The Art of War

CHAPTER NINE

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 across 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.

Outside the wind was howling down Chesapeake Bay. Forty knots, at least, Zhang thought. When he got home tonight he would open his window a crack and turn on the heater, so he could hear the wind sing and not get chilled.

Zhang liked his apartment, which was three times bigger than the flat in which his parents had raised him. It was the nicest place he had ever lived. If his mother were still alive, she would have been overjoyed to see it.

His kitchen, with its appliances and big refrigerator, was a constant source of delight. So was his bathroom, with the heater and white ceramic toilet that flushed and swept everything along to some mysterious fate, out of sight and mind. He knew the sewage didn’t go into the bay — this was America! Not China, with its dozen hundred million poor people. That was the world Zhang had escaped when he joined the PLAN. And here he was, watching American television, listening to the wind howl outside, with his comfortable, pleasant apartment to return to in a few minutes.

Zhang wondered what the Americans were thinking about the assassination attempt. Were they angry, amused, frightened? They didn’t like their president very much, Zhang believed. Only one in three people thought he was doing an adequate job. Apparently it was a sad case of voters’ remorse. That thought led Zhang to muse about public opinion polls, which were a strange thing in his experience. No sane person would ask thousands of people in China what they thought about the government, then publish the results.

Finally Zhang bid Choy good-bye, and was soon outside, feeling the wind tear at him as he walked the quarter mile to his building. The wind whipped his hair and tugged at his clothing. It reminded him of nights at sea, when he was a cadet and, later, aboard his first ship.

Unfortunately those days were behind him now, and would probably never come again. Still, in the interim, he could enjoy the wind.

He opened his window an inch or two and let the singing night wind into his apartment.

Savor the days, he thought. Savor being alive. The end will come too soon.

With Choy’s help, Zhang bought a pickup truck the next day. It was two years old and had no rust. Although he had a driver’s license, this was the first vehicle he had ever owned. Well, he really didn’t own this one, since it was purchased with Chinese government funds but he liked it anyway.

Choy made some telephone calls to get insurance for the truck, vanished into an office and came back with a sheet of fax paper. “We’re good to go,” he said.

Zhang drove it out of the sales lot with Choy in the right-hand seat.

“I only have an international driver’s license,” he told Choy. “Will that be a problem?”

“Not with your passport and tourist visa. And this insurance binder.” He folded it up and put it in what he called a “glove compartment,” a drawer with a door that hinged downward, below the dashboard on the passenger side.

As he drove along with a wary eye on traffic and the road signs that told him speed limits and others that had names of places and arrows, Zhang tried to stay in the proper lane for turns. One had to decide far in advance of a turn which lane was best and pick a hole in traffic to get into it. American drivers, he had noticed, were very touchy about someone cutting in front of them and quick to blow their horn and glare. Or raise a middle finger. Driving required concentration.

Finally he took Choy home and dropped him off, then went motoring by himself.

As he drove, Zhang thought about Choy. How far could he be trusted?

Of course Zhang knew about Choy’s girlfriend. He had met her on several occasions when they went to the Chan restaurant, where she worked. She smiled a lot at Choy. And everyone else.

On a long-term assignment, naturally a man needed a woman occasionally. Paying for sex was dangerous since the police kept their eyes on prostitutes. A girlfriend was good cover for Choy.

But how much help could he expect from Choy before the man became suspicious? He was on a low-grade assignment and had never been trusted with tasks more onerous than taking photos and sending them to an Internet dead drop.

How loyal was Choy?

If Choy saw too much of Zhang’s preparations, he could compromise the operation if he talked too freely or got arrested. On the other hand, without him Zhang would be on his own without a translator. It was a nice problem, and Zhang turned it over and over in his mind.