‘What’s that?’ she asked, taking her seat and putting Kradich’s coffee on the bench beside him.
‘That’s the Soya Maru Number 7,’ he replied.
‘And it’s significant because . . . ?’
‘The search wasn’t as difficult as we thought.’ He touched the control glass and a list of names in both Japanese and English appeared. ‘On September 2, 1984, the Japanese ferry Soya Maru Number 7 embarked for the Sea of Japan between Moneron Island and Sakhalin Island with seventy-nine grieving relatives of the passengers of KAL 007 on board. Apparently they went to throw flowers and clothes into the water for the spirits of the dead passengers—a Buddhist/Shinto thing. Look who also made the journey.’ Two names became highlighted on the list: Yuudai Suzuki and Curtis Foxx.
The skin on Lana’s forearms turned to gooseflesh. ‘So we know where they met.’
‘A fair assumption. And turns out there were a couple of other interesting people on board that ship,’ said Kradich as two other names became highlighted: Hatsuto Sato and Akiko Sato.
‘Oh, wow,’ said Lana, a smile of wonder on her lips.
‘There was a Nami Sato, thirty-one years of age, on 007. My guess is that she was Hatsuto’s wife. Akiko was their daughter. This is Akiko today.’
A passport photo of a woman in perhaps her late twenties appeared. Even in the typically unflattering passport shot, the Japanese woman was pretty, thought Lana.
‘What can you give me on her?’ she asked.
‘I’m putting together a dossier on her now,’ Kradich replied.
Up onscreen, hundreds of documents appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye as massively powerful processors trawled through trillions of bits of information, sifting the relevant from the chaff. A box opened with a glowing red code. Kradich frowned and went to investigate. A second photo of Akiko Sato appeared on the screen.
‘What’s the significance of that?’ Lana asked.
‘On January 15, Akiko Sato passed through the port of LAX on a tourist visa. This is the immigration photo.’
Lana shook her head, in awe of the investigative power that could be commanded from the comfort of a leather-backed chair in one of these VI booths. ‘Let me guess . . . Akiko had a through connection to Key West.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Kradich after he’d fed an enquiry into the system. ‘Flew Continental.’
A familiar map appeared onscreen—Key West covered by interlocking circles of cell phone base transceiver stations. Lana knew exactly where Kradich was going.
‘Those circles cover a couple of pretty big hotels,’ he said. ‘I’m just interrogating their guest registers.’
A box opened with the following information: Name: Akiko Sato; Nationality: Japanese; Passport: LM9897692. Check in: Jan 15. Check out: Jan 16; Jan 22; Jan 31.’
‘She’s extended a few times,’ said Kradich.
‘What’s the hotel?’
‘The Crowne Plaza La Concha, 430 Duval Street, Key West. And guess what? That’s right in the middle of our BTS circle,’ said Kradich as a glowing green dot, indicating the hotel’s address, appeared almost in the center of the transceiver station’s footprint. ‘Looks to me like you’ve got your third cell phone user.’
As he spoke, the information from the hotel amended itself. The check out now read Jan 29.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Lana.
‘Akiko Sato has just shortened her stay.
‘Today’s the twenty-ninth.’
‘Then we’ve missed her. She just checked out.’
September 8, 1983
Dolinsk-Sokol Air Base, Sakhalin Island, USSR. The engineers were climbing all over the Boeing 747 beneath the camouflage netting, working out how best to dispose of it. The job would be a big one and it would have to be done soon. American spy satellites had not yet passed overhead, but surely it was only a matter of time. Korolenko had been informed by the engineers that explosives would do most of the cutting, which was why the firefighters were pumping foam and fire retardants into the Boeing’s fuel tanks, other fire trucks standing by. A man was grinding out a portion of the fin bearing the plane’s identification number: HL7442. When Soviet civilian divers inspected the wreckage on the sea floor, there would be no mistake. Korolenko had been informed that a site had been chosen in the Sea of Japan, far to the north of Moneron Island and well within Soviet nineteen-kilometer territorial waters. The coordinates of the site were secret.
The KGB colonel got back into the vehicle and gestured to the driver to move on. The black sedan turned through 180 degrees and accelerated back down the taxiway toward the Tupolev 154 with Aeroflot markings parked near the prison block. As he approached the familiar T-tail aircraft, Korolenko could see two men, both chained at the wrists and ankles, black hoods over their heads, being led from the rear of a truck to the stairs positioned behind the aircraft’s wing. The prisoners shuffled, leaning against their armed escorts. In eight hours, they would have a new home.
The driver swung the GAZ limousine behind the truck and headed for the aircraft hangar where the segregated prisoners were housed. