The Art of War: A Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  “In light of the bomb in your condo, maybe it’s time to panic,” I said.

  “I would bring in troops now, if it were my decision,” Grafton said thoughtfully. “One more assassination of a high public official will certainly create real panic. Which is worse, another death or the appearance of overreacting?”

  I was used to the way Grafton thought through problems. He was just thinking aloud, so his listeners could see where his thoughts were going. Sort of like shining a flashlight on the forest ahead, trying to see the trail hidden in the darkness.

  “How about you riding over to Amy’s place with me tonight,” Grafton continued, “and picking me up in the morning? Starting tomorrow night, I would appreciate it if you would plan on sleeping at my place until things calm down.”

  I shrugged. “Sure. I can go home with you. Before we leave this evening, I want to stop by a gun store in Tysons Corner and buy a shoulder holster.” That .380 automatic I was packing made me feel underdressed. I wanted the Kimber under my arm.

  The phone rang. Harley Merritt was outside.

  I left as Harley Merritt was coming in. I gave the receptionist, Jennifer Suslowski, the signed memo as I passed. She didn’t smile. It was a tough day for everyone.

  *

  Harley Merritt had been on the telephone with various intelligence chiefs around the world—MI-6, the Mossad, plus the German and French intelligence agencies. “I asked them to review their intelligence and see if they had a glimmer about who might have tried to kill the president,” he told his boss. “But you know how that is. Everything is a matter of degree. There must be at least a dozen tin-pot dictators and holy men and Taliban chiefs who would welcome the credit for offing the American Caesar.”

  “Maybe something will strike someone as worth mentioning,” Grafton replied.

  “That’s a damn thin maybe.”

  “NSA?”

  “They’re tied up in knots. Gotta have a warrant to sample the river flowing out of their fire hoses. We’ll have one by tomorrow, by God, but their hands are tied until then.”

  “So how are we coming on searching our own house?”

  Nothing looked promising. They were still evaluating intelligence from various sources and ongoing covert operations two hours later when Tommy Carmellini returned.

  *

  On Willoughby Spit the wind had eased to perhaps twenty knots that evening, but the rain was steady. It had been too bad to take the boat out, so Zhang Ping and Choy Lee had contented themselves with a quick check of the carrier piers from the viewing area at the south end of the Hampton Roads tunnel, then had driven over to Newport News to see what they could of the shipyard and the three giant ships under construction there. As they ate lunch at a shipyard workers’ diner, Choy Lee listened and Zhang concentrated upon his sandwich.

  On the car headed back through the tunnel, Choy gave his impressions.

  “All they talked about was the attempted assassination of the president. They don’t like the president very much, they say, but he is the head of state, and an attempt to murder him is an attack upon the United States. The workers are unhappy and belligerent.”

  Zhang only grunted. He had no idea who was behind the assassination attempt. If his superiors in China, or the political leaders there, had arranged that covert operation, which had apparently almost succeeded, he assumed they were unhappy at their failure. Much loss of face. Privately he wondered if assassinating the American president six weeks before the big event was wise.

  Oh well, it wasn’t his decision. It was one of the cards life dealt. If the Americans increased the security around the base because of it, he would just have to deal with that.

  Success for this mission was everything. Zhang Ping knew in his soul that the future of China depended upon it. Nothing—nothing—could be allowed to interfere with that. Admiral Wu had impressed that fact upon him.

  He glanced at Choy Lee behind the wheel. Choy did not know why his surveillance of the naval base and the roadstead were important. Nor did Zhang intend to tell him. If they were arrested, the less Choy knew the better. Of course, if arrest appeared imminent and he had the opportunity, Zhang would kill Choy to ensure he never had a chance to tell what he did know or surmised. Choy Lee didn’t know that either.

  Zhang lit another cigarette and cracked his window to carry the smoke out.

  After a few moments, he told Choy, “I need to buy a boat. One with a cabin that we can take out into the bay on days like this. With two outboard motors, I think.”

