Black Market Page 27

  As he walked the corridors of power, the president of the United States held a confidential document under his arm. The sheaf of papers seemed to burn through his suit and shirt.

  Nearly every president, as well as a few chosen first-time senators and key congressmen, had learned an important American history lesson when they arrived in the capital. Justin Kearney had learned his within the first month of his presidency. The history lesson was that within the broadcast 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 politicians, all elected officials-even the president-were grudgingly tolerated, but each was expendable.

  The presidents before Justin Kearney-Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy-had all learned the invaluable 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; it made sense of almost everything that had happened over the past forty years: the Kennedys, Vietnam, Watergate, 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 there for some time, working right through the night.

  They appeared to be an ordinary committee, all in white shirts 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 took his 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.

  “Yes, I read them in my office just now,” the president answered solemnly. His strong, handsome face was pale.

  The president then laid the confidential papers he'd been carrying on the table. The booklet was approximately one hundred and sixty 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.

  Nearly seven months before the actual bombing attack on Wall Street.

  Part Three. Arch Carroll

  34

  Friday in Washington, D.C., dawned with rain clouds rolling across a colorless horizon. A spitting wind blew wintry gusts in from Maryland. The temperature was dropping hourly. From 7:00 A.M. on, Arch Carroll waited impatiently on the front seat of a rented sedan parked in the nearby suburb of McLean.

  The dark car blended in neatly 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 you wait.

  Carroll passed the time eating breakfast out of a box from Dunkin' Donuts. The actual doughnuts weren't nearly as hot as the box itself. They also had no taste that he could discern. 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 quite good, at least. Several times he found himself thinking about Colonel David Hudson.

  The classic all-American Boy? West Point honor student…

  Then Vietnam assassin? America's Juan Carlos? America's jackal? America 's François Monserrat?

  He wanted to meet David Hudson now. He wanted to encounter him one on one, face to face. Maybe inside the cramped interrogation room at number 13 Wall, Carroll's own turf. Tell me, Colonel Hudson, what do you know about the Green Band firebombing? What about the stolen Wall Street securities? Tell me why you left the army, Colonel Hudson.

  He wondered how far he'd get with somebody like Colonel David Hudson, a U.S. saboteur trained to resist interrogation. It would be a battle, and one Carroll was sure he'd lose.

  About seven-thirty a second-floor light blinked on inside the white colonial across the roadway. A second light followed moments later. Bedroom and bathroom, probably. Showtime at General Thompson's was about to begin.

  Moments later a light went on downstairs. Kitchen? Then the porch light blinked out.

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

  A tall, distinguished 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 Vietnam, had a craggy, commanding presence. He still appeared capable of taking on the most difficult combat duty demands. There was something hard and alert in his gray eyes, as if small electric light bulbs were 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. “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 suspicious look 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. “Come in. I have the time. Time is plentiful these days, Mr. Carroll.” He spoke in the tone of a retired soldier about to write his memoirs: vaguely frustrated, a little bored, and lacking a sense of purpose.

  General Thompson led the way through a formal dining room, into an even more imposing library 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 out onto a backyard with a covered pool and yellow-and-lime-striped cabana.

  General Thompson sat on 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 warmly.

  Carroll had heard that in Vietnam Thompson had been an extremely rigid disciplinarian. Now, in his retirement, Lucas Thompson seemed like just another grandfather, waiting patiently for the next smiling 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 Lucas Thompson nodded in the manner of a practiced good listener. “Yes, Colonel 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 fi
rst met him, he was ramrodding a demolition team, I believe. He'd also been trained to sanction-that is, terminate-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 in that philosophy myself.”

  During the next thirty minutes General Lucas Thompson elaborated on his association with David Hudson. It was a laudatory review overall-high marks for conduct, combat-team leadership, especially high marks for courage.

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

  General Thompson was now beginning to repeat himself slightly. He seemed to be slipping into a genial storytelling mode. It was a little sad. In a way, ft reminded Carroll of his own father, retiring from the New York Police Department 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.

  Carroll had checked carefully-and General Thompson had been receiving official visitors 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 continue to 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-seventies? 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? On whose orders? What the hell is going on in Washington?”

  General Lucas Thompson's shiny, clean-shaven cheeks and crinkle-cut neck blossomed a bright red. “Mr. Carroll, I think you'd better leave right now. I believe that would be best for all concerned.”

  “You know, I think you're probably right. I think I'd be wasting my time here… General Thompson, I think you know a whole lot more about Colonel Hudson. 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.”

  35

  Manhattan

  On the morning of December 18, in New York, Colonel David Hudson was feeling more self-conscious about his affliction than he had in many years. Nervously clutching Billie Bogan with his good arm, he steered her in a protective manner through the 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 undeniably striking. They looked as if they'd been painted with thick, very 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 along…

  Toward whatever was looming ahead.

  Where were they headed, anyway?

  “Are you a Christmas lover?” Billie asked as they moved through the cold 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.”

  “You do seem to go all the way on things,” she teased Hudson.

