The Zero Option

by David Rollins

  As she expanded on these details she could see that Buck was tense, the aura of cool dissipating as he scratched notes onto his leather-bound pad.

  An old yellowed newspaper clipping with a captioned photo written in Japanese appeared on the screen, inset in a box beside the flow chart that was now quite complex.

  ‘Akiko Sato is a little girl in the arms of the woman, her mother, Nami Sato,’ Lana explained. ‘Today, Ms Sato is thirty-three years of age. She arrived in the United States on January 15. Up until two days ago, she was staying within a few hundred yards of Ben Harbor’s residence on Key West, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Incidentally, we traced a call placed to the third cell bought by Dallas Mitchell’s employee, to the vicinity of the Crowne Plaza. Three phones—one for Mitchell and one each for Ben Harbor and, we believe, Akiko Sato.’

  ‘What’s the latest on these two—their whereabouts?’ asked Whittle, aware of Buck’s agitation, which seemed to be growing by the minute.

  ‘Sir, on January 28, Harbor flew to Gainesville to meet with a former Defense Intelligence Agency expert by the name of Jerome Grundy. We don’t know yet what they discussed. Jerome Grundy was stationed at the US embassy, West Berlin, from ’85 to ’88—his expertise was the Soviet Union, its internal structure both political and social.’

  ‘Where was the Japanese woman during all this?’ Buck asked.

  ‘We don’t know.’

  He grunted and pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger, so that when he released them there was a sucking sound. ‘When do I get a written report?’ he asked.

  ‘I still have some interviews to conduct, sir—Grundy, for example.’

  ‘Get it to me as soon as possible. I want this tape found and out of circulation,’ said Buck, pocketing his notebook and Mont Blanc. ‘I’m going to see if I can get the status on this case raised a few notches, Sam. I’m thinking Priority Orange. That should get you the resources you need to expedite things.’ He stood and turned to Lana. ‘Ms Englese, terrific work.’ He then shook Whittle’s hand. ‘Sam, I’m looking forward to that report.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Whittle.

  Mr Buck walked out.

  Whittle faced Lana and said, ‘I’m going to get you a partner, Englese. Someone who can break down doors.’

  Hank Buck hailed a cab and rode it some distance from NSA HQ into the anonymity of the ’burbs. He was looking for a public phone—still the safest way to make a secure call. In the age of the cell phone, they weren’t easy to find. He eventually stopped at a laundromat, and found one inside. He dialed the number and got through right away.

  ‘Governor? Hank.’

  ‘Hank. Where are you?’

  ‘I’ve just spent the morning being debriefed.’

  ‘You sound . . . anxious.’

  ‘That’s because I am. And when I tell you what’s up, you will be, too.’

  Buck just didn’t add up. Maybe it was the designer pencil. Those things cost thousands, didn’t they? Lana swiped the sensor and tapped in the code to open her door. She sat down behind her laptop, performed the fingerprint and retinal scans to bring it online, and wondered who Whittle had in mind for her new partner. Her desktop came to life and she saw that there was a message to call Saul Kradich. She picked up the handset and dialed the number.

  ‘Hey, Lana. What’s up?’ he said.

  ‘Hi, Saul. I think you wanted me to call you.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, that’s right. I did . . . um . . .’

  Silence.

  ‘Well, just call me when you remember—’

  ‘No, I remember why now. Sorry, I’ve just been in a real heavy session with a couple of jerks from the DoD. Look, I’ve kept up the surveillance on those people we’ve been tracking and something’s popped up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Harbor’s and Sato’s passport numbers checked through US Customs and Immigration an hour ago.’

  ‘Shit. Where?’

  ‘Miami International Airport.’

  ‘Damnit,’ Lana said under her breath. She’d been a couple of moves behind from the start. ‘They’ve gone to Russia, haven’t they?’

  ‘Hey, I’m impressed,’ said Kradich. ‘How’d you know that?’

  ‘I threw a dart at a map of the world and that’s where it landed.’

