The Art of War: A Novel (11 page)

Fish worked the slide again, catching the third spent shell in his hand, then closing the action. He picked up the two spent shells at his feet, then walked over to the men lying on the concrete. They were bleeding profusely from torso wounds. Fish was taking no chances. He fed two more shells from his left coat pocket into the magazine of the shotgun and shot Maxwell in the head, blowing it apart. Pumping the gun, he shot each of the others in the head. Picked up the spent shells.

He went back to the truck, opened the door, tossed the shotgun into the passenger seat and climbed aboard. Brake off, transmission in gear, he pulled out onto the street and drove away.

*   *   *

The next morning I coffeed, ate two boiled eggs and called my lock-shop partner, Willie Varner, also known as Willie the Wire. “How’s everything?” I asked.

“You just out of jail, or was it the hospital?” Willie was habitually surly, and more so in the mornings. I had lived with that for years, ever since we went into business together.

“Hey, I’ve been out of town.”

“This shop is a business, Tommy, and as a co-owner, you should check on it more often.”

“I’m in business with a black Bill Gates. I trust you, dude.”

“The women come in to see the Great Carmellini. And I need you to sign job bids.”

“And I need some help today,” I told him. “I’ll be there around ten o’clock. We’ll close the shop and open it tomorrow.”

“Any money in this?”

“Contract wages. By the hour.”

“Well, a little extra pocket money would be helpful,” Willie admitted.

“Have any bids ready to sign. I’ll see you at ten or thereabouts.” I rang off.

Willie Varner was about twenty years older than me, and probably the best lock picker alive. He had taught me a lot. He gained his skill picking hotel locks and carrying out the guests’ luggage, unfortunately without their permission. The second time he got out of prison for those activities, he decided to go straight. That’s when he and I went into the lock-shop business together. Despite his abrasive, sour personality, he was my best friend and he could keep his mouth firmly shut. I trusted him, for one very good reason: He knew if he crossed me no one would ever find his body.

*   *   *

Zoe Kerry was a hard-body of medium height, with short dark hair and short fingernails without color. She had a nice jawline and a pleasant face without laugh lines. I tried to decide if she was a runner or tennis player or just an exercise nut.

“Name’s Tommy Carmellini,” I said. “Grafton sicced me on you. I’m supposed to follow you around.”

She eyed me without enthusiasm. “He sent me a memo.”

“Great.”

“Why did he send you?”

“He didn’t say.” I shrugged.

She thought I was lying, which was ridiculous. She also thought I was a boob, and maybe that was the best way to play it.

“I don’t think he likes me,” I said earnestly. “But they have to give me something to do while I’m waiting for my court date. Grafton said you were FBI on assignment.”

“Admiral Grafton.”

“Yeah, that Grafton. He said you shot a couple of folks and came to us to unlax and rewind.” I smiled.

“Umph.”

“So what’s on your agenda today?”

“The agenda is finding out where the FBI was on Paul Reinicke’s and Mario Tomazic’s accidents, and now James Maxwell, the FBI director.”

I goggled at her.

“Maxwell, two bodyguards and his limo driver were assassinated last night. Haven’t you heard?”

“No.” I don’t normally listen to the news or read the paper in the morning, as both of them have detrimental effects on my digestive system. But I didn’t share that personal info with her.

She gave me the bare-bones particulars. She was slightly distracted.

“Did you know any of the three of them?”

“One of the bodyguards.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.

“He was…” She left it there.

“Unfortunately I cannot accompany you today,” I said apologetically, “as I have another errand. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“I’ll try to stifle myself until then.”

“Of course.”

*   *   *

It was about ten thirty when I showed up at the lock shop with all the goodies stowed in the car. Willie and I transferred them to the shop van, which already had all the tools we would need arranged in belts and bins inside. We were a one-stop lock shop, modern as hell and really up to date. Willie was already in his lock-shop coverall, so I stepped inside and pulled one on over my trousers and shirt.

As I dressed, Willie said, “So, spy, who we gonna bug?”

“Jake Grafton.”

He stared at me. He had obviously been reading the papers, too, and knew that Grafton was the new acting director. “You’re shittin’ me, right?”

