In the ensuing battle, the two brothers had fought, and years of simmering resentments and rivalries had boiled over. They had not spoken since.
Now came the news that Jason, Thomas’s only sibling, had an advanced, full-blown case of AIDS. According to his physicians, he might live for another week, no more.
Although Thomas was an American citizen, he had not left the country in more than two years, for a brief, unavoidable meeting in London. He despised traveling, and until this morning had intended never to leave Amsterdam again.
He got up and went downstairs, drank a cup of koffie verkeerd (coffee with hot milk) prepared by their housekeeper, and booked the earliest possible flight to San Diego for him and his wife. Then he went to the marble-topped bureau in his study, where he kept all of his important papers, to get his passport.
It was not there.
This was odd, because he had seen it there just two or three days ago, when he had to make a photocopy of his birth certificate. He searched the drawer again, then pulled the drawer out and looked in the space behind it to see whether it might have somehow slid out of the drawer.
But it was not there.
The cleaning lady who came in every other day had just neatened up his study a few days ago, but she would certainly never move it. Thomas doubted she’d ever opened this drawer.
By late morning, Thomas and his wife and the housekeeper had searched the house high and low, but to no avail. The passport was missing.
“Just call the embassy and tell them it’s lost,” his wife said impatiently. “You can get a replacement right away. We can’t look anymore if we’re going to catch the afternoon flight, Thomas.”
He called the American consulate, on Museumplein, and reported his passport missing. After the typical runaround, he was told to come in and fill out some papers.
“Let me have your name again, sir,” the woman on the other end of the line said.
He responded with great annoyance, because he had given this dull-witted woman his name no fewer than three times. He had even spelled it out, as if to an idiot.
“Moffatt,” he said. “Thomas Allen Moffatt.”
CHAPTER FORTY
The Mobil lot was too exposed, so Baumann found a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts, which was open, casting a sulfurous fluorescent light on the cars parked in the small lot in front. He parked and went inside for a cup of coffee. The server was a small young woman with frosted blond hair. She handed him a large cup, black, and a plain doughnut, and cheerily wished him a good morning. From the vending machine at the entrance he bought an early edition of the Post.
In the car, he draped the newspaper over the steering wheel and perused it as he sipped his coffee. From under the front passenger’s seat he slid the receiver, plugged it into the cigar lighter, and adjusted the antenna. Any passerby would think he was studying the paper, though he was actually examining the LCD readout. A flashing red dot told him that the “bumper beeper,” or Hound Dog, he had placed on the Oldsmobile’s bumper was transmitting a signal, and that the car hadn’t moved.
The device emitted an RF signal. Some Hound Dogs trailed a black wire antenna almost a foot long, but not this. Not on the car of an FBI man. This particular solid-state model had a stubby antenna that wouldn’t easily be detected.
The scope, beside him on the front seat, told him where the transmitter was and where he was relative to it. This would enable him to tail the FBI man without being detected. Even deputy assistant directors had once gone through training and knew to look for certain signs of surveillance.
There was a risk that the FBI did regular RF sweeps on Taylor’s car, in which case the Hound Dog would be discovered; but they would not do them daily. In any case, he would have to move quickly.
By his second cup of coffee, at 7:50 A.M., the flashing red dot began to move.
He followed the FBI man from as much as half a mile behind. Only once did he come close enough to see Taylor. This was at a large intersection just outside the District. Taylor was in the right lane, near the entrance to a shopping center. Baumann entered the shopping center’s lot and drove within line of sight.
With his Nikon 7 × 50 binoculars he was able to scrutinize Perry Taylor; because Baumann’s rental car had tinted windows, Taylor could not see Baumann, even if he happened to look. Taylor looked to be in his late forties, perhaps fifty, of medium build. His gray hair was neatly cut, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses. He wore an olive poplin suit with a white shirt and a gold-striped tie: the consummate government bureaucrat.
