The Art of War: A Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  If exploding a bomb at the naval base was indeed Zhang’s mission—and Choy Lee believed it was to a certainty—then Zhang would kill him soon, if he didn’t trigger the bomb. When he heard about the news stories, it would be one or the other, as soon as possible. And Choy didn’t even have a gun.

  He headed for the Chans’ restaurant through almost empty streets. Everyone was trying to get out of town, Sally had said. Choy had never seen the streets so empty. He made good time, merely slowed at stop signs, and zipped along.

  A bomb! That was it!

  Yet, perhaps, when Zhang heard the news, he would merely trigger the bomb. Then Choy and Sally would be instantly dead. Along with a couple million other people.

  For the first time in his life, Choy Lee felt on the edge of death. The eternal darkness was right there before him. And he hadn’t even told Sally Chan he loved her.

  *

  The attendant at the marina did indeed try to tell Zhang Ping about the panic. Zhang didn’t understand enough English to make sense of it. He merely smiled and looked around for Choy, who wasn’t in sight. Perhaps he went to the restroom. The attendant looked at Zhang strangely, then shrugged and moved off down the pier.

  Zhang maneuvered the boat into its slip. Double-checked that the master switch was off, unhooked the iPad, made sure the bumper pads were in place and the boat was properly tied in its berth, then put covers on everything.

  Only when he was finished and walking to the parking lot with the iPad in his hand did he wonder what had happened to Choy. He turned on the iPad … and discovered he had no Internet service. He stood there, trying to make sense of it. The iPad got its Internet signal from cellular telephone towers. He wondered if the interruption in service was temporary, or if the authorities had turned them off. Perhaps it was just the iPad. He retrieved his cell phone from a trouser pocket and turned it on. No service.

  In the parking lot he discovered that Choy’s SUV was gone.

  Zhang had a decision to make, and he made it quickly. He glanced about, looking at parked cars and pickup trucks and SUVs. No one in sight. A car was driving into the lot. The driver got out, then opened the rear door and picked up what looked like a brown paper bag full of beer or groceries. The guy was going out on a boat this evening.

  Zhang came up behind him and, as he turned, grabbed his head and twisted viciously, breaking the man’s neck. The bag fell and split, and six-packs of beer tumbled out. Zhang fished in the man’s right-hand trouser pocket, found the car keys and shoved the body onto the backseat. The six-packs he picked up and tossed in.

  A quick scan around to see if anyone had been watching. No one in sight.

  Zhang got into the car, inserted the key into the ignition and drove away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.

  —Carl von Clausewitz

  I was sitting in Sarah Houston’s office reading the news from Norfolk on my laptop while she manipulated her desktop computer, working on God knows what. The news was beyond bad; it was a major shitstorm. The story about a Chinese bomb had been twisted almost beyond recognition, but the kernel of truth was there. I confess, I wasn’t surprised. A secret this big was too hot to hold; a leak was inevitable.

  I wondered if Jake Grafton had leaked it. He was capable of it, certainly—he was a damned sneaky bastard—if he thought it would help us find the bomb before it popped, but I couldn’t see how it would. I thought the opposite was probably true.

  There was a little television on a table by the wall. I turned it on to one of the news channels. The politicians were running around with their hair on fire. Massive traffic jams on all the highways out of the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area. People were driving the wrong way on the highways, making cops dive for the ditches. Riots in Norfolk and Newport News. After three minutes, I strangled the beast. Blessed silence. Only the clicking of Sarah’s computer keys. She could silence them, of course, but she hadn’t. Maybe the noise helped her focus.

  After a bit she stopped to make a note on a pad on her desk, tore off the top sheet and handed it to me. I looked at it. “Cuthbert Gordon, 7354 Vista Del Mar.” The city, state and zip code were on it. In case you have forgotten, ol’ Bertie was my mom’s new love interest.

  “Thanks,” I said, and tucked the note into my wallet, then put my wallet into my hip pocket, right next to my heart. Sarah got busy again on her keyboard.