  Choy grinned. “I like to look at boats,” he said. “I know some marinas where boats are for sale. Want to go look now?”

  “Certainly.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Enlightened rulers and sagacious generals who are able to get intelligent spies will invariably attain great achievements. This is the essence of the military, what the Three Armies rely on to move.

  —Sun Tzu

  In my opinion, a shotgun is the perfect home defense weapon. The ranges are short, you don’t have to be much of a gun person or marksman, and any bad guy hit by a load of buckshot between ten and thirty feet away will be instantly dead or disabled. No one soaks up an ounce and quarter of lead, then proceeds to do you bodily harm.

  I marched down to the CIA armory with Grafton’s authorization in my hot little hand and soon was looking at a couple of Remington pumps, both well used, which was fine with me. One didn’t have much finish left on the stock and had a couple of pitted places on the barrel and action where rust had done its thing. It was also pretty dinged up. The other was in a little better shape but didn’t have much bluing left. I worked the action, checked the safeties, pulled the triggers and pronounced myself satisfied. The guys gave me four boxes of #4 buckshot—they came five to the box—and I walked out feeling like I was ready for World War III. The barrels were a little long, but I had plans to fix that.

  After I delivered Grafton from his daughter’s house to Langley the next day, I stopped by the lock shop that I owned with Willie Varner.

  He wasn’t happy to see me. “When the Internet came back on, Grafton’s place was full of cops. What the hell was that all about?”

  “While the Net was down someone planted a bomb in Grafton’s desk.”

  “You’re shittin’ me!”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, it’s a damn good thing I didn’t jump in the shop van and go motorin’ right over to see what was what,” Willie declared. “I might’ve met the murderous dude face-to-face.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Being a convicted felon and all, you know I can’t legally own a shooter, Tommy. I might’ve been killed.”

  “Hey, you didn’t go, and I knew about it, and I went.”

  “But … a bomb!”

  “Stop sweating the program.” In the workshop, I removed the shotguns from the gun cases that held them and put the first one in a vise. Willie watched. I used a hacksaw to cut off the barrel right in front on the forearm. Still had nineteen inches of barrel left, so I was legal. No more front sight, though, but at close range you don’t aim one of these—you just point and pull the trigger and trust to Remington and whoever made the ammo to take care of the rest.

  “What, pray tell, are these shotguns for?” Willie asked as I sawed away on the second one.

  “Grafton and I are going to bunk over at his place for the foreseeable future.”

  “You idiot! You’re hopin’ that bomber dude comes back!”

  “Yes,” I admitted. I hadn’t thought about it until Willie said it, but, yes, I would welcome a chance to perforate his hide.

  “Assassins tryin’ to kill the prez, mad bombers runnin’ around loose, and now you’re gunnin’ up to play cowboy.” Willie stalked out.

  After I finished cutting off the second barrel, I dressed up the muzzles with a round file, oiled them lightly and worked the actions repeatedly. Loaded each one with five shells, then worked the actions and ejected them.

  They
would do.

  *

  Back at the office I got into the executive assistant gig big-time. I was impressed with the competence and brains of both Roberts and Hurley. They had only to glance at a document or memo and they instantly understood it, memorized it and were able to relate it to the big picture. I felt outclassed and way behind the curve. I quickly became convinced that executive assisting wasn’t my thing. I muddled on, however, always the good soldier. I don’t know if that is a vice or virtue. I thought that if and when I screwed up too many things, Grafton would find something else for me to do. Like steal something. That was my best skill set.

  At night I went over to the Graftons’. The first night the admiral and I inspected his desk carefully. The thing was covered with black fingerprint powder, which was ridiculous. No self-respecting criminal these days left fingerprints.

  “You know,” I said to the admiral, “I may have seen the guy who did this.” I told him about the Dumpster diver and the pizza. “Maybe I should go through mug books and see if I can spot him.”

