The Zero Hour (37 page)

“I mean, it was really just a matter of putting two and two together. Our guy did Carrero Blanco, right? Hired by the Basques?”

“Okay…?”

“So I got onto CACTIS and cross-referenced the Carrero Blanco murder, trying to find any other connections.” She took a drag on her cigarette. “So come to find out, CIA has some excellent sources that say whoever it was who was hired by the Basques was hired soon afterward by the IRA.”

Sarah sat up, her attention riveted.

“So I got in touch with Scotland Yard Special Operations. And there’s solid evidence that our man also did the assassination of the British ambassador to Northern Ireland in the mid-seventies—you remember that?”

Sarah, of course, remembered it well. On July 21, 1976, Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the British ambassador to Ireland, was killed when a land mine detonated in a culvert under the road on which he was driving, in the countryside near Dublin. Ewart-Biggs had been ambassador for a mere three weeks.

The assassination was the work of the IRA’s Provisional Wing. But it has long remained a matter of much speculation who actually carried out the bombing. British Intelligence later learned that it was a paid professional hit—that it was
not
done by the IRA.

But by now it is a matter of certainty within intelligence circles, based on forensic and intelligence data, that Ewart-Biggs was killed by the same mysterious person who killed Carrero Blanco in Madrid. The name has never been made public.

“This Baumann,” said Vigiani fuzzily through a lungful of smoke, “is one mean motherfucker, if you’ll pardon my French.”

*   *   *

“Agent Cahill?” the Technical Services analyst said over the secure link a little more than an hour later. “Your question about the timer?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I think you may be on to something, ma’am. I looked at it real close, and a couple other guys here looked at it, and we all pretty much agreed it’s almost identical to the timers that Edwin Wilson sold Libya in 1976.”

“‘Almost identical’?”

“It’s built just like those timers, ma’am, but it’s not one of them. You know the black plastic box that houses the timer? Well, I ran the plastic through a melting-point test, and I found it melts at three hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit, so now I can say for certain it’s not the same timer.”

“You’re sure.”

“Positive. We’ve got several of the Wilson timers, as you call them, and they’re all made from a nylon resin, which melts at five hundred and two degrees Fahrenheit. But the one we got here, that’s an acetel resin. This one’s different.”

“So it’s a fake? You think someone made a fake timer that looked just like the Libyan one to make the bomb look like it was done by the Libyans?”

“That’s what I’m saying, ma’am. There’s no other reason why someone would construct a duplicate timer except to fool the counterterrorist folks like you. Someone’s trying to snow us.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

AAAA Construction and Excavation was an eyesore on the outskirts of the otherwise lovely Westchester County town of Mount Kisco, New York. It was nothing more than a small brick structure surrounded by trailers, set in a field of rubble, surrounded by alarmed barbed-wire fencing.

Four A, as its seven employees called it, advertised construction and specialty blasting in the Manhattan Yellow Pages, in a small red-outlined box that featured a line drawing of a crane with dirt cascading from its shovel. It was the first listing under “excavation” in the Yellow Pages, thanks to all those A’s.

Its demoralized and underpaid employees thought a better emblem would have been a dollar bill with wings on it, to symbolize the fact that Four A had been losing money steadily for the last four years, ever since David Nickelsen, Jr., had taken over the family business after his father, the company’s founder, suffered a stroke.

But AAAA Construction and Excavation suited Henrik Baumann’s purposes just fine. He’d gone through the Yellow Pages listings of construction companies and rejected any that didn’t have the licenses—from ATF and the local municipality—to use or store explosives.

That still left quite a few candidates. But of those, only a few fit the desired profile: small, privately held, and in sufficiently bad financial shape not to immediately turn away an English guy who was calling to discuss some private business regarding C-4.

Fortunately, David Nickelsen, Jr., was not overburdened with scruples. Baumann knew it would not be difficult to find someone in this line of work who’d do business with him. Nickelsen listened to the proposition of the well-dressed man who identified himself as John McGuinness from Bristol, England, and agreed to do business. Whether it was Mr. McGuinness’s polite manners or his offer of fifty thousand dollars in cash that persuaded him, David Nickelsen, Jr., gladly accepted.

