The Art of War

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Lieutenant “Gnuly” Neumann and Lieutenant “Whitey” Sorenson were at the controls of a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon over the South China Sea on a routine surface surveillance mission. The Poseidon, the replacement for the navy’s forty-year-old turboprop P-3 Orion patrol airplane, had a surface search radar in a pod on the belly, which had been lowered hydraulically so the radar’s scan wouldn’t be limited by the engine nacelles.

Two naval flight officers (NFOs) and three enlisted naval aircrewmen sat at the operators’ stations along the port side of the aircraft behind the cockpit. Only the pilots had windows. Today they were busy tracking the ships and fishing boats in the South China Sea.

It was a dull mission. The plane and crew were based at the old naval air station runway at Subic Bay in the Philippines. The United States had turned over the base to the Philippine government in 1992 after the Philippine Senate demanded the U.S. military leave, but the rising aggressiveness of China had changed political reality in Manila. The Philippines decided they needed the United States as military allies. In 2012 the U.S. Navy was invited back to Subic Bay, the finest deep-water port in the western Pacific. Fortunately for the Americans, the saloons and whorehouses of Olongapo, the city beside the base, had welcomed the Americans back with open arms, as had all the Filipinos who once again had jobs at the base.

Gnuly was thinking about how the world had turned, again, when the senior NFO, Lieutenant (junior grade) Doug Shepherd, said on the intercom, “We have a high-speed bogey at three o’clock. Thirty miles and closing fast. On a course to intercept. It’s above us and descending.”

“How far are we from China?”

“One hundred and forty-five miles east of Hainan Island.”

Oh hell, Gnuly thought, here we go again. The Chinese had already harassed U.S. patrol planes three times this year. Twelve or thirteen years ago, one hit a P-3. Killed the fucking Chinese bastard in the fighter — he went into the ocean — and the P-3 made an emergency landing in Hainan, where the Chinese held the crew for eleven days before releasing them. The pilot was now a commander; Gnuly had met him once. All these thoughts shot through his head in a second or two.

Gnuly left the plane on autopilot. A steady course might prevent some damn fool chink from inadvertently hitting him. Not that there was much he could do about a Chinese aircraft zooming around, with or without hostile intentions. The Poseidon had no antiaircraft weapons whatsoever. Nor was it aerobatic or supersonic. It was a military version of the Boeing 737–800, an airliner.

“Hell,” Whitey said, and stared out his window, trying to catch a glimpse of the oncoming airplane.

Then he saw it, slightly above them, descending toward them. “Collision course,” he said, his voice rising. “Right at us! Holy damn.”

The airplane, a fighter, slashed right in front of them, missing by what seemed a few feet. The Poseidon jolted as it went through the fighter’s wake. The fighter went out to the left in a climbing turn. Gnuly watched it. It was high, curving around to come in behind them.

“You guys in back get ready. This guy is gonna buzz us again.”

“Or hit us,” Whitey muttered. He concentrated on the instrument panel. If the autopilot kicked off, he wanted to be ready to hand-fly this beast.

The Chinese pilot came zooming in, seeming to aim his plane right at the cockpit. It looked like he was going to ram, yet at the very last second he dipped his wing and passed in front of them on knife-edge, a ninety-degree angle of bank, so close they could see his helmeted head in the cockpit. Extraordinarily close. Once again the Poseidon bucked as it crossed the fighter’s wash.

“Jesus!” Whitey roared. “He damn near got us.”

Gnuly took several seconds to get himself under control. He had thought they were going to die. “How close is the cavalry?” Gnuly asked Shep. He meant American fighters, of course.

“An hour away, at least,” was the answer.

“Get on the horn. Get them coming this way. Have Mike tell base ops what is going on.” Mike was the other NFO, Lieutenant Mike Fischer. “Give them our position. If we go down, at least they’ll know where to look.”

“Yep,” Shep said, and changed radio channels.

“Got it,” Mike echoed.

“There’s another fighter a thousand feet above us, crossing our nose right to left,” Whitey said. “Got him in sight.”

“The wingman,” Gnuly said.

“Yep.”

“Gimme a camera, somebody. I want a photo if he comes by again.”

The fighter did make another pass, but Gnuly was still trying to get the camera that had been passed to him turned on and focused when it came up the port side in afterburner and crossed right in front of them, seeming close enough to touch, its wingtip almost scraping the cockpit. Gnuly managed a photo as the fighter headed west, toward Hainan. It was at least two miles away when he clicked the shutter.

Then they were gone and the incident was over. Two fighters disappearing into the haze toward Hainan, the Poseidon still on autopilot, the crew wondering what it all meant. If anything.

It was an international incident, reported worldwide. Another Chinese-American incident. A Chinese spokesman said, “Continued surveillance by the United States threatens to undo previous diplomatic efforts.”

Jake Grafton read the article in The Washington Post. So did Sally Chan, in Norfolk, in The Virginian-Pilot. Choy Lee read that article, too.

After two FBI agents showed up at the hospital, Willie Varner and I took the van back to the shop. We got into his car and headed back to his place, where I was bunking.

“I guess you don’t need me watchin’ that feed from Grafton’s anymore.”

“You’re done.”

“Maybe that Kerry bitch will kill someone else.”

“I don’t think so. Grafton will take care of her.”

