Black Friday Page 8

  She smiled to herself as she showed her ID. No one knew who she was; not a single one of them recognized her here in the Stock Exchange foyer.

  How very typical that was. Damn it, how typical.

  For the past three years, the SEC’s Director of Enforcement had been a most unlikely Wall Street figure: Caitlin Dillon was clearly a force, yet a person of mystery to almost everybody around her.

  Women in general had only been permitted on the floor of the Stock Exchange since 1967. Nevertheless, the idea hadn’t particularly caught on. A prominent sign in the visitor’s gallery of the Exchange still read:

  WOMEN MAKE POOR SPECULATORS. WHEN THROWN UPON THEIR OWN RESOURCES, THEY ARE COMPARATIVELY HELPLESS. EXCELLING IN CERTAIN LINES, THEY ARE FORCED TO TAKE BACKSEATS IN SPECULATION. WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF A MAN, A WOMAN ON WALL STREET IS LIKE A SHIP WITHOUT A RUDDER.

  Caitlin Dillon had actually inherited her job because of her predecessor’s bad luck in the shape of a fatal coronary. Caitlin knew that insiders had predicted she wouldn’t last two months. They compared the fateful situation with a politician’s wife taking over for an unexpectedly invalid husband. Caitlin was called by some “the interim enforcer.”

  For that reason, and some strong personal ones from her past, she had decided that—for however long she might last in the job—she was going to become the sternest, hardest SEC Enforcement Officer since Professor James Landis had been doing the hiring himself. What did she have to lose?

  She was, therefore, stubbornly serious. Some said Caitlin Dillon was unnecessarily obsessed with white-collar criminal investigations, with skillfully prosecuting malfeasance by senior officers of major American Corporations.

  “I’ll tell you something off the record,” Caitlin had once said to a dear friend, Meg O’Brian, the financial editor of Newsweek. “The ten most wanted men in America are all working on Wall Street.”

  As the “interim” Enforcement Officer at the SEC, Caitlin Dillon made a lot of news very fast. The mystery of Caitlin Dillon—how she had surfaced virtually from nowhere—grew each week she held on to the job. The powerbrokers on the Street still wanted to replace her, but suddenly they found they couldn’t do so very easily. Caitlin was too good at what she did. She’d become too visible. She was almost instantly a symbol for the disenfranchised in America’s financial system.

  At 7:45 that morning, Caitlin finally reached her office inside No. 13 Wall. It was respectably large.

  She removed her coat and, as she started to sit down, took a deep breath.

  On her desk lay a damage report prepared for her the previous night. As her eyes quickly scanned the page, she felt a deepening despair at the sheer amount of destruction done.

  The Federal Reserve Bank.Salomon BrothersBankers Trust.Affiliated Fund.Merrill-Lynch.U.S. Trust Corporation.The Depository Trust Company.

  The list went on to detail fourteen downtown New York buildings that had been partially or completely destroyed.

  She closed her eyes, placing the palm of her hand flat against the surface of the report. Fourteen different buildings in the Wall Street financial district—the whole thing was beyond her, out of control by any measure.

  She opened her eyes.

  It was the start of the second day of the formal investigation of Green Band, and she knew no more than she’d known before. This disturbing state of ignorance settled inside her head like a spreading black cloud.

  It was going to be a long, long Sunday.

  Chapter 22

  CARROLL STRODE BRISKLY from a State Department limousine toward the ominous gray stone entrance-way to No. 13 Wall.

  At least Green Band had left this building mostly intact—a fact that caused him to wonder. If a terrorist cell was going to strike out at U.S. capitalism, why wouldn’t they destroy the Stock Exchange?

  Carroll had on a knee-length, black leather topcoat which Nora had given him the Christmas before her death. At the time she’d joked that it made him look like a tough guy hero. The coat was now one of his few personal treasures; that it was a little too tight under the arms didn’t matter. There was no way he’d have it altered. He wanted it exactly as it was when Nora had given it to him.

  Carroll was smoking a crumpled cigarette. Sometimes on the weekends he wore the coat and smoked crumpled cigarettes when he took Mickey Kevin and Clancy to New York Knick or Ranger games.

