“This veterans group-”
“You've heard of them already?” Caitlin was surprised, alarmed.
Birnbaum smiled. “My dear, information has always been the wellspring of my success. Of course I have heard of the veterans group. I have my sources inside number Thirteen. But what I don't know yet is whether the Committee of Twelve manipulated these poor misfits or whether the veterans are actually paid operatives… I do believe I know why the dangerous mission was undertaken… I think it can be traced directly to a dangerous Soviet-run provocateur called François Monserrat. A cold-blooded mass murderer. A killing machine that has to be destroyed.”
“But what is Monserrat's connection with the Committee of Twelve? What's going to happen now? Can you tell me that?”
Anton Birnbaum smiled, but the smile was strangely tight. “I believe that I can, my dear. Are you sure you don't want some coffee or tea? I think you should have something warm against the cold.”
38
Queen's, New York City
Sunday morning, Colonel David Hudson patrolled the dimly lit corridors of the sprawling Queens VA hospital. The home of the brave, he thought bitterly.
The Queens VA extended-care section was situated at Linden Boulevard and 179th Street. It was a dismal red brick complex that purposely called no attention to itself. Eleven years before, David Hudson had been an outpatient there, one of tens of thousands who had been subjected to VA hospitals after the Vietnam War.
He felt a hollowness as he plunged deeper and deeper into the hospital complex. There were buzzing voices, but no people he could see. Ghosts, he thought. Voices of pain and madness.
He turned a corner-and he suddenly encountered a gruesome row of veterans. They were mostly pathetically emaciated wraiths, but a few were obscenely overweight. The odor in the still, dead air was overpowering: part industrial disinfectant, part urine, part human feces. A synthetic Christmas tree blinked spastically in the claustrophobic room.
Some of the patients had tiny metal radios pressed like cold packs to their heads. A black hussar in a torn pin-striped johnny was discoing around an amputee sleeping fitfully in his wheelchair. Hudson saw broken, gnarled bodies harnessed into steel-and-leather braces. “Metals of honor,” the hospital aides used to say when Hudson had been there.
He felt such rage now, such hatred for everything American, everything he'd once loved about his country.
No hospital personnel in sight. There wasn't a single corpsman, not a nurse or nurse's aide, in any of the halls.
David Hudson kept walking-faster-almost hearing a soft military drum roll in his head. He went down a bright yellow hallway, a falsely cheery one. He remembered the surroundings with vibrant clarity now. Almost uncontrollable rage swept through his body.
In the fall of 1973 he'd been admitted to the VA, ostensibly for psychiatric evaluation and tests. A smug Ivy League doctor had talked to him twice about his affliction, the unfortunate loss of his arm. The army doctor was equally interested in Hudson's POW experience. Had he killed a Vietcong camp commandant while making his escape? Yes, Hudson assured him; in fact, the escape was what had first brought him to the attention of army intelligence. They had tested him in Vietnam, then sent him back to Fort Bragg for further training… The interviews lasted no more than fifty minutes each time. Hudson had then filled out endless Veterans Administration questionnaires and numbered forms. He was assigned a VA caseworker, an obese man with a birthmark on his cheek, whom he never saw after their first half-hour interview.
At the end of the yellow hallway were glass double doors to the outside. Through the hospital doors, Hudson could see fenced-in back lawns. The fences were not intended to keep the veterans in, he knew. They'd been built to keep the people outside from seeing what was inside: the terrifying, awful disgrace of America's veterans.
David Hudson hit the glass door squarely with his right shoulder and plunged into the sharp winter cold.
Directly behind the main hospital building was a steep frost-covered lawn that ended in threadbare scrub pines. Hudson moved across it quickly. Concentrate, he instructed himself. Don't think about anything but the present. Nothing but what's happening right now.
Two men suddenly stepped out from behind a row of thickly snow-laden firs. One man had the impressive, very formal appearance of a United Nations diplomat. The other was a common-looking street thug with a tough, expressionless face.
