The Art of War: A Novel (29 page)

The danger, he knew, was that the problem would become so overwhelming that he would lose the ability to think about it rationally.

How did the Chinese think they were going to avoid war with the United States? Nuclear war? As horrific as an explosion in southeastern Virginia might be, nuclear weapons popping in densely populated Chinese metropolitan areas would slaughter people in the hundreds of millions.

He stared at the circles on the map on the table in front of him. Did they think America lacked the will or ability or guts to retaliate?

An attack on the United States. Any plan for that must have been approved at the very top.

If that was what this map represented.
Does it?

What other explanation could there be?

The telephone on the desk buzzed. He picked it up. It was the receptionist. “Sarah Houston to see you, sir.”

“My office. Send her in.”

He extracted himself from the chair at the conference table, picked up the map and went into his office. Sarah was coming through the other door. He waved to the chair nearest the desk, and she seated herself.

“Hey,” he said.

“I have a conversation that you should hear. I put it on your computer.”

Jake didn’t even sit. He bent, typed in some secret passwords, hit the
ENTER
button a couple of times, got to a screen he liked, then waved to his chair. Sarah switched sides of the desk and addressed the keyboard.

“You will have to turn up the volume on that thing,” he said. “I usually leave it off.”

Sarah played with the mouse and keyboard a moment; then came a sound of a phone ringing, then a male voice: “Yeah.”

“Are you out of your mind?” A woman’s voice, one that sounded familiar.

“Say what you want to say. I’m busy.”

“Why did you put that bomb in Carmellini’s place?”

“He saw me. And I owed him. What’s it to you?”

“You know our deal. Only when I give you the target. Being unpredictable keeps you alive.”

“You’re getting your money’s worth.”

A click, then the humming of a dial tone.

Sarah hit a key. “Want to hear it again?” she asked.

“Whose phone?”

“Listen to the voice and tell me.”

She played the conversation again.

“Zoe Kerry,” Grafton said when the dial tone sounded.

“Yep. Her phone. She dialed a number that is a prepaid cell. No name.”

Jake jerked a thumb, and Sarah vacated his chair. She walked around the desk, sat and crossed her legs. He collapsed into his and stared at the computer screen. As he watched, the screen saver began dimming the screen. After another minute, the screen went dark.

“Shit,” he said.

“Do you want a recording of this, or the conversation put in writing?”

“A recording.”

“I’ll put it on a CD.”

“Bring it to me personally. And we’re not going to say anything about this to anyone. Especially Zoe Kerry.”

She nodded her understanding.

“Anything else I need to know?”

“I’m working the phones, Admiral. Checking on the Chinese navy. When I get something, I’ll make an appointment and come up.”

He didn’t look at her, just nodded.

*   *   *

Sarah got out of the office through the door ahead of the executive assistants, who were marching in with their piles of daily reports and memos and directives, all of which needed his attention.

After he had waded through it, a process that took an hour and a half, Grafton shoved the paper back at Roberts and Hurley and said, “I have a research job. Max, are you up for it?”

“Of course, sir.”

“I want résumés of the careers of the top officers in the Chinese navy, say the ten most senior. I need it as soon as I can get it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hop to it,” Jake said, and Anastasia and Max scampered out.

*   *   *

I’m certainly no bomb expert, and I never went to an EOD school. Somehow Grafton never sandwiched that one in. However, I’d watched the experts play with roadside bombs in Iraq and picked up a few things, so I probably knew a bit more about the subject than the proverbial man on the street, may he rest in peace.

Lying in the hospital I had thought about bombs, about fuses and batteries and how to trigger the capacitor to set the whole mess off with a big bang. It kept my mind off Anna Modin.

Driving out to Dulles late in the afternoon, I felt as if I were in some transition world, somewhere between reality and the world as I wished it to be. Anna was gone, to whatever comes next. I didn’t even know if she believed in an afterlife. Somehow that never came up.