  It made both kids laugh hysterically. They told him he was trying to look like Mel Gibson in the movies. He wasn’t, he knew. Gibson was trying to look like him: like some nihilistic, tough-guy city cop.

  Hurrying down the long, echoing corridors, Carroll pulled his way out of the leather coat. For a few long strides, he left it cape-like over his shoulders.

  Then he folded it over one arm, in the hope that he’d look a little more civilized. There were a lot of very straight business’ people in the hallowed halls of No. 13 Wall Street.

  Carroll pushed open leather-covered doors into a formal meeting room thick with perspiration and stale tobacco smoke. The room where the New York Stock Exchange professional staff usually met was the size of a large theater.

  The scheduled meeting was already in progress. He was late. He was also weary from his flight, and his nerves— kept moderately alert by an infusion of amphetamine— were beginning to complain.

  He glanced at his watch. There was another long day ahead of him.

  Carroll quickly glanced around the shadowy room. It was filled with New York City police, and U.S. Army personnel, with corporate lawyers and investigators from the major banks and brokerage houses on Wall Street. The only seats left were way in front.

  Groaning under his breath, Carroll crouched low and made his move toward the front row. He clumsily climbed over gray and blue pinstriped legs, and over someone’s abundant lap. It felt like everybody in the room was staring at him—which was probably true enough.

  The speaker was saying, “Let me tell you how to make a hell of a lot of money on Wall Street All you have to do is steal a little from the rich, steal a little from the middle rich, steal a lot from the lower rich …”

  Nervous laughter cascaded around the vast meeting room. It was a muted, mirthless outbreak that sounded more like a release of fears than anything else.

  The speaker went on, “The Wall Street security system simply doesn’t work. As you all know, the computer setup here is one of the most antiquated in all of the business world. That’s why this disaster could happen.”

  Carroll finally sat down, sliding lower and lower until only his head peeked above the theater’s gray velvet seat back. His knees were actually pressed against the wooden stage in front.

  “The computer system on Wall Street is a complete disgrace …”

  Carroll’s eyes finally rose and took in the meeting’s speaker. Jesus. He was taken aback by the sight of Caitlin Dillon on the podium. Her hair was bobbed at the shoulders, a sleek chestnut-brown. Long legs, slender waist. Tall—maybe five foot ten.

  She was staring down at the first row. Her brown eyes were very calm, measuring everything they saw. Yes, she was staring directly down at Carroll.

  “Are you expecting trouble during my briefing, Mr. Carroll?” Her eyes had fastened onto his Magnum, his beat-up leather shoulder holster. He was embarrassed by her question and the way his name had sounded through her microphone. Those pale red lips seemed to be mocking him.

  Carroll didn’t know what to say. He shrugged and tried to sink a little deeper into his seat. Why didn’t he have one of his usual wisecracks to throw back at her?

  Caitlin Dillon smoothly switched her attention back to the audience of senior police officers and Wall Street businessmen. She resumed her briefing at exactly the point where she had interrupted herself.

  “In the past decade,” she said, and her next chart efficiently appeared on the screen at her back, “foreign investment in the United States has skyrocketed. Billions of francs, yen, pesos, deutschemarks have flowed into our economy to the�
� sum of eighty-five billion dollars.…”

  He watched attentively. Nothing could have drawn his eyes away from her, short of a second Wall Street bombing raid…

  There was a twinkle in her eyes, an unexpected hint of sweetness in her smile. Was it really sweetness though? How could she hold down the job she had if she was sweet? Sweet was not in the Wall Street lexicon.

  She was chic—even in a conservative, salt and pepper tweed business suit.

  Most of all, though, she looked untouchable.

  That was the single word that seemed to sum up Caitlin Dillon best.

  Untouchable.

  His attention drifted back to her speech, which was a succinct description of the Green Band emergency, of the current state of Wall Street’s insufficient computer records, and the stoppage of all international transfers of funds.

  She had some sobering and scary material up there on the podium.

  “Surprisingly, there’s still been no further contact by the terrorist group. Whatever kind of group they are…. As you may know, no actual demands were made. No ultimatums. Absolutely no reason has been given so far for what happened on Friday.

