The Zero Hour

Dyson stared furiously at Baumann. Lomax visibly stiffened and slowly lowered a hand toward the concealed pistol Baumann had observed in the garden.

Baumann went on as if he hadn’t seen this: “And I’m certainly familiar enough now with the security here, the weakness and the permeability. Anytime I wish, I can pay you a return visit. Or come to call at your corporate offices in Geneva or Zug. You obviously know some of the particulars of my background, so I’m sure you don’t for a moment doubt my ability to hunt you down.”

Dyson put a restraining arm on Lomax. “All right,” he said at length. Lomax glowered. “I’m sure we’ll be able to come to some happy agreement.” His expression eased somewhat. “We Americans call it ‘getting to yes.’”

Baumann returned to the armchair and settled into it. He crossed his legs. “I hope so,” he said. “Six years in prison can make one long for something productive to do.”

“You understand that what I want you to do must be done in absolute secrecy,” Dyson said. “I can’t stress that enough.”

“I have never advertised my accomplishments. You don’t know even one small part of the work I’ve done.”

Dyson fixed him with a stare. “That’s the way I like it. I must not be connected to this in any way, and I intend to take measures to ensure that.”

Baumann shrugged. “Naturally. What is it you want done?”

***

Martin Lomax, who knew every last detail of the plan his employer had been brooding about for months, returned to the library about half an hour later. He understood that Dyson wished to close the deal in private, as Dyson always did.

When he entered, discreet as always, the two men appeared to be finishing their conversation.

He heard Baumann speak just one word: “Impressive.”

Dyson gave one of his odd, cold smiles. “Then you’re interested.”

“No,” Baumann said.

“What, is it the money?” Lomax found himself asking, a tad too anxiously.

“The fee would certainly be a consideration. Given the risks to my life it would entail, I’d certainly be better off back at Pollsmoor. But we will discuss finances later.”

“What the hell are you-” Dyson began.

“You have spelled out your conditions,” Baumann said quietly. “Now, I have mine.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Crime Lab, Kowalski,” said a man’s voice.

“Michael Kowalski? This is Special Agent Sarah Cahill in the Boston office.”

“Yup.” He made no attempt to hide his impatience.

“You’re an acoustic engineer, is that right?”

Kowalski sighed. “What’s up?”

She leaned forward in her chair. “Listen, do you guys know how to… unerase tapes?”

The phone line was silent for a long time. She gestured hello with her chin at Ken Alton, who was getting up from his desk and heading toward the break room.

Finally, Kowalski spoke. “Audio, video, what?”

“Audio.”

“No.”

Sarah could hear his hand covering the phone. There were muffled voices on the other end of the line.

“Hello?” she said.

“Yeah, I’m back. Sorry, I’m raked. All right, you got an audio tape you accidentally erased over or something? Not likely we’re going to be able to bring it back for you. No way. That tape’s gone. Sorry.”

“Thanks.” Sarah glumly put down the phone and said, “Shit.”

She found Ken sitting at a table in the break room, drinking a Diet Pepsi and eating a Snickers bar. He was reading one of the William Gibson novels he constantly toted around. She sat down beside him.

“I liked the old one better,” she said.

He closed his novel, using the Snickers wrapper as a bookmark. “The old what?”

“Break room. Across the street. The rats always snarfed your brown-bag lunch if you left it out. I miss the rats.”

“Was that Technical Services you were talking to?”

“Right.”

“Warren Elkind blew you off, eh?”

“He wouldn’t even take my call-not after he heard it was about Valerie Santoro’s murder. I guess I’m really reaching now.”

“Hey, don’t take it so hard,” Ken said. “Life sucks, and then you die.” He bit his lower lip. “Technical Services is pretty good. If they can’t do something, it usually can’t be done.”

“Great,” she said bitterly.

“But not necessarily. Are you really serious about this?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, turning to look at him. Her phone rang, and she ignored it.

“Well, there’s a guy I went to MIT with. A real genius. He’s on the faculty there now, an assistant professor or something. Electronics engineer. I could give him a call if you want.”

“Yeah, I’d like that. Hey, have you ever done a full-scale search of the computerized central files?”

“Sure. Why?” The Pepsi machine hummed, then rattled.

“Warren Elkind. I want to see if his name comes up anywhere. How do I do it?”

“You make the request through Philly Willie. He sends it on to Washington, to the professional searchers at headquarters. The correlation clerks are excellent.”

“I want to find all references to Elkind. Can they do it?”

“They use software called Sybase, which is pretty good. Only question is whether they’ll let you do it. Costs a lot. What makes you think Phelan’s going to authorize it?”