by Erik Hamre
“It can’t be him,” Amanda replied. Kevler is currently in Korea. He’s been there for more than two months.
“Shit,” Kraut said.
“Remove everyone who doesn’t have a connection to USS Utah,” Vladimir said.
“We’ve been through this, Vladimir. The USS Utah was a decoy. Cronus misled us,” Kraut said.
“Just do it. See what comes up,” Vladimir suggested.
“None of them are working on the USS Utah,” Amanda said.
“Then we are looking at the wrong people,” Vladimir replied.
“What do you suggest we do? Make Sarah go through more than six thousand pictures? Because that’s the number of civilians working on the base.”
“No, I’m simply saying there is no point checking people with no connection to USS Utah. We’re here for a reason.”
“OK,” Amanda sighed. There was no point arguing. The quicker she could eliminate Vladimir’s ridiculous theories, the quicker she could get them off potential dead-ends.
“He might not even be on record,” Vladimir said to Kraut.
“Why wouldn’t he be? This is a Navy base. Nobody is allowed in unless they have a reason to be here.”
Vladimir dragged Kraut away from Sarah. “Think about it,” he whispered. “If this whole thing is Kevorkian’s way of avenging Kevin’s death, then his real dad might actually be in on it.”
“You think Kevorkian knew about this guy? You think Kevorkian knew he wasn’t Kevin’s real dad?”
“Kevorkian was an incredibly smart guy. He would have known.”
Kraut looked over at Sarah. She was still shaking. Was this whole thing an elaborate plan for revenge? And was Kevin’s real dad in on it? “Amanda, I need a list of maintenance people working on USS Utah. I need pictures of all of them.”
“I’m already working on it. Do you really think this is a lead though?”
“Every clue points to the sub. Somehow it must be connected. Somehow it’s important.”
“Maybe they’re still trying to provide Cronus with access to USS Utah’s weapons systems. Maybe they’re still trying to shoot down the satellites,” Vladimir suggested.
“Sending the file now,” Amanda said.
Kraut and Vladimir stared at the screen as the file was downloading on Kraut’s phone. “It’s only five people. This should be quick,” Kraut said.
“That guy actually looks like the description,” Vladimir said, he was staring at guy number three on the list. “Show Sarah.”
Sarah let out a small yelp when she saw the picture. At that moment she knew her mind hadn’t been playing a trick on her. It was seventeen years since she had last seen the man in the picture. It had only been for a few hours, and she had been obscenely drunk at the time. But she had never forgotten his eyes, because she had been seeing them forever since. She had been seeing them every time she had looked at her son, Kevin. Maybe that was the reason she had never bonded with Kevin the way she had bonded with her twins? Every time she had looked at Kevin she had been reminded of her infidelity, her unfaithfulness, her terrible deceit. People had no idea how it was to live with a secret like that. To live in fear every day. She couldn’t even remember how many times she thought she had been found out, that Kevorkian had figured out he wasn’t Kevin’s real father.
But it had never happened.
The day Kevin disappeared it had almost been as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
It didn’t matter how much it had hurt that Kevin was gone. It had also been a relief. A chance to start over. A chance for a clean start without secrets.
“It’s him,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Amanda, we have a suspect,” Kraut hollered over the phone. “His name is Frank Morris.”
“Got him. 43 years old. Last known place of residence, Washington,” Amanda replied.
“Washington?”
“Yes, he normally works on the Ohio Class subs at Naval Base Kitsap. They shipped him to San Diego yesterday because the USS Utah was due to dock there.”
“You added him to the list?” Kraut asked.
“Yes, thought you wanted everyone that worked on USS Utah. You didn’t say anything about excluding people from other bases.”
“You’re a star,” Kraut said.
From when the alarm was raised it took only eleven minutes before Frank Morris was located and apprehended. He didn’t seem to have been trying to flee. The Military police found him in the canteen, eating a late breakfast.
“What are we waiting for?” Kraut said, charging across the tarmac. The military police had just advised they had brought Frank Morris into one of the interrogation rooms.
Vladimir grabbed Sarah’s hand. “I know this is going to be tough. But we need your help, Sarah. I need you to be strong.”
“I don’t think I can do it,” she said.
“You have to. If this guy chooses not to talk to us, having you there might be the only thing that can make him change his mind.”
“Do you really believe he and Kevorkian worked together? That they created Cronus to avenge Kevin?”
“I don’t know, Sarah. But we’ll find out soon.” Vladimir wrapped his left arm around Sarah’s shoulder as they walked briskly towards the building with the interrogation rooms. Vladimir’s affair with Sarah had been nothing more than a one-night stand either. Kevorkian had been upset about the pending IPO. He had felt the VC’s and investment bankers were forcing his hand in order to take TrakTek public early. If it had been up to Kevorkian the company would have remained private forever. But there was nothing he could do. He didn’t have a majority shareholding anymore. And this realisation had made him treat everyone around him like shit. Especially his wife, Sarah. One night she had showed up on Vladimir’s doorstep with loneliness in her eyes and a bottle of Vodka in her hand. Vladimir hadn’t been strong enough to turn her away. He hadn’t been strong enough to respect his best friend. Instead he had given in to his urges. Instead he had ruined everything.
