The Zero Option

by David Rollins

  ‘Who is this?’ she asked. ‘How did you get this number?’

  ‘You wrote it down on the business card you gave me.’

  Dallas Mitchell. ‘Is that you, Tex?’

  ‘Have you got someone after me, too?’

  Lana was on the edge of her seat.

  ‘Don’t bother tracing this call,’ he said. ‘I’m on a disposable and I won’t be on it long enough.’

  ‘What murders? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Lucas Watts and Jerome Grundy—both dead, Englese, and there’s no one else but you in the picture.’

  Her mind raced. Watts and Grundy, murdered? Panic settled on her.

  ‘Tex, you need to believe me when I tell you I have no idea what’s going on. Give me ten minutes and I’ll ring you back.’

  ‘No way. I’m gone.’

  ‘You have to trust me. Ten minutes.’

  She didn’t wait for a response and ended the call, her palms sweating. It took two minutes to confirm that Lucas Watts was dead. Local homicide’s preliminary report was that it was accidental: Watts had been electrocuted when a two-liter bottle of Pepsi was spilt into a nest of electrical cords and his home’s circuit-breakers had malfunctioned. Grundy had been killed in a hit and run at 3 a.m. one day ago. Lana’s scalp prickled. She took a business card from her bag and dialed the number.

  ‘McBride, Sweeney, Sweetman & Bourdain, attorneys at law,’ said the woman’s voice on the line. It was a timid voice, a quiver in it.

  ‘Can I speak with Kayson Bourdain, please.’

  Silence.

  ‘Hello?’ Lana asked.

  ‘Are you a client of Mr Bourdain’s?’

  ‘This is Lana Englese from the National Security Agency. Mr Bourdain was assisting us with an investigation.’

  ‘I’m sorry . . . Mr Bourdain drowned in his swimming pool last night.’

  Lana put the handset back on the cradle. ‘Oh my god . . .’ she whispered. She lifted the handset again and dialed. The phone rang until the message bank kicked in with a woman’s voice.

  ‘Hey, you’ve lucked out. We’re not in right now, but leave your name and number after the tone and we’ll get back to you, promise.’ Beep.

  Lana got up and paced while she placed another call.

  ‘Special Agent Sherwood,’ said the voice.

  ‘Miller. Get the Bureau’s chopper. I’m coming to you.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Just get it. This is priority one, cancel-all-leave, number-one fucking urgent. I’ll tell you about it on the way. I’ll be there in fifteen.’ She grabbed her coat and ran down the corridor to the elevators.

  Lana reached her vehicle in record time. She hit the redial against Tex Mitchell’s number once she cleared the boom and accelerated into the traffic with a shriek of tire rubber. The phone rang eight times. ‘C’mon . . . c’mon . . . pick up, pick up.’ On the ninth ring, he answered.

  ‘Englese, there’s nothing you can tell me that —’

  ‘Tex, I wrote a report,’ she said, breathing hard. ‘It was about the tape—the missing tape. It was an analysis of what I believed was on it and the people who knew about it. It detailed the interviews with Lucas Watts and Jerome Grundy. Ben and Curtis’s attorney, Kayson Bourdain, was mentioned. I just called Bourdain’s, office. He died last night, drowned.’

  ‘Shit . . .’

  ‘There’s one other person on the list besides you. I just called and the phone went to voice mail.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Nikki Harbor. Ben’s mother.’

  The FBI MD-530 ‘Little Bird’ picked up both Lana and Special Agent Sherwood from CIA, Langley, where he happened to be in the middle of an inter-agency training program. The pilot put his foot to the floor, or whatever pilots do to make helicopters go fast. Lana had called ahead to the Norfolk police and notified the Norfolk FBI Field Office. She hoped the response would be commensurate with her demand to haul ass. And, indeed, a call was patched through when they’d been in the air barely five minutes. Police on the scene informed her that the Harbor residence was vacant, the back door left ajar. There were no signs of a struggle inside. Everything seemed in order. False alarm.

  ‘What about the open back door? Who walks out of their home these days and leaves it unlocked?’ Lana asked Sherwood as the chopper continued its high-speed run.

