The Zero Option

by David Rollins

  ‘Let us call this crime what it clearly is,’ he railed, tapping into the indignation and revulsion of the preceding delegates’ mood. ‘Wanton, calculated, deliberate murder. This is a ruthless totalitarian state responsible for killing more people and enslaving more nations than any state, any regime, in the history of mankind.’

  It was an award-winning performance, Bilson thought as he tried to write down Lichenstein’s words. He was increasingly unable to keep up with the transcription and his heart was fluttering like a startled bird’s. Was the world accelerating, or was he dropping behind? It was a question he didn’t find an answer to before he fainted, slipping out of the chair and slumping to the carpet.

  January 27, 2012

  Fort Meade, Maryland. Investigator Lana Englese had hit a brick wall. It had been several days now and still the cell phone network set up by Tex Mitchell had not been activated. She had to assume, therefore, that they’d established a new one. And second time around, Tex Mitchell would be even more circumspect. She was still most interested in discovering the identity of the holder of the third cell phone. How did that person fit into the triangle between Ben Harbor, his father Curtis Foxx, and Mitchell, Foxx’s navigator?

  The folder on her desktop held a copy of Foxx’s record, which she now knew reasonably well. He was a great pilot who went bad as a result of events that happened on September 1, 1983, the evening the Russians put a couple of missiles into KAL 007. The conspiracy websites were full of theories about ‘what really happened’, and most included the antics of a USAF RC-135 in the airliner’s demise. There was little doubt in her mind that Foxx had been the RC pilot, which meant Mitchell was likely to have been the navigator on that mission. She was unsure whether Mitchell would have said anything to Harbor about what happened that night—especially after Foxx had gone to his grave without revealing it. She felt a surge of admiration for these men, and especially for Curtis Foxx. Looking at the guy’s record, he’d been one hell of a warrior.

  Lana tapped in the access code and opened the folder. Saul Kradich had deposited the items she’d requested—Foxx’s bank records, his IRS returns, his will. She opened the will and —

  ‘Are you still chasing ghosts on that 007 caper, Lana?’ Sherwood asked over her shoulder.

  ‘What? No . . . I —’

  ‘C’mon, we’ve spent far too much time on this conspiracy crap. Why don’t you look into 9/11 instead? I’ve got news for you—there’s nothing out there. Move on.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ Lana argued. ‘And this investigation has no lesser priority than anything else we’re on.’

  ‘You and I both know this is a long way from an investigation,’ he said, then clapped his hands together and rubbed them to change the mood. ‘That shit happened more than a quarter century ago. Forget about it. This afternoon we’re in on the bust down in Texas. It’s battle stations, baby.’

  ‘You know, I really think you joined the wrong service, Sherwood. And if you call me baby again you’ll get a knee where it hurts.’

  ‘Alright, sorry about that. But look, it’s time to go.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ she said, irritated. ‘The plane leaves in forty-five minutes. I’ll see you downstairs in fifteen.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Sherwood, squeezing past her workstation, disappointed at her apparent lack of enthusiasm. ‘Don’t keep us waiting.’

  Lana puffed out her cheeks as she exhaled. The guy really should have joined the US Marshals, or something. Maybe the Chippendales. She clicked on the icon of Curtis Foxx’s will. It opened, and she read it.

  Chena Lake. She’d been there. It was a nice place to spend an afternoon so why not eternity? Foxx had been based at Eielson, near Fairbanks. Nothing unusual about that. There was no mention of a key, a tape, or of 007 in the will, which, at the very least, would have been a handy confirmation of suspicions. Curtis Foxx had been wary all the way to the grave, but, to be fair to the guy, with good reason. Overall, it was a strange will—informal, almost chatty in places. The bit about embracing the truth—that could mean anything and nothing. What significance had the father wanted the son to take from it? The two had been estranged almost all of Ben’s life. A little late to start preaching values.

