Black Market Page 31

  Fourteen seconds. Twelve seconds. Ten seconds. Colonel David Hudson kept counting in his head, kept talking in a monotone to François Monserrat. His heartbeat remained low. He was still in complete control.

  “Harry Stemkowsky… Do you remember a man named Stemkowsky? A poor crippled sergeant? One of my men?”

  “One of the casualties of war. Your war. Your war, Colonel, not ours. He wouldn't betray you under any circumstances.”

  As he reached three in his countdown, Colonel David Hudson took two fast, unexpected steps to his left. Both Russian terrorists awkwardly swung up their pistols. They were too late.

  Hudson tucked his chin down hard against his chest and dove headfirst through a glass window, crashing into the factory section of the building.

  At that precise moment, the entire building shook with the first savage round from the M-60s, which completely pulverized the tenement's fourth floor.

  Flash fires broke out simultaneously in three separate areas of the factory. Bright orange-and-crimson flames strained to reach the stained yellow ceiling. Huge panes of glass buckled, then burst from their casements and crashed to the cement below. Everywhere, the old struts and supports of the building were beginning to sag, warped by the rising heat, the hungry reaches of the licking flames.

  M-16 rifles coughed and rattled everywhere.

  The Vets attack force was under way.

  David Hudson waited in a combat crouch behind heavy factory machines. The thick smoke from the fire was friend and enemy at the same time. The billowing smoke and flames made it impossible for Monserrat and his men to locate Hudson, but it also made him vulnerable, exposed to sudden attack from any side.

  Colonel Hudson heard the sound he'd been waiting for. The whirring of the helicopter rotors was unmistakably loud and clear.

  The Cobra had arrived on the rooftop exactly as they'd planned it. Everything was perfect, right to the final escape.

  Colonel David Hudson allowed himself a trace of a smile. Just a trace.

  “Get the fuck out of my way! Move it! Move it! Move, move, move!”

  A roaring, unbelievable firefight had erupted. Arch Carroll saw rows of flat rooftops shooting flames as he pushed and elbowed his way through the crowd gathered on Halsey Street. Ghouls, he thought. The worst kinds of ambulance chasers.

  He winced. His left arm was numb, and something was wrong with his lower back; contact with the pavement sent jarring pains up his spine.

  None of the neighborhood people-leather-jacketed teenagers, sullen young women, small grinning children-seemed to realize that this violent spectacle was real.

  “Get back! Damn it, get back!” Carroll yelled hoarsely as he ran. “Get inside with those kids! Get back inside your houses.”

  Expectant, wide-eyed faces were crowded into every available apartment window. Farther down Halsey Street, hundreds of neighborhood people filed out into the cold, rainy afternoon. They were staring toward the explosions, enthralled by the blazing fire, the sudden jolting volleys of M-16 rifle and pistol shots.

  Carroll continued to run in his clumsy crouch, moving in closer to the gunshot-riddled building.

  A police bullhorn suddenly boomed out. It thundered over the cacophony of gunblasts and piercing human shouts. “You there! You, running! Stop right there!”

  Carroll ignored all the voices. He kept charging forward. His steps weaved as he struggled with pains that attacked his body. As he reached the fiery building he heard an even more familiar and terrifying sound. A Cobra was hovering over the factory roof. The same helicopter that had shot him down was back. Green Band was here.

  Arch Carroll vaulted the building's stone steps. He took the stairs three at a time, and with each leap he thought he could hear the rattle of his own loose bones flying about in his body.

  A heavyset man suddenly burst out of the open doorway directly in front of Carroll. The man looked Spanish or maybe Cuban. He was holding an 870 riot gun.

  Carroll's gun was set on rapid-repeat. A full round of.30-caliber bullets flickered into the unfortunate terrorist's face and throat. He reeled back inside the doorway.

  The smoke, forcing itself out of the broken first-floor windows, choked Carroll. He managed to keep running and swiftly entered the building, almost tripping over the body of the dying gunman sprawled inside the doorway. The man gazed up at him with a surprised look in his eyes.

  Instinctively Carroll hugged the wall. Cheek tight against the cold, peeling plaster, he gasped for breath. His head was spinning at an unbelievable speed.

