Read Tipping Point: The War With China - the First Salvo (Dan Lenson Novels) for Free Online

liquid platinum, liquid bronze, liquid gold. They even had his old favorite, Cutty Sark. He started to reach for it. Then redirected his hand, to the soft drink.
    The book-swap shelves in the lobby had held a worn copy of Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. He was swallowing the last of the cola, stepping out of his white trou for a shower while reading the back cover, when the phone rang. “Can you get that?” Blair murmured, looking into the mirror over a desk she’d converted to a dressing table as she stripped her bra off. She was turned away, but he could still make out the burns and scars. He sighed and picked up the phone. “Yeah?”
    “Captain Lenson? Will you hold for Edward Szerenci?”
    “Is that for me?” Blair murmured.
    He covered the mouthpiece. “No. For me. It’s … the national security adviser.”
    “Szerenci? What does he want?”
    “I don’t know. You know he used to be my teacher, at George Washington.”
    “And he’s now on their side. Be very careful, Dan.”
    “Dan? Dan Lenson?” A sharp, rapid, accented voice. Devoid of all doubt or self-questioning.
    “Yes sir. Hello, Professor.”
    “Heard you were in town. Or at least, in country. Where are you now?”
    “Norfolk, sir. At a commissioning ceremony.”
    “You’re going to testify. House Armed Services.”
    “Correct, sir. Wednesday.”
    “I’d like to meet up before then. Can you stop by my office?”
    He covered the mouthpiece again. “He wants me to stop by. Before I appear.”
    “No. You’re busy.”
    “Uh, well, sir, my time’s scheduled pretty solid before then. A murder board, and—”
    “I know about the board. How about just before you go in to testify? I’ll have my people set it up. Good to talk, Dan. I remember your paper on Tomahawk in the first-strike role. It’s been too long.”
    Dan started to protest, but found himself instead talking to a pleasant-voiced woman. They made the arrangements, then hung up. He stared out the window, at salmon-colored streetlights, the passing cars of a late Norfolk night. This whole area had been Fiddler’s Green. Pawnshops, tailor shops, strip joints, locker clubs. Now the base sprawled south and east until it was running up against the hospital and the university. The rowdy honky-tonks were gone, the locker clubs and used-car lots. What did it mean? Maybe just that things would always change, that you couldn’t hold on to anything.
    Her voice, still with that underlying sullenness. “Did you want the shower first?”
    “I guess so.” He felt sweaty and unclean, prey to a deep, sourceless unease. Taking a deep breath, he went into the bathroom and closed the door.

 
    3
    The Pentagon
    NILES had come back a day early, and his secretary had called Dan to come in for a brief interview. He’d gotten his blues dry-cleaned, polished his shoes, made sure his ribbons were new and in the right order, every shoelace and button squared away. Blair was still in bed as he left.
    *   *   *
    THE secretary looked up expectantly in the lobby of the vice CNO’s office. He blinked past her through an open door at the green hills of Arlington. “Daniel Lenson, reporting in to—”
    “Get in here, Lenson.”
    His old patron, turned enemy, then reluctant rabbi again, stood at the window, broad back to Dan. Never a lightweight, Niles had gained even more poundage since they’d last met. Rongstad, his staff director, was at a long, polished, glass-topped table devoid of even the faintest specks of dust, a folded newspaper by his elbow.
    The windows had all been replaced after 9/11, with blast-resistant, shatterproof, slightly green-tinted glass two inches thick. The sky tumbled with dark, driving clouds, but it was empty of incoming airliners. An I Love Me wall held photos of a hulking young Niles with Victor Krulak, with Elmo Zumwalt, with Sam Nunn, with a bent, aged, irascible-looking Arleigh Burke. A photo of Niles on the bridge of USS California, gripping binoculars.