The Zero Hour

On the bustling stretch of Broadway in front of the storefront, an FBI agent in a spandex jogging suit was trying to change the right rear tire on his silver Corvette, another seized vehicle. A young Hispanic-looking man sat behind the wheel of a parked pizza delivery van. A hobbled old homeless woman pushed a grocery cart full of aluminum cans.

Another agent kept a lookout from the third-floor window of the office building across the street. Another, in a Con Ed uniform and hard hat, seemed to be inspecting a faulty electrical meter in an alley about thirty feet from the Mail Boxes storefront.

In the movies and on television, a telephone call can be traced in a matter of seconds. The reality, unfortunately, is far less impressive. A trap-and-trace, as it’s called, can take five, ten, even fifteen minutes or longer, and quite often several separate attempts.

It is true that a service known as Caller ID is available in many areas of the United States, which allows you to learn the number of an incoming call even before the phone rings. But this service works only in telephone exchanges that use the fully computerized technology called SS7, for System Signaling Group 7.

And many telephone exchanges remain antiquated, particularly in larger cities. NYNEX, the company that services Manhattan as well as much of New York State and New England, has been one of the slowest Baby Bells to update its technology.

Another problem with Caller ID is that it doesn’t work on trunking systems, PBX systems, which are used in office buildings. Also, any subscriber can have the Automatic Number Identification (ANI) signal blocked, rendering Caller ID useless.

So the only reliable way to trace a number remains the old-fashioned trap-and-trace method, which can only be done by the telephone company, in its offices. The manager of Mail Boxes Etc., and his district manager, happily complied with the FBI’s request to ask NYNEX to order a trap-and-trace for this particular store.

All that remained now was for Henrik Baumann-if indeed he was the recipient-to place a call and ask whether an express package had been received for a Mr. James Oakley. Even if Baumann called from a public pay phone, they might be fortunate enough to discover his location in time.

At 11:14 A.M., the call came.

The pretty young blond policewoman answered the phone and said perkily, “Your name, please?”

She signaled with her index finger. “Let me check, Mr. Oakley.” She punched the hold button.

Her partner was already on another line to NYNEX telephone security, activating the trap-and-trace. As he held the handset to his ear, he said to the woman, “Keep him holding as long as you think you can.”

“Right,” she said. “But he said he was in a hurry, so I don’t know how long he’ll hold.”

“Sure, he’s in a hurry,” the man said. “He’s no idiot.” Into the phone he said, “All right, good. Yeah, we will.”

Ten seconds went by, then twenty.

“I’m going to have to pick up again and say something,” the blond woman said, “or he’ll get suspicious and we’ll lose him.”

“We got Manhattan,” her partner announced. “Midtown. Let’s go, man, let’s go. Speed this thing up.”

“Matt-”

“Yeah, yeah. Pick it up, tell him-think of something, for God’s sake. Give us more time!”

She punched the hold button again to release it. “Mr. Oakley, we do have something here for you, and I’m trying to locate it. Was that an envelope or a box? It makes a difference, because we store them in different… Oh, shit. He hung up.” She put down the handset. “We lost him.”

***

Baumann, standing at a midtown pay phone, hung up the phone and quickly walked away. For reasons of safety, he did not like to stay on the phone for longer than twenty seconds. He did not know whether telephone-tracing technology had changed at all since he’d been in prison, but he did not want to find out. He knew that his package had arrived, which was the main thing. Even if they traced the call, by the time they got to this pay phone, he’d be long gone.

Perhaps he was being overly cautious. After all, it was highly unlikely that any law-enforcement authorities would have found out about this mail drop. But such instincts had kept him alive throughout a hazardous career.

It was out of this same overcautiousness that he donned a disguise-a long, shaggy brown wig, a natural-looking beard, a prosthetic paunch, a loose baggy white sweatshirt-and took a cab uptown to the Mail Boxes Etc. site, outside of which he did some preliminary surveillance. He found no reason to be suspicious, though if they were good, they would hardly be obvious.

He entered the small facility. The only other person there was a young man standing at the counter, listening to music on Walkman headphones and filling out some kind of long form, which looked like an application for employment.

“Can I help you?” the young woman behind the counter asked.