  She wondered how much money Curtis had left to Ben. She clicked on Curtis’s bank account; he had only one—a basic checking account. She reviewed the last six months up to when the account was closed because all the money had been withdrawn. She followed the numbers and the statement to the IRS. The amount of $96,000 and change had been paid to Benjamin Harbor. Ninety-six grand. That was a lot of money for someone who was essentially a vagrant. Where had it come from? Lana found the entry almost immediately. In the month before he died, Curtis Foxx had received an amount of $88,221.34.

  ‘Who gave you that?’ she asked aloud.

  She followed the account numbers and came to a short-term dead end. The cash had come via a company that handled international money transfers. Someone overseas had sent Curtis the funds. The question was, who? Ten minutes with Saul Kradich and she knew she’d have the answer.

  Her cell rang. The number on the screen told her it was Sherwood. ‘Jesus,’ she said, quitting her computer access and then grabbing her coat and bag. She was late.

  September 4, 1983

  Dolinsk-Sokol, Sakhalin Island, USSR. Colonel Korolenko’s footsteps crunched on the gravel as, deep in thought, he walked toward the prisoner’s cell. There had been several telephone discussions with superior officers about the prisoners in general and about Congressman McDonald in particular. Indeed, Korolenko had been ordered to fly to Khabarovsk the following day to meet with Colonel General Penkeyev, the number two man in the Soviet Far East Military District. The bloated old war hero wanted to be taken through Korolenko’s thinking personally before making a recommendation to Moscow. Which way would the cards fall? The KGB colonel was still unsure. In his private opinion, the leadership had been erratic since Premier Brezhnev’s death. Right now, the Americans were applying intense pressure through the United Nations over the KAL 007 incident and there was a trial of international public opinion going on. Maps, diagrams, translated voice tapes were the exhibits. Soviet forces had captured the spy plane three days ago and still there was no admission from Moscow that they had fired on it, so perhaps there was hope.

  Of course, the admission about the shootdown would come eventually—there was pride in defending the motherland against all comers. It was the other questions he was unsure of: Would Moscow inform the world that many of the passengers were alive and safe? Would they all be sent home?

  The information he now had in his hands might increase the certainty in favor of incarceration and secrecy. McDonald’s complete annotated diary had been found in his luggage, along with notes taken while attending various US defense committees and meetings. Possibly of even greater value was a package about the congressman that had come through the Soviet embassy in Tehran. It seemed this McDonald was quite a catch after all.

  Korolenko gave the KGB prison guard a nod and together they walked to the end of the cell block. A quick visual on the prisoner through the grille by the guard and then the key rattled in the lock. The door opened.

  Congressman McDonald was sitting on the bare concrete bench in his rumpled gray suit, a bucket of feces pushed into a far corner. The American had no tie, no belt, no socks and no shoelaces. Korolenko had spared him a body search. He didn’t think the congressman would be the type to hide things in body cavities. At least, not yet.

  Korolenko heard the door close with a metallic clang behind him.

  McDonald looked at him and said nothing.

  ‘Not going to ask me about contacting the US consulate today?’

  McDonald didn’t answer.

  ‘Ah, a new tactic. Silence. It will do you no good. We know more about you now, Congressman. It seems you are a true enemy of the USSR. How ironic that you will ultimately prove of such great value to us.’

  McDonald’s fr
ozen silence continued.

  Korolenko took a different tack. ‘You will be removed from this place soon. Another airplane flight, I’m afraid. You will be taken to a place that many people have regretted visiting over the years. There will be no escape. Your days will be filled with misery. Your nights will be worse. Unless you talk. Talk is rewarded. Silence is punished. You will come to accept this simple relationship, as everyone does. For your sake, I hope you come to realize it quickly.’

  McDonald made no response.

  ‘Does the name Reinhard Gehlen tell you anything, Congressman?’ Silence, though Korolenko saw the muscles in the American’s jaw tighten.

  ‘Yes, it should. It should tell you that now we know which questions to ask. I pity you.’

  Pure bravado, thought Korolenko. Equally likely was that the congressman would be on a plane home within a day, his pockets full of Moscow’s weak-kneed apologies.

