The Art of War: A Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  Outside the wind was howling down Chesapeake Bay. Forty knots, at least, Zhang thought. When he got home tonight he would open his window a crack and turn on the heater, so he could hear the wind sing and not get chilled.

  Zhang liked his apartment, which was three times bigger than the flat in which his parents had raised him. It was the nicest place he had ever lived. If his mother were still alive, she would have been overjoyed to see it.

  His kitchen, with its appliances and big refrigerator, was a constant source of delight. So was his bathroom, with the heater and white ceramic toilet that flushed and swept everything along to some mysterious fate, out of sight and mind. He knew the sewage didn’t go into the bay—this was America! Not China, with its dozen hundred million poor people. That was the world Zhang had escaped when he joined the PLAN. And here he was, watching American television, listening to the wind howl outside, with his comfortable, pleasant apartment to return to in a few minutes.

  Zhang wondered what the Americans were thinking about the assassination attempt. Were they angry, amused, frightened? They didn’t like their president very much, Zhang believed. Only one in three people thought he was doing an adequate job. Apparently it was a sad case of voters’ remorse. That thought led Zhang to muse about public opinion polls, which were a strange thing in his experience. No sane person would ask thousands of people in China what they thought about the government, then publish the results.

  Finally Zhang bid Choy good-bye, and was soon outside, feeling the wind tear at him as he walked the quarter mile to his building. The wind whipped his hair and tugged at his clothing. It reminded him of nights at sea, when he was a cadet and, later, aboard his first ship.

  Unfortunately those days were behind him now, and would probably never come again. Still, in the interim, he could enjoy the wind.

  He opened his window an inch or two and let the singing night wind into his apartment.

  Savor the days, he thought. Savor being alive. The end will come too soon.

  *

  With Choy’s help, Zhang bought a pickup truck the next day. It was two years old and had no rust. Although he had a driver’s license, this was the first vehicle he had ever owned. Well, he really didn’t own this one, since it was purchased with Chinese government funds but he liked it anyway.

  Choy made some telephone calls to get insurance for the truck, vanished into an office and came back with a sheet of fax paper. “We’re good to go,” he said.

  Zhang drove it out of the sales lot with Choy in the right-hand seat.

  “I only have an international driver’s license,” he told Choy. “Will that be a problem?”

  “Not with your passport and tourist visa. And this insurance binder.” He folded it up and put it in what he called a “glove compartment,” a drawer with a door that hinged downward, below the dashboard on the passenger side.

  As he drove along with a wary eye on traffic and the road signs that told him speed limits and others that had names of places and arrows, Zhang tried to stay in the proper lane for turns. One had to decide far in advance of a turn which lane was best and pick a hole in traffic to get into it. American drivers, he had noticed, were very touchy about someone cutting in front of them and quick to blow their horn and glare. Or raise a middle finger. Driving required concentration.

  Finally he took Choy home and dropped him off, then went motoring by himself.

  As he drove, Zhang thought about Choy. How far could he be trusted?

  Of course Zhang knew about Choy’s girlfriend. He had met her on several occasions when they went to the Chan restaurant, where she worked. She smiled a lot at Choy. And everyone else.

  On a long-term assignment, naturally a man needed a woman occasionally. Paying for sex was dangerous since the police kept their eyes on prostitutes. A girlfriend was good cover for Choy.

  But how much help could he expect from Choy before the man became suspicious? He was on a low-grade assignment and had never been trusted with tasks more onerous than taking photos and sending them to an Internet dead drop.

  How loyal was Choy?

  If Choy saw too much of Zhang’s preparations, he could compromise the operation if he talked too freely or got arrested. On the other hand, without him Zhang would be on his own without a translator. It was a nice problem, and Zhang turned it over and over in his mind.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

  —William T. Sherman

  The Graftons spent the night in the spare bedroom of my apartment. I insisted. Yet I was kinda ashamed when Mrs. Grafton saw how messy the dump was and how little grub I had in the fridge. I was starting to mumble an apology when Mrs. Grafton said, “It looks better than that rat’s nest Jake lived in on Whidbey Island when I married him. I stayed there for weeks and loved every minute of it.”

