Black Market

Billie turned to face Hudson again. She spoke very softly, feathers of her warm breath touching his ear.

“Please kiss me, David. That might not sound like anything so very dramatic… Except that I don't think I've said it to anyone, and meant it, since I was about sixteen or seventeen years old.”

David Hudson and Billie Bogan kissed in the deep shadows of the grand Christmas tree. Holiday music played sweetly around them: “Adeste Fidelis,” “Silent Night,” “Joy to the World.”

For that moment, Colonel David Hudson conveniently forgot his other plans for the world.

Something that was badly needed.

Revenge for a very special few.

Justice for mankind.

36

Caitlin Dillon hurriedly entered the crowded formal conference room in 13 Wall Street. She passed repairmen plastering over cracks in cement. Three cleaning women hauled buckets at the end of the hallway. Caitlin was thinking right then how much she missed Carroll, who was expected back from Washington at any moment. He'd called, but his voice had sounded strained, almost as if he'd been afraid to tell her anything over the telephone.

She stepped into the meeting room, passing through a phalanx of policemen and army perso

Walter Trentkamp stood in dramatic silence before the restless audience. He was tense. Streaks of light sweat highlighted his face, and the collar of his shirt was damp. Caitlin hadn't seen the FBI chief this anxious before.

Trentkamp cleared his throat. The scene reminded Caitlin of high-level press conferences held in Washington, emergency meetings called on short notice.

“You have no doubt heard the rumor that a significant development has occurred in the Green Band investigation… It was uncovered through the tireless effort of Captain Francis Nicolo and Sergeant Rizzo in NYPD Ballistics.”

Nicolo-”Waxy Frank”-appeared in the crowd alongside Joe Rizzo. Both men were beaming, taking an imperceptible bow.

“These men have been working tirelessly since the bombing on December fourth. Finally, their labors have paid a big dividend.”

There were a couple of appreciative mumbles in the room and a halfhearted attempt at applause. Nicolo and Rizzo shuffled their feet like schoolboys at an honors presentation.

“Sergeant?” Trentkamp said. “Come up here, please.”

Rizzo stepped forward awkwardly and hoisted a chart onto a metal stand. On the chart a police artist had sketched the major buildings of the financial district in black and white. The structures that had been bombed were colored traffic-signal red. Each of the bombed-out buildings also had a bold violet ring drawn around it. Caitlin noticed that the purple rings were at widely different levels on the fourteen buildings.

Rizzo began, “The buildings marked with red were all hit around six-thirty on December fourth. The bombs were definitely detonated by remote signals. The signal might have been operated from as far away as eight or ten miles.”

Rizzo paused, blew his nose in a big white handkerchief, then went on: “The violet rings on the buildings were drawn to indicate where the explosions actually took place. The plastique packages were actually placed here, here, here, et cetera.

“As you can see, the plastique was planted on different floors in all fourteen buildings. The second floor at Twenty-two Broad. Fifteenth floor at Manufacturers Hanover. And so on. You can all see that plainly.” Rizzo looked around at the faces in the room as if he were challenging someone to disagree.

“There's no special pattern to this. At least, that's what we thought up to now. Last night, though, we found a co

“Look here! Each of the circled floors actually contains one of that building's messenger rooms. Either a drop-off or a package-mail station. What threw us off this approach was the fact that messenger drop-off stations and the mailroom in these buildings aren't always the same. Not even on the same floor. Some of the Wall Street buildings have drop-off stations on every floor. You all see what I'm driving at?”

Sergeant Joe Rizzo paused for effect, then said, “Gentlemen, the actual bombs were all hand-delivered. Probably by a regular commercial messenger who would go u

Rizzo once again looked around the suddenly quiet room. “There are more than two hundred messenger services in and around Wall Street. Jimmy Split, Speedo, Fireball, Bullet, to name a few. You've probably seen most of them yourselves. We're going to contact every single one of those services. Chances are at least one of them was contacted by our friends, Green Band Perhaps several were used to deliver the plastique on December fourth!”

Rizzo paused again. “What this means is' that some goof-ball messenger is going to help break this thing open! Tonight we hit the streets. Tonight we run this thing down!”

Caitlin felt the tremendous surge of energy that coursed through the room as the men began to disperse. They had suddenly come alive, after days of pounding on walls, days of pursuing an investigation that had been going absolutely nowhere. She was almost swept aside as eager policemen and detectives crushed toward the door.

A Wall Street messenger service.

A slight shiver traveled through her.

Messenger service?…

Caitlin turned and left the meeting room; she started back to her own office. She had just remembered something.

She started to run down the corridor.

Carroll was certain he was being followed. A dark car had tracked his cab from Ke

When he stepped out of the taxi at 13 Wall Street, the tracking car went skirting past. He couldn't see the faces inside, only shapes, two or three men huddled together. Why were they following him? Who had sent them? Who was tracking the tracker?

He disappeared into number 13 and went quickly to Caitlin's office. He was filled with the strongest need to see her, to talk to somebody he could trust.

She rose from her desk, where she'd been studying a printout of the names of U.S. veterans the computer had supplied before. She hugged him, and Carroll didn't want to let her go. They pressed tightly into each other's bodies. They kissed with an urgency neither of them had acknowledged before.

Caitlin finally disentangled herself. “How was Washing; ton?” She was smiling, relieved to see him.

“Interesting. More man just interesting,” Carroll said.

He told her about the FBI's file on David Hudson, about his visit with General Lucas Thompson.

Caitlin brought him up to date on the developments explained by Sergeant Rizzo. She indicated the computer printout she'd been studying when he had arrived.

“Maybe this is coincidence, Arch. Maybe it doesn't mean a thing. But on this FBI list of veterans there's an explosives expert whose occupation is cabdriver and messenger. The home address is New York City.”

“Which name?” Carroll asked. He was already sca

“A man called Michael Demu

“Does it say which messenger service?” He looked up from the printout.

Caitlin shook her head. “It shouldn't be too difficult to find out. Let's see.”

Carroll waited while Caitlin made a couple of quick telephone calls. He slid his investigation pad out of his coat and impatiently flipped through those familiar pages that had chronicled Green Band's false starts and stops from the begi

There were several different organizational headings now:

Interviews. Physical Evidence. Suspects. Miscellaneous.