The Art of War: A Novel by Stephen Coonts

I had moved there from my place in Maryland to get a slightly better commute, lower taxes and an easier drive to and from Dulles Airport. Given my travels hither and yon, I didn’t own a pet, not even a goldfish, so the dump was always lonely. Especially after ten delightful days in glorious California.
    The super had my mail, which consisted of a few bills and lots of junk flyers. I found a college football game on television and left it on for the noise. Sipped a beer, ate the sub, put my underwear and dirty shirts in the washing machine, settled in on the couch to finish the beer … and woke up in the wee hours. Ah, the glamorous, exciting life of an intelligence professional.
    *   *   *
    FBI Director James Maxwell ate dinner with a group of friends every Tuesday night at the National Press Club in Washington, where he was a member. He treasured the social interlude and rarely missed a Tuesday evening dinner unless work obligations prevented it. He tried to ensure they didn’t.
    None of his five friends, all male, were in law enforcement. They consisted of a banker, a scientist at the Naval Ordnance Lab, a newspaperman, a novelist who used to be a college professor, and a retired investor. They had been fraternity chums in college and had kept up their friendship through the years, kept it up by working at it. The ironclad rule at the dinner table was no shop talk. Sports, politics, international affairs, movies, food, cigars and families were the usual topics of conversation. None of his friends mentioned the recent demise of the CIA director and national security adviser because they knew the FBI was investigating, and Maxwell certainly wouldn’t. He left all that at the office. He wouldn’t talk about ongoing investigations to anyone outside the FBI or the Justice Department, not even his wife.
    One of the attractions of the National Press Club was the people you ran into there. Of course there were the media types, newspaper editors, reporters and columnists, television personalities and talk show hosts, lobbyists for every industry and cause under the sun, and the occasional senator or congressman or big-business mogul. These were the people who made Washington the center of the universe. The movers and shakers. A word here, a handshake there, a smile, and James Maxwell felt like one of them. He liked that feeling. There were times when he needed it.
    So this evening he finished his dinner and had one more drink with his friends—he wouldn’t be driving—and wished them good-bye. He paused to chat with a senator for a minute or two.
    *   *   *
    Fish drove up in a garbage truck behind the press club, where the three big Dumpsters were located, and was gratified to see the limo was still parked over against the side of the concrete wall, out of the way. It had been there the last three Tuesday evenings when he checked. And this Dumpster area had no security cameras aimed at it. He had checked that, too.
    He stopped the big garbage truck in the street and, using his mirrors, backed it in toward the nearest Dumpster. This truck was equipped with a power lift that picked up the Dumpster and emptied it into the bed of the truck. The truck beeped as he backed it up. Almost to the Dumpster, but not quite. A light rain was falling, and he had the windshield wipers going. Little wind.
    He put the transmission in neutral, set the parking brake and climbed down from the cab. Walked around to the driver’s side of the limo. There was about three feet of clearance between the car and the concrete retaining wall. The driver of the limo was sitting in it, wearing earphones. An iPod, it looked like.
    The driver saw him coming and ran down the window. Fish put his hand in his right coat pocket.
    “Hey,” the driver said.
    Then Fish shot him. Didn’t take the pistol out of his pocket. Fired right through the coat. The bullet slammed the driver sideways. Fish removed the revolver from his pocket, checked that the