The Art of War: A Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  I passed it back. “Is she demented?”

  “Quite the contrary.”

  “I’ll work on her in my spare time. If I have any.”

  “You won’t. I want you to put surveillance cameras in my condo building and the garage where I park my car. Rig it up so Callie can look at it on her home computer.”

  “Okay. I can requisition the stuff I need. I’ll need a signature on the form.”

  “I can do that. I want it done as soon as possible. Callie is worried.”

  “It’ll take me a couple of days if I do it by myself. If I can get some help, just a few hours.”

  “Okay.”

  “You going to want the system monitored by anyone besides your wife?”

  “I was thinking of your friend Willie the Wire. And you and me.”

  “Why not a tech-support dude?”

  “The less talk around here, the better. And for what it is worth, Callie likes Willie.”

  “She and I may be his only fans on this little round rock. I’ll see if I can get this chore done in the morning.”

  “Fine. Then I have another little chore for you. Paul Reinicke, the DNI, and six other people were killed in an apparent gas explosion in his apartment building last night. Three badly burned, two less so. The explosion took out Reinicke’s apartment, the apartment above him and the two on either side. The fire department managed to save the building, but it was touch and go.”

  “I saw a bit about it on the television in the cafeteria.”

  “I want you to work with our FBI liaison officer. Mario Tomazic drowned, Reinicke blown up … It begins to smell to high heaven.”

  “Can’t the liaison guy handle it?”

  “It’s a she. And yes, she’s an FBI agent on temporary assignment to us and very competent. I want you right there beside her.”

  I didn’t like anything about this. I didn’t know anything about law enforcement except how not to get caught. Hanging with cops wasn’t on my bucket list. “Why does she need help?” I asked.

  “I don’t know that she does. You’re there as my eyes and ears.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I’m giving you an order. I have transferred you to my staff.”

  “Oh, wow. I’m floating upward through the goo toward the top. Is there a promotion or pay raise involved?”

  “Ah, no.”

  “You’re the boss,” I replied.

  “Don’t you forget it.” That was the Jake Grafton I knew. The old attack pilot. Retired admiral. Warrior extraordinaire. A real softie.

  I noodled it a bit. “How did this ace FBI female get to be the CIA’s liaison person?”

  “Her name is Zoe Kerry. She was in a couple of shootouts. Killed some people. We had an opening and the FBI wanted to give her some easier duty for a while so she could get her head on straight, so they sent her to us.”

  I was less than thrilled. “Zoe Kerry. By any chance is she related to Unbelievably Small?”

  “I don’t know. Ask her.”

  “How come I don’t get some easy duty occasionally?”

  “You have my phone number. Day or night.”

  “Just what am I supposed to be looking for?”

  “If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you on this, Tommy. Use your head. Now I’ve got work to do. Beat it.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” I stood, saluted and stalked out. Damn him anyway.

  The secretary was still at her desk.

  “You’ll be delighted to hear,” I said softly, leaning forward as if I were sharing a secret, “he was very impressed with my work obtaining Russia’s diabolical plan.”

  “I am so happy for you.” She didn’t smile.

  “And now I’m off to more fabulous adventures. I need the office number of the liaison people, please.” I flashed her a winning smile so that she would know I was a trustworthy son of the Red, White and Blue.

  Jennifer consulted her Tippy-Top Secret list and gave me the info.

  I decided today wasn’t the day to try to get better acquainted with Jennifer. There was always tomorrow, I hoped. I thanked her, blessed her with another gracious smile and made tracks.

  Zoe Kerry, the FBI’s former ace shooter and now CIA liaison to that fearsome federal agency, wasn’t in her cubicle at the Liaison Office, which handled agency relations with Congress and other federal agencies. I knew the head guy, Charlie Wilson, and chinned with him for a minute. He knew, he said, that the director’s office was sending me down here temporarily.

