The Art of War: A Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  Jake Grafton spoke for the first time, his voice hard and flat. “Bet your ass it’s here and you may not lose it.”

  “Who put it here?”

  “You don’t need to know that,” Grafton said, staring Spiers straight in the eyes, almost as if he dared the captain to ask another question. Spiers lowered his gaze and rose from his chair.

  Jake Grafton said, “Captain Child, one more word.”

  Spiers left, and Child sat down again.

  “I want you to bring your EOD people in and have a long talk with them,” Jake Grafton said. “As I analyze this problem, there are two ways this weapon, if it is here, can be triggered. First, it might be wired up to a clock mechanism and be merely ticking down to a certain date and time, perhaps Christmas Day. If so, it could be anywhere in the estuary or river or on the west side of the river in that Corps of Engineers storage depot. Wherever the thing is, it might have a triggering device that is waiting for a radio signal. This is the most likely prospect, I suspect, because it keeps all the bomber’s options open until the last possible second, when the button is pushed triggering the thing. We can also assume that the triggering device is on or beside the weapon. Almost has to be to keep the wire runs short.

  “Be that as it may, if the triggering mechanism is waiting for a radio signal, it won’t be in ten or twenty or thirty feet of water. Or if it is, there will be a wire leading from it to some kind of metal structure that will act as an antenna and receive the transmission when sent and pass it on to the triggering device. If I were you, my first efforts would be to find an insulated wire attached to something metal. I’m no expert, but I suspect it could be darn near anything.”

  Captain Child nodded.

  “That’s it,” Jake Grafton said. “Talk to the EOD guys and get their opinion. Most radio waves can’t go through twenty or thirty feet of water. Perhaps the Chinese could use very low frequency waves that go through the water, but how will they know just when to trigger it, given that we can shut down the Internet or telephone networks at any time? I suspect it’s more likely that there is someone close, and at precisely the right time to do maximum damage he or she will use a higher-frequency, short-range encrypted radio signal that will not penetrate water. That gives them maximum flexibility regardless of what we do to thwart them.”

  “The Ford is scheduled to be towed from Newport News to the carrier piers tomorrow,” Child said. “She’s been in dry dock for a year. The crew has been ashore. The media people want to film the arrival. Still, it’s a good excuse for us to search the waters around the carrier piers and inspect the bottoms of every hull there.”

  The Chinese would know that, of course, Jake thought.

  McKiernan didn’t bat an eye. “Do it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Captain Child said. He walked out and closed the door behind him.

  *

  The four-star admiral in command of the Fleet Forces Command, Sherman Fitch, was waiting when the CNO and Jake Grafton arrived at Base Ops to board the little executive jet to Washington. The CO of the base, Captain Spiers, was also there. McKiernan told him to dismiss the honor guard, which he did.

  As Jake stood watching, Cart McKiernan took the man who owned the Atlantic Fleet aside for a private conversation on the ramp. It took ten minutes. Jake used the break to hit the head. When he got back, the admirals were shaking hands and saluting. Spiers saluted them both.

  On the flight to Washington, McKiernan told Jake, “I told Sherm I wanted the orders drafted and ready for signature if and when I told him to send the ships elsewhere over the holidays. Didn’t give him a reason, but demanded Top Secret security. Had to give him a heads-up. You can’t turn a fleet on a dime. Without some prior planning, sending the ships elsewhere or keeping them at sea will be a fucked-up mess. Everyone will be talking, and it will be big news everywhere.”

  Jake Grafton said nothing. The decision was McKiernan’s whenever he wished to make it.

  The CNO changed subjects instantly. “Could the bomb be triggered from a satellite?” he asked.

  “Not without an antenna, the experts tell me.”

  “An underwater acoustic receiver,” the admiral mused, “waiting for a sound, like a sonar. Or a fish or depth finder.”