Truth be told, Vladimir had been in love with Sarah Kevorkian since the first day he laid eyes on her.
And he still was.
But that day, that damned day in early May 2005 had ruined all his chances. He had made wild and passionate love to Sarah Kevorkian that night, and she had been everything he had ever dreamt of. But it had also been the end. She had never looked at him the same way afterwards.
It was as if he had betrayed her trust that night, as if he had failed a test.
And Vladimir knew he had failed.
For weeks he hadn’t been able to look eye to eye with Kevorkian either.
He had been too embarrassed. Too ashamed.
Fortunately Kevorkian had been busy with the pending IPO for TrakTek, so he hadn’t spent much time around the office.
And then Kevin had disappeared.
“I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know if I can even look at him,” Sarah said.
“Relax. You might not have to,” Vladimir replied. But he knew she would.
“Amanda, dispatch teams to every single property this guy has ever owned. I want the teams to be ready for my signal,” Kraut hollered into his phone.
63
3rd of June 2015
Naval Base San Diego
California
DAY 3:
0900 Hours
Vladimir studied Sarah as she approached the mirror separating them from the man inside. She walked to within an inch of the mirror and just stood there staring, her legs trembling. Vladimir put a hand on her shoulder, and she responded by squeezing his hand hard. Vladimir could almost feel his knuckles turning white.
Vladimir had no idea what went through her head at that moment in time. And he wasn’t about to ask. Just give her time, time to absorb the fact that the person sitting on the other side of the mirror could quite possibly be working together with her ex-husband to avenge the abduction and murder of Kevin, her own son.
How w
ould that make her feel? The knowledge that Kevorkian had most likely known about her infidelity the entire time, and that when the time had come to avenge Kevin’s death he hadn’t chosen to confide in her, Kevin’s own mother. Instead he had chosen to confide in Kevin’s biological dad.
Two dads - one mission: To avenge the murder of Kevin, to let the world burn in order to avenge one single person.
Was it selfish? At first Vladimir had thought so. He hadn’t been able to understand how Kevorkian could justify sacrificing the lives of innocent people just to avenge one single person, even if that person was his child. Now it had turned out that Kevin most likely wasn’t even Kevorkian’s own child. How could he possibly justify this when it wasn’t even his own child he was avenging?
During the last three days, however, Vladimir had gradually come to the realisation that the idea wasn’t too far-fetched for him either. He didn’t help Kraut in order to save the world. Vladimir didn’t really care that much about the world. He did it to save his own family back in Russia. To save his brother.
They still weren’t too different, Kevorkian and Vladimir.
They both had a dark side. They both had a dangerous side.
And that dangerous side wasn’t hidden in their hearts. It was in their brains. It was their brains that were dangerous.
It was their ability to remove emotion from the equation, to disregard everything that wasn’t truly important to them.
It was how they had run Neuralgo. It was how they had run their lives.
Kevorkian didn’t necessarily want to kill people. He just wanted to avenge his son. And if people had to die for that to happen, then there was no way around it. Logic for Kevorkian was that someone had to pay for his son’s death.
And logic told him that the killer was hiding somewhere.
It didn’t really matter where. Because Kevorkian couldn’t allow a detail like the whereabouts of Kevin’s killer to stop him from taking his revenge. If Kevorkian couldn’t find out who this person was and where he or she was hiding, then everybody had to die.
He was a father who was willing to let the entire world burn in order to get back at his son’s murderer. And Vladimir would probably have done the same.
Maybe Kevorkian had found a similar mind in Kevin’s biological father, Frank Morris?
Maybe sharing the same hatred had made the decision easier?
Sarah stared at the man on the other side of the mirror. He looked different. He looked older. Seventeen years older. But the sparkle in his eyes was the same.
Sarah didn’t remember much from the night she had spent with him. She had been obscenely drunk. He had put her in a cab and taken her to a hotel in the city. There they had shared another drink, one after already too many.
And then it all became very fuzzy. She vaguely remembered having sex. On the couch maybe. And then up against the wall, definitely up against the wall. He had been so strong. Taken her the way she had always yearned to be taken.
Lifted her up and fucked her like she’d had no say in what was going to happen.
Like she was a doll.
Fucked her in ways her husband, Andrew, never did - never could.
Head down in the pillow, ass up in the air. She had felt so vulnerable, so helpless and fragile. It had been amazing.
Andrew Kevorkian had always been too controlled in the bedroom, too measured. Sex for him had been more about technique than passion. He had been a good lover. That wasn’t the problem. He could go on for hours, he had been the king of stamina. The problem was that Sarah had never felt connected to Kevorkian in bed. It was as if the moment Kevorkian dropped his pants his trademark self-confidence evaporated. She had fallen for his arrogance, his wits and his boldness. In bed he was a totally different person though. His look uncertain. His moves too gentle. His behaviour too needy. He had kept on asking her for feedback. It had driven her mad. Sarah had wanted to get fucked, not fill out a customer survey. But that was how Kevorkian approached things he wasn’t comfortable with. He collected data, he practised, and he became skilled. He hid his uncertainty behind a wall of excellence.
