The Zero Hour

But Peter wanted to get married, and although the voice of reason in her kept shrilling against it, they went to Boston City Hall and did it several days later. They moved in together, and it was as if nothing had happened. Their relationship remained tumultuous, they still fought constantly, he still knew how to reduce her to tears.

And within a few months, he began to have affairs. First it was a sister of one of his cop friends, then a secretary he’d met at a bar called Richard’s, then a whole succession of them.

At first, Sarah faulted herself. She hadn’t been much of a wife. She was career-obsessed. Sure, Peter worked long hours, but hers were worse. It hadn’t yet occurred to her that if a man works hard, he’s ambitious, but if a woman works hard, she’s negligent. After one traumatic fight, Peter promised to end the extracurricular activities. Sarah accepted his teary apologies. They would try to rebuild their marriage, for the sake of their unborn child.

At five o’clock one morning, seven months pregnant with Jared, she came home unexpectedly early, rumpled and exhausted. She’d spent the night working a wire on a case involving a precious-metals shop in Cranston, Rhode Island, that was laundering money for the Medellín cartel. She entered the apartment quietly so as not to wake Peter, who happened to be sharing their bed with a woman.

A few weeks after he’d moved out, she saw Peter arm in arm with yet another woman, coming out of a tapas place in Porter Square.

A few months after Jared’s birth, Sarah accepted an assignment to go to Germany to help investigate the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Separated from Peter for several months already, she leaped at the chance to get out of Boston with her child. The Bureau needed female interviewers who spoke German; counterterrorism she would learn. One block of training at New Agents school had been an overview of counterterrorism, so she knew the fundamentals. Before being sent to Germany she was put through a few weeks of intensive training in terrorism at Quantico. It wasn’t easy taking a three-month-old baby to a foreign country, but it was easier than staying in the same city with Peter.

The divorce became final while Sarah and Jared were still in Germany. By the terms of the custody agreement, however, Sarah had to live in the same city as Peter. So she and three-year-old Jared returned to Boston in 1991.

Peter was suddenly interested in his little boy. She and Peter were civil with each other, and occasionally did favors for each other, while at the same time disliking each other as only divorced spouses can.

Though he didn’t seem to mind being divorced from Sarah, he was pathologically jealous. Whenever she began seeing a man, he would find out about it, do whatever he could to break it up, always in the guise of protecting Jared.

She’d had a few relatively serious relationships, and each time Peter or his friends on the job would track the man down and harass or threaten him. He’d be questioned at home, stopped repeatedly for minor traffic violations, keep having traffic and parking problems. It didn’t do much to sustain the relationships.

But most of her dates never grew into anything long-term. Men didn’t want to go out with a woman who had a child, that was one thing. Also, she threw herself into her career, working ridiculous hours, so that even when she did meet someone who didn’t mind her having a child, she wasn’t available. If she started going out with the guy, she’d keep having to cancel dates because of work. More than once a guy she’d started to get close to had planned something special only to have her cancel at the last minute. And then there was Sarah’s attitude, which had hardened since the divorce. She had become self-contained, unwilling to fake vulnerability, even brassy. She had become a woman who didn’t need a man in her life, because she’d married one, and look what had happened. Who needed that again?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Shortly after the KLM flight from Paris lifted off, Baumann noticed someone seated three rows in front staring pointedly at him, with a penetrating look of recognition.

Baumann knew the face.

The man was big, a hulking figure with round shoulders. Short hair cut into bangs, deep-set eyes. A beefy, jowly face Baumann thought he had seen before… but where? A long time ago, in connection with something unpleasant. The business in Madrid?

No.

No; he had not seen this man before. Now he was certain. The man was no longer staring at him; he was staring instead at the row behind, obviously searching for someone else.

Baumann exhaled silently, relaxed his muscles, sank into his seat. The cabin was stuffy and overheated. A bead of sweat ran down one temple.