  Jake Grafton was dismissive. “This man isn’t a street hood, Tommy. He’s a pro. There is little chance he has an American arrest record. It would be a waste of time.”

  Callie gave me the guest bedroom. She seemed to accept the situation as another adventure to be lived through. She paid close attention when I showed her how the shotgun worked, how the safety worked, how to pump the action. She did it a few times, pointed the thing and pulled the trigger.

  “It’s going to kick,” her husband told her, “but you’ll be so scared you won’t notice. After the kick, work the action and shoot again. Keep shooting until there is nothing standing to shoot at or you run out of shells, whichever is first.”

  I loaded the gun and she took it to the bedroom.

  I figured my car was the best place for mine. It was there now, already loaded.

  So we settled into a routine. I ate better at the Graftons’ than I did at home since Callie didn’t do frozen meals. At the office I struggled on executive assisting. Roberts and Hurley did the bulk of the work and left me stuff that was simple and they thought I wouldn’t mess up. They checked me afterward anyway. I found I spent a lot of time with Grafton’s calendar. He could either see you at two o’clock or he couldn’t. He was busy as sin. Department heads, meetings with the new acting director of the ODNI, big FBI bananas, foreigners, probably some foreign intelligence agency—he talked to them all or had meetings or ran over to their office in a bulletproof limo with two armed guards and a trailing car with two more shooters. He didn’t tell me what he was getting out of all of this, of course, but the stuff we EAs drafted or filed or arranged let us see under the corners occasionally.

  The news about the attempted presidential assassination dribbled out. Dental work proved that the dead men in the van were Russians. The bodies were too badly burned to obtain fingerprints or postmortem photos of faces or tattoos, if they had ever had any. Somehow the fact that the three dead men were Russians leaked to the press, which provoked a small international political crisis. The Russians took offense.

  We soldiered on anyway.

  *

  Sometime that week Charlie Wilson, head of the Liaison Office, called me. I stopped by his office twenty minutes later. He was steamed and it showed. He waved a sheet of paper at me. “I got an FBI report on those fingerprints you gave me. They have their knickers in a real twist. Where did you get them?”

  I decided that this time perhaps the truth was best. “From my mother’s boyfriend. Smarmy bastard. I didn’t think there was a word of truth in his head. What’s the crisis? Who is he?”

  Charlie took a deep breath and rubbed his face. Then he stared at me. “That straight?”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “Carmellini, you started lying before you got out of diapers and have never stopped. If you told me this was November I’d check the calendar to make sure.”

  “Come on. Who is he?”

  Wilson passed me the paper. There was even a mug shot photo, with a booking number. He must have been plastered when they snapped it. It was Cuthbert Gordon, all right. But that wasn’t his real name. He was Alfred Bruno, a Cleveland mobster who ratted on his pals and was now in the witness protection program, with a new identity, a new past and a small pension. I was surprised, and it showed on my face, I guess.

  “You really didn’t know, did you?” Wilson said, slightly amazed.

  “I didn’t. That’s why I brought the tableware in here. I wanted to know. I thought he might be some kind of creep who relieved single women of their savings. Mom is something of a ditz, but she doesn’t deserve an asshole. Like this one.” I looked again at Bruno’s photo. True, the day of his arrest had not been one of his better days, but … Man, he looked ready for a coffin.

  “Okay,” Charlie Wilson said. “I’ll buy that story until a better one surfaces. Let me give you the gospel. I just got off the phone an hour ago with some FBI weenie in witness protection. He was royally pissed. Said if we—that’s this United States government agency—messed with one of Justice’s star witness in some creepy spy caper and exposed him, heads would roll. If he got whacked, they would move heaven and earth to find who blew his cover and have the loose-mouthed bastard prosecuted. Have you got that?”

  I nodded.

  “How old is your mother?”

  I told him.

  Wilson calmed down two degrees. “She’s an adult, presumably rational and presumably not a virgin since she claims you. This is her problem, Carmellini, not yours. If you make it your problem, the shit is going to hit the fan and you are going to get splattered. Have you got that?”

