Free The Art of War: A Novel by Stephen Coonts Page A

keep them out?”
    He stared at the memo. After scanning it quickly, he reread it slowly, carefully, ensuring he got every word and nuance.
    “Or should we simply let them look?” Tomazic had written in the right-hand margin.
    Grafton took out his pen and wrote in blue ink, his favorite, “Can we get into Chinese navy’s computers?”
    The phone buzzed. “Mr. Merritt, sir.” Robin must be overcaffeinated, he thought, calling him sir. The last time she got on a sir kick she wanted a promotion and pay raise.
    Jake opened the door. “Come in, Harley.”
    “I just had a long talk with Sal Molina,” he said. “Congratulations.”
    “I didn’t ask for this job,” Grafton muttered as he sat down on the couch, “permanently or on an interim basis.”
    “I didn’t either,” Merritt said blandly.
    “The job was offered, so I took it. If it had been offered to you, you would have taken it, too.”
    “Yes, I would have.”
    “Harley, I need your help. If Tomazic was murdered, we have a serious can of worms buried somewhere. We’re going to have to turn over every rock to find it. If there are physical clues that the killer left, the FBI will find and follow them. They will look into Tomazic’s private affairs, family life, military career, old enemies, all of that. We must start on our end, a motive due to his job as director of this agency. I want you to head up that staff review you ordered this morning. We have got to rule out people inside the Company, if we can, and try to decide if anything the Company has going could have stimulated a foreign government to kill him. Someone wanted Mario Tomazic dead for a reason. Let’s see if we can find it.”
    “We may find a half-dozen reasons.”
    “Or none,” Grafton said wearily. “Tomazic wasn’t the CIA; he was one man. You can’t kill a bureaucracy, no matter how hard you try.”
    “We don’t know that he was murdered,” Merritt objected reasonably. “Assassinated. We may be snipe hunting.”
    “Assume it’s murder until I tell you it wasn’t.”
    Merritt thought about that, then nodded once. “Okay.”
    Grafton eyed the man, sizing up his body language. Yeah, Merritt was disappointed, but he was a professional.
    “I didn’t want this job,” Jake said, “but I’ve got it. Let’s talk about how we can get me up to speed.”
    *   *   *
    He had a short interview with both of Tomazic’s executive assistants, telling them he had been told the president was going to appoint him interim director and he wanted them on the job tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Then Jake Grafton left. He went to the parking lot, got in his Accord and motored off for the beach to pick up Callie. The gate guard gave him his usual friendly wave. Fortunately he was on the front end of rush hour so got around the Beltway and over the Bay Bridge without much trouble.
    As he drove he thought about Callie, his wife, about how she would take the interim appointment thing. They were married after the Vietnam War, while he was a young attack pilot. She had loyally supported his naval career, done all the things officers’ wives were supposed to do, while she continued to work as a teacher of languages at the college level. Hell, she knew seven or eight, last he heard. On the other hand, lately she had been dropping not-so-subtle hints about retirement. He spent too many hours at Langley. With his navy retirement pay as a two-star, bumped up some due to more federal service, they didn’t need any more money to live comfortably. They were already socking away a large chunk of his salary now.
    Retirement. He had done a couple of years of that before going to the CIA. Flew all over the country in his Cessna 170B. Still had it, but hadn’t flown it in six months. No time.
    What was he doing at Langley that someone else couldn’t do? Couldn’t do as well or better? Didn’t he and Callie deserve a few years of retirement while they were still hale and hearty? After this