  Nami had spent the last four days in a railway freight car with thirty other passengers. They had been forbidden to speak—a rule enforced with a rifle butt. There was barely enough room to sleep lying down and the four buckets provided were soon full and stinking. But now, a guard was pulling her from the boxcar. The first blast of cold fresh air she had breathed in days was sweeter than any dessert.

  The man had his hand under her armpit, lifting her so that she walked on her toes. He marched her toward a door, opened it, shoved her forward, and then led her to a chair. He pushed down on her shoulder and she sat heavily.

  Seated behind the desk in front of her was a hard woman with dyed blonde hair, a thick black line down her center part, and heavy black eyebrows. She glanced up at Nami, checked the passport between her fat, blunt fingers, and then put it down. ‘This luggage is yours?’ she asked in passable English.

  Nami followed the woman’s gaze. ‘Yes,’ she said after a moment. There was a red T-shirt tied around the handle to help identify the nondescript black suitcase on a carousel. The T-shirt was an old one that Akiko had grown out of. The sudden memory jolt—seeing Akiko in that T-shirt—moistened her eyes.

  ‘Where is this place?’ she asked.

  The woman ignored the question as if she hadn’t heard Nami speak—as if she didn’t exist—and referred instead to some paperwork before her. The male guard opened the suitcase on the floor and sifted carelessly through the neatly folded clothes. Next, he opened her carry-on bag. Nami knew that all he’d find were cosmetics and a book—nothing of real value or interest.

  The guard spoke abruptly in Russian to the woman behind the desk. There was a brief exchange between them, and then Nami felt the man’s hand under her armpit again, lifting her.

  ‘Wait!’ she cried out.

  The woman behind the desk didn’t look up as Nami was pushed out the door.

  September 5, 1983

  Khabarovsk, Siberia, USSR. It was late in the evening by the time Colonel Korolenko arrived in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk. Colonel General Alexander Penkeyev, the man he had been summoned to see, had abandoned the cold concrete climes of the Far East Military District HQ for the cozier atmosphere of his home on the outskirts of town, a rambling cottage made of wood in the peasant style perched high on a hillock and positioned to look southwest over the Amur River, toward China.

  The general was taking his time with Korolenko’s report, flicking back and forth through the pages, occasionally grunting, and then pausing to pour himself another vodka or relight his Cuban.

  Korolenko sat stiffly in an armchair off to one side, facing the blackened empty hearth. His eyes swept the room. The decor was surprisingly feminine—painted dinner plates hanging on the wallpapered walls, paintings of young women and men dancing, and two vases of flowers on the mantelpiece. The only masculine touch was a collection of photos shot in Afghanistan that showed the general and a bunch of young Red Army soldiers on top of a Soviet T64 tank.

  General Penkeyev was a big, stocky man—a combination of muscle and over-feeding—whose former physical power still lingered in his thick forearms. His scalp was bald and patterned with scars collected over a lifetime on the front lines, and reminded Korolenko of a marble head pitted and chipped by hammer blows. His cheeks were round and full, like a trumpet player’s, and ruddy from a long friendship with the bottle.

  Korolenko knew the man’s background. Who didn’t? In the Great Patriotic War, Penkeyev had been the ranking sergeant within a dwindling company of men being smashed during what would be the Nazis’ final assault on Stalingrad. At sunrise one frozen morning, Penkeyev woke to find his position being strafed by a platoon of Waffen-SS armed with seven MG-42 heavy machine guns. The officer leading his unit and four of the seven men still able to walk refused Penkeyev’s demand to charge the enemy emplacement. So he shot each of them in the head with his revolver and forced the three men remaining to assault the position with him. But the moment Penkeyev’s back was turned, the soldiers immediately deserted, leaving the sergeant to charge the enemy stronghold by himself. The story went that Penkeyev grabbed a German helmet and put it on, marched into the emplacement and took the Ukraine conscripts by surprise, shooting all but one of them dead. Out of ammunition, he apparently smashed the remaining man’s head in with the butt of his revolver. Soon after the action, the sergeant, who’d lost half a hand in the engagement, was given a battlefield commission to lieutenant and later granted the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

  General Penkeyev was a Soviet in the old mold—hard-nosed, opinionated, conservative and authoritative. He was also a survivor who had drunk with Stalin and Beria on many occasions and lived to tell about it.

