Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [117]
Colonel David Hudson versus Monserrat.
Now it began.
Chapter 88
“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 Bedford-Stuyvesant. It’s right in the heart of the fucking ghetto. They’re traveling on Halsey Street in Bed-Stuy, now. Over.”
Carroll sagged heavily against the open front door of one of the half-dozen police cruisers that had arrived after the helicopter 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?
Carroll tried to clear the gauze from his head as he listened to the minute by minute updates squawking over nearby police cruiser radios.
He couldn’t feel any recognizable emotion. His regular system of response to stimuli had come to a halt. He was beyond pain as he’d known it before.
The police helicopter pilot had been 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 alongside him.
Carroll knew he appeared dazed and confused. In fact, he felt far worse than that, but he nodded. Yes, he definitely wanted to witness the end. He had to be there. Colonel Hudson—Monserrat—Carroll—they all had to be there, didn’t they? Why was that? Why had everything led to this point—like veins of glass back toward the impact point in a shatter?
A moment or so later, he was hunched forward in a police patrol car, feeling like he might be sick. Hammers of fear were tripping off inside his head.
The police cruiser lurched into motion. The flashing light began to revolve, cherry red. The siren of the speeding car warbled above the rooftops of Brooklyn.
Chapter 89
THIS WAS THE MASTER, Monserrat.
Hudson could not believe what his eyes told him was true.
Monserrat? … Or was this more misdirection? Another trick? The highest manifestation of deception?
Smoke sifted through his mind, obscuring his vision, scrambling his understanding. And there was renewed tension: an electric tingling in his fingertips, his arm, his legs.
He watched the dark-suited figure come forward toward him. He noted the gunmen who waited in shadows against the far wall.
“Colonel Hudson.” The handshake was quick, firm. “I’m Francois Monserrat. The real one this time.” A smile played at the corners of the terrorist’s mouth. It was the most confident and assured look David Hudson had ever witnessed.
Monserrat’s smile dimmed. “Let’s get to business. I believe we can complete our transaction quickly. Look at what he’s brought, Marcel. Rapidement!”
Another person in a suit stepped inside the room at Monserrat’s command. The man was perhaps sixty, and had the pallid complexion, the weak eyesight of someone who spends much of life looking through the lenses of microscopes and magnifying glasses. He bent low to examine the securities Hudson had brought with him.
Hudson watched closely as he rubbed the individual trading bonds carefully, lightly testing their texture between his thumb and forefinger.
He smelled selected bonds, testing for fresh ink, for any unusually pungent odors, anything that would suggest too recent printing. He worked extremely fast.
Each minute nevertheless passed with excruciating slowness.
“For the most part, the bonds are authentic,” he finally looked up and spoke to Monserrat.
“Any problems at all?”
“I have a slight question about the Morgan Guaranty, perhaps about the smaller Lehman Brothers lot. I think there are possibly