  Cobra helicopter? How did they manage a Cobra? Getting a Cobra just wasn't possible… Green Band was waiting upstairs, and that didn't seem possible, either.

  A heavy, grated iron door opened slowly onto the tenement rooftop. Columns of smoke, scattered by the wind, temporarily blurred David Hudson's vision. He was no more than forty yards from the waiting Cobra.

  Colonel Hudson walked cautiously at first, then he began to trot like a victorious athlete toward the waiting helicopter. He'd done it. They had all done their jobs almost perfectly. The Green Band mission was finally over. The sudden exhilaration of victory was unbelievable to savor.

  Hudson never saw the second figure on the roof until the skillful assailant was on top of him. He'd been careless. For once, just once, he'd forgotten to check, to double-check, every possibility.

  “You can stop right there, Colonel.”

  Face and shoulders still obscured in shadow, the figure appeared cautiously from behind the water tower. One hand held a Beretta. Then a face came into the light.

  François Monserrat stood fully exposed before Colonel David Hudson.

  Monserrat laughed a laugh of triumph. “My congratulations, Colonel. You nearly accomplished the perfect crime.”

  Once inside the burning tenement, Carroll was unsure which way to go. He choked on a thick gust of smoke and felt violently sick. His lungs chafed as if they'd been rubbed with sandpaper.

  Crackling reports of M-16s and booming incendiary bombs rang out. He could still hear the sharp repeating sound of the rotors of the Cobra that had landed on the rooftop. Monserrat and Colonel Hudson were inside the building… Get up there, his mind commanded him.

  Carroll coughed and gasped as he struggled up the sets of steep, winding stairs. Flames curled all around him, throwing off searing heat. The pain in his legs was unbearable now. Something was terribly wrong with his back.

  A heavy metal door blocked his way at the head of the stairs. Carroll put his shoulder into it hard, and it shrieked open. He had finally reached the rooftop.

  The crimson taillights of a U.S. military helicopter sparkled impressively in the haze of smoke. Colorful, slashing streaks were thrown across the dark asphalt toward Carroll.

  The Cobra was being readied for takeoff. The rotors were spinning. It was a familiar war-zone scene.

  Somewhere in the smoke shrouding the rooftop, Carroll heard voices. They were strident and angry. They came from off to his left, beyond a high brick retaining wall. He could hear them quite clearly.

  “You see, you must see that governments of the past are no longer viable. The currently elected governments are mere illusions. They are ghosts of a sentimentalized reality. You must understand that, at least. There are no more democracies.” The first voice was filled with the unbearable tension of the moment.

  The second voice was harsh, but the wind muffled the exact words. Whatever the second person had to say was whipped away by the roar of the chopper.

  Carroll pressed closer to the voices. They became clearer now.

  “I love this country,” one of the two shouted above the wind. “But I hate what it did to the veterans after 'Nam. I hate what some of our leaders did. But I still love this country.”

  Carroll saw them both then.

  Colonel David Hudson. The same man who was in all the FBI and Pentagon photographs… strikingly handsome, tall, blond… “the consummate military commander,” according to his classi
fied records. America's carefully programmed Juan Carlos.

  And the other…

  Dear God, the other.

  At that moment Arch Carroll felt something precious and vital collapse deep inside him. It was much worse than physical pain. He remembered the first time he'd experienced the horror of death-his father's death in Florida. He remembered so well the feeling on the night Nora had died in New York Hospital.

  His mouth was dry, and he was afraid.

  Nothing could have possibly prepared him for this awful moment. Not even all his years as a policeman.

  The man Colonel David Hudson had addressed as Mon-serrat was Walter Trentkamp… But the shadowy face Carroll saw was not the Uncle Walter of his youth, his father's trusted friend. This man was a ruthless stranger.

  Carroll's world wheeled around him. His sense of reality left him. He closed his eyes and raked one hand over his smoke-blackened face. Burning tears were pushing, pressing, against his lids.

  Uncle fucking Walter. It was the worst hurt, the worst conceivable betrayal, of his life. How could this have happened?

  He thought about everything Trentkamp had been privy to in the past. He reviewed his own long investigation of Green Band. Trentkamp knew every detail he'd learned at each maddening turn.

