James Patterson - Black Market

Billie answered the door seconds after the first ring. She was wearing a pink T-shirt that said WINTER across her chest. She had on tight black French jeans, no shoes or socks. She looked stunning and exotic, even now.

“David.”

Her brilliant blue eyes passed from puzzlement to undisguised pleasure as she saw who it was. She wore no makeup; she didn't need it.

She reached out and pulled Hudson toward her. She held him tightly. David Hudson ached to have his arm back-to hold her in both arms just this once.

“Was that you playing the piano?” he asked.

Billie pecked at his cheek and gave him an extra hug. “Of course it was me… You know, I think the piano is the reason I ultimately escaped from Birmingham. As I found out about Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, I was convinced there had to be more than the dreary dullness I was used to. Come inside. I'm so happy to see you. It's so good to see you.” She kissed him again.

David Hudson smiled more willingly than he had in a long time. “I'm happy to see you, too. I feel like I'm home at last,” he said.

Once inside, they talked. They held each other. They stared into each other's eyes for a long time. Hudson told Billie about his past, talking with the speed of a man who had observed vows of silence for too many years. It all came tumbling out-West Point, the horrors of Vietnam, his early, abortive career in the army.

He told her everything, except about the past year, which he was tempted to tell her as well. How his, brilliant revenge had become his sweet victory. A material reward-millions of dollars for himself and the other Vets. He wished he could share it with her, share everything right now.

Under the tent of a brightly striped wool blanket, with the windows thrown half-open, they made love once, and then again. Hudson was still learning to feel, and the vigorous lovemaking helped enormously. She brought him closer and closer to climax… right to the delicious edges. But he couldn't make it over.

Finally, the most debilitating wave of exhaustion swept over David Hudson. He felt shaky. He was sliding headlong toward a tranquil dream state. The warning alarms still hadn't completely stopped, but now they almost seemed a natural part of him.

One moment, he was softly stroking Billie's thick blond hair, touching the elegant oval of her face. The next, he was falling into sleep. His eyes closed gently.

Billie lay awake in the large brass bed, watching the ember glow on a filtered American cigarette. She sighed quietly.

Sometimes she surprised even herself with her ability to effortlessly create a lie, in perfect context, consistent with a whole world of other lies… Deception.

Her being able to play Chopin, and fitting that so naturally into the Birmingham, England, framework was an inspiration. But then again, wasn't that precisely why she was here with the great Colonel David Hudson?

She rose silently from the double bed, tossing off rumpled designer sheets. She was certain it would take a miracle to wake Colonel Hudson, even with a cannon.

She returned to the bedroom with a Beretta. A blunt-nosed silencer was attached to it.

She knew better than to hesitate for even a fraction of a second. She swung her arms up stiffly. She moved to fire the revolver into his lightly pulsing temple, just below the blond hairline. She hesitated a moment too long.

The sleeping body jumped forward. Colonel David Hudson's eyes blinked open, and he fired through the covers. He fired again and again and again.

Warning signals were shrieking in his head. Terrible pain screamed out at David Hudson.

Deception-forever-deception.

Everywhere. Even here .

The Committee of Twelve, the American Wise Men, did not want David Hudson to live. They had easily recruited him after the disappointments of Vietnam, the disappointment in knowing his early promise in the army could never be realized. He'd been their agent provocateur for crises around the world. They had been so intelligent, every bit as smart and precise as he was. They'd sent the girl, of course, his escort. They'd known about Vintage, about his habits. They'd used him so well.

Finally, Colonel David Hudson understood.

Brooklyn

Carroll slowly opened his eyes and sat up painfully. All around him were crashing sounds, police and U.S. Army personnel, blinding bright lights, flashing, running shapes. Faces peered down at him. Who were these people?

“What happened?” Carroll finally asked. “How long have… What happened to the body? A body was over there!”

A uniformed New York cop knelt down beside him. Carroll had never seen the man before. “What other body are you talking about?”

“There was a body there, over near the Cobra. Walter Trentkamp of the FBI was killed right over there.”

The policeman shook his head. “I was one of the first up here on the roof. There wasn't any other body. You know, you've got a small watermelon growing up on top of your head. You sure you're all right?”

Carroll stood up clumsily. Everything was spinning. “Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Tiptop shape.”

Arch Carroll, grasping the bricks in the wall for support, started down the winding metal stairs.

Somebody had taken Walter Trentkamp's body away.

“Hey, buddy, you ought to get yourself treated! Have somebody look at your head. There wasn't any body up here.”

Carroll hardly heard the policeman's words. He wanted to go home. He needed to go home, right away. He thought about his kids and about Caitlin.

He thought about Caitlin's meeting with Anton Birnbaum and wondered what might have transpired there. He was worried about the people he loved… There wasn't any body on the roof… Sure thing-this was all a dream, a horrible nightmare.

He didn't know how he managed the first wild minutes of the drive to Riverdale. Maybe it was practice-all those half-drunken nights of his recent past. Maybe God did look after babies and drunks. But there was a time coming when God might make him abdicate his responsibilities, his watchfulness…

What then?

The familiar lights of the old house in Riverdale were glittering brightly. As he drove up his street, Carroll remembered a time when his father and mother would have been there, a time when everything had seemed so much saner in America… when Trentkamp was Uncle Walter, for God's sake.

Walter Trentkamp had been his father's friend for all those incredible years. Had his father ever begun to guess anything? Had his father ever sensed the horrifying betrayal coming from Trentkamp? We had all been so naive about foreign governments back then. About our own government, as it was turning out. Americans thought of democracy as the world's one superior political system. We felt that we understood the parameters of our government's power. We understood nothing , Carroll now saw.

Trentkamp and the KGB had been so brilliant at fooling everyone. Walter Trentkamp had been so confident. He'd never hesitated to use Carroll. What better conduit for information? Walter's hubris was startling, but his modus operandi was consistent. As Carroll thought back now, he remembered that Walter had spent time in Europe after World War II. He recalled “fact-finding” trips to South America, to Mexico, to Southeast Asia, while Carroll had been serving there himself. It was no wonder they had never been able to identify Monserrat. They hadn't been looking in the right places .

No one had thought to look in New York or Washington. Why would anyone suspect the living legend? Walter Trentkamp had no respect for American intelligence, and he had been absolutely right. His ruse, the classic misdirection, had been perfect-the lifework of a master spy, a Donald Maclean or a Kim Philby.