The Zero Hour

The Joint Terrorism Task Force numbered no more than six cops and six agents in 1985. During the Gulf War the commitment increased to about a hundred agents and a hundred detectives. By 1994-after the Trade Center bomb-it had shrunk to thirty agents and thirty detectives. There was even talk at One Police Plaza and 26 Federal Plaza about disbanding the force entirely.

After all, TRADEBOM was an isolated event, was it not? And what were the odds, when you came right down to it, of such a thing ever happening again?

But then came Oklahoma City, and then it seemed that America would never be safe from terrorism again.

***

At three-thirty in the afternoon, Baumann arrived at Dulles International Airport, outside of Washington. An hour and a half later, he carried his baggage through the terminal’s Eero Saarinen-designed interior and got a cab to Washington. In his leather carry-on satchel, in several neat bundles, were Thomas Cook traveler’s checks in various denominations totaling several hundred thousand dollars, payable to a fictitious corporation. Baumann knew that the Central Intelligence Agency uses unsigned Thomas Cook traveler’s checks to pay its contract agents (often diverted from funds earmarked for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations). That way, there’s no paper trail. Had the customs inspector opened his satchel and discovered the checks-which did not happen-there would have been no problem: such checks are nonnegotiable currency and cannot be taxed by U.S. Customs.

Baumann stayed at the Jefferson, because he had heard it was a comfortable and elegant hotel, and because it happened to have a room available for a harried businessman who’d just missed his plane.

It was too late in the day, by the time he arrived at the hotel, to make any calls, so he ordered a cheeseburger from room service, took a steaming-hot bath, and slept off his exhaustion. In the morning, refreshed and prosperous-looking in one of his businessman’s suits, he devoured a large room-service breakfast, read The Washington Post, and set off for a walk.

When you call the FBI’s general number, you do not hear the periodic beeping that signifies you are being recorded. But Baumann assumed the FBI did record all incoming calls, legally or not. The real problem, though, was not whether his voice might be taped. Had he called the FBI from his hotel room, a record would be made at the Bureau of the number from which he called. That would not do at all.

So he found a pay phone in the atrium of an office building from which he could call without too much background noise.

“I’d like to speak to Agent Taylor in Counterterrorism, please,” he said. Someone named Taylor, from Bureau headquarters, was the authorizing official on the request to the South African Department of Customs for a copy of his passport application. That didn’t mean Taylor was the investigator, just that he was the responsible authority. And it was a very good start.

“Mr. Taylor’s office,” came a friendly woman’s voice.

“Yes, I’m looking for Agent Frank Taylor, please,” he said.

“I’m sorry, this is Perry Taylor’s office-”

“But this is Counterterrorism, right?”

“Yes, it is, sir, but there’s no Frank Taylor-”

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, this must be the right Agent Taylor. I’m Paul Tannen from the Baltimore Sun, and I’m copyediting and fact-checking a piece on the battle against terrorism. The reporter mentions-well, it’s got to be Agent Perry Taylor, and quite favorably, I should say, but you know how lazy journalists are these days, what with computers and everything.”

The woman’s voice brightened. “Yes, sir, that’s sure the truth.”

“I mean, you got spell-checks and word-processing programs and all that stuff. Good golly, a newspaperman doesn’t even have to write anymore.”

She laughed pleasantly, a high, musical, laugh. “Did you want to talk to Agent Taylor?”

“Golly, I can’t be bothering him with proofreading queries, no ma’am, but thanks anyway. Well, thanks a lot, and-oh, right, one more thing. Our reporter talked to Agent Taylor at home. I assume he did, anyway. He lives in Washington, right?”

“Alexandria, actually.”

Baumann gave a big, exasperated sigh. “You see what I mean?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“As the case agent on the original investigation that led to all of us being here,” Whitman said, “Ms. Cahill will be lead investigator, in charge of day-to-day operations.”