  Had Trentkamp dispatched him on the early wild-goose chase? Why? Well, he knew the answer to that. So he could control Carroll. So he could carefully control the DIA's terrorist group. Talk to me on this one, Archer. Let me know what you find out. Will you promise me that? François Mon-serrat had enlisted Carroll to help him find Colonel David Hudson and the Vets.

  Talk to me, Archer…

  Promise me, Archer!

  Walter Trentkamp had sat in on the highest-level meetings in the White House, always observing, always studying. What incredible self-confidence and gall. How many years had this been going on? How many fucking years?… François Monserrat! The most ruthless of the world's terrorists was none other than Walter Trentkamp. Hard for him to believe. Yet it was true. Walter Trentkamp was an obscenity.

  The rage that Carroll felt ripped through him. He'd been used. Just like the Vets, he'd been used, his trust violated.

  Carroll carefully moved toward Trentkamp and Hudson. The blinding rage inside him now heightened. He struggled against the overwhelming urge to fire his Browning. To pull the trigger. To shoot to kill. And what are you, please tell me, mister? But he knew, he had always known, he was more than just a trained killer.

  Carroll was ready now. He stepped out from behind the shadowy retaining wall. He spoke in a powerful whisper.

  “Hello, Walter. I wanted to keep my promise. I did promise to talk to you about everything I found out.”

  Trentkamp's face registered only brief surprise. Monserrat quickly surfaced, supremely confident, indifferent to Carroll.

  “It was never anything personal, you understand. You were my reshenie. That's a Russian word. You were my solution to a problem. Nothing more than that. My mission is total Soviet domination. We have an interesting face-off. The world's premier terrorists. America's very own terrorist hunter. All of us in check for the moment. A powerful snapshot of history, no?”

  Archer Carroll raised his Browning. Colonel David Hudson… François Monserrat… himself. None of them could win. Carroll wasn't even sure what “win” meant right now. And what are you, please tell me, mister?

  “How do you live a life made of nothing but lies?” He edged closer to Hudson and Trentkamp. “Nothing but fucking deceit and lies.”

  “I don't believe in the same truths you do. It follows that I don't believe in the same lies. Don't you realize that you're living with lies, too? Your own people have deceived you again and again… Everyone has lied to you, Archer. Your government is the greatest lie of all.”

  Only his instincts counted now. Colonel David Hudson rigidly held on to that.

  He had a flashback of the prison camp in North Vietnam.

  Monserrat was like the Lizard Man. He was the same kind of enemy.

  Instincts.

  Reflexes.

  Survival.

  Monserrat was concentrating on Carroll… “Everyone has lied to you, Archer. Your government is the greatest lie of all.”

  A silent scream rose from Hudson's throat, and at that moment, his arm chopped upward in a short, powerful arc. Monserrat's elbow shattered with a sickening crunch, The Beretta dropped. A harsh, ugly growl, like an animal's, escaped from his twisted mouth.

  A needle-thin knife was now in Colonel David Hudson's hand.

  Assassin.

  Monserrat was better than the Lizard Man. In spite of the blow to his arm, he moved quickly away from Hudson and the knife.

  David Hudson followed as if he were Monserrat's shadow. The flashing stiletto lanced forward.

  Monserrat raised his hands to shield his face. The stiletto sliced down his arm. He never cried out, simply moved into a martial-arts crouch. He was ready to fight back, to crush his enemy.

  Colonel Hudson screamed as he feinted one move, a second move, then struck again. The silver blade shivered forward with ferocious accuracy.

  Hudson twisted the blade, then immediately pulled away. In rapid motion the stiletto was thrust forward again. It slashed Monserrat's throat. Still Monserrat kept coming.

  In one superhuman effort, Monserrat reached for his throat. Then he stared at the blood gushing into his hands.

  The terrorist suddenly went limp. There was a brief look at Hudson. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then slumped to the asphalt roof.

  Carroll watched the bitter struggle in horror, the last convulsion of François Monserrat. He trained his Browning on Colonel Hudson now. His finger tightened around the trigger.

  It was then that he heard the distinct click of the automatic weapon. It came from directly behind him. Carroll whirled around.