  Wilson was a tennis nut, ten or so years older than me, who always looked harassed. Dealing with the people on Capitol Hill takes a certain talent, and he had it. Still, he looked as if he had ulcers. I got comfortable in one of his two guest chairs. “I need a favor,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  I fished Mom’s envelope from my coat pocket and dropped it on his desk. “That’s a knife and fork with fingerprints. Some mine. I need to know who else’s prints are on there.” The only way he could get them, of course, was to have the FBI lift the prints, classify them and run them through their database.

  “Got a file number?”

  “Nope.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Tommy. You gotta have a file number. You know that.”

  I leaned forward a little and whispered, “It’s a secret.”

  “If this is some broad you’re trying to make, forget it.”

  “I don’t need fingerprints for that. Can’t you make up a file number?”

  “Oh, hell.”

  “I’d really appreciate the favor, Charlie.”

  “If it’s anybody but Joe Six-Pack, you are going to have some explaining to do.”

  “Thanks.” I got out of my chair, shook hands, said I’d see him tomorrow, then headed for the barn.

  I picked up milk and eggs at a convenience store and bought a sub on the way home, home being an apartment in the Virginia suburbs. I had moved there from my place in Maryland to get a slightly better commute, lower taxes and an easier drive to and from Dulles Airport. Given my travels hither and yon, I didn’t own a pet, not even a goldfish, so the dump was always lonely. Especially after ten delightful days in glorious California.

  The super had my mail, which consisted of a few bills and lots of junk flyers. I found a college football game on television and left it on for the noise. Sipped a beer, ate the sub, put my underwear and dirty shirts in the washing machine, settled in on the couch to finish the beer … and woke up in the wee hours. Ah, the glamorous, exciting life of an intelligence professional.

  *

  FBI Director James Maxwell ate dinner with a group of friends every Tuesday night at the National Press Club in Washington, where he was a member. He treasured the social interlude and rarely missed a Tuesday evening dinner unless work obligations prevented it. He tried to ensure they didn’t.

  None of his five friends, all male, were in law enforcement. They consisted of a banker, a scientist at the Naval Ordnance Lab, a newspaperman, a novelist who used to be a college professor, and a retired investor. They had been fraternity chums in college and had kept up their friendship through the years, kept it up by working at it. The ironclad rule at the dinner table was no shop talk. Sports, politics, international affairs, movies, food, cigars and families were the usual topics of conversation. None of his friends mentioned the recent demise of the CIA director and national security adviser because they knew the FBI was investigating, and Maxwell certainly wouldn’t. He left all that at the office. He wouldn’t talk about ongoing investigations to anyone outside the FBI or the Justice Department, not even his wife.

  One of the attractions of the National Press Club was the people you ran into there. Of course there were the media types, newspaper editors, reporters and columnists, television personalities and talk show hosts, lobbyists for every industry and cause under the sun, and the occasional senator or congressman or big-business mogul. These were the people who made Washington the center of the universe. The movers and
shakers. A word here, a handshake there, a smile, and James Maxwell felt like one of them. He liked that feeling. There were times when he needed it.

  So this evening he finished his dinner and had one more drink with his friends—he wouldn’t be driving—and wished them good-bye. He paused to chat with a senator for a minute or two.

  *

  Fish drove up in a garbage truck behind the press club, where the three big Dumpsters were located, and was gratified to see the limo was still parked over against the side of the concrete wall, out of the way. It had been there the last three Tuesday evenings when he checked. And this Dumpster area had no security cameras aimed at it. He had checked that, too.

  He stopped the big garbage truck in the street and, using his mirrors, backed it in toward the nearest Dumpster. This truck was equipped with a power lift that picked up the Dumpster and emptied it into the bed of the truck. The truck beeped as he backed it up. Almost to the Dumpster, but not quite. A light rain was falling, and he had the windshield wipers going. Little wind.

  He put the transmission in neutral, set the parking brake and climbed down from the cab. Walked around to the driver’s side of the limo. There was about three feet of clearance between the car and the concrete retaining wall. The driver of the limo was sitting in it, wearing earphones. An iPod, it looked like.

