The Zero Hour (11 page)

He had reserved suite 510 at the Raphaël, on Avenue Kléber in the 16th Arrondissement, a luxurious and discreet place. He had never stayed here before (he would never be so careless) but had heard of it from acquaintances. The suite was immense by Parisian standards, with a large sitting room, and cost a fortune, but he was spending Dyson’s money, after all, not his own. And it was important to cultivate the right sort of appearances.

He had money enough to last for a while, U.S. dollars, Swiss and French francs. The first payment from Dyson had already been transferred from a bank in Panama.

He needed clothes. All he had were the suit and shoes he’d bought off the rack at Lanvin, on Geneva’s Rue du Rhône. He would have to pick up a selection of shirts from Sulka, a few pairs of shoes from John Lobb, and a couple of conservative businessman’s suits at Cifonelli or Marcel Lassance.

All of this would have to be done in a matter of hours, for there was even more important business to conduct.

*   *   *

An hour later he was sitting in the spare, inelegant showroom of a microwave-communications firm on the sixth floor of a building on Boulevard de Strasbourg, in the 10th Arrondissement. The company did business with corporations, news organizations, and anyone who required the use of a satellite-linked telephone.

The company’s director, M. Gilbert Trémaud, treated Baumann with the utmost deference: the British gentleman traveled widely in the Third World and needed an Inmarsat-M- and Comsat-compatible phone.

“The most compact model I have,” Mr. Trémaud explained in fluent English, “is an MLink-5000, about one-fifth the size of most other portable satellite telephones. With battery, it weighs thirteen kilos. Eighteen inches long, fourteen inches wide, and five inches thick. It’s extremely portable, highly reliable, and glitch-free.” He brought it out of a locked display case. It looked like an aluminum briefcase.

Baumann popped the clasp. It opened like a book. “The antenna—?”

“A flat-plate array antenna,” Trémaud said. “The days of the parabolic antenna are over, thankfully. Beam-width is much broader, which means aiming accuracy is much less crucial.”

“I don’t see it,” Baumann said.

Trémaud touched the lid. “This
is
the antenna,” he said, and watched his visitor smile.

“Very convenient,” Baumann said.

“Yes, it is,” Trémaud agreed. “You can use it in an apartment or hotel room quite easily. Just sit it on the windowsill, flip the top open, and it’s deployed. The signal-strength meter helps you adjust the angle. The unit will compute the azimuth for you. Do you know where you’ll be using it?”

Baumann thought for a moment. “Why do you ask?”

“There are four satellites in use now. Depending upon where you are, you will transmit via any of the four. If you’re in Moscow, for example, make sure your hotel room faces west. But if you’re, say, in—”

“How quickly can I get it?”

“You can buy it today, if you wish. I have three in stock. But you cannot take it with you yet.”

“Why not?”

“These units are very strictly controlled. First, you must apply for an identification number, which will serve as your telephone number. The application takes three days at least to go through—”

“That’s impossible,” Baumann said. “I’m leaving tonight.”

“Tonight?”
Trémaud exclaimed. “But there’s simply no way!”

“I’ll buy it without an identification number.”

Trémaud shrugged, spread his palms, and widened his eyes. “If I could do that, sir, I would do so gladly. But I must enter an identification number in the computer next to the serial number of each unit I sell. Otherwise the computer will not release it from inventory.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Baumann said quietly. He took an envelope from his breast pocket and began counting out thousand-franc notes. “I am in a difficult position, because I need to have this immediately. I am prepared to pay you”—he continued to count out the bills—“lavishly … for your attention to this matter. There are ways to circumvent foolish restrictions such as this, are there not?”

Trémaud watched as Baumann counted out the rest of the cash. Then he pulled the pile toward himself and counted them again. Finally he looked up at Baumann and swallowed hard. His throat was dry.

“Yes, sir,” he said with a slight nod of his head. “There are ways.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Alexander Pappas had been retired from the FBI almost a year, but he was one of the least retired retired people Sarah knew. He had been her boss when she first moved to the Boston office, before Lockerbie, and had become a good friend, then mentor. There was sort of a father-daughter thing between them, yes, but Alex Pappas felt strongly about women getting ahead in the Bureau. He seemed to have made up his mind that of all the women in the Boston office, Sarah Cahill was the one who most deserved his support. The two had become close when Sarah’s marriage was breaking up and she needed someone to talk to; Pappas became an adviser, father confessor, sounding board. Sarah sometimes felt he’d saved her sanity.

