Yocke did only the two shows using material that he obtained from Jake Grafton, although he never once told anyone where it came from. That detail got lost somehow in the nationwide search for the people behind the attempted assassination of the president. Eight million dollars, a voice on the radio, three bodies, and a severely injured fourth man got barrels of printer’s ink and hundreds of hours of air time.
Robert Levy’s FBI pulled out all the stops. The FBI’s previous involvement with the Russian dossier and the failed attempts of senior agency officials to smear the president had placed the agency under a huge spotlight. The public would be satisfied with nothing less than a trial and conviction of the people responsible for the assassination attempt. Senators and Congressmen stated flatly that the future of the agency was at stake.
About a month after the assassination attempt, the Russian banking system collapsed. I read about it one morning in the Washington Times. It seems every computer in every bank in Russia wiped itself clean overnight, paralyzing the entire banking system.
I drank my coffee, ate my omelet, and went to physical therapy. It turned out that the bullet I took in the leg required an operation, which meant hospital time and therapy afterwards. After therapy, I dropped by my fitness center and got on the treadmill. The television was still riding the Conyers’ attempted assassination story pretty hard, but the banking collapse in the evil empire got some minutes. The expert of the network I was watching thought computer hacking and malware was probably the cause, but no one had any facts. Oddly, the Russians weren’t yet accusing anyone. I had my candidate, and it was the woman I slept with. Screwing the Russians was right down Sarah Houston’s alley. The CIA was going to miss her.
I had lunch with Jake Grafton, who was at home those days, walking with a cane. The physical therapist visited him there three times a week. He and Callie looked glad to see me. Our first subject was our wounds, which were healing. I was fortunate that the guy who shot me didn’t hit anything I really needed to keep the machine running, and I was lucky enough to get shot in a hospital with doctors and an operating room just paces away.
“So you’re leaving the agency this Friday?” Grafton asked as we finished lunch, which was soup and home-made chicken-salad.
“That’s Sarah’s last day too,” I told him. “We’ll get our stuff packed and put in storage, then we’re off to Idaho.”
“I went out with a flight instructor this past weekend,” Grafton said. “He says there is no reason I can’t resume flying whenever I think I can get in and out of the plane and gas it and so on. I called the guys at the airport where I keep my plane and they’ve started an annual inspection on it. Now all I need is a letter from my doctor that says I am not likely to die at the controls, in his opinion.”
Callie brought us coffee and heard the flying comment. She winked at me. “With me as his ground crew, he’d be ready to fly right now if the plane was.”
“Are you retiring, Admiral?” I asked.
“I’m on terminal leave now,” he said. “I don’t know when the White House will announce it. Probably not until they get someone else lined up to take the job.”
“Nanya Friend?”
“That was my recommendation, but you know how it is.”
“This Russian banking system collapse. Would you know anything about that?”
He smiled and sipped his coffee.
“So who bought the president’s murder, and tried to buy yours?”
He shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Robert Levy that question, but I doubt if he knows. The bureau is trying to trace the money. They are really motivated. Unless they can do that or someone confesses, it’s hopeless. That wounded Secret Service agent is brain damaged and isn’t saying anything to anyone.”
“There’s a book in his future.”
“There’s a wheelchair there for sure,” Grafton said sourly, “and maybe some bullets. The poor bastard may commit suicide by shooting himself three times in the back of his head.”
“You said Cynthia Hinton was behind the money river, and so did Vaughn Conyers.”
“That’s one possibility,” Grafton said, weighing his words. “You could probably find another hundred or so candidates in the Deep State. Some of those people thought Conyers was the devil incarnate.”
“What about the other voice on the Secret Service tactical net? The guy who said, ‘Do it?’ ”
“That’s a possible lead, if they can ever match that voice. But that guy didn’t pay eight million dollars for a couple of hits. Whoever did probably wasn’t within ten miles of that hospital.”
“Ah, but he’ll know who paid him.”
Grafton merely smiled.
“Admiral, they are still talking and writing books about the JFK assassination, which happened in 1963. What is that? Fifty-six years ago? They’ll be talking and writing books about Conyers’ attempted murder for a hundred years unless the government charges someone and proves they did it to an absolute certainty.”
Grafton shifted positions in his chair. “Assassinating a president is the worst crime anyone can commit. Trying to do it is just as bad. The government will pull out all the stops. They’ll investigate until they have gathered all the evidence that can be found, down to the last iota. They’ll never quit, and there is no statute of limitations. Whoever tried to arrange Conyers’ murder will be living in dread for the rest of his life.”
