Black Market

5

Washington, D.C.

As early as the hot and steamy summer of 1961, John Ke

As he hurried down the plush, half-darkened corridors on the second floor of the White House, Justin Kearney, the forty-first president of the United States, was realizing the same inescapable truth that Ke

Justin Kearney was only forty-two years of age; by one month, he was the youngest American president ever elected and the first Vietnam War veteran to reach the White House.

At one-fifty on Saturday morning, President Kearney took what he hoped would be a calming breath and entered the National Security Council conference room. Those already gathered there rose respectfully, Archer Carroll among them.

Carroll watched the president of the United States take his customary place at the head of the heavy oak conference table. In the course of his three previous visits to the White House, he'd never seen Kearney so nervous, so clearly uncomfortable.

“First of all, I truly thank you for getting here on such very short notice.” The president sloughed off his wrinkled navy blue suit coat. “I think everyone knows everyone else. One, maybe two exceptions… Down there, sitting between Bill Whittier and Morton Atwater, is Caitlin Dillon. Caitlin is the chief enforcement officer for the SEC. She just might be the toughest enforcer since James Landis himself…

“Down at the far right corner, gentleman in the tan corduroy sport coat is Arch Carroll. Mr. Carroll is the head of the DIA's Antiterrorist Division. This is the same group that was created following Munich and Lod.” The president licked his lips nervously as he gazed around the assembly.

Commissioner Michael Kane from the New York Police Department was asked to report first.

“Right now we have men down inside the rubble of all the buildings that were hit. We have explosive-arson squads underground. They've already reported that Thirty Wall, as well as the Fed, is badly damaged and extremely dangerous. Either building could conceivably collapse tonight.

“Based solely on a raw visual impression of the explosions, gentlemen, the people who did this are at the highest levels of their trade. The plan was brilliantly executed. It was all carefully, obsessively worked out in advance.”

Claude Williams of the U.S. Army Engineers was called to speak next.

“There's a disturbing attention to detail in every area-that's what is particularly frightening about this. The river pier, the initial setup with the FBI, the elaborate study of Wall Street itself. I've never seen anything like this, and I'll tell you, I'm not standing here exaggerating for effect. It's as if a well-organized army hit Wall Street. It's as if a war's been started down there.”

Walter Trentkamp from the FBI spoke next. Trentkamp had been an old and dear friend of Arch Carroll's father. He'd even helped talk the younger Carroll into his first police job. Arch Carroll leaned forward to listen to Walter's report.

“I agree with Mike Kane,” Trentkamp said in a gravelly, imposing voice. “Everything has the veneer of an expert paramilitary operation. The explosives on Wall Street were placed for maximum damage. Our ordnance boys actually seem to admire the bastards. The whole operation was brilliantly organized, very thoughtfully devised. I haven't seen anything like it, either. The closest would be Munich.

“The plan must have taken months, maybe years, to develop and execute with this high a level of success. PLO? IRA? Red Brigade? I assume we'll know more on that score before too long. They have to contact us eventually. They must want something. Nobody goes to this extreme without having some kind of demand in mind.” Trentkamp shrugged and looked around at the puzzled, solemn faces in the room. “In other words, gentlemen, I've got nothing right now.”

Each of those present was called upon to give a report, from the secretary of defense to SEC representative Caitlin Dillon. All spoke briefly. Although Caitlin Dillon didn't have a great deal to add, she spoke with remarkable fluency, the kind where you could see the semicolons in her speech. Arch Carroll couldn't take his eyes away from her face. Only when she fell silent did he glance elsewhere.

“Arch? Are you with us?”

Carroll gave the room an embarrassed smile as he rose to address the group. The mostly recognizable faces that turned his way were dark and impassive.

Carroll was characteristically rumpled. His long brown hair and street clothes brought to mind underground witnesses and policemen called in drug-related grand jury trials. His face was strong. His brown eyes were bright and alert, even though he was exhausted. He'd thought about wearing his one good Barneys warehouse sale suit, but then had changed his mind. What was it Thoreau had advised? Beware all enterprises that require new clothes… something like that.

Several of the principals attending the emergency session knew Carroll by reputation, at least. As a modern-day policeman, Carroll was thought to be appropriately unorthodox and extremely effective. The team he supervised was credited with helping to make the world's terrorists think twice about raiding forays into the United States.

Arch Carroll had also occasionally been characterized as a troublemaker: too much of a perfectionist for the Washington politicians to handle, too off-Broadway theatrical at times. Moreover, he was becoming increasingly known as an Irish drunk. It was a reputation that might not have hurt him too much in the old days of New York police work, but it wasn't doing him any good in these more rarefied circles.

“I'll try to be brief,” Carroll began softly. “For starters, I don't think we can make the assumption yet that this is an established or known terrorist group.

“If it is, then it probably means one of two groups: the Soviets, through the GRU-which could include François Monserrat and his network-or a second possibility, a freelance group, probably sent out of the Middle East. Financed there, anyway.

“I don't believe anyone else has the organization and discipline, the technical know-how or money to manage something this complex.” Carroll's intense brown eyes roamed the room. Why did his own remarks sound so hollow? “You can cross out just about everyone else as suspects.” He sat down.

Walter Trentkamp raised a finger and spoke again. “For everyone's general information, we've set up an investigative unit down on Wall Street. The unit is inside the stock exchange building, which suffered limited damage during the raid. Somebody from the NYPD already released number Thirteen Wall to the press. So that's what we'll call headquarters.

“There's no such address, actually. The stock exchange is on Wall, but the actual address is Broad Street. That may be significant. See, we've made our first mistake, and we haven't even started the investigation.”

Almost everyone laughed, but the important irony was lost on none of them. There would be more mistakes-a lot more serious mistakes-before anything was resolved. Number 13 was surely an omen of things to come.

President Kearney stood once again at his end of the massive conference table. His face registered the day's extreme stress. He was no longer the good-looking, energetic young senator who'd successfully hit the national campaign trail two years before. Now he seemed cruelly drained.