The Zero Hour

by Joseph Finder

  There were many more of them.

  And it was days like today that made him think seriously about early retirement. The day had started with a call from a new assistant to the bank’s chief financial officer, letting him know about an imminent visit from the FDIC. Great. How could you top that? Maybe at his next checkup the doctor would find a polyp.

  Oh, the FDIC, the goddam FDIC. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was the bane of Grimmer’s existence.

  The FDIC supervised all state-chartered banks, which meant banks that weren’t members of the Federal Reserve, weren’t national, didn’t have the initials “N.A.” in their legal title. They rated these banks for soundness, on a scale from one to five, one being the best. This was called a Uniform Bank Rating, the CAMEL rating. “CAMEL” was an acronym derived from a jumble of factors: capital, asset quality, management, earnings, and liquidity.

  Depending on the bank’s CAMEL rating, which was always kept secret from the bank, the FDIC inspected the bank either annually or every eighteen months. The eighteen-month cycle was for banks rated one or two. Banks rated three or less, or which had assets of over $250 million, were inspected annually.

  Walter Grimmer didn’t know for sure, but he suspected that Greenwich Trust rated a middling three. Which meant that every year, a team of eight to twelve FDIC examiners barged in and took over the place for as much as six weeks. They reviewed the bank’s loan portfolio, the adequacy of its capital in relation to the risk of its portfolio, the stability of its earnings, its liquidity. Then they brought the whole happy adventure to a rousing finale with a wrap-up meeting with the bank’s president and executive committee.

  Loads of fun. And Walter Grimmer, lucky Walter Grimmer, had the honor and privilege of serving as the bank’s liaison to the FDIC.

  The guy who’d called this morning, the assistant to the chief financial officer, had phoned to let Grimmer know that for some damn reason the FDIC had to come back for an additional examination, as if once a year weren’t enough. Computer runs had been ordered. Something like a dozen boxes of documentation for the FDIC were going to be shipped in late this afternoon, and Grimmer was supposed to sign for them.

  Did it have something to do with the collapse of the Manhattan Bank?

  Was that why the FDIC was making a surprise visit?

  “Where the heck am I going to put a dozen boxes?” Grimmer had wailed. “I don’t have room here for a dozen boxes!”

  “I know,” the assistant said sympathetically. “The delivery service will bring them right down to the basement of the building and leave them there until FDIC shows up tomorrow. Just overnight. Then it’s their problem.”

  “The basement? We can’t leave them there!”

  “Mr. Grimmer, we’ve already cleared it with the building manager. Just make sure you’re there to sign for them, okay?”

  * * *

  The deliveryman from Metro-Quik Courier Service groaned as he pulled his delivery truck up to the modern-looking building on Moore Street, in the Wall Street area. The damned street was paved with cobblestones, which really did a number on the truck’s suspension. It was a narrow, one-way street that ran from Pearl Street to Water Street. He’d had no problem picking up the boxes at the storage facility in Tribeca, but he’d gotten lost several times trying to find the downtown facility of the Greenwich Trust Bank.

  At least the boxes were filled with paper, not floor tiles or something. He loaded the twelve sealed boxes, each sealed with bright-yellow tape marked FDIC EVIDENCE, onto a dolly and moved them into the basement of the building.

  “Sign right here, please,” he told Walter Grimmer as he handed him a clipboard.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  Vigiani burst into Sarah’s office without knocking. “We got a match.”

  “A match?”

  “I mean, the NSA did. That phone intercept. We got the names to attach to the voices now.”

  “Let’s hear.”

  “A guy named Martin Lomax, who’s apparently a close associate of Malcolm Dyson’s, and someone named Johann Kinzel, who’s Dyson’s money man.”

  “Great work. I think we just locked this up. We’ve got a prosecutable case now. Bravo.”

  Pappas knocked on the door and said, “Sarah, we need to talk.”

  She knew Pappas’s face well, knew it was serious. “What is it?”