  “Or not at all. Just look at this insanity! This wonderful monstrosity!” He suddenly whooped and grinned broadly. It was quite unlike his usual self, at least the part she'd seen.

  They'd finally come up close to the glittering extravagantly decorated Rockefeller Center tree. A crowd, college-age lovers mostly, was clustered overlooking the skating rink and attached restaurant. A boys choir, innocent in cassocks and surplices, sang the loveliest carols down below.

  Colonel David Hudson's brain had finally slowed; he was relaxed and comfortable now. An exceedingly rare treat, one to be savored. He occasionally felt a stab of guilt about his mission, but he knew the release of tension could be valuable, too.

  “Do you miss your family, your home? Being away from England during the holidays?” he asked.

  In spite of the crowd, they felt as if they were all alone.

  “I miss certain incidents from the past… Some charming things about my sister, my mother. I don't miss home too much, no. Life in the Midlands. All the young people, all the bright ones, want to get away from Birmingham. If you remain, you work for British Steel, or perhaps the exhibition center. Once you marry, you stay home with your brood. Watch the new morning BBC. You get fat, your thinking petrifies. After a few years, no one can imagine that any of the women were ever pretty slips of young girls. Almost no one over forty looks like they were ever young.”

  “So you escaped? London? Paris?”

  “I went to London when I turned eighteen. I was very crude, unpolished, in the way that I looked, the way I thought about the world. I wanted to be an actress, a fashion model, anything that would keep me from ever going back to Birmingham. Ever.”

  Billie smiled, and she was so charming and self-effacing. “I made a few minor misjudgments in London,” she said with a mocking laugh.

  “And then?”

  “After, I guess it was five years there, I decided to come to New York, or Paris. That's me up to the present. I'm hopeful I can do well as a model. I'm putting together a book for press advertising-magazines and newspapers. I know I'm attractive-physically attractive, at least.”

  She had delivered most of the autobiographical speech very shyly, with her eyes downcast, glancing anywhere but into David Hudson's eyes. Color had crept up from her neck, finally covering her face.

  “I've made a few tiny misjudgments myself. Just a few.” Hudson laughed. So many stored-up emotions were being released. It had been so long since he'd allowed himself this.

  Billie began to laugh again. “Oh, to hell with the past,” she said. Her eyes were a little sad, however, ironic, slightly pinched at the corners. They both ran out of words at exactly the same time. The moment seemed especially poignant to them.

  Billie turned to face Hudson again. She spoke very softly, feathers of her warm breath touching his ear.

  “Please kiss me, David. That might not sound like anything so very dramatic… Except that I don't think I've said it to anyone, and meant it, since I was about sixteen or seventeen years old.”

  David Hudson and Billie Bogan kissed in the deep shadows of the grand Christmas tree. Holiday music played sweetly around them: “Adeste Fidelis,” “Silent Night,” “Joy to the World.”

  For that moment, Colonel David Hudson conveniently forgot his other plans for the world.

  Something that was badly needed.

  Revenge for a very special few.

  Justice for mankind.

  36

  Caitlin Dillon hurriedly entered the crowded formal conference room in 13 Wall Street.
She passed repairmen plastering over cracks in cement. Three cleaning women hauled buckets at the end of the hallway. Caitlin was thinking right then how much she missed Carroll, who was expected back from Washington at any moment. He'd called, but his voice had sounded strained, almost as if he'd been afraid to tell her anything over the telephone.

  She stepped into the meeting room, passing through a phalanx of policemen and army personnel. The word had already spread up and down the hallways-there had been some sort of significant break in the Green Band investigation. Finally, a break.

  Walter Trentkamp stood in dramatic silence before the restless audience. He was tense. Streaks of light sweat highlighted his face, and the collar of his shirt was damp. Caitlin hadn't seen the FBI chief this anxious before.

  Trentkamp cleared his throat. The scene reminded Caitlin of high-level press conferences held in Washington, emergency meetings called on short notice.

  “You have no doubt heard the rumor that a significant development has occurred in the Green Band investigation… It was uncovered through the tireless effort of Captain Francis Nicolo and Sergeant Rizzo in NYPD Ballistics.”

  Nicolo-”Waxy Frank”-appeared in the crowd alongside Joe Rizzo. Both men were beaming, taking an imperceptible bow.

  “These men have been working tirelessly since the bombing on December fourth. Finally, their labors have paid a big dividend.”

  There were a couple of appreciative mumbles in the room and a halfhearted attempt at applause. Nicolo and Rizzo shuffled their feet like schoolboys at an honors presentation.

  “Sergeant?” Trentkamp said. “Come up here, please.”

  Rizzo stepped forward awkwardly and hoisted a chart onto a metal stand. On the chart a police artist had sketched the major buildings of the financial district in black and white. The structures that had been bombed were colored traffic-signal red. Each of the bombed-out buildings also had a bold violet ring drawn around it. Caitlin noticed that the purple rings were at widely different levels on the fourteen buildings.