  Grafton used my landline telephone to call the office and talk to the security head, Joe Waddell.

  “The president’s plane going down triggered the security procedures,” Grafton explained to Callie and me after he finished talking with Waddell. “Protect the most important stuff first.”

  We watched television until eleven o’clock, trying to wind down, and then the Graftons toddled off for bed. Thank heavens I had some clean sheets on the bed in the spare bedroom and clean towels in the bathroom.

  When they were tucked in, I poured myself three fingers of bourbon. After one sip, I rooted in my dresser and pulled out my Kimber 1911 .45 automatic. I loaded the eight-round magazine and snapped it into the pistol. Chambered a round and lowered the hammer. I resolved to get a shoulder holster for it as soon as possible. The little Walther hadn’t given me much comfort on Grafton’s roof.

  I grasped the loaded Kimber. This sleek contraction of machined steel and springs could kill eight men, or one man eight times. Loaded, it was heavy. Maybe three pounds. I was pleased again at how well the pistol fit my hand, which is larger than average. The cold steel and heft made me feel powerful, in control, which of course was the illusion of the gun. We are all tossed on the stormy seas of fate, at the mercy of men and forces beyond our power to comprehend, control or deflect. Sometimes we need an illusion. You worthless tiny piece of flotsam on the tide of life, this gun gives you power. Isn’t that the way it goes? I caressed the Kimber and threw it on the bed.

  I sipped on the whiskey while looking out the window. Thought about the guy or guys who entered Grafton’s building in broad daylight, or at least early evening, and took out the satellite repeater on the roof. One guy, I suspected. Two would have been more noticeable. People might remember. Probably just one guy. Whoever he was, he was a cool customer. If it was the same guy who did Reinicke and Maxwell, he was also damned dangerous.

  The homeless Dumpster diver that I had treated to a pizza came to mind. I could see his face, his trim physique, the sober, quick eyes … He could have been mining the Dumpster for pop cans to sell by the pound. Or looking for credit card and identity information he could sell to an Internet thief. Or he could have been casing the building, setting up a hit.

  I sipped whiskey and thought about the possibilities. And wondered what Jake Grafton was thinking. He was a bunch of IQ points smarter than me, older and more experienced, and he understood the evil in men’s hearts. Me, I’m just a thief. But Jake Grafton, he was a twenty-first-century prophet. And warrior.

  I wondered if he was still awake, staring at the ceiling.

  My Internet service came back on about midnight, and my cell phone beeped a few minutes later. My mom had tried five times to call me earlier that day. Some things never change. On reflection, I decided I was fortunate to have a mom who wanted to hear my voice. I figured she might be still awake in California, so I gave her a call. When we said good-bye, I finished the booze and fell into bed. I slept with the Kimber under my pillow.

  The next morning I fed the Graftons a bachelor breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and Pop-Tarts. Callie looked at the Pop-Tarts as if she had never
seen one before. She daintily ate half of one, probably just to be polite. She liked my coffee, though. The admiral put too much salt on his eggs, then poured on a lot of Cholula sauce, which in my opinion is Mexico’s great gift to the world. With all that salt, I wondered about his blood pressure. He liked my coffee, too—Kroger’s best.

  I left when they did. At Langley I spent the morning with Zoe Kerry liaisoning with the FBI. They were down to a couple of agents working on the Reinicke explosion. The special agent in charge had the grumps. What could you say when most of your troops were jerked out from under you and sent packing willy-nilly off to Colorado? Nothing nice. That was what the team leader said. Grumpily.