  “Perhaps,” Jake agreed. “But those devices all have limited range and will require the triggerman to get relatively close, which would be difficult or impossible if we limit access to the anchorage, as you intend to do. Simple is usually better; less chance for a technical breakdown or unanticipated events blowing your preparations.”

  “That means a clock.”

  “Maybe. But let’s let the SEALs search a while before we get esoteric.”

  “And how long will that be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The CNO eyed Grafton. “Can you find the watcher?”

  “We can try, Cart. That’s all I can promise. It could be a civilian or sailor. The FBI and Homeland Security will give us some agents, a few dozen. The cover story is the security exercise at the base; our guys will do some discreet whispering about a terrorist threat. That’s the best story because it allows us to question everyone about themselves and other people and look at ID. I’ve cleared it with Sal Molina. If the news breaks, the pundits and politicians will get their undies in a twist, and we’ll just have to live with that. Still, don’t get your hopes up. We’ll need some breaks. And some luck.”

  “Why do I have this feeling our luck is running out?” Admiral McKiernan mused.

  “Better have every ship in the fleet searched. If a bomb goes off in Norfolk, half the people on earth will think it was one of ours. We’d better make sure it isn’t.”

  “The orders were issued yesterday.”

  Jake Grafton nodded and scratched his head. What if they didn’t find the bomb in time, or the watcher got worried and triggered it? Or the Chinese somehow used a satellite to trigger it? It would be, he knew, the end of the America he had known and loved.

  Or what if the news—or rumor—got out that the sailors searching ships and the SEALs searching harbors and buildings were looking for a bomb? Mass panic in southeastern Virginia. Packed roads, car wrecks, people driving like maniacs. Dozens would die. Moving some of the medically fragile might kill them. Those without transportation would shout that they were being abandoned to be cremated alive. Even if there was no bomb, the political repercussions of a panic disaster would make massive waves for years. That was Sal Molina’s nightmare.

  Jake glanced at the admiral. “What about that incident a few days ago in the South China Sea? The Poseidon that had a close encounter with Chinese fighters?”

  “We can’t back off,” McKiernan explained. “Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam can’t go it alone.”

  “A carrier in the South China Sea to intercept the fighters?”

  “We are going to escort patrolling Poseidons with air force fighters for a while. Truth is, we can’t spare a carrier there right now. Our ships are committed to the hilt. We just don’t have enough carriers if China presses harder.”

  And if five of America’s carriers are wiped from the board, Jake thought, America will face an impossible task of trying to juggle assets between the Middle East and western Pacific. There won’t be enough anywhere.

  *

  The FBI was on the Chinese guy in apartment 209 like stink on a skunk. They had a van parked in back of the place that could pick up any electronic emissions from the building, and two cars with two agents each in front and back. In addition, there was a car with two agents across the street at the McDonald’s and one a half block to the right of the apartment house at a gasoline station/convenience store.

  I went to the van from the building on the next street, so anyone watching out the window wouldn’t see me enter it. The sign on the side of it said it belonged to a plumbing firm, one with the slogan “We fix it up so it goes down.”

  Inside, I introduced myself and displayed my CIA card. They glanced at it a
nd said, “They told us you might be by.” Cooperation between federal agencies is a wonderful thing.

  “Got something for you to look at,” the guy introduced as Nate said, and passed me several photos. Sure enough, they had him. Taken from a surveillance camera that I doubted that he had seen, the blown-up photos were of an Asian man about fifty-five, with a distinguished haircut and even features, dressed well in a suit and tie, wearing a dark topcoat. No hat. “We got those this morning when he went out for a bagel and newspaper,” Nate said.

  “That’s him,” I said. “Who is he?”

  “His car is registered to Jerry Chu. Wears Virginia plates. He transferred the registration from Massachusetts eighteen months ago. He used to work for Whitewater Encryption Systems. Born in California to Chinese immigrant parents, educated at Cal Poly. Whitewater was the fifth high-tech company he worked for. The personnel department there told the local police he resigned eighteen months ago. He left no forwarding address.”

  “Encryption systems,” I mused.