“You might have chosen the Oak Bar at the Plaza just as easily. Certainly that would have been more convenient,” the impressive-looking man said. “Colonel Hudson, I presume?… I am François Monserrat.”
The distinguished man's English was slightly accented. He might have been French? Swiss?… Monserrat. Carlos's replacement.
David Hudson smiled, showing slightly parted teeth. Every one of his senses was coming alive now. “The next time we meet, it can be your turn to choose a location. At the clock in Grand Central Station? The observation deck of the Empire State Building? Whatever site pleases you,” he offered.
“I'll remember that. You have a proposition for me to consider, Colonel? The remainder of the securities from Green Band? A substantial amount, I take it.”
Hudson's eyes remained hooded, showing no emotion, not a hint of the seething rage inside. “Yes, I would say substantial. Over four billion dollars. That's enough to cause an unprecedented international incident. Whatever you wish.”
“And what do you want from us, dare I ask? What is your final reward out of this, Colonel?”
“Less than you might think. The deposit of one hundred fifty million in a secure, numbered account. Your assurance that the GRU won't pursue my men afterward. The end of Green Band, at least where you're concerned.”
“That's all? I can't accept that.”
“No, I suppose it isn't all. I have something else in mind… You see, I want you to destroy the pathetic American way of life. I want you to end the American century a little early. We both intensely hate the American system-at least what it's become. We both want to set it on fire, to purify the world. We've both been trained to accomplish that.”
Hudson's apocalyptic words hung in the chilly air. The European terrorist stared into Colonel Hudson's eyes. Then, François Monserrat smiled, and his smile was hideous. He understood his man perfectly now.
“You're planning to complete this transaction soon, I take it? The final exchange?”
Hudson looked at his wristwatch as if to check the time. He knew precisely what time it was. He was just going through the expected motions. “It's ten-thirty now. In six hours, gentlemen.”
Monserrat hesitated, a momentary uncharacteristic flicker of indecision. “Six hours is acceptable. We will be ready. Is that all?”
Colonel David Hudson experienced a sudden flash of insight as he stood huddled with the two men. His old charm surfaced, his old West Point charisma. “There is another matter. One more serious problem we have to discuss.”
“And what might that be, Colonel Hudson?”
“I realize that no one is supposed to know who you are. That's the primary reason I wanted you here. Why I insisted on it, if you were to get the bulk of these bonds. You see me, I see you. Except for one thing…”
“Except what?”
“Next time, I want to see the real François Monserrat. If he doesn't come in person, there will be no final exchange.”
Having said that, Colonel David Hudson turned away, walked briskly back toward the VA hospital, and disappeared inside.
His revenge, his fifteen-year odyssey, was almost complete now. The final telling moment was coming for each and every one of them.
Deceit! As it had never been seen before. Not since the Vietnam War, anyway.
They had taught him to destroy so very, very well… Whatever he wished to destroy…
Manhattan
In a fashionable and expensive part of New York City, Vice President Thomas More Elliot walked at a quickening pace along the rim of the East Riv
er, directly behind the United Nations complex.
There was the customary parade of joggers running along the concrete promenade. A spinsterish woman looked as if she were contemplating suicide. A slender young model blissfully walked her dog.
He was alone and troubled that morning. There were apparently no bodyguards for the vice president of the United States. No Secret Service men were anywhere in sight. There was no one to protect Thomas Elliot from possible harm.
The walk alone was something the vice president did infrequently, but it was something he needed to do now. It was a fundamental human need to be alone. He needed to be able to mink, to be able to see a complex and challenging plan in its entirety.
He desperately needed to piece together the real reason why he was here, alone.
He paused and stared into the sluggish wintry gray river. Smoke drifted lazily upward on the other bank. He thought about his childhood, then, as if those comforting recollections might put everything in perspective. The casual rise of smoke reminded him of those autumnal bonfires on the grounds of his family home in Connecticut. How could that small boy, whose face he saw in memory, have come all this way? All the way to this present, seminal moment in American history?
