“I was focused on trying to understand a problem that killed thirty-eight SEALs,” Dover said, exasperation in her voice. “Before it could kill again.”
“A potential problem,” the commander said. “A hypothetical link. One that I suspect even you would not have classified as Red Level Urgent.”
“No,” Dover said. “Not yet.”
“‘Not yet,’” the commander said. “We are in the business of connecting dots, not drawing free form. And we have people on the ground in Afghanistan researching the problem. We have top analysts in Washington studying all possibilities. You have created a needless manpower distraction by raising a red flag. The door is behind you.”
Dover stood there. She had that same paralysis she had experienced at the World Trade Center. Something wrong, destructive, and completely unexpected had shaken her world and her confidence. She didn’t know where to turn or how to get it back.
A hot, impatient look from the officer got Dover moving. Her body turned and her legs moved but her brain was still looking down at the woman’s hard expression, turning the words over and sideways. She was able to comprehend the logic. Don’t jump to conclusions. But as they had learned in events ranging from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, sometimes the ladder is missing rungs. If you don’t leap, you stand still.
Because she was being sent home pending a departmental review, Dover did not have to suffer the indignity of being escorted from the complex by armed MPs. She was allowed to get her bag from her desk—under the cross-armed, unsympathetic gaze of her supervisor, Lieutenant Commander Ward—and nothing more. None of her coworkers in adjoining cubicles looked up as she passed.
I guess they connected the dots, Dover thought bitterly.
She walked to her car, got in, and sat there. She was too angry to punch the wheel. She might damage it. And crying wasn’t her style. Watching fellow human beings jump from windows of the World Trade Center was something she’d wept over when it hit her as she called home that dark day. This was simply enraging.
The ONI would still be monitoring her personal calls—which, it occurred to her, was probably the main reason she had not been fired, so they would still have a legal claim to her privacy. So she could not call Jack Hatfield from her cell phone or send him an e-mail. But that wasn’t going to stop her.
The last time Dover had a lot of downtime, between customers wanting to know where to find a book at the Strand, she had written a play. This time, she intended to do something more ambitious.
She was going to see if her suspicions about Hawke were right.
~ * ~
San Francisco, California
For Maggie Yu, the basement of the grocery store was more than just a storage area. It was a temple in which she revealed her soul and connected with those that stretched back nearly 1,500 years.
The cellar was just four cinderblocks, a cement floor, and two central, rusted iron support pillars that reinforced the beamed ceiling against earthquakes. The only construction Maggie’s father had added was a small oak closet in which they kept the cleaning supplies. Lit by two bulbs hanging at either end and slightly longer and wider than a trolley car, the basement was filled with ever-changing columns of wooden crates and cardboard boxes, all of them piled and arranged haphazardly to create a maze-like space. Those aisles were barely wide enough to walk through, which is why Maggie liked them. In the back of the basement was a Diebold safe Johnny had purchased at auction when the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake forced the condemnation of a warehouse in Santa Cruz. Something had told him to buy the knee-high iron box: researching the serial number, he discovered that it had originally belonged to a failed Chinese bank in the 1880s.
Maggie came down here every day in the afternoon, took off her shoes and socks, changed into the traditional white gi that hung on a hook beside the closet, donned her well-worn black belt, and spent a half hour practicing her kung-fu forms. Barefoot, she did not stop if she stepped on an apple stem or crate splinter or nub of concrete. In combat, one could not afford to be distracted by the unexpected. She would simply shift her weight slightly to minimize the discomfort. It was a philosophy that applied to life as well as to combat.
Each day there were hundreds of different moves and combinations of moves to execute, all of them replicating the animals that first inspired ancient Shaolin monks to create a weaponless form of combat. Maggie loved kung fu not just for its effectiveness and the balance it gave to her life, but also its universality. Eagle, snake, crane, monkey, tiger, scorpion, even snail—there were styles to suit the age, temperament, and physical makeup of every human being. This unity of body, spirit, purpose, and community had enabled men, women, and children to build towns that outlasted kingdoms.
Maneuvering through the tight alleys of goods and perishables, bent at the knees to remain poised and flexible, Maggie drove through imaginary foes, moving up, ahead, down, backward, turning in tight screw-like moves, shouting a kiai—a triumphant shout with each blow that helped to unnerve an adversary and focus one’s own energy. Her voice filled the space bordered by crates solidly packed with cans and bottles, cellophane bags and Styrofoam containers. Physically and psychologically she owned the space through which she moved.
And Maggie knew this space better than her own bedroom because she was so focused here. She was familiar with its every structural nuance and sound, the dry smell beneath the fresh vegetables, its seasonal temperature shifts. She knew from the sound in the pipes whether a bath was being run or a toilet flushed above or to either side. She could feel the larger trucks that rumbled by outside.
