The Zero Option

by David Rollins

  The men with the pistols didn’t speak. They didn’t have to. They guided Nicolae’s wife and children toward the car, the Danube sliding past in the pale moonlight. One of the men opened the vehicle’s doors—all of them. The others assisted Afina and the two girls inside. Nicolae was then brought around to the driver’s door.

  ‘Get in,’ growled the man holding the door.

  Why were they doing this? Nicolae Balcescu took a step forward, but not fast enough. The man grabbed him by the arm and pushed him impatiently into the seat behind the wheel. At this point, he realized that there were others with far more active profiles than his who would have been arrested first. Someone who knew a lot of names must have been captured and broken.

  The gun in the hand beside Balcescu exploded and his wife’s head was blown through the shattered window beside her. He was stunned. The weapon blasted twice more, the sound ringing as if the inside of his head was made from metal. His girls were slumped in the back seat, their short lives ended. And then Balcescu realized why they hadn’t blindfolded him. They wanted him to see. The pistol would be placed in his hand afterward. He could see it all. A murder/suicide. He and his family would be found in this lonely, cold place beside the river in the early morning. There would be evidence of the van in the soft earth, footprints, the presence of others, but the police were compliant with the Securitate. Nicolae Balcescu—child-killer, wife-killer. These thugs didn’t even want names of other agents. Why not? There was a reason.

  Just as the bullet shattered his skull, the answer came to him. It was very simple. Because they already had them all.

  Vidor Messinger waited for the film to finish rolling through the projector. It was a Wednesday night in Spandau, East Berlin, and tonight’s showing was a popular regular—a love story between two valiant workers separated by the revolution, and a fight to the death with counter-revolutionary forces. The credits finished and all that was left were several meters of blank tape.

  Before turning off the powerful projection light, he looked down onto the backs of the seats and saw two silhouettes, both men, halfway down the center section, sitting on the end of the row by the aisle. What were they waiting for? He shrugged, pulled an empty film storage tin from the stack and turned on the main theatre lights. The end of the film snaked through the rollers and wound onto the spool. He turned off the main switch and took another glance through the small glass pane out into the seating area. The men were gone. He could close up and—

  There was a knock on the door.

  Messinger released the lock and opened it an inch. The handle was ripped from his hand and two massive men in dark overcoats threw him back. Vidor was trapped, nowhere to run. He’d been careful, wily, but he could see in the darkness of their faces that they had him and the game was over. He had lost.

  One of the men latched onto his shoulder, spun him around and locked his arms behind his back. Vidor was a small man. He was helpless, a moth caught by two sadists about to rip off his wings. The man facing him pulled something from a pocket and held it where it could be clearly seen—a capsule.

  Messinger knew what it was. He tried to turn his head away but the man with the capsule grabbed his jaw and squeezed, a grip of steel. The small gelatin object was pushed between his front teeth and then the man holding his jaw forced it shut, crushing the capsule. The taste of bitter almonds filled Vidor’s mouth and nose and invaded his throat. A wave of destruction swirled into his head and fused his brain. He lost control of his limbs. They began to shake. His heart was next. It swelled like a balloon filling with water and then burst in his chest. He slid to the floor, pulling down the film tins, dead before he reached it.

  The train, the last of the evening, the one she always caught home from the museum, was running late. The carriage was empty as it rumbled through the darkened city, its buildings a solid black against the dark navy sky. Maria Rutkowski’s home lay on the outskirts of Warsaw, where the city thinned and the rural landscape took over. Tired, she allowed her head to roll forward on her chest. There was plenty of time till the train arrived at her station.

  The next thing she knew, she was being dragged off the seat by her ankles, held by a huge man in a black coat that reminded her of the midnight sky.

  A second and third man walked behind her. One of them was shaking his finger, tsk-tsking. A roar filled her head. It was the wind and the noise of the train wheels and the rushing landscape. The man dragging her had opened the door.

  Maria screamed and tried to twist and turn, but the big man in the midnight coat easily had her measure. The people who had coached her in West Germany, Gehlen’s people, had told her she’d have a warning. They were wrong.