  “There’ll be another meeting after this, for my people and for the analysts. We have to get something going with the computers before the Market opens on Monday. If not…. I would expect major unpleasantness.”

  The meeting room was suddenly still. The scraping of feet, all paper shuffling stopped.

  “Are we talking about a Stock Market panic? Some kind of crash? What sort of major unpleasantness?” someone called out.

  Caitlin paused before she spoke again. It was obvious to Carroll that she was choosing her next words with extreme care and diplomacy.

  “I think we all have to recognize… that there is a possibility, even a likelihood of some form of Market panic on Monday morning.”

  “What constitutes a panic in your mind? Give us a for-instance.” A senior Wall Street man spoke.

  “The Market could lose several hundred points very quickly. In a matter of hours. That’s if they decide to open on Monday. In Tokyo, London, Geneva, the subject’s still under discussion.”

  “Are we talking about a potential Black Friday situation? Are you saying there could actually be a Stock Market crash?” A voice rose from the back of the auditorium.

  Caitlin frowned. She recognized the speaker, a stiff, stuffy bean counter from one of the larger Midtown New York banks.

  “I’m not saying anything yet As I suggested before, if we had a more modem system of computers down here, if Wall Street had joined the rest of the twentieth century— we’d know a lot more. Tomorrow is Monday. We’ll all see what happens then. We should be prepared. That’s what I’m suggesting—preparedness. For a change.”

  With that, Caitlin Dillon abruptly stepped down off the auditorium stage. As Carroll watched her walk alone to the back doors of the room, he became conscious of another figure approaching him from the side.

  He turned in his seat and saw Captain Francis Nicolo from the New York City Bomb Squad, a cop who liked to think he was something of a dandy in his three-piece pinstriped suits and sleek, waxed moustache.

  “A moment, Arch,” Nicolo said, and gestured for Carroll to follow.

  They hurried out of the room and along various dimly lit Stock Exchange corridors, Carroll trailing behind.

  Nicolo opened the door to a small inner office tucked directly behind the Trading Floor. He closed it with a secretive gesture when Carroll was inside.

  “What’s happening?” Carroll asked, both curious and slightly amused. ‘Talk to me, Francis.”

  “Check this,” Nicolo said. He pointed to a plain cardboard box propped on the desk. “Open it. Go ahead.”

  “What is it?” Carroll hesitantly stepped toward the desk. He laid the tips of his fingers lightly against the box lid.

  “Open it. Won’t bite your widgit off.”

  Carroll removed the lid. “Where the hell did this come from?” he asked. “Christ, Frank.”

  “Janitor found it behind a cistern in one of the men’s rooms,” Nicolo answered.

  Carroll stared at the device, at the length of shiny green ribbon that was wound elaborately around it. Green Band.

  “It’s harmless,” Nicolo said. “It was never meant to go off, Arch.”

  Arch Carroll continued to stare at the makings of a professional terrorist’s bomb. It was never meant to go off, he thought. Another warning ?

  “They could have totaled this place,” Carroll said with a sick feeling.

  Nicolo made a clucking sound with his tongue and the roof of his mouth. “Easily,” he said. “Plastique, like all the others. Whoever did it knew what the hell he was up to Arch.”

  Carroll wandered over to the office window and peered down into the street, where he saw New York cops standing all over the place, where he saw the incomprehensible war zone.

  Chapter 23

  USING A SINGLE TINE of his fork, Sergeant Harry Stemkowsky surgically punctured each of the three sunny-side-up eggs staring up from his breakfast platter.

  He lathered on a thick wave of ketchup, then buttered and spread strawberry preserves on a row of four, hot-toasted bialy halves. He was ready to rock and roll.

  The superb, greasy spoon meal was his usual, corn beef hash, eggs and bialy breakfast. The place was the Dream Doughnut and Coffee on 23rd Street and Tenth Avenue. The meal arrived at the table approximately three hours into his dayshift driving for Vets. Stemkowsky had been looking forward to the food all through his first dreary hours on the road.