  Four men in tattered khaki green were surrounding him. Their M-21 rifles were pointed at him.

  They looked like soldiers. They were Vets. This was Green Band.

  Here was everything he'd wanted to know-only now Carroll didn't want to know.

  Outrage!

  Walter Trentkamp's tall, imposing figure now looked very small to Carroll as it lay on the ground in a pool of blood. The hard gray-green eyes as empty in death as in life. Christ! Christ!

  Carroll suddenly began to shout at the top of his voice. “Who are you, Hudson? What the hell do you want? Who sent you to Wall Street?”

  Outrage!

  Something hard exploded against Carroll's head. He staggered, almost fell. The Bronx street fighter in him refused to go down. Goddamn! Them!

  Arch Carroll thought he was going blind. The pain in his head was unbearable. Streams of blood coursed down his face.

  “Who are you, Hudson?” One final, maddening question formed on his lips. He took another lunging step toward Colonel Hudson, toward the body of François Monserrat-of Walter Trentkamp.

  He was struck again with tremendous force.

  A terrible mashing noise echoed in Carroll's head. He was falling, then, collapsing against his will. He heard himself moan.

  The revolver crashed down hard again.

  He gazed up and saw Colonel David Hudson. Carroll tried desperately to speak. So many questions to ask. Everything was blurry now. He tried to get up. He had to make the madness stop. But Archer Carroll now felt himself falling into a tunnel. It was dark and desolate.

  41

  Manhattan

  With a shaking hand, Anton Birnbaum poured miserly portions of aged Sandeman port for himself and for Caitlin Dillon.

  He felt a thousand years old. He had a piercing headache from his recent sleeplessness and mental hyperactivity. Now, in the thin daylight that streaked his apartment, he went to the window and peered into the streets of his beloved New York. What in hell was happening out there?

  Caitlin Dillon, whose head also reeled from the hours of intense concentration without sleep, took a cigarette from h
er purse and started to light it. Then she changed her mind. Her throat was raw, and there was a heavy pressure behind her eyes. What she needed, she knew, was a long sleep. Both she and Birnbaum were waiting for final news of Green Band, news from Carroll. Caitlin now understood what it was like to be a policeman's wife. She didn't know how those women could bear it.

  “We know some of what we need to know,” Birnbaum said. “Two years ago, in Tripoli, François Monserrat met with important leaders from the Third World. In particular, he met key leaders from the Middle Eastern oil-producing countries. The heads of their military forces were in attendance there as well.” Birnbaum walked away from the window.

  “I'm convinced that they planned a cunning new way to disrupt the economic system of the West. Their plan called for the cartel to ultimately gain control of the entire American stock market.”

  “They already had enough economic leverage to definitely influence the market,” Caitlin said quietly. Her head pounded. A jackhammer was drilling mercilessly in the recesses of her skull. She thought about Carroll, who was out there right this moment in pursuit of Green Band. Why hadn't they heard anything?

  “That spring, our newly elected president learned of the frightening Tripoli plot. More important, the Committee of Twelve must have heard about Red Tuesday. Only they moved much faster than President Kearney could in Washington.”

  The old man's eyes became cold. “Caitlin, I believe they created Green Band to counter Red Tuesday. Effectively, the Committee of Twelve has stolen billions from the Arabs. Green Band is the very finest and most dangerous group of men you would ever want to meet. Now they're selling them back their own funds. This has been an economic world war. The first of its kind-unless we include the 1970s oil embargo.”

  Caitlin thought that if it had been anyone other than Anton Birnbaum making these accusations, outlining these hypotheses… But it was Birnbaum. And he was serious about everything he was proposing… Why hadn't she heard from Carroll yet?

  “How does Hudson fit in? What's his part in this, Anton?” Caitlin asked.

  “Ah, the enigmatic Mr. Hudson.” Birnbaum allowed a tight smile to cross his face. “I've given great thought to Colonel Hudson. Either he's in the pay of the Committee of Twelve… or they're ruthlessly using Hudson and his veterans group. It wouldn't be the first time, would it? It wouldn't be the first time these men were used by those who wield great power in this country. Either way, we'll know in a few hours. We'll know the truth soon, won't we?”