  Maria Rutkowski managed to wrap her fingers around the bottom of the partition separating the passengers from the door between the carriages, her heart thumping, panic locking her muscles. The man immediately behind her raised his boot and brought the heel down on her fingers, pulping them. Maria screamed again, but the sound was lost in the deafening clatter of the train’s wheels rattling over switch points.

  The man holding her ankles heaved her out the door as a power pole flashed past, which took her head clean off above the ears.

  BOOK THREE

  February 2, 2012

  Moscow, Russia. ‘It’s not what I expected. Appears friendly enough—like a big slice of carrot cake,’ Ben commented on his first sight of the yellow and red Lubyanka. ‘Doesn’t look like an evil headquarters at all. Is that a hammer and sickle emblem over the clock up there on the top of the building?’

  Akiko took several photos of the vast wedge-shaped ‘square’, the old KGB HQ at the top end of it, and then put the camera in her pocket and replaced her glove. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Awesome. It’s like seeing a real swastika or something. Well, let’s get this party started.’ Ben’s breath steamed in front of his face, which was framed by an open ski mask and a knitted woolen skullcap on his head.

  They walked slowly up the sidewalk toward the building, holding up Muscovites behind them hurrying about their pre-work business. Two women overtook them, both wearing knee-high black leather boots with sharp stiletto heels. Akiko wondered how they managed it.

  After hovering around zero, the overnight temperature had dropped suddenly to minus ten degrees Celsius, and there was a slight breeze to go with it. The sky was white-gray and low, occasional light snow flurries drifting across the open square. A steady stream of vehicles, blackened by successive dirty snow melts, surged and then stopped, and surged and then stopped again, along the road pocked with ice-filled holes.

  Ben and Akiko darted through the traffic. The Lubyanka’s front door lay ahead, fifty yards further along the sidewalk. A lone militiaman wearing blue camouflage all-weather gear and a fur hat with the flaps tied under his chin patrolled out front. Above the cop were two surveillance cameras, cantilevered out from the face of the building on short poles. Ben and Akiko approached like a couple of inquisitive tourists. The front door was small for such a large building. It said visitors weren’t welcome, an impression augmented by the militiaman, who was short, stocky and frowning. He looked straight into Akiko’s eyes, and then Ben’s, as if they were guilty of something. It was a standoff. Ben broke it by turning away and walking straight through the Lubyanka’s front door.

  Open-mouthed, Akiko watched him disappear into the building. Then she did the only thing she could do and went through the door after him. She found him looking at various notices and curled posters taped onto drab, mustard-colored walls.

  From a side door, a couple of short men in old beige parkas appeared. They stopped, looked Ben and Akiko up and down, then glanced at each other. The cop from out on the street suddenly burst in, sandwiching Akiko and Ben between himself and the men in beige.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded the cop in loud, abusive Russian. ‘What do you want here?’

  Ben caught the tone, even if he didn’t understand the words. ‘Hang on,’ he said, holding up one h
and, open-palmed. He reached into his pocket with the other and pulled out a copy of Lonely Planet, Russia. ‘Tourista, tourista.’

  The men in the beige parkas turned them around immediately and herded them firmly out the narrow front doorway with assistance from the militiaman. Once Ben and Akiko were back on the sidewalk, the two men returned inside, leaving them with the cop.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked, fingering the nightstick on his hip.

  ‘The KGB museum,’ said Akiko in Russian. ‘We have a tour booked.’

  ‘So you are Russian?’

  ‘No, Japanese. My friend is American.’

  ‘Passport. Him, too.’

  ‘Here we go,’ Akiko murmured to Ben in English. ‘Do you have your passport photocopy?’

  Ben removed a glove and produced it from an inside jacket pocket.

  ‘Nyet!’ the cop snapped when he saw the paperwork. ‘I want the original.’