“What I don’t want,” I explained, “is to have some half-wit theorize that Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini tried to whack the president.”
Jake Grafton chuckled. “In fifty or sixty years,” he said, “some guy might write a book about us doing just that. I’ll be long gone, so I won’t care, and you can sue him for defamation of character and fund your retirement.”
I laughed. “In fifty years I’ll be too old to care,” I said. “Seriously, was Conyers right to tell you to lay off Cynthia?”
Jake Grafton scrutinized my face. “We could never get enough admissible evidence to indict her, much less convict her,” he said. “Conyers was right about that. The Russians will never talk. If we had named her as a suspect in the money shuffle she would have become a martyr. On the other hand, if we don’t do anything then the whispers will eventually destroy her politically, like Chinese water torture, drop by drop.”
“At heart, you’re a really mean bastard,” I said appreciatively. “But why do I think Cynthia might have panicked and paid to have you and Conyers murdered?”
He got the funniest look on his face. “Because she was afraid of us,” he replied. “That’s what a guilty conscience will do.”
I smiled. “The old attack pilot.” I said. “I like that.”
Jake Grafton grunted.
I decided to leave it there. I shifted my attention to Callie. “When are you coming to Idaho?”
“This fall, during some good weather,” she said. “Jake doesn’t want to fly on instruments any more. Keep us advised of where you are, and of your telephone numbers.”
I finished my coffee, we talked about inconsequential things, then I shook hands and said goodbye. And walked out of the Graftons’ lives.
That summer afternoon I limped out the door to his building and stood looking across the street at the parking garage that Jack Norris used as a sniper’s perch when he gunned the admiral. I wasn’t even wearing a windbreaker, much less a pistol. Maybe it would be better this way.
It was an October day, with clear skies and temps in the high 50s, a little wind stirring what remained of the fall foliage. Sarah and I sat in the pickup near the upwind end of a 2,800-foot-long grass runway, which ran a little uphill to where we sat.
We got out, leaned against the side of the truck, and watched a flight of geese making their way south with the mountains behind them. Finally I heard it, a tiny buzzing, very pleasant, growing slowly.
Sarah saw it first: a little high-wing airplane to the southeast, just above the mountain ridge. As we watched, she dropped lower an
d came flying toward us; the engine noise grew from a burble to a growl. She flew right over the truck with the engine singing, then swung out on a downwind leg. The pilot pulled the power and I realized that he had lowered flaps.
She came around and lined up on the runway, settling, then gently kissed the earth in a three-point landing, the tailwheel arriving at the same time as the mains. No bounce.
With the engine at idle she rolled up to us; the pilot stopped the left main wheel and spun the tail around with a blast of power. The spinning prop baptized us with dust and noise.
The engine died and the prop waggled to a stop. In the silence, I could hear the click as the pilot’s door opened… there was Jake Grafton, smiling at me. “Hello, Tommy.”
I couldn’t contain myself. I jumped up and down on one foot, then the other, pumping air with both fists and shouting as Sarah laughed and Mrs. Grafton waved from the right seat. Life was moving on…
The End
About the Author
Author photo by Deborah Jean Coonts
STEPHEN COONTS is one of America’s greatest thriller writers. A former naval aviator and Vietnam combat veteran, he is the author of The Assassin, The Disciple, Liberty’s Last Stand, The Armageddon File, and sixteen national bestsellers including Flight of the Intruder, which was made into a major motion picture. A graduate of West Virginia University and the University of Colorado School of Law, Coonts resides in Colorado with his wife.
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Also by Stephen Coonts
The Armageddon File
Liberty’s Last Stand
The Art of War
Saucer: Savage Planet
Saucer: The Conquest
Saucer
Pirate Alley
The Disciple
The Assassin
The Traitor
Liars & Thieves
Liberty
America
Hong Kong
Cuba
Fortunes of War
The Intruders
The Red Horseman
Under Siege
The Minotaur
Final Flight
Flight of the Intruder
With William H. Keith
Deep Black: Death Wave
Deep Black: Sea of Terror
Deep Black: Arctic Gold
With Jim DeFelice
Deep Black: Conspiracy
Deep Black: Jihad
Deep Black: Payback
Deep Black: Dark Zone
Deep Black: Biowar
Deep Black
Nonfiction
The Cannibal Queen
Dragon’s Jaw, with Barrett Tillman
Anthologies
The Sea Witch
On Glorious Wings
Victory
Combat
War in the Air
Writing as Eve Adams
The Garden of Eden
Copyright © 2019 by Stephen Coonts
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