  “Yeah.”

  “This guy got a bank account?”

  “At least one, at the Potomac Valley Bank.”

  “Safety deposit box?”

  “No.”

  “Can I use my cell without screwing you up?”

  “Go ahead.”

  I called Sarah Houston and kept it on a high professional plane. “Tommy. I have a question. Ever hear of Whitewater Encryption Systems?”

  “Yes.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “They signed a contract a while back with Los Alamos National Laboratory to commercialize a new technology the wizards thought up. Supposedly it took the geniuses twenty years to develop. The tech harnesses the quantum properties of light to generate truly random numbers to encrypt data and messages. Not a prime number or square root of something. Quantum mechanics. Einstein would be impressed. In theory, using their technology, they can generate unbreakable crypto codes.”

  “How about in practical terms?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one.”

  “Why didn’t NSA glom onto this and classify it?”

  “Obviously they didn’t want it. Perhaps because they didn’t invent it. I don’t know. You’d have to ask them, and of course, they won’t answer.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and started to hang up. Very professional.

  “What do you want for dinner tonight?” she said.

  That caught me a little off guard. I thought we had just had a one-night stand. But—

  “Pizza?” I suggested.

  “Ugh. Chinese.”

  “You got it.”

  I hung up. “Got any coffee?” I asked the tech team, who had pretended they weren’t listening. Good guys. The coffee was from a thermos, and still warm. I drank it black.

  I watched people come and go. Most went out the front of the building, of course, but the folks who came home late last night and couldn’t find parking in front went out the back. Most of them seemed to be young professionals and were gone by nine in the morning. Then things really slowed down.

  I was working a crossword puzzle in the Post at noon when Nate got a phone call. He listened a bit, then grunted and hung up. “He went out the front three minutes ago. Got in his car and drove away.”

  I got out my cell phone. “Give me your cell number.” He did so, and I entered it. “Keep him out until I come out or call you.”

  “Sure.”

  I donned my jacket and put on my latex gloves. “The fire department has been briefed?”

  “Of course.”

  I got out of the van, walked around the front of the vehicle and headed for the back entrance to the building. The day was not pleasant—a low overcast and a wet cold wind that was cutting on exposed flesh. I let myself in with a pass card the FBI had supplied and headed for the elevator. Was lifted all the way to the top floor. I didn’t see anyone. So I took a smoke grenade out of my pocket, pulled the pin and tossed it down the corridor.

  Then I took the elevator down to the second floor. There was a fire alarm mounted on the wall by the elevator. I broke the glass and pulled it. It went off with a noise loud enough to wake the almost dead.

  I stood there a moment watching people trickling from the apartments. A couple of them got in the elevator, but it was disabled, so they used the stairs. I waited a few moments to ensure that everyone who was leaving was out, then went to work on the lock on 209. It only took two minutes; I knew what kind of lock it was and had the right picks. As I was working I heard the first fire siren.

  I walked in, closed the door behind me and ensured it locked, and stood surveying the place, memorizing how the room looked, where everything was. It was automatic. The tough part was I didn’t know what I was looking for. Something that tied Mr. Chu to espionage. What it might be I had no idea. And it might not be here, or I might not recognize it if I saw it. Sort of like hunting Easter eggs without knowing an egg from a rock. On the other hand, I had to make Chu believe no one had been in here. It was a nice problem. The good news was I had as much time as I needed. The fire department would keep everyone out of the building until I locked up and left.

  I looked at the bedroom, the bathroom, the closets. This apartment was a mirror image of Zoe Kerry’s. A desk in the bedroom with a laptop on it. A flat-screen television made in Korea. A wire for charging his cell phone on the nightstand beside the bed. No landline phone.

  Remembering the recently departed Miss Kerry, the first thing I did was look under the bed. Chu didn’t vacuum under there, apparently. I used a flashlight to examine the visible springs underneath and gave it a pass.

