“Uh? Can I help you with anything?” Carroll asked.
The intruder looked like a banker, maybe an account executive at a brokerage firm. Carroll started to turn bright red. The blush immediately swept up to his forehead. He couldn’t think of anything smart or funny to say, especially when he was still holding a rubber duck in his hand.
The man in the doorway spoke with Ivy League formality, not seeming to notice the duck at all. Nothing even close to a smile crossed his pale, thin lips.
“Sorry to bother you, to trouble you like this at home. I need you to get dressed and come with me, Mr. Carroll. The President wants to see you tonight.”
Chapter 12
AS EARLY AS the hot and steamy summer of 1961, John Kennedy had confided to close advisers that the stressful work of the presidency had already aged him ten years.
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 Kennedy had put into words. He had begun recently to question the motives that had driven him to gain his present residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Kearney was only forty-two years of age; by one month, he was the youngest American President ever elected and the first Viet Nam War veteran to reach the White House.
At 1:50 on Saturday morning, President Kearney took what he hoped would be a calming breath, then he 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. He’d never seen Kearney so nervous, so clearly uncomfortable during any of his three previous visits to the White House.
“First of all, I thank all of 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.
“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 group that was created following Munich and Lod.” The President licked his lips nervously, then 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 bit. We have explosive-arson squads underground. They’ve already reported that Number 30 Wall as well as the Fed ate badly damaged and extremely dangerous. Either building could collapse tonight.”
Claude Williams of the 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 was asked to go next. Trentkamp had been an old friend of Arch Carroll’s father. He’d even helped talk the younger Carroll into his first police job. 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 very thoughtfully devised.
“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.”
Each of those present was called upon to give a report, from the Secretary of Defense to the SEC Representative Caitlin Dillon. They all spoke briefly. Although Caitlin Dillon didn’t have a great deal to add, she spoke with the kind of fluency where you could see the semicolons in her; speech. Carroll found it challenging to take his eyes away from her face.
“Arch? Are you with us?”
Carroll gave the room a smile of vague embarrassment as he rose to address the group. All the important, mostly recognizable faces now swung his way.
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. He’d thought about wearing his one good Barney’s Warehouse sale suit, but then he had changed his mind.
Several of the principals attending the emergency session knew Carroll by reputation. As a modern-day policeman, Carroll was thought to be appropriately unorthodox, and effective. The team he supervised was credited with helping to make terrorists think twice about their raiding forays into the United States.
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 increasingly becoming known as an Irish drunk.
“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 Francois Monserrat. Or a second possibility—a free-lance 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.” Carroll sat down.
Walter Trentkamp raised an index 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 New York P.D. already released Number 13 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 maybe significant. See, we’ve made our first mistake, and we haven’t even started the investigation.”
Most everyone laughed inside the White House conference room, but the irony was lost on none of them. There would be more mistakes; a lot more mistakes before anything was resolved. No. 13 was surely an omen of things to come.
President Justin Kearney stood once again at his end of the massive conference table. His face registered the day’s stress.
Justin Kearney said, “I need to clear the air about something else. Something that must never go beyond this room.” The President paused, looked up and down the rows of his closest advisers. Then he went on.
“For several weeks now, the White House, Vice-president Elliot and I, have been receiving intelligence leaks, steady information about a dramatic counterinsurgent plot. Possibly a scenario involving the elusive Francois Monserrat.”
The President paused again, deliberately pacing himself. Arch Carroll turned the name Monserrat over in his mind. “Elusive” didn’t quite do Monserrat justice. There were times, indeed, when Carroll had seriously doubted the man’s existence, times when he considered Monserrat as the nom de guerre of several different individuals acting in collaboration. He was in France one day, Libya the next. He might be reported in Mexico even as somebody else claimed to have seen him stepping aboard an unmarked plane in Prague.
Kearney continued. “Our intelligence people have learned that Middle Eastern and South American
oil-producing countries have been considering a run on the New York Stock Market.
“This action was to be ‘just’ retribution for what they considered broken promises, even outright fraud practiced by U.S. banks and the New York brokerage houses.
