The Art of War: A Novel (21 page)

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.

“I’m in the dungeon at Dulles, asshole,” I roared. “Get someone over here to get me out.” I slammed the phone down.

“Who was that you were talking to?” the cop watching me asked.

“The director of the CIA.”

“Right.” He raised an eyebrow. “We get guys like you ten times a week. You may be King Shit in Indianapolis, Cass, but you’re just mouse shit here. Empty your pockets, turn them inside out and give me your belt and shoelaces.”

As I did so, he added, “If you had a lick of sense, you’d have called a lawyer.”

I settled into my own private cell. The place smelled of disinfectant and urine, the eau de jour of all the lockups I have ever been in. Willie Varner would toss his cookies after one good sniff. My back hurt like hell.

I’d been in there an hour when a grizzled sergeant with a scarred face came for me. “You really are a spook!” he said in amazement.

“Did the president call?”

“Your assistant director dropped by.”

“May his tribe increase.”

“You wouldn’t have been arrested if you hadn’t—”

“And you are really a bunch of damn fools. If you had bothered to ask why I was chasing someone, you might have made a significant arrest. As it is, he made a clean getaway. Congratulations. The next assassination in DC, I hope you bastards choke on it.”

That certainly wasn’t a nice thing to say. Maybe they didn’t deserve it, but I was kinda pissed by then.

“The man running from me left a carry-on somewhere,” I told the sergeant. “If you paragons of law enforcement get your act together, maybe you can find it. And my stuff. And maybe I can spot him on the videotape of people in the terminal.”

*   *   *

Fish stood behind a car in the long-term parking lot, a huge affair of a hundred or so acres, packed with cars, and tried to catch his breath. The big man, some kind of athlete, running him down, and he didn’t have a weapon. Just off the plane with no way to defend himself against a man six inches taller and thirty or forty pounds heavier who ran like a deer. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw that face—the square jaw, the look—and he knew ice-cold terror for the first time in his life. So he had run.

What to do now?

He had a car, parked somewhere in this flat monument to the air age, but they made videotapes of every license plate that went through the tollbooths. And he had driven his own car.

He tried to calm down and list his options. Time was pressing. Soon the man who chased him would get the police interested and they would start searching this lot. He had to be gone by then. Being gone meant wheels, since Dulles was twenty-five miles from downtown Washington.

He could steal a license plate and put it on his own car … but he didn’t have a screwdriver. He could break into someone’s car and steal that … but again, no screwdriver or pocketknife to strip the ignition wires. He could go catch a bus downtown … take a taxi … steal a police car …

A man walking toward him pulling a suitcase decided him. He let the man pass while he played with his cell phone, then, when he was twenty feet ahead, pocketed the cell phone and fell in behind him. A black guy, wearing a suit, maybe 160 or 170 pounds.

After walking another hundred yards and changing rows, the man pulled a set of keys from his pocket. Up ahead a car flashed its lights. Now it beeped. More lights flashing. The guy was playing with the fob as he walked. Some kind of midsized sedan.

Fish lengthened his stride. Came up behind the man silently and quickly as he reached his car. Grabbed the man and slammed his head against the sheet metal of the car, denting it. The man went down, dropping the keys. Fish picked them up, then opened the car door and looked inside.

Yes! The ticket to get out of the parking lot was over the visor.

He scanned around—no one watching.

Used a button on the key fob to open the trunk and lifted the man into it. Slammed the lid and looked around. No one staring or pointing or screaming.

He pushed the guy’s suitcase onto the backseat, then got into the driver’s seat and put on his seat belt. Inserted the key in the ignition. Started the car. Put it in reverse and carefully backed out of the parking space.

The car had been in the lot four days. Fish paid the lady with cash, then headed for Washington.

As he drove he thought about the man who had chased him. He recognized him—the guy who gave him a pizza when he was casing the Grafton building the day before the Internet crashed. That guy recognized him in the airport. Fish assumed the meeting had been by chance, a coincidence, one of those things.

He went over the situation again. The cops would scarf up his carry-on bag, with his fingerprints and enough DNA to trace his family tree. Maybe he could get some help to deal with that. The guy in the trunk could just stay there. He would abandon the car, wipe the steering wheel and door latch and trunk lid and walk away.

His real problem was the guy who chased him. True, he didn’t see him plant the bomb in Grafton’s apartment, but he put him there the day before. And he had chased him with mayhem on his mind. That guy … he was going to have to do something about that guy.

Fish sighed. His heart rate was back to normal. He kept his eyes on traffic and drove carefully. And thought about being scared. He had peeped into the pit and didn’t like what he saw.

*   *   *

My flight to Switzerland left without me. When it pushed back, I was still in the airport cops’ office looking at videotapes. And I found him. By six o’clock that evening, we had reviewed enough videotapes to determine that our John Doe had flown in on a flight from Seattle. The airline provided the passenger list, and we sat staring at it. Which one was he?

I tried to decide why our Dumpster diver didn’t exit the secure area down the escalator to the baggage carousels, and concluded that he had probably missed the sign. I knew the Dulles terminal intimately since I was in and out of there at least six times a year, so that was a mistake I wouldn’t make. These things happen to people unfamiliar with the terminal. Tourists from the provinces drop dead at Dulles every day when their bladders burst because they can’t find a restroom.

Armed with his photo, the airport cops went to interview the airline personnel. One policeman sheepishly turned over the bag with my book and newspaper, and my carry-on, all of which were rescued by some family from Scranton on their way home from France. The Dumpster diver’s carry-on wasn’t found. Someone had probably helped himself. Or herself. Washington is that kind of town.

I called Jake Grafton on his cell. He listened until I ran down and said, “Schedule another flight. If they won’t bump someone for tomorrow’s, call me.”