“Gonna be a nice little check, when I get it.”

“Hold that thought.”

Willie the Wire looked me over and shook his head. “This shit ain’t good for your soul, Carmellini,” he said. “Mine either.”

“Meet you in hell,” I muttered.

At his place he got out a bottle of bourbon, poured a glass neat, handed it to me, then went to bed.

I sipped bourbon and thought about the interrogation. I almost killed Fish when he told me about planting the bomb in my apartment. Of course, he had lots more to spill at that point, so I didn’t. Just caused him more pain. Lots more. Killing him would have given me a lot of satisfaction, but it would have been an easy out for him. Toward the end, he was begging me to shoot him. That’s when I was glad I hadn’t finished him. Now I was wishing I had.

Ah me. Why is it we are supposed to be civilized, obey the rules of a civilized society, when the enemies of our society aren’t civilized?

That was a conundrum I wasn’t smart enough to solve.

Any way you looked at it, Anna Modin was dead. Gone. Gone forever, and I was left here to march on through this putrid morass of stupidity, self-interest and evil.

Was I feeling sorry for Anna or myself?

I finished off that glass of whiskey, drank one more, then stretched out on the couch. I was replaying Fish’s screams in my memory when the alcohol put me to sleep.

Sal Molina arrived two minutes prior to Harry Estep. Jake Grafton handed him Tommy Carmellini’s notes and a cup of coffee, and called for coffee for Harry when he got there. Both men read Carmellini’s notes in silence. As they were reading, Robin knocked, then came in carrying two breakfasts on cafeteria trays. Jake nodded at her, and she gave one tray to each of the visitors. She looked a question at Jake, and he shook his head no. He would get something to eat later.

When Robin left, Estep angrily asked, “How’d Carmellini get this stuff outta this Fish guy? Vega.”

“I didn’t ask,” Grafton shot back.

“Tortured him.”

Jake Grafton shrugged. “I didn’t ask because I don’t want to know. There it is in black and white. Two days before, we intercepted Zoe Kerry talking to this guy on a cell phone.”

“Intercepted?” Estep growled. “You got a warrant?”

“No.”

“We can’t use that in court.”

“Want to listen?” He turned to his computer, and in less than a minute all three men heard her voice.

When the conversation was over, Estep said a cuss word.

“So what are you going to do about Zoe Kerry?” Grafton asked, eyeing the FBI man.

Estep lost it. “What the hell can I do? Fish, Vega, won’t testify. This statement to Carmellini isn’t admissible in court. That recording is worthless. The Justice Department won’t prosecute. Kerry will just laugh at us.”

“Well, you better think of something,” Grafton said, staring at Harry. “You and I know those notes are the gospel. She sicced Fish on Mario Tomazic, James Maxwell, Paul Reinicke and me. He put a bomb in Carmellini’s apartment and killed Carmellini’s girl. He assassinated the last known man who brought down Air Force One, trying to kill the president. Fish says he did Carmellini on his own because he saw him, knew his face. You have several hundred agents investigating all these crimes, and Fish admits he did them. Now what the hell are you going to do?”

Harry Estep threw Carmellini’s notes on Grafton’s desk. They scattered all over. The admiral left them where they landed.

“Sal, you want to say anything?”

“Why?”

Jake Grafton took a sip of coffee, as if this were just another staff meeting. “Because he was paid.”

“Who paid him?”

“Kerry.”

“Who paid her?”

“I don’t know. She does. Harry?”

Harry Estep was pale and sweating. His eyes bulged. He stared at Jake Grafton. “You…”

“Man, I just told you how it is. You’re the interim director of the FBI. Until Sal’s boss throws you under the bus. Now, Interim Director, what are you going to do?”

“Arrest her. There’s nothing else I can do.”

“I agree. She’ll try to contact Fish sooner or later and smell a rat when she can’t get him. Toss her in the can. But get busy investigating her. Not him. She’s got a contact somewhere. Get a warrant to intercept her calls, search her computer. She’s got a bank account somewhere that she uses to pay Fish, or she’s got a mattress full of cash. That money is somewhere. Goddamm it, find the money! But don’t get the idea you can let her walk around while you investigate. If she realizes Fish is in custody and calls the money man or sends him an e-mail, he’ll know the deception is over.”

“So?”

“Damn it, don’t you see? The murders were all a diversion to keep our eyes off the ball.”

“What ball?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“All this on your say-so.”

“I didn’t set this up, you idiot. I’m just telling you about it.”

“We’ll decide what to do,” Harry Estep snarled.

“Better get at it. She could be trying to call Fish even as we speak.”

“Fuck you, Grafton.”

“That remark won’t help an iota.”

“It makes me feel better. Got any whiskey in your desk?”

“No.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Harry Estep said, and rose from his chair.

“If you’re going to arrest her, better get at it,” Grafton said.

Estep was in a foul mood. “Unlike you, we have to get a warrant first.” He strode to the door, opened it and slammed it shut behind him.

Molina rose from his chair.

“Not you,” Grafton said sharply to the president’s man. “Sit.”

Molina didn’t move.

“Harry has a full plate,” Grafton said, “but you people at the White House have been living in la-la land and dancing between the raindrops. Now it’s time to face the music. Sit down.”

Molina sat.

“Whose bright idea was it to have the navy bring five aircraft carriers into Norfolk over the Christmas holidays?”

Molina stared. “Five carriers in Norfolk? This is the first I’ve heard about it.”

“Unfortunately, the navy heard about it months ago. Maybe six months ago. Some White House weenie ordered the CNO to order all the Atlantic Fleet carriers to Norfolk for the holidays, and McKiernan obeyed. As it happens, government spending will hit the debt ceiling in early December, and Congress will probably be reluctant to raise it. Oracle that I am, I predict another round of posturing about the debt ceiling. Remember what happened the last time?”

Molina sat silent, looking at Grafton. The telephone buzzed.

Grafton answered it.

Robin. “Zoe Kerry is here to brief you.”

“Tell her I’m busy. Tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.” The receptionist hung up.

Grafton swiveled back to Molina. “Someone at the White House told Cart McKiernan to put those carriers in Norfolk over the holidays. The Chinese know about it; they’ve been hacking into the navy’s computers. God knows what other nation knows our plans. The navy’s computers are apparently easily hacked. They might as well make a public announcement. One nuclear explosion and half the fleet will be wiped out, a million lives lost.” He pulled out the map Ilin had sent and handed it over.

Sal Molina stared at it.

“That’s a Chinese product. A Russian spy got it, and a high official in the SVR passed it to me.”

It took almost a minute for Molina to digest. “You’re implying the Chinese government will destroy these ships.”

“That’s a distinct possibility.”

“An attack on Norfolk?”

“It will probably be more subtle than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.”

“Subtle?” Molina was still trying to understand. “How?” he asked.

“The bomb may already be there.”

Willie Varner and I were sitting in the long-term parking lot at Dulles at nine o’clock that morning in the lock-shop van watching airliners land and take off when the FBI’s bomb squad showed up in an armored truck. One of the dudes got out of the passenger seat and came over to the van.

“Are you Carmellini?”

“Yep.”

“Got ID?”

I showed the guy my CIA pass. He took a hard look, sighed and handed it back. I almost asked him for his ID, but thought better of it.

“That’s the car.” I pointed at my ride.

“A bomb in it, you think?”

“Yep. Under the hood. I have the keys if you want them.”

He surveyed the cars, the sky, an airliner that serenaded us as it headed for Europe or Denver or wherever, and the people pulling luggage on wheels through the lot. He was a medium-sized wiry black guy with a buzz cut. He had a pinch of snuff in his lower lip. After a long look at my Benz, he spit on the pavement. “The office said I was to get the bomb out and let you have the car back.”

“We already have the man who put it there, and he has confessed. There won’t be fingerprints. Might be some DNA, but we don’t need it.”

“Wanna move this van? Back up a hundred feet and help keep people away.”

“Okay.”

“Gimme your keys.” He looked at my Benz. “What year is that?”

“A ’64.”

“An antique. Kinda ratty. Aren’t you about ready for a new ride?”

“I’m working up to it.”

I backed the van up about a hundred feet and turned off the engine.

“See, ever’body thinks you oughta get a new car,” Willie said.

“I just hope these guys don’t blow up my car and themselves, so I’ll have something to trade in.”

“You the tightest dude I know,” Willie grumped. “Kinda ashamed to be seen with you around that scruffy old thing.”

“Let’s get out and herd pedestrians.”

Willie said a common cuss word, and we climbed out of the van. I kept my cuss words to myself; they didn’t do me any good when I said them, so why bother?

The EOD specialists didn’t blow themselves up. After they removed the bomb, six sticks of dynamite, from under the hood, the bomb squad guys drove away. Willie and I put a new battery in the Benz.

“Six sticks,” Willie said. “Enough to spread you and this fuckin’ clunker all over this parking lot. They’d have scraped you up with a spoon to get enough to bury.”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously, Tommy. You oughta think about gettin’ into another line of work.”

“I am, dude. I am.”

“I’ve heard that song before outta you,” he said disgustedly. “Three or four times. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The Benz started on the first crank. After I gave him ten bucks for the tollbooth, Willie drove the van out of the lot, and I rolled out behind him. I was headed for a mall to buy some more new duds; then I had an appointment downtown.

Another line of work. No shit, Willie.

I was on the way to Washington on the limited-access road when it came over me, all of a sudden. I started sobbing and my eyes teared up.

I pulled over on the shoulder to let it pass. I couldn’t stop sobbing.

About two minutes later a trooper pulled up behind me. He spent a moment in his car, probably calling in my license plate, then got out and walked up to the driver’s side window. I ran the window down. I was a little better, but I must have been a sight. He took one look, sizing me up, and said, “Move your car when you can.”

I nodded.

“A woman?”

I nodded again.

“Been there, buddy. You’ll live through it.” He turned and walked back to his cruiser and left.

Three minutes later I was my usual sour self, so I started the engine and got the Benz under way.

I stopped in the men’s room on the way out of the mall and put on a set of my new threads. Underwear, socks, dry-clean trousers, leather shoes, a shirt with a collar that would take a tie when necessary, a sweater. Their off-the-rack sport coats fit me like I was wearing an empty feed bag with three holes in it. Plus a new belt. I was wearing new from the skin out.