“At the very least, the oil cartel hoped to initiate a short-term panic, which they alone would be in a position to take advantage of. Is this rumored scenario related to tonight? At this moment, I don’t know …
“I have fears, though, that we’re at the beginning of a grave international economic crisis. Gentlemen, it would not be an exaggeration to postulate, to prepare ourselves for the possibility, that the Western economy could effectively collapse on Monday, when the Market will reopen.”
President Kearney’s intensely blue eyes continued to make contact around the crisis table.
“We must find out who initiated the attack on Wall Street last night. We have to find out how they did it. We have to find out why…”
Chapter 13
ARCH CARROLL’S HEAD was buzzing and his eyes stinging as he filed out of the White House conference room at 2:55 A.M. The other participants were mostly subdued and silent; they looked either somberly reflective, exhausted, or both.
Carroll had already started down a flight of creaking, thickly carpeted south White House stairs, when a hand rested on his shoulder, startling him.
Carroll twisted around to see Walter Trentkamp, impressive as ever at three in the morning.
“Trying to run out on me?” Trentkamp shook his head ill the manner of a father about to chastise his son in the friendliest terms possible. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you in a while. Have a minute to talk?”
“Hello, Walter. Sure we can talk. How about going outside? It might clear our heads a little.”
Moments later, Carroll and Trentkamp walked side by side through the early morning mist shrouding Pennsylvania Avenue. The sky was a heavy gray slab covering the capital city. In the distance, the Washington Monument looked like the sword in the stone.
“I haven’t seen enough of your homely face lately. Probably not since you and the kids moved back to the old homestead.”
“It was kind of odd, going back there at first. Now it’s good, the right choice. The kids call it their ‘country house.’ They think they live on a Nebraska farm. Riverdale, right?” Carroll grinned in spite of the hour.
“Wonderful kids. Your sister Mary Katherine’s a gem too.” Trentkamp hesitated a moment. “How are you doing? You ‘re the one who concerns me.”
“Holding up pretty well. I’m all right. I’m doing fine.” Carroll shrugged.
Walter Trentkamp shook his silver-gray head. His eyes held a knowing look, and Carroll felt tense. The cop part of Walter had a knack of wheedling his way inside you, so that you were left feeling transparent and obvious.
“I don’t think so, Archer.”
“No? Well I’m sorry. I thought I was all right.” Carroll felt his lower back clutch and stiffen.
“You’re not so fine. You’re not even in the general ballpark of being fine. The late-night drinking bouts have become legend. Risks you’re taking with your life. Other cops talk too much about you.”
It was the wrong hour for this kind of talk. Carroll bristled. “That all, Father Confessor? That all you wanted to see me about?”
Trentkamp abruptly stopped walking. He laid a hand on Carroll’s shoulder and squeezed it. “I wanted to talk to the son of an old friend of mine. I wanted to help if I could.”
Arch Carroll turned his bleary eyes away from those of the FBI director. His face began to redden. “I’m sorry; I guess it has been a long day.”
“It’s been a long day. Been a long couple of years for you since Nora. You’re close to being broken out of your unit in the DIA. They like the results, but not your working style. There’s talk about replacing you. Matty Rear-don’s one name I’ve heard.”
Arch Carroll felt his stomach suddenly dropping. He’d known this—somewhere in the back of his mind he’d known this was coming,
“Reardon’d be a good choice. He’s a good company man. Good man, period.”
“Arch, please cut the crap. You’re playing games with someone who’s known you thirty-five years.”
Carroll frowned, and be began to cough in the manner of Crusader Rabbit. He felt like a real shit “Awhh, hell, I’m sorry Walter. I know what you’re trying to do.”
“People understand what you’ve been through. I understand; please believe that Archer. Everybody wants to help… I asked for you on this one. I had to ask “
Carroll shrugged his shoulders, but inside he was hurt. He hadn’t known his reputation had slipped so badly, maybe even in Trentkamp’s eyes.
“I don’t know what to say. Not even a typical Bronx Irish wisecrack. Nothing.”
Talk to me on this one. Just talk to me, okay?… Don’t go it alone. Will you promise me that?” Trentkamp finally spoke again, a voice of reason and understanding.
“Promise.” Carroll nodded slowly.
Walter Trentkamp turned up the collar of his overcoat against the early morning mist. Both he and Carroll were over six feet tall. They looked like father and son that morning in Washington.