  ‘I don’t think that’s reason enough to mobilize all law enforcement on the eastern seaboard, do you? So they forgot to close the damn door when they went out for lunch. What do you want the FBI to do about it?’ said Sherwood, pissed.

  ‘I guess they should stand down,’ she said.

  ‘And what about us?’

  ‘We’re almost there. I’d like to take a look for myself.’

  ‘I think we should turn back, Lana. We’ve just wasted a lot of man-hours, not to mention squandered the priority on this aircraft. I’m starting off on the wrong foot here with the Bureau and I—’

  Lana hid her exasperation. ‘Like I told you, Miller, we’ve got three murders, all linked to that report.’

  ‘Three accidents, Lana. And look at what you’re suggesting.’

  ‘What I’m suggesting is that the investigation into the missing Wakkanai radar tape was instigated by an ex-CIA operative, the right-hand man of possibly our next President who is himself an ex-NSA analyst, and that both of them appear to have had something to do with the downing of the Korean airliner and the subsequent cover-up. Maybe they’re still covering it up.’

  Sherwood almost laughed. ‘This case had you spooked from the beginning.’

  ‘Trust me, Miller, we have to do this.’

  ‘And I suppose women’s intuition is a reliable investigation tool?’

  ‘Look, if you turn around now, you’re going to look stupid.’

  ‘Yeah, that about sums up how I’m feeling.’

  ‘I say we follow through, look around, ask questions, finish the job—be professional.’

  Sherwood shook his head, folded his massive arms and shifted his attention to the built-up landscape slipping by beneath them.

  An agent from the FBI Field Office, Norfolk, met them at the front door to Nikki’s and Frank’s house. It was a big, stately old place, freshly painted white, with soaring columns over the front portico and a cinder driveway edged by ancient, overhanging moss-covered trees that presented like an arboreal guard of honor. The local PD had left about an hour before and the FBI agent from the Norfolk FO was anxious to do something other than baby-sit an empty house. He delivered the debrief, which was a personalized version of the one they’d received en route: that no one was home, there was nothing suspicious, and thanks for spoiling my fucking day.

  Lana shrugged off the rebuke and began an external examination of the home. Sherwood took it on the chin and sighed deeply as he watched his fellow FBI agent drive off in a burst of aggravated wheelspin.

  The Harbors had money; that much was evident. Lana walked around the back of the house. There were footprints all over the rear steps. She walked up the steps, snapping a rubber glove onto her hand. The many bootmarks suggested that there were going to be police prints all over the door knob, but that didn’t mean she had to add hers. She twisted it—the door was still ajar—and pushed it open. She tested the door, opening and closing it. The frame was slightly sprung, warped with moisture. To close it properly the door had to be pulled shut hard. Had the door been properly closed, she noted, it would have locked. She wondered whether it was just something the Harbors had simply forgotten to do. The garage, which was open, was a short walk from the back door. If they were going somewhere, it was probably the route they would have taken—out the back door and down to the garage.

  Lana entered what appeared to be a rear sitting room. The furniture was antique and expensive. She moved through into the kitchen, which was ultra-modern with white marble benchtops, dark wood cupboards and brushed stainless steel everywhere else, including the large ice-through-the-door fridge.
There was an intricate scale model of a nineteenth-century clipper in a glass case on a sideboard, and a framed collection of half a dozen seaman’s knots on the wall behind it. There were also pictures of a serious-looking ocean-going yacht on the walls, several of which featured an attractive middle-aged woman in a wide-brimmed white hat sitting in various poses on the back of the boat—Ben’s mother, Nikki, Lana presumed. There was no food left out on the island. Lana felt the side of the electric kettle. The water inside was only a handful of degrees above room temperature. It had been used, but hours ago. Inside the fridge there was plenty of food. Closing the door, she noticed more photos of the yacht. It was named Safe Harbor. Cute, she thought.

  Moving through the home, she found nothing in the least amiss. Nikki kept a tight ship. She went up the central staircase and put her head in the bedrooms. All beds were made. There was a small pile of clothes on the floor in the main bedroom—a man’s shorts, undershorts, socks, knitted shirt. Frank Harbor’s, she figured, wondering if his habit of dumping his dirty laundry on the floor might be something that got under Nikki’s skin. She went back downstairs, through the kitchen, out the back door. And then it hit her—Safe Harbor! She raced back inside, examined the photos of the boat on the fridge door and found what she was looking for, held there by a cracker biscuit magnet. Behind Safe Harbor was a sign that read ‘Hampton Marina’.

