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  Carroll, hearing the word “assassin,” felt that he had taken still another step into the endless Green Band maze. The further he moved, the more confused and lost he became. The All-American soldier had an even darker side: assassin. He brought Hudson’s clean-cut photographs back to mind: the sunshine face of determination, the bristling crewcut hair, the honesty in those eyes.

  “Meaning what, Colonel? What does a good rep mean in that context? As a military assassin.”

  “It means he wasn’t a thrill killer—which some of the top hitters were…. A real problem is what to do with some of those guys, once they leave the Army. If the generals had decided to take out Ho Chi Minh, something very big, very delicate, Hudson most likely would have been considered.”

  “You seem a little awed by Hudson yourself.”

  Williamson smiled; he chuckled softly into his chest full of medals.

  “I don’t know about awe. Awe isn’t the right word. Definitely respect, though.”

  “Why, Colonel?”

  “He was one of the best soldiers I’ve ever trained. He had physical endurance and all the technical skills. He had strength and tremendous smarts. He also had something else, dignity.”

  “So what went wrong? What happened to Hudson after the war? Why did he finally leave the service in 1976?”

  Colonel Williamson rubbed his clean-shaven jaw. “As I said, the one problem was his attitude. He could be extremely judgmental He also thought he had answers to some controversial Army problems. Some career officers might not have appreciated Hudson’s judgment of them and their actions. The other thing was the loss of his arm. David Hudson had big, big plans for himself. How many one-armed generals are you aware of?”

  Carroll paused and thought before he spoke again. For all the apparent cooperation, he had a sneaking feeling that Colonel Williamson was still holding something back. It was the Army way, he remembered from extensive past dealings with the Pentagon. Everything had to be a huge need to know” secret, shared only inside the sacred fraternity of Army blood brothers, shared with the other warriors only.

  “Colonel Williamson, I’ve got to ask the next few questions with the authority of the Commander-in-Chief. That means I need complete answers.”

  “That’s what you’ve been getting.”

  “Colonel Williamson, did you know the official purpose of David Hudson’s Special Forces training at Fort Bragg? Why was he at the JFK school? If that information was in any of your orders, if you heard it anywhere on the base, I need to know it, Colonel”

  Colonel Duriel Williamson stared back hard at Carroll, then at Captain Hawkins.

  When he spoke, his voice was softer but seemed an octave deeper than it had been.

  “Nothing was ever written down in any of the orders…. As I said, I don’t remember who actually issued our daily orders. I do know why he was supposed to be there though…”

  “Go on. Please, Colonel.”

  “It was something we were told at the very first briefing on David Hudson. Verbally told. This first briefing sounded like CIA bullshit by the way. Until we actually met Hudson You see …

  “They told us Hudson had been specially chosen to be our version of the Third World superterrorist. David Hudson had been selected, and he was being trained to be our version of the terrorist Juan Carlos.”

  Carroll’s stomach had suddenly dropped; his forehead felt flushed. He leaned forward in his chair.

  “That’s why he was at the Bragg school? Why he was pushed ahead, beyond all the others?”

  “That’s what we helped teach him to be…. And Mr. Carroll, Captain Hudson was good at it. He is still good, I’m sure. From planning a terrorist raid—even a murder if it was necessary, David Hudson was on a level with Carlos…. The Army trained Hudson to be the best… and in my opinion, he was. Maybe that’s why they couldn’t keep him content in the peacetime Army.”

  Carroll didn’t speak—because at that moment, he couldn’t. The realization that the Army had secretly trained its own Carlos, and that he had possibly turned—it was unbelievable.

  “Colonel, in your opinion, could Hudson have been involved with Green Band? Could he have technically masterminded an operation like that?”

  “I don’t doubt it, Mr. Carroll. He has all the technical skills.”

  Williamson paused, sighed. “One more fact about Hudson, though. When I knew him, at least, and I think I knew the man fairly well, he loved the United States very much. He loved America. Make no mistake, David Hudson was a patriot.”

