James Patterson: Black Market

© 1989

Although Black Market is written as fiction, all of what follows could happen, especially the Wall Street financial parts. I would like to thank the people who helped so much in making the background information interesting and authentic.

Sidney Ruthberg-financial editor, Fairchild Publications

James Dowd-Wall Street attorney, formerly of the United States Army

Stephen Bowen-former captain, United States Marine Corps

Katherine McMahon- New York and Paris backgrounds

Joan Ennis-Irish Tourist Board

Thomas Altman- Sedona, Arizona

Barbara Maddalena- New York, Wall Street area

Mindy Zepp- New York

M. Blackstone- Soho

Wall Street, Manhattan: December 1985

The tawdry yellow cab was double-parked at the base of Wall Street, where it intersects with South Street and the East River. Colonel David Hudson leaned his tall, athletic body against its battered trunk.

He raised one hand to his eye and loosely curled his fingers to fashion a makeshift telescope. He carefully studied 40 Wall Street, where Manufacturers Hanover Trust had offices, then 23 Wall, which housed executive suites for Morgan Guaranty. Then the New York Stock Exchange. Trinity Church. Chase Manhattan Plaza. At five in the morning the towering buildings were as impressive and striking as monuments; the feeling of history and stability was overwhelming.

Once he had it all vividly in sight, Colonel Hudson squeezed his fingers tightly together. “ Boom ,” he whispered.

The financial capital of the world completely disappeared behind his clenched fist.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Seconds before five-thirty on that same morning Sergeant Harry Stemkowsky, the man designated Vets 24, sped down the steep, icicle-slick hill that was Metropolitan Avenue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. He was in a nine-year-old wheelchair, from the Queens Veterans Administration. Right now he was pretending the chair was a Datsun 280-Z, silver metallic, with a shining T-roof.

“Aahh-eee-ahh!” He let out a banshee screech that pierced the deserted, solemnly quiet streets. His long thin face was buried in the oily collar of a khaki fatigue parka replete with peeling sergeant's stripes, and his frizzy blond ponytail blew behind him like a bike streamer. Periodically he closed his eyes, which were tearing badly in the burning cold wind. His pinched face was getting as red as the gleaming Berry Street stoplight that he was racing through with absolute abandon.

His forehead was burning, but he loved the sensation of unexpected freedom. He thought he could actually feel streams of blood surge through his wasted legs again.

Harry Stemkowsky's rattling wheelchair finally came to a halt in front of the all-night Walgreen Drug Store. Under the parka and the two bulky sweaters he wore, his heart was hammering wildly. He was so goddamn excited-his whole life was beginning all over again.

Today, Harry Stemkowsky felt he could do just about anything.

The drugstore's glass door, which he nudged open, was covered with a montage of cigarette posters. Immediately he was blessed with a draft of welcoming warm air, filled with the smells of greasy bacon and fresh-perked coffee. He smiled and rubbed his hands together in a gesture that was almost gleeful. For the first time in years, he was no longer a cripple.

And for the first time in more than a dozen hard years, Harry Stemkowsky had a purpose.

He had to smile. When he wrapped his mind around the whole deal, the full, unbelievable implications of Green Band, he just had to smile.

Right at this moment, Sergeant Harry Stemkowsky, the official messenger for Green Band, was safely at his firebase in New York City. Now it could begin.

Federal Plaza, Manhattan

Inside the fortress that was New York FBI headquarters in Federal Plaza, a tall, silver-haired man, Walter Trentkamp, repeatedly tapped the eraser of his pencil against a faded desk blotter.

Scrawled on the soiled blotter was a single phone number: 202-555-1414. It was the private number for the 'White House, a direct line to the president of the United States.

Trentkamp's telephone rang at precisely 6:00 A.M.

“All right, everybody, please start up audio surveillance now.” His voice was harsh this early in the morning. “I'll hold them as long as I possibly can. Is audio surveillance ready? Well, let's go.”

The legendary FBI Eastern Bureau chief picked up the signaling telephone. The words Green Band echoed ominously in his brain. He'd never known anything like this in his Bureau experience, which was long and varied and not without bizarre encounters.

Gathered in a grim, tight circle around the FBI head were some of the more powerfully connected men and women in New York. Not a person in the group had ever experienced anything like this emergency situation, either. In silence, they listened as Trentkamp answered the expected phone call.

“This is the Federal Bureau… Hello?”

There was no reply on the outside line. The tension inside the room could be felt by everyone. Even Trentkamp, whose calm in critical situations was well known, appeared nervous and uncertain.

“I said hello. Are you there?… Is anyone there?… Who is on this line?”

Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Walter Trentkamp's frustrated voice was being monitored electronically in a battered mahogany phone booth at the rear of the Walgreen Drug Store in Williamsburg.

Inside the booth, Sergeant Harry Stemkowsky finger combed his long, unkempt hair as he listened. His heart had gone beyond mere pounding; now it was threatening to detonate in his chest. There were new and unusual pulses beating through his body.

This was the long overdue time of truth. There would be no more war-game rehearsals for the twenty-eight members of Green Band.

“Hello? This is Trentkamp. New York FBI.” The phone receiver cradled between Stemkowsky's shoulder and jaw vibrated with each phrase.

After another interminable minute, Harry Stemkowsky firmly depressed the play button on a Sony portable recorder. He then carefully held the pocket recorder flush against the pay phone's receiver.

Stemkowsky had cued the recorder to the first word of the message-”Good.” The “good” stretched to “goood” as the recorder hitched once, then rolled forward with a soft whir.

“Good morning. This is Green Band speaking. Today is December fourth. A Friday. A history-making Friday, we believe.”

Over a squawk box the eerie, high-pitched voice brought the unprecedented message the men and women sequestered in the Manhattan FBI office had been waiting for.

Green Band was beginning .

Ryan Klauk from FBI Surveillance made a quick judgment that the prerecorded track had been tampered with to make it virtually unrecognizable and probably untraceable.

“As we promised, there are vitally important reasons for our past phone calls this week, for all the elaborate preparations we've made, and had you make to date…

“Is everyone listening? I can only assume you have company, Mr. Trentkamp. No one in corporate America seems to make a decision alone these days… Listen closely, then. Everybody, please listen…

“The Wall Street financial district, from the East River to Broadway, is scheduled to be firebombed today. A large number of randomly selected targets will be completely destroyed late this afternoon.