  I sat there relaxed, with one leg crossed, thinking about Anna Modin’s ashes dribbling into the breeze.

  My cell phone rang. It was in my shirt pocket. I pulled it out, didn’t recognize the number, but answered it anyway. Maybe someone wanted my opinion on the exciting taste of McDonald’s latest burger.

  Grafton’s voice. “Tommy, I want you to come to Norfolk. I need you.”

  “Take a while to drive down there, what with the traffic jams and all.” I thought maybe a week would do it.

  “A helicopter will pick you up at the Langley helo pad in half an hour. Be on it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After I had my cell phone back in my pocket, I checked the Kimber in my shoulder holster. Loaded and ready. Zoe Kerry’s derringer was in my right sock, also loaded. Put my laptop in my office, make a pit stop on the way to the helicopter, and I would be ready to fly.

  Sarah stopped tapping and swiveled toward me. “You going somewhere?”

  “Grafton wants me in Norfolk. He’s sending a chopper for me.”

  “That bomb might explode while you are there.”

  I shrugged.

  She couldn’t leave it there. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  I didn’t know what to say. We’re all going to die. That’s the way life works. The only issue of any interest is when. I kept my mouth shut.

  “So aren’t you scared? A little bit?”

  “Should I be?”

  “Tommy…”

  Seeing the look on her face, I crossed to her, tilted her head up and kissed her on the lips as sweetly and gently as possible.

  “See you in a few days, Sarah,” I whispered.

  Walking down the hallway, I felt like a shit. I just didn’t have a good-bye scene in me. “Farewell, dear lady. Until we meet again, here or on the other side of the great divide.” Fuck that.

  Maybe the truth was I didn’t give a good goddamn.

  *

  The panic in southwestern Virginia hit the White House like an earthquake. Sal Molina and Jurgen Schulz had helicoptered back from Norfolk. Molina thought he could feel the floor oscillating as people ran through the halls on errands that presumably would save civilization. He was summoned to the Situation Room, where the president was huddled with his national security team. Once there, Molina found that Schulz had panicked, too. He was in full cry when Sal walked in.

  “It’s that incompetent asshole Grafton, and that idiot admiral McKiernan. Those two fools think they can manage this mess! The hell of it is, there probably is a fuckin’ bomb in the harbor, and those imbeciles sat there talking about finding it, a fuckin’ needle in a fuckin’ haystack. Goddamn chinks! I think we should get the Chinese ambassador in here and tell him that if a nuke goes off in Norfolk, we’ll massively retaliate against China. We won’t leave two bricks stuck together in that fuckin’ commie paradise. We’ll cremate every fuckin’ chink between Vietnam and Mongolia. Every last one of the silly sons of bitches—men, women, children and comrades. All of them!”

  When Schulz paused for air, Molina spoke directly to him. “Let me get this straight. You are advising escalating the crisis by threatening the Chinese with all-out nuclear holocaust. They have ICBMs with nuclear warheads, too. What if they decide there is no way off the cliff except to shoot first? Wipe out America and save as many of their people as possible?”

  “They’ll back down,” Schulz insisted.

  “What if they don’t? Are we bluffing? Would you really do it?”

  The silence that follo
wed was broken when the president said, “Thank you, Jurgen, for that thoughtful advice. Any more thoughts, Sal?”

  “Norfolk certainly is in meltdown. Somebody leaked the possibility of a bomb, sure as sin. That was inevitable, I suppose.” Molina sighed. “If Grafton and McKiernan can find the thing before it blows, they will. If they can’t, I don’t think anything we do will matter much. A nuclear explosion in Norfolk, or anywhere else, will have profound, unknown consequences. If it happens … Well, I think we had better await the event and go on from there. Assuming that there is a United States left that we want to live in.”

  Jurgen Schulz started cussing again. Molina had never before heard a Harvard professor throw around so many of those fine old Anglo-Saxon words. Obviously Schulz was a connoisseur. Molina thought it a rare treat to hear those words delivered so passionately.

