Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [3]
There was no answer over the outside line.
The tension inside the room was as sharp as the cutting edge of a surgical blade. Even Trentkamp, whose calm in critical police situations was well known, appeared nervous and uncertain.
“I said hello. Is anyone there on the line? Is anyone out there?… Who is on this line?”
Walter Trentkamp’s tentative, frustrated voice was being electronically monitored in a battered mahogany phone booth at the rear of the Walgreen’s Drugstore in Green-point, Brooklyn.
Inside the booth, Sergeant Harry Stemkowsky finger-combed his hair as he listened.
His heart had gone beyond there pounding; now it was threatening to detonate inside his chest. There were new and unusual pulses beating all through his body, opening and closing with the sharpness of mechanical claws.
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 plain black phone receiver cradled between Stemkowsky’s shoulder and his jaw seemed to tremble and vibrate on each phrase.
After another interminable minute, Harry Stemkowsky firmly depressed the play button on a Sony 114 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 inside 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 purposely speeded-up and echoed, to sound even more eerie than the circumstance made it; to be virtually unrecognizable, 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.
“I will repeat. Selected targets in the Wall Street financial district will be destroyed today. Our decision is irrevocable. Our decision is nonnegotiable.
“The firebombing of Wall Street will take place at five minutes past five tonight. It might be an attack by air, it might be a ground attack. Whichever—it will occur at five minutes past five precisely.”
“Wait a minute. You can’t—” Walter Trentkamp vehemently began to object, then he stopped just as suddenly. He remembered he was attempting to talk back to a recorded message.
“All of Manhattan, everything below Fourteenth Street, must be evacuated,” the voice track continued methodically.
“The Target Area Nuclear Survival Plan for New York should be activated right now. Are you listening Mayor Ostrow? Susan Hamilton from the Office of Civil Preparedness?
“The Nuclear Target Plan can save thousands of lives. Please employ it now…
“In case any of you require further concrete convincing, this will be provided as well. Such requests have been anticipated.
“Our seriousness, our utter commitment to this mission, must not be underestimated. Not at any time during this or any future talk we might decide to have.
“Begin the evacuation of the Wall Street financial district now. Green Band cannot possibly be stopped or deterred. Nothing I’ve said is negotiable. Our decision is irrevocable.”
Harry Stemkowsky abruptly pushed down the stop button. He quickly replaced the telephone receiver. He then rewound the Sony recorder,