  The way I figured it, if there was anything in this apartment to find, it would be something innocuous. The truth is, most spies don’t keep anything, not a scrap of paper or a jar of invisible ink or a list of drops or code words … nothing that would indicate they are not who they say they are. Everything they need is in their heads. What I needed to establish was whether there was any physical thing here the FBI would like their experts to look at, and if so, what. If there was, they could get an arrest warrant and search warrant and remove Mr. Chu from the board. On the other hand, if he was indeed the control for a watcher in Norfolk, removing him from the board would take a serious gambler. Jake Grafton was that kind of guy, but I doubted if Harry Estep, the interim FBI director, was, and I suspected the folks at the White House didn’t have that kind of guts. So I was sent to look. Everyone would be relieved if I found nothing. Including me. Especially me. Postpone the evil day.

  I started looking. For something. Anything. I was careful, making sure that everything was put back as it was when I arrived. First I inspected the ceiling. It was plasterboard. The light fixtures would need attention. I examined the chairs to see if they had been used as stepladders. Apparently not. I looked at the bottoms. I decided to save the light fixtures for last, if I didn’t find anything.

  I went through the closet, looked in every pocket, took out the drawers inspected and repacked them, looked in the pillow cases, in the couch. Checked the cushions, unzipped the coverings, zipped them back up, examined the couch, lifted one end and looked at the bottom. Checked the pictures on the walls, which were prints of Chinese art.

  Outside in the hallway I could hear the firemen as I worked. Dragging a hose, it sounded like, knocking on doors. Voices. They had been briefed not to bother with this apartment, and they didn’t.

  I did the bathroom. Looked in the water closet, felt around under the rim of the commode. Looked at everything. The only thing I didn’t do was squeeze out his toothpaste. After a last look around to ensure I had left everything as it was, I moved on. The screws holding the faceplates onto the wall sockets had no marks on them.

  In the bedroom I stood looking at Chu’s laptop. The hard drive held the secrets, if there were any. But dare I steal it? I went through the desk. It was almost empty. A few pencils, a notepad … I held it up to the light at an angle and looked to see if anything
had left an impression. Not that I could read Chinese characters. It was clean.

  No books, no magazines. How in the heck did Chu spend his day? Watching Oprah?

  The television sat on the dresser near the desk, arranged so he could watch it in bed. The back of the television looked benign. I examined the cable connection, saw that it came through a splitter; one wire went to the television, and one was trapped under the computer. So that was how he got on the Internet.

  He was a tech guy, an expert in crypto, I assumed. I doubted if he was Whitewater’s finance officer.

  So did he have software on the computer? Doubtful. Only a fool would do that, and a fool he probably wasn’t. He had spent years stealing high-tech secrets and passing them along to Chinese intelligence. That meant a thumb drive. Some people called it a jump drive. Some device that the computer’s USB port would take.

  Where the hell was it? Probably the same place as his cell phones—he supposedly had two—and that was in his pocket.

  I went into the kitchen and stared at the boxes and cans of coffee. I glanced at my watch. I had been here for an hour and a half.

  That was when I lost it. I dumped the ice tray from the freezer into the sink. Then the contents of the refrigerator and freezer into a garbage bag he had under the sink. I was getting frustrated. The place was too clean. It looked like a high-end hotel room, cleaned every day. Real people didn’t live like this. I knew, knew, that this guy was dirty and it was here. Somewhere. It. I dumped contents of the boxes in the pantry in the middle of the kitchen floor. The coffee cans.

  Nothing.

  I got a chair and used a kitchen knife as a screwdriver on the light fixtures. They were empty. I left them dangling.

  The kitchen had linoleum as a floor covering, and the rest of the place had wall-to-wall carpet. I moved furniture and got down on my hands and knees and inspected the edges, looked for holes. Saw none. Examined the faceplates on the electric outlets.

  Finally I gave up. I stood looking. I had done it all. No cell phones and no thumb drive. I glanced at my watch. Two hours and forty minutes. I got out my phone and called Nate in the van.