  I nodded again.

  “Don’t ever ask me for another personal favor. Not one. Our relationship with the FBI is too important to throw a handful of sand into the gears for personal reasons.”

  “Uh, is there any way I can get Mom’s knife and fork back? She inherited—”

  “For the love of God! Give me that sheet of paper and get out of here.”

  I took one last glance at Alfred Bruno’s sour, soused puss, handed the sheet back and disappeared. Poof.

  *

  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving Jake Grafton received a call from his NSA spy, Sarah Houston. “I’m calling from a pay phone, Admiral. I got the info you wanted on those two FBI files.”

  “Great. Shoot.”

  “The files are counterintelligence files. Zoe Kerry was on a team working them out of San Francisco. One of the two dead men was suspected of espionage. For the Chinese. Kerry said he tried to kill her, so she had to kill him in self-defense. The other man she shot, six weeks later, was a supposed onlooker who tried to intervene violently in the attempted arrest of a spy. Why he did that is anyone’s guess. The alleged spy got away.”

  “Any follow-up by the FBI?”

  “The usual routine suspension and investigation, which cleared her on both of the shootings for lack of evidence. There was no proof that they were anything but what she said they were.”

  “You read the files. What do you think?”

  Silence. After a moment, Sarah Houston said, “No witnesses, no conflicting stories from fellow agents, none of the usual friction. Maybe it went down the way Kerry said, maybe it didn’t.”

  “Chinese spies?”

  “Yep.”

  “Thank you, Sarah. I’m going to request that your agency transfer you to the CIA. How do you feel about that?”

  More silence. “Are you giving me a choice?”

  “Nope. A heads-up. I need your skills over here.”

  “I’m not going to have to work with Carmellini again, am I?” Sarah and Tommy had been a number but had broken up a couple of years back, for the second or third time.

  “I’ll try to keep him busy somewhere else in the building.”

  “When?”

  “Next week, if the paperwork sails on through.”

  “I’ll be holding my breath.” She hung up on
him.

  *

  When he found out that the president was not aboard Air Force One when it crashed, Chong had a bad moment. The big money was for popping the big banana, not for whacking his staff and a few reporters.

  Damn, they should have gotten him as he flew into Denver! He was on the plane then!

  As he thought about it, Chong realized that the president missing the plane was just one of those illogical, unpredictable twists that life throws at people with appalling regularity. The real question was, would the client pay off anyway? After all, Chong and the guys had done the work and taken the risk. The job was to crash the plane, and they had accomplished that feat. It wasn’t Chong’s fault if Whosis huddled in a secret plotting session with his political allies and sent the plane on without him.

  Chong thought about every aspect of the hit, looked at it from every angle, as he drove through the Rockies to Utah. He changed cars in the long-term parking lot at the Salt Lake City airport. He drove out of the lot in a Mazda he had parked there two weeks ago and spent the night in a ski resort in Alta, where he had a reservation. The season was just getting started, the desk clerk who checked him in explained. Some man-made snow, but it wasn’t very good.

  Chong smiled and said he would make out. He thought the authorities would be looking for a running man, so he didn’t run.

  He ate well, watched television news morning and evening and skied for a couple of hours each day. Real snow was falling, and fast. The skiing got better.

  The fifth day, he hit the interstate heading north into Idaho, and from there drove for Seattle. Spent another night in a sixty-nine-dollar room in Walla Walla, Washington, and had another good meal, a New York strip, at a local steakhouse.

  He was feeling pretty good about the getaway. He listened to radio news every hour on the hour as he drove. The authorities were keeping their cards close to their vest. The burned-out van was being examined by forensic experts, but the findings were not being released. The FBI had figured out that a drone equipped with some kind of EMP weapon was the most probable cause of the Air Force One crash. What other information they had, the authorities weren’t saying. The attorney general, however, was promising that those behind the attack would be apprehended and brought to justice if it took the entire assets of the Justice Department to do it.