  “There’s been another murder,” he said. “There was a body found in an alley in your neighborhood. The report just came in.”

  “Whose?”

  “Sarah,” Pappas said, putting his arm around her, “it’s Peter.”

  * * *

  Hunched over the toilet, vomiting.

  Bitter tears burning her nostrils. She wanted to call Jared, wanted to go get him now, didn’t know what to do. There was a right time, a right way, to tell an eight-year-old something so wrenching.

  Then she remembered she had given him her cellular phone this morning to keep in his backpack, in case she needed to reach him. In case of emergency.

  But no. She couldn’t call him. It had to be done in person.

  It would be harder because of Jared’s anger toward his father. The wounds were already open; the pain would be unbearable.

  She needed to go for a walk.

  * * *

  Roth called headquarters, asked for Sarah. Pappas answered. “She’s not here,” he said. “I don’t know where she is. I just gave her the bad news about her ex-husband. She left about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I’ll try her at home,” Roth said. “If you see her, tell her we got our guy.”

  “What do you—”

  “I mean, we got a picture—a photo of Baumann.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  But Roth hung up, and then dialed Sarah’s apartment. He got the machine, calculated she might be on the way home, maybe to get her kid, so he left a message.

  In a coffee shop across the street from headquarters, Sarah sat, red-eyed, dazed.

  Peter was dead.

  How could it possibly be a coincidence? What if Baumann had meant to get her, and had got to Peter instead—Peter, who was in town and might well have tried to go to her apartment …

  Jared. Was Jared next?

  She had to get back to work immediately, today of all days, but somebody had to get Jared out of YMCA day camp. Pappas couldn’t do it. She needed him at headquarters.

  At a pay phone on the street, she called Brea, the babysitter, then hung up before the phone began to ring. Brea was at her parents’ house in Albany, upstate. The fall-back sitter, Catherine, was in classes all day.

  Then she dialed Brian’s number.

  * * *

  In the small, unfurnished apartment, Baumann listened to the message Lieutenant George Roth was leaving on Sarah’s answering machine.

  Leo Krasner hadn’t been bluffing. A phone call would be made, he said. He had a photograph, he said.

  Frozen, Baumann sat with his mind racing. Tomorrow was the 26th, the anniversary of the day on which U.S. federal marshals had killed Malcolm Dyson’s wife and daughter, the day Dyson wanted it all to happen.

  But now they had a photograph.

  They had his face.

  Sarah would recognize the face. He hadn’t counted on that.

  Well, the bomb was already in place. Waiting until tomorrow meant the entire mission might be sabotaged.

  He could not take that chance. He would have to move things up. Dyson would certainly understand.

  He would have to move now.

  Then suddenly another phone rang. This call was being forwarded from his display apartment, the one where he took Sarah. Baumann could tell by the ring.

  It was Sarah.

  “Brian, please,” she said, her voice verging on the hysterical. “I need to ask you a favor.”

  * * *

  Roth slammed down the phone in Leo Krasner’s apartment.

  “Shit,” he said. “Where the hell is Sarah?” Then he s
aid loudly, to the apartment in general, “You think this guy maybe has a fax around here somewhere?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  Outside the YMCA on West Sixty-third Street, Henrik Baumann stood, dressed in a blue polo shirt and chinos and sunglasses.

  Jared emerged, looking disoriented. He smiled when he saw Baumann, came up to him and gave him a high-five.

  Baumann flagged a cab. They got in, and he directed the driver to head toward Wall Street.

  “Where are we going?” Jared asked.

  “Your mom wanted us to go for a little outing.”

  “But the camp director said you were going to take me home because my mom couldn’t get off from work.”

  Baumann shook his head absently.

  “The director said Mom wanted you to take me right home,” Jared said, puzzled, “’cause something important was going on.”

  “We’re going on a little outing,” Baumann said quietly.

