Black Friday

On the morning of December 4, Colonel David Hudson, a decorated one-armed Vietnam War veteran, surveys the Wall Street financial district from a taxi marked Vets Cabs and Messengers, clenches his fist, and whispers "Boom." Hudson commands a secret paramilitary group of veterans, all highly trained specialists unable to reintegrate into civilian life after Vietnam. Their mission, code-named Green Band, is about to begin.

Green Band's designated messenger, Sergeant Harry Stemkowsky, a veteran who uses a wheelchair, calls FBI headquarters from a Brooklyn drugstore and plays a prerecorded warning for FBI Eastern Bureau Chief Walter Trentkamp: The financial district will be firebombed at 5:05 P.M., and evacuation is demanded using the Target Area Nuclear Survival Plan. No formal demands are made, and no reason is given. Meanwhile, a fellow veteran disguised as a messenger ties a green band, the group's signature, to the Stock Exchange's back entrance.

At 9:20 A.M., an explosion destroys Pier 33–34 on the Hudson River, demonstrating Green Band's capability. The Stock Exchange closes. Government officials including Vice-president Thomas More Elliot gather in emergency session. The 5:05 deadline passes without further contact. At 6:20 P.M., Hudson gives the order: "Blow it all up." Approximately 60 plastique bombs, a type of moldable explosive, detonate across 14 downtown buildings.

That evening, Arch Carroll, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) antiterrorist division, is conducting an unrelated undercover operation on Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue. Carroll, a 35-year-old widower and father of four, has been staking out Iraqi terrorists when he spots Hussein Moussa, a notorious killer who works for the elusive terrorist François Monserrat. A gunfight erupts in which Carroll kills Moussa. Carroll hears the Wall Street news driving home to the Bronx, where he lives with his children and his sister Mary Katherine, their caretaker since Carroll's wife Nora died of cancer in 1982. A government official summons him to the White House.

At an emergency National Security Council meeting, President Justin Kearney introduces Carroll alongside Caitlin Dillon, Chief Enforcement Officer of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Carroll suggests the likeliest suspects are either the Soviets through the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence agency, possibly involving Monserrat, or a freelance group financed from the Middle East. Kearney reveals intelligence indicating oil-producing nations have been planning a run on the Stock Market and fears the Western economy could collapse.

Hudson moves to protect Green Band's secrecy, killing Laurence Hadford, a Wall Street insider who provided information for the operation and then demanded more money. Carroll's early investigation proves frustrating. A tip sends him to Florida, but the lead is a setup designed to divert him, revealing that Green Band can manipulate the investigation. Carroll's team interrogates Isabella Marqueza, a Brazilian journalist connected to Monserrat, who reveals that Monserrat himself is searching for Green Band. Hours later, Monserrat kills Marqueza, having learned almost immediately that she talked.

Caitlin consults Anton Birnbaum, an 83-year-old legendary financier and her former mentor, who warns that a crash is imminent. She and Carroll interrogate Freddie Hotchkiss, a Wall Street partner connected to Michel Chevron, Europe's largest stolen securities dealer. Carroll flies to Paris to question Chevron, but armed men assassinate Chevron and wound Carroll. President Kearney removes Carroll from the investigation and assigns Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Philip Berger to supervise. Carroll resigns in protest, but Trentkamp persuades him to return.

Hudson deploys his veterans worldwide, outfitted with counterfeit passports and business attire, to sell "samples" of stolen securities across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. At the Soviet hunting lodge at Zavidavo, GRU leaders learn Green Band is offering over 2 billion dollars in securities for 120 million in gold. A CIA operative inside the lodge transmits word to CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, about a planned exchange at London's Ritz Hotel.

Carroll and Caitlin stake out the hotel, but the exchange never materializes. Instead, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) claims to possess over a billion in securities and demands a meeting in Belfast. Caitlin is sent alone as the exchange messenger. IRA men abduct her, but when they discover a tracking transmitter she swallowed, they prepare to kill her. A Belfast policeman saves her life at the cost of his own. Patrick Frazier, an inspector with MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service, is killed in a simultaneous IRA ambush. Carroll reaches Caitlin, who is alive but shaken.

Carroll and Caitlin become lovers, though Carroll still mourns his wife and his children react with rejection when he mentions Caitlin. Meanwhile, stock exchanges collapse worldwide, with a single day's losses exceeding 200 billion dollars. Birnbaum devises a recovery plan, convincing major investors to buy enormous quantities of stock, and markets eventually stabilize.

FBI researcher Samantha Hawes helps Carroll identify five tampered files of Vietnam veterans with explosives expertise, including Hudson's, and reveals that Vice-president Elliot requested these same files the day after the bombings. Colonel Duriel Williamson, Hudson's former superior at the Army's Special Forces center at Fort Bragg, reveals that Hudson was trained to be America's version of Carlos the Jackal, the infamous terrorist. In New York, Caitlin discovers that Hudson works for Vets Cabs and Messengers.

Monserrat's men capture Stemkowsky and torture him while threatening his wife Mary; both are killed. A police breakthrough reveals the bombs were delivered through messenger drop-off stations, pointing to the Vets Cabs operation, but when police raid the Jane Street garage, it is empty. Only a green ribbon hangs on the wall.

Hudson leads his remaining veterans on a final operation, obtaining weapons and Cobra assault helicopters from Fort Monmouth in New Jersey using forged credentials. He arranges to meet Monserrat for a face-to-face exchange in a Brooklyn tenement. Carroll pursues in a police helicopter, which the Vets' Cobras shoot down. Carroll survives the crash and reaches the rooftop where the exchange has concluded.

There, Carroll discovers the truth: The man Hudson confronts as François Monserrat is Walter Trentkamp, Carroll's mentor and his father's old friend. Trentkamp reveals he was always a Russian agent, born to Soviet parents planted in America, and that others like him remain embedded throughout the country. Hudson kills Trentkamp. Vets soldiers strike Carroll unconscious. When he wakes, the body is gone and police deny it was ever there.

Birnbaum tells Caitlin about the Committee of Twelve, a secret cabal descended from the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which created Green Band to counter the Red Tuesday plan, a coordinated economic attack by oil-producing nations. Before they can go public, Birnbaum is killed in a staged hit-and-run. When agents seize Carroll and his family on a Manhattan street, a police patrol car intervenes. Carroll is brought to a station where he tells his story to the media.

At a Virginia estate, the Committee celebrates. A retired Admiral confirms Green Band's success and announces Elliot will become president after Kearney's resignation. But Elliot reports that Carroll is in custody, talking to the press. Asked what Carroll knows, Elliot replies: "Everything."

In an epilogue set in March, Hudson sends a false bomb threat to the White House. Instead of striking it, he firebombs the homes of all 12 Committee members. He drives west, hoping his scattered veterans will find peace. The novel closes on a note of ambiguous justice: The Committee has been struck, Carroll has gone public, and Hudson has vanished.