  ‘Don’t you get it, Miller?’ she said as they exited the drive. ‘Someone came looking for them, but Nikki and Frank weren’t home. When that someone left, they didn’t pull the door hard enough to close it properly—the kind of idiosyncrasy you’re only aware of when you live in a house.’

  ‘Really.’ He looked at her, unimpressed.

  Directory assistance gave Lana an address for Hampton Marina. She keyed it into the vehicle’s Navman so that Sherwood would know where to go.

  Next, she placed a call. ‘Hello, Norfolk PD? This is Investigator Lana Englese from the National Security Agency. I’m with FBI Special Agent Miller Sherwood and . . . Sure, I’ll hold.’ Lana got twenty-odd seconds of an old ELO track piped down the line before another voice took over. She repeated the introduction. ‘Earlier today,’ she continued, ‘a couple of uniforms looked over a place for us belonging to . . . Yeah, that’s the one. We now have reason to believe there could be a possible hostage situation at . . . Uh-huh, uh-huh. Look, everyone’s busy, Sergeant.’

  Lana held the phone out from her ear and looked at it angrily. ‘The asshole just hung up on me.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Sherwood, underwhelming her with support. ‘And I think you’ll probably get the same reaction from our FO here.’

  ‘Just fucking step on it, Miller, would you?’

  Hampton Marina was an upmarket parking lot dredged out of the mud for the playthings of multimillionaires. It presented as a sea of white hulls and rigging floating on gray, oily water. As Englese and Sherwood stepped onto the marina, a young guy in a runabout with ‘Hampton Marina’ written on the side pulled up at a nearby service pontoon. He jumped out, hoisted a fuel tank off the pontoon and placed it in the runabout before jumping back in.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Lana called out. The guy looked up and she held her credentials out at him, even though he was too far away to read them. ‘Investigator Englese, National Security Agency. Can you tell me where I can find a boat called Safe Harbor?’

  ‘Yeah, you’re after Frank?’

  She nodded. ‘You seen him this morning?’

  ‘Nope. But I’ve been busy. You’re looking for an Azimut 68S.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Red hull, white superstructure. Seventy foot long. Tidy little unit. Keep walking straight ahead, take your second left and you’ll find it out on the end.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No problem. Frank’s, er, not in any trouble is he, ma’am?’ he called out.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’

  ‘He’s one of the good guys.’ The boat-hand gave them a wave and went back to stowing the fuel tank.

  It was a warm and humid day, with a blue sky, relentless sun and puffs of steamy cloud. Lana’s shirt was sticking to her. She waved a fly away from her face and picked up the pace.

  The marina seemed largely deserted, but it was a Thursday so that figured. It was around lunchtime, which meant that even the crews paid by the rich owners were off somewhere else, on a break. The boats themselves were still, sitting in gray water free of ripples or movement.

  ‘Jesus, there’s a lot of money tied up here,’ said Sherwood, stating the obvious.

  A boat that looked similar to the one in the photos back at Nikki’s and Frank’s home came into view. And impressive though she was, among the company at this marina, she was nothing special.

  ‘You bring your Sig, Miller?’ Lana asked.

  ‘Nope, switched to the Glock 22—more stopping power.’

  ‘Whatever. You bring it?’

  ‘Hell, I sleep with it,’ he replied.

  The boat’s white stern was presented to the walkway, Safe Harbor written on the side of the hull in large gold script outlined in white. The cruiser appeared to be as empty of people as any other boat at the marina, except for one small detail—occasional pressure ripples emanated from the hull, indicating movement aboard. Lana pointed them out to Sherwood and then held a finger against her lips. She was about to step down into the boat when Sherwood stopped her, an arm across her chest like a boom. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out the Glock. He checked its magazine as a matter of standard procedure, and confirmed that the safety was on. Removing his shoes and socks, Sherwood lowered his 250 pounds onto Safe Harbor’s stern without making a sound. The seventy-foot boat was big enough that it accepted his weight without raising the bow. Lana came aboard after him. The teak decking was warm underfoot. It was then that she heard a faint, muffled thump. She stopped.

