The Zero Hour

Then he drew out from his briefcase a black box with lights on its brushed aluminum lid, labeled EVIDENTIARY SECURITY SYSTEM. Although it appeared to be the security-system control box, this was in fact the fusing mechanism. One had been confiscated by the FBI, but another had arrived by separate means, as he had arranged. He connected the mechanism to the DetCord, which was connected directly to the C-4. The pager, a fall-back option, would not be necessary now.

The fusing mechanism included an omnidirectional microwave detector.

This was quite a clever device. It had been constructed to defeat the bomb-disposal people, assuming they showed up in time, which was highly unlikely.

It was a volumetric device that worked on the principle of the Doppler shift. In effect, it was a booby trap. The area around the bomb, in a radius of twenty-five feet, was now filled with microwave energy. A steady-state pattern had been established. If a human being walked through the field at anything even close to a normal pace, the waves would be reflected, and the sensor would close a circuit, detonating the bomb.

He was about to depress a button on top of the fusing mechanism when he heard a voice.

“How’re you doing?” asked a guard, a slender young black man with a shaved head and a brass stud earring in his left ear. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

“Fine,” Baumann said, smiling jovially. “How ’bout yourself?”

“All right,” the guard said. “What you got there?”

“One shitload of documents,” Baumann said.

“So, you’re with the bank?”

“FDIC, actually,” Baumann said, hoping the guard wouldn’t ask how he’d gotten into the basement. “Something wrong?”

“You’re going to have to move those on out of here,” the guard said. “Can’t stay down here. Fire department regulations.”

Baumann looked at the guard curiously. “Gosh,” he said. “I thought my boss cleared this with the building manager-a Mr. Talliaferro, right?”

“That’s the guy, but he didn’t tell me anything about leaving any boxes.”

Baumann suddenly heard a clanging sound from not far away in the basement, and he wondered whether the guard heard it too. He shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Man, this whole day’s been like this,” he said. “You want me to get my boss to call this guy Talliaferro? I mean, these’ll be gone first thing in the morning.” He watched the guard keenly, wondering whether he could hear the clanging, calculating whether he could kill the man right here, in a busy office building in the middle of the day, whether it was worth the risk.

The guard hesitated, looked at his watch. It was clear he didn’t want to wait around for someone to call someone else who’d then call him and say, yeah, it’s okay.

“All right, forget it,” the guard said. “’Long as they’re gone first thing tomorrow morning, like you say.”

The clanging grew louder, more insistent. It had to be the boy, whom he’d locked in a supply closet.

“Oh, they will be,” Baumann said with a groan. “I can’t do my job without ’em. They’ll be gone. I promise.”

“Hmm,” the guard said, nodding, as he turned away. He paused. “You hear something?”

“I don’t think so.”

“There. Banging.”

Baumann pretended to listen. “Sounds like the old water pipes knocking.”

“Over there,” the guard said, pointing.

The clanging was rhythmic, insistent. A regular tattoo. Clearly made by a human being.

Baumann drew closer to where the guard was standing, as if trying to listen at the same spot. “I still think…” he started to say as he reached over with both powerful hands and broke the man’s neck, and then he finished the sentence ruminatively: “… it’s the old pipes knocking.”

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

“Sarah-” Pappas said, holding a phone up in the air.

“What is it?”

“It’s Jared.”

“Oh, thank God,” Sarah said, and pressed the flashing extension button. “Jared!”

His voice was small and distant-sounding. “Mom?”

“Honey, are you all right?”

“I’m scared, Mom.” He was on the verge of tears. “Brian was supposed to take me home, but he took me somewhere else-”

“But you’re okay, aren’t you? He hasn’t hurt you, has he?”

“No. Well, he put this thing in my mouth, but I got it out.”

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know. He locked me in a closet. In the basement of some building. Kind of like a big glass-and-cement building. Looked like a bank, sort of. I’ve been banging on the pipes to try to get someone’s attention.” His voice rose in pitch. “Mom, I’m scared of him.”

“Of course you are. He’s a scary person, but we’ll come get you. Honey, now tell me as much as you can about where you are, what you saw when you-”

“I think I hear voices-”

And the call was disconnected.

***