  Chapter 73

  THAT EVENING, VERY LATE in Washington, President Kearney was feeling completely debilitated and old, decades older than his forty-two years. The sheen of sweat covering his neck was cold and made him feel ill.

  It was past 1:30, and the White House was quiet.

  As he walked the corridors of power, the President of the United States held a confidential document under his arm. The sheaf of papers was pressed tightly against his right side by his elbow, but seemed to burn through the material of his suit and shirt, to scald his skin.

  Nearly every president as well as a few chosen first-time senators and key congressmen, had learned an important U.S. history lesson when they arrived in the capital city of Washington. Kearney had learned his within the first month of his Presidency. The lesson was that within the broadest scope of American power and its immense wealth, the politician was little more than an appendage to the system. A concession to form, a necessary inconvenience in many ways.

  The politician—senator, congressperson, judge, even the President—was grudgingly tolerated, but each was expendable.

  The presidents before Justin Kearney—Reagan, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Kennedy, Johnson—had all learned the lesson in one way or another.

  Even the seemingly powerful and secure Secretary of State Kissinger had eventually learned his lesson…

  There was a higher order working inside, working above and beyond the United States government. There had been a higher order for decades. It made all the sense in the world, actually; it made sense of almost everything that had happened over the past forty years: the Kennedys, Viet Nam, Watergate, Koreagate, the “Star Wars” plan.

  They were waiting for President Kearney in the dramatic and imposing National Security Council briefing room. Twelve of them had been inside there for some time, working through the night.

  They appeared to be an ordinary enough committee, all in white shirtsleeves and loosened ties.

  They stood en masse as the President of the United States entered. They rose out of respect for the office, for the lofty traditions, for what they themselves had rigorously maintained about the office.

  The forty-first President of the United States then took his accustomed seat at the head of the highly polished oak wood table. Pens and lined yellow writing pads had been set neatly at his place.

  “Did you read the position papers through, Mr. President?” One of the twelve committeemen quietly asked Kearney.

  “Yes, I read it in my office just now,” the President solemnly answered. His strongly handsome face was pale, drained of its natural color.

  The President then laid the substantial packet of confidential papers he’d been carrying on the table. The booklet was approximately 160 typewritten pages. It had never been copied, and never would be. It looked somewhat like an investment offering book or perhaps a condominium plan.

  On the dark blue cover something had been printed in regal-looking gold letters.

  Green Band. Extremely Confidential and Classified.

  The title page was dated May 16.

  Seven months before the actual bombing attack on Wall Street.

  PART THREE

  Arch Carroll

  Chapter 74

  FRIDAY IN WASHINGTON dawned with rain clouds rolling across a nearly colorless horizon. A spitting wind blew wintry gusts in from Maryland. The temperature was dropping hourly. From 7:00 A.M. on, Carroll waited impatiently in the front s
eat of a rented sedan parked in the Washington suburb of McLean.

  The dark car blended with a wall of even darker fir trees overhanging Fort Myers Road.

  Detective work, Carroll thought as he stared off into nothingness. First you wait. Always the waiting.

  Carroll passed the early time eating breakfast out of a warm cardboard box from Dunkin’ Donuts. The doughnuts weren’t as hot as the box itself. They also had no taste. The coffee he sipped was room temperature, a little less satisfying than the doughnuts.

  Carroll read some Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine, and that was good, at least. Several times he found himself thinking about Colonel Hudson.

  The All-American Boy? West Point honor student…

  Then Viet Nam assassin? America’s jackal? America’s Francois Monserrat?

  He wanted to meet Hudson. He wanted to encounter him one-on-one, face-to-face. Maybe inside the interrogation room at No. 13 Wall, Carroll’s own turf. Tell me, Colonel Hudson, what do you know about the Green Band fire-bombings? What about the stolen Wall Street securities? Tell me why you left the Army, Colonel?

