The Art of War: A Novel Read online

Air Force One was rolling. Frank took a look over his shoulder.

  “Turn it,” Chong told him, then tossed the binoculars onto the seat.

  Joe stepped behind the van, out of sight of the oncoming vehicle, now only a hundred yards away. The engines of the Boeing 747 were just barely audible.

  The pickup slowed. It was going to stop. Chong reached into the passenger seat and put his hand on the pistol, a Beretta in 9 mm. Took the safety off.

  As the pickup stopped, the jet lifted off. Still coming this way and climbing, although not too steeply. The sound was swelling.

  Two guys got out of the truck and approached Cheech, who was busy under the hood with his back to them.

  Cheech backed out and looked up at the plane, now almost overhead. The officers, walking toward him, did, too.

  As it passed and the noise crested and began to dissipate, one of them shouted, “What are you doing out here?”

  Cheech had already reached down behind the radiator and lifted the submachine gun off its restraining hooks. He turned, firing. One three-shot burst for each officer. Both went down as if they’d been sledgehammered.

  As Cheech ran toward the security truck to check to see if there was anyone else, Frank shouted, “Five seconds.”

  They never heard the small EMP bomb go off. The jet continued on its course for several seconds, the engines at full power, then began a gentle turn to the right. The nose drifted down. The turn steepened and the nose dropped further. Then the giant plane, now about two miles away to the south, went into the ground at about twenty degrees nose-down and thirty degrees right-wing-down. It exploded on impact.

  Chong shouted, “Let’s get the fuck outta here,” pulled the antenna from the roof and tossed it into the van.

  With all four of them in the van, Cheech started it. On the off chance that the EMP burst would be close by, they had spent a week shielding the electrical system.

  The van roared away in a cloud of dust, leaving the two security officers lying in the road. One managed to stagger to his feet. He had been wearing a bulletproof vest. He had several broken ribs and massive contusions, but he was alive and conscious. He staggered to the pickup, got the door open. Reached for the radio on the dash and keyed the mike.

  Nothing. The radio was fried.

  It didn’t compute. He didn’t understand. He tried it several times, then remembered the two-way radio on his belt. Got it out, ensured it was on, then tried to talk. It too was dead.

  Only then did the conflagration of the burning airplane two miles south and the rising column of black smoke sink into his consciousness.

  *

  They didn’t say anything on the ride into Denver. The enormity of the crime they had just committed seemed to crush the words from them. Two police cars with lights flashing and sirens howling roared past them going the other way. Then an ambulance. And another. And a fire truck.

  Finally, as they were nearing the public parking garage downtown where they had left the cars, Chong said, “Everyone got their tickets and passports?”

  All yeses.

  They had selected this garage because it didn’t have security surveillance cameras. Cheech went up to the sixth level. Their cars were where they had left them, and no one was around. Cheech wheeled the van into an empty stall.

  He shut down the engine and reached for his seat belt release. Chong shot him an inch above the right ear, then turned and put a bullet into the heads of Frank and Joe, one at a time.

  Bang, bang, bang, just like that.

  He tossed the gun over the seat.

  He got out, pulled out his bag that had held the binoculars and from it took a large plastic bottle of charcoal lighter fluid. He squirted some on Cheech and everything in the front seat. Closed the passenger door. Opened the van door and squirted Frank and Joe. Emptied the bottle on everything in sight, then tossed the bottle in.

  Patted his pocket, felt his car keys and got out his cigarette lighter. Stepped back a few feet, lit a cigarette and tossed it into the van.

  And waited. Nothing.

  Just when he thought he was going to have to do it again, the entire interior of the van lit off with a whoof that nearly knocked him down.

  Chong walked, not ran, to his parked car, unlocked it with the key and got in. Started it, pulled out of the parking place and drove down the slanting alley away from the van on fire, down level by level, drove toward the exit to the street and the rest of his life, which was stretching out before him like a sunlit, shining road.

