The Art of War: A Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  I didn’t care much for Willie’s prison reminiscences, but it was no use trying to change the subject once he got into one of his moods. I drove and thought about the job. And about killers with shotguns. In Roslyn we pulled around the Graftons’ condo building into the service area and locked up the van. I sent Willie on a reconnaissance to see who, if anyone, might be watching the building while I went up to the admiral’s condo and knocked on the door. Callie Grafton opened it.

  “Hi, Tommy,” she said. “Come on in.” I entered, and she closed the door behind me.

  Mrs. Grafton is my idea of the perfect lady. She still had her figure and erect carriage, she was attractive, and she was pleasant with everyone she met. She had brains. In her sixties, she was the kind of woman that some men my age wish they had had for a mom. I sure did. Mine was a ditz.

  Anyhow, she had been married to Jake Grafton since they were in their twenties. What she saw in him I’ll never know. Oh, he was polite enough and smiled occasionally, but he had my vote for the toughest man alive on this side of the Atlantic. He was also smart, determined, fearless and, when necessary, absolutely ruthless. Maybe his wife had found a warm and fuzzy spot in him somewhere, but I had never seen it. If he had such a place, I thought, it was probably microscopic.

  Mrs. Grafton had the television on. I paused to watch for a minute or two. The DC police had found an abandoned garbage truck that had apparently been the Maxwell killer’s getaway vehicle six blocks from the National Press Club. The driver of the truck was dead on top of the garbage in back. Already someone had come forward who had seen the garbage truck parked behind the press club.

  Mrs. Grafton watched with me. “What’s going on, Tommy?”

  “I don’t know, Mrs. Grafton. But the admiral asked me to wire this place up. Do you have a Wi-Fi system in the condo?”

  “Oh, yes. Do you want to see it?”

  “Please.”

  It was under the television.

  I walked through the condo, looked things over, then came back to her. “I brought Willie Varner with me. You know him?”

  “We met in Paris. He’s a nice man.” I had never before heard Willie called nice, but I kept a straight face.

  “He and I own a lock shop in Maryland. Willie’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s good people. He’s downstairs now. What we would like to do is put some surveillance cameras in your place here, everywhere except the bathrooms and master bedroom. The cameras have their own batteries, which will run them for a couple of weeks before they will need to be replaced. We’ll also put some cameras in the hallway and down in the lobby, in the other building entrances and a few outside. All of them will send their signals to your Wi-Fi system, which will put the feed onto the Internet so we can monitor it from different locations. Is that okay with you?”

  She wasn’t thrilled. “I suppose this is necessary.”

  “We’ll also install a battery backup to your Wi-Fi system, so if the juice goes out in the building, it will still work. We’ll put a broadcast terminal with a battery backup on the roof to boost your system.”

  She took a deep breath and said, “If you think this is necessary.”

  And that was precisely the reaction I expected from Mrs. Jake Grafton. The thought crossed my mind that in her own way, she was as tough as he was. Likes attract, not opposites.

  “I think this is the most reliable system we can install quickly,” I said. “It can be defeated, but only by someone who knows it is here and how it works. It won’t deny access, but it will give anyone monitoring it warning.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “We’ll get to work outside first, and do the interior last. Be a couple of hours before we get back to you.”

  “I’ll have some lunch ready whenever you are.”

  We left it there. I closed the door behind me and took the elevator down to find Willie.

  The cameras we installed were digital, of course, and very small. They looked like smoke detectors. The satellite transmitter on the roof took about an hour to wire up, backup battery and all, and another hour to tie in to a CIA satellite com channel. As I worked I tried to picture the mind-set of the killer who gunned down the FBI director and two bodyguards.

  Whoever he was, he was no amateur. No disaffected office worker. He was cool and deadly. Maxwell may or may not have been armed, but the bodyguards were. Undoubtedly he didn’t give them time to draw their weapons. Just boom, boom, boom.

