The Zero Option

by David Rollins

  Sherwood would have to remain in El Paso for a couple of days while the investigation was concluded, but there was no doubt that he’d be exonerated. The deceased wasn’t liked or respected and had a reputation for abusive, and occasionally violent, behavior toward his subordinate agents. Indeed, an hour after the shooting, Sherwood and several of the witnesses from both agencies had been in the bar high-fiving each other over tequila shots. So Lana had flown back to Maryland on her own.

  She went through the security gauntlet on the ground floor and made for the elevator, the doors of which were open and waiting. As they slid shut in front of her, she was startled by Saul Kradich’s face appearing in the shrinking gap, followed by his hand.

  ‘Mind if I hitch a ride?’ he asked, hopping in when the doors opened.

  ‘Morning, Saul,’ she said.

  ‘What are you doing in here? It’s Sunday.’

  ‘Catching up on paperwork. You?’

  ‘I thought I’d clean the toilets.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard? I live here.’

  ‘Yeah, actually I had heard that.’

  The elevator arrived at Lana’s floor. Kradich held the doors apart with his finger on the button.

  ‘If you’ve got time, come on up to number six,’ he said. ‘See if we’ve had some hits on your friend.’

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ Lana replied. Anything to take her mind off El Paso. ‘What would be a good time?’

  ‘Whenever. I’m not that busy.’

  ‘Then I’ll see you in ten. I’ll just dump my stuff,’ she said.

  Kradich gave her a wave as the doors closed and called out, ‘I’m joking about the toilets.’

  A little over ten minutes later, Lana was settling into the spare seat in virtual investigation booth two, Kradich’s domain.

  ‘I heard about your partner,’ Kradich said as he completed various security checks required whilst logging in.

  ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘That you called him a meathead in front of the FBI folks.’

  ‘Yeah, I did.’

  Lana handed him her smart card. She then keyed in her code on a touchpad that simultaneously verified the DNA captured from the sweat on her fingertips against the biometric profile reduced to a bar-code in her record.

  ‘A damn fine shot, though,’ he observed, handing her card back once he’d swiped it.

  ‘You saw it?’

  ‘There was a digital surveillance security system covering the parking lot. I got eight angles on the shot. Better coverage than an NFL game. Wanna have a look?’

  ‘No, thanks. Caught it live.’

  Kradich shrugged and went back to work on the control screen. The lights in the room dimmed. The laser panels covering the wall in front of them filled with rolling waves, porpoises diving through the crystal sets. Above, the clouds were yellow, orange and purple in the sunrise.

  ‘Feeling soothed?’ he asked her.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘There are thermal sensors in your seat. According to your heat signature, you’re angry and frustrated.’

  ‘Saul, I appreciate the concern.’ She didn’t. ‘I really do.’ She really didn’t. ‘But do you mind if we just get on with it?’

  ‘Oh. Sure.’

  The waves dissolved to black and windows full of data burst like bubbles to the surface.

  ‘So, let’s see what we’ve got,’ he said. ‘Hmm . . . still nothing on those cell phones, as you can see. But then we think they’re a dead end, don’t we?’

  Lana nodded.

  ‘However, Ben Harbor hasn’t been able to do much of anything recently without the NSA riding shotgun on his every move.’ A new window popped up. ‘Well, let’s see here. Yesterday he logged a flight-plan and flew a Key West Seaplanes Bell JetRanger II from Key West to Gainesville via Orlando.’

  ‘I wonder what he was doing in Gainesville,’ Lana said. ‘Where did he stay?’

  Kradich got busy. A moment later, he said, ‘There’s no entry. He either took a room somewhere and paid cash, or he bunked in with friends.’

  ‘Any record of him flying to Gainesville in the past year?’ she asked.

  Kradich’s fingers were a blur. ‘No,’ he said after a minute. ‘No flight-plans logged with him as the pilot, no plane tickets bought with a credit card. He could have borrowed a friend’s car and driven there. You want me to check bus and rail options? See if he picked up any speeding tickets?’

  ‘No,’ said Lara. Gainesville—it could be something, it could be nothing. ‘Let’s move on.’