  Harry Stemkowsky almost always went through the same exact thought process while he was devouring breakfast at the Dream…

  It was so unbelievably good to be out of that piss and shitting hole Erie VA Hospital. It was just so goddamn tremendous to be alive again.

  He had a valid reason to keep going now, to get really psyched about his life…

  And it was all thanks to Colonel David Hudson. Who happened to be the best soldier, the best friend, one of the best men Stemkowsky had ever met. Colonel Hudson had given all the Vets another chance. He’d given them the Green Band Mission to get even.

  Later that same morning, as he slalomed through the I deep slush of Jane Street in the West Village, Colonel I David Hudson thought he might be seeing apparitions. He I finally leaned his head out of the half-rolled Vets taxi window. His green eyes sparkled intensely against the street’s I murky gray.

  He shouted ahead into the cold driving rain, the dripping winds ripping and grabbing at his face. “You’re going to rust out there, Sergeant. Get your pitiful ass inside.”

  Harry Stemkowsky was solidly perched outside in his familiar, battered aluminum wheelchair. He was huddled zombielike against the drowning rain, right in front of the Vets garage entrance.

  I It was an incredibly moving sight, probably more sad I than weird, Hudson thought. A true retrospective on what was ultimately accomplished in Viet Nam.

  There was Harry Stemkowsky, as poignant as any journalist’s picture taken of the wounded in the Southeast Asia combat zone. Hudson could feel a tightening of his jaw muscles, and the beginnings of an old rage. He fought against it. This wasn’t the time to allow himself the luxury of personal feelings. This wasn’t the time to wallow in old, pointless anger.

  Stemkowsky was grinning broadly by the time David Hudson finally jogged to the weathered door of the Vets garage.

  “You’re section eight for life, Sergeant. You’re out of your mind,” Hudson said firmly. “No explanations accepted.”

  Actually though, Hudson was beginning to smile. He knew why Stemkowsky was waiting outside, knew all of the Vets’ Sad Sack stories by heart now. He was betting everything on knowing the Vets at least as well as he knew their military histories.

  “I-I wha-wanted to be ri-right he-here. When, when you got in. That-that-that’s all it was, Cah-Cah-Colonel.”

  Hudson’s voice softened. “Yeah, I know, I know. It’s r
eal good to see you again, Sergeant You’re still an asshole, though.”

  With an audible sigh, Colonel Hudson suddenly bent low. He then easily scooped up the hundred-and-thirty-seven-pound bundle of Harry. Stemkowsky with his powerful good arm.

  Since the spring offensive of 1971, Stemkowsky had been a helpless cripple. Harry Stemkowsky had also been a violent, totally incurable stutterer ever since he’d been splattered with seventeen rounds from a Soviet SKS automatic rifle. A pitiful wreck, right up until a few months ago, anyway.

  As he pushed his way to the top of the cramped, mildewed stairway inside Vets, Hudson decided not to think about Viet Nam anymore. This was supposed to be an R&R party. Green Band was a rousing operational success so far.

  George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” blared loudly from the room above. Good tune. Good choice.

  ‘It’s me Colonel himself!”

  As he stalked inside a large, drab yellow room on the second floor, Hudson heard shrill hollers and shouts all around him. For a moment he was embarrassed by the clamor. Then he thought about the fact that he’d given these twenty-six veterans another lease on their lives, a purpose that transcended the bitterness they had brought back from Viet Nam.

  “The Colonel’s here! Colonel Hudson’s here.”

  “Well, shit. Hide the good Johnny Walker booze.… Just kidding, sir.”

  “How the hell are you, Bonanno? Hale? Skully?”

  “Sir… we goddamn did it, didn’t we!”

  “Yes, we did. So far, anyway.”

  “Sir! It’s great to see you. Went just like you said it would.”

  “Yeah. The easy part went great.”

  Chapter 24

  THE TWENTY-SIX VETS continued to cheer. Hudson shielded his eyes as he stared around at the dingy room where they’d been plotting together for almost a year and a half.

  He scanned the rows of familiar faces, the scraggly, homecut beards, the unfashionably long hairstyles, the drab green khaki jackets of the Vets. He was home. He was home and he was obviously welcome.