  The driver saw him coming and ran down the window. Fish put his hand in his right coat pocket.

  “Hey,” the driver said.

  Then Fish shot him. Didn’t take the pistol out of his pocket. Fired right through the coat. The bullet slammed the driver sideways. Fish removed the revolver from his pocket, checked that the hammer wasn’t jammed with a piece of cloth, then looked at the driver. He had taken a round in the neck. Fish leaned in and shot him in the head. Then he put the revolver back in his pocket.

  Fish walked around the front of the limo and climbed back into the cab of the garbage truck, which was idling nicely. As he surveyed the street—it was nearly eleven o’clock, and no pedestrians were around—he picked up the 12-gauge pump shotgun on the seat beside him and checked it. Safety off. He pointed it at the driver’s door, so when he opened the door and started to climb out the weapon would be pointed in the right direction, ready to fire. He had used a hacksaw to cut the barrel down to twelve inches, so the front bead sight was gone. No matter. At this range, he would merely point and shoot.

  He waited. Listened to the idling diesel engine.

  He had waylaid the driver of the garbage truck an hour ago. Killed him as he climbed out of the truck. The driver was now in the bed with the garbage.

  Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Twenty. About twenty-three minutes after he shot the limo driver, Fish glanced at his watch. He wasn’t nervous, was in no hurry. He was ready, had a good plan, and it would work. He knew it would. He kept his eyes on the truck’s right rearview mirror. In it he could see the back door of the club that led out onto the loading platform.

  Two minutes or so later he saw three men come out that door. That was right. Maxwell and two bodyguards. They crossed the loading platform and went down the stairs behind the truck and a green garbage Dumpster.

  Fish opened the driver’s door and stepped out, with the shotgun pointing.

  Then they were there, coming from behind the Dumpster, heading for the limo. He had the shotgun up.

  The first shot was for the lead man. The man in the middle, Maxwell, soaked up the second round of #4 buckshot, and the third man got the third round. All body shots.

  Fish worked the slide again, catching the third spent shell in his hand, then closing the action. He picked up the two spent shells at his feet, then walked over to the men lying on the concrete. They were bleeding profusely from torso wounds. Fish was taking no chances. He fed two more shells from his left coat pocket into the magazine of the shotgun and shot Maxwell in the head, blowing it apart. Pumping the gun, he shot each of the others in the head. Picked up the spent shells.

  He went back to the truck, opened the door, tossed the shotgun into the passenger seat and climbed aboard. Brake off, transmission in gear, he pulled out onto the street and drove away.

  *

  The next morning I coffeed, ate two boiled eggs and called my lock-shop partner, Willie Varner, also known as Willie the Wire. “How’s everything?” I asked.

  “You just out of jail, or was it the hospital?” Willie was habitually surly, and more so in the mornings. I had lived with that for years, ever since we went into business together.

  “Hey, I’ve been out of town.”

  “This shop is a business, Tommy, and as a co-owner, you should check on it more often.”

  “I’m in business with a black Bill Gates. I trust you, dude.”

  “The women come in to see the Great Carmellini. And I need you to sign job bids.”

  “And I need some help today,” I told him. “I’ll be there around ten o’clock. We’ll close the shop and open it tomorrow.”

  “Any money in this?”

  “Contract wages. By the hour.”

  “Well, a little extra pocket money would be helpful,” Willie admitted.

  “Have any bids ready to sign. I’ll see you at ten or thereabouts.” I rang off.

  Willie Varner was about twenty years older than me, and probably the best lock picker alive. He had taught me a lot. He gained his skill picking hotel locks and carrying out the guests’ luggage, unfortunately without their permission. The second time he got out of prison for those activities, he decided to go straight. That’s when he and I went into the lock-shop business together. Despite his abrasive, sour personality, he was my best friend and he could keep his mouth firmly shut. I trusted him, for one very good reason: He knew if he crossed me no one would ever find his body.

