The Zero Hour

He noticed that the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance to the FBI garage was shut, the gates drawn, presumably for security reasons. The World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings had made the FBI understandably nervous. He saw that groups of tourists could gain access to the building by taking a guided tour. For no particular reason, except that he had time to kill, he took a tour at midmorning, which began in front of a display of America’s Ten Most Wanted criminals and ended with a film about handguns.

The rest of the day he kept watch on the various employee entrances and exits to see whether Taylor emerged. He did not. Many FBI employees went out for lunch to the food malls nearby, and there was said to be a large and adequate cafeteria within the complex, but Taylor probably ate his lunch at his desk, from the white bag he had taken out of the delicatessen.

By four o’clock in the afternoon, Baumann had returned to his parked car and prepared for Taylor to leave the building. The red dot did not begin to move until 6:45 P.M. Baumann waited until Taylor was a good distance away before he began to follow. Taylor appeared to be taking the same route home he’d taken to work.

Baumann drove with a sense of discouragement. This could go on for days, and he would learn nothing unless he got into Taylor’s office or home. Taylor was indeed going home, Baumann saw, but to be sure, he followed the Olds as far as he could prudently do so.

Getting into Taylor’s home would not be a problem, although there was no reason to believe he would find anything there. Careful FBI men like Taylor did not keep a set of files at their homes. Getting into Taylor’s office was possible, though perilous to the point of being foolhardy. Obviously he or someone who worked with or for him had been delving into Baumann’s past. That meant he might recognize Baumann in person.

But even assuming Baumann entered the office wearing a persuasive disguise, what could he expect to find there, really, without being left alone-a highly unlikely possibility?

Baumann suspected that the gray Samsonite briefcase would contain Taylor’s FBI building pass, a personnel list, or any of a hundred things. If Taylor were to stop somewhere on the way to or from work, Baumann would have an opportunity.

There was no keyless entry system on the driver’s door, which was too bad, because that would have made it easy to get into the car. All Baumann would have had to do was to watch through the binoculars as Taylor keyed in the code.

If Taylor were to leave his briefcase on the front seat again, Baumann could just slip in a slim jim and have the car open in a matter of seconds, without anyone noticing.

If Taylor locked the briefcase in the trunk, that was a different situation. There were simple, brute-force methods. You could use a dent-puller to pop the trunk lock out, then open the trunk with a screwdriver. But no matter how carefully you did it, the damage would be immediately visible. Taylor would know someone had gotten into his trunk, and he would be immediately suspicious. Such a move would blow everything.

The smash-and-grab had to be ruled out.

Baumann returned to the Jefferson, made some notes, went out for a brief walk. From a pay phone he hadn’t used before he called Perry Taylor’s number. If Mrs. Taylor answered, he would ask for him, say he was an old friend, make it clear he was not a salesman of any kind… But Taylor answered the phone himself.

“Hello,” he said.

“Perry Taylor?” Baumann asked pleasantly.

“Speaking. Who’s this?

“Mr. Taylor, according to our records, you don’t subscribe to Time magazine, and we’d like to offer-”

“Sorry,” Taylor said brusquely, “but we’re not interested. Good night.”

Baumann read for a while, an architectural history of New York City, and went to sleep early.

In the morning, Baumann followed the same routine, picking up Perry Taylor’s signal from a half-mile away and following him at a distance. Once again, Taylor stopped at the delicatessen on Pennsylvania Avenue to buy what Baumann assumed was his lunch. He drove into the FBI garage by the same entrance on Tenth Street, and again did not leave the building until his workday was done.

In the meantime, Baumann had plenty of time to do what he needed to do. He returned to the Jefferson and placed a call to the auto dealership whose name-Brautigan Motors-was on Perry Taylor’s license-plate bracket.

“Yes,” he said when the service department came on the line. “I feel like such an idiot.” He laughed. “This is Perry Taylor, and I bought a car from you guys, a ’94 Olds, and I just went and locked my keys in the car.”

From his brief conversation with Perry Taylor the night before, Baumann had learned the eccentricities of the FBI man’s voice-a resonant baritone, a slight Southern accent, a careful enunciation. The imitation would fool anyone except a good friend; fortunately, the young man in the service department did not seem to know Taylor.