On the way downtown, I called Doc Gordon, who was hanging around the Willard with a couple of other guys, looking for anyone who might be interested in little old me when I arrived. I circled the block a few times, keeping an eye on traffic. Reasonably certain I had no tail, I drove into the parking garage and wound my way to the top floor. Took the elevator down. No one paid the slightest attention to me. Doc was waiting when I came out of the elevator. He ignored me. Willis Coffey was seated in the lobby looking at a street map.

I ducked into the men’s room and sat on the throne until five minutes of twelve, then walked out and went into the corner bar. Five people in there, four men and a woman.

On Friday evenings this bar was one of Washington’s top meat markets for the professional and government crowd. If you looked the part and couldn’t get picked up here, you were essentially without prospects. I took a seat at the bar, and the barman handed me a bar menu. “What’ll it be?”

I considered. One drink at noon shouldn’t put me over the edge, and God knew I needed it. I named a bourbon. “Neat,” I said.

He nodded.

“Hell, make it a double.”

“You got it.”

I glanced around to see if I could spot my Russian spy. Nope.

Nothing on the bar menu screamed at me. I laid it down and looked out the window.

The bartender served my drink without comment. I sipped it and minutes passed. I watched reflections in the window. No one paid me any attention. The place gradually filled up. The patrons looked like lobbyists or political staffers, with a few lawyers sprinkled in for seasoning, the same crowd you see at noon in bars and eateries all over the downtown.

The whiskey tasted good. I thought about ordering another and decided against it. This afternoon I was going to have to tell Grafton I’d been stood up, and I should probably do it sober.

When the last of the brown liquid was behind my new belt buckle, the bartender asked, “Another?”

“No. One’s enough.”

“A mutual friend was talking about you the other day.”

I did a double take. The bartender was a black guy, maybe fifty, with prematurely gray-tipped hair. Even features, no visible tattoos, maybe 150 pounds.

“Which friend? I have several.”

“He just said he knew you, Carmellini. I’ll bring your bill.” In a moment he placed a little book containing the bill on the counter. I picked it up. It had the tab in there. I put my credit card, the government one, on top of the tab. The drink was going to be on Uncle Sugar.

When the book came back, I opened it and removed my plastic and a small brown envelope, pocketed them, then added a 20 percent tip to the credit card slip, signed it and launched off. Everyone ignored me.

Admiral Cart McKiernan came into Jake’s office at the CIA headquarters at Langley at twenty minutes after twelve. Jake had two trays from the cafeteria sitting on the sideboard.

As they ate, Jake explained about Fish and handed the admiral Tommy’s notes. After he read them carefully, McKiernan said, “So who hired this woman he took orders from?”

“I think it was the Chinese, but the evidence is thin. It’s someone who invested a lot of money in the attempt to assassinate the president. And Fish doesn’t come cheap.”

“Why?”

“I think this whole mess is a diversion to tie up law enforcement and the intelligence apparatus. The real threat is elsewhere.”

McKiernan abandoned his lunch half eaten. He pushed the tray back an inch. “Where?”

Jake passed over the map and explained how he got it, mentioning no names.

“Norfolk,” the admiral whispered, staring at the map.

“The carriers and their escorts in port over the holidays. Maybe.”

“How good is your maybe?”

“One chance in four. That’s the best target around. But there are others. Washington, New York, San Diego … We could make a list.”

“Well, this is easy. I’ll send the ships somewhere else or keep them at sea.”

“I don’t think you should do that. At least not until the very last minute. There is an excellent possibility that if Norfolk is the target, the bomb is already there. Someone is watching it. If the watcher suspects that we know about the weapon, he might detonate it without waiting for ships. There are more than a million people in the Norfolk area, not to mention Newport News.”

“But we don’t know it’s there,” the admiral objected.

“We are going to have to find out. Search that harbor without anyone knowing we are doing it. And keep an eye peeled for the watcher, who may or may not have the ability to trigger the thing.”

They worried the bone. “If the weapon isn’t there, the attack must come from the air, from a plane or missile,” Jake argued. “If it’s a missile, we’ll know who launched it. Ditto an airplane. That would start World War III with the Chinese. They can’t want that. They want the ships off the board and the United States Navy’s offensive power cut in half. That will force the United States out of the Yellow and China Seas, maybe out of the western Pacific. They’ll blame the explosion on us. Say an American nuke detonated. Half the people in the United States, Japan and Europe will believe them; that’s the political reality of our world today. You know that.”

McKiernan made a face. “And of the half that believe it was the Chinese, half of those will want to do nothing, preferring to pretend it was an accident.”

Jake said nothing.

The admiral mulled it. “If a bomb is there — and you have not an iota of proof that it is, other than a map that any kid with a computer could flange up — when was it planted?”

Jake picked up a classified file on his desk and passed it to McKiernan. “One of my staff dug this out last night.” The file contained the report from USS Utah about shadowing a Chinese sub from Hainan to the South Atlantic. The sinking of the boat, the return of the sub to Hainan. In addition, there was the information on Ocean Holiday.

“It isn’t much, I know,” Grafton said. “But this is a real possibility. The people on the yacht planted the bomb, left U.S. waters bound for the West Indies, rendezvoused with the Chinese sub off the Amazon and scuttled the yacht.”

McKiernan read every piece of paper in the file twice, then handed it back. “It fits,” he acknowledged grudgingly. “Do the people at the White House know about this?”

“Molina has seen the map. Not this file.”

