The Art of War: A Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  The fog was lifting. Visibility was up to at least a mile. We could see the radar reflectors on their pilings from a good ways off. Now the coxswain merely slowed and Jake Grafton stood beside the wheelhouse and looked at the reflector as we went slowly by. Then the coxswain poured the juice to the motors and we roared down to the next one.

  I tried to remember any other virtues I might have. Something to tell St. Pete. A dollar or two here and there given to charity. A beer for an alkie. Couldn’t remember a single old lady I had ever helped across a street. Virtues … virtues … I knew I was light in the virtues department, but since I normally didn’t think about stuff like this, I didn’t realize how desperate the situation was.

  Truth is, my mom could have done with a better son.

  *

  Zhang Ping was awakened from a sound sleep by the ringing of his cell phone. He heard the noise, had to look around for a moment, perhaps five seconds, until he knew where he was and what he was hearing. He rolled out, dashed up the stairs to the cockpit, picked up the phone and looked at it. Forty-seven missed calls. The phone was ringing now, though.

  He turned it on and made a noise. More like a grunt. The fog was lifting a little bit. Several hundred yards visibility here. No wind.

  A male voice speaking Chinese said, “Commander Zhang?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Neptune.” Zhang recognized Admiral Wu’s voice.

  “This is an unsecure line.”

  “I am aware of that. The decision has been made to abort the mission. I repeat, abort the mission.”

  Zhang Ping took a very deep breath and exhaled completely before he said, “Code Purple.” That meant the device was armed. “I repeat, Code Purple.”

  The admiral didn’t hesitate. “Turn it Green,” he said. “Green! Acknowledge.” Green meant safety the device.

  “I can only try, sir. No promises.”

  “Yes.”

  The connection broke. Zhang Ping held the phone in his hand a while, looking at the houses and little boat docks he could see in the diffused sunlight coming from an uncertain overcast sky.

  Beijing had chickened out. They had decided not to detonate the device.

  They had the right to make that decision, Zhang told himself. After all, it was their bomb, and if it went off, they were going to have to live with the consequences.

  He glanced at his watch—9:37

  Well, he had plenty of time.

  God, what a waste! All the blood and angst, and Beijing chickened out.

  Maybe he should just ignore Beijing and let the bomb explode. After all, what were they going to do? Court-martial him? He would be dead.

  But … no. He couldn’t do that. He was an officer in the PLAN. Obey or die trying.

  Zhang Ping got busy. He started the outboard motors, inched forward, put the motors in idle. Then he walked forward along the bow and raised the anchor, pinned it in its bracket. It was muddy, but so what? Once in the cockpit, he backed the boat into the middle of the little estuary, stopped all motion and let the boat drift a bit as he fired up the iPad and connected it to the radar.

  He was going to go out into the York, go east and run down the bay toward the naval base, get the radar reflector on the scope, cancel the detonation order … then what?

  Get out of the country, Admiral Wu said. Right! As if bodies lying all over weren’t going to get the Americans in a tizzy.

  Zhang went below for a piss and the shotgun. Checked that the pistol was stuck in his belt, got into the seat behind the wheel. The engines were idling, the props motionless.

  The Americans had had all morning to hunt for the bomb. If they thought it was armed, they would pay little attention to him in his Boston Whaler … but if they didn’t know, the Hampton Roads area and lower bay would be heavily patrolled to keep strange craft out. As heavily patrolled as possible in this fog. He would have no chance to get close enough to disarm it.

  The truth was that he would probably be dead in a couple of hours, whether the bomb detonated or not; then none of this would matter. Those idiots in Beijing whose courage leaked out through their dicks could face the consequences.

  *

  The fog had lifted somewhat, and the visibility was two or three miles, I estimated, when we reached the radar reflector on old Fort Wool, the southernmost terminus of the Hampton Roads tunnel. We cruised up to the radar reflector; Jake Grafton took a look and raised a closed fist. Stop.

  I went over for a look. Saw a wire leading up the wooden post to the reflector, and some kind of little antenna sticking up in the middle of the pyramid that faced east, toward Fort Henry and the Atlantic.

  “This is it,” Grafton announced. The bastard looked happy. He leaned in the open door of the helmsman’s domain, told him to anchor here, right here, then came back out on deck. Molina was right there holding onto a wire railing, looking like a tourist in a whorehouse.

  “Got a knife, Tommy?”

  “Nope.”

  He turned to the nearest sailor. “Got a knife?”

  The sailor produced one, a folding knife with a three-inch blade that looked as if it had been made in China. Grafton handed it to me. “You do the honors. Cut the wire that runs down the pole.”

  I stood on the inflatable gunnel, then grabbed the pole, as the boat seemed to move away, and started sawing on that wire. Got the insulation off, but the wire looked like copper. Terrific. The knife wasn’t very sharp either. I got a grip on one of the reflector’s braces with my left hand, wrapped my legs around the pole and sawed away on the wire with my right hand while trying not to fall into the water. If I did, I wouldn’t drown because I was wearing my orange life vest.

