James Patterson - Black Market

And now Archer Carroll was out of the grand chase. He had lost Green Band. They had eluded him again.

The Vets cabs proceeded northeast, then almost due east across Brooklyn. They were moving inexorably toward François Monserrat and the appointed end of Green Band. Everything was precisely on schedule.

Erect and alert behind the wheel, David Hudson was experiencing a moment of unusual anxiety. It all had to do with being this close to the end. They were less than seven minutes from the rendezvous with Monserrat.

Nothing could distract David Hudson from Green Band now. He would concentrate as if he were entering a combat zone. Nothing must look even mildly suspicious…

François Monserrat's soldiers could be watching the streets from neighborhood rooftops and darkened apartment windows. If they spotted the unexpected attack force, the final massive exchange of Wall Street securities would fail. Green Band would fail.

Like an advance scout in 'Nam, Hudson noted everything. A knot of black youths was easing out of Turner's Grill. Their voices carried-low, guttural sounds in syncopated street rhythms. He checked and rechecked the squat, cheerless brick buildings as he drove closer to the agreed-upon meeting place.

Hudson drove slowly on until he found a parking spot farther down the slope-shouldered Bedford-Stuyvesant side street. Very nonchalantly he climbed out of the car. He continued to look around the quiet neighborhood, searching for any sign of danger. He finally popped open the cab's dented and scarred trunk. The Wall Street securities were there in ordinary-looking gray vinyl suitcases.

Hudson hoisted up the bags and began to walk as rapidly as he could toward a red brick factory at the next corner. He was certain he was being watched. François Monserrat was somewhere nearby. All of his senses and instincts corroborated that warning signal. This was to be the moment of reckoning. Hudson's Special Forces training to be matched against Monserrat's years of experience, his years of meticulous deceit.

Hudson shouldered open the heavy wood front door of a building that housed shabby apartments and a small Italian-American shoe factory, the Gino Company of Milano.

He pushed into a dark hallway, where trapped cooking smells immediately assaulted him. The musty scent of old winter clothes hung in the air. The meeting place seemed appropriately isolated, but almost too mundane.

“Don't turn around, Colonel.”

Three men with long-nosed Magnums and Berettas drawn, stepped into the dim corridor.

“Move right up against the wall… That's good. Right there. That will be fine, Colonel Hudson.”

The leader had a cultivated Spanish accent, more than likely Cuban. François Monserrat ran the Caribbean and most of the terrorist activities in South America, Hudson remembered. At the rate he was going, one day Monserrat was going to run the entire Third World.

“I'm not armed,” Hudson said quietly.

“We have to search you anyway.”

One of the men positioned himself about three feet away from Colonel David Hudson. He pointed his gun between Hudson's eyes. It was a popular gunman's trick, one Hudson himself had been taught at Fort Bragg. At close range, shoot out the eyes.

The second man patted him down, quickly and professionally. The third man searched the suitcases, slashing them carefully with a knife, looking for false siding, a false bottom.

“Upstairs!” the terrorist who held the gun finally commanded Hudson. He spoke like a military officer, Hudson noted.

They began to climb a steep and creaking flight of stairs, then another flight. Were they leading him to Monserrat? Finally, the enigmatic Monserrat himself? Or would there be more deception?

“This is your floor, Colonel. That blue door straight ahead. You can just walk inside. You're most definitely expected.”

“Point of information? I have a question for you, for all of you. Curiosity on my part.” David Hudson spoke without turning to face them.

An impatient grunt came from behind…

The Lizard Man. Past interrogations. Special Forces training. Hudson's mind continued to churn at a furious rate.

All to prepare him for this very moment? For this and no other?

“Do they ever tell you what's really happening? Has anyone bothered to tell you the truth about this operation? Do you know what this meeting really is? Do you know why?”

David Hudson was introducing some element of doubt into all of their minds, petty doubts and confusion, paranoid unease he could use later, if he needed to.

Deception.

“Don't bother to knock, Colonel.” The man in charge calmly spoke once again. “Just go right in; you're expected. Everything you try to do is expected, Colonel.”

A slice of dull yellow light emanated from the fourth-floor tenement room as David Hudson peered inside. He paused at the doorway's edge.

He was about to confront the mysterious and dangerous Monserrat. He was about to end Green Band's long mission.

The Vietcong's Lizard Man had taught Hudson an essential lesson in Vietnam: Play games in which your opponent wasn't given the rules. This was the principle behind all successful guerrilla warfare, Hudson believed.

Colonel David Hudson versus Monserrat.

Now it would begin, and end.

“All blue-and-white units! We've picked them up again… We've got our friends Green Band!”

NYPD cruiser radios echoed brassily above the noise of whining police and hospital emergency sirens at the helicopter crash site near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“They're moving into a residential neighborhood. Bed-ford-Stuyvesant. It's right in the heart of the fucking ghetto. They're traveling on Halsey Street in Bed-Stuy. Over.”

Arch Carroll sagged heavily against the open front door of one of the half-dozen police cruisers that had arrived after the accident. Crime scene technicians were already swarming onto the fire-lit street.

He wasn't sure if he'd heard the radio report right… Green Band appeared; Green Band disappeared. Which was it now?

Carroll tried to clear his head as he listened to the minute-by-minute updates squawking over nearby police-cruiser radios.

He felt numb. He was beyond pain.

Parrish was carried on a litter into a waiting EMS ambulance. KIA, Carroll was almost certain.

“Carroll? You're Arch Carroll, aren't you? Do you want to go with me? I'm heading to Halsey Street. It's about ten minutes from here.” A police captain, a plump, white-haired man Carroll knew from a saner niche in his life, came up to him.

Carroll knew he appeared badly dazed. He felt far worse than that, but he nodded. Yes, he definitely wanted to witness the end. He had to be there. Colonel David Hudson-Monserrat-Archer Carroll-they all had to be there. Everything had led to this point.

Seconds later he was uncomfortably hunched up in a patrol car. He felt sure he was going to be sick. Hammers of fear were tripping off in his head.

The cruiser lurched into motion. The flashing cherry-red light began to revolve. The siren of the speeding car warbled above the Brooklyn rooftops.

This was the master terrorist Monserrat.

This was François Monserrat.

David Hudson could not believe that what his eyes told him was true.

Monserrat?… Or was this more incredible deception? The highest manifestation of deception? He felt the familiar electric tingling in his fingertips, his arm, his legs.

He watched the mysterious dark-suited figure come toward him. He noted the two gunmen in the shadows against the far wall.

“Colonel Hudson.” The handshake was quick, firm. “I'm François Monserrat. The real one this time.” A thin smile played at the corners of his mouth. It was the most confident and assured look that David Hudson had ever witnessed.