The Art of War: A Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  Between news broadcasts, Chong listened to syndicated talk shows, all of which had conservative hosts who lambasted the administration over domestic and foreign policy and hammered the president over his vacations at taxpayer expense. They also lamented the tragedy of the deaths of the people on the plane. Reporters had been busy. They had human interest vignettes on many of the victims. Each host seemed to have his own idea about who might be behind the attack, but they kept their speculations generalized, no doubt to skirt the libel laws. Chong did learn that two separate Islamic jihadist groups had claimed responsibility.

  After three days on the road, Chong rolled into Seattle. It was raining lightly, as usual. After a comfortable night in a hotel, he drove to Sea-Tac Airport and parked in the long-term lot.

  The car he had parked here he had purchased two months ago for cash from a guy who had an ad in the newspaper. It still had the old license plate on it. A green Chevy with fairly high miles, it was dirty as Chong walked up to it. Tires still good. He unlocked it, threw his small bag in the backseat and got in. He picked up the passenger-side mat and felt around.

  Yes, the credential case was still there. He pulled it out, checked to ensure he wasn’t being watched, then opened it. The passport and driver’s license were there, along with a thousand dollars in cash. The passport and driver’s license were real enough, but the name was not Chong’s.

  He put the case in his inside pocket and automatically took another look around.

  Dum te dum. Chong inserted the key into the ignition and twisted it.

  The bomb under the hood contained six sticks of dynamite, more than enough to blow the front end of the vehicle to smithereens and drive enough dashboard pieces and engine parts aft into Chong to kill him instantly. He never felt a thing as bits of flying windshield glass, plastic and metal flayed his face to the bone. The cars parked nearby were heavily damaged by the blast.

  The fireball rose spectacularly as bits and pieces rained down on parked cars for a hundred yards in every direction.

  Fish was two blocks away at a bar when he felt the concussion and saw the rising cloud, which spread into a glowing minimushroom in the wet gray sky. He looked at his watch and took another sip of beer.

  The man beside him, who had supplied the dynamite and detonator and pointed out the green Chevy, said, “You are very good at what you do.”

  Fish glanced at him and sipped the last of his beer. “Our mutual friend said you would wire the money immediately. By the close of business today.”

  “The money will be there.”

  “It had better. I know where you live, and of course, so does our mutual friend.” Fish scrutinized the man’s face. Apparently satisfied, he rose from the table and walked out of the bar. He didn’t look back.

  The Chinese agent took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He felt nervous around Fish. The man wasn’t normal. Of course, any man who made his living killing people would, by definition, not be “normal.” But great missions made it necessary to use many different kinds of people.

  Fish would not betray him: He knew that. Nor would he betray Fish. He was what the American law would classify as a “co-conspirator” and would be equally as guilty as Fish. That fact was his protection from Fish, the reason the assassin didn’t kill him after he collected his money.

  Of course, Fish had no knowledge of why the man in the green Chevy had to die. The Chinese agent had been very careful not to even hint about the reason for the hit, nor did Fish ask. The reason, he suspected, was because Fish wasn’t curious. The assassin just didn’t care.

  He reviewed the operation again. Chong’s preparations had been carefully watched. The dynamite and detonator were stolen, so a chemical trace would reveal nothing. The capacitor and wires were equally untraceable. Fish had left no fingerprints. The explosion and resulting fire had taken care of any stray DNA Fish might have left in the car.

  All in all, a clean hit. All the men who had brought down Air Force One were dead. The FBI would soon hit a wall that prevented them from going any further on their trail.

  The man signaled the waiter for another glass of wine and through the window watched the smoke rising from Sea-Tac’s long-term parking lot. Chong had been an assassin, too. Such men usually ended badly.

  Perhaps when this was over, something could be done about Fish. As insurance.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.

  —George S. Patton

  Thanksgiving was at the Graftons’, with all the trimmings. Turkey and ham, stuffing and gravy and corn, with pumpkin pie with ice cream and Cool Whip for dessert. I ate until I thought I would pop. I visited with Grafton’s daughter, Amy, and her husband, Peter, and cooed over the grandbaby. I drank a bit too much red wine, then retired to the guest room to watch some football. Fell asleep during the game.

  Life does go on, even when you think the world has stopped spinning.

  The next day, Friday, Grafton called me into his office and motioned me toward a chair.

  He passed me three small brown envelopes. I opened one. It contained six X-rays of someone’s mouth. “The forensic examiner got these,” Grafton explained, “from the guys in the burned van. Dental experts say these teeth were worked on by Russian dentists.”

  “Far be it from me to dispute the experts. So where does that get us?”

  “These may have been the drone operators who crashed Air Force One.”

  “May?”

  “That is as good as we’re going to get. Russians.”

  “So what do the Russian spooks say about all this?”

  Grafton leaned back in his chair and propped a foot up on an open lower desk drawer. “The Russian embassy is promising complete, total cooperation. Which means nothing. I suspect that in a week or two or three, they will send a note to State saying, ‘Sorry about that. We can’t identify them.’”

  “Okay.”

