The Art of War: A Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  Nothing on the bar menu screamed at me. I laid it down and looked out the window.

  The bartender served my drink without comment. I sipped it and minutes passed. I watched reflections in the window. No one paid me any attention. The place gradually filled up. The patrons looked like lobbyists or political staffers, with a few lawyers sprinkled in for seasoning, the same crowd you see at noon in bars and eateries all over the downtown.

  The whiskey tasted good. I thought about ordering another and decided against it. This afternoon I was going to have to tell Grafton I’d been stood up, and I should probably do it sober.

  When the last of the brown liquid was behind my new belt buckle, the bartender asked, “Another?”

  “No. One’s enough.”

  “A mutual friend was talking about you the other day.”

  I did a double take. The bartender was a black guy, maybe fifty, with prematurely gray-tipped hair. Even features, no visible tattoos, maybe 150 pounds.

  “Which friend? I have several.”

  “He just said he knew you, Carmellini. I’ll bring your bill.” In a moment he placed a little book containing the bill on the counter. I picked it up. It had the tab in there. I put my credit card, the government one, on top of the tab. The drink was going to be on Uncle Sugar.

  When the book came back, I opened it and removed my plastic and a small brown envelope, pocketed them, then added a 20 percent tip to the credit card slip, signed it and launched off. Everyone ignored me.

  *

  Admiral Cart McKiernan came into Jake’s office at the CIA headquarters at Langley at twenty minutes after twelve. Jake had two trays from the cafeteria sitting on the sideboard.

  As they ate, Jake explained about Fish and handed the admiral Tommy’s notes. After he read them carefully, McKiernan said, “So who hired this woman he took orders from?”

  “I think it was the Chinese, but the evidence is thin. It’s someone who invested a lot of money in the attempt to assassinate the president. And Fish doesn’t come cheap.”

  “Why?”

  “I think this whole mess is a diversion to tie up law enforcement and the intelligence apparatus. The real threat is elsewhere.”

  McKiernan abandoned his lunch half eaten. He pushed the tray back an inch. “Where?”

  Jake passed over the map and explained how he got it, mentioning no names.

  “Norfolk,” the admiral whispered, staring at the map.

  “The carriers and their escorts in port over the holidays. Maybe.”

  “How good is your maybe?”

  “One chance in four. That’s the best target around. But there are others. Washington, New York, San Diego … We could make a list.”

  “Well, this is easy. I’ll send the ships somewhere else or keep them at sea.”

  “I don’t think you should do that. At least not until the very last minute. There is an excellent possibility that if Norfolk is the target, the bomb is already there. Someone is watching it. If the watcher suspects that we know about the weapon, he might detonate it without waiting for ships. There are more than a million people in the Norfolk area, not to mention Newport News.”

  “But we don’t know it’s there,” the admiral objected.

  “We are going to have to find out. Search that harbor without anyone knowing we are doing it. And keep an eye peeled for the watcher, who may or may not have the ability to trigger the thing.”

  They worried the bone. “If the weapon isn’t there, the attack must come from the air, from a plane or missile,” Jake argued. “If it’s a missile, we’ll know who launched it. Ditto an airplane. That would start World War III with the Chinese. They can’t want that. They want the ships off the board and the United States Navy’s offensive power cut in half. That will force the United States out of the Yellow and China Seas, maybe out of the western Pacific. They’ll blame the explosion on us. Say an American nuke detonated. Half the people in the United States, Japan and Europe will believe them; that’s the political reality of our world today. You know that.”

  McKiernan made a face. “And of the half that believe it was the Chinese, half of those will want to do nothing, preferring to pretend it was an accident.”

  Jake said nothing.

  The admiral mulled it. “If a bomb is there—and you have not an iota of proof that it is, other than a map that any kid with a computer could flange up—when was it planted?”

  Jake picked up a classified file on his desk and passed it to McKiernan. “One of my staff dug this out last night.” The file contained the report from USS Utah about shadowing a Chinese sub from Hainan to the South Atlantic. The sinking of the boat, the return of the sub to Hainan. In addition, there was the information on Ocean Holiday.

