The Zero Hour (24 page)

Unfortunately, that heightened vigilance lasted for only a few months. Although the new security cameras and the concrete stanchions remained in place, the shock of the World Trade Center bombing gradually faded, and people returned to life as usual.

The terrorism experts declared that America had finally joined the ranks of Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, where terrorism is a regular occurrence. Actually, the United States had seen terrorism before.

There had been a few isolated incidents: in Chicago in 1886, a bomb exploded in a crowd of policemen; in 1920, a bomb went off on Wall Street. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a wave of leftist-radical bombings, but they were sparse, mostly done by the Weather Underground faction of the Students for a Democratic Society and other members of the “white left,” who’d launched a campaign of urban terrorism hoping to spark a revolution. In a famous 1970 incident, leftist radicals had blown up the University of Wisconsin Army Research Center with a crude bomb made of diesel fuel and fertilizer. But the Weathermen dissolved in 1976 as a result of internal squabbling and by 1980 had more or less ceased to exist.

During the 1970s, the world was swept by terrorism, but the continental United States was mostly left alone, with the exception of a series of attacks, from the mid-seventies to the early eighties, by the Puerto Rican independence group FALN. Most of the Puerto Rican attacks, however, were limited to Puerto Rico. In 1980, in fact, more Americans were killed by lightning than by terrorism—and that was, worldwide, a big year for terrorism.

From time to time in recent years, America has gone through terrorism scares—in 1983, when a U.S. warship accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger plane, and in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War. But very little ever materialized. Of the five terrorist incidents on U.S. soil in 1991, none was associated with the Middle East. Four took place in Puerto Rico; the only one that happened in the continental United States was an attack on the Internal Revenue Service Center in Fresno, California, on April Fools’ Day by a group calling itself Up the IRS, Inc.

In fact, in the thirty-four terrorist incidents recorded in the United States and Puerto Rico between 1987 and 1991, not a single person was killed or even injured.

So while the bombing of the World Trade Center certainly jarred America into the realization that terrorism could actually happen here, that realization faded all too quickly. By the end of 1994, America returned to its normal state of blissful unconcern.

And then, on April 19, 1995, came the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the worst domestic terrorist incident in U.S. history. Like TRADEBOM, the bomb was loaded onto a yellow Ryder rental truck. This one consisted of a ton of ammonium-nitrate fertilizer. It killed 167 people.

Fortunately, by the early 1980s the Federal Bureau of Investigation had begun to take terrorism seriously and had set up six Joint Terrorist Task Forces around the country. The largest was in New York City. It operated out of 26 Federal Plaza and was commanded jointly by the FBI and the New York City Police Department. And for more than a decade—until the Trade Center bomb—it went without an international incident, a “major special,” as such significant attacks are called.

The composition of the Joint Terrorist Task Force is always precisely 50 percent FBI agents and 50 percent New York City police detectives. Under the Memorandum of Understanding that established the task force, the FBI is the lead agency. The police members are sworn in as federal marshals to enable them to handle federal violations. A lieutenant oversees the policemen; an FBI supervisor oversees the agents.

It is a choice assignment for cops, and the task force members selected are always the cream of the detective corps. They tend to be senior detectives; the FBI members tend to be younger. They always work in teams of two and are further divided into squads—one that deals with Muslim fundamentalists, for instance, one for domestic terrorism, one for other international groups like the Sikhs or the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

The Joint Terrorism Task Force numbered no more than six cops and six agents in 1985. During the Gulf War the commitment increased to about a hundred agents and a hundred detectives. By 1994—after the Trade Center bomb—it had shrunk to thirty agents and thirty detectives. There was even talk at One Police Plaza and 26 Federal Plaza about disbanding the force entirely.

After all, TRADEBOM was an isolated event, was it not? And what were the odds, when you came right down to it, of such a thing ever happening again?

But then came Oklahoma City, and then it seemed that America would never be safe from terrorism again.