  Mrs. Grafton did indeed have ham and cheese sandwiches, chips and coffee waiting when we got back inside. With a trapped audience, Willie was in seventh heaven. Talking with his mouth full, he delivered himself of opinions about national politics, the Redskins, the Nationals, women, taxes, the mayor, potholes and Downton Abbey. I was amazed at the comments about the PBS TV show. I didn’t know he watched. You learn something new about the human condition every day.

  After lunch, while Willie installed the cameras in the condo, I loaded a program on Mrs. Grafton’s iPad and her iPhone, did mine, too, and checked that the cameras were working as they were supposed to. “I’ll also load this onto the admiral’s iPad and phone and any computers he wants to monitor this stuff at work. I’ll check on the system occasionally, and so will Willie. We’ll have this stuff up and working by tomorrow morning.”

  She thanked us and offered us some cookies. Willie took two handfuls, and we said good-bye.

  On the way back to Maryland I said to Willie the Wire, “I didn’t know you watched period British shows.”

  “You need to get some culture, Carmellini. Without culture you’re one-dimensional. I noticed that in you. Women do, too. It’s holdin’ you back, man, professional life and love life.” He started munching another cookie.

  “I wondered what the anchor was,” I replied.

  “Culture, dude.”

  “I’ll get a quart next time I’m in Walmart.”

  Willie changed the subject. “You know that killer dude who did Maxwell may be makin’ the rounds. Those surveillance cameras we put in today won’t stop buckshot.”

  “No,” I agreed, “they won’t.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Whenever peace—conceived as the avoidance of war—has been the primary objective … the international system has been at the mercy of its most ruthless member.

  —Henry Kissinger

  The next day I popped into the director’s suite and met the four secretaries and two executive assistants. The secretaries were women in their fifties who had worked their way up the food chain to the head honcho’s office. I assumed there were pay raises involved. They were nice ladies, and way too old for me. The executive assistants, however, were a different matter. At least the female one was. She looked to be in her late twenties. Her name was Anastasia Roberts. She was black, shapely and brilliant. I liked the way her agency ID dangled between her breasts, which were just the right size and shape. She was tall, with the top of her head coming up to my chin. I didn’t see a wedding ring.

  The guy, Max Hurley, was also on the right side of thirty, about five foot eight and whippet thin, with cordlike muscles. He had a head of hair that stood straight out and scraggly facial hair that he didn’t shave but once a week, if that. I figured him for a long-distance runner. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring either, but these days, many married people didn’t.

  I had heard about the EAs, and now I was meeting them. These folks were geniuses the Company recruited from Ivy League colleges and elsewhere in government. They were going to be superstars in a few years, so they started in the director’s office to learn the ropes fast and went on from there. Folks not quite as intellectually gifted called them geeks, and I suppose they were.

  Anastasia Roberts gave me a hard look, shook the offered hand and said, “I’ve heard of you.”

  “I won the Company camping award last year.”

  “That must have been it,” she said coolly.

  Hurley chimed in. “Admiral Grafton said you are going to be w
orking with us,” he said, scrutinizing me.

  “He told me that, too.”

  “Welcome aboard.”

  I assumed that was nautical humor. I smiled to show I was just one of the guys. “So how long have you been with the Company?”

  “Eight months,” Roberts said.

  “A year,” Hurley replied.

  “Where did you work before you came here?” I asked, aiming at both of them.

  Hurley answered first. “This is the first job I have ever had. The Company recruited me as I was finishing my doctorate.”

  “Dr. Hurley. Cool.” I glanced at Roberts.

  “I was over at the White House,” she said. “I’d had enough and floated my résumé, and the Company hired me.”

  “And what did you do over there?”

  “Political staffer. Memos and such.”

  “We have paper to push, too.”

  “And you?” she said.

  “I’ve been here a while. Mainly tech support.”

  “I’ve heard that you worked with the admiral before.”

