A throat being cleared.

Ice crackling in a glass.

Tapping of fingers.

Madness. The thought seemed to echo in the room.

The most fearsome urban terrorism had finally struck deep inside the United States, right at the heart of America 's economic power.

There were anxious, repeated glances at the glinting faces of Rolex, Cartier, and Piaget wristwatches.

What did Green Band want?

What was the outrageous ransom for Wall Street to be?

Edward Palin, the seventy-seven-year-old chief executive of one of the largest investment firms, slowly backed away from the darkly reflective picture windows. He sat down on a Harvard chair pulled up beside one of the dining tables and, in a poignant gesture, put his head between his gray pinstriped knees. He felt faint; it was too embarrassing to watch. Were they about to lose everything now?

Twenty seconds left.

“Please call. Call, you bastards,” the vice president muttered.

It seemed like thousands of emergency sirens were screaming, a peculiar high-low wail, all over New York City. It was the first time the emergency warning system had been seriously in use since 1963 and the nuclear war scares.

Finally it was five minutes past five.

The sudden, terrifying realization struck every person in the room-they weren't going to call again!

They weren't going to negotiate at all.

Without any further warning, Green Band was going to strike.

Washington, D.C.

“A fast recap for you,” said Lisa Pelham, the president's chief of staff, an efficient, well-organized woman who'd been trained at Harvard and spoke in the clipped manner of one whose mind was used to making succinct outlines from mountains of information.

“By noon, all trading was stopped on the New York and all regional exchanges in the U.S. There is no trading in London, Paris, Geneva, Bonn. The key New York businesspeople are meeting right now at the Pinnacle Club in the Mobil Building.

“All the important securities and commodities exchanges have ceased trading around the world. The unanswered question is the same everywhere. What's the nature of the demands we are secretly negotiating?” Lisa Pelham paused and stroked a strand of hair away from her oval face. “Everyone believes we're negotiating with somebody, sir.”

“And we are definitely not?” President Justin Kearney's expression was one of extreme doubt and suspicion. He had discovered the awkward fact during his term of office that one branch of government all too frequently didn't know what another was doing.

“Which we are not, Mr. President. Both the CIA and the FBI have assured us of that. Sir, Green Band has still made no demands.”

President Kearney had been rushed, under intensified Secret Service guard, to a windowless, lead-shielded room buried deep inside the White House. There, in the White House Communications Center, several of the most important political leaders in the United States were standing around the president in a manner that suggested they intended to protect him from whatever forces were presently at work in the country.

From the White House Communications Center, the president had been put into audio and visual contact with the Pinnacle Club in New York City.

The FBI chief, Walter Trentkamp, stepped forward to appear on the monitor screen. Time and his job had given him a tough, weathered policeman's look and a harassed attitude to match.

“There's been no further contact from Green Band, other than the pier firebombing, which is the demonstration they promised us, Mr. President. It's the kind of guerrilla warfare we've seen in Belfast, Beirut, Tel Aviv. Never before in the United States…

“We're all waiting, Mr. President,” Trentkamp went on. “We're clearly past their stated deadline.”

“Have any of the terrorist groups come forward and claimed responsibility?”

“They have. We're checking into them. So far none has shown any knowledge of the content of the warning phone call this morning.”

Minutes had never seemed so long.

It was now 5:09… 5:10, and slowly, slowly counting.

The director of the CIA moved before the lights and cameras in the White House emergency room. Philip Berger was a small, irascible man, highly unpopular in Washington, chiefly skilled at keeping the major American intelligence agencies competitive among themselves. “Is there any activity you can make out on Wall Street? Any people down there? Any moving vehicles? Small-plane activity?”

“Nothing, Phil. Apart from the police and the fire department vehicles on the periphery of the area, it could be a peaceful Sunday morning.”

“They're goddamn bluffing,” someone said in Washington.

“Or,” President Kearney said, “they're playing an enormous game of fucking nerves.”

No one agreed, or disagreed, with the president.

Speech had been replaced by the terrifying anxiety and uncertainty of waiting.

Just waiting.

But for what?

Manhattan

At 6:20 P.M., Colonel David Hudson was doing the only thing that still mattered-that mattered more than anything else in his life.

David Hudson was on patrol. He was back in major combat; he was leading a quality-at-every-position platoon into the field again-now the field was an American city.

Hudson was one of those men who looked vaguely familiar to people, only they couldn't say precisely why. His wheat-colored hair was cut in a short crew, which was suddenly back in vogue. He was handsome; his looks were very American. He had the kind of strong, noble face that photographed extremely well and a seemingly unconscious air of self-confidence, a consistently reassuring look that emphatically said “Yes, I can do that-whatever it is.”

There was only one thing wrong, and a lot of people didn't notice it right away-David Hudson had no left arm. He had lost it in the Vietnam War.

His Checker cab marked VETS CABS AND MESSENGERS rolled forward cautiously, reconnoitering past the bright-green pumps at the Hess gas station on Eleventh Avenue and Forty-fifth Street. This was one of those times when Hudson could see himself, as if in an eerie dream… as if he could objectively watch himself from somewhere outside the scene. He knew this uncomfortable, distorted feeling extremely well from combat duty.

He'd felt it like a second skin ever since he'd stepped off a crowded USMC transport and watched himself encounter the one-hundred-and-seven-degree heat, the gagging, decaying, sweet-shit smell of the cities of Southeast Asia. He'd known this awful sensation of detachment, of distance from himself, when he'd realized that he could actually die at any given beat of his heart…

Now he felt it again, this time in the sharp wintry wind blowing through the snowy gray streets of New York City.

Colonel David Hudson was purposely allowing the Green Band mission to wind out just one highly important notch tighter. It was all moving according to the elaborate final plan.

Every second had been rigidly accounted for. More than anything else, David Hudson appreciated the subtleties of precision, the detail and the fine-tuning involved in getting everything absolutely right.

He was back in full combat again.

This strange, strange passion was alive again in David Hudson.

He finally released the hand microphone from the PRC transmitter built into the cab's dashboard.

“Contact. Come in, Vets Five.” Colonel David Hudson spoke in the firm, charismatic tones that had characterized his commands through the late war years in Southeast Asia. It was a voice that had always elicited loyalty and obedience in the men whose lives he controlled.

“This is Vets One… Come in Vets Five. Over.”

A reply immediately crackled back through heavy static over the transmitter-receiver. “Hello, sir. How are you, sir? This is Vets Five. Over.”