The Art of War: A Novel (41 page)

“We’re about halfway through searching the base,” Spiers reported. “We’ve been through every building and are doing the manholes. The warehouses will take at least two more days to search with the people we have. SEALs are searching the piers and river and offshore, with no luck. We’ve even had a destroyer search with the new sonar. Nothing yet.”

“Have you told your people what they’re looking for?” Sal Molina asked the naval officers.

“We told them that a shape, a dummy weapon, had been hidden, and that was what we were looking for,” Spiers said. “We’re not looking for a lost diamond ring or somebody’s poodle.”

Fitch nodded. “I told the skippers what they were searching for.”

“That’s how the secret got out,” McKiernan said heavily to Molina. To Spiers and Fitch he said, “You both made the right decision. In the age of the Internet, it was an impossible secret to keep.”

“I suppose,” Sal Molina said unhappily. He pulled his cell phone from his coat pocket, saw that he had no service and went out to find an empty room with a hardwired telephone so he could call the White House.

“The question is,” Jake Grafton said, “what the Chinese reaction will be. They haven’t detonated the bomb yet, but they may decide to do so in the next minute, hour, day or week.”

“We’ve got to turn those ships around.”

“We’re screwed if we do,” Jake said. “The instant the Chinese get wind of that, they may pop the thing. Why wait? You know as well as I do they’re waiting for more ships.”

“The
Lincoln
will be here tomorrow.”

“I know, and they do, too.”

“What remains to be done,” McKiernan asked Spiers and Fitch, “to find this bomb? Or bombs? Are we looking at a day, a week, a month? How long?”

“We need to get the SEAL boss, Joe Child, in here.”

“Call him.”

Child was there in five minutes. He had been in Spiers’ offices looking for him and been told he was in Base Ops at Chambers Field, so he had been on the way.

They were discussing what remained to be searched when Molina came back.

Another helicopter settled on the ramp outside the building. Jake heard it, glanced through the window and saw Harry Estep and National Security Adviser Jurgen Schulz walking quickly toward the Ops Building. Molina saw them, too.

They came into the conference room without fanfare and grabbed seats around the table.

“What the fuck is going on around here?” Schulz demanded.

“We’re trying to figure that out,” McKiernan answered coolly.

“All this crap about a Chinese bomb—what evidence is there that there
is
a Chinese bomb?” Harry Estep asked harshly. “Or a bomb, period?”

Several people started to talk at once, but Molina silenced them all without even raising his voice. “There isn’t enough evidence to convince a jury of anything beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said, “but this isn’t a court of law. There is enough evidence to convince me—and the president—that the Chinese government
may
be plotting an attack on the United States. Or another country or group
may
be planning an attack that we will blame on the Chinese. I don’t know if there is more than one chance in a thousand that there is a bomb. But I guarantee you, if one explodes, the aftermath will be absolutely catastrophic. Now let’s cut the bullshit and figure out what the United States government is going to do to prevent an explosion. Admiral McKiernan?”

The CNO looked at Joe Child and Butler Spiers. “How long to complete the search?”

“To an absolute certainty, a month,” Child said.

McKiernan made an angry gesture. “None of that! I want the bomb found by noon tomorrow.” He looked at his watch. “You have nineteen hours. You two go get at it.”

“Yes, sir,” they said almost in unison, then rose and left the room.

When the door closed, Schulz said, “It doesn’t really matter what you want. What about all these people on the base? What about the two million people in the metropolitan area?”

“I’m not God. I’m doing what I can do,” McKiernan shot back.

“If our mad bombers are after the ships, why not get the ones that are here under way and stop any more from coming in?”

McKiernan introduced his senior aide. “This is Rear Admiral Suzanne Deighton. She is in charge of the navy’s IT systems. Admiral?”

Deighton didn’t hem and haw. “The Chinese have been reading our operational stuff for several years. Our latest analysis is that they may also be reading our encrypted message traffic.”

“For the love of God!” Schulz roared. “And you have done nothing about it?”

McKiernan didn’t turn a hair. He cast a cold eye on the national security adviser. “Don’t play the innocent with me. Your staff has been told all about this problem. We do what we can with the money in our budget and the people we have or can hire. This isn’t the time or place to cut up the corpse.”

Molina said smoothly, “Admiral Grafton. Your opinion, please.”

Jake Grafton’s gaze circled the room. “If we tell our carrier battle groups to go somewhere else or remain at sea, the Chinese may learn of it and instruct the triggerman, or men, to blow the weapon. There will be no profit in waiting. On the other hand, if we bring all these ships in here and then they blow it, we have just screwed ourselves.”

“That’s the problem in a nutshell,” Molina said softly. “Thank you, Jake.”

*   *   *

The meeting broke up then. However, McKiernan, Grafton and Molina made no move to leave their chairs. The CNO signaled to Admiral Fitch to remain.

