Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [126]
“I love you.” She locked her eyes into Carroll’s gaze.
“I love you, Caitlin. I was afraid today. I thought … that I might never see you again.”
They made love in the hotel room, and it was all passion, definitely not Lima, Ohio. When they did it a second time, Caitlin and Carroll held hands—almost as if they might never do this beautiful thing again.
“I hated it when you were out there after them,” Caitlin finally whispered as she lay beside Carroll. Her breath was like feathers on his cheekbone. “I’ve never felt so alone and afraid. I don’t want to feel that way again.”
Carroll brushed strands of hair away from her face. She was so precious to him. “I told Walter Trentkamp that I planned to quit once Green Band was over. I haven’t changed my mind.”
Caitlin stared into his eyes. “There’s a catch, though.”
“Yes, there’s one catch. Green Band isn’t over.”
There was so much evidence to be considered and studied. There were classified files from the FBI and Pentagon; there were taped statements from Birnbaum’s contacts in Washington and Europe …
… They just had to get to the right people with what they knew, with the truth.
Who were the right people, though? Whom could they trust now?
The New York Tunes?
The Washington Post?
“Sixty Minutes”?
The New York police?
The CIA?
The Committee of Twelve seemed to be everywhere. Were they connected with the police, the CIA? Did they control the newspapers and TV?
Whom could they go to with the truth?
During the first hours in the hotel, Carroll and Caitlin read every newspaper report. Twice that afternoon, Carroll took cabs to the large out-of-town newspaper stand in Times Square. He and Caitlin read and reread everything written about-Green Band.
They searched for a faint shadow of what they knew to be the truth.
There was none that they could find. Nothing had been reported about secret intragovernment groups. Nothing had been reported about the whereabouts of Walter Trentkamp. Had the body been spirited away by the Twelve?… Nothing was said about Colonel David Hudson’s Special Forces training at Fort Bragg. In the news, Colonel Hudson was described as a “Jackal-like provocateur,” the renegade mastermind of Green Band. Hudson was depicted as an obsessed man looking for justice, some personal meaning, years after ‘Viet Nam…
It all sounded plausible and right, if you didn’t know any better.
Chapter 99
THE MORNING OF December 21, Caitlin and Carroll had visitors at the hotel.
The visitors were Anton Birnbaum and Samantha Hawes, the FBI researcher who had helped Carroll in Washington. They met in another room on the same floor as the Carroll suite.
The best and the worst part of the Green Band investigation had begun. The tension and pressure were even more relentless than before. Carroll’s stomach had been doing an uncomfortable dance of panic for the past twenty-four hours.
A working picture of Green Band was emerging. If not a complete portrait, it was at least an outline, a foreshadowing of the truth. The story was different from anything reported in the newspapers or on TV.
“The Twelve, the American Wise Men, are descended from our own OSS, America’s intelligence team during World War Two,” Birnbaum said in a voice that seemed to grow weaker each day. “The route is serpentine, but it can be followed…. The existence of the Twelve goes back to the elder Dulles, his reluctance to surrender his wartime intelligence machine over to the politicians in 1940s Washington. When the OSS was transformed into the CIA, the Twelve began to meet outside official circles. They were still the most powerful men in Washington. At first they gave counsel, then they took things into their own able hands…. The original OSS was the best American intelligence unit ever.
“The Twelve still smugly believe they are the elite. They’re convinced they are doing the country a grand service, guiding us through the Cuban Missile threat, the time of the assassinations, Watergate, now Green Band. Every