  ‘He has two email accounts—hotmail and gmail. The hotmail one doesn’t get much use. Looking at his gmail account, he’s received dozens of emails from his mother and father, as well as from the Federal Airlines Administration and Amazon.com. You want to see what books he reads?’

  Lana shook her head.

  New windows opened. ‘He gets hammered with the usual junk,’ Kradich continued, ‘including jokes and porn from several buddies who live in the Keys; there are several from a crematorium as well as a hospital in Atlanta. There are also a couple of emails apiece from a Jane Sanderson, Christina Meadows, Abigail Mercurio, Donna Velasquez, Vanessa Sebring, Melissa Tang, Margot—’

  ‘I think I get the idea,’ said Lana, uncomfortable, and annoyed with herself for feeling anything on a level that wasn’t professional.

  ‘And just this morning, one from a Tiffany Lane.’ Kradich went back to his keyboard. ‘Hmm . . . As for his cell phone—the one he’s not hiding—the records for the last couple of weeks show that he’s called his parents in Norfolk several times, Key West Seaplanes innumerable times, a firm of lawyers in Miami a few times, several of his buddies who feature in his in-tray, that crematorium and the hospital in Atlanta twice each . . . He’s canceled the standard search and rescue entered as part of the flight-plan to Gainesville, and—oh, this morning, two calls from Tiffany Lane. Just stop me if anything here strikes your interest,’ said Kradich.

  Lana couldn’t resist the pressure. ‘Tiffany Lane. What’s her address?’

  ‘According to the records lodged against the SIM card . . . 1126 North East 14th Street, Gainesville.’

  Lana caught the significance. ‘Assuming that’s still her address, can you tell me what she does?’

  A few moments later, Kradich had the answer. ‘Tiffany Lane is in her final year at the University of Florida. She studies veterinary science. Her grades are average.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Lana. ‘She on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter?’

  ‘Nope. Here we go . . . She also works at a bar, part-time. A place called Grundy’s.’

  Lana didn’t want to know any more details. She had gotten the picture loud and clear.

  ‘Hey, we’ve got photos,’ said Kradich, pushing on regardless.

  Up on the screen, a life-size photo of Tiffany Lane appeared. It was part of a one-page article in Maxim magazine where the woman had been named ‘Beerwench of the Month’. Lane was strikingly tall, her long legs accentuated by a baby doll dress with a very short hemline, had prominent breasts and eyes that were surely too green not to have been retouched. She held a pitcher of beer in her hand.

  ‘Hubba-hubba,’ said Kradich. ‘I think I know what your guy was doing in Gainesville.’

  Lana didn’t have to wonder what those heat sensors in her chair were reading.

  ‘Shall we see what she wrote him?’ Saul asked.

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ said Lana. ‘Has he returned the call?’

  ‘No.’ Kradich admired the picture. ‘No one has a figure like that, not for real.’

  ‘Would you like me to leave you alone with it for a few minutes?’ asked Lana, seething.

  ‘Huh? Oh, sorry . . . Gainesville’s a university town. There are hundreds of bars there. Why would Ben have gone to this one specifically?’

  ‘You’ve got your answer up there, haven’t you?’ said Lana, tilting her head at the picture of
Tiffany Lane.

  ‘She only turns up in the guy’s comms this morning. Nothing from her before he went to Gainesville.’

  ‘So you think he could’ve gone to that specific bar for some other reason?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. Let’s see who owns it.’

  Lana looked at the time. She’d already committed herself to working on this case for the day and it was still early.

  Kradich dug into the bar’s IRS records and had the answer within a minute. ‘Grundy’s is owned by a Jerome Morton Grundy.’

  Lana shook her head. ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘I’m working on it.’ Kradich leaned over the control glass. Data blocks came and went onscreen. ‘He’s a guy who pulls beers,’ said Kradich eventually. ‘At least, that’s who he is these days. But once upon a time, Jerome Grundy worked for the US Defense Intelligence Agency. He was an expert on the USSR during the last big spike in the Cold War before the wall came down. His main gig was at the US embassy in West Berlin. He was a heavy-hitter back then—personally briefed President Reagan on two separate occasions.’