  When Schulz ran down, the president said, “I don’t know about you people, but I am going to have a nice quiet dinner, drink a couple glasses of wine and try to get some sleep. I suggest everyone here do the same.”

  “What about the congressmen and senators and the press?” his chief of staff asked. “They are besieging us.”

  The president eyed him. “And your point is…?”

  “We can’t—”

  “Oh yes we can.” The president stood and walked out.

  Sal Molina didn’t linger. He went to his office, stirred though his telephone messages, then donned his coat and headed for home. He decided to buy a six-pack on the way, and a pizza. He used his cell phone to order the pizza, which the girl assured him would be ready when he arrived.

  When he got to the Pearly Gate, St. Peter might ask, “So how did you spend your last night on earth?”

  “Eating a Super Supreme Pizza and drinking three beers, sir. I couldn’t think of anything else.”

  “Did you get the traditional crust?”

  “Oh, you bet.”

  *

  Zhang Ping was on his way to the Chans’ restaurant when he passed a convenience store with a telephone kiosk mounted on the wall. America didn’t have many of those anymore, not since the dawn of the cell phone age, so it was a rare opportunity. Zhang did a U-turn and went back to the convenience store, which was still open. Yet empty, with only the clerk behind the counter.

  Zhang examined the phone mounted on the wall. The receiver was off the hook, dangling at the end of the line. Someone had pried open the coin box, ruining it. Zhang put the receiver on the hook, waited a few seconds, then put it to his ear. No dial tone.

  Perhaps there was a telephone in the store.

  He went into the store, walked to the cooler and selected a soft drink. Took it to the counter. Saw the phone on the ledge behind. The young male clerk was of mixed race, perhaps a quarter black, with tattoos on his arms and one running up his neck.

  Zhang put the soft drink on the counter and reached for his wallet with his right hand.

  The clerk picked up the bottle. That was when Zhang reached with his left hand, grabbed a handful of hair and slammed the man’s face down onto the counter. With his right hand he delivered a karate chop to the neck. He heard the bones snap.

  He pushed the clerk away, and the body fell behind the counter. Taking his time, Zhang Ping walked around the counter, picked up the telephone.

  He dialed a number he had memorized six months ago. The call went through.

  Ringing. Once, twice …

  A male voice answered.

  This was an unsecure line, yet Zhang threw caution to the wind. He had to know what was happening. The empty streets, the cell phones that didn’t work, Choy’s disappearance, the massive traffic jams on the exit roads …

  In about a minute he had it all. The news was out. The rumor that there was a Chinese nuke hidden at the naval base had emptied the town. Mass panic. The authorities were searching.

  “Do you have any instructions?” Zhang asked.

  “No.” That meant that the man had heard nothing from Beijing.

  Zhang stood beside his vehicle in the empty parking lot listening to helicopters fly overhead, the low moan of jet engines … stood listening and thinking.

  If Choy Lee hadn’t betrayed him yet, he soon would. That was problem number one. Zhang decided to take care of it first.

  He climbed back into his stolen ride, started the motor and headed for the Chans’ restaurant.

  The lights in the parking lot were still on. Choy’s SUV was sitting in front, nose-in to the building., the only vehicle in the lot. Not another car sat in the parking lots of the other storefronts to his right and left. Sally’s old Toyota must be parked behind the building. Zhang saw the plywood over the window and the CLOSED sign in the front door, which was undoubtedly locked.

  If Choy had called the authorities, this lot would be full of police and government cars. It wasn’t, so he hadn’t. Perhaps there was still time.

  *

  When Choy Lee got to the restaurant, the door was locked. He pounded on it until Sally opened it.

  Of all the things he had to say, the only thing he could think of was, “What happened to your window?”

  “Someone threw a brick through it.” She locked the door behind him and headed for the bar. He trailed along.

  “Want a drink?” she asked.

  “A beer.”

  When he had it, he sat down on a stool. Sally sat on another one at the end of the bar with her gin and tonic. The television was on. “Want to tell me about it?” she asked.

  He stared at the video. And at the little ribbons with headlines running across the bottom.