The only fact that I had hold of, that kept me going in a semi-straight line, was the fact she was murdered. Probably by the same bastard that had tried to kill Grafton. Who probably did kill the director of the CIA, the director of the NIA and the director of the FBI. Maybe he had something to do with trying to kill the president. I didn’t know, but if I could just get my hands on the guy, I thought I could find out. If his heart didn’t give out under interrogation.

Anyone can be made to talk, to tell everything he knows about any subject on earth, if enough pain is applied. Anyone: you, me, anyone, no matter how tough they are. Or almost anyone. There is a tiny number of people who can endure pain up unto their death and never talk. They are rare individuals. Still, the drawbacks to that technique of obtaining information are twofold. First, the sufferer is likely to tell you what he thinks you want to hear in order to end the pain, so you may be obtaining bullshit you think is gold. Secondly, applying the pain does things to a sane man that are impossible to explain or live with. The torturer becomes an animal.

I didn’t think my conscience would be a big problem. All I had to do, I thought, was think of Anna and tightening the screw would not be difficult. That’s what I told myself, anyway.

First, we had to catch the bastard.

Willie and I went shopping for a battery and the cables to replace the cut ones. We took the shop van. We also bought a mechanic’s mirror, for looking under vehicles, plus a tiny camera on a flexible fiber-optic hose for looking into tight places.

At three that afternoon Travis Clay showed up at the lock shop with two tactical headsets they had borrowed from the Company. We tried them out. The other guys would have them, too. We would be on channel one. The other guys were already on their way to the airport. They would slip into the lot at intervals and do a look around, as surreptitiously as possible, then find parking places. We hoped there would be parking places. Although we were interested in an area of about fifteen acres in that hundred-acre lot, Dulles was a busy place and parking places were hard to come by. We would just have to do the best we could.

Everyone would be in place, surrounding the old red Benz, when Willie and I showed up at five o’clock to do our thing.

We chatted on the tac net on the way to the airport. Everyone in place. Not ideal positions, but at least they were arranged around the Benz. They had done some looking, but not much. If our rabbit saw them searching the lot, he would boogie. If he was there. We were hoping he was. I had my fingers crossed.

I had my Kimber in my shoulder holster. Willie wouldn’t carry a gun even if he had one: He was a two-time loser, and being caught with a gun would have probably got him prosecuted as a habitual criminal, which would have meant a serious stretch in the pen, maybe life. He wouldn’t have touched a shooter even if it had tits on it.

We put on coveralls with the name
WILLIE’S LOCK SHOP
emblazoned on the back. They looked as if they hadn’t seen a laundry since last spring. Willie slid behind the wheel of the van, and I climbed into the passenger’s seat.

On the way to the airport, Willie had second thoughts. “What if this guy has a bomb rigged up with radio control, Tommy? You thought about that? He see you near that car and push the button and drive off while you takin’ the long slide to hell.”

“I don’t think that’s likely,” I explained. “He can’t sit in that parking lot around the clock, and he hasn’t the foggiest when I might show up. If I do.”

“Man, ’less that fool’s there, he put a bomb in your car to pop when the hood is lifted, it might blow up a couple of mechanics from Joe’s Garage.”

“You don’t really think he gives a damn, do you?”

Willie shrugged. “Maybe not. But if there is a bomb in the car, he oughta be in the next state over. If he’s got a lick of sense.”

“Willie, if he had a lick of sense he wouldn’t be assassinating people. This is a special kind of dude.”

“Special,” Willie agreed, his head bobbing.

“He likes killing people. Hold that thought.”

“And us standin’ round that ol’ Benz beggin’ him to do it to us. Talk about lackin’ sense!”

Actually, I was kinda hoping this guy would take a shot at me. And miss, of course. Then the snake-eaters and I would have his homicidal ass to do with as we chose. As
I
chose. And I had plans.

Got to catch him first, though. Got to catch him.

*   *   *

We drove into the long-term parking lot, took a ticket and went creeping down the aisles. “Slow, man, slow,” I said as I scanned every car in sight. “We’re a couple of mechs looking for this dead car.”

“In a lock-shop van!”

Well, it was the best we could do on short notice.