  “In any event, I think a backdoor approach might be worthwhile. Janos Ilin, the number two in the SVR, wants to meet me in Zurich. I can’t go. I want you to meet with him, listen to what he has to say. We not only want to know who these people are or were, we want to know all about their associates and the men who controlled them.” The SVR (Sluzhba Vneshney Rasvedki) was the Russian foreign intelligence service, the bureaucratic successor to the foreign intelligence arm of the Soviet-era KGB.

  I didn’t ask him how he learned that Ilin wanted to talk to him. I figured the less I knew about the machinations of the top level of the international intelligence business, the better. What I didn’t know I couldn’t tell, hint at or testify about. Ignorance may not be bliss, but they can’t convict you for it.

  I had met Ilin before. He was a tall, rangy Russian dude whose extreme competence erased whatever doubts you might have had about how good the SVR really was. I kinda suspected he was almost as smart, capable and ruthless as Jake Grafton, but without the admiral’s scruples. Grafton and Ilin had crossed paths several times in the past. The problem was, for Ilin, that his bosses didn’t know about many of his extracurricular activities. It went without saying that Grafton expected me to use every wit I had to ensure that Ilin’s little secrets remained his little secrets. Knowing Grafton, he might say it anyway.

  “When do I leave?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Go see about airplane tickets and a hotel.”

  “Fake passport?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where and when do I meet Ilin?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  Off I trotted to the ID office. The agency maintains thousands of fake identities for moments like this, with real credit cards, addresses, driver’s licenses and the other paper bits that prove we are real people. All I needed was an identity that would withstand a quick check, not one I would have to live with. My new name was Harold W. Cass from Indianapolis, Indiana. The W. stood for Wallace. I hated the name Harold and decided if necessary I would be Wally to my new f
riends.

  From there I went to the travel office. Zurich, Switzerland. Air reservations and hotel for Harold W. Cass. Maybe if I had to wait a few days for Ilin, I could ski down an Alp.

  Fool that I was, I remember thinking, At last! An easy job for a change. A nice hotel, a comfy bed, good food, toilet paper … aah. All with Uncle Sugar’s dollars. God bless American taxpayers.

  *

  Saturday morning when I dropped Grafton at Langley, I went over to my place and closed up the joint for a couple of weeks. I packed some winter clothes and debated about my ski boots, which I hadn’t worn in years. Decided to rent some in Switzerland. Ditto skis.

  When I got back to Langley, I went to the travel office, picked up my tickets and some expense account money, then zipped over to the director’s office.

  I had to wait to see Grafton. He was up to his eyeballs in it.

  “Any message for Ilin?”

  “I would take it as a personal favor if he could give us anything to help on the identity of the men who dropped Air Force One. Anything.”

  Grafton tugged at an earlobe. “You’ll meet one of Ilin’s private agents. I don’t think she’s SVR. I think she’s a volunteer working solely for Ilin. As you know, he runs his own little intelligence network. I don’t think the SVR knows about that. If they did, Ilin would be dead.”

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled as he talked and I felt a sudden flash of heat. “Her?” I managed. It came out a whisper.

  “Yep. Her. Anna Modin.”

  That name didn’t just ring a bell—it exploded in my head. A few years ago I had been desperately in love with Anna Modin. Then she disappeared. Several weeks later I received one postcard. Hadn’t heard from her since. Obviously, Jake Grafton had. He knew where she was. Or the CIA did, which was the same thing since Grafton was now running it.

  I sat thinking about things while Grafton busied himself with paper on his desk. Finally I blurted, “I don’t want to do this.”

  He glanced up. “You know her and she trusts you. She was Ilin’s choice as a go-between.”

  “Find someone else. I don’t want to go.”

  He looked me squarely in the eyes. “I didn’t ask you to go. I told you to.”

  I started to say something I would regret, and managed to choke it off before it hit the air.

  “Make sure no one follows you or sees you meeting Modin or Ilin.”

  So this was secret agent shit. If it cost Anna her life, I was going to be partly responsible. I counted to ten. Then I counted ten more. Finally I nodded.

  Grafton’s face softened. “Tommy, this is the life Anna Modin has chosen. She knows the risks as well as you do. Probably better. Keep your eyes and ears open and your brain working. I hope Ilin will tell us something that his government wouldn’t share in the ordinary course of business. It’s a possibility, anyway.”

  I nodded again.

  “You will write nothing down, commit everything to memory and ask any questions you think apropos. Then come home.”

  “Where do I meet Anna?”

  “I don’t know. She works at a bank.” He named it. “Devise an approach that ensures no one observes you meeting her. She will tell you how to meet Ilin or take you to him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any questions?”

  “Nope.”

  “Get gone. I have work to do.”

  I closed the door behind me.

  *

  I parked my car in the lot and walked into the Dulles Airport terminal three hours before flight time. With the endless security lines at Dulles and the mobs of people, you must plan for the worst. After my morning interview with Grafton, it would have been a damned bitter pill to tell him I missed my flight because I wasn’t a professional. Screw that. I was going to be on that plane if I had to ride in a wheel well.