Vice President Elliot placed his gloved hands in the deep pockets of his overcoat. Green Band was almost at an end. Out there, in this vast city, the terrorist François Monserrat, the New York police, and Colonel David Hudson and his men were rushing toward their personal rendezvous with destiny. Meanwhile, other powerful forces were slotting quietly into place.
He frowned. A barge crawled over the oily surface, of the river. Dirty washing hung on a rope, and smoke rose upward from a blunt funnel. He thought he saw a shapeless figure move aboard the barge.
Colonel David Hudson was to have his moment of destiny…
As was he, the vice president of the United States.
In a very short time, when the considerable dust had cleared on the brief reign of Justin Kearney-a disillusioned man who hadn't been able to come to terms with the strict limitations of his power, a man who would resign his office in the wake of an economic crisis, who would probably be exiled to some rustic estate and live out the remainder of his days writing heavily censored memoirs-when all the dust had cleared, Thomas More Elliot, like Lyndon Baines Johnson twenty-odd years before, like Gerald Ford a little more than a decade ago, would step up to the presidency of the United States.
Everything depended on the final act of Green Band.
39
The Vets cabs appeared suddenly. They paraded single file out of an abandoned warehouse garage in downtown Manhattan. The cabs were assimilated into normal traffic flow until they branched onto Division and Catherine streets, leading toward the East River and FDR Drive.
Each of the cabs had been equipped with PRC-77 transmitter-receivers, known in Vietnam as “monsters”. The PRC units automatically scrambled and unscrambled all transmissions. There was no practical way the New York police could intercept messages traveling back and forth among the cabs.
There were six cabs, which could carry fourteen heavily armed Vets: an assault platoon with rifleman-snipers. M-60 gas-operated machine-gunners, a thumper man with an M-79 grenade launcher, and a communications operator.
The most spectacular touch in the commando raid was that the ground-attack force had air support. Two Cobra assault copters would be backing the Vets if any combat action started on the street.
David Hudson, who scouted and studied the street from the lead cab, was beginning to feel an unexpected sense of release. It was almost over. Finally, revenge. Finally, dignity.
He experienced some of his old combat sensations from Vietnam, only this time with a difference. A big, important difference.
This time they were going to be allowed to win.
A New York police detective, Ernie “Cowboy” Tubbs, who had been dragged unceremoniously out of bed to join the manhunt, saw one of the cabs go past on Division Street. Then he saw two more Vets cabs.
He turned to his partner, Detective Maury Klein, a short man in a black tent of a raincoat. Tubbs said, “Christ, that's them. That's Green Band. Bingo, Maury.”
Detective Klein, who was addicted to Rolaids and Pepto-Bismol, peered sorrowfully through the windshield. His stomach was already killing him. “Jee-sus Christ, Ernie! Half those bastards are supposed to be Special Forces.”
Tubbs shrugged and swung their late-model Dodge out from behind the line of yellow cabs. Only a single car separated them from the rearguard Vets cab. “We've spotted Green Band!” Tubbs rasped into the hand mike on his dashboard.
Maury Klein uneasily cradled an American 180 submachine gun in both arms. The assault gun looked terribly out of place inside the Dodge, a middle-class family car. The American 180 fired thirty rounds per second. It was almost never used in city fighting for that reason.
“This sucks, man. Sucks!” Marty Klein continued to complain. “Bar on a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, I tangled with one Green Beret Special Forces dude. That was enough for me, forever!” The notion of mixing it up with ex-Special Forces veterans seemed like one of the worst ideas he'd ever had in his police force life. Maury Klein was a vet, too, class of 1953, Korea.
At Henry Street there were only a few traffic lights working. There was almost no other traffic. An eerie, dockside feeling pervaded the steamy gray area of lower Manhattan.
“Looks like they're going to the FDR Drive for sure… Entrance is down here somewhere. Right around Houston.”
“North or south?” Ernie Tubbs yelled to his partner.
“I think both ways. South for sure. We'll see it here any… there! That's it.”
Just then Tubbs spotted the dilapitated ramp to the south lanes of the drive.
The Vets cabs were approaching fast from both directions. The first cabs were already rattling up the crumbling stone and metal ramps.