McKiernan couldn’t sit still. He walked around the office with unseeing eyes. “Another Pearl Harbor,” he muttered. Finally he sat down again.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

I drove the Benz back to Langley. Jennifer Suslowski, at the reception desk, waved me into Grafton’s office. She even smiled at me. I was so stunned I forgot to smile back.

Grafton was in his reading glasses, sipping coffee and going over paperwork. He was always behind, I knew. Budgets, personnel, covert operations, intelligence summaries, reports … The paper flowed in faster than he could make it flow out. He had department heads, administrators and executive assistants, but still he was inundated. And like the captain of a ship, he was responsible for everything. Ask any congressman.

He glanced up at me and waved to a chair. “Get your car back?”

“Yes, sir. The FBI EOD guys got the bomb out without an explosion or a police riot in the parking lot and took it away.”

“The Willard?”

I put the envelope on his desk. “It was the barman. He passed this to me.”

Grafton nodded and fingered the envelope. He wasn’t going to open it while I was sitting here.

He changed the subject. “I talked to Estep this morning. He’s going to arrest Kerry, after he gets a warrant. That’ll probably take all afternoon. Why don’t you trot over to her apartment and take a casual look-see through her stuff before they get there? I’ve called personnel; they’ll show you her file before you go. Leave her computer for the FBI. See if she’s got a getaway bag packed and what’s in it. Don’t leave any prints.”

I frowned, started to protest. I never leave prints. Jeez …

Protests would have been wasted. He was back reading, so I left.

I had other things on my mind when I went by Suslowski, so I don’t know if she smiled at me or not. Probably not. She didn’t waste more than one or two a day.

In personnel, the desk lady, a gray-haired woman with too many pounds and too many years for me, produced the file quick enough, but then wanted me to sign something. “The Privacy Act,” she said by way of explanation.

I was a bit surprised. “Admiral Grafton called.”

“We have our rules. You wouldn’t want just anyone reading your file, would you?”

“Certainly not.” Using my left hand and careful not to leave fingerprints on the access sheet, I scribbled something illegible. She was satisfied.

She stood and watched me flip through the file. I made notes … with my right hand. The desk lady commented. “I’m ambidextrous,” I told her.

Kerry’s DOB, address, telephone numbers … Langley CIA pass number, car window sticker, license plate and type. That was the same car she had ridden me around in. In two minutes I thought I had everything I needed.

The desk lady had her eye on me the whole time, making sure I didn’t remove anything from the file. I made a mental note to tell Grafton that his sterling reputation cut no ice with the grunts. I thanked her and left.

I left Langley and drove over to Kerry’s apartment house, which was in Tysons Corner, on the west side of the Beltway. Thick clouds above the buildings and trees. Gloomy, chilly day. Maybe it would snow. Or rain.

I found the building, right across the street from a McDonald’s. Only one entrance. I had to wait for a garbage truck to exit. Then I drove in slowly and started looking for FBI vehicles. Up and down the rows I went. The lot was perhaps a third full, since it was only two in the afternoon. Their car was in the back row, backed in facing the front entrance. Two men, ties and sport coats.

I merely glanced at them and rolled on by. Her car wasn’t here.

The lot had a driveway around the south end of the building that allowed you to go around behind it. I took it. A dozen cars back there, with room for maybe twenty more. Her car wasn’t here either. Nor were there any FBI agents.

I parked at the far north corner of the lot and reached under the passenger’s seat for my picks and latex gloves. Pulled on the gloves slowly, worked them up over my fingers and hands.

Checked my gun under my armpit. Not that I intended to shoot any FBI agents, but maybe I would get lucky with Zoe Kerry.

The back door had numbers and names in a list. Beside each name was a buzzer. Yep, 213, Kerry. I pushed the buzzer and waited. Jabbed it two or three more times and waited some more.

I started at the highest floor, which was four, and ran my finger down the buzzers, giving each one a blast. The little squawk box came to life. “Who is it?”

“Joe Wilson. I forgot my key.”

The door beside me clicked. I pushed and was in. “Thanks,” I told the squawk box.

I took the elevator. The door opened into an empty corridor. I looked at the sign on the wall. Apartment 213 was to the right, so I went that way. Rapped on her door, just in case. Silence.

It took me about thirty seconds to get the lock.

I went inside, closed the door and made sure it locked behind me.

The place looked as if Conrad Hilton had designed it fifty years ago. This was an old hotel, converted to apartments. I walked toward the sitting room, by the door of a bathroom and a closet on my left into the sitting room, or living room, which had a kitchen in one corner. There was a small refrigerator, a four-burner electric stove with an oven under it, a small microwave and a super-duper coffee machine that ground the beans and heated milk.

I needed to know what was here, yet I didn’t have time for a leisurely search. On the plus side, I didn’t need to make sure everything looked undisturbed. The FBI would tear this place apart this evening; they wouldn’t know how she left it this morning.

The door that connected this room to what had once been another hotel room stood open. Big bed, a dresser, a nightstand, a desk with a printer on it, and a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. This room’s hallway had been converted to a walk-in closet. The bathroom door had been altered so now it opened through the bedroom wall, not the hallway. I opened it. Beauty paraphernalia was scattered all over the counter and filled the drawers. I closed the drawers and moved on.

The problem was time. I had no idea how much I had. Five minutes, five hours? Or something in between.

