Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [54]
“Unfortunately, so many Wall Street computers and brokerage house records were destroyed, we have no way to determine the true Stock Market picture. We don’t know if securities were taken, or if there’s been a computer scam.”
The Vice-president, Thomas More Elliot, broke in on Carroll. Of all the people seated in the room, the stern New Englander seemed the sharpest, the most in control of himself. That morning the Vice-president looked more like the group’s leader than the President.
“You’re saying we still have no idea who it is we’re dealing with?”
Carroll frowned and shook his head. “There haven’t been any further demands. No bargaining. No contact whatsoever. They seem to have invented a completely new and terrifying game. It’s a game where we don’t even get to know what game we’re playing! They move—then we have to try to react.”
“Comments?” Elliot asked, his tone clearly acerbic.
The blank faces staring at Carroll certainly weren’t encouraging or supportive. The heads of the enforcement agencies were especially cool and distant. The Cabinet members were mostly business-management types who didn’t understand the problems of police work in the field. They were indifferent to the trials and demands of a start-from-scratch street investigation.
The Senate majority leader finally spoke. Marshall Turner’s familiar voice was Southern and boomed like an echo in a West Virginia cavern. “Mr. President, I’m afraid this simply will not do. All of what I’m hearing is unsatisfactory. Late last week, we came that close to a full economic collapse in this country.”
“That’s what we’re told, Marshall.”
“Now you tell us we’re still in serious danger, maybe even worse danger. A second Black Friday is being discussed. I feel it’s our responsibility to make certain we have our best investigative apparatus in place. Now, as I understand it, the Federal Bureau and the CIA are both being underutilized in the current manhunt for terrorists.”
The tone in the Senator’s voice was offensive to Carroll. He stared at the political leader, who had the kind of swollen pink face you might encounter in the sawdust-filled back room of a country store.
Phil Berger, the Director of the CIA, stepped into the silence. He was a small, lean man whose head, starkly bald and shining under the lights in the room, came to a domed point. He reminded Carroll of a hard-boiled egg sitting in an eggcup.
Berger spoke, “The FBI and the CIA are working twenty-four-hour shifts. There’s no question of underutilization.”
“All right. Let’s not fight among ourselves.” The President abruptly rose at the conference table.
Justin Kearney looked at Carroll and said, “I made a hard decision late yesterday. I would have called you, but you weren’t in New York.”
“I was in Paris getting shot at.”
The President ignored Carroll’s remark. “Effective immediately, I’m ordering the following changes. I want you to continue to run the part of the operation that deals directly with known terrorist groups. But I want Phil Berger to supervise the overall investigation of Green Band, including the investigation of terrorists inside the U.S. You’re also to give the CIA a complete record of your personal contacts, all your files.”
Carroll stared incredulously at Kearney. He was almost certain it wasn’t legal for him to give his record files to the CIA. He also had the feeling he’d just been floated down the Potomac on a leaky raft. Thanks for all your past help, but your team’s working methods leave something to be desired.
He turned away from the President who seemed to have reached this decision single-handedly. That troubled and perplexed Carroll. But there was something else, one thing that disturbed him even more.
It was the boardroom coldness, the sterile, Big Business atmosphere that was growing up everywhere in the government. It was all this super-secrecy, the super-deceit—usually under misleading cover of “security,” and “need to know.”
They made the command decision, and