America (57 page)

“Do you think your boyfriend would mind, the one who snaps bones?”

“There's no boyfriend. I just told you that so you wouldn't think I was trolling.”

“I understand perfectly. A woman must think of her reputation. Saturday afternoon, may I pick you up at Quantico about three?”

She was quickly warming up. “That would be good.” She gave him the building number, then added, “You'll
love
wrestling! It's a new art form, a distillation of the true essence of life. This will open your eyes.”

“I'm sure it will.”

“And to think that you asked me to go with you to your very first performance! How romantic!”

“Isn't it?” Tommy Carmellini agreed.

*   *   *

Jake did make it to Las Palmas. For a day. Flap and Corina Le Beau left the ship there and flew back to the States. At Jake's insistence, Callie continued to cruise while Jake and Janos Ilin flew back to Rota and sailed aboard a chartered deep-sea salvage vessel.

A week later the vessel pulled up the third stage of the SuperAegis launch vehicle, right where Zelda Hudson said it would be, ten miles off Cape Barbas.

Three days after that, back at the dock in Rota, Jake Grafton and Janos Ilin watched as the third stage was craned aboard a U.S. Navy frigate and secured to the deck for the trip back to the United States.

“So, what are your plans?” Jake asked Ilin. The two were standing on the frigate's bridge drinking coffee and watching the sailors install tie-down chains on the third stage.

“Is that a subtle way of asking if I am going back to Washington to enjoy your hospitality in Crystal City?”

“Yeah. Sort of, I guess.”

“You know that the U.S. government won't let me back into the country, or if they do, will throw me out in short order. I watched the satellite broadcasts of CNN while we were at sea. The government has announced that Hudson and Vance are both cooperating. They seized Jouany's assets the day
America
went down. Apparently that created quite a stir.”

“So what do you think Hudson and Vance are saying?”

Ilin laughed. “Aah, friend Grafton. Amigo. I like your style. I really do.”

He took his time getting a cigarette going. With the sea breeze coming in off the Atlantic, he had a hard time getting the lighter to work. When the weed was burning satisfactorily, Ilin bestowed another amused look on the American naval officer. “I think Zelda Hudson is telling the FBI that she stole a lot of secrets and sold them to the highest bidder. Occasionally that was me. She was a first-class, high-tech entrepreneur.”

“She was more than that,” Jake said. “She played the system like a violin.”

Ilin smoked in silence.

“Where is Kolnikov?” Jake asked. “He swiped the minisub off
America
's back and sailed away before we popped the E-grenades and destroyed the computers.”

“Did he? Perhaps he is at the bottom of the sea with Heydrich.”

“Sleeping with the fishes? I think not,” Jake said. “Kolnikov struck me as a smart, smooth operator. Where is he now?”

“Do you want him?”

“Stealing a submarine and firing missiles at American cities were acts of war. And there was
La Jolla.
”

“He was not SVR. You know that? He was not working for any branch of the Russian government. I swear to you, no official in the Russian government had any idea Kolnikov or anyone else would steal an American submarine.”

“They tell you these things, do they?” Jake snapped. “So you can take blanket oaths?”

Ilin didn't turn a hair. He smoked in silence.

Finally Jake asked, “Zelda Hudson didn't tell you it was going to happen before it did?”

“No,” said Janos Ilin.

Perhaps it didn't matter, Jake reflected. He doubted that the politicians would want to push the issue with the Europeans or the Russian government. The airlines were flying again, telephone and electrical services were being restored in Washington and New York, bills were pending in Congress to fund the necessary repairs, life in America was rapidly returning to normal. Even the stock and currency markets were rebounding. Precipitating another major international crisis over a disaster that was past didn't seem like something that would strike the Beltway politicians as a good idea.

The politicians were also smart enough to know that if the FBI talked to Kolnikov, it was possible he would say things they didn't want to hear. As the wise man once said, “If you think you might not like the answer, don't ask the question.” Still …

“I want to know where he is,” Jake told Ilin. “Just in case someone wants to hear it from his lips. Or wants a pound of flesh.”