Tubbs flicked on his hand mike again. “Contact! All Panther units. They're getting on the FDR! They're heading south! Over.”
Suddenly the rear Vets cab veered sharply. It tried to cut Tubbs off.
“Son of a bitch!”
Tubbs swerved left with skillful, near perfect timing. The unmarked police sedan continued to shoot up the half-blocked entranceway that didn't look wide enough anymore.
“Jesus Christ, Ernie! Watch the walls!”
The Vets cab, meanwhile, had finished its tailspin. It was blocking off every police car except one, Tubbs's, which had somehow slipped by. “Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!” Detective Tubbs yelled as he fought the unmarked car's steering wheel for control.
“All units, all units! They set a roadblock on the FDR! Repeat. There's a roadblock on the FDR! Over,”
The single police sedan was now screeching into teeming traffic, filling all three narrow, twisting lanes of the FDR south. A car slammed to a jolting stop behind. Horns blared from every possible direction.
The police car was hemmed in tight by two of the cabs. The black barrels of M-16s were jammed out both windows of the cab to their left.
Ernie Tubbs couldn't breathe. He was bottled in at fifty-five miles an hour. One of the M-16s fired a round. The warning shot flared over the sedan's roof like night tracers in a battle zone.
A Vet in military khakis and black greasepaint screamed over at Tubbs. His voice was muffled under the traffic whistle, but Tubbs could hear every word.
“Get off at the next stop! Get the fuck off this road!… Everybody but the driver, hands up! I said hands up! Hands up!”
Closing on the next exit, Tubbs spun his wheel hard right toward the guardrail. The unmarked police car shot at a seventy-degree angle toward the off ramp.
It bumped hard over loose plates, sending off sparks. The patrol car went up on two wheels and threatened to turn over. After a moment during which gravity seemed an indecisive force, the car finally bounced back onto all four wheels. It shimmied down the off ramp, then stopped dead on the bordering city street.
“We lost 'em! Over.” Ernie Tubbs screamed into his radio transmitter. “We lost 'em on the FDR!”
Detective Maury Klein finally whispered, “Thank fucking God.”
Inside 13 Wall Street, Carroll heard the news that Green Band had been spotted. He raced down the steep flights, taking two and three steps at a time to the street.
Everything was happening at once. Total bedlam. Squad cars were screeching up and down Wall Street and Broad and Water.
Carroll was carting an M-16 rifle, which felt weird bouncing against his body. Flashback time-he was an infantry soldier again… But mis was downtown Manhattan, not Vietnam.
His coat flew open as he ran, revealing the Browning as well as a heavy bulletproof vest. His heart was as chaotic as the street noise.
A radio squad car he passed relayed the latest information on Green Band. “They're moving at about thirty-five miles an hour. Six vehicles. They're all regular Checker cabs. All are heavily armed. They're proceeding east.”
It's a setup for something else, Carroll suddenly knew it.
What, though? What were the Vets going to do now? What was Colonel David Hudson's plan? How was he going to escape the tightening dragnet?
A silver-and-black Bell helicopter was waiting in a Kinney parking lot. A few weeks earlier the parking lot would have been filled with the luxury cars of inveterate Wall Street workaholics. A rate sign announced $14.50 plus NYC tax for twelve hours. The police helicopter was whirring like an outsize moth. It was ready to fly.
“M-Sixteen and a Bell chopper.” Arch Carroll winced as he jumped inside the hot, cramped helicopter. “Christ, this brings back memories. Hi, I'm Carroll,” he said to the police pilot.
“Luther Parrish,” the pilot grunted. He was a heavyset black man with a leather flak jacket and clear yellow goggle glasses. “You ex-'Nam? You look like it. Feel like it.” Parrish snapped a thick wad of gum as he talked.
“Class of 1970.” Arch Carroll purposely played it a little combat cool. The truth was, he hated choppers. He hated seeing the goddam things. He didn't like the idea of being suspended in air with nothing to rely on but slender blades that furiously slashed the air.
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