  I heard Grafton on the radio calling for SEALs. Just about the time I got the wire sawed in half, he shouted, “Ten minutes. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

  The coastie coxswain maneuvered the red inflatable rail back under me, so I stepped down on it and let go of the reflector. I handed the sailor back his knife.

  I flopped down beside the machine gun. Maybe we were going to live a bit longer. I tried to analyze how I felt. Damn, I didn’t know.

  It wasn’t even ten minutes, maybe eight, when an inflatable boat roared up containing a couple of guys in wet suits. They had scuba tanks on their backs and flippers on their feet. They put the mouthpieces where they were supposed to go, jumped into the water right by the pole and went straight down. The coxswain moved the boat so they wouldn’t surface under it. I was glad that I wasn’t a SEAL.

  I surveyed the fog bank, now maybe a couple miles away. I could just make out the Hampton end of the tunnel, Newport News. Helicopters were hopping up and down from Chambers Field on base. I could see the two carriers lying beside their piers, and of course the stop-and-go traffic trying to get into the tunnel.

  In a moment the SEALs came up, two of them holding a device about the size of a laptop, flippering to keep themselves on the surface. They passed it to Grafton.

  “It’s the trigger,” Grafton said, giving it a good look-over with his glasses in place. The divers had cut the wires. SEALs carry serious knives. Grafton motioned to the SEALs. Down. Find the bomb.

  Grafton handed the thing to me. It was waterproof and heavy, at least ten pounds, because it contained batteries and, no doubt, a capacitor. I tried to pass it to Sal Molina, who looked but refused to touch. I gave the thing back to Grafton, who looked as if he were going to get it mounted to display in his office or den.

  So we were all going to live, after all.

  If there was only one weapon.

  The divers came back up and, hanging on to the side of the boat, shouted at Jake Grafton. “The bomb is there. A few rocks had been shoved over it, but when we moved them, there it was.”

  “What do you need to raise it?”

  “Some kind of harbor crane.”

  The admiral got on the radio. I flaked out by the gunner and gave him an expansive smile.

  Oh baby, we were going to live a
t least until dinner. Unless there was another bomb. Yet I suspected—knew—there was only one. Two doubled the chances that one would be discovered, two were at least twice as hard to plant, and two wouldn’t do any more damage than one. After all, a nuke? How big do you want the smoking, radioactive hole to be?

  So, after cogitation, I convinced myself there was only one bomb … and, by God, here it was with the fuse pulled. Ain’t life terrific?

  Grafton might have been with me on this. Maybe. But he sent coasties in boats hither and yon to inspect radar reflectors. He got the navy involved, and before long patrol and harbor boats were looking on the Eastern Shore and Hampton and Newport News and up the James and Elizabeth Rivers.

  When he finished with his radio, he had the coasties put us ashore on the nearest rock, the breakwater of old Fort Wool, and go off to examine the reflectors in the navy yard. The coasties willingly marooned the three of us: Grafton, Molina and me. Two over-the-hill paper pushers and one young stud looking for an action movie. I gave the gunner his life vest back, shook his hand and sent him on his merry way.

  I felt so good that I actually sat on that wet, greasy rock and leaned back and studied the sky. The clouds. The water. Boats and stuff. This being alive was pretty damned great.

  I didn’t get a chance to talk to Grafton. He was more or less continuously on the radio. Molina ignored me. He took out his phone a time or two, and apparently the last time found he had service. He climbed precariously across rocks until he was well out of my hearing, then dialed. Someone somewhere was apparently willing to talk to him, because I saw his lips moving. Maybe he was just saying the rosary or reciting poetry. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I got out my cell phone. It logged right on to the Net. So they had turned it on again. I put in a call to Sarah Houston. She answered it almost immediately.

  “Hey, kiddo. It’s me. We found the damn thing.”

  “Oh, thank God,” she exclaimed, and I had to agree.

  *

  The fog was lifting somewhat as Lieutenant Commander Zhang Ping came south down the bay with the city of Hampton off to his right. He was passing Buckroe Beach when he saw a Coast Guard patrol boat come out of the fog heading northward.

  Zhang cut his speed to a few knots, well off the plane. He watched the patrol boat approach. It had a machine gun on a swivel mount in the bow, manned. Another man on the fantail, now walking up the port side by the little wheelhouse. Third man at the wheel.

  The boat slowed, and the man amidships shouted something. Zhang waved his arms. The patrol boat slowed and came alongside.

  Zhang pulled the Beretta from under his jacket and shot the man on the bow first. The man amidships second. Now the helmsman, right through the glass. Three shots for the helmsman.

  The engine of the patrol boat was at idle.

  Zhang Ping turned his boat, put it alongside, idled the engines and scrambled aboard carrying the iPad. The Whaler drifted away.

  He made sure each man was dead, then checked the machine gun. It had a belt in the breach. He pulled the bolt back and let it go home, chambering a round. Engaged the safety. Then he went into the wheelhouse and added a bit of throttle. Turned the boat slowly to a southerly heading and removed his iPad from its case. Got out the wires. Looked at the radar presentation.

  Everything was different from the Boston Whaler. He was going to have to find the radar equipment and trace out the wiring to install the iPad.

  No time for that now.