  “Occasionally.” I changed the subject, to where they lived, how did they like DC and so on.

  We were still chatting a few minutes later when Jennifer, the desk person, sent me in to see Grafton.

  I installed a program on his computer, iPad and cell phone so he could see the video from the cameras we planted that afternoon in his condo. We sat and watched for a few minutes.

  “Too bad about Maxwell,” I said, trying to jostle him.

  “Hmm,” he murmured.

  “Willie made an observation I thought cogent. He said these cameras won’t stop buckshot.”

  Jake Grafton swiveled his gaze to me. “There’s a killer out there,” he admitted.

  “He’s pretty damned good at his business, too,” I observed.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Bodyguards around the clock. Don’t cross the street without looking both ways.”

  “Go see Joe Waddell in Security. He’ll have two armed men in a van a block or so from my building around the clock. Give them the address for the feed and the password.”

  “I’ll stop in and see him before I go home tonight.”

  Grafton made a noise and turned back to the monitors. Callie was in the kitchen on the phone.

  “I didn’t think you wanted just everyone listening to you and Mrs. Grafton, so video is all you get.”

  He didn’t say anything. Just flicked from camera to camera.

  “Retirement might also be an option. Your wife doesn’t want you dead.”

  “Stay with the FBI liaison officer tomorrow,” he said. “Then brief me tomorrow evening.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” I said, and immediately regretted it. I was already starting to sound like Hurley. I closed the door behind me.

  When I got home about seven o’clock I got a dinner from the freezer—meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy and corn—took it out of the box and punched holes in the top with a fork, then stuck it in the microwave. As it nuked, I turned on my laptop and went to the Grafton feed. Watching the video, I thought about Tomazic, Reinicke and Maxwell. Accidents normally come one at a time, randomly, I’ve noticed. Three big intel dudes dead in a week were two too many. Maybe I was getting paranoid. I told myself that Grafton probably had it already figured out and just hadn’t bothered to tell me about it. Or anyone else, I suspected. Damn him anyway.

  I called Willie. “You been watching this Grafton feed?”

  “Yeah. Writin’ the times down. This hourly rate is goin’ to work up to a nice chunk of change. Might even finance a trip to Vegas whenever Uncle Sugar shits me a check.”

  “You going to watch it this evening?”

  “Hell no. I got a date. She’s fixin’ dinner. Gonna try to get laid.”

  “Good luck.”

  Finally the microwave beeped and stopped humming. I ate my gourmet repast on the countertop while the video from Grafton’s condo and building played on my laptop. Washed the grub down with beer. Sooner or later, I told myself, I was going to have to get a life.

  I had finished the frozen dinner and was working on my second beer when Callie answered the phone in the kitchen.

  I wondered if Joe Waddell had those two guys in the van on station yet.

  I got busy with my phone and set it up so that I could get the Grafton feed on it. Then I took a shower and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. My pistol and shoulder holster were lying on the bed. The gun was an old Walther in .380 that I picked up cheap a few years back at a gun store. I looked at it with disgust. Compared to a 12-gauge shotgun, it was a peashooter. What I needed was full-body armor. I donned the holster and put the pistol in it.

  *

  Jake Grafton drove to Tysons Corner, then wound his way into a building complex. The seal of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was on the guarded entrance. He showed his CIA building pass to the uniformed federal security officer on duty and was admitted to the parking lot.

  This bureaucracy had been created after 9/11 because of political necessity. Prior to that, the director of the CIA had served as the national intelligence director. But the politicians had to do something after the 9/11 terrorist strikes, so a new agency was created—one that now had about 1,750 federal employees, another layer of bureaucracy to push the raw intel through before it got to the decision makers. Grafton thought it a wonder the U.S. government knew anything at all. But perhaps someone somewhere slept better knowing all these bureaucrats were on the job, except of course for weekends, vacations, federal holidays, sick days, snow days, office parties and all the rest of it.