  Akiko shook her head and told him it was back at the hotel. He grunted, annoyed, realizing that if he really wanted the original documents, he’d have to desert his post and escort them back to wherever their hotel was. He half-heartedly skimmed the papers and then flung them back.

  ‘Go away. Is police building,’ he said in English, gesturing at them to get moving.

  ‘And the KGB torture museum?’ Ben enquired pleasantly.

  The cop ignored the question, turned his back as if they’d ceased to exist and resumed his position outside the door.

  ‘Perhaps we could try the back entrance,’ suggested Ben, smiling. ‘Or is that one used only in the dead of night?’

  ‘Why did you go in there?’ Akiko asked, annoyed.

  ‘Because you’re not supposed to, obviously.’

  ‘The communists have gone, but things can still happen here, things you wouldn’t like.’

  Ben flared. ‘Shit, we don’t even know how the hell we’re going to achieve what we came here to do. So, until we get a lead, you can count on me pushing a button or two, okay?’

  The street was not the place to argue. ‘The museum is down the side,’ she said, fuming, looking at her watch. ‘And we’re late.’

  They retraced their steps in silence, both feeling the friction between them, then turned the corner and kept walking past the back of the building where it was dark and gloomier. The public was even less welcome here, the only access to the building via a heavy roller gate. A crushing sense of foreboding filled Akiko. What must it have been like being brought to this entrance, sandwiched between KGB thugs?

  Fifty yards further along was a brightly lit supermarket. A squat woman in a dark green woolen suit with a blue camouflage militia parka and the ubiquitous furry hat loitered in the adjacent entrance-way. This was still part of the Lubyanka complex. On the first two floors, Akiko had been told by the tour operator, were offices, conference rooms and a club, all for ex-KGB personnel. The museum was on the third floor. Behind the female guard, near the elevator, was a man in a red ski jacket, black gloves and hat, clapping his hands together to keep warm. He seemed to be waiting for something.

  ‘Are you with the tour company?’ Akiko asked him.

  ‘Yes, you must be Ms Sato?’

  They introduced each other and Akiko handed him a voucher for the tour.

  The guide’s name was Evgeny Smirnov. ‘Like the wodka,’ the man said jauntily, handing them his card.

  ‘A cheap imitation,’ Ben whispered in Akiko’s ear. ‘The real stuff’s spelled with a double f.’

  They took an old squeaking elevator to the third floor, Smirnov talking without a break. The elevator stopped with a jolt and opened onto a large, overheated, airless room full of glass cases and other exhibits. They seemed to be the only visitors. They opened their jackets and removed their gloves while Smirnov launched into a story about how American spies were cleverly caught by the KGB. Akiko peered into cases displaying fake mustaches, cyanide capsules and concealed weapons while the guide continued with his story, explaining how the passports forged in the US might have looked authentic, but were held together with staples that didn’t rust, unlike real Soviet staples. A drop of water on a staple left overnight, he concluded with triumph, was all it took to unmask the most convincing spy.

  Akiko only half listened, waiting for the right moment to ask the question uppermost in her mind.

  ‘This is the desk that belonged to Lavrenty Beria,’ said Smirnov, moving on. ‘Here the monster signed the death warrants of hundreds of thousands during Stalin’s purges. And, ironically,’ he said with good cheer, ‘it was made in America. Sears, Roebuck!’

  Akiko peered into a glass case where there was a letter scrawled in Russian, the words difficult to read.

  ‘This was written to Stalin by a man sent to the gulags,’ said an un familiar voice in passable Japanese behind her. ‘The author is protesting his innocence. He wrote the letter in his own blood.’

  Akiko glanced over her shoulder. The man was well fed and tall with ruddy cheeks overlaid with a lattice of broken spider veins. He wore a different drab green uniform from the police. There was a patch on his upper arm that included the Cyrillic initials ‘FSB’, the Federal Security Service, the organization that replaced the KGB.

  ‘You speak Japanese well,’ she told him.

  ‘I spent half my life in the Soviet Far East,’ he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘You pick these things up. I am Colonel Andrei, the deputy director here. What do you think of our little museum?’