“Good,” Trentkamp finally said. “We’ll need you on this nasty son of a bitch. We’ll need you at your best Archer.”
Chapter 14
AT SIX O’CLOCK Saturday morning, December 5, a bleak Lexington Avenue subway train, its surface covered with scars of graffiti, lackadaisically rocked and rattled north toward the Pelham Bay station.
Colonel David Hudson sat in an inconspicuous huddle on an uncomfortable plastic train seat. He was wearing clothes no one would look at twice. Uninteresting clothes that created a street camouflage of drab gray and lifeless, boring brown. He realized it wasn’t an altogether successful disguise because people had looked at him anyway. Their probing eyes invariably discovered the missing arm, the empty flap of his coat.
A series of hot and cold flashes coursed through his body as the train hurled itself north. He was drifting in and out of the present, remembering, trying to accurately replicate long hours spent at a Viet Nam firebase perimeter listening post…
Every one of his senses had been at its sharpest back then. Head cocked: listening, watching, trusting no one but himself…. He needed exactly the same kind of clarity right now, the same kind of self-reliance.
From 14th Street, where he’d boarded the subway train, up past 33rd, 42nd, 59th Street, Hudson objectively contemplated the first days of his capture in Viet Nam.
He was vividly remembering the La Hoc Noh prison now…
La Hoc Noh Prison; July, 1971
Captain David Hudson’s nervous system was a mass of fire. He felt each bruising, jarring bump, even the smallest stones underfoot, as four prison guards half carried, half dragged him toward the central hut at the La Hoc Noh compound.
Through the white glare of the Asian sun, he squinted at the pathetic hootch, with its tattered North Vietnamese flag and sagging bamboo walls.
The command post.
What an incredible joke this all was. What a cruel joke all of life had become.
Well-muscled once, clean-cut and always so perfectly erect, so proper, the U.S. Army officer was pitiful to behold now. His skin was uniformly wrinkled and sallow, almost yellow; his hair looked like it had been pulled out in great, diseased clumps.
He accepted the fact that he was dying. He weighed less than a hundred and fifteen pounds; he’d had the yellow shits literally for months without end. He’d gone beyond there exhaustion; he lived in a shifting, hallucinatory world where he doubted his own sensations and ordinary perceptions.
All Captain Hudson possessed now was his dignity. He refused to give that up, too.
He would die with at least some essential part of himself intact; that secret place deep inside that nobody could torture out of him.
The SNR officer, the one they had called Lizard Man, was waiting f
or him inside the command hootch. The North Vietnamese leader sat in silence, crouched behind a low, lopsided table.
He seemed to be posing for a photo beneath a twirling bamboo fan that barely stirred the hundred-and-five-degree air.
North Vietnamese cooking smells—green chili, garlic, lichee and durians, spoiled river prawns—made David Hudson suddenly gag. He clutched violently to his mouth. He felt himself begin to faint.
But he wouldn’t allow that. No! Honor and dignity! That was everything. Honor and dignity kept him alive.
He stopped on his own mental command, drawing on the scant resources, the spirit that remained inside of him.
A guard punched David Hudson’s jaw with a hard bare fist Hot blood filled his mouth. He gagged on the metallic taste.
Honor and dignity. Somehow.
“You Cap-tan, ah Hud-sun!” the senior officer suddenly screeched.
He peered down onto the wrinkled note pad he always carried. His fingers struck hard into the page to emphasize certain words.
“Ho-Ho. Twen-six yea-ah old. Veet Nam, Lah-ose since nineteen-six-nine. Yow spy six yeah. Ho-Ho. You ‘ssain! ‘ssassin! Convic to die, Cap-tan.”
The prison camp guards let Captain David Hudson fall toward the dirt floor, which was littered with gaping fish heads and rice.
Hudson’s mind was reeling, crashing, exploding with sharp-pointed lights. His own private light show, his own palace of pain, he thought.
He’d understood only a few of the Lizard Man’s fractured English words. “Viet Nam… spy… assassin… convicted to die.”
On the table sagging between him and the North Vietnamese officer, there was a teakwood game board.
Captain Hudson’s eyes absently ran over the board surface. Games? Why did they all love games?
The Lizard Man snorted. A distorted smile appeared suddenly across his lower face. His jaw moved slowly, seemingly unattached to the rest of his skull.