“Nope. At his request. Actually, I think, at his wife’s request.”

Willie mulled it. He still had all his hair, now flecked with gray. If you could have gotten a suit and tie on him, you might have labeled him distinguished. He did indeed own such an outfit. He bought it to be buried in. I saw him wear it just once, a few years back.

When we were rolling along toward the Grafton pad in Roslyn, he said, “Man, they’re poppin’ these big government dudes one after another. I saw on the morning TV that the director of the FBI, Maxwell, got shot to death last night. Behind the National Press Club. You hear about that?”

“Yes.”

“Shotgun. Him and two bodyguards. His driver was whacked as he sat in the limo. Four FBI dudes, deader than hell.”

“This morning?”

“Well, near midnight, I heard on the TV. They’re still lookin’ for the shooter. A fuckin’ hit. Four FBI dudes, just like that.”

I didn’t say anything.

Willie motored on anyway. “Third big government honcho this week, the TV babe said. Tomazic, Reinicke, now Maxwell, the FBI head weenie. Room at the top, that’s what they’re making. Room at the top so all the people in the chain can move up one notch. Like a cakewalk. ‘Ever’body take one step forward.’ I kinda figure it’s raghead terrorists or some frustrated paper-pusher who never got the promotion he figured he’d earned.”

“You think?”

“Kinda looks like that. But maybe it’s someone gettin’ even. Maybe he’ll get the warden at that federal pen in Williamsburg, South Carolina, next. That cocksucker gave me a really hard time. Told me I was too sassy. He didn’t like no sass, y’know, and him bein’ the warden and all, he don’t have to take much. None, actually. He ran that damn prison like he was Adolf Hitler’s bastard kid on a mission for God.”

I didn’t care much for Willie’s prison reminiscences, but it was no use trying to change the subject once he got into one of his moods. I drove and thought about the job. And about killers with shotguns. In Roslyn we pulled around the Graftons’ condo building into the service area and locked up the van. I sent Willie on a reconnaissance to see who, if anyone, might be watching the building while I went up to the admiral’s condo and knocked on the door. Callie Grafton opened it.

“Hi, Tommy,” she said. “Come on in.” I entered, and she closed the door behind me.

Mrs. Grafton is my idea of the perfect lady. She still had her figure and erect carriage, she was attractive, and she was pleasant with everyone she met. She had brains. In her sixties, she was the kind of woman that some men my age wish they had had for a mom. I sure did. Mine was a ditz.

Anyhow, she had been married to Jake Grafton since they were in their twenties. What she saw in him I’ll never know. Oh, he was polite enough and smiled occasionally, but he had my vote for the toughest man alive on this side of the Atlantic. He was also smart, determined, fearless and, when necessary, absolutely ruthless. Maybe his wife had found a warm and fuzzy spot in him somewhere, but I had never seen it. If he had such a place, I thought, it was probably microscopic.

Mrs. Grafton had the television on. I paused to watch for a minute or two. The DC police had found an abandoned garbage truck that had apparently been the Maxwell killer’s getaway vehicle six blocks from the National Press Club. The driver of the truck was dead on top of the garbage in back. Already someone had come forward who had seen the garbage truck parked behind the press club.

Mrs. Grafton watched with me. “What’s going on, Tommy?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Grafton. But the admiral asked me to wire this place up. Do you have a Wi-Fi system in the condo?”

“Oh, yes. Do you want to see it?”

“Please.”

It was under the television.

I walked through the condo, looked things over, then came back to her. “I brought Willie Varner with me. You know him?”

“We met in Paris. He’s a nice man.” I had never before heard Willie called nice, but I kept a straight face.

“He and I own a lock shop in Maryland. Willie’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s good people. He’s downstairs now. What we would like to do is put some surveillance cameras in your place here, everywhere except the bathrooms and master bedroom. The cameras have their own batteries, which will run them for a couple of weeks before they will need to be replaced. We’ll also put some cameras in the hallway and down in the lobby, in the other building entrances and a few outside. All of them will send their signals to your Wi-Fi system, which will put the feed onto the Internet so we can monitor it from different locations. Is that okay with you?”