  ‘It is very interesting,’ she said. ‘How did you know that I was Japanese?’

  ‘An educated guess. That, and only tourists visit here.’

  Nearby, Akiko heard Ben say, ‘So, all those people sent to the gulags; did the commies keep records?’

  ‘Um . . . yes, they did,’ replied the guide. ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘My friend here lost her father in one of those purges,’ Ben explained as he examined a fake tree stump full of telemetry instruments. ‘Her mother emigrated to Japan. While we’re sightseeing, we thought we might, you know, look him up. See what happened to the old guy.’

  ‘Well, yes, there are records, but . . .’

  ‘They were opened briefly in ’91, but they have been sealed again,’ said the colonel in English. Switching to Russian, he asked Akiko, ‘Where did your mother live before emigrating?’

  ‘Irkutsk.’

  ‘Irkutsk. The Paris of Siberia. A beautiful place. You have been there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell me, your father. What year did he . . .’

  ‘Disappear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nineteen eighty-three.’

  ‘Hmm . . . 1983. Was he a member of the Party?’

  ‘I think so. Wasn’t everyone back then?’

  ‘Perhaps he supported the wrong faction. They were tumultuous times. Yuri Andropov was in power.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know when exactly in 1983? The month, the day?’

  ‘Early in September is all I know.’

  ‘Perhaps I could make some enquiries on your behalf.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Tell me, where are you staying? Which hotel?’

  ‘We’re at the Ararat Park Hyatt.’

  ‘Ah, a good choice. Would you mind writing down your names?’ The colonel produced a notebook and pen and handed them to her.

  Akiko caught the tour guide giving the colonel a sideways look.

  ‘Well,’ the officer said as he slipped the notebook inside his jacket, ‘the first or second week of September, 1983. I will see what I can do. Please, enjoy the rest of your tour. A pleasure to meet you and your friend.’

  Colonel Andrei gave her a nod and then walked off to an office, closing the door behind him.

  The tour lasted another ten minutes, Smirnov rushing through the remainder of the exhibits. On the way down in the elevator, he was fidgeting with his clothes, uncharacteristically silent. As soon as the doors opened, he said, ‘
I hope that you find what you are looking for,’ and then hurried off before Ben could hand him a tip.

  ‘I saw you writing something down for the colonel,’ Ben said as he watched Smirnov round the corner. ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘I gave him our names.’

  ‘What? Are you kidding?’

  ‘He said he would help.’

  Ben pushed his hands into his gloves. ‘Jesus . . . Colonel Andrei. The guy didn’t give us his last name. Did you notice? According to Smirnov, before the guy was FSB he was KGB—Fifth Directorate. He said the colonel was one of those responsible for imprisonment and torture at the Lubyanka, among other places.’

  Akiko felt sick.

  ‘And let’s say the offer to help is genuine, he’s going to be looking for your father. Just tell me you didn’t let the guy know where we’re staying.’

  She looked away.

  ‘Aw, shit . . .’

  Colonel Andrei waited for the Japanese woman and the American to leave before checking his contact book and dialing.

  ‘Yes?’ asked the voice on the line.

  ‘Colonel Andrei Popov.’

  ‘Colonel Popov! My old friend. It has been a long time. I heard you were still serving.’

  ‘Yes. I am single-handedly keeping the motherland safe.’

  ‘Ha! And how is Moscow treating you these days?’

  ‘The city has been stormed by the bourgeoisie. There is nothing in their lives beyond money.’

  ‘It is the same here in Leningrad,’ the voice said, using the Soviet name for Saint Petersburg. ‘It is time we got together again over some caviar and a bottle of Novocherkasskaya to talk about the old days, when life had meaning.’

  ‘My favorite vodka. You have a good memory, General.’

  ‘I will send you over a case immediately, for old times’ sake. What else can I do for you, old friend?’

  ‘Actually, it’s what I can do for you. I just had a couple of visitors at the museum. You are still interested in keeping your finger on the pulse?’