  *

  Jake Grafton was summoned to the White House for a ten o’clock meeting. The conference room was packed, standing room only, but as interim director of the CIA, Jake got a seat at the table. Up the table were National Security Adviser Jurgen Schulz, the president’s chief of staff, Al Grantham, Assistant ODNI Director Admiral Arlen Curry, Acting FBI Director Harry Estep, the head of NSA, and Sal Molina. Molina looked glum.

  In front of everyone on the table was a list of the people who died yesterday aboard Air Force One. Jake glanced at the list. He flipped to the back page and found there were 132 names on it. Then he scanned the list for names he might recognize.

  When the herd was more or less assembled, someone said, “The president of the United States,” and everyone stood. The president walked in and took his customary seat at the center of the table on the side opposite Jake. He had obviously returned secretly to Washington last night. He looked tired.

  “Please be seated,” he muttered as he looked around at the familiar faces.

  The president said a few laudatory words about the dead staffers, nothing memorable. Then he got down to it.

  “It was just my sheer dumb luck that I wasn’t on that plane. I wanted to meet with some people in Denver after the university event without the press getting wind of it, and that was why the plane used the Air Force One call sign when it departed.

  “I talked to the head of the National Transportation Safety Board a few minutes ago, and his crash investigators don’t yet have any indication why the plane crashed. Considering that the plane is a burned-out wreck, it may be weeks before the investigators get the technical end of it sorted out. And yet, the burned-out van that was found in that Denver parking garage had a piece of gear in it, damaged but recognizable, that the army says is a drone controller. I asked how a drone could crash a plane. They say if it had a small electromagnetic pulse weapon on it, an EMP warhead, that could knock out all the plane’s electronics, including the flight control computers, if it detonated close enough with the plane in the air. Folks, if that box is indeed a drone controller, it looks like the people in that van tried to assassinate the president of the United States.”

  The president let that sink in for a moment before he resumed. “The FBI and Colorado law enforcement are investigating. There were several bodies in the van, badly burned, so it will take a while to identify them. As of this morning, no one knows how many people were in the van that are unaccounted for. We may have one or more murderers out running around. It stands to reason that if we do, they may be trying to get out of the country. I’ve asked Homeland to seal the borders as tightly as possible, but you know how that is. This murder event, terror event, attempted assassination, whatever, appears to have been carefully planned, and if so, an escape route was on the play card.

  “Finding out the identity of the people who brought down that plane is now our number one security priority. Are they domestic or foreign? Is a foreign government involved? I want to know, the families of the victims want to know and the American people want to know. Your job is to help us find out.

  “I’m now going to turn this meeting over to Jurgen, who will give your agencies and departments various assignments. Harry Estep at the FBI will be everyone’s point of contact, and he will report three times a day to Jurgen, who will personally brief me three times a day.”

  The president surveyed the group, then stood. Everyone in the room scrambled to his or her feet and stayed there until he was out of the room.

  The meeting went on for another hour. When it was over and everyone had their marching orders, Jake lingered to see if Sal Molina wanted to talk. Apparently he didn’t. Molina and Al Grantham walked out together engaged in conversation.

  *

  Zoe Kerry and I were back in Langley about noon. Grafton had just returned and put me and Max Hurley to work drafting memos to the department heads, whom he wanted to see immediately. Hurley and I attended the meeting and sat in the back where we could take notes and run for files if required. Harley Merritt was there and sat beside Grafton.

  The department heads were four men and three women. All of them looked like competent and capable civil servants, which I hoped they were. In the next few weeks I suspected I would find out, one way or another. In my sojurn at the Company I had already had run-ins with a couple of them. Still, I was big enough to let bygones be bygones.

  Grafton summarized the White House meeting and said, “We have our marching orders. We are to conduct a nation-by-nation intelligence review to see if we can find any hint or trace of a covert operation to assassinate the president.”

  “What about the murder of Mario Tomazic?” Merritt asked bluntly.

  “Have we found any hint of a possible foreign motive for wanting him dead?” Grafton asked.