  CHAPTER NINE

  History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

  —Dwight D. Eisenhower

  The news of the crash of Air Force One brought the United States to a standstill. And within minutes, the rest of the world. People who had lived through the assassination of JFK when they were young were flooded with memories and stunned into silence. First reports indicated the plane had gone in nose first, at a twenty-degree nose-down angle at least, and the resulting explosions and fire with a column of black smoke were soon on television, giving anyone watching little hope.

  As it happened, I was in the office with Grafton’s two new executive assistants, Max Hurley and Anastasia Roberts, going over the memos Grafton had scrawled in the margins of every report and intel summary. We saw them all, from confidential to Tippy-Top Secret intel. If ever someone wanted to know what was going on in the Company, all they would have to do was subvert one of the director’s EAs. That thought had zipped through my noodle and was bouncing around in there when the receptionist ran in with the news, “Air Force One has crashed in Denver.”

  We locked stuff up as fast as we could and headed for the conference room, which had a television. It was already on. Two of the secretaries were standing there watching it. We joined them. Dead silence as we watched the column of rising black smoke go up into the blue sky and be twisted away by the breeze.

  “They must all be dead,” Anastasia murmured. “Including the president.”

  “Did you know anyone on that plane?” one of the secretaries asked, a plump woman who liked to bring homemade desserts to work.

  “Probably many of them. They won’t announce the names for hours, I suppose, until they get the relatives notified.”

  “Oh, how sad!”

  I overheard that exchange but didn’t turn to catch Roberts’s reaction. I was concentrating on the announcer and the pictures, as no doubt hundreds of millions of people all over the world, in schools, offices, airports, homes, bars and brokerage firms were also. The video was hard to watch, live television pictures from helicopters and a news crew on the ground. The effect was mesmerizing and horrific. A picture of a smashed airliner always stirs a visceral reaction. Nowadays everybody flies in those things, sooner or later, so seeing one crumpled like tissue paper and on fire gets to your gut. The only good news was that for the people on the plane it was over quickly. The announcer didn’t mention that bright spot, however.

  The announcer must have been listening to his producer, however, because he said the nation’s cellular telephone system was paralyzed as everyone, everywhere, tried to call their family and friends to alert them to the disaster.

  The spell was broken fifteen minutes later when the first report, soon confirmed, came out that the president was not on the plane.

  “Oh, thank God,” three of the women said in unison.

  He had stayed behind in Denver for a secret conference with senators and governors from his party to plot political strategy, the announcer said.

  The nation and the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. At least the American head of state was still alive. Even though about 150 staffers, aides, Secret Service agents, communications specialists, and a few reporters were aboard and presumed dead.

  In the room where I was, we all clapped. It wasn’t that we were political friends of the prez, because I doubt if we all were, but he was the head of state, and it was a huge relief.

  About
that time I realized that Jake Grafton was standing against the back wall, watching the tube.

  After a while the secretaries wandered off, back to their desks, but we three EAs stayed glued to the tube. The stock market was gyrating madly. When it closed at 4 P.M. Eastern Time, the Dow was down a couple of hundred points.

  Two hours after the crash, the first accusation, by an airport security guard, that the plane had been brought down by a drone aired on a Fox News affiliate and was picked up by the network we were watching.

  A burned-out van containing three bodies was found in a Denver parking garage and surrounded by FBI, local police, Secret Service and Homeland Security agents. Hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes officers converged on the crash scene, the roads around the airport and the burned-out van. Thousands of people were questioned, surveillance video was confiscated for review, roadblocks were set up, and several million people in Colorado were severely inconvenienced.

  An obviously distraught president appeared on television. He was being briefed, he said. He was overwhelmed by the tragedy that had struck his official family, amazed that by a quirk of fate he wasn’t on that plane and had no answer to the question of why the plane had taken off with the Air Force One call sign, which was supposed to be used by the executive Boeing 747 only when the president was aboard.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Apparently it just happened. We’ll have to wait and see.” He asked that all national flags at government and post office buildings nationwide be lowered to half mast. “The nation has lost a lot of really dedicated public servants. Their families have my sympathy.”