*   *   *

At three-thirty in the afternoon, Baumann arrived at Dulles International Airport, outside of Washington. An hour and a half later, he carried his baggage through the terminal’s Eero Saarinen–designed interior and got a cab to Washington. In his leather carry-on satchel, in several neat bundles, were Thomas Cook traveler’s checks in various denominations totaling several hundred thousand dollars, payable to a fictitious corporation. Baumann knew that the Central Intelligence Agency uses unsigned Thomas Cook traveler’s checks to pay its contract agents (often diverted from funds earmarked for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations). That way, there’s no paper trail. Had the customs inspector opened his satchel and discovered the checks—which did not happen—there would have been no problem: such checks are nonnegotiable currency and cannot be taxed by U.S. Customs.

Baumann stayed at the Jefferson, because he had heard it was a comfortable and elegant hotel, and because it happened to have a room available for a harried businessman who’d just missed his plane.

It was too late in the day, by the time he arrived at the hotel, to make any calls, so he ordered a cheeseburger from room service, took a steaming-hot bath, and slept off his exhaustion. In the morning, refreshed and prosperous-looking in one of his businessman’s suits, he devoured a large room-service breakfast, read
The Washington Post
, and set off for a walk.

When you call the FBI’s general number, you do not hear the periodic beeping that signifies you are being recorded. But Baumann assumed the FBI did record all incoming calls, legally or not. The real problem, though, was not whether his voice might be taped. Had he called the FBI from his hotel room, a record would be made at the Bureau of the number from which he called. That would not do at all.

So he found a pay phone in the atrium of an office building from which he could call without too much background noise.

“I’d like to speak to Agent Taylor in Counterterrorism, please,” he said. Someone named Taylor, from Bureau headquarters, was the authorizing official on the request to the South African Department of Customs for a copy of his passport application. That didn’t mean Taylor was the investigator, just that he was the responsible authority. And it was a very good start.

“Mr. Taylor’s office,” came a friendly woman’s voice.

“Yes, I’m looking for Agent Frank Taylor, please,” he said.

“I’m sorry, this is Perry Taylor’s office—”

“But this is Counterterrorism, right?”

“Yes, it is, sir, but there’s no Frank Taylor—”

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, this must be the right Agent Taylor. I’m Paul Tannen from the
Baltimore Sun
, and I’m copyediting and fact-checking a piece on the battle against terrorism. The reporter mentions—well, it’s got to be Agent
Perry
Taylor, and quite favorably, I should say, but you know how lazy journalists are these days, what with computers and everything.”

The woman’s voice brightened. “Yes, sir, that’s sure the truth.”

“I mean, you got spell-checks and word-processing programs and all that stuff. Good golly, a newspaperman doesn’t even have to
write
anymore.”

She laughed pleasantly, a high, musical, laugh. “Did you want to talk to Agent Taylor?”

“Golly, I can’t be bothering him with proofreading queries, no ma’am, but thanks anyway. Well, thanks a lot, and—oh, right, one more thing. Our reporter talked to Agent Taylor at home. I
assume
he did, anyway. He lives in Washington, right?”

“Alexandria, actually.”

Baumann gave a big, exasperated sigh. “You see what I mean?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“As the case agent on the original investigation that led to all of us being here,” Whitman said, “Ms. Cahill will be lead investigator, in charge of day-to-day operations.”

Sarah cleared her throat and launched into a summary of the information they had so far and read aloud from a paraphrased summary of the NSA intel intercepts. Annoyingly enough, she explained, she couldn’t give copies of the actual intercepts to them, since none of them had been cleared, though she was working on getting at least one of them cleared to act as liaison with NSA from now on. She didn’t explain—no reason for them to know—that CIA and FBI were now at each other’s throats over the leak of the NSA intercept to the FBI. But the two agencies were always skirmishing, and it would blow over. She explained about the CD-ROM that had been stolen from Warren Elkind and copied, and then returned to him.

“Has anyone talked to this Elkind guy?” asked Lieutenant George Roth, who then popped a breath mint into his mouth.

“Not yet,” Sarah said. “The New York office sent a couple of agents to talk to him. They briefed him about the threat, but he seemed fairly unconcerned, said he gets threats all the time. Which is true—his security people are always handling one threat or another. But he won’t talk, won’t submit to questioning. His attorney was with him, wouldn’t let him answer anything.”