  ‘Well, it’s a big country, so I guess your chances were good. They’ve gone via Heathrow.’ With the sound of voices in the background, Kradich added, ‘They have a connection to Moscow, but you probably know that, too, right? Hey, gotta go. The DoD is back in the house.’

  Lana swore quietly as the line went dead.

  ‘Senator Chevalier earned the medal fair and square,’ said Felix Ackerman. ‘It’s all in here.’ He put a manila folder on the governor’s desk.

  ‘Give me the summary,’ said Governor Garret.

  ‘No one wanted to talk about how he won the decoration because Chevalier talked to them all personally and asked them not to.’

  ‘Why’d he do that?’

  ‘They said that he didn’t want to use his service record as a means of gaining political advantage. The senator didn’t believe it appropriately honored the three men in his unit who had died in the engagement.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Garret. The more he knew about this guy, the more he loathed him.

  ‘But we do have something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ten years ago, Chevalier’s nephew went down for auto theft. His uncle didn’t defend him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the kid was also a crackhead.’

  ‘Thank God. At last . . . What’s the angle?’

  ‘Chevalier prides himself on being the defender of the poor and the disadvantaged. Maybe the kid was a complete fuck-up, but we can spin it that Chevalier distanced himself from the unsavory elements of his own family because he had his eye on politics down the track.’

  ‘I like it, Felix. Let’s work it up.’

  ‘Oh, and there’s more good news. You’ve regained some of the lost ground in the latest Gallup poll. We’re heading in the right direction again.’

  Hank walked in.

  ‘Good work, Felix,’ said Garret, dismissing him. ‘Let’s get on to that thing with Chevalier.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘What’s up?’ Hank asked.

  ‘Felix will fill you in later.’

  The campaign manager was stuffing papers back into his briefcase. He stood up with a grunt and left, mopping the sweat from his forehead.

  Garret got out from behind his desk and did a circuit of his office, a tumbler of scotch welded into the palm of his hand. ‘Okay, give it to me.’

  Hank delivered a précis.

  ‘I told you that damn tape would rear its ugly head someday,’ said Garret. ‘And the timing stinks.’

  He took a mouthful of scotch and tried to look at the brewing situation positively. ‘Okay, so what have we got? Harbor and this Sato woman will go to Russia. What will they do when they get there? Get lost in Siberia? Hunt around for a trail gone cold well over two decades ago?’ He took another gulp, the aged liquor caressing his palate. ‘The tape we can handle if it surfaces. It’s a hoax. These days things like that can be created fairly easily . . . After so long, perhaps we don’t really have anything to worry about.’

  ‘Well, I’m worried,’ said Hank. ‘This isn’t random. And there’s the connection with Suzuki and Foxx.’

  Garret returned to his chair, leaned back and regarded his long-time associate. ‘What concerns me most is that this is most uncharacteristic of you, Hank. You’re usually so glib. What’s your recommendation?’

  ‘Reactivate our Russian friend.’

  Garret took a deep breath and then emptied his glass. ‘He’ll want to renegotiate.’

  ‘He’s Russian, so of course he’ll want to renegotiate. They’re all crooks.’

  ‘Then you’d better go over there and do it face to face. Ensure we get value for money.’

&n
bsp; September 10, 1983

  Vladivostok, Siberia, USSR. Colonel Korolenko had the KGB driver who had picked him up from the civilian airport take the scenic route to the railway yards, around the foreshore of Golden Horn Bay. Korolenko was fond of Vladivostok. It appealed to the KGB man within, the one who appreciated a city closed to all but essential Soviet Navy personnel. Even many of the Russians born here had been resettled elsewhere. The city’s one purpose was to provide the motherland with a warm-water port from which naval operations could be conducted securely year round.

  A large number of ships were moored in the bay: several icebreakers, half a dozen Soviet naval vessels, including an Udaloy-class destroyer. Most impressive of all, however, was the nuclear-powered battlecruiser Kirov, which, Korolenko had been informed by his driver, was on a shakedown cruise after a minor refit. It had stopped into Vladivostok as part of a flag-waving exercise, and the sidewalks were bustling with its seamen in their jaunty blue uniforms and white caps.