  After he said that, I realized Grafton was gone.

  By six that evening I was the only person left in the conference room. The network anchors were speculating about causes. If there was a drone involved, it sounded like murder. A terror strike, or an assassination attempt? Or was it just an aircraft accident?

  Zoe Kerry joined me, and together we watched the wrap-up. The fire in the wreckage was out and it was covered with foam.

  That was when I remembered the surveillance system I had installed at Grafton’s house. I found Grafton standing by the reception desk with Anastasia Roberts. She was telling him that she had been called by the White House and asked to inform several families that their loved ones were dead.

  “Sure. Go do it,” he said. “And give them our condolences.”

  “I may not make it in to work tomorrow.”

  “I understand.”

  Roberts strode out, and he turned to me. “Tommy, I can’t get on the Internet to check the system at my house. Seems the satellite feed should be working, but apparently it isn’t. Security had the van come over here to augment grounds security. I think Callie should be home from the university by now. Would you run by there and make sure everything is okay?”

  “Sure. On my way.”

  I said good night to everyone who was still there, including Jennifer Suslowski, grabbed my jacket and headed for the stairs. Now I was worried. If I were a hit man, a disaster like this would have been the perfect time for a little improvised mayhem. With every possible witness, and my victims, glued to the tube, I would have a rare opportunity.

  In the parking lot I tried my cell phone. Couldn’t get a connection. Everyone in the world was calling someone. I tore out of the Langley lot and headed down the GW Parkway into Roslyn.

  Thank God the Graftons lived close, not an hour and a half away out in the suburbs.

  Fifteen minutes later I drove by their place, looked it over, then drove into the garage across the street and parked on the top deck. Lots of cars, but not another soul did I see on my way up. I walked down, looking for people on each level. One car drove in on the third deck, parked, and a guy in a suit got out. Fiftyish, a little overweight. His tie was loose, and he had obviously had a few on the way home. It was that kind of day.

  I wondered if he knew anyone on that crashed plane. Heck, I wondered if I did. About the only White House denizen I knew was Sal Molina. I wondered if he …

  I jaywalked across the street and headed for Grafton’s building. Kept my eyes moving, looking for guys sitting in cars, people leaning out of the open garage …

  Nothing. Paused in front and tried to get the surveillance video on my cell phone. It wouldn’t log on to the network. Technology, ain’t it great?

  Went into Grafton’s building, pushed the button on Grafton’s mailbox. After a moment, “Hello.”

  “Mrs. Grafton, this is Tommy Carmellini. May I come up for a moment?”

  “Sure, Tommy.”

  The door clicked; I entered the empty lobby and summoned the elevator. Up I went.

  The door opened into an empty hallway. I walked down it to the Graftons’ door and knocked.

  Callie Grafton opened the door. Talk about a classy lady! Smart, erect, trim and still gorgeous—if and when I commit matrimony I want a lady like Callie Grafton!

  “Hello, Tommy. Come in.”

  I did so. “Sorry to barge in on you like this, but the Internet is overwhelmed and we couldn’t get the video from the cameras. I thought I’d drop by to check on you.”

  “You’ve heard the news about Air Force One, of course.”

  “Oh, yes. Terrible.”

  “Have you had any dinner?”

  “Uh … no. Have you been here all afternoon?”

  “No. I just got home about a half hour or so ago. I’m fixing a salad for dinner. Will you join me?”

  “I’d be delighted if you’ll give me a few minutes to look around.”

  “Of course. Whenever you are ready.”

  I checked the Wi-Fi under the television. Still working normally, as far as I could tell. Then I went out of the apartment and rode the elevator to the top floor, used the stairs to the roof. The door was locked. I used my little assortment of picks and got it within a minute.

