A Time for War (9 page)

They had a white van for construction materials. The men were not taking that vehicle now.

The rented black Audi attracted no attention in a city where that make of car was plentiful. The Chinese agent had picked it up earlier, from a different company than the one at which he'd rented the abandoned SUV, using a different set of IDs and credit cards. The latter was a number picked up by a Chinese waiter using a handheld card swipe device. The waiter quit after making the theft. He was a member of Jing Jintao's cell. He, too, had used a false ID to gain employment and could not be traced.

The Audi went unnoticed on its northward route through the start of the rush hour traffic. It was headed to Stockton Street in San Francisco.

It would not be unnoticed for long.

*   *   *

After leaving the Yu Market, Jack Hatfield went back to his office on the
Sea Wrighter
to check up on local, national, and international news. His emphasis was on the local, since that was the meat-and-potatoes of his freelance news work. He looked at police blotters, legal dockets, even celebrity news sites to see what events and fund-raisers were in town. Then he did an online search for the history of the buildings on Clay Street, in case a real estate deal for Yu Market somehow made sense, but after an hour nothing had turned up. Eddie's big brown eyes gazed at Jack from where the poodle had flopped on the teak floorboards.

“Let's get the hell out of here,” Jack said.

He grabbed a khaki vest from a hook. Eddie ran in front of him to the parking lot nearby and Jack let the poodle into the passenger seat of his 2010 twelve-cylinder S600 Mercedes, midnight blue. Then he took the driver's seat.

“Afternoon, Wilhelm,” he said as he turned the key.

The Mercedes was a luxury, admittedly, but it was more than just Jack's middle finger to the world when he bought it after
Truth Tellers
was canceled. Owning the sedan was a way of reconnecting with his days of racing D-Jags at Laguna Seca when he was in his early twenties.
Truth Tellers
was wrecked; he needed to find a new pedal and put it to the metal. And do it fast, before the rage and anxiety of the wreck induced paralysis. The Mercedes had embodied silent power, a necessary phase for Jack as he planned his post-show career and embraced the possibility, now the necessity, of being a freelancer. Once that brief phase of silence had passed and Jack was turning out reports at a steady clip, he simply loved to hold the steering wheel of work well done. Dedication to craft was a disappearing virtue.

Jack didn't want to be alone right now. He had a feeling his thoughts would turn radioactive. He decided to drive not to the apartment where he kept his collection of clocks in various states of repair so that he could tinker and think, but to Spumante's, where he was known and had friends. Maybe Bruno would be in a pugnacious mood and they could kill some hours with a good debate, maybe change a few eavesdroppers' minds for the better.

Spumante's was more than that, though. It was on the route he used to take to go to Justin Hermann Plaza, where they created a skating rink similar to the one in Rockefeller Center in New York. Two years ago when Jack had broken up with Rachel in the fall, he had faced a lonely Christmas season. Since he didn't have a wife or family of his own, he would go to the rink and hang on the rail at night and watch the children with their mothers and fathers, skating around the ice like little fledglings learning to walk beside their parents. He would watch with vicarious contentment as a mother would place her little daughter in-between her legs, pushing her around the ice with her knees turned in to prop her up. Jack marveled at how much it was like the animal kingdom. At some point, though, he would usually have to turn away, thinking of his own mother and how she had taught him so much—how to walk, how to dance, how to tie his tie, how to talk to a lady, among other things. Like most strong men, Jack never talked about her. What could he say that wouldn't sound sentimental and false? But her life had enriched him beyond calculation, and her death had hit him like a fist in the gut.

Just after Jack crossed the bridge, he paused to call Doc Matson to see if he could meet him at Spumante's. Jack wanted a sane, unsentimental voice in his ear.

*   *   *

“Happy to come,” said Doc into his phone, “if you're buying. See you in a few.”

Doc hung up and took a sip of his Diet Coke. It was one of those special just-after-rain moments in San Francisco and he had been walking down Broadway toward the Bay, which was a china blue that ordinarily wasn't seen in September, only in late winter or early spring. Only the boaters and knowing locals would note that particular hue. Doc took in the limp flags on the becalmed sailboats, Coit Tower smirking over the scene, the red-brick buildings that dated to the days of the Barbary Coast. As he turned the corner of Sansome and Jackson, an energy force almost knocked him off the sidewalk. She was so powerfully built and so stunning in appearance that most people just ignored her. Her expression said:
You are dirt, I am goddess, my father was general in Russian military, go away.

