Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [110]
He felt such rage now, such hatred for everything American, everything he’d once loved about his country.
There were still no hospital personnel in sight. There wasn’t a single corpsman, not a nurse or nurse’s aide in any of the halls.
David Hudson kept walking—faster—almost hearing a soft military drum roll in his head.
He went down a bright yellow hallway, a falsely cheery one.
He remembered all of the surroundings with clarity now. Almost uncontrollable rage swept through his body.
In the fall of 1973, he’d been admitted into the VA, ostensibly for psychiatric evaluation and tests. A smug doctor had talked to him twice about his affliction, his unfortunate loss of an arm. The Army doctor was equally interested in Hudson’s POW experience. Had he killed a Viet Cong camp commandant while making his escape? Yes, Hudson assured him, in fact the escape was what had first brought him to the attention of Army Intelligence. They had tested him in Viet Nam; then they sent him back to Fort Bragg for further training.… The interviews lasted no more than fifty minutes each time. Hudson had then filled out endless Veterans Administration questionnaires and numbered forms. He was assigned a VA caseworker, an obese man with a birthmark on his cheek, whom he never saw again after their first half-hour interview.
At the end of the yellow hallway were glass double doors to the outside. Through the hospital doors, Hudson could see fenced-in back lawns.
The fences were not intended to keep the veterans in, he knew. They’d been built to keep the people outside from seeing what was inside: the terrifying, awful disgrace of America’s veterans.
David Hudson hit the glass door squarely with his right shoulder. He was instantly plunged outside into sharp winter cold, into the dark clinging dampness.
Directly behind the main hospital building was a steep frost-covered lawn which ended in threadbare scrub pines. Hudson moved across it quickly. Concentrate, he instructed himself. Don’t think about anything but the present Nothing but what’s happening right now.
Two men stepped suddenly from behind a row of thickly snow-laden firs.
Chapter 82
ONE MAN HAD the formal appearance of a United Nations diplomat. The other was a common looking street thug with a tough, expressionless face.
“You might have chosen the Oak Bar at the Plaza just as easily. Certainly that would have been more convenient,” the impressive-looking man spoke first. “Colonel Hudson, I presume?… I am Monserrat.”
The distinguished man’s English was accented. He might have been French?… Swiss?… Monserrat.
Hudson smiled without any real mirth. He showed slightly parted teeth. Every one of his senses was coming alive now.
“The next time we meet, it can be your turn to choose locations. Under the clock in the Biltmore Hotel? The observation deck of the Empire State Building? Whatever site pleases you,” he offered.
“I’ll remember that. You have a proposition for me to consider, Colonel? The remainder of the securities from Green Band? A substantial amount, I take it.”
Hudson’s eyes remained hooded, showing almost no emotion, not a hint of the seething rage inside.
“Yes, I would say substantial. Over four billion dollars. That’s enough to cause an unprecedented international incident. Whatever you wish.”
“And what do you want from us, dare I ask? What is your reward out of this, Colonel?”
“Less than you might think. The deposit of one hundred fifty million in a secure, numbered account. Your assurance that the GRU won’t pursue my men afterward. The end of Green Band, as far as you’re concerned.”
“That’s all? I can’t accept that.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t all. I have something else in mind.… You see, I want you to destroy the pathetic American way of life. I want you to end the American century a little early. We both hate the American system—at least what it’s become. We both want to set it on fire, to purify the world.