  ‘You hear that?’ she whispered.

  Sherwood cocked his head as if to say, ‘Hear what?’

  The tender boat had just motored past and its wash rocked the moored boats so that there was the gentle slapping of hull against water and lanyard against mast. Somewhere else, a radio played.

  She shrugged and they kept moving.

  Sherwood walked at a crouch into the bridge area of the boat, his weapon raised in the standard two-handed grip. The area was clear. He led the way forward into a kind of sitting/dining room trimmed in white leather, chrome and teak. A bar and a huge flatscreen television dominated. They went down a flight of stairs into the boat’s sleeping quarters. Lana opened the door on what was the main bedroom. Empty.

  Sherwood checked the kitchen. ‘Clear,’ he whispered as he backed out of it.

  A muffled thump came through one of the walls.

  ‘You heard it that time, right?’ Lana whispered.

  Sherwood nodded. He pointed up. Lana agreed. They backtracked their way upstairs to the television room and out into the sunshine. There was no place for anyone to hide.

  They heard the thump again. It was coming from somewhere below them.

  ‘Engine room,’ Sherwood mouthed.

  There was a trapdoor beneath his feet. He heaved it up and jumped down into the darkness.

  Lana went down the ladder after him. Her eyes had trouble adjusting to the twilight of the cramped space below decks. Sherwood was leaning over a dark shape lying between the massive twin engines. A moment later, she recognized what the shape was—two bodies. Her partner stood back and let her through. The bodies were gagged with duct tape, their hands secured behind their backs with lock-ties. From the photos in their home, Lana knew for certain they were Nikki and Frank. She crouched and peeled off the tape. Nikki’s eyes were wide with terror. There was blood smeared against the white fiberglass walls. Frank had been hit on the head with something blunt.

  ‘Bomb,’ Nikki gasped.

  ‘Where?’ Lana asked.

  ‘Propane cylinder for the stove. Frank . . .’

  ‘Who put you and your
husband down here?’ Lana asked as she quickly checked Frank’s pulse. It was strong. ‘Your husband’s going to be fine, Mrs Harbor.’

  The available light flickered, as if something had passed in front of it. Two loud bangs followed and a crushing weight fell on Lana, knocking her down on top of Nikki and Frank. It was Sherwood. His warm blood gushed over her from a wound in his throat. He’d been shot. The way his body quivered, Lana knew that he was dead. It had happened so fast, she couldn’t believe it. Sherwood was dead. Jesus Christ!

  A shape was coming down the ladder, the killer. Sherwood’s weight was squashing the life out of her. There was something hard pressing into her hand. She ran her fingers around it to identify it. The moving shape was silhouetted by the light above and behind it, ultimately blocking it.

  ‘Maybe it would be easier if I just put a bullet in you?’ said a man’s voice, hoarse and full of gravel.

  Lana lifted up the object in her hand and squeezed it three times. Three deafening explosions rang in her ears. Her wild, unaimed fire was exchanged and she felt Sherwood’s body quake on top of her, absorbing the energy of the returned gunfire. The shape leapt up the ladder and the trapdoor slammed shut, plunging the room into darkness that was total and complete.

  Another shot was fired, somewhere close outside, and a loud thud sounded through the fiberglass ceiling above Lana’s head. A few seconds later, the trapdoor opened and a flashlight beam swept aside the darkness.

  ‘Englese, you down here?’ A male voice, a different one, familiar.

  ‘There’s a bomb,’ she said.

  ‘Where?’

  The man came down the ladder.

  ‘Look for a propane cylinder. It’s down here somewhere.’

  The flashlight beam hunted through the engine room.

  ‘Yep, got it. I think it’s secured. There’s a remote detonator, but the guy holding it isn’t going to be pressing any buttons, trust me.’

  ‘My partner . . .’ Lana wheezed. ‘He’s dead. Help me.’

  Beneath her, Nikki groaned under the weight of both Lana and Sherwood pressing down on her.

  A face in shadow appeared above Lana. He shone the beam on himself.