She wasn’t thrilled. “I suppose this is necessary.”

“We’ll also install a battery backup to your Wi-Fi system, so if the juice goes out in the building, it will still work. We’ll put a broadcast terminal with a battery backup on the roof to boost your system.”

She took a deep breath and said, “If you think this is necessary.”

And that was precisely the reaction I expected from Mrs. Jake Grafton. The thought crossed my mind that in her own way, she was as tough as he was. Likes attract, not opposites.

“I think this is the most reliable system we can install quickly,” I said. “It can be defeated, but only by someone who knows it is here and how it works. It won’t deny access, but it will give anyone monitoring it warning.”

“Okay,” she said.

“We’ll get to work outside first, and do the interior last. Be a couple of hours before we get back to you.”

“I’ll have some lunch ready whenever you are.”

We left it there. I closed the door behind me and took the elevator down to find Willie.

The cameras we installed were digital, of course, and very small. They looked like smoke detectors. The satellite transmitter on the roof took about an hour to wire up, backup battery and all, and another hour to tie in to a CIA satellite com channel. As I worked I tried to picture the mind-set of the killer who gunned down the FBI director and two bodyguards.

Whoever he was, he was no amateur. No disaffected office worker. He was cool and deadly. Maxwell may or may not have been armed, but the bodyguards were. Undoubtedly he didn’t give them time to draw their weapons. Just boom, boom, boom.

Mrs. Grafton did indeed have ham and cheese sandwiches, chips and coffee waiting when we got back inside. With a trapped audience, Willie was in seventh heaven. Talking with his mouth full, he delivered himself of opinions about national politics, the Redskins, the Nationals, women, taxes, the mayor, potholes and
Downton Abbey.
I was amazed at the comments about the PBS TV show. I didn’t know he watched. You learn something new about the human condition every day.

After lunch, while Willie installed the cameras in the condo, I loaded a program on Mrs. Grafton’s iPad and her iPhone, did mine, too, and checked that the cameras were working as they were supposed to. “I’ll also load this onto the admiral’s iPad and phone and any computers he wants to monitor this stuff at work. I’ll check on the system occasionally, and so will Willie. We’ll have this stuff up and working by tomorrow morning.”

She thanked us and offered us some cookies. Willie took two handfuls, and we said good-bye.

On the way back to Maryland I said to Willie the Wire, “I didn’t know you watched period British shows.”

“You need to get some culture, Carmellini. Without culture you’re one-dimensional. I noticed that in you. Women do, too. It’s holdin’ you back, man, professional life and love life.” He started munching another cookie.

“I wondered what the anchor was,” I replied.

“Culture, dude.”

“I’ll get a quart next time I’m in Walmart.”

Willie changed the subject. “You know that killer dude who did Maxwell may be makin’ the rounds. Those surveillance cameras we put in today won’t stop buckshot.”

“No,” I agreed, “they won’t.”

CHAPTER
SEVEN

Whenever peace—conceived as the avoidance of war—has been the primary objective … the international system has been at the mercy of its most ruthless member.

—Henry Kissinger

The next day I popped into the director’s suite and met the four secretaries and two executive assistants. The secretaries were women in their fifties who had worked their way up the food chain to the head honcho’s office. I assumed there were pay raises involved. They were nice ladies, and way too old for me. The executive assistants, however, were a different matter. At least the female one was. She looked to be in her late twenties. Her name was Anastasia Roberts. She was black, shapely and brilliant. I liked the way her agency ID dangled between her breasts, which were just the right size and shape. She was tall, with the top of her head coming up to my chin. I didn’t see a wedding ring.

The guy, Max Hurley, was also on the right side of thirty, about five foot eight and whippet thin, with cordlike muscles. He had a head of hair that stood straight out and scraggly facial hair that he didn’t shave but once a week, if that. I figured him for a long-distance runner. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring either, but these days, many married people didn’t.

I had heard about the EAs, and now I was meeting them. These folks were geniuses the Company recruited from Ivy League colleges and elsewhere in government. They were going to be superstars in a few years, so they started in the director’s office to learn the ropes fast and went on from there. Folks not quite as intellectually gifted called them geeks, and I suppose they were.