Gideon Aksel turned. His stout body was rigid, the lines in his leathered face deep. Thick arms wrapped across his chest. He took in Uzi’s face, then turned back toward the kitchen.
Rubble lay scattered about the floor of Uzi’s small apartment. His home.
Gideon’s feet were firmly planted amongst the debris. But he was not looking into the kitchen. He was looking out the window at something below.
Intense fear exploded through Uzi’s body like a jolt of electricity.
Dena. Uzi shouted it this time. “Dena!”
He started down the hallway to his right, his legs moving slowly, as though trudging through knee-deep mud.
“Maya?” His mind started to come around, adding things up, taking in the scene. Police. Fire. Bombed out window and door. Nuri Peled at the front, Gideon Aksel inside his apartment.
But his brain wouldn’t put it together. Couldn’t put it together. His vision mentally fogged like a roadblock to comprehension. And then, in front of him, tucked away in his bed — his own bed, goddamn it! — the bodies of his wife and three year old daughter, bound at the ankles and wrists, blood all over. Blood. Blood in the bed, their throats slashed, eyes still open, staring at—
Staring at him.
He turned away. Through the window, a young woman slithered off in the shadows. The scene was too emotionally painful to process. He wanted to touch his wife and daughter, to kiss them, to whisper “Open your eyes, you’re dreaming—” But in that split second, the fog lifted. He knew. It struck him like a sharp blow to the throat. He needed another look, to be sure his optic nerves were telling the truth.
He forced himself to turn back toward their bodies. A glimpse and then his knees went weak and it all came flooding into him. Everything suddenly adding up, making frightening sense. A moan escaped his lips and he realized he was on the floor, knees drawn up to his chest, intense sorrow shuddering up his spine as if death itself had made the journey.
No tears flowed.
Emptiness. Pain… anger.
The pressure of a gentle hand against his shoulder. In the background, voices.
Nuri Peled: I’m sorry, Uzi, I’m so sorry.
Gideon Akseclass="underline" It’s your own damn fault… Your own fault…
Air shot into his lungs, a sudden gasp of terror as he jolted awake in bed, perspiration oiling his skin slick and shiny. Uzi’s alarm was normally tuned to a smooth jazz station, but he must have hit the wrong button when setting it, because this morning the blaring buzzer — which would’ve awoken an entire battalion — jarred him from sleep.
And just as well. He needed something to shake him awake. To purge the pain from his memory, if only for a little while.
Uzi got out of bed, showered, and dressed for work. As he knotted his tie, he fought off the familiar, gnawing sense of sadness. He moved slowly, feeling as if he’d hardly slept. He had gotten home from his meeting with Nuri Peled at 4 AM, but couldn’t fall asleep till some time later. Then the nightmare. It wasn’t the first — and after six years of recurring dreams, he was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
He punched the Power button on the remote and saw the words “MSNBC News Special Report” fade from the TV, replaced by a full-screen view of President Jonathan Whitehall seated behind his Oval Office desk, hands folded, intense resolve hardening his brow.
“It’s with a heavy heart that I come before you this morning,” Whitehall began, “on the dawn of another chapter of terrorism that has struck our nation. In our war on terror, we’ve been relentless in our pursuit of those perpetrating these crimes against freedom and democracy. And we’ve seen a number of flawlessly executed successes. But as I’ve repeatedly stated, despite our best efforts to be vigilant, the likelihood existed that we’d not seen the last attack on American soil. That statement has unfortunately proven true.
“I must stress that we do not yet know the identities of those responsible for this latest assault. We must all show restraint while our various agencies conduct their investigations. But know one thing: as we’ve done in the past, we will find out who committed this horrific act of murder. And then we will bring them to justice—”
Uzi powered down the TV. He had heard the speech before — not word for word, but the sentiments, the tone, the rally-the-troops show of confidence that leaders worldwide had displayed so many times in the past. Bombs, death… terror. There never seemed to be a shortage of terror.
He shoved his Glock-22 .40 handgun into its holster in the small of his back, secured his knives, then grabbed his leather overcoat. As Marshall Shepard had not so gently ordered, he had an appointment with a psychologist. Though he would have loved to skip it — and use Douglas Knox’s nine-day deadline as an excuse — it would merely be prolonging the inevitable. He would keep his appointment, but make it a brief meet-and-greet. If there was one thing Uzi didn’t want to do, it was break a promise to Shepard.
The man had saved Uzi’s skin a number of times, and had single-handedly vouched for him when the Bureau was considering his application to the Academy. Uzi’s stint with Israel’s Shin Bet General Security Services gave the Bureau pause — as did any applicant’s prior work history with a foreign police force or intelligence group. But Shepard stressed the positives: Uzi’s exceptional investigative prowess, his knowledge of, and firsthand experience with, terrorism — as well as his fluency in Arabic. In the end, Shepard’s pitch made the difference. The Bureau desperately needed someone with Uzi’s skill set. And Uzi needed the job, not just to support himself financially, but for the diversion it provided from his personal issues.
Still, as he walked down the street to the doctor’s office, he could not get past the feeling that the therapy sessions were going to be a waste of time. Before leaving the house, Uzi called his office and asked Madeline, his secretary, to get him the lowdown on the shrink. His cell rang as he approached the front entrance of the building, an upscale ten-story office and residential mixed-use facility with a curved façade and open balconies to M Street below.
Madeline reported that Leonard Rudnick was short on stature but long on experience. He had worked as a consulting psychologist for the Bureau for seventeen years, and though in semi-retirement, his practice now consisted primarily of agents and support personnel.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Madeline told him. “There’s a special entrance for Bureau employees. A nondescript taupe door. You go in one door and leave a totally different way. For confidentiality.”
“Taupe?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“You think I can still cancel?”
“Uzi…” she whined.
“Okay, okay, I’m going.”
He hung up as he approached the elevator. Once again he had thoughts of ditching the appointment altogether. He did not like talking about himself or his feelings— two obstacles to successful therapy, based on what little he knew of the practice of psychology.
Uzi exited the elevator, then pushed through the door Madeline had mentioned. He took a seat in the small, cherry-paneled waiting area. His eyes wandered and his knee bounced. There weren’t many things that made him nervous, but facing someone to whom he was supposed to bare his soul was clearly one of them. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cellophane wrapped toothpick, and shoved the mint-flavored wood in his mouth.