Doc's head snapped as she strolled past him. He was tempted to run after her and pitch to her:
I'm perfect for you. I spend half my life on boats and planes. I know how to treat a woman and I love your rear end.

He said nothing and continued on his way. She, in her insular self-love, missed a gemstone for her crown of thorns that rare beauties wear.

*   *   *

Jack left the car with the valet who parked it in front of the restaurant, and walked with Eddie to the table where Doc was already sitting. The sunlight was different than it had been four hours earlier. It was ruddy and tossing oblong shadows across the streets. A wind blew in from the Embarcadero, carrying the smell of saltwater and fish. There were more people about as businesses closed and restaurants prepared for dinner. The line outside the Chinese clinic next to Spumante's was gone as doctors and nurses who worked dawn to dusk saw their final patients.

“Free medical care promised by Mao,” Doc observed, “but not delivered. And here it is on a silver platter from Uncle Sam. Medicaid mills being broken all across South Florida but they're untouchable here. We should ask that doctor whether he's noticed any abuse of the system, next time we see him here.”

“Hi, yourself,” Jack said, sitting down and setting Eddie under the table. “It looks like even Wilhelm can't beat you.”

“I cheated,” Doc said. “I jogged. Got here a few minutes ago.” His walk down Broadway had been preparation for a run.

“A merc has to stay in shape,” said the sixty-five-year-old who looked about forty-five. That was one reason he was a vegetarian. The other reason, he maintained, is that he often had to survive in the wild on what he called “fruits and roots.” That was not a diet one wanted to come to suddenly. “Not when fiber-induced flatulence can give away your position,” he once told Jack.

It was good to see the man again, without Abe to stir up trouble. Doc had a quick smile, though in this case he greeted Jack with something more like a smirk.

“I ordered you a Bruno's Sauvignon Blanc, though I held off on the pan-roasted halibut,” Doc said. “Wasn't sure what you'd be in the mood for.”

Jack wasn't sure himself, though Doc couldn't have gone wrong with the wine. Bruno, inspired by his youth in the Molinara, Benevento province of Italy, had purchased hills in Sonoma—in the same parallel as Italy, the 38th. When Jack first visited him there in 1993, Bruno was working like an ox to clear the trees and brush alongside the Mexican workers he hired. All of his cuttings were en route from Montalcino and they were hurrying to prepare for them. Later Bruno had walked Jack over the vineyard, pointing out the rocky volcanic soil, the southern exposure, everything that made up the terroir. “Wine is made in the vineyard, it's not made in the cellar,” Bruno had stated, “and the terroir determines the taste of the wine.” He had been right, of course. His micropicked estate wines were perfection and he was the first vintner to create a Brunello Sonoma. He eventually became a sponsor of Jack's show and when Jack was fired, Bruno sent him a case of the Brunello.

Eddie shifted under the table and sat on Jack's foot. Jack was reminded of Bruno's old dog, Emma. Unlike other vintners, Bruno didn't check the sugar content before he picked the grapes. He just fed a grape to Emma and she'd spit it out if it wasn't ripe. But when Emma herself ate the grapes right off the vine, that's when Bruno called the winemaker, and they'd pick the grapes that day.
Just like a story,
Jack thought. The best stories have to unfold naturally in their own time. When you've got a ripe one, be ready to hustle. Until then, try not to go nuts with the waiting.

Jack looked at Doc's big fist, which enveloped a can of Diet Coke.

“No more cervezas? Trying to forget El Salvador?” Jack said.

“Been a while since I was down there shootin' alongside the Contras,” he said in his gravelly voice. “Might be in danger of forgettin' those days.”

“Inactivity will do that to you,” Jack said.

“Actually, periods of inactivity suit me,” Doc replied. “I'm older than you. I like longer spaces between my suicide runs.” He took a sip of his Diet Coke and leaned back in his chair as far as he could go.

