Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [111]
The terrorist stared into Colonel Hudson’s eyes. Hudson’s apocalyptic words hung in the chilled air. Finally, Monserrat smiled. He understood Hudson perfectly now.
“You’re planning to complete this transaction soon I take it? The exchange?”
Hudson looked at his wristwatch as if to check the time. He knew precisely what time it was. He was only going through the motions. “It’s ten-thirty now. In six hours, gentlemen.”
Monserrat hesitated, an uncharacteristic flicker of indecision and doubt, but only a second’s pause.
“Six hours is acceptable. We will be ready by then. Is that all?”
Hudson seemed to have a sudden insight as he stood huddled with the two men. His head cocked slowly, at an odd angle. A smile finally appeared, full of charm, his old West Point charisma.
“There is another matter. One more serious problem we have to discuss.”
“And what might that be, Colonel Hudson?”
‘1 realize that no one is supposed to know who you are. That’s the primary reason I wanted you here. Why I insisted on it, if you were to get the bulk of these bonds. You see me, and I see you…. Except for one thing…”
“Except what?”
“Next time, I want to see the real Francois Monserrat. If he doesn’t come in person, there will be no exchange.”
Having said that, David Hudson turned away. Hudson walked briskly back toward the VA hospital and disappeared inside.
His revenge, his fifteen-year odyssey was almost complete now. The final, telling moment was coming.
Deceit! As it had never been seen before. Not since the War, anyway…
They had taught him so very, very well to destroy.… Whatever he wished to destroy…
Chapter 83
IN A FASHIONABLE and expensive part of New York City, Vice-president Elliot was alone and troubled that morning. He walked at a quickening pace along the edge of the East River, directly behind the United Nations complex.
There was the customary parade of bundled-up joggers plodding along the concrete promenade. A spinsterish woman looked like she might be contemplating suicide. A slender young model walked her dog.
There were no bodyguards for the Vice-president of the United States, no crew-cut Secret Service men were anywhere in sight. There was nothing and nobody to protect Thomas Elliot from recognition and possibly from harm.
The walk alone was something the Vice-president did infrequently, but it was something he needed to do now. It was a fundamental human need: simply to be alone. Thomas Elliot needed to be able to think, to be able to see a complex and challenging plan in its entirety.
The Vice-president finally let his mind settle on the real reason why he desperately needed to be off by himself…
He paused and stared into the sluggish wintry gray river. Smoke drifted lazily upward on the other bank. He thought about his childhood then, as if those comforting recollections might put everything in perspective. The casual rise of smoke reminded him of those autumnal bonfires on the grounds of his family home in Connecticut—how could that boy, whose face he saw in memory, have come all this way? All the way to this seminal moment in American history?
Vice-president Elliot placed his gloved hands in the pockets of his overcoat. Green Band was almost at an end. Out there, someplace in this vast city, the terrorist Francois Monserrat, the New York police, Colonel David Hudson and his men were rushing toward their rendezvous with destiny. Meanwhile, other powerful forces were slotting quietly into place…
He frowned. A barge crawled over the oily surface of the river. Dirty washing hung on a rope and smoke rose upward from a blunt funnel. The Vice-president thought he saw a shapeless figure move aboard the barge.
Colonel David Hudson had his moment of destiny to come…
As did he, the Vice-president of this country.
In a very short time, when the dust had cleared on the brief reign of Justin Kearney—a disillusioned man who hadn’t been able to come to terms with the limitations of his power, a man who would resign his office in the wake of an economic crisis, who