Black Market Page 7

  Carroll continued to stare at himself in the clouded mirror. He thought some more about Green Band as he examined the puffed, purplish bruises sagging under each eye. He rifled through his mind as if he were sifting through a library's massive index card system. When it came to terrorists and their various specialties, Carroll had a long, reliable memory. During his first year with the DIA, all he'd done was catalog terrorist activities. He'd learned his early lessons well. In some ways, he was an incredibly orthodox and thorough policeman.

  The hard evidence so far suggested… what? Maybe Soviet-inspired GRU activity. Why, though? Qaddafi? A very long shot there. The Wall Street plan showed far too much patience for the usual Third World types, especially Middle Eastern hit men…

  Cubans? No. Provos? Not likely. Crazed American revolutionaries? Doubtful. Who, then? Most of all-why?

  And how did the latest sketchy report from the Palm Beach Police Department fit?… A south Florida drug dealer had been talking about the Wall Street attack the day before it happened. The local hood had even dropped the unannounced code name-Green Band!

  How would a south Florida drug dealer by the name of Diego Alvarez know anything about Green Band? What possible connection could there be?

  Like everything so far, it didn't make much sense. It didn't seem to lead anywhere Arch Carroll particularly wanted to go. Certainly he didn't want to be in southern Florida at this ungodly hour of the morning.

  He rubbed his eyes, splashed more cold water on his face, and looked back at his reflection. Death warmed over, he thought. It was like one of the photographs on Wanted posters inside post office buildings, the kind that seemed always to have been taken in dim lighting.

  Carroll turned away from the mirror. It would soon be time to come down in the fantasyland of orange juice, Walt Disney World, multimillionaire dope dealers, and, he hoped, Green Band.

  The local FBI chief, Clark Sommers, accompanied by an assistant, was there to meet Carroll at the makeshift People Express arrival gate. As usual, Miami International Airport was experiencing an electrical brownout.

  “Mr. Carroll, I'm Clark Sommers of the Bureau. This is my associate, Mr. Lewis Sitts.”

  Carroll nodded. His head ached from the flight and the effects of the upper he'd swallowed, which was just kicking in now, buzzing through his bloodstream.

  “Walk and talk?” Sommers suggested. “We've got an awful lot of ground to cover this morning.”

  “Yeah, sure. Tell me something, though. Every time I come through this airport the lights are half out. Am I just imagining that?”

  “I know what you mean. It can seem that way. Dope dealers claim the bright lights hurt their eyes.” Clark Sommers flashed a low-key, cynical smile. He was definitely FBI all the way-a neat, buttoned-down man with the body of someone who might have lifted weights years ago and still occasionally hit the bench.

  Sommers's assistant, Mr. Sitts, was wearing a lightweight blue sweater, tan golfing slacks, and a matching Ban-Lon shirt. The only thing missing were some espadrilles. Probably getting a promotional fee from Jantzen, Carroll thought. He tried to picture himself as a successful Florida police officer, but he couldn't make the right visual or emotional connection.

  As they walked down the corridor, Carroll glanced at the cheery posters depicting surf and sun. They seemed to assault him personally. The sea was a shade too blue, the sun a touch too garish, the people having fun in the photographs a little too all-American beautiful for Carroll's taste. He yearned for New York, where at least there was a sense of reality to the gray, wintry halftones of the familiar streets.

  Sommers, fidgeting with a pair of sunglasses, spoke in a quiet, assured voice. “Mr. Carroll, one thing you probably should understand about this territory down here. For reasons of morale, in order to keep my men fully efficient and organized, this bust has to be mine. I have to make the key calls. These are my men, after all. You can understand that, I hope?”

  Carroll didn't break stride. His face showed nothing. Almost all policemen were fiercely, irrationally territorial-something he knew from personal experience.

  “Sure thing.” He nodded. “This is your bust. All I want to do is talk to our drug-dealer friend afterward. Ask him how he likes the nice Florida weather.”

