heavy submachine gun toward an enemy. Too much time in close quarters combat—which is what this would be. Plus, they were likely not expecting an incursion and, despite what he told Vail, even if they were their best fighters, he did not know their specific level of training. They might shoot well at fifty yards, but did they practice weekly? Did they practice home invasion scenarios? Using his SOG SEAL seven-inch knife, he scraped the exterior surface of the door. Lightly, at first.

No response.

Again, a little more deeply.

Footstep. Hand on the knob. Creak of the hinge as it opened.

DeSantos tossed a small rock to his right. It rustled the leaves of a bush and the guard stepped out onto the cement stoop. The AK-47 was slung across the man’s shoulder, gripped sloppily in his right hand, pointed at the ground.

DeSantos swung the double-serrated blade backhanded through the moist, cool air and struck the man in the left kidney. He stiffened and opened his mouth to scream but DeSantos slapped his fingers over his lips.

He yanked the knife out and stabbed again, this time a vicious, fast jab to the right side of the man’s spine. He struck bone and went through it. The man’s legs went limp and DeSantos put him down with a final strike to the throat so he would not make a noise that would give away his position.

DeSantos yanked him into the foliage, stepped over the bloodied concrete, and into the house.

VAIL MADE HER WAY to the southeast side of the house. She had approached as DeSantos advised her, along the plant line and staying clear of gravel, keeping on grass wherever possible to avoid making unwanted noise. She moved slowly but deliberately and was successful in not setting off the motion sensors.

She stood at the front door for a moment and heard only the crashing rumble of ocean waves. It was unnerving. The satellite imagery showed her mark—a soldier standing rock-still, a foot away, guarding the entrance to the home. Adrenaline flooded her bloodstream and her hands felt unsteady. She wiped her palms on the back of her pants and took a long, cleansing breath.

DeSantos’s face flashed through her thoughts as he leaned forward and looked her in the eye. “I need to know if you can handle yourself.”

I’ve stormed buildings, jumped out of helicopters, and parachuted from the back of a military jet. I can do this too.

Vail shoved the phone in her pocket and brought a fist up to knock.

This man is a killer. Kill or be killed. Kill or be killed.

She rapped lightly on the wood surface. The door immediately swung open and a large male stood there, angular face with close-cropped dark hair and wearing a uniform with the unmistakable green/yellow/black logo of al Humat.

A submachine gun was balanced against his right forearm. His hand relaxed and the barrel dipped slightly when he saw a woman standing at the door. Not much of a threat.

Vail did not hesitate: she spoke the words Uzi coached her to say in Arabic—“I have an urgent message for Kadir from Doka”—and handed him a note. When he reached out to take it she stepped forward and thrust her long Tanto blade into his midsection, an uppercut designed to miss the ribcage. It sliced through as if she had cut into Jell-O. She yanked the handle left and right, severing the abdominal aorta.

The fighter’s eyes bulged wide and his torso bent forward in shock. Or pain. He dropped the AK-47 as his head jerked back. He grabbed her throat with a broad, thick hand and squeezed with surprising strength.

Don’t panic, Karen. He’s bleeding out.

Kill or be killed.

She gave the Tanto a final jerk back and forth and then grabbed it with both hands and yanked it up and down, sawing in and out.

Three long seconds later the man’s eyelids fluttered closed and he collapsed into her, releasing his hold on her neck. She stepped aside and helped him down to the shiny granite entryway.

Vail used her left Timberland boot to roll him over. She stuck her foot on his abdomen and extracted the Tanto, then gave it a quick wipe on his pants—her black 5.11s were now smeared maroon with blood.

She moved to her right into an expansive living room whose walls featured a large representation of the al Aqsa mosque in relief, alongside the Dome of the Rock, which was covered with what looked like real gold leaf—just like the actual building. She knelt behind a needlepoint upholstered chair to consult the drone’s infrared imagery. Four men were down, which meant that Uzi, DeSantos, and Fahad were also successful. That still left an unspecified number of security personnel—two outside the room and maybe three guards and two tangos inside the room.