There was another kind of bond as well: both had worked major terrorism cases. In March 1977, when Pappas was assigned to the Counterterrorism Section in the Washington metropolitan field office, a religious sect calling themselves the Hanafi Muslims seized three buildings in Washington. They took 139 hostages and threatened to kill them if their demands weren’t met, chiefly vengeance against a rival sect. The FBI and the local police surrounded the buildings but had little success until Pappas managed to convince the Hanafis to surrender without violence. Which was fortunate, because as Pappas later explained it to Sarah, the Justice Department had made it clear to the FBI that force was not to be used under any circumstances.

And then, at the end of his career, he was called to New York to help investigate the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993, when an explosion in the parking garage beneath one of the twin towers killed six and injured a thousand. Although he repeatedly downplayed his role in the effort whenever discussing the Trade Center matter, and rarely talked about it, Sarah knew that Pappas was far more central than he let on.

He was content to let others grab the credit. “Look,” he once explained to Sarah, “for the younger guys this was a CTM—a Career-Threatening Moment. Make or break. What the hell did I need the credit for? I was an old man about to get out of there.” Then he added, with a wicked cackle: “Now, if this had been twenty years earlier, you’d have read my goddam name all over
Newsday
and the
Times
, believe me.”

Pappas was a widower who lived in a small, comfortable house in Brookline, near Boston. Once a month or so, he’d invite Sarah and Jared over for a home-cooked dinner. He was an excellent cook. Jared loved dinners at Pappas’s house and was fond of the old man.

Pappas greeted them at the door by reaching down to give Jared a hug and—his usual joke—pretending to try to lift Jared into the air. “I can’t do it!” he wheezed. “You’re too heavy!”

“You’re not strong enough!” Jared replied delightedly. “You’re too old!”

“Right you are, young man,” he said, giving Sarah a kiss on the cheek.

He was a large man, large-boned and thick around the middle. He was sixty-seven and looked at least that, with a round, jowly face, rheumy brown eyes, a full head of silver hair, and oversized ears.

The entire house smelled wonderfully of garlic and tomatoes. “Lasagna,” he announced. He asked Jared: “You ever have
Greek
lasagna?”

“No,” Jared said dubiously.

He tousled Jared’s hair. “Greek lasagna is called spanakopita. I made that for you guys once, didn’t I?”

Jared shook his head.

“I didn’t? What’s wrong with me? Next time. My wife, Anastasia, made the best spanakopita you ever had.”

“
I
never had it,” Jared said.

“Don’t be a wiseacre. Now, come here. I’ve got something to show you.”

“I want to play with the Victrola in the basement,” Jared said, running ahead toward the basement steps.

“Later. This is more interesting, I promise you,” Pappas said. “All right? All right?” He produced a small, flat package wrapped in silver paper and handed it to Jared.

“A baseball card!” he squealed.

“No, it’s not,” Pappas said solemnly.

“Yes it is,” Jared replied, just as solemnly, carefully tearing the package open. “All
right! Awesome!
” He held the baseball card up for Sarah to see and explained, “It’s a Reggie Jackson rookie. This is worth, like, thirty or forty
dollars
.”

“Oh, God, Alex,” Sarah scolded. “You shouldn’t do that.”

Pappas beamed. “Now, if we’re going to eat anytime within the next ten hours, Jared’s going to have to help me make the salad. Come on.”

Jared stuck out his tongue but followed Pappas into the kitchen eagerly. They talked baseball. “The greatest player who ever was,” Pappas rumbled, “was the Babe.”

Jared, who was not actually helping make the salad but was instead watching Pappas slice cucumbers, replied with exasperation: “He was a big, slow white guy.”

“Excuse me?” Pappas said incredulously and put down the paring knife. “Excuse me? Babe Ruth stole seventeen bases twice in his career. And they didn’t even run much back in the twenties. In those days, there were hardly any stolen bases.”

“Who had more home runs?” Jared said.

