The Ghost War

when we told them to?”

“Because they were afraid.”

“Because they’re satisfied with their lives. With the economy.”

“The economy is shrinking.”

Zhang shook his head. “Growth is rising again, Li. The people are smarter than you. They respect the Party. They know that soon enough China will be even more powerful than America. We’ll sell them cars, airplanes, everything. And then we’ll rule. There was no need for what you did.”

“One day the people will storm the gates of Zhongnanhai and you’ll see.”

Zhang smiled, the tolerant smile of a man who’d heard a crazy uncle’s crazy arguments and wasn’t listening anymore. “General. The world won’t end if a few migrants go hungry. Not everyone can be rich. Now. If you don’t want to take the pills, don’t. The choice is yours. But don’t forget your family. For now, the party doesn’t believe Jiafeng”—Li’s wife—“knew of your treasonous acts. But if this situation persists, we may reach another conclusion.”

Zhang stepped out of the cell, into the concrete corridor. Li was silent. He wouldn’t plead for his life. He wouldn’t give Zhang the satisfaction. He should have known these cowardly bastards would use his family against him.

“Be sure to take the blue pill first, General.” Zhang walked away as the cell door slammed shut.

ZHANG HADN’T BEEN BACK SINCE. But today’s China Daily proved that he hadn’t been bluffing. A front-page story explained that the Standing Committee had opened a “wider corruption investigation” into Li’s affairs. They wanted him gone, without a messy public trial, and they would destroy his family if he resisted.

Li finished his tepid tea, drank the last of his watery soup. He’d been so close to success. Even now he was sure that the Americans would have backed off, pulled their ships out of the East China Sea. He would have ruled China.

How could Cao have betrayed him? Bitterness upon bitterness.

Li wanted to talk to his wife and sons again, explain what he’d done. He wanted to see Tiananmen one last time, go for one more run along the lakes of Zhongnanhai. But he’d lost the chance to choose his fate. None of his wishes would come true. Only the pills were true. He gathered them off the tray. They were almost weightless. Hard to believe they could destroy the body that he had spent so many years building, this body that had survived war unscathed.

The blue pill first. Li popped it into his mouth and took it down in one clean swallow. He closed his eyes and counted to thirty, seeing Mao in his tomb in Tiananmen. When he opened his eyes again, the concrete walls of the cell seemed to be melting. Now, before his brain melted too. He slipped the other two pills into his mouth and choked them down. And then he could do nothing except wait.

THE BLACK CB1000 ROLLED DU Memorial Drive, its engine burbling, and stopped beside three Harleys festooned with POW/MIA stickers. Two riders hopped off. Wells and Exley. They picked up a map at the visitors’ center and made their way to Section 60, among the newest parts of Arlington National Cemetery.

Inside the gates the green, rolling hills glowed in the sunlight with an unearthly beauty. Clean white headstones rose from the earth like dragon’s teeth. Oak trees offered pockets of shade. The sweet smell of fresh-cut grass filled the air. A city of the dead, 300,000 graves in all. The ugliness of war turned splendid, as politicians — and civilians in general — preferred, Wells thought.

Every day, fifteen to thirty funerals were held at Arlington, mostly veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, but some soldiers killed in action in Iraq as well. Wells and Exley walked over a rise and came on mourners waiting for a ceremony to begin. Six people sat under a canopy, five women and one man, all in their eighties, the man painfully thin, his forearms narrow as chewed-up corncobs. World War II, Wells assumed.

Over a rise, they came upon another tent. This time the crowd overflowed the canopy. In the front row, two children clung to a woman in a long black dress. The woman stared at the coffin before her, her body rigid with grief. Iraq? Afghanistan? How many children would come to Arlington this year? Wells wondered. And the next? And the next? And how would history judge the leaders who’d sent their parents to die?

FINALLY THEY FOUND THE PLOT. Greg Hackett. The young sergeant who’d bled to death in Afghanistan. Gregory Adam Hackett. He had died honestly, doing his duty. More than most men could say.

More than Pierre Kowalski could say, Wells thought. As his ribs had knitted together these last four weeks, he’d found himself thinking about the arms dealer. Part of him hoped that one day he’d have a chance to see Kowalski again, end the man’s dirty business once and for all. Though there’d just be another Kowalski, and another, as long as men wanted land or money or power.

Forever.

Anyway, he hadn’t come here to think about Kowalski. He wanted to remember Hackett. Instead his mind slid sideways, to the Talib whose brains he’d blasted on the night that Hackett died. He could see, actually see, the man’s skull shattering, as if he were in Afghanistan instead of Virginia, as if he were living the night over again. He closed his eyes and sagged down.

He had destroyed that Talib as easily as the average person swatted a fly. He’d killed so much that killing had become automatic, a reflex. Only after the action ended could he realize the horror of what he’d done. Only now.

Wells wished he could cry. But he never cried. Instead he put his head to the soft turf and closed his eyes and watched a movie of the men he’d killed playing on the screen in his mind. Forgive us, for we know not what we do.

“John.” He felt Exley’s thin arms around him. He lifted his head and forced his eyes open.

“I don’t know if I can do it anymore.”

“You don’t have to, John. You can always quit.”

But even before Exley’s words rose out of the cemetery and floated south over the Pentagon and into the past, even before they joined everything that had ever happened and everyone who’d ever lived in the place that never was—

Wells knew she was wrong.

He would never quit.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While in Boston on book tour for The Faithful Spy, the predecessor to this novel, I was fortunate enough to meet the lovely and talented Dr. Jacqueline Basha, a wonderful woman and a wonderful reader. Without Jackie, John Wells — and his creator — would be a lot more tortured.

Thanks also to:

David, my brother, who was present at the creation.

Neil Nyren, whose suggestions are always on point.

Heather Schroder, who is never afraid to fight for her writers.

Deirdre Silver, a careful and thoughtful reader.

Doug Ollivant, who knows the difference between an LZ and a DZ.

Mark Tavani and Jon Karp, who knew John Wells when he had a different name.

Larry Ingrassia and Tim Race, my editors at The New York Times, who gave me more days off than I deserved.

And last but certainly not least, to all the readers who e-mailed me (alexberenson@gmail.com) to say how much they liked (or in a few cases didn’t like) The Faithful Spy. Writing a book isn’t easy, but knowing that people are actually reading it — and care enough to respond — makes the work worthwhile.