She had a laptop computer in the living area, on the counter across from the kitchen. It was plugged in and charging. I passed it and looked out the window between the curtains, without touching them. I was looking at the parking lot in front of the building. Traffic went by on the street beyond. The FBI guys were still there, sitting in their car.

If she had a getaway bag, it had to be where she could get to it fast. In a place this small, she could get to anything fast.

I went into the bedroom closet and got busy searching.

Shoes, hats, dresses, slacks, boots.

I went back to the closet by the door to the apartment. It contained winter coats and boots and sweaters. I felt the pockets of the coats. There was something in one.

A derringer. Two-shot, 22 caliber. It was loaded. I felt in the pocket for extra cartridges. None. Tried the other pocket, which was also empty. Well, this was a hideout gun. If you needed more than two bullets, you needed a better gun.

I started to put it back where I had found it, then changed my mind. Pulled up my pants leg and stuffed it in my sock.

I got busy, trying not to be messy, but looking. Did the desk first. Checkbook, bank statements, receipts …

In addition to a couple of dirty glasses, the nightstand had two books on it. Library books. The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin and Nancy by Adrian Fort. Both books were three days overdue. There was also a magazine, Cosmopolitan: The cover proclaimed that the lead article was “Twenty-Four Moves That Will Drive Your Man Wild.” I flipped through the books and magazine to see if she had carelessly left a note in Chinese in one. She hadn’t.

I got down on my hands and knees and looked under the bed. A gym bag. I pulled it out, set it on the desk and opened it.

Jackpot. Right on top was a .38 caliber revolver with a two-inch barrel, loaded. Two speed-loaders containing cartridges were also in the bag. Two prepaid cell phones, and a little notebook with the first page full of phone numbers. There were letters by the numbers, a private code, no doubt. The next three pages had account numbers and passwords. Strings of numbers on the fifth page. The rest of the book was blank.

There was a U.S. passport. Kerry’s photo, but the name was Janice Alice Johansson. And a Virginia driver’s license with the same name.

At the bottom of the bag was money. Six bundles of currency, cash in bundles held with rubber bands, plus several credit cards. The name on them was Janice A. Johansson. The money was old bills, fifties and hundreds. I didn’t count it.

I looked the printer over. Yep, it had copy function. I turned the thing on. While it was warming up, I peeked between the curtains at the parking lot. The FBI guys were still sitting in their car, windows rolled down, fighting crime.

I had been inside fifty-five minutes — way too long.

I copied the pages of the notebook that had writing, the ID pages and entry and exit pages of the passport that had stamps on them, the credit cards and driver’s license. It took twenty sheets of paper. Another seven minutes gone. Turned off the printer and went back into the bedroom. Copied the phone numbers off of the cell phones onto the back of my paper stash, then put cell phones, notebook, passport and credit cards back in her bag and shoved it under the bed. After a last look around, I checked the FBI guys one more time, then went to the door. I glanced through the eyehole; the hallway, as much of it as I could see, was empty. I folded the paper lengthwise, then into a square and stuck the mess in my hip pocket. It was a wad.

I unlocked the door and stepped out. I pulled the door shut behind me and heard it latch. Just as I started for the elevator, another door opened. Apartment 209. A Chinese man came out. He couldn’t know that I just came out of Kerry’s flat.

He was about medium height, wearing a dark gray suit and maroon tie. Regular features, Asian eyes, balding. I nodded and kept on going. The elevator door was open. I stepped in, and got a glimpse of a reflection of the Chinese man in the marble trim on the wall. He was still standing outside his door. He had been watching my back. Obviously he didn’t want to ride the elevator with me, so I punched the lobby button.

The lobby was empty. I headed for the back door. Went through it, stood under the overhang examining the parking lot. No people in or out of the cars. I went over to the Benz, unlocked it and got behind the wheel. Stripped off my gloves and shoved them and my pick pack under the passenger seat.

Looked at my watch. Thirteen after three. I drove out of the lot, around the building, past the FBI dudes and out onto the street, which was two lanes in each direction with a concrete median. I went down to the light, hooked a U-turn when the light turned green, and drove back to McDonald’s. Parked facing the street.

The view across the street was pretty good. I could see the back of the FBI sedan and the front of the building. I fished a small set of 6x binoculars out from behind the driver’s seat. Rolled down the windows so I could listen and treated myself to a piece of gum from a new pack. Sighed and tried to relax. I had a mild headache, and my muscles were sore. The December air coming in through the window was chilly, so I put on a jacket I had stuffed behind the seat. Drops of rain began to spatter on the windshield, and the breeze picked up. I rolled up the passenger window and left the one by my shoulder down.

The derringer was loaded with copper-clad solids. The serial number had been taken off with acid, which left a flat place. I put it back in my sock.

Damn Zoe Kerry!

I sat there savoring my memory of Fish’s screams, and feeling the pain of what might have been.

At four thirty I needed a break. I rolled up the windows, locked the car and dashed into Mickey D’s for a head call and a large cup of java.

I was back in less than ten minutes. Rain misting down. The FBI car was still sitting across the street. Those guys must have steel bladders or be pissing into their coffee cups.