  It was a few minutes after one o’clock in the afternoon, still the lunch hour, so the streets bustled despite the weather. Although he was moving the operation up by an entire day, the timing was still good, because it was the middle of the day, when the Network operated at maximum capacity.

  When the cab reached Moore Street, it pulled up before the new twenty-story building that housed the Network’s computer facilities. Baumann got out with Jared.

  “What’s this, Brian?” Jared asked. “Where are we?”

  “It’s a surprise,” Baumann said.

  He took Jared around to the rear of the building and found the yellow-painted emergency-exit door he’d identified earlier.

  He pulled out the key he had made a few days before, unlocked the door, and entered, taking the service stairs to the basement.

  * * *

  “Sarah,” Vigiani said as Sarah entered headquarters. “There’s a fax coming in for you. Slow as shit.”

  “Who’s it from?”

  “Roth. Says he’s got a photograph of Baumann.”

  Her heart suddenly hammering, Sarah went over to the fax machine. Now she saw why it was coming through so maddeningly slowly. It was a photograph. The bottom was coming out first, a thick white border, and then a dark area, millimeter by millimeter. This could take forever.

  She stood over the fax. The suspense was unbearable. In two minutes, the photograph had come through almost completely.

  She looked at the face, felt her insides twist.

  She looked again. She felt vertiginous, about to lose consciousness. The face seemed to rush toward her like a speeding train, like some special effect in a movie. She gasped.

  Brian.

  Part 6

  THE HOMING

  In difficult ground, press on;

  in encircled ground, devise

  stratagems; in death ground, fight.

  —Sun-tzu, The Art of War

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  Baumann switched on the lights. The basement was low-ceilinged, bare, and quite large, the size of the entire floor above it. He had, of course, been down here several days earlier to survey it, and he knew where the furnace room was, where the supply rooms were, and which part of the basement lay directly beneath the computer facility.

  “Why are we here?” asked Jared.

  “I told you. I have to do an errand before I take you home.”

  Jared shook his head. “Mom’s in trouble or something. She said it’s something serious.” He raised his voice. “I should go home now.”

  “Soon. When I’m done with my errands. And please keep your voice down.”

  Backpack on his back, hands on his hips, Jared looked at Baumann defiantly. “Hey. Take me home now.”

  “I told you, soon.”

  “Now.” Jared’s voice echoed.

  Baumann moved suddenly, quickly clapping his hand over Jared’s mouth as Jared flailed his arms, kicked, his screams muffled.

  * * *

  Sarah could handle a great many things, from threats to the national security to kidnappings to murder; she had acquired an ability to steel herself against fear and great tension; but nothing could shield her against this. Not her years of training, not her professional experience, not the methodical flow charts she’d been taught, the A-then-B-then-C techniques that served so well in emergencies.

  But they did not work when your son has been kidnapped by a professional terrorist, and Sarah knew that was in effect what had happened, except that she had voluntarily, unthinkingly, turned her son over to the kidnapper.

  She felt sick to her stomach.

  Her chest tightened. The blood roared in her ears.

  My God oh my God oh my God.

  Everything took on a jerky, unreal quality, as if she were in some old newsreel, jumpy and badly spliced.

  Years ago, when Jared was eight months old and they were living in Frankfurt while she worked Lockerbie, she was trying to go over some case files while Jared crawled around the apartment floor. There was a spiral staircase in the middle of the living room that she knew was treacherous to a crawling baby. It was steep and made of steel. She shuddered to think of what would happen if the baby ever fell down the stairs. She’d blocked off the landing with an overturned chair.

  She must have been too absorbed in a file, because she suddenly heard a crash and then all was quiet. She looked up and saw what had happened. Jared had managed to wriggle beneath the chair and had plummeted down the staircase.

  She felt her stomach turn cold. Everything in the world stopped. She found herself standing over the staircase, staring in shock. Her mind was operating in slow motion, but so, thank God, was the rest of the universe. Jared had fallen down half the stairs, his tiny head lodged between the railing and a riser. He was silent.

