The Zero Hour

“Warren Elkind is one of the most powerful bankers in America. He’s also been a target of terrorist threats. If I leave things the way they are, we have one dead prostitute and one rich banker. No connection. A big, fat goose egg. But if we can do a fully cross-referenced search, it’s possible we’ll turn up something someplace we wouldn’t have thought to look. Some investigation somewhere, some lead somewhere-”

“Yeah, but Phelan’s just going to tell you about how the Bureau’s file clerks cross-reference better than any file clerks in the world. If it’s not in Elkind’s file now, what makes you think a computer search is going to yield anything more?”

“You’re the computer nerd. You figure it out. I want an all-out, interagency search. CIA, DIA, NSA, INS, State, the whole shebang. Stuff that our people don’t necessarily cross-reference.”

“Go talk to Willie.”

“He’s just going to say, ‘Sarah, this isn’t Lockerbie.’”

“Well, it isn’t.” He took a huge mouthful of Snickers and, chewing, smiled wickedly. “But ask anyway. You think Elkind killed your informant?”

She sighed. “No. I mean, anything’s possible, I wouldn’t rule it out. But there’s something… I don’t know, sort of off about her death. A five-thousand-dollar payoff… and murdered hours after servicing one of the most powerful men on Wall Street. Something’s not quite right.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Malcolm Dyson, Baumann thought, was faux-casual yet tightly wound; shamblingly relaxed yet ferociously observant. And he had made a point of keeping Baumann waiting a good half hour while he changed for dinner; where he was having dinner, whether in or out, the old billionaire hadn’t volunteered. He guarded his personal life like a state secret.

Dyson’s only revealing comment had been an aside, uttered as a liveried butler escorted him into a cherrywood elevator and up to his personal quarters. “I’ve learned,” he’d said apropos of nothing, “that I don’t even miss the States. I miss New York. I had a nice spread in Katonah, thirty-four acres. Town house on East Seventy-first Street that Alexandra put endless time into redoing. Loved it. Life goes on.” And, with a dismissive wave: “New York may be the financial capital, but you can goddam well pay the rent out of a shack in Zambezi if you want.”

Dyson reappeared in the smoke-redolent library, wearing black tie and a shawl-collar dinner jacket. “Now, then. Your ‘conditions,’ as you call them. I don’t have all day, and I’d prefer to wrap this up before dinner.”

Baumann stood before Dyson. For a few moments he was silent. At last he spoke. “You have outlined to me a plan that will wreak terrible destruction on the United States and then the world. You want me to detonate a rather sophisticated explosive device in Manhattan, on a specific date, and disable a major computer system as well. I am now privy to your intent. And you, like me, are an internationally sought fugitive from justice. What makes you think I can’t simply go to the international authorities with a promise to divulge what I know of your plan, and strike a bargain for my freedom?”

Dyson smiled. “Self-interest, pure and simple,” he replied phlegmatically. “For all intents and purposes, I am beyond reach here. I’m effectively protected by the Swiss government, which receives enormous financial benefit from my corporate undertakings.”

“No one is beyond reach,” Baumann pointed out.

“You are a convicted murderer and terrorist,” Dyson said, “who broke out of a South African jail and went on the lam. Why do you think they will believe you? It’s far more likely you’ll simply be rounded up and returned to Pollsmoor. Locked up in solitary. The South Africans don’t want you talking, as you know, and the other governments of the world sure as hell don’t want you at large.”

Baumann nodded. “But you’re describing a criminal act of such magnitude that the Americans, the FBI and the CIA in particular, will not rest until they locate the perpetrators. In the aftermath of such a bombing, the public pressure for arrests will be enormous.”

“I’ve selected you because you’re supposed to be brilliant and, most important, extremely secretive. Your job description is not to get caught.”

“But I will require the services of others-this is hardly a job I can do alone-and once others are involved, the chance of secrecy dwindles to nothing.”