Traffic was picking up. Cars began trickling into the apartment building lot across the street. People locked up their rides and went into the building. Lights in apartments began illuminating. The security lights on poles came on to fight the evening gloom. The rain stopped. Low clouds continued to churn overhead, and the breeze freshened again.

Cars drove into McDonald’s. Some parked, some lined up for the drive-through. I tossed my empty cup behind my seat. After a bit, I turned on my ride and ran the heater for a while.

I glimpsed Kerry turn into the apartment lot at six fifty. At least, I thought it was her. There was a lot of traffic going up and down the street.

Watching through the binoculars, I got another fleeting look at her car rounding the building for the parking lot in back. I wondered if she had seen the agents in the car.

Zoe Kerry parked her car and sat for a second. She had indeed seen the dark government sedan and two heads dropping out of sight.

Worried, she went upstairs and used her key to open her door. She went straight to the window and, without touching the curtains or turning on a light, looked out at the brightly lit parking lot. She saw the agents, now upright, sitting in the two front seats of the sedan.

Taking her purse, she walked out of her room, leaving the door ajar, and knocked on the door of 209. The Chinese gentleman opened the door. The television was on.

Kerry walked in, watched the man close the door behind him. “Have you been watching the lot out front? There are two men in a car in the row closest to the street.”

The man had venetian blinds on his window, now closed. He went to the window and looked. He turned back. “I haven’t been looking.”

“So you don’t know how long they have been there?”

“No, but—”

“Did you see anyone you don’t know on this floor today?”

“Yes. I was going down to check my mailbox, and I saw a man walking down the hall past my door. He got into the elevator.”

Now she was really worried. “Did you get a good look at him?”

“Yes. A big man, about three inches over six feet. Wide shoulders, close-cropped brown hair, tanned face and neck. Clean-shaven, square jaw, dark sweater and dark trousers, leather shoes, no tie or hat. He was very fit, walked like an athlete. About thirty years of age, I would say.”

Tommy Carmellini.

“Did he come out of my flat?”

“I don’t know. When I saw him he was walking toward me. He passed and entered the elevator.”

Kerry had always known this day might come, and she had made plans. It was time to go. “You haven’t seen me today,” she said. “I’ll get in contact through the drop when I can.”

She walked out, opened the door and strode to her apartment. Grabbed her getaway bag from under the bed and took a moment to glance again at the car out front. Still there. Watching and waiting for a warrant.

She pulled the door shut behind her and went out the rear entrance. Walked across the parking lot to an older Ford sedan that had been there for weeks. The FBI and CIA didn’t know she owned this one. She got in, inserted the key. The engine started. The battery was only three weeks old.

She drove around the building and picked the lane that would take her to the sedan where the two men sat. Stopped in front of it and put the transmission in park, left the engine running. Got her purse, opened the door and walked to the driver’s side. The window was down. She paused by the driver’s mirror, where she could see them both. She knew the man behind the wheel, didn’t recognize the other one. Neither was wearing his seat belt. Two empty coffee cups were in the cup holder, and a thermos between them.

“What are you doing here, Jay?” Zoe Kerry said, leaning down to look straight into his face.

“Aah…”

“Waiting for you,” the other man said, reaching under his coat.

She already had her hand in her purse. She pulled her service pistol and shot them both, as fast as she could pull the trigger. She got the driver in the face, and a shower of blood and brains sprayed against the headrest. The man in the passenger seat had his pistol half out when her bullet hit him just below the chin. She steadied the gun, aimed and shot him again, in the head.

Then she turned and walked back to her car, putting her pistol back in her purse. She got behind the wheel and put on her seat belt. Zoe Kerry drove out of the lot, waited for a break in traffic, turned right and accelerated away.

I was watching Kerry’s apartment, waiting for the lights to come on. When they didn’t, I got worried. Now what? Were these federal cops still waiting for some judge to sign a warrant?

Seven minutes after I saw her car go around the building, I saw a car stop in front of the FBI car. I got the binoculars up. Kerry got out. Walked over to the car. Between the vehicles speeding by on the street, I saw her shoot into the car. Three little pops, almost inaudible over the traffic noise. A semi rumbled by. When next I saw the car, a faded blue, it was waiting at the entrance. Then she turned right and was gone, her taillights fading down the street.

There wasn’t a chance in the world I could get out of McDonald’s, run the Benz over the median and chase her. And no chance to turn right, go to the next corner, hook a U-turn and catch up with her in rush hour traffic.

What I did do was drop the binocs, turn on my headlights, drive out of Mickey D’s, go down to the corner and U-turn to go back to the apartment building. Stopped in front of the parked sedan and walked over. One look was enough. No ambulance crew or doctor could help them now.

A woman came walking toward me. Middle-aged, wearing a coat, with a key fob in her hand. I got into my car, fished my phone from my pocket and dialed Jake Grafton’s cell. Behind me a woman screamed. I glanced back. She was standing beside the government sedan looking in. As the phone rang, I put the Benz in gear and headed for the street.

I got back to CIA headquarters at a little after eight that evening. Grafton was in his office with Sarah Houston and Sal Molina. I had met Molina a time or two in the past and knew he was a heavy hitter at the White House, a dumpy fifty-something guy in rumpled slacks and a ratty sport coat. Sarah looked as gorgeous as ever; you would never know she had just put in a long day at the office.

Grafton didn’t introduce me, merely asked, “What have you got, Tommy?”

