The Zero Hour

“Not yet, thanks,” Baumann answered, absorbed in a display of folding mailing cartons of various sizes. Then he turned back casually to the clerk and asked: “So where’s Donna?”

“Donna?” the woman echoed dubiously.

“The woman who normally works the day shift here,” Baumann said. He had come here twice before, each time in very different disguises, and had learned that a woman named Donna always worked days. “You know. Blond. Long hair.”

“Oh, her. Sorry, I’m new. She’s off for the day-went to the beach, I think. Why, you a friend?”

Baumann’s instincts told him to leave at once. Both people behind the counter, he now realized, were new. He didn’t like this at all. He also did not like the fact that the job applicant was wearing a Walkman. It made him suspicious. Headphones could be used to communicate with a command post. Then again, they could be entirely innocent. But his instincts told him not to take any chances.

“Yeah,” he said. “Tell Donna that Billy said hi.” He glanced at his watch as if late for an appointment, and walked out the door.

Halfway down the block he noticed that the young man wearing the Walkman had left a few seconds after he had and was heading in his direction.

He didn’t like this either.

***

A few paces behind, Russell Ullman, who had been standing at the counter pretending to fill out a form for over an hour, spoke into his transmitter: “I don’t know if this is our guy or not, but I’m going to follow him awhile, make sure.”

“Got it,” the voice in his headphones said. “Come on back soon as you’re sure it’s not our man.”

“Okay,” Ullman said.

***

Baumann suddenly darted across the street in the middle of the block, weaving between the moving cars, and walked along the other side of the block. As he rounded the next corner, he saw in the reflection in a plate-glass window that the young man was still behind him.

He was being followed.

Why? The only explanation was that somehow the fusing mechanism had been intercepted on its way from Belgium. True, there were many points at which it could have been intercepted, but…

Had Charreyron, the Belgian explosives expert, talked?

Unlikely, Baumann decided. If he had, he probably would have given up each of the addresses to which Baumann had requested the fusing mechanisms be sent. And since Baumann had already received one of them without incident, that seemed to rule out Charreyron as a leak.

No; the DHL package simply must have been intercepted. Such things happened, which was why he had had duplicate fusing mechanisms sent. In the real world, things went wrong; one made fall-back plans.

As he plunged into a crowd of tourists emerging from a bus, hoping thereby to lose the tail, he caught another glimpse of the follower in a mirrored storefront. The man appeared to be alone. Why, Baumann wondered, were there no others?

***

In his headphones, Ullman heard: “It’s probably just some hinky guy. Lot of weirdos use private mail-box services to get sicko videos and child pornography, or whatever. You get his face? We didn’t.”

“No,” Ullman said, “but I will.” A woman passing by saw him talking to himself and veered away with alarm.

***

Baumann attempted several classic maneuvers to lose the tail, but the follower was too good. Obviously he was professionally trained, and talented as well. He didn’t recognize the young man’s face, but that meant nothing. Although he’d conducted some surveillance of the Operation MINOTAUR headquarters building, he’d not been able to identify any of the task force members. Also, Sarah never emerged from the building talking with anyone.

Baumann passed a small, dingy Chinese restaurant, stopped short, and entered its dimly lit interior. It took a few seconds before his eyes became accustomed to the dark. He sat down at one of the Formica tables. He was the only one in the restaurant. In effect, he was daring the tail to follow him in and reveal himself.

***

Ullman saw the fat man in the white sweatshirt turn abruptly into the Chinese restaurant. In front of the restaurant, he hesitated. It was obvious the man was trying to lose him.

Well, there was no choice.

He opened the restaurant door and stepped into the dark air-conditioned interior. He looked around. It was empty. In the rear of the restaurant, a Chinese man sat behind a counter punching numbers into a calculator. Ullman spoke into his transmitter, giving his location. Then he approached the Chinese man and said, “You see someone come in here?”

The man gazed warily at Ullman, then pointed toward the rear of the restaurant. Ullman saw a rest room, raced to it, flung open the door, and stepped in.

A sink, a toilet; no stall, no window, no place to hide. And no one here.

He quickly turned back to the corridor, looked left and right, saw the kitchen. This was the only place the sweatshirted man could have gone.