  I checked my luggage and got a boarding pass, then headed for the security line with my little carry-on. There was a bookstore on the way, so I glanced at my watch, saw I had a few minutes and decided to buy something to read on the plane. I didn’t need to sit on that damn flying bus for eight hours thinking about Anna Modin.

  I grabbed the latest Stephen Hunter paperback and a copy of the Washington Examiner and The Washington Post, both of which had big spreads about the progress of the investigation into the crash of Air Force One. I queued up behind a fat lady, waited while she paid for two handfuls of candy and chips with a debit card, then paid cash for my loot, waited for the clerk to bag it and headed for the door.

  That’s when a man walking by in the corridor caught my eye. It was him! The Dumpster diver! Sure as shooting. Amazing! Of all the millions of people in the Washington area … Well, people get in car wrecks every day; you just don’t know when it will be your day.

  He was pulling a little overnight bag, one like mine. Strolling along at a good pace at a ninety-degree angle going to my right. I could see his head moving back and forth, eyes scanning.

  Decent dark slacks, leather shoes, a gray jacket. Wearing sunglasses indoors. No hat. I was only twenty feet behind him as he stepped on the escalator; I waited for someone to get on in front of me, then stepped on. Down we went to the luggage carousels.

  He went over to number 18 and stood where he could watch the people gathering around. I stayed back, put a pillar between us, and tried to keep an eye on him by watching his reflection in the lost luggage window behind him. The thought occurred to me that guys who ride airplanes hither and yon don’t often pay their bills by collecting tin cans from other people’s trash and selling them by the pound.

  My mind was racing. I would like to see what car he got into, get the license number. With that, assuming the car wasn’t stolen, he was toast. The FBI could investigate him until they got sick of it. Of course, getting a squint at his ID would be even better. Assuming it wasn’t fake.

  I was weighing it, trying to decide what to do, when I risked a glance around the pole. He wasn’t there!

  I ran my eyes over the crowd. Found him, on the other side of the carousel. He had moved, and he was scanning the crowd. I took a step back … and he spotted me. Looked right at me. Our eyes met for just a second, but he recognized me. I saw it on his face.

  He began moving. Heading for the tunnel that led to the pickup area. I abandoned my overnight bag, book and newspapers and went after him. Decided to take him down and look at his ID. It wasn’t a conscious thought, but it was there. He was my meat.

  He walked quickly, strode. Passed families and couples and singles pulling luggage. He was quick, so I broke into a trot. He disappeared down the tunnel.

  I ran.

  People kept getting in front of me. I dodged and juked like an NFL tailback. Hit one guy and went sprawling. Got up and charged on into the tunnel that went under the passenger drop-off area. Saw my guy limned against the light going out. I gave it all I had.

  He was running along the sidewalk toward the taxi stand when I emerged. I charged toward him.

  He stopped and grabbed a policeman. Pointed at me. I was running full tilt toward them and wasn’t hard to spot.

  The cop stepped in front of me and I took him out with a good stiff-arm and kept going. My guy was fifty feet in front of me and losing the race. I was going to get that son of a bitch. No way could he have a weapon after the unemployables of Homeland Security had searched and X-rayed him. I was six inches taller, thirty pounds heavier and a whole hell of a lot meaner than he was. I was going to put him in the hospital.

  I slowly overhauled him on the sidewalk. Our audience was people in dashikis, Orthodox Jews, Muslims in head rags and Hindu women wearing spots, plus the drivers of the cars loading them and their stuff. I’ll say this for the bastard—he could run. He was shoving people out of the way, which sort of cleared a path for me.

  He veered into traffic and dodged a car that I went over by leaping on the hood. Then I had him. Tackled him. With him on his stomach, I gave him a kidney punch that would have felled an ox. The
air went out of him and he went limp.

  I was dragging him erect when the cops got me. There were four of them, and they had night-sticks and Mace. They grabbed arms and legs and put me on the ground. Four against one isn’t fair. I think there were four, but there may have been a dozen. One of them popped me across the right kidney with that stick, and that about did it for me. I struggled to breathe as they slammed my face against the concrete.

  They rolled me over, a cop on each limb. “Hold still, you bastard, or you’re going straight to the hospital.”

  I stopped struggling and tried to talk. “I’m a CIA officer chasing a suspected bomber. Don’t let him—”

  One of them punched me in the stomach. Then they rolled me over and cuffed me while one of them helped himself to my wallet.

  When they finally pulled me erect, the Dumpster diver wasn’t in sight. That’s when I remembered that I was Wally Cass from Indianapolis. They had a lockup in the basement of the terminal, and that’s where they took me.

  “You want to make a phone call, Cass, before we slam the door behind you and throw away the key?”

  “Yeah.”

  I called the director’s office. Needless to say, I got the receptionist, ol’ tight-lips Jennifer. “This is Carmellini. Is Grafton there?”

  “More Russian plans for world domination?”

  “No, trifle. Let me talk to the boss.”

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “Tell him I got arrested at Dulles. I’ll hold.”

  After a while I heard his voice. “Arrested?” he said.

  I started to explain, and got about halfway through it when Grafton started to laugh. Actually it was a snicker. Or chuckle. He was snorting and trying to choke it off.