  “It isn’t much, I know,” Grafton said. “But this is a real possibility. The people on the yacht planted the bomb, left U.S. waters bound for the West Indies, rendezvoused with the Chinese sub off the Amazon and scuttled the yacht.”

  McKiernan read every piece of paper in the file twice, then handed it back. “It fits,” he acknowledged grudgingly. “Do the people at the White House know about this?”

  “Molina has seen the map. Not this file.”

  McKiernan couldn’t sit still. He walked around the office with unseeing eyes. “Another Pearl Harbor,” he muttered. Finally he sat down again.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

  *

  I drove the Benz back to Langley. Jennifer Suslowski, at the reception desk, waved me into Grafton’s office. She even smiled at me. I was so stunned I forgot to smile back.

  Grafton was in his reading glasses, sipping coffee and going over paperwork. He was always behind, I knew. Budgets, personnel, covert operations, intelligence summaries, reports … The paper flowed in faster than he could make it flow out. He had department heads, administrators and executive assistants, but still he was inundated. And like the captain of a ship, he was responsible for everything. Ask any congressman.

  He glanced up at me and waved to a chair. “Get your car back?”

  “Yes, sir. The FBI EOD guys got the bomb out without an explosion or a police riot in the parking lot and took it away.”

  “The Willard?”

  I put the envelope on his desk. “It was the barman. He passed this to me.”

  Grafton nodded and fingered the envelope. He wasn’t going to open it while I was sitting here.

  He changed the subject. “I talked to Estep this morning. He’s going to arrest Kerry, after he gets a warrant. That’ll probably take all afternoon. Why don’t you trot over to her apartment and take a casual look-see through her stuff before they get there? I’ve called personnel; they’ll show you her file before you go. Leave her computer for the FBI. See if she’s got a getaway bag packed and what’s in it. Don’t leave any prints.”

  I frowned, started to protest. I never leave prints. Jeez …

  Protests would have been wasted. He was back reading, so I left.

  I had other things on my mind when I went by Suslowski, so I don’t know if she smiled at me or not. Probably not. She didn’t waste more than one or two a day.

  In personnel, the desk lady, a gray-haired woman with too many pounds and too many years for me, produced the file quick enough, but then wanted me to sign something. “The Privacy Act,” she said by way of explanation.

  I was a bit surprised. “Admiral Grafton called.”

  “We have our rules. You wouldn’t want just anyone reading your file, would you?”

  “Certainly not.” Using my left hand and careful not to leave fingerprints on the access sheet, I scribbled something illegible. She was satisfied.

  She stood and watched me flip through the file. I made notes … with my right hand. The desk lady commented. “I’m ambidextrous,” I told her.

  Kerry’s DOB, address, telephone numbers … Langley CIA pass number, car window sticker, license plate and type. That was the same car she had ridden me around in. In two minutes I th
ought I had everything I needed.

  The desk lady had her eye on me the whole time, making sure I didn’t remove anything from the file. I made a mental note to tell Grafton that his sterling reputation cut no ice with the grunts. I thanked her and left.

  *

  I left Langley and drove over to Kerry’s apartment house, which was in Tysons Corner, on the west side of the Beltway. Thick clouds above the buildings and trees. Gloomy, chilly day. Maybe it would snow. Or rain.

  I found the building, right across the street from a McDonald’s. Only one entrance. I had to wait for a garbage truck to exit. Then I drove in slowly and started looking for FBI vehicles. Up and down the rows I went. The lot was perhaps a third full, since it was only two in the afternoon. Their car was in the back row, backed in facing the front entrance. Two men, ties and sport coats.

  I merely glanced at them and rolled on by. Her car wasn’t here.

  The lot had a driveway around the south end of the building that allowed you to go around behind it. I took it. A dozen cars back there, with room for maybe twenty more. Her car wasn’t here either. Nor were there any FBI agents.

