The Zero Hour

She watched him as he stood. He had a wonderful, lithe body, broad shoulders, a narrow waist. It was not the body of a man who sat around, an academic or an architect; he obviously worked out.

“This is a wonderful Armagnac,” Sarah said.

“Thanks. I thought you’d like it.”

“I love Armagnac.”

“Good. So do I. Do you like jazz vocals?”

“Of course. What have you got?”

“Let me surprise you.”

He returned to the sofa and sat closer, watching her as the music came on, simple but highly syncopated jazz piano.

“Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald!” Sarah said. “One of the all-time great albums.”

“You’ve got good taste in music,” Brian said, and leaned over and kissed her lips. He held her face in both hands as if admiring an objet d’art. Sarah closed her eyes and parted her lips and tasted his tongue.

Oh, God, Sarah thought, let me just be right here, in the moment.

She put her hands on his back, against his shoulder blades, then ran them down to the firm, shirt-covered flesh of his lower back. She slipped her fingertips underneath his belt and rested them there, enjoying the warmth, the velvety feel of the swell of his buttocks.

His tongue moved slowly into her mouth, exploring the inside of her mouth, and he held her face even tighter.

“Sarah,” he groaned.

Be in the moment, she chanted to herself. In the moment.

She felt her thoughts at last beginning to lift momentarily away from the inordinate tensions of her daily work, the deaths, the fear and uncertainty. She felt almost light-headed, and she was grateful.

His hands slid smoothly down her neck, over her shoulders, then came around to cup her breasts from the sides, gently. She felt enveloped by the warmth, felt aroused.

I can’t believe this is happening, she thought. Can’t believe this is happening. I don’t know the man, don’t know anything about him, don’t-

He unbuttoned the top buttons of her blouse, nuzzled warmly against her bare skin, then licked and kissed his way to her nipples.

“Mmmph,” she groaned.

A new song began: “How Long Has This Been Going On?” Ella’s voice, though past its peak, was husky yet agile. She belted out the lyrics, stumbled over one line, sang, One more once and that makes tw-thrice!

She slipped her fingers underneath the band of his jockey shorts, felt the silky smoothness of his skin. At the same time, he reached around to finish unbuttoning her blouse, then unfasten her bra, and she felt her nipples grow hard. He undid her skirt and let it fall to the floor, then unbuckled his belt and let his pants drop. She saw his erection tenting the white cotton of his undershorts, and she slowly slid them down.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, his head moved downward, planting a trail of scorchingly hot kisses on her belly, the wisps of hair beneath her navel, and-

“Brian-” she said, a vain attempt to gain control.

Down there, his tongue fluttering like a butterfly, or a hummingbird, his head moving back and forth, then up and down, his tongue alternately rigid and probing, then soft and wet and oscillating. He kissed, sucked gently at her labia, hummed a few notes along with the song, sucked a little harder, hummed again, and then enveloped her clitoris and the hood around it with a luscious, feather-soft kiss. She rocked back and forth, undulating her hips as the teasing little tickle of pleasure built into a sharp-edged wave and grew stronger and larger and she heard something so far away, something-

– a mechanical noise, of the ordinary world, not of the world of pleasure into which she was floating-

– her pager. She groaned. Her pager had gone off.

Brian grunted his annoyance. “Not now,” he said.

“I’m-I’m sorry-I have to…” She rolled over, took her cellular phone out of her purse. Naked, she took it into the bathroom, shut the door, clicked on the ventilation fan to muffle her voice.

“Yes, Ken,” she said. “I really hope this is important.”

“Sorry to bother you,” Ken Alton said. “But yeah, I think it is. I got it.”

“Got… what?”

“The passport. The passport Baumann used to enter the U.S. The name is Thomas Allen Moffatt.”

Sarah disconnected, folded up the phone, and returned to the bedroom. Brian was lying on his back, a crooked half-smile on his face. “Everything all right?” he murmured.

“Everything’s fine,” she said. “Good news.”

“Good,” Henrik Baumann said. “We can all use good news. Now, where were we?”

Part 5: TRAPS

When the strike of a hawk

breaks the body of its prey,

it is because of the timing.

– Sun-tzu, The Art of War

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

At four-thirty in the morning, the narrow alley off the side street in the Wall Street area of lower Manhattan was dark and deserted. Opaque steam rose from a manhole cover. A discarded yellow wrapper from a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder drifted along the wet asphalt like tumbleweed.