  “Talk or take your beer and get out,” Sally said.

  “I’m a spy,” he managed.

  “I thought you might be.”

  “Honest to God, I don’t know a damned thing about any nuclear weapons. I don’t even know if there is one. Or two or three or whatever. I’ve been watching the harbor, reporting on navy ship movements, since I got here. That’s all I did.”

  “And Zhang?”

  “I don’t know about him. I thought he was a watcher, too.”

  “Maybe he’s something else,” she said, cool as a frosty morning.

  “Maybe.” He thought about it. His head began to bob up and down. “Yeah, he probably is. I ran out on him while he was tying up the boat this evening. He’s making me nervous.”

  “Don’t you think you should call the FBI?”

  “Christ, Sally, let’s you and me just get the hell outta here.”

  “How?” She gestured at the television, which was showing a sea of taillights on a highway somewhere.

  He sipped at the beer. It was cold and delicious. Sally hadn’t touched her drink since he sat down.

  “You’d leave all these people here to get murdered by Zhang?”

  “You don’t know that he’d do that.” He smacked the bar with a palm. “Damn, woman, we don’t know anything, and if I make that call, you and I won’t be able to get out of here, have a life of our own.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Yes. I want to marry you. I’m in love with you, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  The look on her face softened.

  “Lee,” she said, “if there is only one chance in a thousand that there is a bomb hidden somewhere, we can’t run. You have to call the FBI, and you have to tell them what you know. Help them find Zhang. Unless you do, there is no future for us.”

  “There won’t be one if I do.”

  She didn’t say anything to that.

  “Why the hell do you think I haven’t already called? I want a future for us.”

  “Do it now. There’s the phone, right there on the podium by the door.”

  He turned to stare at it. He had seen Sally answer it a hundred times, taking reservations. He looked back at her. She was watching him.

  “It still works,” she said.

  He walked over to it, picked up the receiver and got a dial tone. Better call 911, he thought. He dialed it. Got only a bu
sy signal. He was going to have to call the FBI, see if anyone was in the office.

  “Where’s your phone book?” he asked.

  She got it from under the bar and brought it over.

  *

  As Zhang approached the door to the restaurant, an old car with a bad muffler drove into the parking lot. The windows were down.

  “It’s another fuckin’ chink,” the driver said. White guy. Young.

  Zhang heard the words but didn’t understand them. He saw the shotgun barrel poking out of the rear window. He fell flat and rolled toward the front of his car as the shotgun boomed. The remaining window in the front of the restaurant dissolved into a cloud of glass fragments, most of which went into the place.

  *

  Choy Lee and Sally fell on the floor as glass fragments sprayed the room. Sally stayed down, but Choy risked a look through the front-door glass. He got a glimpse of Zhang, and the dark car rolling slowly. Then the shotgun settled on the front door. He ducked as it went off and the glass flew into the restaurant.

  “It’s Zhang,” he told Sally, then grabbed her and ran for the back door.

  *

  Zhang Ping was shielded by his car and wouldn’t have done anything if the old clunker hadn’t stopped and the doors opened. Three guys put their feet out. Only one had a gun.

  It was about ten feet to the guy getting out holding the shotgun, a kid with long sloppy hair. Zhang was on him before the boy could get the gun pointed. Jerked it from his hand and used the butt on his throat. The kid went down gurgling with a crushed larynx. He swung the gun onto the driver, another kid, and pulled the trigger. The driver’s face instantly turned to a mass of blood as the shotgun boomed. This guy went over backward onto the asphalt.

  The other young man who had climbed from the car ran. Zhang pumped the gun to chamber another shell, pointed it at the fleeing man, then lowered it.

  He went over to the empty hole in the wall of the restaurant where the window had been and climbed through it.

  The lights were still on. No one in sight. He glanced behind the bar, then ran into the kitchen. The rear door was standing open. He paused to pull the shotgun’s slide back far enough to check that there was a shell in the chamber. He saw brass. He slammed the slide forward and charged out the door.