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.
CHAPTER TEN
Fear is the beginning of wisdom.
The Graftons spent the night in the spare bedroom of my apartment. I insisted. Yet I was kinda ashamed when Mrs. Grafton saw how messy the dump was and how little grub I had in the fridge. I was starting to mumble an apology when Mrs. Grafton said, “It looks better than that rat’s nest Jake lived in on Whidbey Island when I married him. I stayed there for weeks and loved every minute of it.”
Grafton used my landline telephone to call the office and talk to the security head, Joe Waddell.
“The president’s plane going down triggered the security procedures,” Grafton explained to Callie and me after he finished talking with Waddell. “Protect the most important stuff first.”
We watched television until eleven o’clock, trying to wind down, and then the Graftons toddled off for bed. Thank heavens I had some clean sheets on the bed in the spare bedroom and clean towels in the bathroom.
When they were tucked in, I poured myself three fingers of bourbon. After one sip, I rooted in my dresser and pulled out my Kimber 1911 .45 automatic. I loaded the eight-round magazine and snapped it into the pistol. Chambered a round and lowered the hammer. I resolved to get a shoulder holster for it as soon as possible. The little Walther hadn’t given me much comfort on Grafton’s roof.
I grasped the loaded Kimber. This sleek contraction of machined steel and springs could kill eight men, or one man eight times. Loaded, it was heavy. Maybe three pounds. I was pleased again at how well the pistol fit my hand, which is larger than average. The cold steel and heft made me feel powerful, in control, which of course was the illusion of the gun. We are all tossed on the stormy seas of fate, at the mercy of men and forces beyond our power to comprehend, control or deflect. Sometimes we need an illusion. You worthless tiny piece of flotsam on the tide of life, this gun gives you power. Isn’t that the way it goes? I caressed the Kimber and threw it on the bed.
I sipped on the whiskey while looking out the window. Thought about the guy or guys who entered Grafton’s building in broad daylight, or at least early evening, and took out the satellite repeater on the roof. One guy, I suspected. Two would have been more noticeable. People might remember. Probably just one guy. Whoever he was, he was a cool customer. If it was the same guy who did Reinicke and Maxwell, he was also damned dangerous.
The homeless Dumpster diver that I had treated to a pizza came to mind. I could see his face, his trim physique, the sober, quick eyes … He could have been mining the Dumpster for pop cans to sell by the pound. Or looking for credit card and identity information he could sell to an Internet thief. Or he could have been casing the building, setting up a hit.
I sipped whiskey and thought about the possibilities. And wondered what Jake Grafton was thinking. He was a bunch of IQ points smarter than me, older and more experienced, and he understood the evil in men’s hearts. Me, I’m just a thief. But Jake Grafton, he was a twenty-first-century prophet. And warrior.
I wondered if he was still awake, staring at the ceiling.
My Internet service came back on about midnight, and my cell phone beeped a few minutes later. My mom had tried five times to call me earlier that day. Some things never change. On reflection, I decided I was fortunate to have a mom who wanted to hear my voice. I figured she might be still awake in California, so I gave her a call. When we said good-bye, I finished the booze and fell into bed. I slept with the Kimber under my pillow.
The next morning I fed the Graftons a bachelor breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and Pop-Tarts. Callie looked at the Pop-Tarts as if she had never seen one before. She daintily ate half of one, probably just to be polite. She liked my coffee, though. The admiral put too much salt on his eggs, then poured on a lot of Cholula sauce, which in my opinion is Mexico’s great gift to the world. With all that salt, I wondered about his blood pressure. He liked my coffee, too — Kroger’s best.
I left when they did. At Langley I spent the morning with Zoe Kerry liaisoning with the FBI. They were down to a couple of agents working on the Reinicke explosion. The special agent in charge had the grumps. What could you say when most of your troops were jerked out from under you and sent packing willy-nilly off to Colorado? Nothing nice. That was what the team leader said. Grumpily.
Jake Grafton was summoned to the White House for a ten o’clock meeting. The conference room was packed, standing room only, but as interim director of the CIA, Jake got a seat at the table. Up the table were National Security Adviser Jurgen Schulz, the president’s chief of staff, Al Grantham, Assistant ODNI Director Admiral Arlen Curry, Acting FBI Director Harry Estep, the head of NSA, and Sal Molina. Molina looked glum.
In front of everyone on the table was a list of the people who died yesterday aboard Air Force One. Jake glanced at the list. He flipped to the back page and found there were 132 names on it. Then he scanned the list for names he might recognize.
When the herd was more or less assembled, someone said, “The president of the United States,” and everyone stood. The president walked in and took his customary seat at the center of the table on the side opposite Jake. He had obviously returned secretly to Washington last night. He looked tired.
“Please be seated,” he muttered as he looked around at the familiar faces.
The president said a few laudatory words about the dead staffers, nothing memorable. Then he got down to it.
“It was just my sheer dumb luck that I wasn’t on that plane. I wanted to meet with some people in Denver after the university event without the press getting wind of it, and that was why the plane used the Air Force One call sign when it departed.
“I talked to the head of the National Transportation Safety Board a few minutes ago, and his crash investigators don’t yet have any indication why the plane crashed. Considering that the plane is a burned-out wreck, it may be weeks before the investigators get the technical end of it sorted out. And yet, the burned-out van that was found in that Denver parking garage had a piece of gear in it, damaged but recognizable, that the army says is a drone controller. I asked how a drone could crash a plane. They say if it had a small electromagnetic pulse weapon on it, an EMP warhead, that could knock out all the plane’s electronics, including the flight control computers, if it detonated close enough with the plane in the air. Folks, if that box is indeed a drone controller, it looks like the people in that van tried to assassinate the president of the United States.”
The president let that sink in for a moment before he resumed. “The FBI and Colorado law enforcement are investigating. There were several bodies in the van, badly burned, so it will take a while to identify them. As of this morning, no one knows how many people were in the van that are unaccounted for. We may have one or more murderers out running around. It stands to reason that if we do, they may be trying to get out of the country. I’ve asked Homeland to seal the borders as tightly as possible, but you know how that is. This murder event, terror event, attempted assassination, whatever, appears to have been carefully planned, and if so, an escape route was on the play card.