  The South Ocean Boulevard neighborhood was pretty much Spanish and Mediterranean in style, a six-block cluster of pastel blue and pink million-dollar estates. Carroll had the impression of everyone and everything lying dormant around him. People still sleeping peacefully at twenty past eight, flagstone patios sleeping, red clay courts sleeping at the bath and tennis club, putting-green lawns and candy-striped cabanas and swimming pools-all sleeping, as if everything had been placed under a pleasant narcoleptic spell.

  Clark Sommers spoke in a steady drone as they rode alongside the glittering, bluish green ocean. “Real estate dealings here on South Ocean aren't exactly handled by Century 21. Most sales are actually arranged by Sotheby's, the big antiques outfit. Owners in Palm Beach, they think of their homes as valuable works of art. Maybe you can see why.”

  “Reminds me of my neighborhood in New York,” Carroll said.

  Agent Sitts pointed from the backseat suddenly, his long, well-tanned arm between Carroll and Sommers. “That's our people up ahead there, Clark.”

  At one of the quiet intersections lined with palm trees and sea-grape, six nondescript blue-and-green sedans were gathered together. The cars were parked in clear sight. Several of the FBI men were checking pump-action shotguns and Magnums right out in the street.

  “There goes the neighborhood,” Carroll muttered. “I hope Sotheby's is not showing any houses real early this morning.”

  “Don't be fooled by the suburban ambiance,” Clark Sommers said. “The Mizeners, the real big shots, they don't live around here. This is Palms ghetto. Drug dealers and South American pimps. These people here are rich, but they're all street scum.”

  Arch Carroll shrugged and began to check his own gun. He was wondering more than ever how a Florida hood would know about Green Band the day before it happened. Could that mean a connection with South American terrorists? Which ones? The Cubans? If the Cubans were involved, he could already foresee some impenetrable network of clues that could lead all the way back to Fidel himself, which wasn't a prospect he liked to consider. Castro had always managed to stay aloof from conspiracies, at least the ones that involved his name.

  Sommers suddenly snatched the car's microphone. “All units! We will proceed with extreme caution up South Ocean now. Watch yourselves. These people are probably heavily armed.”

  The seven-vehicle caravan began to drift slowly up South Ocean Boulevard. Carroll glanced at the peaceful neighborhood. Every house was set back from the street, isolated by closely cropped, bright green lawns that looked as if they'd been spray-painted by gangs of meticulous handymen.

  A Miami Herald paperboy rode by in the opposite direction, mounted on a chugging moped the same impossible blue color as the sky. He braked to a stop, scratched his crewcut, and stared.

  One of the FBI men frantically signaled for him to keep going.

  “That's it. Number six forty,” Sommers said. “That's where our friend Diego Alvarez lives.”

  Carroll tucked the loaded Browning back into his shoulder holster. His stomach was rocking and rolling, and the speed was lighting fires throughout his nervous system.

  The FBI cars turned single file down an impressive side street of South Palm. They lined up in front of two Spanish-style estates.

  Car doors clicked open and shut very quietly.

  Carroll slipped into step with a dozen or so gray-suited FBI agents. They trotted back toward the Alvarez place.

  “Remember what I said back at the airport, Mr. Carroll. I give all the orders, okay? I hope the capture of this guy's going to help you get what you want, but don't forget who's running the show, okay?”

  “I remember.”

  Handguns and shotguns caught the hard, bright gl
int of the early morning Florida sun. Carroll listened to bolt-action apparatus slamming into ready. The FBI agents looked like young professional athletes as they fanned out in the manner of a marathon team.

  Combat was full of visual paradox.

  Carroll could see peaceful gulls rising from the sea, lazily sliding west to check the sunrise party at the Alvarez house. Being a seagull seemed like a pretty good idea right now, but he had never been much for vocational planning.

  The ocean wind was pleasantly warm. It carried a curious scent of salty fish and orange blossoms. The sun was already intense, too blinding to look at without shading your eyes with your hand.

  “Elegant house Diego has for himself. Run about two, two point five million with Sotheby's. When I give the signal we're going to put men in every wing of the villa. We'll shoot anything that moves to threaten any of our lives.”