  The driver turned the ZIL away from the bay and headed toward the city center. A short while later, the vehicle rumbled over railway tracks and pulled into a freight yard. From inside the car, at least, it seemed as if everything was running smoothly to schedule. The prisoners had been flown from Sakhalin overnight, packed into an Antonov An-124 transport plane, and then trucked to this siding. Around fifty armed KGB Fifth Directorate guards were handling the security arrangements of the transiting former KAL 007 passengers.

  The high-value prisoners had been removed, and now it was time to divide the remaining bulk ethnically into groups for the next stage in their internment. The old and the infirm were also a problem. Korolenko’s recommendation, which had been approved, was that they should be dispersed among the forced-settlement towns up in the Arctic Circle that were still heavily monitored by the KGB. Life up there was harsh and survival rates were low and they would quickly cease to be a problem.

  For the rest of the day, before returning to Moscow, Korolenko was to oversee the dispatch of prisoners to the correct labor camps. This operation was his brainchild and he didn’t want it going awry due to poor handling by subordinates.

  The driver held the door open for him and saluted. Korolenko idly returned it as he climbed out. The air was warm, but there was a blustery, salt-laden wind. The biggest ethnic group aboard KAL 007 were Korean, which made sense, followed by citizens from Japan. There were also citizens from the Philippines, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Most of these would be sent to the labor camps populated by North Korean nationals north of Khabarovsk. The North Koreans had been forcibly deported from their own country to work in the timber industry. They kept to themselves, and their own masters were far stricter than the Soviet representatives in these camps. Once there, the 007 collateral assets were as good as buried.

  The Europeans among the passengers would find a new home in the towns in the Kolyma region, populated when the gulag prisoners were released in the early sixties. These villages were some of the most remote townships in all of the Soviet Union. No road in, no road out. The vastness of the Siberian wilderness would swallow them whole.

  The captain managing the current prisoner transfer approached and saluted. Korolenko returned it and asked, ‘Any problems?’

  ‘Comrade Colonel, ser. Five prisoners have died. One was crushed, one died from dehydration, and two from—we believe—heart attacks. One had a broken arm and died from blood poisoning.’

  Korolenko thanked him. Deaths among these prisoners by natural causes were not problematic. ‘Are all preparations still running to schedule?’

  ‘Yes, Comrade Colonel. The trip will take thirty-seven hours as planned. The train will travel only at night, and pull into sidings so as not to inhibit regular passenger and freight trains.’

  ‘I see you have had the railway cars stenciled “Automotive Parts”.’

  ‘Yes, ser, in case anyone is interested.’

  ‘Good. Very good. I should have stayed in Moscow and let you handle it.’

  The captain beamed. ‘Thank you, Comrade Colonel.’

  A ferocious animal snarl followed by a woman’s scream distracted them.

  The colonel looked up in time to see a man running toward him, his arms outstretched, pure hate in his eyes.

  The dog handler released his animal, which broke away at a sprint and launched itself at the prisoner. The impact of the dog hitting the man from behind threw him face down onto the ground. The dog wheeled and mauled the prisoner, snapping teeth tearing at his neck.

  ‘Don’t let me keep you from your work, Captain,’ said Korolenko.

  The officer saluted, turned, and strode briskly away, shouting an order at the dog handler to bring his animal to heel.

  Colonel Korolenko rubbed his hands. By this time tomorrow, he would be back in Moscow at Beria’s old dacha, watching Congressman McDonald come apart at the seams. In fact, everything was going so well out here that he admonished himself for not staying in Moscow.

  Standing out in the open by the railway cars, blinded by daylight, Nami was more tired than she believed possible. The feeling that at any moment she would break down and not be able to move was still with her. She had given up all hope of waking from this nightmare and finding it a ghastly figment of her imagination. Brutal imprisonment was now her life.

  A Russian transport plane had brought them to a landing strip in the dead of night, from which they’d been trucked to this new destination. One of her fellow KAL 007 passengers had whispered on the flight that they’d landed in the Soviet Union nine days ago. This had surprised Nami. The time frame was difficult to grasp. It seemed to her that she’d boarded KAL 007 back in Anchorage many sleepless years ago.

