The Ascendant: A Thriller by Drew Chapman Read Free Book Online

told me, in no uncertain terms, that you are to keep the information you have gleaned to yourself. You are to say nothing. To no one. Now. And forever. Is that also clear?”
    Garrett started to reply, to argue that he didn’t give a shit what the militaryor the government wanted him to do, but then he caught a glimpse of the flat, worried expression on Avery’s face, and thought better of it. He nodded a yes.
    “It’s clear,” Garrett said.
    “Okay. Go back to work.”
    Garrett stood, went to the door. Avery called after him. “Garrett, one other thing.” Garrett turned, and watched his boss. Avery was wincing slightly, as if pain were suddenly radiating through his body. Garrett had known Avery for eight years, and understood that he was a worrier, through and through, but he’d never seen his old professor look quite so afraid.
    “Please,” Avery said, swallowing hard. “Be careful.”

9
JENKINS & ALTSHULER, NEW YORK CITY, MARCH 25, 8:32 AM
    T he bond trading room was abuzz with chatter and ringing phones. Garrett sat at his desk and tried to focus on his work. The phone rang, he answered, and tried to give coherent responses, but his mind was elsewhere.
    Be careful. Say nothing.
    Why was this so big? Were the Chinese really at war with the United States? He had made that claim to Captain Truffant almost as a dare. He checked online sites—the New York Times , the AP wire, Google News—and then foreign sites as well—the BBC and Times of London. There was no mention of hostilities between the U.S. and China. Anywhere. Not even some minor diplomatic incident, a trade dispute or a political prisoner jailing that threatened to escalate into something more serious.
    He forced himself not to think about it. He bought and sold bond futures for the next four hours, but he wasn’t sharp. He was hungover, a little stoned, and now tense and disoriented. He ended the morning session down $43,000.
    At twelve-thirty he took his usual fifteen-minute lunch break and went downstairs to grab a falafel from Abu Hasheem’s street cart, which was always parked a block north of his office. Garrett liked Hasheem. The falafel vendor was from Lebanon but was a fast convert to all things American. He was a diehard Knicks fan. Garrett teased him about this. Garrett was a Long Beach boy—he had spent his life following the Lakers.
    Garrett paused as he stepped out of the lobby of his building, on the corner of John and William streets, and stood for a moment to take in the sounds andsmells of lower Manhattan. A taxi honked. A truck rumbled past. The March light couldn’t reach the street down here, blocked by the looming skyscrapers of the financial district. Garrett watched the stock traders and bond salesmen hurry to their lunches, jackets pulled tight against the wind. He stepped out of the shelter of his building and joined the flow of pedestrians moving east on John Street.
    And that was when he felt it. That tingle of unease at the base of his spine. It felt like a chill almost, like a single drop of ice water trickling, very fast, from the base of his brain to the middle of his spine, and then radiating out like a faint, cold shock through his arms and legs. It was familiar to Garrett, how he felt when he discovered a pattern in a seemingly random swirl of chaos. And yet this was slightly different—it was a break in the usual. Something, somewhere near him, was wrong, deviating from the norm. Adrenaline flowed through him. He walked quickly, spooked, Avery’s warning— Be careful —echoing through his thoughts.
    Out of the corner of his eye he saw a young man in a gray sweatshirt watching him from across the street, slouching against a beat-up, white, windowless Chevy van. And then a second man, in a leather jacket, halfway down the block, cell phone to his ear, also watching him, eyes locked onto Garrett. The man in the leather jacket turned away quickly, still on his phone. Garrett felt another jolt of adrenaline