Vail slipped the Tanto back into its sheath and removed her Glock. A round was chambered, so it was ready to go. At this point stealth was no longer an option—nor was it necessary. All the men were on the same floor: the basement.

Judging by her team’s movement—they were all closing in on the room—she was the last to dispose of her assigned target. But she resisted the urge to move too quickly. Although she had only seventy-five seconds until the guard’s scheduled check-in, the last thing they needed was for any of them to be discovered now, before they were all in position.

A minute later, with time winding down, she had descended two floors and stood on the landing, a few feet from the mouth of a long hallway. Approximately thirty feet down the cement corridor was another al Humat officer. He was likely keeping watch at the door to the large room behind him, where an important business transaction was occurring.

Vail leaned her back against the wall and waited for the text from DeSantos. It came seconds later:

count to ten then go


She shoved the satphone in her front pocket and took a breath, hands wrapped around the Glock’s polymer handle.
Seven, six, five, four …

72

U
zi and DeSantos faced the second door to the basement bunker, where Sahmoud and Rudenko were likely located. They were ninety degrees from the main entrance, where Vail’s target was stationed.

“I like your new uniform,” DeSantos said of Uzi’s al Humat black shirt with embroidered patches depicting the organization’s logo.

“He wasn’t all that bad for a terrorist. He gave me the shirt off his back.”

This was by design—Uzi would engage the guard with his hands rather than his knife—in case they needed an intact uniform.

They had thirty seconds before the scheduled check-in with the security booth officer was due—assuming they kept to their schedule. According to the logbook Uzi had seen, they were punctual.

Fahad remained upstairs, ensuring guards did not enter the house once the shooting began. That they were in the basement, two levels down, lessened the likelihood the gunfire would be heard.

DeSantos tried the knob carefully, slowly, quietly, and determined it was locked. The door appeared to be solid metal—which meant it was heavy, likely reinforced, and impervious to being kicked in.

If this had been another time and place, Uzi would’ve set a charge of C4, taken cover, and blown it off its hinges.

They had reviewed the file photos of each wanted man. They would have milliseconds to identify them and shoot the others. How many were there? Impossible to be sure.

One mistake and they would lose the ability to detain and question two of the most dangerous criminals in the civilized world. However, Knox had made the overriding objective clear.

“We can’t shoot through this,” DeSantos whispered.

“Agreed. We should knock.”

DeSantos gave Uzi a look.

“I’m serious. Sometimes the simplest solutions are right in front of you.”

“I’ve got nothing better. Go for it.” DeSantos texted Vail and then moved out of sight.

Uzi lifted his balled fist toward the door and rapped on the cold steel surface.

“What,” someone shouted in Arabic from the other side.

“Message from Doka,” Uzi replied. “Important.”

The countless hours Uzi had spent in Shin Bet’s academy, then Mossad’s training facilities during ops preparation, and in the FBI Academy’s shooting house, flashed through his thoughts. His heart was pounding and his pulse was racing. He took a breath. The knob turned and the door swung in a second before Vail’s first gunshot rang out.

Uzi shouldered the door open. DeSantos swiveled into the room, took aim, and drilled a number of suited men in the chest.

Yelling

Chairs toppling

Frantic bursts of return gunfire

Uzi located his target and squeezed off several rounds, the sound deafening, the smell of cordite suffocating, obscuring visibility.

“Where is he?” Uzi yelled. “Where’s Sahmoud?”

Another two gunshots, then Vail burst in, crouched low with her Glock in the ready position.

Uzi moved deeper into the room and surveyed the carnage. Neither Sahmoud nor Rudenko was there. He pulled an AK-47 off the dead body of one of the downed security guards and tossed it to DeSantos.

He rooted out his satphone and saw an amorphous, unaccounted for heat mass behind the large desk near the far wall. Uzi hand signaled Vail as he moved cautiously toward the man.

A middle-aged male with a salt-and-pepper beard was seated on the floor, his back against a vertical row of wood file drawers. His right hand was pressed against his abdomen.

Assessing the threat and determining there was none, Uzi shoved the Glock in his waistband and knelt in front of the man.

“Kadir Abu Sahmoud, you’re a prisoner of the United States government.”