  *

  Zoe Kerry was a hard-body of medium height, with short dark hair and short fingernails without color. She had a nice jawline and a pleasant face without laugh lines. I tried to decide if she was a runner or tennis player or just an exercise nut.

  “Name’s Tommy Carmellini,” I said. “Grafton sicced me on you. I’m supposed to follow you around.”

  She eyed me without enthusiasm. “He sent me a memo.”

  “Great.”

  “Why did he send you?”

  “He didn’t say.” I shrugged.

  She thought I was lying, which was ridiculous. She also thought I was a boob, and maybe that was the best way to play it.

  “I don’t think he likes me,” I said earnestly. “But they have to give me something to do while I’m waiting for my court date. Grafton said you were FBI on assignment.”

  “Admiral Grafton.”

  “Yeah, that Grafton. He said you shot a couple of folks and came to us to unlax and rewind.” I smiled.

  “Umph.”

  “So what’s on your agenda today?”

  “The agenda is finding out where the FBI was on Paul Reinicke’s and Mario Tomazic’s accidents, and now James Maxwell, the FBI director.”

  I goggled at her.

  “Maxwell, two bodyguards and his limo driver were assassinated last night. Haven’t you heard?”

  “No.” I don’t normally listen to the news or read the paper in the morning, as both of them have detrimental effects on my digestive system. But I didn’t share that personal info with her.

  She gave me the bare-bones particulars. She was slightly distracted.

  “Did you know any of the three of them?”

  “One of the bodyguards.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.

  “He was…” She left it there.

  “Unfortunately I cannot accompany you today,” I said apologetically, “as I have another errand. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

  “I’ll try to stifle myself until then.”

  “Of course.”

  *

  It was about ten thirty when I showed up at the lock shop with all the goodies stowed in the car. Willie and I transferred them to the shop van, which already
had all the tools we would need arranged in belts and bins inside. We were a one-stop lock shop, modern as hell and really up to date. Willie was already in his lock-shop coverall, so I stepped inside and pulled one on over my trousers and shirt.

  As I dressed, Willie said, “So, spy, who we gonna bug?”

  “Jake Grafton.”

  He stared at me. He had obviously been reading the papers, too, and knew that Grafton was the new acting director. “You’re shittin’ me, right?”

  “Nope. At his request. Actually, I think, at his wife’s request.”

  Willie mulled it. He still had all his hair, now flecked with gray. If you could have gotten a suit and tie on him, you might have labeled him distinguished. He did indeed own such an outfit. He bought it to be buried in. I saw him wear it just once, a few years back.

  When we were rolling along toward the Grafton pad in Roslyn, he said, “Man, they’re poppin’ these big government dudes one after another. I saw on the morning TV that the director of the FBI, Maxwell, got shot to death last night. Behind the National Press Club. You hear about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shotgun. Him and two bodyguards. His driver was whacked as he sat in the limo. Four FBI dudes, deader than hell.”

  “This morning?”

  “Well, near midnight, I heard on the TV. They’re still lookin’ for the shooter. A fuckin’ hit. Four FBI dudes, just like that.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Willie motored on anyway. “Third big government honcho this week, the TV babe said. Tomazic, Reinicke, now Maxwell, the FBI head weenie. Room at the top, that’s what they’re making. Room at the top so all the people in the chain can move up one notch. Like a cakewalk. ‘Ever’body take one step forward.’ I kinda figure it’s raghead terrorists or some frustrated paper-pusher who never got the promotion he figured he’d earned.”

  “You think?”

  “Kinda looks like that. But maybe it’s someone gettin’ even. Maybe he’ll get the warden at that federal pen in Williamsburg, South Carolina, next. That cocksucker gave me a really hard time. Told me I was too sassy. He didn’t like no sass, y’know, and him bein’ the warden and all, he don’t have to take much. None, actually. He ran that damn prison like he was Adolf Hitler’s bastard kid on a mission for God.”