Black Market

Part Three. Arch Carroll
34

Friday in Washington, D.C., dawned with rain clouds rolling across a colorless horizon. A spitting wind blew wintry gusts in from Maryland. The temperature was dropping hourly. From 7:00 A.M. on, Arch Carroll waited impatiently on the front seat of a rented sedan parked in the nearby suburb of McLean.

The dark car blended in neatly with a wall of even darker fir trees overhanging Fort Myers Road.

Detective work, Carroll thought as he stared off into nothingness. First you wait. Always you wait.

Carroll passed the time eating breakfast out of a box from Dunkin' Donuts. The actual doughnuts weren't nearly as hot as the box itself. They also had no taste that he could discern. The coffee he sipped was room temperature, a little less satisfying than the doughnuts.

Carroll read some Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine, and that was quite good, at least. Several times he found himself thinking about Colonel David Hudson.

The classic all-American Boy? West Point honor student…

Then Vietnam assassin? America's Juan Carlos? America's jackal? America 's François Monserrat?

He wanted to meet David Hudson now. He wanted to encounter him one on one, face to face. Maybe inside the cramped interrogation room at number 13 Wall, Carroll's own turf. Tell me, Colonel Hudson, what do you know about the Green Band firebombing? What about the stolen Wall Street securities? Tell me why you left the army, Colonel Hudson.

He wondered how far he'd get with somebody like Colonel David Hudson, a U.S. saboteur trained to resist interrogation. It would be a battle, and one Carroll was sure he'd lose.

About seven-thirty a second-floor light blinked on inside the white colonial across the roadway. A second light followed moments later. Bedroom and bathroom, probably. Showtime at General Thompson's was about to begin.

Moments later a light went on downstairs. Kitchen? Then the porch light blinked out.

Just past eight, which Carroll thought a respectable hour, he trudged up the flagstone front walk and rang the bell, which made a chimey sound like old department-store bells.

A tall, distinguished man of about sixty appeared in the pristine white doorway. He wore plaid trousers, house slippers, a powder blue cardigan sweater. His head, shaped like a torpedo, was topped with white-gray stubble.

General Lucas Thompson, former commander in chief of the United States Evacuation Forces in Vietnam, had a craggy, commanding presence. He still appeared capable of taking on the most difficult combat duty demands. There was something hard and alert in his gray eyes, as if small electric light bulbs were burning there.

“General Thompson, I'm Arch Carroll, with the DIA. Sorry to bother you so early in the morning. I'm here about the Green Band investigation.”

General Thompson looked appropriately suspicious. “What about it, sir? I'm up, but as you say, it's still quite early in the morning.”

“I would have called last night, to say I was coming, General. It was late when I left the Pentagon. I thought that might have been a worse breach of etiquette than just coming out here this morning.”

The suspicious look faded on General Thompson's face. It was as if the mention of the word Pentagon had reassured him; a look of pleasant recognition spread across his features.

“Of course. Arch Carroll. I've read about you.”

“General Thompson, I have just a few questions. It's about your command in Southeast Asia. It shouldn't take more than, say, twenty minutes.”

“That means an hour,” Lucas Thompson said with a sniffling laugh. “Come in. I have the time. Time is plentiful these days, Mr. Carroll.” He spoke in the tone of a retired soldier about to write his memoirs: vaguely frustrated, a little bored, and lacking a sense of purpose.

General Thompson led the way through a formal dining room, into an even more imposing library chamber. There was a white-birch fireplace screened by a brass curtain with heavy brass andirons. Tall oak bookshelves stood erect on every wall; a double bay window looked out onto a backyard with a covered pool and yellow-and-lime-striped cabana.

General Thompson sat on a comfortable wing chair. “Out of sight in Washington, pretty much out of mind. Since my retirement, I've had very few official visitors down here. Other than my two granddaughters, who fortunately live up the lane and who adore their grandmother's baked goods and double fudge.”

General Thompson shook his head and smiled warmly.

Carroll had heard that in Vietnam Thompson had been an extremely rigid disciplinarian. Now, in his retirement, Lucas Thompson seemed like just another grandfather, waiting patiently for the next smiling Kodak snapshot to be taken.

“I'm searching-groping, is the word I think I want-for some useful information about a Colonel David Hudson. Hudson was on your command team in Saigon, right?”

General Lucas Thompson nodded in the manner of a practiced good listener. “Yes, Colonel Hudson served on my team for about fifteen months. If my recollection is holding up better than the rest of me.”

“Your recollection and my records match exactly,” Carroll said. “What can you tell me about Hudson?”

“Well, I'm not sure where you want me to start. It's fairly complex. David Hudson was an extremely disciplined and effective soldier. Also a very charismatic leader, once he got his command over there… When I first met him, he was ramrodding a demolition team, I believe. He'd also been trained to sanction-that is, terminate-human targets. He sanctioned trash, Carroll. War profiteers, a couple of high-level infiltrators. Traitors.”

“Why was he chosen to be a military assassin?”

“Oh, I think I have the answer for that one. He was chosen because he didn't like to kill. Because he wasn't a psycho. I think Hudson 's philosophy was that once you undertook to fight in a just war, you fought. You balls-out fought with everything you had. I happen to believe in that philosophy myself.”

During the next thirty minutes General Lucas Thompson elaborated on his association with David Hudson. It was a laudatory review overall-high marks for conduct, combat-team leadership, especially high marks for courage.

Arch Carroll kept getting the very uncomfortable feeling that he was chasing after a goddamned American war hero. Once again, it didn't make any sense.

General Thompson was now beginning to repeat himself slightly. He seemed to be slipping into a genial storytelling mode. It was a little sad. In a way, ft reminded Carroll of his own father, retiring from the New York Police Department to Sarasota. Dead of heart failure, or maybe it was boredom, within nine months.

Except that Carroll didn't believe General Lucas Thompson's act for a minute.

Carroll had checked carefully-and General Thompson had been receiving official visitors in McLean; high-ranking VIPs from the Pentagon, even regular visitors from the White House. General Lucas Thompson was still an influential adviser to the National Security Council.

“There are a couple of things that continue to bother me, General.”

“Shoot away, then.”

“Just for openers: Why can't anyone tell me where Colonel Hudson is now?… Second point: Why can't anyone explain the mysterious circumstances under which he left the army in the mid-seventies? Third point: General Thompson, why did somebody rifle through his war records at the Pentagon and the FBI before I could see them?”

“Mr. Carroll, judging from the tone of your voice, I think maybe you're getting a little out of order,” General Thompson said in a voice that remained low, perfectly in control.

“Yeah, well, I do that sometimes. Fourth point: The last thing that bothers me-really frosts me: Why was I followed from the Pentagon last night, General?… Why was I followed out here to McLean? On whose orders? What the hell is going on in Washington?”

General Lucas Thompson's shiny, clean-shaven cheeks and crinkle-cut neck blossomed a bright red. “Mr. Carroll, I think you'd better leave right now. I believe that would be best for all concerned.”

“You know, I think you're probably right. I think I'd be wasting my time here… General Thompson, I think you know a whole lot more about Colonel Hudson. That's what I think.”

General Thompson smiled, just a faint condescending twist of his upper lip. “That's the unappreciated beauty of our country, Mr. Carroll. It's free. You can think whatever you like… I'll show you to the door.”