The Zero Hour

“You see,” Charreyron explained, “the difficulty lies in acquiring the pagers. You will need three of them, and they must be purchased in the United States. You know how complicated that is-with every pager comes a telephone number and a detailed registration. They must be bought clandestinely. And since I certainly don’t want the serial number plate on the pager to be traced through the paging company back to me, I’ll have to purchase several and do some alterations.”

“But for an old friend…?” Baumann said jovially. Haggling over prices was common in this line of work; the Belgian would expect it.

“I can go as low as fifteen thousand each. But less than that, and it’s simply not worth the risk. I will have to go to New York myself to get them, so I have to figure in the cost of travel. And you are asking me to do all this in such a short period of time-”

“All right then,” Baumann said. “Forty-five thousand U.S. it is. No, let’s make it an even fifty thousand U.S.”

The two men shook hands. For the first time, Charreyron appeared relaxed. Baumann counted out twenty-five thousand dollars and placed them on the desk. “The other half when I return in a week. Is there a vacant warehouse on the outskirts of town where we can do a test?”

“Certainly,” Charreyron said. “But I think we have a little more business to transact.”

“Oh?”

“For an additional fifty thousand U.S., I can assure you that nothing of our past acquaintance will become known.”

“Fifty thousand?” Baumann asked, as if seriously considering it.

“And then”-Charreyron clapped his hands together-“the past is gone, just like that.”

“I see,” Baumann said. “Please understand something. I have many police contacts who stand to benefit handsomely by giving me any information of possible interest to me. Rumors, reports of my presence here, that sort of thing. I am paying you well, with a generous bonus to come. But I don’t want to learn that the slightest detail of our talk, or of my past history, has left this office. Not a single detail. You can imagine the consequences for you and your family.”

The color drained from Charreyron’s face. “I’m a professional,” he said, retreating hastily. “I would never betray a confidence.”

“Excellent. Because you know me, and you know that I would stop at nothing.”

Charreyron shook his head violently. “I would never say a word,” he said desperately. “Please. Forget what I said about the fifty thousand. It was a foolish mistake.”

“Don’t worry,” Baumann said pleasantly. “It’s forgotten. We all make mistakes. But please don’t make the mistake of underestimating me.”

“Please,” Charreyron whispered. In his days as a bomb-disposal expert, he had constantly faced the possibility of losing a limb, even his life. But nothing terrified him so much as this phlegmatic, ruthless South African, who had suddenly appeared in his office after ten years-a man who, Charreyron had no doubt whatsoever, would indeed stop at nothing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

A few days after Baumann’s first visit to Charreyron, in southwest Belgium, he returned to inspect the fusing mechanisms.

In the intervening time, he had combined a little business with a great deal of relaxation. On his first night back in Amsterdam, he met again with “Bones” Van den Vondel, who provided him with the three sets of stolen documentation he had requested-two American, one British-and a small bundle of credit cards. Bones made it abundantly clear he was happy to do business with Mr. Sidney Lerner, and happier still to have the opportunity to do an ongoing business with the Mossad, should it require any other assistance from an outsider.

Several mornings he slept late. He saw movies, enjoyed expensive restaurants. Several afternoons he spent studying maps of New York City. He took in a few topless bars around Rembrandtsplein and, in the red-light district, bought himself an hour of pleasure with a young prostitute. One night he went to a popular nightclub called Odeon, where he picked up a comely young woman and took her back to his hotel. She was about as randy as he was; they spent most of the night having sex, until each collapsed in happy exhaustion. In the morning, she wanted to stay, or at least to see him again that evening. He was tempted-during his years in Pollsmoor he had almost forgotten how pleasurable sex could be-but knew it was a bad idea to become too familiar to anyone here. He told her he had, regrettably, to catch a return flight that afternoon.

Amsterdam, like New York and San Francisco, is world-renowned as a gathering place for computer enthusiasts, or “hackers.” Although Baumann had been in prison too long to be conversant in the latest technology, he knew where to find someone who was. He contacted a member of the Amsterdam-based Dutch organization Hacktic, which publishes a magazine for computer hackers, and arranged a meeting. He described the sort of person he was looking for: a hacker based in New York, without a criminal past.