He had been like a freaking robot.
Sarah placed her palm on the mirror. “What happens now?” she asked.
“Now we get this fucker to talk,” Kraut said. It didn’t really matter that they weren’t at Guantanamo Bay. They would have to get Frank Morris to talk one way or another. “Get the equipment ready,” he said to the sailor directly next to him.
“Black site stuff?”
Kraut nodded.
“You’re going to waterboard him?” Vladimir asked. The moment Kraut had told him, three days earlier, that Kevorkian was going to be waterboarded was still fresh in his mind.
“Whatever it takes. Frank Morris will talk within the next twenty minutes. It’s up to him how.” Then Kraut simply left the room.
“What’s your plan?” Kraut asked. No introduction, no good cop, bad cop. No strategy. Kraut was a philosopher, not an interrogator. But he knew that the team of trained interrogators the Navy had made available would be of no help. They would ask if Frank Morris knew Andrew Kevorkian in roundabout ways. Trying to trick him into making statements he would later contradict. Kraut wasn’t trying to build a criminal case though. He was trying to figure out what this guy had done, and why he had done it. He was trying to find out why Frank Morris and Kevorkian had unleashed Cronus, and what its mission was.
“What plan? I don’t know what you are talking about,” Frank Morris replied, seemingly unfazed by the fact he was being interrogated.
“How long have you known Kevorkian?”
“Dr Death?” Frank Morris replied.
Kraut shook his head. It was a fitting coincidence that the first thing people usually thought about when hearing the name Kevorkian was death. But Andrew Kevorkian wasn’t related to the infamous pathologist and euthanasia activist, Jack Kevorkian. And how many lives had Jack Kevorkian really helped end? 130 maybe? A spit in the ocean compared to the number of lives Andrew Kevorkian was about to take. “Andrew Kevorkian. How long have you known Andrew Kevorkian?” Kraut repeated.
“I don’t know any Andrew Kevorkian,” Frank Morris answered, but for a moment he lost some of his cool. His eyes flickered to the mirror. He knew someone would be standing on the other side.
“He’ll crack,” the sailor next to Vladimir said.
“How do you know?”
“He’s not military. He’s not used to this. He’ll crack,” the Navy guy replied, as if the fact that Frank Morris was not a soldier should be sufficient reason.
“Don’t pretend to be an idiot. The game is over. Cronus is gone. It’s all over.”
“I want a lawyer,” Frank Morris said, shifting uneasily in his chair.
Kraut shook his head. “There will be no lawyer.”
“I know my rights.”
“You have no rights, you piece of shit,” Kraut said, his mouth ten inches from Frank Morris’ face.
Morris wiped a speck of spit off his cheek, and returned his gaze to Kraut.
“What am I supposed to have done?” he asked.
Kraut smiled. “You don’t know?”
“I don’t. So please enlighten me.”
Kraut shook his head. “What were you planning to do on-board USS Utah?”
Frank Morris looked up at Kraut. “I’m in charge of all the communication equipment on-board the Ohio subs. It’s actually my job to check out USS Utah when it docks.”
“You didn’t plan to grant the artificial intelligence access to the weapons control systems?” Kraut asked.
Frank Morris raised his eyebrows. He seemed genuinely confused. Vladimir remembers at the time thinking Frank Morris could have had a great acting career. ‘At that point I was beginning to think Frank Morris was innocent,’ Vladimir later told me. ‘He just seemed bewildered. Like he had no idea what Kraut was talking about.’
“I want my lawyer,” Morris said.
Kraut took two
steps to the left so that he ended up directly behind Morris’ back. And then he raised his arm.
Sarah let out a small scream when Kraut hit the back of Morris’ head with full force. The punch had come out of nowhere. Even Vladimir was taken aback by the level of violence. He had never expected Kraut to actually hit the guy. He had never even considered Kraut capable of hitting a fly.
“There won’t be any fucking lawyer. Am I making myself clear??” Kraut screamed to the back of Frank Morris’ head.
Morris nodded. His frightened eyes flickered to the mirror again. It was getting clear he was wondering who was on the other side.
“Yes, she is there,” Kraut said.
“Who?” Frank Morris asked, his voice almost inaudible. His eyes locked on the table in front of him. He was showing all the obedience he could.
“Sarah, Sarah is on the other side of the mirror,” Kraut said.
Frank Morris didn’t even need to repeat her name. The moment he looked up at the mirror both Vladimir and Kraut knew they had him. Frank Morris’ eyes beamed with hatred. Whatever Kevorkian and Morris had planned, it hadn’t involved sparing Sarah’s life.
Morris’ face hardened up again. “I want my lawyer,” he repeated.
“There will be no lawyer.”
“I know my rights,” he countered.
“You may know your rights, Frank. But in a couple of hours those rights mean nothing. In a couple of hours the first people will start dying because of what you and Kevorkian have done. In a week millions will have lost their lives. And in six months, I don’t even want to take a guess at what will have happened in six months’ time.”