The Englishman explained that he represented a foreign buyer—he would not say more—who was having difficulty obtaining an export license for a major construction job in Kuwait. This buyer needed a five-hundred-foot roll of DetCord, several M6 Special Engineer Electrical Blasting Caps, and one thousand pounds of C-4, U.S. military designation Charge Demolition Block M-112.

But not just any Charge Demolition Block M-112. For technical reasons too complicated to go into, it had to have a specific manufacturer’s code.

What Baumann did not bother explaining was that the numbers he gave the corrupt construction-company owner referred to a certain manufacturer and lot. He had found these codes in a list of government contracts published in a journal called the
Commerce Business Daily.

David Nickelsen, Jr., had looked at him as if he were out of his mind. Your guys want plastic explosives or not? Yes or no? What’s the deal here?

Baumann informed Nickelsen that the exact lot he wanted was being offered for sale, dirt cheap and right now, at a national auction conducted by a government agency called the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS), in Battle Creek, Michigan. DRMS is an arm of the Defense Logistics Agency, which is in turn part of the Department of Defense. Each month, DRMS offers surplus explosives, from government warehouses, for sale at drastically reduced prices. Anyone who has the proper explosives license can bid.

“All right,” Nickelsen said, “I can buy this stuff today if you want.”

“I do,” Baumann said.

“Then what? How the hell’m I supposed to cover the fact that I made an illegal sale?”

“You don’t. You have the C-4 shipped to you, and you store it in your certified magazine. You turn off the power in the electrified security fence—a lapse you will blame on one of your expendable employees. You let me know when it’s there, and you receive the money. The following morning, you find the lock on your magazine cut. You are horrified, and you report the theft. And that is the end of it. You’ll never see or hear from me again. And one last thing—the guys I work for are really intent on their privacy. One goddam word of this gets out—one bloody word—and your two little boys will be without a father. Simple as that. All clear?”

CHAPTER SIXTY

At the same time, Ken Alton was sitting at his work station, deep in concentration, surrounded by large blue-screened monitors, several keyboards, an impossible-looking tangle of wires, and heaps of empty Diet Pepsi cans.

“I’ve been in touch with the computer people over at Manhattan Bank,” he said, “sort of familiarizing myself with the system. It’s pretty secure, for a bank. But I’m thinking of going over there and getting my hands dirty, doing some hands-on work, checking things out.”

Sarah nodded. “Great. Any luck on the passport search?”

“We’re getting there.”

“How close?”

“I’m winnowing. I’m down to forty-some names—we could hand-check them, but it would be a hell of a lot faster for me to narrow down to a name or two.”

“What are the forty?”

“The intersection of two databases: every U.S. citizen who’s entered the country since the beginning of the year, and all U.S. passports reported lost or stolen.”

“Can I see the list?”

“It won’t do you any good, but sure, if you want. Hard copy?”

“Please.”

He tapped a few keys, and his laser printer hummed to life. “Done. But it’s just a list of names, with Social Security and passport numbers, ranked in order of probability.”

“Probability of each candidate being our guy?”

“You got it.”

“Based on what?”

“Several different fields, or factors. Stuff like height, age, sex. To start, we know Baumann’s five foot eleven.”

“The passport people don’t check height, Ken.”

“Right, but if someone’s very short—four foot eight, in one case—it’s not likely to be Baumann, unless he had his legs sawed off. On the other hand, I’m not eliminating anyone taller, because it’s easy for someone to look taller with lifts or special shoes, okay?”

“What about age? We’ve already agreed that he could look a lot older if he wanted to, with the right makeup.”

“Granted, but he’s not going to look eight years old, right? So there are some passport ages that probably couldn’t be him. Anyone younger than twenty-five gets demoted in the probability ranking automatically. And there’s itinerary.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m proceeding on the assumption that Baumann didn’t first depart the U.S. before he entered. In other words, he most likely acquired the passport abroad and used it to enter the country. Anyone who, let’s say, entered the U.S. last week but
left
the country a week or two earlier isn’t likely to be our terrorist. So he gets pushed down the list.”