Jack grinned. Doc invested himself wholeheartedly in every assignment or mission he had undertaken. To do that, he needed to be able to rest in whatever downtime he could find. On his earliest missions he had run on beer and adrenaline. On his downtime it used to be beer and a smoke. Then it was just beer. Now it was Diet Coke. Doc never went in for weed. He grew up in the counterculture community of Bolinas, nearly thirty miles northwest of San Francisco, where homegrown weed was the relaxant of choice. Today, just smelling it on a beach or in a park took him back to a time when people were deluded enough to think that luddite isolationism was the solution to everything that ailed humankind. You could only get to Bolinas on roads that weren't marked and in some cases weren't even paved; if you happened to find your way in, you weren't encouraged to stay.

“You know how crazy your own family can sometimes make you?” Doc had once asked Jack. “Imagine if your family was an entire community of potheads who were a little nuts
before
they got high.”

As a boy, Doc had seen military aircraft flying overhead and wanted to know more about them. As soon as he was of age, he enlisted.

Adrenaline and beer,
Jack thought.
Shoot or don't shoot.
Sometimes he envied Doc the simpler choices that governed his life.

Bruno came out with Jack's glass of wine. Noticing the silence at the table and Doc looking out at the street, Bruno shot a sharp glance at Jack.

“You've got trouble?” he said.

Jack took a sip of his wine. “It's great, Bruno,” he said.

“I know, it's a good wine,” Bruno said. “Listen, when I was a little boy in Italy and we had nothing but trouble, my grandfather told me, ‘Everyone has a cross to bear. Lucky is the one that can keep the cross in his pocket.'”

Jack and Doc both smiled, and for Jack, it was a genuine smile, not a polite disguise. Nobody could restore perspective the way Bruno could.

“And now,” Bruno said, “I'm going to teach you how my grandfather taught me how to taste wine when I was six years old. He said to me, ‘Bruno, you take a small sip of wine, you put it on your tongue. Don't move anything. And count to eight and let it go down from the side of your mouth.' Most of the time I choked to death.”

They all laughed.

“But you know, when I did it, I experienced.” He stretched out the word. “Because the side of your mouth is the most delicate part of your mouth. I experienced something incredible. The wine goes all the way down to your throat.” Bruno motioned under his chin. “My grandfather used to say, ‘You know, when you do that, you take the pants off the wine and you really see what is there.'”

Jack and Doc chuckled again. Bruno sat down and Jack realized that he was going to watch Jack taste his wine properly. Just then a Middle Eastern man, about sixty, approached and greeted the restaurateur. Bruno stood and clapped both hands on his shoulders, smiling, then introduced him to the table.

“Jack, Doc, this is Asif, he owns the Persian restaurant around the corner. You'll like him. You know what he says to me one day? He says—hey, Asif, you tell it, about the starving Muslims.”

Asif grinned and said, “It's an old story, just that when the Jews don't eat, the Muslims starve to death.”

They all broke out laughing.

“Because,” Bruno explained, though he didn't have to, “in the days of the Jewish holidays, the Jewish people don't go to restaurants!”

They laughed some more and Jack felt the last of his tension drain away. Bruno and Asif disappeared into the restaurant and a small silence fell on the table.

“What are you thinking?” Doc said.

Jack looked at him. “About the lamb chops,” he grinned. He almost always ordered fish or pasta. “What does lamb chops
scotto dito
mean?”

“It means ‘you'll burn your finger.' But don't let that stop you, I've heard it's phenomenal. And Pasta Bruno for me. So,” he put aside his menu, “you've been down lately.”

Jack shook his head. “Between you and Max, I have no private life.”

“I'm not worried about you, it's just something I noticed.”

“Max wasn't, either. My focus slipped a bit, that's all.”

“Here's how I see it,” said Doc. “You played cat and mouse with the FBI, snuck into a country that's forbidden you from entering, then climbed the Golden Gate Bridge, and saved a good chunk of San Francisco. Any normal person would plant his tired rear end on a Caribbean beach after that. You didn't. You let yourself get debriefed by the FBI, by the DHS, by the SFPD, and probably a few others that you're not allowed to mention.”