  I parked at the far north corner of the lot and reached under the passenger’s seat for my picks and latex gloves. Pulled on the gloves slowly, worked them up over my fingers and hands.

  Checked my gun under my armpit. Not that I intended to shoot any FBI agents, but maybe I would get lucky with Zoe Kerry.

  The back door had numbers and names in a list. Beside each name was a buzzer. Yep, 213, Kerry. I pushed the buzzer and waited. Jabbed it two or three more times and waited some more.

  I started at the highest floor, which was four, and ran my finger down the buzzers, giving each one a blast. The little squawk box came to life. “Who is it?”

  “Joe Wilson. I forgot my key.”

  The door beside me clicked. I pushed and was in. “Thanks,” I told the squawk box.

  I took the elevator. The door opened into an empty corridor. I looked at the sign on the wall. Apartment 213 was to the right, so I went that way. Rapped on her door, just in case. Silence.

  It took me about thirty seconds to get the lock.

  I went inside, closed the door and made sure it locked behind me.

  The place looked as if Conrad Hilton had designed it fifty years ago. This was an old hotel, converted to apartments. I walked toward the sitting room, by the door of a bathroom and a closet on my left into the sitting room, or living room, which had a kitchen in one corner. There was a small refrigerator, a four-burner electric stove with an oven under it, a small microwave and a super-duper coffee machine that ground the beans and heated milk.

  I needed to know what was here, yet I didn’t have time for a leisurely search. On the plus side, I didn’t need to make sure everything looked undisturbed. The FBI would tear this place apart this evening; they wouldn’t know how she left it this morning.

  The door that connected this room to what had once been another hotel room stood open. Big bed, a dresser, a nightstand, a desk with a printer on it, and a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. This room’s hallway had been converted to a walk-in closet. The bathroom door had been altered so now it opened through the bedroom wall, not the hallway. I opened it. Beauty paraphernalia was scattered all over the counter and filled the drawers. I closed the drawers and moved on.

  The problem was time. I had no idea how much I had. Five minutes, five hours? Or something in between.

  She had a laptop computer in the living area, on the counter across from the kitchen. It was plugged in and charging. I passed it and looked out the window between the curtains, without touching them. I was looking at the parking lot in front of the building. Traffic went by on the street beyond. The FBI guys were still there, sitting in their car.

  If she had a getaway bag, it had to be where she could get to it fast. In a place this small, she could get to anything fast.

  I went into the bedroom closet and got busy searching.

  Shoes, hats, dresses, slacks, boots.

  I went back to the closet by the door to the apartment. It contained winter coats and boots and sweaters. I felt the pockets of the coats. There was something in one.

  A derringer. Two-shot, .22 caliber. It was loaded. I felt in the pocket for extra cartridges. None. Tried the other pocket, which was also empty. Well, this was a hideout gun. If you needed more than two bullets, you needed a better gun.

  I started to put it back where I had found it, then changed my mind. Pulled up my pants leg and stuffed it in my sock.

  I got busy, trying not to be messy, but looking. Did the desk first. Checkbook, bank statements, receipts …

  In addition to a couple of dirty glasses, the nightstand had two books on it. Library books. The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin and Nancy by Adrian Fort. Both books were three days overdue. There was also a magazine, Cosmopolitan: The cover proclaimed that the lead article was “Twenty-Four Moves That Will Drive Your Man Wild.” I flipped through the books and magazine to see if she had carelessly left a note in Chinese in one. She hadn’t.

  I got down on my hands and knees and looked under the bed. A gym bag. I pulled it out, set it on the desk and opened it.

  Jackpot. Right on top was a .38 caliber revolver with a two-inch barrel, loaded. Two speed-loaders containing cartridges were also in the bag. Two prepaid cell phones, and a little notebook with the first page full of phone numbers. There were letters by the numbers, a private code, no doubt. The next three pages had account numbers and passwords. Strings of numbers on the fifth page. The rest of the book was blank.