When everyone else had left, McKiernan said to Fitch, “I want you to put senior officers on two CODs”—carrier onboard delivery planes—“and have them fly out to the carriers that are due in on the twentieth and twenty-second. The admirals are to be told orally that they are to remain at sea until further orders. Nothing over the air, encrypted or otherwise. No crew Internet. No ship-to-ship voice. Absolute radio silence.”

“Aye aye, sir. What about the
Lincoln,
which is coming in tomorrow?”

McKiernan and Jake Grafton exchanged glances. “Let her come,” Jake said softly. “The Chinese expect her.”

Cart McKiernan nodded. He was a gambler, too.

*   *   *

Zhang Ping used his binoculars when he was in the mouth of the Elizabeth River, only half a mile from the carrier piers. He ignored the two giant carriers berthed there, and the amphibious assault ship covered with helicopters, and studied the harbor craft. One seemed to be anchored. The Whaler was barely moving, to make it a more stable platform for viewing with binoculars. Still, the boat’s motion made it difficult to discern details. He concentrated fiercely. As he watched, a man wearing a black wet suit and scuba gear came out of the water. People on deck helped him with his gear.

He knew what they were doing. Searching the water around the carrier piers, inspecting the bottoms of the ships, searching …

A harbor patrol craft came his way. Zhang put the binoculars in his lap. A man on a loud-hailer shouted something in English.

Choy Lee translated. “This area is closed. Turn around.”

Zhang Ping wheeled the Whaler into a tight turn, pointed her north and added throttle. The twin 225-horsepower Mercury outboard engines began to sing. The Whaler came up on the plane.

Well,
Zhang thought,
they are taking precautions. They are alert. Yet they are searching in the wrong place. By the time they get to the right place, it will be too late!

*   *   *

Sally Chan was worried. Choy Lee hadn’t returned her call, and when she tried to call him the cellular network was dead. The call wouldn’t go through. There was no ring tone, nothing. High-tech junk.

The restaurant was empty. Her mother had gone home because there was nothing for her to do. The other waitress hadn’t come in, and probably wouldn’t. Perhaps she was in the traffic jam for one of the tunnels or highways out.

Sally was sitting at the bar nursing a glass of wine when the window in the dining area, next to the parking lot, exploded. Glass showered across a dozen tables.

As she went to look, she heard a revving engine and squealing tires. She found a brick under one of the tables. Only a few shards of glass remained in the window. The breeze came in the broken window.

Her father came from the kitchen to see what had happened. He too had been following the panic by checking the television occasionally. “We’re Chinese,” he said, unable to keep the disgust from his voice. “That’s enough for some people.”

“Stupid teenagers,” Sally said.

She went for the broom and dustpan. The good news was that behind the restaurant in the area where the garbage cans were kept were six sheets of plywood under an overhang, for whenever a hurricane threatened. There hadn’t been one in years, yet the plywood had been there since the last storm because eventually, someday, another storm would come.
That’s life,
Sally thought.
A storm always comes sooner or later.
She began looking around for the hammer and nails.

She had finished nailing plywood over the broken window opening and was putting the hammer away when the telephone in the restaurant rang. She raced for it and grabbed the thing off its cradle.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said breezily. “Just got into port. My cell phone isn’t working.”

“Where have you been?”

“Fishing. With Zhang. Why?”

“Have you talked to anyone, watched any television?”

“No.”

“The Tidewater area is in meltdown. The roads are packed with people fleeing the area. The rumor on the television and Internet is that the Chinese have a bomb planted at the Norfolk naval base and are going to explode it. All hell has broken loose.”

Silence. Then Choy’s voice. “When we get the boat put away, I’ll come over. You’re going to stay at the restaurant, right?”

“Yes.”

“See you in a while,” he said distractedly, and broke the connection.

Sally stared at the phone for a moment, then put it in her pocket. That tone in his voice … that had been ominous.

Oh,
she thought,
I am just being foolish. Choy Lee is a good man. He wouldn’t be a part of mass murder! My God, a vicious rumor, and you are suspecting everyone. Sally, get a grip!

She went back to the bar and made herself a gin and tonic with a slice of lime. Her father came in from the kitchen. “Go home,” she told him. “Mom probably needs you with her.”

“We’re closed,” he said. He kissed her and walked to the front door, turned the sign so it read
CLOSED
, and manipulated the lock so that it latched the door behind him.

Sally sipped her drink. After a bit, she turned off the television and sat in silence staring at the interior of the little business that had supported her family, and her, for over twenty years. This little piece of America.

*   *   *

The telephone call with Sally had given Choy Lee an epiphany. Suddenly the last six months of watching the fleet, Zhang and his boat—it all came into blindingly clear focus. A bomb! To destroy the United States Navy’s ships! To destroy the heart of the American fleet!

He couldn’t imagine how the news got out, nor did he care. It fit! He had no doubt whatsoever.

Zhang was still standing in the boat with the fuel-hose nozzle in his hand, filling the Whaler’s tanks. Choy didn’t wait to try out his poker face on Zhang. He walked across the parking lot, got into his SUV, started it and drove away.

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.