  Back wherever it was that they’d landed, their jailers had kept them in shipping containers. These were crowded, but it had been possible to find enough space in which to lie down. It was explained that there weren’t suitable facilities on the base for keeping so many people under guard. Water had been reasonably plentiful and the food adequate. But some indeterminable time between then and now, the attitude of the Soviets had changed markedly for the worse. The guards had removed the Europeans, leaving just the Asians, and many more Asians had been allocated to their steel box. With the overcrowded conditions inside the shipping container came an end to sleep. There was not enough room to lie down. There was also very little food and not enough drinking water. The sanitation buckets provided filled quickly and were not replaced for many hours. Diarrhea was rife. People fought for a place beside the two air vents. Nami’s cramps were so violent she was certain her stomach was consuming itself, and her head pounded with a headache that wouldn’t go away.

  Several KAL 007 passengers who spoke Russian had tried to engage the guards in dialogue in an attempt to find out what was going on. These passengers had all been subsequently identified and severely beaten before being returned to the shipping containers, one with a broken arm. Soldiers with machine guns had then herded them from the shipping containers to the old Russian aircraft. The man with the broken arm had been seated beside Nami, groaning quietly, the sickly-sweet smell from his broken limb putrid beyond anything she had ever experienced. After several hours, the man had gone quiet, his skin a greenish color. When they landed, soldiers had carried him off, his body frozen by rigor mortis in a seated position, the look of agony set onto his face. Other bodies had been carried off the plane, too—Nami had counted five in all. She had no idea how they had died.

  The large plane had landed in darkness. At the airfield, soldiers hurriedly packed them into trucks, which had brought them to this new marshaling point. Here—wherever here was—more soldiers pulled them bodily from the trucks, until they got the idea and jumped out under their own steam. It was daylight now. Nami estimated the time as being early mid-morning. She took lungfuls of air and pulled the clean smell of the sea down into her being. Out of the wind, the warmth of the sun on her face felt luxurious. She could almost imagine—

  A soldier pushed he
r from behind so hard that she felt as if she’d sustained whiplash. A man in front of her received similar treatment. The passengers were being formed into lines. Guards with dogs ranged up and down the formation, the snarling animals occasionally goaded by their handlers to maul the stragglers. There were many soldiers. They’d been brought to a deserted collection of warehouse buildings and were being marched behind them. Nami’s heart beat faster. What was going on? Many of the guards had machine guns . . .

  The lines of prisoners walked out of the shade and back into the sunlight. Before them was a railway siding with two railway freight cars and more soldiers.

  As the guards herded them toward the rolling stock, a large black limousine drove into the area and parked. The driver jumped out and opened the rear passenger door. A man climbed out, an officer. Nami recognized him, a pure hatred burning in her chest. He was the man who had supervised them when they had first landed. It was he who had arrested the crew of the 747 and, she guessed, had them shot. It was he who’d climbed up on the truck and proudly told them all that they were spies captured by the glorious Soviet Union. It was he who’d had the congressman dragged away. It was he who had made them suffer in squalid conditions. This was the man keeping her from her family, keeping her locked up like an animal. At that moment, Nami had never hated anyone as much as she hated this Colonel Korolenko and she vowed never to forget his face.

  A man several places in front of her in the line-up suddenly charged at the colonel. He was running fast, tripping over train lines, and screaming, his arms and hands outstretched as if he intended to wrap them around the Soviet officer’s throat and squeeze with all the strength he could muster.

  Released by its handler, a huge black dog intercepted the man before he’d closed half the distance to the officer. It leapt at him and slammed him into the ground. Then it spun around and buried its jaws in the man’s neck while he struggled.

  The Russians didn’t seem in too much of a hurry to pull the beast off. When they did, the man wasn’t moving. A soldier, weapon at the ready, lifted his arm and dragged him partially off the train tracks. Blood spurted from the man’s throat and neck, spraying the guard. With a major artery severed, the prisoner convulsed as his blood drained away. No one went to his aid.