Black Market by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page A

in, you little assholes,” he called.
    The bathroom door opened slowly, and Carroll cupped his hands, ready to splash them with water.
    He managed to control his impulse just in time.
    The man framed in the doorway was wearing a black London Fog raincoat, wire-rimmed eyeglasses, a white button-down shirt, and a striped rep tie. Carroll had never seen him before.
    “Excuse me, sir,” the man said.
    “How did you get up here? Who the hell are you?” Carroll asked.
    The stranger looked like a banker, maybe an account executive at a brokerage firm.
    The man spoke with Ivy League formality, pretending not to notice the little yellow duck. Nothing even close to a smile crossed his pale, thin lips. “Your sister let me come up. Sorry to barge in on you, to trouble you like this at home. I need you to get dressed and come with me, Mr. Carroll. The president wants to see you tonight.”

5
    Washington, D.C.
    As early as the hot and steamy summer of 1961, John Kennedy had confided to close advisers that the stressful work of the presidency had already aged him ten years. He said it would do the same to anyone who wanted, or needed, the job of chief executive in the most powerful free country in the world.
    As he hurried down the plush, half-darkened corridors on the second floor of the White House, Justin Kearney, the forty-first president of the United States, was realizing the same inescapable truth that Kennedy had put into words. He had recently begun to question the motives that had driven him to his present residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Indeed, he had begun to question the intrinsic value of the office itself-he had become acutely aware of the limitations of his power, and this greatly disillusioned him.
    Justin Kearney was only forty-two years of age; by one month, he was the youngest American president ever elected and the first Vietnam War veteran to reach the White House.
    At one-fifty on Saturday morning, President Kearney took what he hoped would be a calming breath and entered the National Security Council conference room. Those already gathered there rose respectfully, Archer Carroll among them.
    Carroll watched the president of the United States take his customary place at the head of the heavy oak conference table. In the course of his three previous visits to the White House, he'd never seen Kearney so nervous, so clearly uncomfortable.
    “First of all, I truly thank you for getting here on such very short notice.” The president sloughed off his wrinkled navy blue suit coat. “I think everyone knows everyone else. One, maybe two exceptions… Down there, sitting between Bill Whittier and Morton Atwater, is Caitlin Dillon. Caitlin is the chief enforcement officer for the SEC. She just might be the toughest enforcer since James Landis himself…
    “Down at the far right corner, gentleman in the tan corduroy sport coat is Arch Carroll. Mr. Carroll is the head of the DIA's Antiterrorist Division. This is the same group that was created following Munich and Lod.” The president licked his lips nervously as he gazed around the assembly.
    Commissioner Michael Kane from the New York Police Department was asked to report first.
    “Right now we have men down inside the rubble of all the buildings that were hit. We have explosive-arson squads underground. They've already reported that Thirty Wall, as well as the Fed, is badly damaged and extremely dangerous. Either building could conceivably collapse tonight.
    “Based solely on a raw visual impression of the explosions, gentlemen, the people who did this are at the highest levels of their trade. The plan was brilliantly executed. It was all carefully,
obsessively
worked out in advance.”
    Claude Williams of the U.S. Army Engineers was called to speak next.
    “There's a disturbing attention to detail in every area-that's what is particularly frightening about this. The river pier, the initial setup with the FBI, the elaborate study of Wall Street itself.