It was because her energy so completely filled this space that Maggie was able to feel when there was something wrong. It literally stopped her in mid-form, as she was moving from side to side in the sinuous, lizard-like dragon style. Somewhere beyond the crates there was a faint buzzing sound, like a fly inside cupped hands. She moved forward silently, on the balls of her feet, listening. It was coming from the closet. She walked over, laid a palm on the door. It wasn’t vibrating; the hinges were secure. She opened it, crouched, tucked her head inside.
A dustpan hung from a nail on the back wall. She rose and touched a fingertip to it. The humming stopped. She rotated it aside and placed her palm on the back of the closet. There was a barely perceptible movement in the wood. The movement was steady and sustained, not like distant jackhammering or paving.
Like an aircraft turbine, she thought, remembering her last flight to China to visit relatives.
She wondered if any of the other shops or restaurants felt it. Probably not; she hadn’t heard it upstairs. It was most likely the subterranean wall picking up the sound through the earth. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be coming closer. Maggie would not let it concern her. She resumed her workout, closing the closet door with the heel of her foot as she pivoted 180 degrees. Her sifus had taught her that all of life is training, from walking down the street to brushing your teeth to making love.
At least you’ve got two of those going for you, she thought with a self-deprecating laugh. She made her way back through the stacks of groceries with her arms raised, hands drooping, praying mantis style. That was the price of being a celebrated black belt: there weren’t a lot of men, even martial arts school brothers, who saw the sex appeal of a woman able to drop them with a finger pressed to the side of the nose.
There was nothing Maggie could do about that. The universe would provide the right man or not. That was something else kung fu taught her: she did not need anyone else to complete her.
~ * ~
Sausalito, California
Jack went on deck to call Richard Hawke. This wasn’t a call for confined spaces: he needed sun and sea and the strength that came from knowing he could go anywhere in the world simply by pointing his boat outward. The sea could take him anywhere, from Canada to Antarctica, from Osaka to London. One needed only fuel, supplies, and the fearlessness to go. Without realizing it, Jack had conducted h
is life that way. He had run his talk show that way.
Don’t be afraid of what’s out there. Just go.
Jack sat on a deck chair facing the ocean and called Hawke Industries; the main number was on the website. He asked to be transferred to Mr. Hawke’s office. A woman answered. She introduced herself as Bahiti.
“This is Jack Hatfield,” he said. “I’m a reporter. I’d like to speak with Mr. Hawke.”
“He isn’t here, sir. May I help you?”
“Being there or not doesn’t really matter these days, does it?” Jack asked pleasantly. “You can forward the call.”
“He isn’t receiving calls at the moment. May I be of assistance?”
“OK,” Jack said. “I’ll play the game. I believe Hawke technology is being used to murder Americans. Can you assist me with that?”
The woman was silent for a long moment. “Mr. Hatfield, I’m going to transfer you to our press department.”
“Bahiti, if you do that I’m only going to hang up and call again,” he said. “I’ve got an open schedule and unlimited minutes—I can do this all day.”
“As I said, Mr. Hawke is not taking calls. If you like, I will pass along your number.”
“What I’d like is to talk to Mr. Hawke within the next few minutes, before I put my suspicions on the airwaves and cybernets.” He was bluffing, of course, but Bahiti would not know that. And he was betting she didn’t want to be the last person he spoke with. “My report will make a great follow-up to the coverage of the Navy helicopter that went down in Afghanistan. Knocked out, I believe, by Hawke technology.”
The woman was silent. Bahiti was an Egyptian name. He pictured her on the other end of the phone, his journalist’s mind imagining her backstory. If she stood up to him, figured out how to deflect him, put him on permanent hold, she was older, experienced. If she came back—
“Please hold, Mr. Hatfield.”
—then she was younger, a beauty for the front office, just the first line of defense. Jack expected that he was being passed along to an executive assistant of some stripe.
“Mr. Hatfield?” asked a high, youthful voice. “Phil Webb, executive assistant to Mr. Hawke.”
“Hi, Mr. Webb.”
“Just Phil, please.”
“OK, Phil.”
“So—are you the Jack Hatfield of Truth Tellers, the man who saved San Francisco?” “Well, I saved a part of it,” Jack said.
“The Golden Gate Bridge is more than ‘a part,’ “ Webb said.
“Right. I also kept Alcatraz safe for tourism.” Jack could tell when he was being schmoozed, a buttering up that stopped ever so slightly short of being patronizing. He liked that less than he liked outright stonewalling. “I assume Bahiti passed along my request to speak with your boss?”
“Yes, and for the record Mr. Hawke considers his employees to be partners and coworkers, not subordinates,” Webb said. The young voice had a sharp little rebuke in it now.