An ID badge was attached to the breast pocket of Taylor’s suit jacket by means of an alligator clip, which told Baumann that Perry usually kept his jacket on during the day. Whenever an FBI employee was in FBI space he was required to wear his ID badge.
Baumann let the metallic-blue Oldsmobile get a good distance ahead, and he followed carefully. Since he didn’t know the streets of Washington, he made a few wrong turns and was stymied by a one-way street, but that was inevitable.
When the flashing red dot came to a stop once again, Baumann pulled up several car lengths away, and could see that Taylor had pulled into a small parking lot off a commercial stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue. Baumann double-parked half a block up the street and watched through the binoculars.
Perry Taylor got out of the car, placed a coin in the parking meter, and entered a delicatessen that advertised breakfast specials and takeout meals. Was he having breakfast? If so, this was a golden opportunity.
With some trepidation, Baumann left his car double-parked, strolled past the metallic-blue Oldsmobile, and quickly made a few mental notes.
One, there was an FBI parking garage pass on the dashboard. No surprise here; all employees who worked at FBI headquarters had the right to park in its garage. Unfortunately, the garage was well guarded and difficult to enter.
Two, if Taylor had set the car alarm, there was no visible sign of it. Likely he had not.
And three, there was a briefcase on the front seat, a gray Samsonite. This was most interesting, but how to get to it? It was possible, though not likely, that Taylor had left the car unlocked. Baumann passed by the car again, pretending to be looking for a street number, and with his glove-clad hands tried the driver’s-side door. It was locked.
Then he noticed a small plate screwed onto the dash where it met the windscreen. Yes, of course. Engraved on the plate was the VIN, the vehicle identification number. Baumann drew close and copied down the long series of numbers and letters, and just then he saw Taylor emerge from the delicatessen, carrying a white paper bag—his breakfast? his lunch? Baumann kept walking toward the rented Mustang and got back into the car. He took note of the name of the auto dealership where Taylor had probably purchased the car: it was emblazoned on the bracket that held the license plate. Then Baumann pulled into traffic and proceeded down the street and out of sight.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Sarah and Pappas were not the first to arrive at Operation MINOTAUR’s headquarters. By seven-fifteen, everyone had arrived except Ken Alton, who’d been at work into the early morning, rigging up in record time a local-area network, or LAN. Since each member of the task force had a computer terminal, this would allow everyone to gain access to files and records in the most efficient way possible. Ken had explained to Sarah that he wasn’t particularly concerned about what he called interior defense, because every task force member had been thoroughly screened and vetted. Had there been more time, he would set up an adequate perimeter defense, with a “firewall” security system. But Ken was a perfectionist in everything except his grooming, and Sarah told him to leave things as they were. No time for anything elaborate.
The group broke up into teams and dispersed for the day, all of them equipped with a beeper in case Sarah needed to reach them suddenly. She and Lieutenant Roth moved to the office she had claimed as her own. Probably it had once belonged to the display company’s president. For all the high-tech security that had been set up on the
floor, many of the offices had been left untouched. A ratty abandoned desk-and-chair set dwarfed the room, with its breathtaking view of the city. From up here it looked clean and galvanized and full of promise. The desk’s surface was wood-grain Formica, patched at one corner with mismatched wood-grain contact paper. The high-backed chair was upholstered in mustard-yellow vinyl, with white cotton tufts sprouting through gaping holes in the seat. No wonder the furnishings had been left behind. The only official-looking thing in the room was the FBI-approved safe, a four-drawer Mosler combination safe, concrete-and-steel, good for material up to top secret.
“So, Lieutenant Roth, my sources tell me you’re one of the best cops on the force, you were considered a genius when you were on the Fugitive Squad, you tracked down twelve fugitives in a year and half, you’re great at passports and credit cards, and you’ve got some sort of unbelievable gift at finding people, some kind of sixth sense. I hope my sources are right.”
