The Zero Hour

Krasner, who had been cupping his mouth in his small, round fist, looked up at Baumann slowly and gave a cryptic half-smile. A man sat down at a nearby table, set down a gym bag, and began to read a crummy paperback of Saul Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet. “This is some very high-profile shit,” Krasner said. “It’s going to bring down an enormous amount of heat. I may not be able to work for a very, very long time.”

“Perhaps yes, perhaps no.”

“I assume you’re talking some very, very big bucks.”

“A six-figure payment for a few days’ work,” Baumann said.

“Six-figure?” Krasner snorted. “Go find a high school kid. You gotta be kidding.”

“Do you want to suggest a fee? You’re the subcontractor, after all. Give me a bid.”

“My bid is a million dollars, take it or leave it.”

“I don’t have anywhere near that kind of money,” Baumann said.

“Then what kind of serious offer will you make?”

“If I really scrape and borrow and beg, I can come up with half that. But it will take enormous effort to scrape together.”

“In gold. Currency’s going to take a serious beating after this goes down.”

“Done. Are you at all familiar with the systems used by the Manhattan Bank?”

“Sure, I know the Manhattan Bank. A little background work, a little calling around, and I’m all set.” He extended his moist hand to shake. “No problem.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Over coffee half an hour later, Pappas said: “They were right, Sarah. Had you given up that fusing device, you’d not only have lost an incredibly valuable mass of information, but you’d have risked losing a crucial piece of evidence.”

“The idea wasn’t to throw the thing away,” Sarah said, exasperated because she knew Pappas was right. “It was to keep everything intact so as not to alert Baumann, and…” Her voice faded. “All right, I was wrong. I’ll admit it.”

Pappas nodded once. “Ah, well. To err is human, to forgive is not Bureau policy. Water under the bridge. Mail Boxes opens in, what, fifteen minutes or so? Hours are nine to seven, weekdays. You got a team in place?”

“Uniforms, but supposed to be some of New York’s finest, whatever that means. They’re already there, watching. What do you think about this Libyan timer?”

“Ed Wilson sold a bunch of timers to the Libyans, but who knows where they all ended up. By now, those timers have gone through a bunch of hands.”

She nodded. “Arab hands.”

“Odds are, yes.”

“But I don’t believe the Libyans are behind this thing.”

“Why not?”

“The Libyans and the Iranians have a whole catalog of suicide bombers who can’t wait to die for the greater glory of Allah. They don’t need to hire him.”

“He’s the best.”

“They don’t need the best.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what Baumann is up to.”

“That’s not my point. You hire the best to make sure you don’t get caught, that the incident isn’t traced back to you. The Libyans usually don’t care if it is or not. If it is traced back to them, it makes them more formidable. They like that.”

Pappas was silent, waiting for her to continue, and when she didn’t, he said: “You might have a point.”

***

At the same time, a DHL delivery truck was pulling up to Mail Boxes Etc. at 2840 Broadway, between 110th and 111th streets, next door to Columbia Bagels and not far from Columbia University. It was a legitimate DHL truck, making the first overnight deliveries of the day. Double-parked in front of the Mail Boxes store, the driver took out three express packages.

Two new employees were working the counter that morning at Mail Boxes Etc. One was a dark-haired man in his twenties, busy shelving boxes. The other, a pretty young blond woman, appeared to be a trainee working with a more experienced, though younger, woman. The blonde’s hair was long and full, and it nicely concealed the tiny earphone she was wearing.

On Broadway, in front of the storefront, idled a yellow taxi, its roof light indicating it was out of service. The driver, a pudgy and balding man in a cheap-looking leather jacket and a frayed denim shirt, was examining the Daily Racing Form. Since he was far from the precinct in which he had once worked, he doubted any passerby would recognize him as Lieutenant George Roth of the New York Police Department.

The yellow cab-a real New York City cab that had been seized by the FBI in a drug raid-was the mobile command post. From there, Roth could communicate by radio with the two policemen inside who had been detailed to the working group on temporary assignment.

The eight members of the surveillance team had been fully briefed and outfitted with appropriate disguises and communications equipment. Wireless microphones were worn inside shirts or sweaters; earphones were concealed under wigs, baseball caps, or hats.