“Prick,” said Roth. “We should just let the fuckers bomb the bank, or zap Elkind, or whatever they want to do. Serve him right.”

“It’s his right not to talk to us,” Sarah said.

Pappas said, “We should try again. Maybe you should try talking to him.”

“I’m working on it,” Sarah said. “In my own way. He’ll talk, I promise you. One of the main things we want to find out is what was on the CD-ROM in question. Ken, why would a terrorist want a CD-ROM?”

“The possibilities are endless,” Ken said. “My guess is that the CD contains something that would allow the bad guys to penetrate the bank’s security. Passwords, keys, that sort of thing.”

“How easy is it to copy a CD-ROM? Is it tough?”

“Oh, God, no way. Shit, it’s practically like photocopying the thing. For a couple thousand bucks you can get a CD-ROM player that has a writable CD-ROM drive in it. Pinnacle Microsystems makes one; so does Sony.”

“All right. Russell, have you reached the Israelis, and are they being helpful?”

“Yes to the first, no to the second,” Ullman replied. “The Mossad is one tight-lipped bunch. They wouldn’t confirm that Elkind is one of their, what you call,
sayan
s. Wouldn’t even say if anyone in Mossad had ever been in touch with the guy. Off the record they confirm they know about Elkind’s kinky side, mostly because he’s a big contributor to Israel and all that, and they like to be informed. They say they don’t know anything about terrorism and any connection to Elkind, but they might just be playing it close to the vest.”

“Anything from flight records?” Sarah asked.

“Nothing from any of the major carriers, or even the minor ones,” Christine Vigiani said. “But I wouldn’t expect to find anything unless he’s traveling under his real name or a known alias, and he wouldn’t do that if he’s got any smarts.”

“Sarah,” Pappas put in, “we might want to contact every intelligence service we have ties to—the British SIS, both MI6 and MI5, the French SDECE, the Spanish, the Germans. The Russians may well have something in their archives from Soviet times.”

“Good idea,” Sarah said. “You want to coordinate that? Request any records of Henrik Baumann under his true name, any known aliases, the names of any friends or relatives or associates. Any name we can trawl up. This guy has a record of doing tricks in the terrorist business for years, so he has to have left some trail.”

Pappas nodded and jotted down a note. “I should warn you, we may have to apply some serious pressure. Counterterrorism is like motherhood and apple pie—everyone says they’re for it, everyone says they’ll help, until it comes to the crunch. But I’ll put out the word worldwide.”

There was a hoarse bark of laughter, and Lieutenant Roth said: “I like this. This investigation is so top-secret we can’t tell a soul, except for a few thousand people around the world, from Madrid to Newfoundland. That’s really keeping the lid on.”

“Look—” Pappas began with exasperation.

Sarah turned to the cop slowly with a vacant expression. “Lieutenant Roth, either you’re with us or you’re out of here. It’s as simple as that. If you want to leave, please do so now.”

She folded her arms and stared.

A crooked half-smile slowly appeared on one side of Roth’s mouth. He nodded, almost a bow. “My apologies,” he said.

“Accepted. Now, Ken, we’ve already done a complete database search of Bureau records, but since this is your specialty, maybe you could go over it again and do it right.”

“I’ll try,” Ken said, “but I really don’t know squat about the terrorism indices.”

“You’ll figure it out in no time. Most of the good stuff is at CIA, which maintains the principal government terrorism database. It’s divided into two parts—the interagency one, and another one that’s parochial to CIA, containing operational information, sources and methods, and so on. Also I need someone—Christine?—to check out any connections between our terrorist and the right-wing maniacs who did OKBOMB.”

“I doubt there’s anything,” Vigiani said. “This is clearly international—”

“I agree with you. But just run a check, okay? Rule it out.”

“Sarah, what about Elkind?” Pappas said. “He’s still the best lead we’ve got. If he can be persuaded his bank is being targeted, he’s got to be a little more receptive.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said with a heavy sigh. “He should be, shouldn’t he?” Unless he’s holding something back, she thought.