Roth popped a Breath Saver. “They exaggerate,” he said. “I’ll do my best, all I can say.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
“Okay,” he said, as Sarah prepared to take notes. “There’s an organization that might help called APPLE, for the Area Police Private Security Liaison program. I guess the S is silent. The members are the security directors of nine hundred buildings and companies in the city. Mostly they’re involved with break-ins and domestic crime. They spend their time thinking about public toilets and loading docks and service entrances, but since the World Trade Center they’ve gotten pretty concerned about terrorism. The program coordinator is a buddy of mine. I’ll give him a call.”
“But if the Manhattan Bank is the target,” Sarah said, “why bother with nine hundred other companies?”
“On the assumption that the Manhattan Bank might be one of a series of targets. Probably I’m wrong, but I figure it’s safer to rule things out instead of being surprised down the line.”
“What are you going to ask them?”
“If they’ve received any threats or noticed any suspicious behavior. This is New York City. Threats and suspicious behavior are a way of life, so the answer will be yes, and we’ll have to screen. I mean, we got the resources, right, so why not squander them?”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Sarah said.
“Plus, I was thinking we should just go down the list of major landmark buildings and locations and keep them on our radar screens.”
“Like the Empire State Building and the Trade Center towers?”
“And Rockefeller Center, Lincoln Center, the United Nations, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the New York Stock Exchange.”
“The Statue of Liberty?”
“Hey, a bunch of Croatian nationalists planted a bomb there fifteen, twenty years ago. The thing went off. Fair amount of damage, luckily no injuries. The big lady’s managed by the National Park Service, and they use electronic scanning equipment on visitor’s packages.”
She nodded, leaned back in the mustard-yellow chair. It gave a squeak of protest. There was a deferential knock at the door, and Russell Ullman entered, bearing a large manila envelope. “It’s in,” he said.
“What’s in?” Sarah asked.
“The prints.”
“The prints of your Prince,” Roth said. “I told you someday your prints would come.”
“We’re on the home stretch,” Ullman said. He could barely contain his excitement. “We got him now.”
Lieutenant Roth rubbed a large, fleshy hand over his face. “Oh, is that right?” he asked, affecting the deepest boredom. “Kid, the race hasn’t even started.”
Sarah snatched the envelope from Ullman and tore it open. Roth was right. They hadn’t even started.
It was a complete set of fingerprints, carefully done.
“Where’s the photo?” she asked.
“They couldn’t turn one up,” Ullman said.
“What? What do you mean, they couldn’t ‘turn one up’? They couldn’t find a photograph of the guy?”
“The South Africans say they’re unable to turn up any photo of Baumann. In cases like his—deep-cover agents—the old secret service used to keep only one photograph, in its locked central personnel files. Reasons of security. But that one photograph appears to be missing—stolen, pilfered, something.”
“Try the prison, Russell,” Sarah snapped. “You didn’t think of that?”
“No, I did,” Ullman replied. “Pollsmoor photographs all incoming prisoners, like every other prison, and stores them in two different places, but both photos of Baumann have disappeared sometime in the last few weeks.”
“Bullshit!” Sarah exploded.
“No, really,” Ullman protested. “They did a thorough search, but the file photos have been stolen.”
“How can that be?”
“Look,” Ullman said, “for years the South African government did everything it could to keep this guy’s face a secret. The way CIA does with its deep-cover agents. Maybe there were three extant photographs of him in all the government files. So if our guy had enough pull, or some powerful friends in the right places, it was no big deal to make those photos disappear. The South Africans protected his anonymity so well and for so long that now—when they want a picture—they can’t get their hands on one.”
“Looks like your terrorist,” Roth interjected, “has some powerful friends.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Perry Taylor arrived at the FBI headquarters at 8:20 A.M. and pulled into the main employee entrance in the middle of the Tenth Street side of the building. This meant he would be in his office by 8:30 A.M. He was a punctual man, which was good for Baumann, because it meant he was also a man of regular habits, a most useful vulnerability.
