Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [98]
“Yes, I knew David Hudson fairly well. I should amend that, to be as accurate as possible. I spent some time with David Hudson. Not at or because of the Special Forces school. This was after the war. I bumped into ‘him a few times. At different veterans’ affairs, mostly. We were both active. We had a couple of beers together, a couple of times.”
‘Tell me about it Colonel Williamson. What was Hudson like? What was he like to have a beer with?”
Carroll controlled his eagerness to ask more probing questions. His mind was still clouded from the long morning at the FBI, but he knew better than to pressure a Special Forces Colonel.
“David Hudson was stiff at first. Though he tried like the devil not to be. Then he was just fine. He knew a lot about a lot of things. He was a thoughtful man, extremely bright.”
“Colonel Hudson’s Army career seemed to disintegrate after Viet Nam. Do you have any guess why?”
Duriel Williamson shrugged his shoulders. He appeared mildly puzzled over the question. “That’s something that’s always troubled me. All I can say is that David Hudson was a very outspoken man.”
“Meaning, Colonel?” Carroll continued to probe carefully.
“Meaning he was capable of making important enemies inside the Army…. He was also extremely disappointed. Bitter, I guess is the better word.”
Bitter, Carroll thought Exactly how bitter? Carroll studied the Army colonel in silence.
“The treatment our men got after Viet Nam made David Hudson a very angry person. I think it disillusioned him more man most of us. He considered it a national disgrace. He blamed President Nixon at first. He wrote personal letters to the President also to the Chief of Staff.”
“Just letters? Was that the extent of his protests for the veterans?” I need somebody, Carroll thought, with the kind of bitterness that would go well beyond letters. Hell, anybody could sit down and write a crank letter—
“Actually, no. He was involved in several of the more vocal protests.”
“Colonel, any answers you can elaborate on would be helpful. I’ve got all night to listen.”
“He called attention to Washington’s long string of broken promises to our veterans. All the betrayals. ‘The disposable GT was a phrase he liked to use…. Let me tell you, Mr. Carroll, that kind of high-profile activity can earn you a fast assignment to Timbuktu or to some Podunk reserve unit someplace. That would put him in the Pentagon computers too. Hudson was very active with radical veterans.”
“What about his training at the Special Forces school? At Fort Bragg?” Carroll then asked. “Colonel, these answers of yours, as I said, please try to be thorough.”
“Some of this was quite a while ago. It didn’t seem so important at the time. I’ll try.”
For almost an hour, Colonel Williamson was painstakingly thorough. He elaborately described a brilliant young Army officer, with seemingly boundless energy, with small-town American enthusiasm and talent—a model soldier. Many of the epithets Carroll had read earlier in the 211 files, he heard again from Colonel Williamson.
“What I remember most, though,” Williamson said, “what stands out to this day about Hudson is the time at Fort Bragg. We were instructed to push and drive him. Push him to his physical and emotional limits. We redlined David Hudson at Bragg.”
“More than other officers who were assigned to the Bragg program?”
“Oh, absolutely. Without any doubt we pushed him more. No punches were pulled. His POW experience was used to pump up his hatred for ‘our enemies.’ Hudson was programmed to seek revenge, to hate.”
“Who instructed you to do that, Colonel? Who told you to push Captain Hudson? Somebody obviously must have singled him out for special attention.”
Colonel Williamson paused in his answers. His dark eyes didn’t leave Carroll’s eyes, but there was a perceptible change in his broad, severe face. Carroll couldn’t quite read the change at first.
“I suppose you’re right. At this point, uh, after all these years…. I’m not sure I can