“My apologies,” Jack said. “So you’re his partner in taking down American choppers?”
There was the briefest hesitation; Jack had been expecting it.
“Mr. Hatfield, Bahiti passed along your request along with that rather alarming accusation. It is extraordinarily wrong.”
“I’m not surprised to hear you say that, Phil. Your saying so also carries no weight whatsoever.”
“You are as plainspoken as I’ve heard.”
“I find it saves a lot of time.”
“And made you few friends, I bet.”
“I’ve got all the friends I want,” Jack said. “What I need is information. Are you going to transfer the call or do I leave a big hole in my story filled with a very small ‘no comment’ from Mr. Hawke?”
“That would be untrue,” Webb told him. “Hawke Industries absolutely and vigorously denies your statement.”
“I didn’t say ‘Hawke Industries,’ “ Jack pointed out. “I said there would be a ‘no comment’ from Mr. Hawke.”
Another short silence. Phil Webb obviously wasn’t used to volleying with someone who had a strong backhand, just corporate counterparts with loud, threatening forehands at best.
“That, too, would be untrue,” Webb said. “He will give you a personal statement.”
That one caught Jack off guard. “He’ll talk to me?”
“That’s what you asked for,” Webb replied.
“Great. When?”
“You’re still in San Francisco, Jack?”
His mind growled, It’s Mr. Hatfield to you, punk, but he answered, “Yes. Why?”
“He will be sending his private jet to San Francisco International to collect you. It should be there in about five hours.”
“To ‘collect me’ for what?” Jack asked.
“To talk,” Phil said. “That is what you wanted?”
You were just played, Jack thought. The talk with Phil had been a stall. Hawke was either in the room or his flunky coworker was texting him as they chatted. In either case, he had underestimated the kid.
“That’s what I want,” Jack said.
“Very good,” Webb said. “I’ll text you the specifics as soon as I have them. At this number?”
“Yep.”
“Excellent. We’ll be in touch. Oh—you have a valid passport, do you not?”
“I do.” That was a dig, Jack felt. The guy obviously knew about his troubles in the United Kingdom.
“Bring it with you, please.”
“Why? Am I leaving the country?”
“You’ll want an ID other than your driver’s license.”
Phil hung up. Jack ended the call.
“Now what the hell was that all about?” he wondered aloud. His first instinct was that Hawke was guilty as hell and wanted to offer him a bribe, face-to-face—or else to Squarebeam his own plane with Jack on board. No, he thought, that would be too high profile. If he wants me dead, there are quieter ways to do it. A mugging, an engine fire while I’m asleep, food poisoning at Bruno’s.
Whatever it was, whatever little trace of puzzlement the industrialist had thrown into him with that curve, he felt energized. It was good to be a working journalist in the thick of it.
He was about to go inside to make lunch when the phone chimed. It was a D.C. exchange, caller ID: “Washington Metro.” He had an idea who that would be.
“This is Jack,” he said.
“Hey, it’s Dover,” said the caller.
“Pay phone?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. I’m being monitored. And I’ve been furloughed. Not because of Hawke, though.”
“Oh?”
“No, because of you. You’re persona non grata ad absurdum.”
“That’s a lot of Latin for an ex-TV talk show host,” Jack said. “Though now that I think of it, I guess I’ve been cursed at in most languages.”
“Which is kind of ironic,” Dover replied, “since it’s our English friends you seem to have pissed off the most.”
“Ah. ONI is worried about their alliances.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I’m sorry about your being collateral damage,” Jack told her. “But if we can pin this down, maybe they’ll reconsider.”
“Why, you got something? You spoke with him?”
“Not yet,” Jack said. “He’s sending a jet to ‘collect me,’ as they put it.”
“Wow. Like a trophy,” Dover said.
“More like garbage,” Jack replied, still smarting from Webb’s respectful condescension. “As long as I get to talk to him, who cares?”
“You don’t really think he’ll tell you anything, do you?”
“Not in words, no,” Jack said. “But if he’s bad, I’ll know it.”
“Right. The ‘interviewing people for years’ B.S. detector thing.”
Bringing up the reference, Jack did not detect any cynicism or doubt in her voice. Dover was letting him know she’d heard what he told her earli
er and understood.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Jack said. “If you have nothing to do, why not come out here and work with me on this?”
“You mean compound my sins by actually collaborating with the enemy instead of just talking to him on the phone?”
He was looking out at the ocean. “Pretty much. The benefits suck but the view is terrific.”
“I should probably think about that.”
“What for? ‘Furlough’ in D.C. means ‘You’re being fired through due process.’ Like I said, if we tie Hawke to something rotten, you’ll probably get a raise and a civilian commendation, maybe even an office instead of a cubicle.”
A Time for War Page 12