  Arch Carroll remained silent. These were Sommers's men. This was his little planet, where he reigned supreme. Carroll looked at the FBI man for a moment, then took out his handgun again. He pointed the massive black barrel upward as a safety precaution. As he knelt in a sniper shooter's crouch, the heavy wooden door of the Alvarez house flew open and banged hard against the pink stucco front wall.

  “What the fuck?” Clark Sommers whispered loudly.

  First a blowsy white-haired woman in a tattered Maranca shirt stumbled outside. Close behind came a dark, well-built man, bare-chested, in white flare-bottomed trousers. All across the front lawn automatics and revolvers clicked off their safeties.

  Diego Alvarez began to scream at the FBI men. “You motherfuckers! I shoot this old lady, man. She jus' innocent old lady. My fuckin' cook, man. Put down all those motherfucker guns!”

  Sommers became deathly quiet. His beach-hero tan seemed to be fading fast. The surprised expression on his face was that of a man who saw his private domain slipping out from under his control.

  Carroll studied the south Florida drug dealer. The dark eyes of the man were frantic, desperate. There were flecks of saliva at the corners of his mouth. He was well muscled, like a pro fighter. Carroll turned to Sommers and said, “We have to take him. No matter what, we have to take him. You understand that?”

  Sommers remained deathly quiet. He didn't even look at Carroll.

  “We have to take Alvarez now. There are no other options.”

  Sommers glanced quickly at Carroll. His look said “You're a New York City cop; this is my backyard, we do things my way down here.” Carroll had a vision of Alvarez escaping, and it was an exasperating vision. That was a possibility he had to prevent. Sommers didn't know what was involved here. The FBI was concerned about the dope bust, nothing more.

  Diego Alvarez was awkwardly pulling the enormously fat cook toward a red Cadillac parked outside the garage. The cook's eyes were as wide and as round as two saucers.

  Carroll tried to sort through the surprise and sudden, chaotic confusion of the moment. He controlled his breathing the way he was taught during his combat days in Southeast Asia. It helped him regain his focus.

  One possible solution came to mind.

  He'd actually seen a New York detective demonstrate this particular approach during a robbery in progress in Manhattan 's Greenwich Village.

  Carroll waited for Alvarez to eye-check the FBI agents on the far left. As he did so, Carroll smoothly slid behind a flower-decked wall that concealed him from the drug dealer. He waited a few seconds to see if he'd been missed, then continued hustling down behind the flowered wall, back through the side yard between Alvarez's house and the one next door.

  A green watering hose snaked up the walkway to a swimming pool with a floating rubber horse that looked ludicrous to Carroll at that moment. He broke into a run, stopping only when he was back out on the street where the FBI team had parked their cars.

  A very disturbing thought entered his mind as he climbed into Sommers's Grand Prix.

  He never would have done this if Nora were still alive… Never in a thousand years would he have tried this stunt.

  Even as the thought cut deeply, Arch Carroll eased the FBI sedan to the corner, where he made a sweeping right turn, then a quick left onto South Ocean.

  A block ahead he saw Diego Alvarez backing into the Cadillac. He was still holding the white-haired cook and screaming wildly at the FBI men, his words lost now in the sea breeze.

  Carroll kicked down hard on the accelerator. The sedan twitched from first into third gear. The car licked forward with a screech from the expensive radial tires put on for precisely this kind of breakneck situation.

  Don't think about this. Get it over with now.

  His gun lay on the car seat beside him.

  The speedometer read thirty, forty, fifty. Then the front wheels struck the concrete curb loudly with a jolting crunch. The car's front end leaped at least three feet in the air. All four wheels were off the ground, and the vehicle moved in slow motion, the speed at which a car flies.

  Carroll double-pumped the sedan's brakes at the last possible moment.

  “What the hell-!” an FBI man yelled, and dove to one side of the lawn.

  “Holy shit!” came another high-pitched shout from one of Sommers's men.

  Diego Alvarez fired three wild shots at the careening Pontiac. The sedan's windshield shattered, spitting glass fragments into Carroll's face.

  The car was back on all four wheels again, bouncing over the lawn and over a red-tiled walkway. Suddenly it was skidding helplessly on the turf.