  Up on the roof I went over to the unit we had installed to send the Graftons’ Wi-Fi feed to the satellite.

  It was offline. I looked it over. The battery had been removed, and someone had used a blunt instrument on the thing. It was as dead as Benedict Arnold. The old battery wasn’t there. Installing a new one, assuming I had one in my pocket, wouldn’t make it work.

  Someone had come up here while the Internet was off and fixed this thing good. That meant they had recognized the cameras on the outside of the building and in the hallways for what they were.

  I reached under my sport coat and fingered my popgun while I looked around the roof. Whoever had done the dirty deed wasn’t there now. I walked around the edge of the building’s roof, looking. There didn’t seem to be any access to the roof except through the door by which I had entered. The nearest other building was at least fifty feet away across a driveway and lawn borders. Fifty feet is a lot of space to cross.

  Oh, man! I felt naked. I could be in a sniper’s crosshairs right now. Right goddamn now!

  I slid down behind an air vent and sat looking around, trying to think.

  I wondered when the Company guys in the van left. Not that it mattered.

  The fact that Reinicke had been killed when his apartment exploded crossed my criminal mind.

  I couldn’t stay here. I was up and running at full tilt in a heartbeat. Got to the door and shot through it. Went down the stairs and along to the elevator and took it down to Grafton’s floor, the seventh.

  Went down the hall and let myself in.

  Went to the kitchen and found Callie. “Forget the salad. We need to leave now.”

  “Now?” She looked at me without understanding.

  “Get your coat and purse and let’s get out of here. Now.”

  Callie Grafton was quality. She was certainly Mrs. Jake Grafton! She didn’t even stop to put the salad makings in the refrigerator. She merely walked to the closet by the front door, pulled out her coat and purse. I held the coat for her, and then we walked out. I made sure the door locked behind us.

  We left the building and walked acro
ss the street to the pizza joint. I explained while we walked. “It looks as if someone visited the building while you were gone and the Internet and cell phone net were down. They’re still down. The crash of Air Force One. Everyone and their brother and sister and spouse and girlfriend are trying to get on them. Whoever was in the building sabotaged the repeater I put on the roof and may have entered your condo.”

  We went inside and installed ourselves at the bar so I could see anyone crossing the street to the Graftons’ building. “Let’s wait here for the admiral,” I said. The television on the wall was still covering the crash of Air Force One.

  She took several deep breaths as I surveyed the crowd. About ten people, all drinking, watching the news on television.

  I turned back to Callie. “No doubt I’m being paranoid, Mrs. Grafton, but the DNI, Reinicke, was killed when a gas leak in his apartment exploded. Someone may be trying to kill the admiral the same way. Probably not. But there is a chance. Say one in a hundred. Why risk it?”

  “You really think—”

  “I’m paranoid, sure. But the admiral sent me over here to check. And I’ve checked, and I think the thing to do is wait for him and you two spend the night somewhere else. Tomorrow, when things calm down, we’ll have some experts go through your place.”

  The barman came down the counter. “A drink? A menu?”

  Mrs. Grafton said, “I’ll have a glass of chardonnay. And a salad with vinegar and oil. Tommy?”

  “Bourbon. Neat. And a salad like the lady’s.”

  We had had finished our salads and each had a couple of drinks when I saw Jake Grafton’s old Honda pass by. I intercepted him on the street after he came out of the garage.

  He came in, got a quick update from Callie and glanced at me with those gray eyes.

  “Thanks, Tommy,” he said.

  *

  Zhang Ping and Choy Lee watched the coverage of the crash of Air Force One on a television in Choy’s apartment. He had a big flat-screen television made in China that he had bought at Walmart.

  Zhang’s English was improving—he listened very carefully and watched a lot of television—but he had a long way to go, so Choy translated whenever the announcer was saying something that he thought Zhang might like to know.