  He went into the building, showed his CIA pass again, walked through a metal detector and was escorted upstairs to the assistant director’s office.

  The assistant director was a serving navy vice admiral, three stars, named Arlen Curry. He rose from the desk flanked by flags when Jake entered. The escort left and shut the door behind him.

  “Sorry about Reinicke,” Jake said. “And Maxwell.”

  Curry, in uniform, motioned Jake to a chair and took one himself three feet away, situated at a ninety-degree angle. Curry crossed his legs.

  “Who’s going to be named acting DNI?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know. No one at the White House has said squat to me.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “You know that they named me acting director of my agency, so we’ll be working together.”

  “The White House called me on that. Sal Molina. Congratulations. If you want them.”

  “I don’t. What I want to know is why Mario Tomazic died.”

  “I don’t think Tomazic drowned all by himself,” Arlen Curry said, biting off his words. “I don’t think the explosion that killed Reinicke was an accident. Maxwell and his bodyguards and limo driver certainly didn’t commit suicide with number-four buckshot.”

  “Number fours, eh?”

  Jake Grafton leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees.

  “Want a drink?” Curry asked, and stood. “By God, I do.”

  “Sure. Whatever you have.”

  “What I have is bourbon. No ice.” He pulled a bottle from his lower right desk drawer and produced two glasses, which looked reasonably clean. He poured a healthy shot in each and handed Jake one. Then Curry returned to the chair he had vacated. Both men sipped in silence.

  Jake let it lie. They talked about the international situation, about the current ins and outs of the intel business, but Curry had nothing to say that Jake didn’t already know. After a few more minutes, Grafton thanked Curry for his time and extended his hand.

  Curry stared at the door after Grafton left. Then he looked at his watch and found he had a few minutes before the next meeting. He got busy with the stuff in the in-basket.

  *

  I found the surveillance van a block from Grafton’s building in Roslyn, around the corner, parked in an alley. It had the name of a local plumber painted on both sides and was dirty and scruf
fy; still, the antennae on the roof gave it away. If I could find it, so could a bad actor bent on murder. That was something to think about. I drove slowly through the neighborhood, looking. A mom-and-pop pizza shop across the street, a coffee shop, a dry cleaner, a little sit-down Mexican restaurant … and a large, six-story parking garage. Beehives of condos rose in every direction. Down the hill a block or so was an entrance to the Metro. A nice urban neighborhood on a hill overlooking the Potomac, with a subway stop. If you wanted to live in close, yet not in the District, this Virginia neighborhood was about as good as it got.

  Only a few minutes after nine. People were still on the street, which was lined with parked cars. Cars flowed past on a regular basis. The windows of the condos were all lit up. People were inside reading, watching television, socializing, relaxing after a day at the office. Last night when Maxwell walked out of the National Press Club, that street looked benign, too. But it wasn’t. There was a killer on the loose. Or more than one. That fact gave this street a sinister tone tonight.

  A car pulled out of a parking place at the curb, so I pulled in. Killed the headlights and engine and sat watching the screen of the cell phone. Mrs. Grafton had the boob tube on, but she was making something in the kitchen.

  After a half hour sitting there contemplating the state of the universe and watching people on the sidewalk and in cars, I locked the car and walked across the street to the pizza joint for a beer.

  *

  When Jake Grafton was behind the wheel of his car he checked his watch. Ten after 10 P.M. He checked the list of contacts on his cell phone and called the chief of naval operations, Admiral Carter McKiernan. He called him on his private home number.

  “Yes.”

  “Jake Grafton, Admiral. I’d like to stop around in about thirty minutes and see you.”

  “Can’t it wait until tomorrow, Jake?”

  “I’m up to my eyeballs, Admiral. I’d like it to be tonight, and off the record.”

  “I’m not in bed yet. Come on over. You know where I live?”

  “Yes, sir.”