Ilin flipped his cigarette butt away from the ship. The brisk breeze caught it and carried it into the scummy harbor water. He turned up his collar and buried his hands in his coat pockets. “The situation is as I have told you.” He looked Grafton square in the eyes. “If you want to talk to Vladimir Kolnikov, try Paris. If I were looking for him I would look there.”

Ilin held out his hand, and Jake shook it. Then he went down the ladders to the main deck, walked over to the third stage and patted it, then headed for the gangway. As he crossed it he waved to Jake Grafton on the bridge. And Grafton waved back.

*   *   *

On Jake Grafton's first day back at the office a federal marshal delivered a joint congressional committee subpoena. The date and time were set for the next day, which required that he waive the usual waiting period. Jake called the committee staff and told them he would be there.

Jouany had friends in Congress and the financial community. Rich, powerful friends who were making a lot of noise over the seizure of his American assets. In a way the situation was unfortunate for Jouany—the closed markets and New York power problems meant that his trades during the crisis couldn't be settled as they usually were. In the two weeks Jake had been gone the power grid and telephone systems had been returned to normal function and the financial markets were once again in full operation … but almost five billion dollars had been in the Jouany bank accounts or clearinghouse channels when the feds latched on to everything.

Jake went to see Flap in the Pentagon. The commandant had also been subpoenaed and, like Jake, had waived the time requirement. Tomorrow morning at ten.

After Jake had told the general about the recovery of the satellite and his conversation with Janos Ilin, Flap had some choice words for the senators and congresspeople who insisted that the flag officers' investments in the Jouany firms be investigated fully. “It's blackmail,” Flap fumed. “Hardball. They know nobody over here played the currency futures or took a bribe. And they're throwing all the mud they can get their hands on. For their buddy Jouany, who's a slimy son of a bitch.”

“Oh, no,” Jake pointed out. “He's a
rich,
slimy son of a bitch.”

Flap gave the admiral The Look.

Grafton grinned. He hadn't been stewing in Washington for ten days, as Flap had, reading the papers every morning. “What was that fine old phrase, ‘twisting slowly in the wind'?”

“That's it. Defamation by innuendo is the name of this game.”

“Sir, may I use your telephone?”

Flap frowned and nodded a curt yes. Jake called a lawyer who had a beach house two blocks from his. After he identified himself, he asked the question, “Can a subpoenaed witness before Congress be sued for libel or slander?”

“You mean for something he said while testifying under oath?”

“That's right.”

“No. The testimony is privileged. The witness can be prosecuted for perjury, though, if the testimony is false. You know anybody going to the Hill to bare his soul?”

“Me. Tomorrow morning at ten. And General Le Beau. Watch us on television. We're going to be famous. Not rich, just famous.”

“The proper word to describe that condition is infamous.”

Jake chuckled and asked the lawyer to dinner the following Saturday night, then thanked him and rang off.

Flap was up to speed. He grinned wolfishly at Grafton. “You should have been a marine,” he said.

“If you don't mind, sir, I'd like to go first tomorrow. I'll read a statement, telling what I know about Zelda Hudson and Antoine Jouany and EuroSpace. The only way to shut these people up is to throw the truth in their faces.”

“The prosecutors won't like it.”

“Not my problem,” Jake said and laced his fingers behind his head. He was alive and home, and he felt pretty damned good.

*   *   *

Jake wore his dress blue uniform the next morning. Callie was home from Europe, so she came and sat in the gallery. Carmellini sat with her and Corina Le Beau, while Toad sat at the long wooden witness table beside Jake and Flap so it wouldn't look as if they hadn't a friend in the world.

Finally the television lights came on and the chairman made a few remarks. “I understand the commandant has suggested that you go first, Admiral. Do you wish to make a statement?”