  Carroll's foot stomped down full force against the gas pedal again. Just before contact, he tucked his head down. He held the steering wheel in a viselike grip, held on as tightly as he possibly could.

  The bounding FBI car crashed broadside into Diego Alvarez's cherry-red Cadillac. The convertible crumpled. It slid sideways like a hockey puck floating on ice and smashed into the side of the garage.

  Half a dozen FBI officers were instantly sprinting across the front lawn. They got there before the two interlocking cars had stopped moving.

  Revolvers, riot shotguns, and M-16 rifles were thrust inside the Cadillac's open front windows.

  “Don't move, Alvarez. Don't move an inch!” an FBI man screamed. “I said Don't move!”

  Carroll grunted, then pushed himself painfully out of the wrecked Pontiac. He roared out Diego Alvarez's name, surprised by his own intensity. He was still yelling when he grabbed the shirtless drug dealer out of the hands of the FBI agents, who stared at him with astonishment.

  “Arch Carroll, State Department Antiterrorist Division! You have no rights! You hear me?… How did you know about Green Band? Who talked to you? You look at me!”

  Diego Alvarez said, “Fuck you!” and spat into Carroll's face.

  Carroll shuffled a little to his left, then hit the drug dealer with a sharp right hand delivered to the mouth. Alvarez fell to the ground, already out cold.

  “Yeah, fuck you, too!” said the former Bronx street kid still lurking somewhere inside Carroll. He wiped the dope dealer's saliva from his cheek.

  Clark Sommers's mouth fell open, creating a surprised O at the center of his suntanned face.

  At the FBI office on Collins Avenue in Miami, Diego Alvarez was taken to a small interrogation room, where he told Carroll everything he knew.

  “I don't know who they are, honest, man. Somebody jus' want you down here to Florida,” he said with almost believable sincerity. Because he had been busted with three hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of cocaine, and because his prospects of freedom looked grim, he didn't have much to gain by lying. Carroll studied the man as he spoke.

  “I swear it. I don't know nothin' more, man. But I got a feelin' somebody playin' some kind of games wit' you. They set me up, my big mouth. But somebody playin' wit' you…

  Somebody jus' want you come here 'stead of someplace else. They playin' wit' you, man. They playin' wit' you real good.”

  Carroll wanted to put his head down on the interrogation table. He
'd been used, and he had no idea why. All he knew was that whoever was doing it was extremely smart. They were sending a message: See, we can manipulate you-any which way we like.

  Carroll eventually wandered outside the FBI building and leaned heavily against the warm white stucco wall.

  He tried to let the Florida sun soothe his weary brain. He thought that Miami might be a better climate for playing Crusader Rabbit than New York.

  He was relatively certain about a couple of disturbing things. The Green Band group, whoever they were, knew who he was and that he would be assigned to the investigation. How did they know? What should that tell him about who they might be?… They seemed to want him to know how superior, how well organized, they were. They wanted him to be a little in awe-and frankly, right now he was.

  How did they know he'd be assigned to the investigation? Who was trying to send him a cryptic message? Why?

  On the plane home, Eastern-the wings of man-Arch Carroll had two beers, then two Irish whiskeys. He could have gone for another two Irish, but he'd promised Walter Trentkamp-promised Uncle Walter something he couldn't quite remember. Finally he slept the rest of the way home to New York.

  He had a real nice dream on the flight, too. Carroll dreamed that he quit his job with the DIA's Antiterrorist Division. He and the kids and Nora went to live on the nicest sugar white beach in Florida.

  And they all lived happily ever after.

  8

  Manhattan

  Before break of dawn on Sunday morning, Caitlin Dillon waded through a becalmed river of ice and slush that rose four inches above her ankles. Once she successfully emerged on half-deserted Fifth Avenue, the director of enforcement for the SEC's Division of Trading and Exchange hailed a yellow cab, which ferried her down to the Fourteenth Street Police and National Guard barricades. From there she was transferred by a snazzy police blue-and-white down into the smoldering chaos and confusion of the financial district itself.

  The ride went by amazingly fast. There were no working traffic lights below Fourteenth and almost no other traffic on any of the downtown streets.