Unfortunately, Taylor’s car did not leave the FBI building the entire day. The red dot remained fixed and flashing: the Hound Dog hadn’t been discovered, it was still transmitting, and the car hadn’t been moved.
Baumann spent a few hours walking the streets around FBI headquarters. He bought a pair of cheap sunglasses and a Washington, D.C., T-shirt, and played the tourist. For lunch he got a hot dog from a stand at Tenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
He noticed that the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance to the FBI garage was shut, the gates drawn, presumably for security reasons. The World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings had made the FBI understandably nervous. He saw that groups of tourists could gain access to the building by taking a guided tour. For no particular reason, except that he had time to kill, he took a tour at midmorning, which began in front of a display of America’s Ten Most Wanted criminals and ended with a film about handguns.
The rest of the day he kept watch on the various employee entrances and exits to see whether Taylor emerged. He did not. Many FBI employees went out for lunch to the food malls nearby, and there was said to be a large and adequate cafeteria within the complex, but Taylor probably ate his lunch at his desk, from the white bag he had taken out of the delicatessen.
By four o’clock in the afternoon, Baumann had returned to his parked car and prepared for Taylor to leave the building. The red dot did not begin to move until 6:45 P.M. Baumann waited until Taylor was a good distance away before he began to follow. Taylor appeared to be taking the same route home he’d taken to work.
Baumann drove with a sense of discouragement. This could go on for days, and he would learn nothing unless he got into Taylor’s office or home. Taylor was indeed going home, Baumann saw, but to be sure, he followed the Olds as far as he could prudently do so.
Getting into Taylor’s home would not be a problem, although there was no reason to believe he would find anything there. Careful FBI men like Taylor did not keep a set of files at their homes. Getting into Taylor’s office was possible, though perilous to the point of being foolhardy. Obviously he or someone who worked with or for him had been delving into Baumann’s past. That meant he might recognize Baumann in person.<
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But even assuming Baumann entered the office wearing a persuasive disguise, what could he expect to find there, really, without being left alone—a highly unlikely possibility?
Baumann suspected that the gray Samsonite briefcase would contain Taylor’s FBI building pass, a personnel list, or any of a hundred things. If Taylor were to stop somewhere on the way to or from work, Baumann would have an opportunity.
There was no keyless entry system on the driver’s door, which was too bad, because that would have made it easy to get into the car. All Baumann would have had to do was to watch through the binoculars as Taylor keyed in the code.
If Taylor were to leave his briefcase on the front seat again, Baumann could just slip in a slim jim and have the car open in a matter of seconds, without anyone noticing.
If Taylor locked the briefcase in the trunk, that was a different situation. There were simple, brute-force methods. You could use a dent-puller to pop the trunk lock out, then open the trunk with a screwdriver. But no matter how carefully you did it, the damage would be immediately visible. Taylor would know someone had gotten into his trunk, and he would be immediately suspicious. Such a move would blow everything.
The smash-and-grab had to be ruled out.
Baumann returned to the Jefferson, made some notes, went out for a brief walk. From a pay phone he hadn’t used before he called Perry Taylor’s number. If Mrs. Taylor answered, he would ask for him, say he was an old friend, make it clear he was not a salesman of any kind.… But Taylor answered the phone himself.
“Hello,” he said.
“Perry Taylor?” Baumann asked pleasantly.
“Speaking. Who’s this?
“Mr. Taylor, according to our records, you don’t subscribe to Time magazine, and we’d like to offer—”
“Sorry,” Taylor said brusquely, “but we’re not interested. Good night.”
Baumann read for a while, an architectural history of New York City, and went to sleep early.
In the morning, Baumann followed the same routine, picking up Perry Taylor’s signal from a half-mile away and following him at a distance. Once again, Taylor stopped at the delicatessen on Pennsylvania Avenue to buy what Baumann assumed was his lunch. He drove into the FBI garage by the same entrance on Tenth Street, and again did not leave the building until his workday was done.
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