I pulled the copy paper from my pocket and handed it to him, then sat down beside his desk facing Sarah and Molina. “These documents were in her getaway bag under her bed. New name, Janice Alice Johansson. Passport, driver’s license, credit cards, a lot of cash, old fifties and hundreds — I didn’t count it. Nice loaded snub-nose .38 Smith & Wesson, blued. Two speed-loaders ready to go. She had a notebook in there. I figured Sarah could do magic with all those phone numbers and account numbers.”

“Tell them about the shooting,” Grafton said.

I did so.

“After the shooting, you drove across the street and checked to see if either of the agents was still alive?”

“I did. They weren’t. I left and called you.”

“Why didn’t you follow her?” Molina asked.

“It’s a divided street with a raised concrete median. She turned right, I had to turn right. By the time I could get behind her, she was long gone. So I went over to see if I could do anything for the guys she shot. They were dead.”

“You broke into her apartment?”

“Earlier that afternoon, before she got home.”

“Why?” Molina asked.

“I told him to,” Grafton said flatly. “He was obeying my orders.”

Molina looked at his hands.

Jake held out the papers to me. “You and Sarah go copy this. Sarah, do your magic. Who the phone numbers belong to, what the other numbers are. Get a night’s sleep and get on it first thing in the morning. Tommy, bring the papers back after you’ve copied them. I’ll call the FBI with the passport and ID info.”

Sarah and I trooped out, leaving Grafton facing Molina, who looked tired and angry. I don’t know what he had to be pissed about. With the ID info we had, Kerry was going to get picked up sooner or later, and Molina wasn’t in the car with the agents and consequently was still alive.

“So the men who shot down Air Force One were Russians?”

“Yes. Russian mafiosi. Four of them. Here are their names.” Grafton held out a sheet of paper from the small envelope that had been passed to Carmellini at noon.

Molina glanced at the slip of paper, then handed it back. “Anything else?” he asked.

“They spent three or four months in China. Then their trail peters out. The FBI will tell you all about their activities in America.”

“China,” Molina muttered, and rubbed his chin. “How do you know this Russian of yours is telling the truth?”

“I don’t know, Sal. Do I look like Diogenes?”

As the copy machine did its thing, Sarah said, “I’m sorry about Anna.”

I grunted.

“Want to go get some dinner?” she asked.

“I’m not hungry.” I eyed her. “I could use a drink, though. Or two.”

After I returned Grafton’s paper pile to him and Sarah locked hers up in a secure safe in her office, we left the building together. She drove her car, and I followed her. It was raining lightly again. Windy. A miserable damned night. The wipers merely smeared the windshield, and a trickle of water dripped from the roof seal above the rearview mirror.

Maybe I should have just sat in Kerry’s apartment and waited for her. Cuffed her with her own cuffs and visited until the FBI got its paperwork blessed by a judge and came for her.

Ain’t hindsight wonderful? I’m sure she could have answered many of my questions.

Of course, if I had stayed, I’d have probably killed her before the feds knocked on the door.

Now I kinda wished I had waited.

Sarah and I ended up at a chain bar/restaurant. Safely ensconced in a booth by a window, with a football highlights show on a television above the bar that I could glance at from time to time, we ordered. I decided I was a bit hungry and ordered some wings with my bourbon. Sarah ordered white wine and a salad.

After the waiter left, I told Sarah about the Asian gentleman who lived in apartment 209, right down the hall from dear ol’ Zoe. “Great setup if he’s her control,” I mused aloud.

“The vast bulk of Chinese Americans are not spies,” she said, “nor are all coincidences suspect, but it wouldn’t hurt to check this guy out.”

“You can do that?”

“It’s what I do, Tommy,” she said, slightly exasperated.

Rain smeared the window. Looked like it was setting in to rain all night.

“I’m sorry about Anna,” Sarah said again.

I just nodded.

“I thought you were never going to get married.”

“So did I,” I said, a bit more forcefully than I intended. “I should have left Anna in Switzerland. She’d still be alive if I had.”

Sarah frowned. “Don’t start that what-if crap. Pretty soon you’ll be wishing you had never been born. I know! I have a patent on what-if.”

Sarah Houston had a good face. Actually, she was lovely, with big dark eyes that seemed to see everything. She had certainly made her share of mistakes though the years, enough mistakes for a dozen people, but she seemed to be trying to get on down the road. Maybe there was a lesson there for me. Sarah was no saint, and I wasn’t either. Just two very mortal people.

Our drinks came. We didn’t have much to say to each other. Superficial things about Jake Grafton and the agency and the state of the universe. I had finished my bourbon when my wings and her salad arrived, so I ordered another drink.

We finished eating and were watching the rain, each of us lost in our own thoughts, when she asked, “Where are you sleeping these days?”

I had been thinking about Zoe Kerry, wondering where she was tonight. Wondering if the FBI had alerted every badge-toter on the East Coast to watch for her. I abandoned Zoe and saw Sarah’s reflection in the window. I turned my head to see her face clearly. Well, she wasn’t drunk. Not with only one glass of wine in her. “At Willie Varner’s,” I said.

“Think he could spare you for an evening?”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Yes.”

“Picking up men in bars is bad for your reputation.”

She smiled. “I’ll try not to make a habit of it.”

“I accept.”

I followed her home.