“Yes, sir.” Jake began reading from his handwritten notes: “This is a story of superpower politics, cutting-edge technology, and greed.…”

Read on for an excerpt from Stephen Coonts' next book

LIBERTY

Now Available from St. Martin's Press!

PROLOGUE

The night was sinister, devoid of light. In the vast grassy steppe of central Asia there were no towns, no villages, no isolated farmhouses with electricity to power a light that would break the great darkness. Overhead, twenty thousand feet of clouds blocked the light from moon and stars, absorbed all of it and left the earth with nothing.

Two vehicles drove along the crumbling asphalt road, an old Ford van without windows and a two-axle truck with an enclosed cargo compartment. Their headlights were the only sign of life in the night. Beside the road was a large fence of woven wire topped with three strands of barbed wire. Occasionally small, rusted metal signs were attached to the wire; their Cyrillic lettering all but illegible.

Several hours after dark the van and truck topped a gentle rise and their drivers saw a light in the distance. As they approached, they could see it was a naked bulb mounted high on a pole beside a gate, a break in the wire. Beside the gate was a guard shack. As the vehicles approached, four armed men, soldiers, were visible standing near the gate, lounging there. Two were seated and two leaned against the gate itself, a metal pole that blocked the entrance.

The van and truck turned off the highway and came to a stop by the gate. A man got out of the passenger seat of the van and approached the guard shack. He spoke to one of the guards. In a moment an officer came out of the wooden frame building. Together with two soldiers with flashlights, he walked toward the van. He spoke sharply to the passenger, who accompanied him. The passenger then spoke in Arabic to the driver of the lead van, who turned off his engine. The officer shined a flashlight into the front seat of the van, examined the driver's face, then walked around behind the van and gestured at the rear doors. The man beside him opened the doors, allowed the officer to look inside with the flashlight. Four men holding assault rifles were sitting on the floor. Several dark canvas bags were visible in the crowded vehicle, as well as sacks that might contain food and a variety of water containers.

After the officer had inspected the truck, including its cargo compartment, he walked back to the guard shack and went inside, leaving the passenger standing amid the soldiers.

Through the windows, the officer could be seen placing a telephone call. His men stood near the gate, their weapons in their hands, staring at the dark, dirty van and its patchy paint.

When the officer hung up the telephone, he stepped to the door of the building, motioned to the soldiers. They opened the gate and waved at the driver of the van. He started his engine while his passenger climbed in, then drove on through the gate. The truck followed.

The vehicles left the lonely guard shack and its light behind. The road wound up a gentle ridge out of the valley, topped the crest, and continued across the steppe.

Fifteen minutes later they reached a fenced compound festooned with lights. An armed guard waved them through the gate as they approached. They drove past two idling tanks. The men in the turrets watched them, spoke into mouthpieces that hung from their headsets. A soldier directed the vehicles to halt near a well-lit one-story building with small windows. A dozen armed soldiers in battle dress were arrayed in front of this building and across the street.

Four people were seated inside at a long table in the main room, three army officers and a woman dressed in a well-cut dark suit. The woman was smoking. Assault rifles lay on the table in front of the army officers.

“I am Ashruf,” the passenger from the van said in Russian. He glanced at each of the soldiers, measuring them perhaps, yet his eyes lingered on the woman, who was slender, with long black hair, and appeared to be about thirty years of age.

One of the soldiers spoke. “General Petrov.” He glanced at his watch. “You're late.”

“We didn't want to cross the border until dark.” Ashruf gestured upward. “Satellites.”

“They can see nothing under all these clouds,” General Petrov muttered. He was a fleshy man of medium height, with close-cropped gray hair. He nodded toward an ovoid shape strapped to a wooden pallet in the corner of the room. “There it is. Do you want to inspect it?”

“There were supposed to be four.”

“There are hundreds. After we see the color of your money, you may pick out any four you like.”

Ashruf walked over to the shape, bent to examine it. He was a fit man, slightly above medium height, with a short, trimmed beard. He was dressed in slacks, sandals, a loose shirt, and wore a turban.