  He wondered how far he’d get with somebody like Colonel Hudson, a U.S. saboteur trained to resist interrogation.

  About 7:30, a second-floor light finally blinked on inside the white colonial across the roadway. A second light followed moments later. Bedroom and bathroom, probably.

  Moments later, a light went on downstairs. Kitchen? The porch light blinked out.

  Just past 8:00, which Carroll thought a respectable hour, he trudged up the flagstone front walk and rang a bell which made a chimey sound like old department store bells.

  A tall man of about sixty appeared in the pristine white doorway. He wore plaid trousers, house slippers, a powder blue cardigan sweater. His head, shaped like a torpedo, was topped with white-gray stubble.

  General Lucas Thompson, former Commander-in-Chief of the United States Evacuation Forces in Viet Nam, still had a craggy, commanding presence. He still appeared capable of taking on combat duty demands. There was something hard and alert in his eyes, like small electric lightbulbs burning there.

  “General Thompson, I’m Arch Carroll with the DIA. Sorry to bother you so early in the morning. I’m here about the Green Band investigation.”

  General Thompson looked appropriately suspicious: his eyes became slats of loose flesh. “What about it, sir? I’m up, but as you say, it’s still quite early in the morning.”

  “I would have called last night, to say I was coming, General. It was late when I left the Pentagon. I thought that might have been a worse breach of etiquette than just coming out here this morning.”

  The look of consternation and puzzlement faded on General Thompson’s face. It was as if the mention of the word “Pentagon” had reassured him; a look of pleasant recognition spread across his features.

  “Of course. Arch Carroll. I’ve read about you.”

  “General Thompson, I have just a few questions. It’s about your command in Southeast Asia. It shouldn’t take more than, say, twenty minutes.”

  “That means an hour,” Lucas Thompson said with a sniffling laugh. He swung open the front door anyway. “That’s fine. I have the time. Time is plentiful these days, Mr. Carroll.” He spoke in the tone of a retired soldier stricken by writer’s block halfway through his memoirs. Vaguely frustrated, a little bored, abandoned not only by his muse but by Ms sense of purpose.

  General Thompson led the way inside, through a formal 1930s dining room, into an even more imposing horary chamber. There was a white birch fireplace screened by a brass curtain with heavy brass andirons. Tall oak bookshelves stood erect on every wall; a double bay window looked onto a backyard with a covered pool and yellow-and-lime-striped cabana.

  General Thompson sat in a comfortable wing chair.

  “Out of sight in Washington, pretty much out of mind. Since my retirement, I’ve “had very few official visitors down here. Other than my two granddaughters, Who fortunately live up the lane, and who adore their grandmother’s baked goods and double fudge.”

  General Thompson shook his head and smiled. He was easing into the interview more than Carroll had expected or hoped.

  In Viet Nam, Carroll had heard that Thompson was an extremely rigid disciplinarian. Now, in his retirement, Lucas Thompson seemed like just another grandfather, patiently waiting for the next Kodak snapshot to be taken.

  “I’m searching—groping, is the word I think I want— for some useful information about a Colonel David Hudson. Hudson was on your command team in Saigon, right?”

  General Thompson nodded in the manner of a practiced good listener. “Yes, Captain Hudson served on my team for about fifteen months. If my recollection is holding up better than the rest of me.”

  “Your recollection and my records match exactly,” Carroll said. “What can you tell me about Hudson?”

  “Well, I’m not sure where you want me to start. It’s fairly complex. David Hudson was an extremely disciplined and effective soldier. Also a very charismatic leader, once he got his command over there…

  “When I first met him, he was ramrodding a, I believe it was a demolition team. He’d also been trained to sanction human targets. He sanctioned trash, Carroll. War profiteers, a couple of high-level infiltrators. Traitors.”

  “Why was he chosen to be a military assassin?”

