Black Market

The people on the early-bird flight looked thoroughly depressed and groggy, as if they'd risen way too early and their constitutions hadn't had time to catch up. But some of them had early-edition newspapers with stark headlines a

Inside the small bathroom, he cupped water in his hands and splashed it over his eyes. He took a tiny red plastic case out of his pants pocket.

When Nora had been sick, she'd used this container to hold her day's supply of Valium and Dilantin and a few other prescriptions to help control seizures. Carroll slugged down a small yellow pill, a light upper to keep him alive. He would have preferred a drink. An eye-opener Irish whiskey. Double Bloody Mary. But he'd promised Walter Trentkamp.

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 una

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

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 co

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 te

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-ta

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 co

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.”