“Sure, Aaron did, but over a much longer period of time. Babe Ruth’s career was shorter than Aaron’s, for one thing. The Babe wasn’t even a full-time hitter—for the first six years of his career, he split his time between pitching and playing outfield, Jared.”

Jared hesitated, fixed Pappas with a long stare. “The best was Willie Mays.”

“Oh, so you’re dumping Hank Aaron now.”

“Mays was one of the greatest fielders ever. And Ruth had an advantage—the ballparks in the nineteen-twenties were smaller.”

“Oh, for God’s sake—” Pappas began.

“Boys,” Sarah interrupted. “If we don’t eat, I’m going to pass out and Jared’s going to have to hitchhike home.”

Jared finished his supper quickly and disappeared downstairs to the basement to play with Pappas’s ancient Victrola. Sarah and Pappas, sitting at the table and poking at the remains of the cannolis, could hear the distant ghost strains of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra.

They talked for a while about the darkroom Pappas was building in the basement, about the adult-education course he was taking in black-and-white photography. Sarah ran the details of the Valerie Santoro murder by him, mentioning the database search and the still-unclear involvement of a banker named Warren Elkind.

“I seriously doubt,” she said, “that the head of the Manhattan Bank killed Valerie.”

“Why? Rich people don’t murder?”

“Come on. There’s something more to this.”

“There always is, kid. Always is. When someone decides to become an FBI informant, he or she’s taking a chance.”

“Sure, but…”

“You know the pay’s the same whether you develop an asset or not.”

“My job is to protect the source—”

“Sarah, if you
really
want to protect a source, you’ll never use her information, and what good is that? Look, always go with your gut instinct. You’re suspicious about your informant’s murder, don’t leave it to the locals. See if the answering-machine tape turns up anything. Whether it’s the Mob or your banker, you’ll know soon enough. Speaking of the Mob, you still seeing that Italian guy?”

Sarah gave him a blank stare and said in mock indignation: “Is that supposed to be funny? Do all Italians belong to the Mafia?”

“Yeah, and all Greeks have souvlaki stands,” Pappas replied. “What’s his name again—Angelo?”

“Andrew,” Sarah said, “and he’s history.”

“He was a nice-looking guy.”

“Not my type.”

“Not potential father material?”

“Alex, he’d pretend Jared wasn’t even
there.
He couldn’t deal with the fact that I had a son.”

“You probably won’t believe me when I tell you you’ll find the right kind of guy—for you as well as for Jared. You’re the one who’s got to fall in love with him. Jared—Jared’ll come around.”

“You’re right. I don’t believe you.”

Pappas nodded. “It’ll happen. Plus, whoever you get serious about is going to have to pass Jared’s scrutiny, and he’s an excellent judge of character. Gotta be—he likes
me
, doesn’t he? So don’t worry so much. It’ll happen.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Within hours after Edwin Chu and George Frechette, the NSA cryptanalysts, received the encrypted fragment of telephone conversation captured by a Rhyolite spy satellite above Switzerland, Edwin Chu broke the code.

Actually, the NSA’s Cray supercomputers, using all available analytical skills, including several cryptanalytic techniques unknown outside the agency, broke it. But Edwin Chu had hovered over the computer and had done what he could to help—sort of a binary backseat driver.

The National Security Agency is always interested in new encryption schemes, so the work Chu did with the Cray late that night and into the early morning wasn’t purely to satisfy his own curiosity.

But that was a large part of it.

It wasn’t easy. In fact, had Chu been more senior and had more clout, cracking the code would have taken less than an hour, rather than eight hours. He’d wanted to use the latest generation of Cray supercomputers, but had to settle instead for an older Cray.

“I was sort of hoping this would be RC-4,” he explained to Frechette, referring to a commercially available encryption package. The only cryptographic software that NSA permitted to be exported out of the United States used algorithms of a certain length, specifically 40-bit. The best-known of these software packages were RC-2 and RC-4, tunable ciphers that were reasonably secure—except from the NSA, which has special-purpose chips designed to crack them in just a few minutes.

“Piece of cake,” he modestly announced to George Frechette, handing him a set of headphones. “There’s supposed to be this new crypto firm in Zurich that’s been making new secure voice-encryption phones and told the Agency to go fuck off.”