  The pieces swam through Lana’s mind. Jerome Grundy, a Cold War expert, up on all things Russian. KAL 007, Curtis Foxx, the mystery tape, Tex Mitchell, Ben Harbor . . .

  ‘I want to have a look at a money transfer that appeared in Curtis Foxx’s bank account. And you can kill the floor show.’

  The full-length shot of Tiffany Lane, which was still occupying a third of the wall, shrank to a white dot and disappeared. In its place appeared a tiled selection of bank statements.

  Lana checked her notes. ‘The amount we’re looking for is $88,221.34,’ she said.

  Kradich quickly located the statement that displayed the transfer. He then went to work on his control glass, accessing databases supposed to be closed to all external probes. ‘The money was sent through a company called Shinju Global Processing,’ he said. ‘They’re like Wells Fargo—a Japanese version thereof.’

  ‘Can you trace the transfer to its original account?’

  Numbers rolled over in a box displayed on the screen, quickly stabilizing. A name came up.

  ‘Yuudai Suzuki,’ Lana murmured, reading it. ‘The money came from him? It is a him?’

  ‘Yep. Yuudai is a male name. I assume it means nothing to you?’ asked Kradich.

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s a Bank of Japan account, opened in Tokyo. Says here the account was closed not long after the transfer was made.’

  ‘We got an address for Yuudai Suzuki?’ Lana asked

  ‘Sure do—a place called Horonaibuto.’

  ‘Go there,’ said Lana.

  A map of Japan appeared and the view closed in on the northern island of Hokkaido, the city of Sapporo captioned on its southwest end, and then the township of Horonaibuto around thirty miles northeast of the city. The view settled above what appeared to be a garden with small houses crammed into it.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Lana.

  Kradich went in for a closer look. ‘A cemetery,’ he said. ‘Unless he’s the caretaker there, I guess that explains why the account was closed—Yuudai’s dead.’ Kradich hunched over his control glass. ‘And I can confirm that. Yuudai Suzuki died on January 8 at Sanjukai Hospital, Sapporo. Pancreatic cancer. He was sixty-one. Before he died, he resided in Sapporo.’

  ‘So Suzuki sent money to Curtis Foxx, who then passed it along to his son, Ben Harbor,’ Lana said, thinking aloud. ‘Yuudai and Curtis died at approximately the same time—within days of each other. Did they have some kind of death pact?’

  ‘You want to have a look at this other large debit from Suzuki’s account just before he died?’ asked Kradich.

  ‘Oh, yeah? Which one is that?’

  ‘This one for over ¥10,600,000.’

  ‘That sounds like a lot of money,’ said Lana.

  ‘Unless you’re Donald Trump—around $96,000 US.’

  Lana blinked.

  ‘That’s around the same amount Curtis Foxx left his son,’ Kradich observed.

  Lana nodded. The pattern was revealing itself.

  ‘This one was debited from the account via a bank check.’

  ‘Who cashed it?’

  ‘I’m working on it.’

  After a minute of silence, Kradich announced, ‘Akiko Sato—a resident of Tokyo. A 31-year-old female. A teacher.’

  Lana shook her head. The name meant nothing, but there had to be a connection between these four people: Akiko Sato, Yuudai Suzuki, Curtis Foxx and Ben Harbor. She just had to find it. Where to look . . . ?

  ‘What do we know about Moneybags Suzuki?’

  Kradich leaned way back in his familiar astronaut-on-the-launch-pad position with the control screen in his lap, settling in for the long haul. Up on the laser screen, the familiar eye symbol of the computer’s cursor seemed to be winking at her. And then a head shot appeared—distinctly Asian, male, round, almost fat, wearing a blank expression. A passport-style photo. The man was in his late twenties, possibly early thirties. Chunks of information began to fill the screen, all of it in Japanese.

  ‘Yuudai was in the military.’

  Promising, thought Lana.

  ‘You want to start there?’ Kradich asked.

  She nodded. ‘Can you put a translation filter over the Japanese?’

