Black Market

Walter didn't say anything, but his gray-green eyes fairly sparkled with delight. “You see,” he said to Caitlin and Carroll, “something decent can come out of anything. Damn, this is the first good thing I've seen or heard in a week.”

With that, and a special wink toward Caitlin, Trentkamp continued on his way down the corridor.

Suddenly he turned and called out to Carroll. “Hey, I thought I told you to keep me posted on what was going on!”

Then he disappeared around the corner.

Late that night, Caitlin swallowed sips of warm diet soda and sat entranced before a forty-inch television screen just off the main crisis room. The monitor's reception was crisp and terrific. The ante

“This is it,” she whispered to Carroll. “The exchange in Hong Kong will be the first important one to open around the world. Sydney and Tokyo are both staying closed until noon, we hear. Yesterday, the Hang Seng Index fell eighty points. This will really tell the story.”

Caitlin and Carroll were sitting with a tightly clustered nest of Wall Street bankers, frayed men and women who were like spectators burned out by watching some unlikely event. A closed-circuit TV broadcast was being beamed by satellite from Asia to New York. The blackest gallows humor had gained control of the waiting room-as it often does in the worst disasters and emergencies.

On the flickering color TV screen, they all watched cameramen and news reporters-live-recording history from behind Hong Kong police lines. Farther down the crowded, rowdy street, tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents were chanting loudly, waving hand-printed political placards. Meanwhile, single lines of dark-suited stockbrokers were begi

“The brokers look like pallbearers,” Carroll whispered to Caitlin. He stroked her arm lightly.

“It isn't exactly a cheery sight, is it? It certainly does look like a state funeral.”

“Yeah. And whose funeral?” Carroll asked.

A foreign correspondent for one of the major American networks eventually stepped up to a TV camera planted on the mobbed cacophonous Hong Kong street. The newsman wore a rumpled seersucker suit and spoke with an affected, clipped British accent.

“Never before have we seen such a graphic demonstration of the polarization between Third World and Western hopes and dreams. Here in Hong Kong, I believe we are seeing a minidrama of the imminent future of the world. It is now the day after stock prices have tumbled precipitously everywhere… The bond market is in shambles; the French and Arabs are liquidating their holdings at the rate of billions a day… And in Hong Kong this morning, many people are deeply concerned, even sad-faced… But the majority, surprisingly large numbers, mostly university and street-gang youths, but also the unemployed-are shouting anti-U.S. slogans, even praying for a shattering stock market crash. These people are clearly rooting for a full-scale world economic crash. They're expecting the worst, and they're gleeful about the expected disastrous outcome… The long-awaited fall of the West.”

Suddenly, everything changed!

Unbelievably.

Beautifully, and all around the world.

Almost as if it had been prearranged, too.

Not forty minutes after the Hong Kong Exchange opened, stock prices on the Hang Seng began to stabilize; then stock prices actually started to rise-to surge powerfully upward on the index.

To the keen disappointment of many of the jeering university students and workers mobbing the streets outside, a dizzying spiral of nearly 75 points followed in the next hour alone.

The exchange in Sydney opened in very much the same ma

The same scenario followed at the late-opening exchange in Tokyo.

In Malaysia an hour later.

Everywhere.

Carefully orchestrated recovery.

The manipulator's manipulation-but to what end?

At 8:30 A.M. New York time, looking as if he'd recently been liberated from the dustiest carrel in the New York Public Library, Anton Birnbaum peered inside the World Trade Center emergency meeting area. This time, however, a boisterous entourage surged forward and escorted the financier to the front of the pandemoniacal room.

President Justin Kearney appeared relaxed, almost jovial, as he met the aging financial mastermind. Vice President Thomas Elliot was standing beside him, still looking controlled and restrained. The vice president was the coolest of the Washington leaders. Birnbaum himself seemed astonished by the general hubbub, the strange celebration, so early in the morning. He was equally astonished by the way the market, like some whimsical thing subject not to the rules of money, but to the patterns of the wind, had come back so strongly.

“Mr. Birnbaum. Good Morning.”

“Yes. Good morning, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President. And I hear it is a pretty good morning.”

“By God, you did it.”

“By God. Or in spite of Him, Mr. President.”

“This is amazing. It's quite moving. See?… Real tears.” Caitlin was hanging lightly on to Carroll's arm. She dabbed her eyes and was not alone in the gesture.

They were at the heart of the frenzied celebration. Off to one side of the room, President Kearney was emotionally clutching his chief of staff. The secretaries of Treasury, State, and Defense were positively boyish with their loud whoops, their hand clapping. The gray-suited chairman of the Federal Reserve had danced briefly with the cantankerous chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I don't believe I've ever seen bankers so joyous before,” Caitlin said.

“They still dance like bankers, though.” Carroll smiled at the odd but genuine scene of relief. “No threats to Michael Jackson here.”

He couldn't help feeling elation in the midst of this crazy, almost riotous room. It wasn't as if they'd actually found Green Band, but it was something, a sliver of merriment at the heart of all the recent grimness and frustration.

Caitlin nuzzled the side of his face with her mouth. “I'm already getting worried again. I only hope…”

“What do you hope?” Carroll held Caitlin's arm. He felt unbelievably close to her. They had already shared more charged moments than some people did in a lifetime.

“I hope that it continues like this, and doesn't come crashing down.”

Carroll was silent, studying the oddly uplifting scene before him. Somebody had found a phonograph, and the sound of Scottish bagpipers could be heard over the general din. Somebody extremely resourceful was dragging in a couple of cases of champagne. There was something just a little forced in the sudden celebration-but what the hell? These were people who'd been about to fall off the edge of their world, and slippery though it might be, they'd found some kind of temporary footing.

Still…

Still…

Even as Carroll sipped his champagne, something kept him from getting too hopeful. This is all premature, and therefore dangerous, he was thinking as the party heightened in intensity. The policeman inside him never stopped working, never stopped probing, never stopped figuring out all the possible angles. Damn it, police work was in his blood.

Where is Green Band? Is Green Band watching right now?

What are they thinking? What kind of party are they having today?

Who's telling them everything we do before we even do it?