  “Not yet. But we have only gotten our feet wet so far.”

  “What if we assume the murder of Tomazic and the attempted assassination are linked? Will that help?”

  It might, the assembled brains decided.

  “In any event, let’s get at it. The president said this morning that finding the identity of the culprits behind the downing of Air Force One is our number one national security priority. You will use as many of your people as you need to get this done, without letting our intelligence gathering go into the toilet in the interim. You’ll have to use your best judgment. All vacations are canceled, effectively immediately. Call anyone on vacation and tell them to get back here. If you need to work people ten or twelve hours a day, that’s fine with me. Saturdays and Sundays, too, if necessary. However, I’d like to ensure everyone gets at least one day a week off. If we don’t do that, people will burn out.”

  There was more, and it took another half hour. Then Grafton ran the EAs out and huddled with each of the department heads for a half hour or so apiece going over what was happening in their shops.

  Hurley and I got back to work. There were intel assessments to review, and Grafton’s notes to turn into memos, plus all the usual paperwork that infects every federal bureaucracy. I learned that the EAs were supposed to attend to all this, prepare short memos for Grafton, write stuff for his signature, maintain his calendar, answer queries from other government agencies, all of it. Already I was missing Anastasia Roberts. Hurley and I had secretaries, so we put them to work.

  By six that evening I was exhausted. We let most of the secretaries go home and kept drafting memos about every whisper on the planet for the boss to read. How he managed to wade through this stuff on a daily basis was a mystery to me.

  Grafton kicked out the last department head about six thirty and asked for me. I went into his office with a pile for his in-basket and placed it where it belonged.

  He got up, shook my hand, moved the chair around for me to sit in and called for coffee. When he was ensconced in his executive leather chair behind the desk and we both had hot steaming cups of java, he said, “The DC bomb squad went through my place this morning. There were three sticks of dynamite in my desk, a small homemade bomb. If I had opened the little drawer where I keep my pencils and pens, the dynamite would have exploded. Thank you, Tommy.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Just thought about it. Finally I said, “That guy was a pretty cool dude, waltzing in and out, never knowing when the Internet might come back on.
”

  “He’s stopped fooling with accidents,” Grafton mused. “Now it’s just plain murder, like with Maxwell.”

  “Why? I don’t understand why.”

  Grafton used the eraser on a pencil to scratch his head. “If we knew that, we’d know who.”

  I thought about it. “He won’t come back if all he’s after is a high-ranking official to pop. There are thousands of them. Well, hundreds, anyway. If he does come back, it’s because someone wants you, specifically, dead.”

  Grafton just grunted. I didn’t know if that was a grunt of agreement or “opinion noted and filed.”

  “Where are you sleeping tonight?”

  “Amy’s house in Laurel.” Amy was the Graftons’ daughter. “Callie went there this morning. But we gotta go home tomorrow night. All our stuff is there.”

  “I drafted a memo for your signature. It’s in the in-basket.”

  He dug it out. As he read it, I thought it was a pretty good job for my first executive decision. The memo was to Joe Waddell in security, telling him that he was to provide two armed guards at Grafton’s residence around the clock starting at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. They were to wear bulletproof vests, carry weapons and be visible. Every exit except the front door was to be sealed so it couldn’t be opened from outside. Only residents of the building with proper ID were to be admitted. The guards were to carry handheld radios and report in every hour on the hour. Two men around the clock were also to be stationed in front and back of Harley Merritt’s house in Bethesda.

  Grafton reached for a pen. “You draft this?” he asked with eyebrows up.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He signed it. “You got a future pushing paper,” he said. He tossed it across the desk. “This morning at the White House it was pointed out that there aren’t enough federal security officers to guard every public official in this town, even the agency and department heads. Not to mention the members of Congress, all five hundred and thirty-five of them, and the Supreme Court justices. Homeland recommended bringing in army troops, but the president said no. He’s worried that it will look like the federal government has panicked.”