  The Japanese characters were suddenly replaced with English. Lana’s eyes widened as she read. Yuudai Suzuki had been a radar operator in the Japan Defense Force. For most of his career, he was seconded to the Chobetsu. He was stationed at Misawa Air Base, June 1981 to October 1982; Wakkanai, October 1982 to November 1983; Kadena Air Base, November 1983 to September 1984; Misawa Air Base, September 1984 till his discharge from the military in May 1986.

  ‘Where are these facilities located?’ she asked.

  The map of Japan widened so that the main islands were visible. Kadena was pinpointed on Okinawa in the far south, Misawa on the main island of Honshu, and Wakkanai on the far northern tip of the island of Hokkaido, almost within spitting distance of Sakhalin Island.

  ‘Okay . . .’ Lana whispered. ‘Can you tell me if this guy was on duty on the night of August 31 to September 1, 1983?’

  Kradich worked his control screen and the larger screen filled with data blocks.

  ‘No. Someone’s been lazy. Records that far back are yet to be digitized; 1985 is as early as they go.’

  ‘Let’s assume that he was,’ said Lana, thinking out loud. ‘What’s the range of the Wakkanai facility?’

  Kradich dug into the facility’s specifications. ‘To summarize,’ he said after a minute, ‘they had low and high level, primary and secondary coverage. Out to 210 miles.’

  ‘So the Wakkanai radar would have tracked the Korean airliner long before it reached the Sakhalin coastline,’ she said. Kradich waited while Lana ran through what she knew. ‘So we have the pilot who possibly shadowed KAL 007 as it entered Soviet airspace, and the radar operator who possibly witnessed its destruction, and both are in contact with each other. Had Yuudai ever traveled to the US?’

  Kradich searched the US State Department’s records first. Lana got up and moved around the room, her fingers tingling with electricity. At last they were getting somewhere.

  ‘He might have rotated through here while he was in the Chosa Besshitsu, but there’s no mention of it in his records. I’ve got his passport number and checked it against immigration records, all of which are now held by Homeland Security, but the guy’s passport number doesn’t register a hit. So, as far as I can be sure, Yuudai Suzuki has never been to the US.’

  ‘What about Foxx? He ever go to Japan?’

  It didn’t take Kradich long to come up with the answer. ‘Look at this,’ he said as a list of entry and exit dates came up onscreen.

  ‘This is good,’ Lana exclaimed when the information was displayed. ‘August 29, 1984; August 28, 1985; August 26, 1986; August 30, 1990. ’92, ’95, ’99, 2002, 2003 . . . Pretty regularly since ’83.’

  ‘Looks like he never s
tayed longer than ten days. You want exit dates?’ Kradich asked.

  ‘No—let’s keep moving,’ Lana replied.

  Foxx had gone to Japan for a specific reason. She was as sure as she could be that he’d headed to Wakkanai. Perhaps he thought of the journey as a kind of pilgrimage. She remembered his mental state detailed in his medical discharge—maybe he went there to assuage feelings of guilt, to atone.

  ‘His entry port was always Narita,’ Kradich said. ‘There are no records for through connections.’

  ‘I want to see if we can put Suzuki and Foxx together. Is there a way we can do that? Where did they meet? Foxx went to Japan often, landing just before the anniversary of the 007 incident. Perhaps the two men met on one of those occasions—perhaps on all of them.’

  ‘I’ll limit the search to Japan, have the names Curtis Foxx and Yuudai Suzuki grouped together, and enter the periods a week either side of the dates Foxx is incountry.’

  ‘Sounds good. Anything I can do?’ Lana asked.

  ‘Nothing you’d be prepared to,’ replied Kradich, giving her a grin. ‘Maybe get us both a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘Cream and sugar,’ he told her.

  ‘Back in a minute.’

  Lana ducked out and closed the door behind her. The corridor was deserted. She went to a nearby kitchen. Someone had thoughtfully brewed a pot of coffee. She took out a pair of mugs, running on autopilot while she considered who this Akiko Sato might be, where she might fit in. The woman was still a mystery. She was Japanese, obviously, and connected in some way to Yuudai Suzuki. Why, otherwise, would he leave her a small fortune?

  Lana swiped her way back into Kradich’s domain, juggling the mugs of coffee. She was surprised to see that the screen on the wall was occupied by the picture of a large seagoing vessel.