  She was convinced he was dead. She had killed this beautiful little being by looking away for an instant. Her fragile little son, with the winning, gummy smile and his two brand-new teeth, that little kid who had his entire life ahead of him and depended upon her utterly to protect him, was dead.

  She leaped down the staircase and grabbed the still body and could only see the back of Jared’s head. Was he dead, was he unconscious? Would he be blind, paralyzed for life? Suddenly Jared let out a great, blood-curdling scream, and she yelled with relief. She tried to pull his head out, but it was stuck. Pulling and twisting as gently as she could, she extricated his head from the gap between stair and riser and looked at his bruised red face and saw he was all right. She cuddled him to her shoulder and chanted, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  He was fine. Ten minutes later he stopped crying, and she gave him a bottle of formula.

  Only then did she realize how much of a hostage a mother really was.

  Now, her mind spun with thoughts as she sank into a chair, momentarily weak and dizzy.

  That “Brian Lamoreaux” was the cover for a South African–trained terrorist named Henrik Baumann was grotesque, yet in some horrible way logical. What did she know about the man except that he had tried to save Jared and her in Central Park …

  … in a setup, that was suddenly clear. He had arranged the mugging—probably had paid some eager teenagers to attack this little boy for the sheer fun of it and some cash besides, a good-faith payment up front and the rest afterward. Then he had “happened” to be there, and had rushed in to help them out—a clever way to meet a woman suspicious of this new city. He must have known they didn’t have his photograph, or else he would certainly have never dared to insinuate himself into her life; the risk of exposure would otherwise have been far too great. He acted the bumbling, frail intellectual, the exact opposite of his true persona, but could not disguise his naked body—his muscular, powerful torso, his broad thighs, his well-defined biceps. Why had she given so little thought to his superbly conditioned, sinewy body? Yes, men worked out these days, so why wouldn’t a Canadian architecture professor? But why hadn’t she suspected that there was something not right about this man she knew hardly at all?

  She th
ought of the few nights they had made love—what a misnomer, what a fraudulently inappropriate phrase; no, they had had sex—and felt a shiver of revulsion and a wave of nausea.

  Revulsion, not betrayal. She cared now only about Jared.

  Everything moved in slow motion, stop-action photography, unreal. She was trapped in a nightmare.

  After a minute, the paralyzing fear gave way to steely resolve. She ordered all members of the task force to assemble at once, then she put in a request to the Department of Energy to mobilize the Nuclear Emergency Search Team.

  She had to find Jared. To find Jared was to find Baumann; to find Baumann was now a matter of pressing concern to the entire FBI, to the City of New York.

  * * *

  Baumann surveyed the twelve banker boxes, stacked in four piles of three each, lined up against one wall. Each box was sealed with bright antitamper tape marked FDIC EVIDENCE.

  He knew that no one in the building would have touched those boxes during the few hours he’d have to leave them there. After all, he had arranged with the Greenwich Trust Bank for these boxes of FDIC “evidence” to be held in the basement for an audit tomorrow. The officer at the Greenwich Trust Bank had in turn contacted the building manager and secured his approval to leave the boxes in the basement storage area overnight. The space was often used for deliveries, so the building manager had no objections.

  The boxes contained the C-4, but since plastic explosive is roughly twice as heavy as the paper that was supposed to be inside, he had only half-filled the boxes with C-4 and then placed stacks of phony bank papers on top of the explosive. The weight of each box was therefore reasonable, and in any case, sealed as they were, no one would dare open them.

  It made sense, certainly, for these boxes to be stacked here, but the precise location was no accident. They were against the elevator shaft, in the core of the building. Like most buildings, this one had an extremely strong core and was cantilevered out from that. To set off the bomb here was to maximize the chance of bringing the building down and ensuring that the Network was destroyed. It was a simple matter of structural engineering.