Black Market by James Patterson Page A

gray slab covering the capital like the roof on a mausoleum. In the distance Carroll could see the Washington Monument.
    “I haven't seen enough of your homely face lately. Probably not since you and the kids moved back to the old homestead.”
    “We miss you, too. It was kind of odd, going back there at first. Now it's good, absolutely the right choice. The kids call it their ‘country house.’ They think they live on a Nebraska farm now. Riverdale, right?” Carroll grinned.
    “Wonderful kids. Mary Katherine's a gem, too.” Trentkamp hesitated a moment. “How are
you
doing?
You're
the one who concerns me.”
    Carroll began to feel as if he were talking to a rabbi on the police force. “Holding up pretty well. I'm all right. I'm actually doing fine.” He shrugged.
    Trentkamp shook his closely cropped silver-gray curls. His eyes held a knowing look, and Carroll felt suddenly uncomfortable. The cop part of Walter had a knack of wheedling his way inside you, so that you were left feeling transparent, like thin paper held up to a bright light.
    “I don't think so, Archer. I don't think you're doing fine at all.”
    Carroll stiffened. “No? Well, I'm sorry. I thought I was all right.”
    “You're not so fine. You're not even in the general ballpark of fine. The late night drinking bouts have become legend. Risks you're taking with your life. Other cops talk too much about you.”
    It was the wrong hour for this kind of talk, even from the man he'd grown up calling “Uncle Walter.” Carroll bristled. “That all, Rabbi? That all you wanted to see me about?”
    Walter Trentkamp abruptly stopped walking. He laid a hand on Carroll's shoulder and squeezed it lightly. “I wanted to talk to the son of an old friend of mine. I wanted to help if I could.”
    Arch Carroll turned his bleary eyes away from those of the FBI director. His face reddened. “I'm sorry. I guess it's been a long day.”
    “It has been a long day. It's been a long couple of years for you since Nora. You're close to being broken out of your unit in the DIA. They like the results, but not your working style. There's talk about replacing you. Matty Reardon's one name I've heard.”
    It was a verbal punch. Arch Carroll knew, somewhere in the back of his mind that this was coming. “Reardon'd be a good choice. He's a good company man. Good man, period.”
    “Arch, please cut the crap. You're playing games with someone who's known you thirty-five years. Nobody can replace you at the DIA.”
    Carroll frowned, and he began to cough in the manner of Crusader Rabbit. He felt like a real shit. “Aww, hell, I'm sorry, Walter. I know what you're trying to do.”
    “People understand what you've been through. I understand. Please believe that, Archer. Everybody wants to help… I
asked
for you on this one. I had to ask.”
    Carroll shrugged his broad, sloping shoulders, but he was hurt. He hadn't known his reputation had slipped so badly, maybe even in Walter Trentkamp's eyes.
    “I don't know what to say. I really don't. Not even a typical Bronx Irish wisecrack. Nothing.”
    “Talk to me on this one. Let me know what you find out. Just talk to me, okay?… Don't go it alone. Will you promise me that?” said Trentkamp.
    “Promise.” Carroll nodded slowly.
    Walter Trentkamp turned up the collar of his overcoat against the early morning mist. Both he and Carroll were over six feet tall. They looked like father and son.
    “Good,” Trentkamp finally said. “It's real good to have you. We'll need you on this nasty son of a bitch. We'll need you at your best, Archer.”

6
    Manhattan
    At six o'clock on Saturday morning, December 5, a bleak Seventh Avenue subway train, its surface covered with scars of graffiti, lackadaisically rocked and rattled north toward the Van Cortlandt Park station. The New York subways were generally a bad joke. This particular train wasn't so much public transportation as public disgrace.
    Colonel David Hudson sat in an inconspicuous