Black Market

The surveillance team was wide-awake.

33

It was past one-thirty in the morning and the White House was quiet, deceptively still, along the second floor. The president was feeling completely debilitated and old, decades older than his forty-two years. The sheen of sweat covering his neck was cold, and it made him feel ill.

As he walked the corridors of power, the president of the United States held a confidential document under his arm. The sheaf of papers seemed to burn through his suit and shirt.

Nearly every president, as well as a few chosen first-time senators and key congressmen, had learned an important American history lesson when they arrived in the capital. Justin Kearney had learned his within the first month of his presidency. The history lesson was that within the broadcast scope of American power and its immense wealth, the politician was little more than an appendage to the system. A concession to form, a necessary inconvenience in many ways.

The politicians, all elected officials-even the president-were grudgingly tolerated, but each was expendable.

The presidents before Justin Kearney-Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Ke

There was a higher order working inside, working above and beyond the United States government. There had been a higher order for decades. It made all the sense in the world; it made sense of almost everything that had happened over the past forty years: the Ke

They were waiting for President Kearney in the dramatic and imposing National Security Council briefing room. Twelve of them had been there for some time, working right through the night.

They appeared to be an ordinary committee, all in white shirts and loosened ties. They stood en masse as the president of the United States entered. They rose out of respect for the office, for the lofty traditions, for what they themselves had rigorously maintained about the office.

The forty-first president of the United States took his seat at the head of the highly polished oak wood table. Pens and lined yellow writing pads had been set neatly at his place.

“Did you read the position papers through, Mr. President?” one of the twelve committeemen quietly asked.

“Yes, I read them in my office just now,” the president answered solemnly. His strong, handsome face was pale.

The president then laid the confidential papers he'd been carrying on the table. The booklet was approximately one hundred and sixty typewritten pages. It had never been copied and never would be. It looked somewhat like an investment-offering book or perhaps a condominium plan. On the dark blue cover something had been printed in regal-looking gold letters.

Green Band. Extremely Confidential and Classified.

The title page was dated May 16.

Nearly seven months before the actual bombing attack on Wall Street.

Part Three. Arch Carroll

34

Friday in Washington, D.C., dawned with rain clouds rolling across a colorless horizon. A spitting wind blew wintry gusts in from Maryland. The temperature was dropping hourly. From 7:00 A.M. on, Arch Carroll waited impatiently on the front seat of a rented sedan parked in the nearby suburb of McLean.

The dark car blended in neatly with a wall of even darker fir trees overhanging Fort Myers Road.

Detective work, Carroll thought as he stared off into nothingness. First you wait. Always you wait.

Carroll passed the time eating breakfast out of a box from Dunkin' Donuts. The actual doughnuts weren't nearly as hot as the box itself. They also had no taste that he could discern. The coffee he sipped was room temperature, a little less satisfying than the doughnuts.

Carroll read some Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine, and that was quite good, at least. Several times he found himself thinking about Colonel David Hudson.

The classic all-American Boy? West Point honor student…

Then Vietnam assassin? America's Juan Carlos? America's jackal? America 's François Monserrat?

He wanted to meet David Hudson now. He wanted to encounter him one on one, face to face. Maybe inside the cramped interrogation room at number 13 Wall, Carroll's own turf. Tell me, Colonel Hudson, what do you know about the Green Band firebombing? What about the stolen Wall Street securities? Tell me why you left the army, Colonel Hudson.

He wondered how far he'd get with somebody like Colonel David Hudson, a U.S. saboteur trained to resist interrogation. It would be a battle, and one Carroll was sure he'd lose.

About seven-thirty a second-floor light blinked on inside the white colonial across the roadway. A second light followed moments later. Bedroom and bathroom, probably. Showtime at General Thompson's was about to begin.

Moments later a light went on downstairs. Kitchen? Then the porch light blinked out.

Just past eight, which Carroll thought a respectable hour, he trudged up the flagstone front walk and rang the bell, which made a chimey sound like old department-store bells.

A tall, distinguished man of about sixty appeared in the pristine white doorway. He wore plaid trousers, house slippers, a powder blue cardigan sweater. His head, shaped like a torpedo, was topped with white-gray stubble.

General Lucas Thompson, former commander in chief of the United States Evacuation Forces in Vietnam, had a craggy, commanding presence. He still appeared capable of taking on the most difficult combat duty demands. There was something hard and alert in his gray eyes, as if small electric light bulbs were burning there.

“General Thompson, I'm Arch Carroll, with the DIA. Sorry to bother you so early in the morning. I'm here about the Green Band investigation.”

General Thompson looked appropriately suspicious. “What about it, sir? I'm up, but as you say, it's still quite early in the morning.”

“I would have called last night, to say I was coming, General. It was late when I left the Pentagon. I thought that might have been a worse breach of etiquette than just coming out here this morning.”

The suspicious look faded on General Thompson's face. It was as if the mention of the word Pentagon had reassured him; a look of pleasant recognition spread across his features.

“Of course. Arch Carroll. I've read about you.”

“General Thompson, I have just a few questions. It's about your command in Southeast Asia. It shouldn't take more than, say, twenty minutes.”

“That means an hour,” Lucas Thompson said with a sniffling laugh. “Come in. I have the time. Time is plentiful these days, Mr. Carroll.” He spoke in the tone of a retired soldier about to write his memoirs: vaguely frustrated, a little bored, and lacking a sense of purpose.

General Thompson led the way through a formal dining room, into an even more imposing library chamber. There was a white-birch fireplace screened by a brass curtain with heavy brass andirons. Tall oak bookshelves stood erect on every wall; a double bay window looked out onto a backyard with a covered pool and yellow-and-lime-striped cabana.

General Thompson sat on a comfortable wing chair. “Out of sight in Washington, pretty much out of mind. Since my retirement, I've had very few official visitors down here. Other than my two granddaughters, who fortunately live up the lane and who adore their grandmother's baked goods and double fudge.”

General Thompson shook his head and smiled warmly.

Carroll had heard that in Vietnam Thompson had been an extremely rigid disciplinarian. Now, in his retirement, Lucas Thompson seemed like just another grandfather, waiting patiently for the next smiling Kodak snapshot to be taken.