The Zero Hour

Yet the cost of ignoring the wrong scrap of information may be incalculable. Any intelligence professional who disregards a lead that results in an act of terrorism may be held culpable professionally, not to speak of morally, for the death of a human being-or the death of a hundred thousand.

Duke Taylor’s career had been built upon a number of talents, from his ability to get along with just about anybody, to his sharp (though often hidden) intellect, to his golf skills. Not least among his talents, however, was an instinct, the thing that separated an intelligence bureaucrat from a professional.

And his instinct told him that Noah Willkie was right, and the CIA was wrong: there was a major act of terrorism in the planning.

Shortly after his meeting with Willkie, he summoned two of his brightest lieutenants, Russell Ullman and Christine Vigiani, both of them counterterrorism analysts, and briefed them in on the NSA intercept. Ullman, a broad-shouldered, strapping Aryan from Minnesota in his early thirties, was an operational analyst. Vigiani, some years older, and an intelligence research specialist, was tiny, compact, dark-haired, introverted. Both took copious notes.

“For reasons I can’t get into, this doesn’t go beyond this room. That’s why I’m taking the unusual step of having just you guys here without the section and unit chiefs. Now, I want to make sure the boys at Fort Meade add some names to their watch list-Heinrich Fürst, this fellow Elkind. Russell, can you draft a list of all possible trip words?”

“Right,” Ullman said, “but how can we ask NSA about this if we’re not supposed to know anything about it?”

“Leave it to me, Russ. That’s what I’m here for, the diplomacy part. You people do the heavy lifting. Chris, run down whatever you can on Fürst. Have Kendall or Wendy do a complete computer search. Wendy might be better. She’s good on Germanic languages, variant spellings, what-have-you. Have our legal attachés in Germany and Austria make discreet contact, see what they can learn.”

She nodded and scrawled a note. “I’ll try,” she said dubiously, “but I’m sure it’s not his real name.”

“Well, see what you can get. Don’t forget about our own people. Maybe somebody knows something. Round up anybody who knows something about Elkind or Manhattan Bank. Field agent, transcriptionist, even the guy who washes the office cars in the Albuquerque field office.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Vigiani asked, genuinely curious.

“Wendy, the computer whiz, can help you. There’s a hidden search parameter she can call up, with my authorization.” Taylor saw the woman’s puzzlement, and added: “She’ll explain it. Basically, anytime anyone accesses the Bureau’s databases, there’s a notation made of it here in the central files, what they were asking about, et cetera.

“Now, and this is the biggest task: I want a pile of files on my desk by tomorrow morning-all possible terrorist suspects.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Ullman said.

“Put as many people as you need on this, okay? I want all the usual suspects, plus anyone else on the radar screen. Any terrorist with a track record. We’ve got to start broad.”

“Whoa,” Ullman said. “You’re basically saying, any terrorist alive.”

“Every one that fits this MO,” Duke Taylor said. “On my desk. By tomorrow morning.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Sarah’s marriage to Peter Cronin was a mystery that only deepened with time. The reason she’d done it was simple. He’d gotten her pregnant. But that begged several questions: why she decided to keep the baby; why she felt she had to marry him just because he’d knocked her up; and, the biggest question of all, why she had been attracted to him in the first place.

True, he was movie-star handsome, a brawny, virile blond with a dazzling smile. That should have captured her attention for no more than five minutes. Once you got to know Peter at all, it was obvious he was crude, domineering, a creep. Yet at the same time he could be immensely charming when he wanted to.

When he first asked her out, after they’d met on some minor FBI-police task force, she accepted quickly. He’s different from me, she told herself, but that’s all to the good. She was the overly refined one, perhaps effete, in need of an infusion of street savvy. Their sex life was incredibly exciting. She’d never felt so carried away. They’d fight, his blistering anger would surface, they’d get back together. The roller coaster went on like that for five months until her period was a few days late and a pregnancy test she bought at a drugstore confirmed her suspicion.

There was never even a discussion of abortion; she didn’t believe in it. It hadn’t happened before. She’d never had the chance to test her moral code.