  ‘Vodka, Comrade Colonel?’

  Korolenko was not a drinker, but to refuse would have been the height of rudeness and professional suicide.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Comrade General.’

  ‘This is quite a haul. Four scientists, two engineers, an electrical engineer, two computer experts, five ex-military men from a variety of countries, two journalists. And, of course, our congressman,’ said the general as he poured the vodka through a haze of cigar smoke.

  Our congressman. A good sign, thought Korolenko.

  ‘I have spoken with some people, made some discreet enquiries. Lawrence McDonald’s connection with Gehlen is most interesting. A friend of mine came up against Gehlen when the man was chief of the Third Reich’s Foreign Armies East, back in the war. Gehlen was a fascist pig of the highest order. The Americans loved him. Perfect CIA material. He ran to them and they snapped him up immediately. Gehlen helped organize the B Faction in the Ukraine and Romania’s Iron Guard, to name but two of his counterrevolutionary organizations. The GRU thinks there are perhaps thousands of Gehlen’s agents, little spiders, still operating within the Soviet bloc, spreading anti-revolutionary poison. You think this McDonald might provide leads that would help us track these people down?’

  ‘Yes, Comrade General, undoubtedly. I also believe he could provide far more than mere leads. He has names and places. If you would permit me to speak freely . . .’

  The general rolled his mangled hand a few times in a gesture of continue, continue, topped up Korolenko’s vodka and puffed heavily on the thick cigar stub.

  ‘As I have documented, sir, Lawrence McDonald himself actually recruited spies with the help of Gehlen to gather intelligence from institutions within the United States.’

  ‘He has his own personal spy network?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Penkeyev grunted. ‘Sounds like one of us.’

  ‘Comrade General, he penetrated the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies. The intelligence windfall could be of incalculable benefit.’

  ‘Hmm . . .’ Penkeyev nodded his scarred head. ‘What do you think McDonald might know about this Star Wars nonsense of their President’s? Drink up, Colonel. I don’t trust men who don’t drink.’

  Korolenko threw back the half glass remaining, his second. General Penkeyev immediately refilled it to the brim.

  ‘We think he might know
a considerable amount, Comrade General. I suspect he is as much a fascist as that Nazi Gehlen, and his cousin, General Patton—’

  ‘Patton—pha! A great general,’ Penkeyev interrupted. ‘He was born on the wrong side of the fence.’

  The general motioned for Korolenko to drink up, which he did, even though his head felt heavy on his neck and he was having difficulty selecting the correct words, let alone speaking them. He noticed an empty bottle in the trash bin beside the general’s writing desk and wondered how much Penkeyev had drunk before he arrived.

  The old man filled their glasses again and sat back with a wheeze, his collar loosened, a couple of jacket buttons unfastened, gray chest hair sprouting from the black shadow beneath his loosened collar, wet cigar stub in his mouth. The vodka bottle swayed in the hand resting on the arm of the armchair. He was gazing at the empty hearth as if entranced.

  ‘This is going badly for us,’ Penkeyev said, in a tone that suggested he was having a conversation with himself. ‘If we give the passengers back now, five days after the air force failed to do its job, the world will ask why we kept them so long. They will also think we are finally caving in to capitalist pressure. Will either outcome be helpful, enhance Soviet prestige?’ He shook his head, answering his own question. ‘The west believes the plane and all its passengers are on the bottom of the Sea of Japan,’ he continued. ‘Perhaps the best course we can steer is to let the world continue to believe it.’

  He turned his head to face Korolenko. ‘Do you realize, Colonel, that the air force followed this CIA decoy for a full two and a half hours as it entered our airspace, flew over our submarine base, passed back into international airspace, and then altered course, dodging and weaving over Sakhalin?’

  ‘No, Comrade General, I was not fully aware of this.’

  And it was true. No one on the air force side, either in flight ops or ground defense, was saying anything. Heads were expected to roll in the wake of the incident, and no one wanted to help sharpen the blade lest it land on their own neck.