Black Market by James Patterson

Fund
    Merrill Lynch
    U.S. Trust Corporation
    The Depository Trust Company
    The list went on to detail fourteen downtown New York buildings that had been partially or completely destroyed.
    She closed her eyes and placed her hands on the report. If only it could give her a hint, a clue. Fourteen different buildings in the Wall Street financial district-the whole thing was beyond her, out of control by any measure.
    She opened her eyes.
    It was the start of the second day of her formal investigation of Green Band, and she knew no more than she'd known before. It was going to be a long, long Sunday.
    Arch Carroll strode briskly from a comfortable State Department limousine toward the ominous gray stone entranceway to 13 Wall Street. At least Green Band had left this building mostly intact-a fact that caused him to wonder. If a terrorist cell was going to strike out hard at U.S. capitalism, why wouldn't they destroy the New York Stock Exchange?
    Carroll had on a knee-length, black leather topcoat that Nora had given him the Christmas before her death. At the time she'd joked that it made him look like a tough-guy hero in an action movie. The coat was now one of his few personal treasures; that it was a little too tight under the arms didn't matter. There was no way he'd have it altered. He wanted it exactly as it was when Nora had given it to him.
    Carroll was smoking a crumpled cigarette. Sometimes on the weekends he wore the coat and smoked crumpled cigarettes when he took Mickey Kevin and Clancy to the New York Knicks or Rangers games. It made both kids laugh hysterically. They told him he was trying to look like Clint Eastwood in the movies. He wasn't, he knew. Clint Eastwood was trying to look like him-like some nihilistic, tough-guy city cop.
    Hurrying down the long, echoing corridors, Carroll pulled his way out of the leather coat. For a few hefty strides he left it capelike over his shoulders. Then he folded it over one arm, in the hope that he'd look a little more civilized. There were lots of very straight business people in the hallowed halls of 13 Wall.
    Carroll pushed open leather-covered doors into a formal meeting room thick with perspiration and stale tobacco smoke. The room where the New York Stock Exchange professional staff usually met was the size of a large theater.
    The scheduled meeting was already in progress. He was late. He was also weary from his flight, and his nerves-kept moderately alert by an infusion of amphetamine-were beginning to complain. He glanced at his watch. There was another long day ahead of him.
    Carroll scanned the shadowy room. It was filled with New York City police and U.S. Army personnel, with corporate lawyers and investigators from the major banks and brokerage houses on Wall Street. The only seats left were' way in front.
    Carroll groaned and crouched low. He clumsily climbed over gray-and-blue pin-striped legs, and over someone's abundant lap, toward the front row. He thought everybody in the room must be staring at him.
    The speaker was saying, “Let me tell you how to make a hell of a lot of money on Wall Street. All you have to do is steal a little from the rich, steal a little from the middle rich, steal a lot from the lower rich…”
    Nervous laughter cascaded around the vast meeting room. It was a muted, mirthless outbreak that sounded more like a release of fear than anything else.
    The speaker went on: “The Wall Street security system simply
doesn't
work. As you all know, the computer setup here is one of the most antiquated in all of the business world. That's why this disaster could happen.”
    Carroll finally found a seat. He lowered himself onto it until only his head peeked above the theater's gray velvet seat back and pressed his knees against the wooden stage in front.
    “The computer system on Wall Street is a complete disgrace…”
    Carroll looked up and took in the meeting's speaker. Jesus. He was completely taken aback by the sight of Caitlin Dillon on