The Zero Hour

Alexander Pappas had been retired from the FBI almost a year, but he was one of the least retired retired people Sarah knew. He had been her boss when she first moved to the Boston office, before Lockerbie, and had become a good friend, then mentor. There was sort of a father-daughter thing between them, yes, but Alex Pappas felt strongly about women getting ahead in the Bureau. He seemed to have made up his mind that of all the women in the Boston office, Sarah Cahill was the one who most deserved his support. The two had become close when Sarah’s marriage was breaking up and she needed someone to talk to; Pappas became an adviser, father confessor, sounding board. Sarah sometimes felt he’d saved her sanity.

There was another kind of bond as well: both had worked major terrorism cases. In March 1977, when Pappas was assigned to the Counterterrorism Section in the Washington metropolitan field office, a religious sect calling themselves the Hanafi Muslims seized three buildings in Washington. They took 139 hostages and threatened to kill them if their demands weren’t met, chiefly vengeance against a rival sect. The FBI and the local police surrounded the buildings but had little success until Pappas managed to convince the Hanafis to surrender without violence. Which was fortunate, because as Pappas later explained it to Sarah, the Justice Department had made it clear to the FBI that force was not to be used under any circumstances.

And then, at the end of his career, he was called to New York to help investigate the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993, when an explosion in the parking garage beneath one of the twin towers killed six and injured a thousand. Although he repeatedly downplayed his role in the effort whenever discussing the Trade Center matter, and rarely talked about it, Sarah knew that Pappas was far more central than he let on.

He was content to let others grab the credit. “Look,” he once explained to Sarah, “for the younger guys this was a CTM-a Career-Threatening Moment. Make or break. What the hell did I need the credit for? I was an old man about to get out of there.” Then he added, with a wicked cackle: “Now, if this had been twenty years earlier, you’d have read my goddam name all over Newsday and the Times, believe me.”

Pappas was a widower who lived in a small, comfortable house in Brookline, near Boston. Once a month or so, he’d invite Sarah and Jared over for a home-cooked dinner. He was an excellent cook. Jared loved dinners at Pappas’s house and was fond of the old man.

Pappas greeted them at the door by reaching down to give Jared a hug and-his usual joke-pretending to try to lift Jared into the air. “I can’t do it!” he wheezed. “You’re too heavy!”

“You’re not strong enough!” Jared replied delightedly. “You’re too old!”

“Right you are, young man,” he said, giving Sarah a kiss on the cheek.

He was a large man, large-boned and thick around the middle. He was sixty-seven and looked at least that, with a round, jowly face, rheumy brown eyes, a full head of silver hair, and oversized ears.

The entire house smelled wonderfully of garlic and tomatoes. “Lasagna,” he announced. He asked Jared: “You ever have Greek lasagna?”

“No,” Jared said dubiously.

He tousled Jared’s hair. “Greek lasagna is called spanakopita. I made that for you guys once, didn’t I?”

Jared shook his head.

“I didn’t? What’s wrong with me? Next time. My wife, Anastasia, made the best spanakopita you ever had.”

“I never had it,” Jared said.

“Don’t be a wiseacre. Now, come here. I’ve got something to show you.”

“I want to play with the Victrola in the basement,” Jared said, running ahead toward the basement steps.

“Later. This is more interesting, I promise you,” Pappas said. “All right? All right?” He produced a small, flat package wrapped in silver paper and handed it to Jared.

“A baseball card!” he squealed.

“No, it’s not,” Pappas said solemnly.

“Yes it is,” Jared replied, just as solemnly, carefully tearing the package open. “All right! Awesome!” He held the baseball card up for Sarah to see and explained, “It’s a Reggie Jackson rookie. This is worth, like, thirty or forty dollars.”

“Oh, God, Alex,” Sarah scolded. “You shouldn’t do that.”

Pappas beamed. “Now, if we’re going to eat anytime within the next ten hours, Jared’s going to have to help me make the salad. Come on.”

Jared stuck out his tongue but followed Pappas into the kitchen eagerly. They talked baseball. “The greatest player who ever was,” Pappas rumbled, “was the Babe.”

Jared, who was not actually helping make the salad but was instead watching Pappas slice cucumbers, replied with exasperation: “He was a big, slow white guy.”

“Excuse me?” Pappas said incredulously and put down the paring knife. “Excuse me? Babe Ruth stole seventeen bases twice in his career. And they didn’t even run much back in the twenties. In those days, there were hardly any stolen bases.”

“Who had more home runs?” Jared said.