“Okay, good.”

“Plus, I’ve gotten data from most, though not all, of the airlines these forty-three flew in on. Manifests, airline travel logs, flight logs. Those databases tell us a lot. For instance, did the passenger buy a ticket with cash? Odds are very high our guy did. If he didn’t—down to the bottom of the pile he goes. Not out, but down.”

“Makes sense.”

“Oh, and we can eliminate anyone who entered the country
before
the date of Baumann’s escape from prison.” He retrieved a sheet from the printer, handed it to her. “So, what you’re looking at is a work in progress. Not all the databases have been worked in. Another day or two, I should have it narrowed down to one name.”

*   *   *

Lieutenant George Roth had just about given up searching the alley behind the Chinese restaurant, and he radioed in to report his lack of success. Then, as he turned back toward Broadway, something in a trash heap in a large blue Dumpster behind the restaurant attracted his attention. He moved closer to the refuse, holding his breath, and saw that his first impression had been right—it was a black leather shoe. He pulled at it, and realized that it was attached to a leg.

*   *   *

A few minutes later, the special working group assembled for an end-of-the-day full staff meeting, minus the two involved with the Mail Boxes Etc. operation, George Roth and Russell Ullman.

Sarah opened by briefing them in on the Mail Boxes watch. “Apparently someone called to ask about the package,” she said, “but hung up before we could get a fix on his location.”

“You think he got suspicious?” Pappas asked.

“Possibly. Could be he was just being careful.”

“He might not ever come in to get the package,” Pappas went on. “If it really is Baumann, he might not need it—he might have other fusing mechanisms. Baumann’s probably quite thorough.”

“True,” Sarah said. “In any case, they’ll page me if anyone shows up to claim the package.” She went on to detail the other operations that were in gear.

A full-field investigation, which Operation MINOTAUR had become, is extremely resource-intensive; it allowed them to use every weapon they had. These included clandestine microphones and video, direction finders on cars, trash covers, wiretap surveillance. Technically, a full-field was good for one year, but it was renewable—some full-fields, like the FBI’s war against the Communist Party of the United States, had gone on for forty years. The problem was, of course, that they didn’t have a year, even a month.

She related what Technical Services had discovered about the fusing mechanism. But the latest information, which she’d received a few minutes ago from the youthful-voiced Ted Grabowski, was the real story. “Once it was clear that the Libyan timer was a fake, a counterfeit, the techies began to look more closely,” she said. “They did a microscopic examination, looking for tool marks. Remember the attempt to assassinate President Bush in Kuwait a couple of years ago?”

“Sure,” Pappas said. “We found explosives, DetCord, and fusing mechanisms, and determined that the folks behind it were—who else?—the Iraqis. So what’s the connection?”

“Well, the exact same pair of wirecutters that were used to make the Kuwait bomb were used to cut the wires in this fusing mechanism.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Pappas said.

“Hold on,” Vigiani said. “You’re saying the Iraqis made this thing?”

“No,” Sarah replied. “The Iraqis didn’t
make
the Kuwait bomb either—they farmed it out. It was a pretty fancy piece of handiwork, probably beyond the capabilities of the Iraqis.”

“Sarah,” Vigiani said, “I think I’m above my pay grade here. Can you explain it in simple terms?”

“Okay,” Sarah said. “Baumann hired someone to construct a detonator and ship it in. Whoever he hired also did the Kuwait bomb.
And
was trained at the Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal School—by us. So if we can find out who built the Kuwaiti fusing mechanism…”

“I’m intrigued by this counterfeit Libyan timer,” Pappas said. “This attempt to lay a false trail. Why would someone do that?”

“To conceal their own involvement, lead us astray?” suggested Vigiani.

“Or else,” Pappas said, “to pin it on the Libyans for some strategic reason. Either way, this is not normal terrorist behavior. This is the work of someone who wants no credit, no blame, no extortion. In short, Baumann has been hired by someone who simply wants to destroy some part of New York City, presumably the Manhattan Bank, without making a statement.”