  “Oh, I think I have the answer for that one. He was chosen because he didn’t like to kill. Because he wasn’t a psycho. I think Hudson’s philosophy was that once you undertook to fight in a just war, you fought. You balls-out fought with everything you had. I happen to believe that philosophy myself.”

  During the next thirty minutes, General Lucas Thompson elaborated on his association with David Hudson. It was an overall laudatory review, an A-plus for Hudson— high marks for conduct, combat team leadership, especially high marks for courage and charisma, that latter a nebulous quality the modern Army seemed to take into account the way a Civil War battalion, say, would have given a man a commendation for his musket aim.

  Arch Carroll kept getting the very uncomfortable feeling that he was chasing after a goddamned American war hero. Once again, it didn’t make complete sense.

  Carroll leaned way forward in the red leather easy chair he’d taken in the retired officer’s library. General Thompson was beginning to repeat himself slightly. He seemed to be slipping into a genial story-telling mode.

  It might have been sad, ordinarily. In a way, it reminded Carroll of his own father, retiring from the New York police force to Sarasota. Dead of heart failure, or maybe it was boredom, within nine months.

  Except that Carroll didn’t believe General Lucas Thompson’s act for a minute right now…

  Carroll had checked carefully—and General Thompson had been receiving official visitors out in McLean; high-ranking VIPs from the Pentagon, even regular visitors from the White House. General Lucas Thompson was still an influential adviser to the National Security Council.

  “There are a couple of things that still bother me, General.”

  “Shoot away, then.”

  “Just for openers … why can’t anyone tell me where Colonel Hudson is now? … Second point. Why can’t anyone explain the mysterious circumstances under which he left the Army in the mid-70s? Third point, General Thompson, why did somebody rifle through his war records at the Pentagon and the FBI before I could see them?”

  “Mr. Carroll, judging from the tone of your voice, I think maybe you’re getting- a little out of order,” General Thompson said in a voice that remained low, perfectly in control.

  “Yeah, well, I do that sometimes. Fourth point. The last thing that bothers me. Really frosts me… Why was I followed from the Pentagon last night, General? … Why was I followed out here to McLean, General? On whose orders? What the hell is going on here in Washington?”

  General Lucas Thompson’s shiny, clean-shaven cheeks, his crinkle-cut neck blossomed bright red. “Mr. Carroll, I think yo
u’d better leave. I believe that would be the best for all concerned.”

  “You know, I think you’re probably right. I think I’d be wasting my time here…. General, I think you know a whole lot more about Colonel Hudson, though. That’s what I think.”

  General Thompson smiled, just a faint condescending twist of his upper lip. “That’s the unappreciated beauty of our country, Mr. Carroll. It’s free. You can think whatever you like I’ll show you to the door.”

  Chapter 75

  ON THE MORNING OF December 17 in New York, David Hudson was feeling more self-conscious about his affliction than he had in years.

  Clutching Billie Bogan with his good arm, he steered her in a protective manner through an onrushing tide of people on Fifth Avenue. He didn’t want to think about the resumption of Green Band—not for a few more hours anyway.

  David Hudson’s self-consciousness was particularly unnecessary that morning. The two of them, paired together, were striking. They looked as if they’d been painted with thick, bold strokes—while everyone else had been lightly drawn by pencil or pen.

  Billie Bogan watched David from the corner of her eye; so very serious charting their appointed path through the crowd. She felt an odd but growing fascination. That he was obviously taken with her made the attraction she felt much more irresistible. She allowed herself to be pulled forward…

  Toward whatever was looming up ahead.

  Where were they headed anyway?

  “Are you a Christmas lover?” Billie asked, as they moved ahead through the cold flat knife of the winter day around them.

  “Oh, it depends on the Christmas. This Christmas, I have a strange passion for the season… I want to drink in the sights: the evergreen trees and the holiday wreaths, the glimmering store windows, Santa Clauses, churches, choral music.”