  There was a U.S. passport. Kerry’s photo, but the name was Janice Alice Johansson. And a Virginia driver’s license with the same name.

  At the bottom of the bag was money. Six bundles of currency, cash in bundles held with rubber bands, plus several credit cards. The name on them was Janice A. Johansson. The money was old bills, fifties and hundreds. I didn’t count it.

  I looked the printer over. Yep, it had copy function. I turned the thing on. While it was warming up, I peeked between the curtains at the parking lot. The FBI guys were still sitting in their car, windows rolled down, fighting crime.

  I had been inside fifty-five minutes—way too long.

  I copied the pages of the notebook that had writing, the ID pages and entry and exit pages of the passport that had stamps on them, the credit cards and driver’s license. It took twenty sheets of paper. Another seven minutes gone. Turned off the printer and went back into the bedroom. Copied the phone numbers off of the cell phones onto the back of my paper stash, then put cell phones, notebook, passport and credit cards back in her bag and shoved it under the bed. After a last look around, I checked the FBI guys one more time, then went to the door. I glanced through the eyehole; the hallway, as much of it as I could see, was empty. I folded the paper lengthwise, then into a square and stuck the mess in my hip pocket. It was a wad.

  I unlocked the door and stepped out. I pulled the door shut behind me and heard it latch. Just as I started for the elevator, another door opened. Apartment 209. A Chinese man came out. He couldn’t know that I just came out of Kerry’s flat.

  He was about medium height, wearing a dark gray suit and maroon tie. Regular features, Asian eyes, balding. I nodded and kept on going. The elevator door was open. I stepped in, and got a glimpse of a reflection of the Chinese man in the marble trim on the wall. He was still standing outside his door. He had been watching my back. Obviously he didn’t want to ride the elevator with me, so I punched the lobby button.

  The lobby was empty. I headed for the back door. Went through it, stood under the overhang examining the parking lot. No people in or out of the cars. I went over to the Benz, unlocked it and got behind the wheel. Stripped off my gloves and shoved them and my pick pack under the passenger seat.

  Looked at my watch. Thirteen after three. I drove out of the lot, around the building, past the FBI dudes and out onto the street, which was two lanes in
each direction with a concrete median. I went down to the light, hooked a U-turn when the light turned green, and drove back to McDonald’s. Parked facing the street.

  The view across the street was pretty good. I could see the back of the FBI sedan and the front of the building. I fished a small set of 6x binoculars out from behind the driver’s seat. Rolled down the windows so I could listen and treated myself to a piece of gum from a new pack. Sighed and tried to relax. I had a mild headache, and my muscles were sore. The December air coming in through the window was chilly, so I put on a jacket I had stuffed behind the seat. Drops of rain began to spatter on the windshield, and the breeze picked up. I rolled up the passenger window and left the one by my shoulder down.

  The derringer was loaded with copper-clad solids. The serial number had been taken off with acid, which left a flat place. I put it back in my sock.

  Damn Zoe Kerry!

  I sat there savoring my memory of Fish’s screams, and feeling the pain of what might have been.

  *

  At four thirty I needed a break. I rolled up the windows, locked the car and dashed into Mickey D’s for a head call and a large cup of java.

  I was back in less than ten minutes. Rain misting down. The FBI car was still sitting across the street. Those guys must have steel bladders or be pissing into their coffee cups.

  Traffic was picking up. Cars began trickling into the apartment building lot across the street. People locked up their rides and went into the building. Lights in apartments began illuminating. The security lights on poles came on to fight the evening gloom. The rain stopped. Low clouds continued to churn overhead, and the breeze freshened again.

  Cars drove into McDonald’s. Some parked, some lined up for the drive-through. I tossed my empty cup behind my seat. After a bit, I turned on my ride and ran the heater for a while.

  I glimpsed Kerry turn into the apartment lot at six fifty. At least, I thought it was her. There was a lot of traffic going up and down the street.

  Watching through the binoculars, I got another fleeting look at her car rounding the building for the parking lot in back. I wondered if she had seen the agents in the car.