  He added throttle and checked the radar presentation. Willoughby Spit was quite plain, as was Fort Wool. Five miles ahead. The reflector at Fort Wool beaconed brightly on the screen. Too brightly. Zhang realized something was wrong, but what?

  He had gone no more than a mile when the fog disappeared completely, as if a curtain had risen. He glanced behind him and saw gauzy gray. He had cleared the fog bank.

  And he could see everything. The carriers at the naval base, Willoughby Spit, the apartment and condo complexes, the shoreline eastward … and heading this way, another aircraft carrier. She had two destroyers in front of her and at least one behind, offset a little to the left. What a fine sight they were, home from the sea.

  Now Zhang Ping looked at his watch. Thirty minutes until detonation. He had timed it nicely. The carrier would be almost here by then. The other two would go, the shipyard at Newport News … the naval base and all the ships there …

  Overhead were helicopters, charging along on unknowable errands. Two jets up high—fighters.

  More patrol boats near the channel over the Hampton Roads tunnel. They seemed to be along the shoreline, moving slowly.

  He aimed for Fort Wool. Saw that a tugboat and a barge with a crane were beside the post that held his radar reflector. All that metal was reflecting radar energy.

  So they had found the bomb!

  Now they were raising it. There would be no explosion.

  Zhang Ping passed Point Comfort on his right. He was only a mile or so from the tugboat and barge, so he eased the throttles back. The channel over the tunnel was empty.

  *

  Grafton and Molina stood on the rocks watching the divers hooking the weapon up to cables dangling from the crane prior to raising it. As usual, Grafton was on his radio and Molina on his cell phone. Sitting there beside them trying to eavesdrop on what Molina was telling the big boss in Washington, I saw the Coast Guard patrol boat coming from the north. It was exactly like the one we had ridden in a couple of hours ago, with red inflatable rails, a wheelhouse and a machine gun mounted forward.

  Only there were no sailors visible.

  I got my Kimber 1911 from my shoulder holster and lay down in the gravel between the stones. Rested the butt of the pistol on a handy rock and watched the boat come. It was slowing.

  The patrol boat turned a little and drifted to a stop about seventy-five yards from me, perhaps twenty from the tug, thirty or so from the barge, pointed at the tug. No one on either boat paid any attention to it.

  A man came out of the wheelhouse and walked forward. Reached for the handle of the machine gun with his right hand.

  That’s when I shot him.

  The butt of the pistol was resting right on the rock. I had both hands on the grip and a perfect sight picture when I squeezed the trigger … He sank down on the deck of the boat.

  I kept the pistol steady, ready, in case he got up again and reached for that gun.

  Jake Grafton heard the shot and turned to me.

  “What happened?”

  “I shot a man on that patrol boat.”

  “Why?”

  “He wasn’t wearing a life vest.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

  —Sun Tzu

  The president flew down to Norfolk that evening in Marine One. Standing with the Chinese ambassador to the United States, the chief of naval operations, the governor of Virginia and the mayor of Norfolk, he held a press conference with the facade of the Chambers Field ops building as background. I was curious, so I watched some of it. First, he denounced the Internet rumors and resulting panic that had poisoned the public, despite the government’s statements that the rumors were groundless. That the rumors had a hard core of fact and the government was telling lies was not mentioned.

  He segued on to the bodies scattered around the southwestern Virginia area. “Terrorists have been attempting a major coup,” he said, “and we have thwarted them. I wish I could say more, but I do not wish to compromise ongoing investigations or preclude the successful prosecutions of those responsible.”

  There was more, of course. The message was that it was safe to come home. The governor and mayor got a little mike time, and they confined their remarks to that point.

  When it was over and the television lights were extinguished, I sat watching Grafton and Molina with their heads together, talking in low tones. Those two were a pair. If they swore it was Monday, I’d check the calendar before I b
elieved them.

  Technicians had been busy all afternoon on the nuke’s trigger. The thing was armed and ticking down, they concluded. The iPad on the Coast Guard patrol boat with Zhang Ping’s fingerprints all over it had a program that coded a radar transmission. The radar reflector had acted as an antenna and had passed the coded signal via a wire to the trigger resting under the surface of the water, near the weapon, which was essentially buried under loose stones so it couldn’t be found with sonar or a quick visual scan from the surface, if the water was actually clear enough to see through.

  All in all, the weapon and setup were simple and deadly.

  After the press conference, Molina climbed aboard Marine One with the president and they choppered off to Washington. Grafton came over and sat down beside me. I was working on a cup of coffee. “You ready for some dinner?” he asked.

  As nutty as it sounds, he got behind the wheel of a navy sedan and away we went, through the main gate and out into the wilderness of Norfolk, all the way to the Chans’ Chinese restaurant. The place was practically empty, with only three other couples dining tonight. Sally Chan was behind the counter.

  She sat down with us. She didn’t look well. It had been a long day, but she said she couldn’t stay home. The empty rooms pressed in relentlessly.

  “Did you see the president’s press conference?” Grafton asked.

  She nodded.

  “Obviously, you can say anything you want to the press,” Grafton said, “but the fact is the government will call you a liar if you say anything that contradicts the president’s version of things.”