Fortunately, the area where the Benz was parked wasn’t full. There were other cars creeping in, looking for parking places, and here and there people dragging suitcases on wheels and queuing up at the bus stops, waiting for a ride to the terminal, which was over a half mile away. Jets took off and landed, although the noise wasn’t loud. Amazing how they had quieted those things the last few years. Now at the airport jet noise was just a background drone.

“There it is,” I said, pointing. “Park right in front of it.”

He did. I got out, went around back and opened the doors and took out the mirror. I didn’t rubberneck. That was Willie’s job. He stayed behind the wheel and was supposed to be looking right, left and ahead.

Of course, it was possible our bomber wasn’t in the lot but was somewhere a good distance away, with a rifle. That seemed unlikely, although possible. Hell, anything was possible. The hairs on the back of my arms seemed to come to attention as I walked up to the Benz and looked ’er over. Looked in every window, walked all the way around the car, keeping moving.

I may be a stud, but I didn’t have it in me to just stand there posing for a sniper. Then I slid the mirror, which was on a four-foot handle, under the car and began looking. It was an interesting device, with a twist-grip handle that allowed the operator to adjust the angle of the mirror. I did the driver’s side first. Didn’t see anything. Worked my way around. Looked up into the engine compartment, then under the passenger side, then under the trunk area. Didn’t see a thing that wasn’t supposed to be there.

After I had done the whole car, I put the mirror in the back of the van and took out the optical device on the flexible probe. It even had a little spotlight on it.

“You have the eyeballs going, right?” I said to Willie.

“No, fool. I’m takin’ a nap.”

I inserted the optical device under the bottom of the hood. Tried to get it over the top of the radiator for a look. I couldn’t. The gap between the radiator and sheet metal was too small. After five minutes of trying, I gave up. There was nothing for it but to pop the hood and take a peek.

First I had to open the car. I had the keys in my pocket, but if there was a watcher, that wouldn’t do. He hadn’t used keys, and after all, this was a lock-shop van. I got the tool we used to open cars after people locked their keys inside and slid it down between the driver’s window and the outside sheet metal of the door.

Manipulated the flat tool a bit, and the lock popped.

I put it back in the van, like a careful workman, then opened the driver’s door. Very slowly, alert for the slightest sign of resistance. There was none. I reached in, pulled the little handle to release the hood, then closed the door and went around front.

“There’s a guy watchin’ us,” Willie said on the net. “Behind the van. He’s out of his car, foolin’ with a little suitcase and watching us.”

“Got him.” That was Doc Gordon.

I took the video probe over to the front of the Benz and reached inside to ease the hood off its latch. Then I planned to insert the probe for another look. I was trying hard to look nonchalant, just a workman doing his job.

“He’s walkin’ this way.” Willie’s voice in my ear. “He dumped the suitcase. Comin’ quick.”

That’s when I looked. Yep, it was him. About a hundred feet away and striding along.

I dropped the tool and ran toward him. He was in the middle of the traffic lane. He stopped with his feet spread and raised a pistol he had been carrying down by his leg. I hadn’t seen the pistol when I started toward him. It was too damn late to stop.

He took a two-handed grip, raised the weapon, which seemed to have a silencer on it.

I was going at him on a fast lope. I juked left, the pistol flashed and popped, and I faked right and went left again. Another shot, another miss.

Thinking about it later, I was amazed at how cool I had been as the assassin blazed away. Pulling my own shooter didn’t even cross my mind. I wanted this son of a bitch alive. All I can tell you is that right then I guess I didn’t give a good goddamn.

The fact that I was still running toward him must have made him lose the tactical picture. He never saw or heard the car coming up behind him. Doc Gordon’s front grille caught the shooter in the ass and he went forward onto his face.

Doc slammed on the brakes and I sprinted up, kicked the pistol away. The guy was stunned. Spread-eagle on the pavement. I rolled him over. Yep. It was the Dumpster diver.

Doc was leaning out the car window.

“It’s him, all right. Back up, then run over his elbow.”

I stuck his right arm out and stood back. Doc leaned out the window and eased the car forward. The left front tire went right over the guy’s elbow, crushing it. He screamed.