The Zero Hour

“You remember when the Reagan administration spent seventeen million bucks on a computer system they called TRAP/TARGIT that was supposed to predict terrorist incidents based on early signals? It was a complete bust. Never worked. A huge joke. I’m just wondering whether we shouldn’t be doing some more basic, old-fashioned brainstorming. What are you doing tonight?”

“I’m picking up Jared from camp. Between six and seven at Penn Station.”

“You two doing something, going out for dinner?”

“I didn’t have any plans. I thought I’d see what Jared’s up for.”

“Maybe I could come by later, when Jared’s asleep. No, I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you ask Jared when he gets in if he feels like having dinner with you and me at a nice Greek place I discovered on First Avenue. You and I can talk, and Jared can put in his two cents. But I don’t want to horn in on your little reunion-”

“Oh, he always loves seeing you, Alex. But I don’t know about Greek. You know how discriminating he is about food.”

“McDonald’s it is. The one at the intersection of Seventy-first, Broadway, and Amsterdam.”

***

Alex Pappas devoured his Big Mac and fries with as much gusto as he did moussaka or spanakopita. A good portion of his fries, of course, went directly to Jared, who ate ravenously, as if he’d just come not from summer camp but a Soviet hard-labor camp.

In the two weeks since she’d last seen him, Jared seemed to have grown taller and more slender, more a young man than a pudgy little boy. Sarah could at times see him as an adult, a breathtakingly, head-turningly handsome man. And in the next instant he was again the kid in tie-dyed shorts with scuffed knees letting out a fake belch, telling them about all the games he’d learned at camp. “I can’t wait to play in Central Park,” he said.

Sarah shook her head. “Not without supervision, you’re not.”

“Oh, God, I don’t need supervision.”

“You’re not playing in Central Park unless I’m there, Jared. ‘Stranger danger,’ remember?”

Jared pouted. “I’m not a baby, Mom.”

“Central Park can be a dangerous place for kids. That’s the rule. Only with supervision. Now, I’m going to be really, really busy during the days, and I don’t want you staying in the apartment all day and watching TV, so I got you into the summer program at the YMCA near Lincoln Center. It’s on West Sixty-third Street, not too far from here. Sort of a neat building. That’s where you’ll spend your days.”

“YMCA?” Jared said. “I don’t want to swim.”

“It’s not just swimming, it’s arts and crafts and basketball and other games. You’ll have a great time.”

“Oh, God,” Jared wailed.

“Believe me,” Pappas said to him, “when you get to be as old as me, you’d give anything to be able to spend your days at a day camp. Anything!”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

“If Baumann is indeed in New York City,” Pappas said after Jared had gone to sleep, “he has to have entered within the last month, since his escape from Pollsmoor.”

Sarah nodded. “That narrows the time frame, but we don’t know if he entered legally or illegally. He’s a pro, so he might have sneaked in without a trace. Which makes finding him just about impossible.”

“You can’t think that way. You have to think in terms of probabilities. Yes, people can and do enter the U.S. illegally by walking across the border from Canada-so you have the Canadians search their entry records.”

“And if he came in by way of Mexico? We’re screwed if we have to depend on the Mexicans to help us out.”

“Think probabilities. Mexico’s used far less often for illegal entries in cases like this.”

“But what do we ask the Canadians to search for? They’re only going to be able to help if he flew in on his own passport, under his true name. Which isn’t likely.”

“Granted, but it’s still worth a try.”

“And if he flew into the U.S. directly-whatever passport he used-there are lots of international airports. The guy has his choice. Wouldn’t he choose some little, Podunk place like-oh, I don’t know, isn’t there an international airport in Great Falls, Montana, with just one INS inspector?”

“Not at all,” Pappas said. “One inspector means much closer scrutiny, which he wants to avoid. Much better to enter the country at a large, crowded airport that’s got six hundred people waiting to get through Customs and Immigration. All those people, and just one poor, overworked customs inspector for the teeming hordes. That’s what I’d do-JFK or Dulles or Miami, something big like that.”

“Great,” she said bitterly. “So we’re looking for a guy who entered the U.S. sometime in the last month. Under any name whatsoever. Just… a guy. That really narrows it, doesn’t it?”

Pappas shrugged.

“And as if that weren’t bad enough, I’m supposed to have people search entry records in every port of entry in the U.S. Why the hell aren’t they all together in one place, in some kind of centralized data bank?”

“Because they aren’t. Someday they will be, but for now all the searching has got to be done by hand. Could I trouble you for another cup of instant?”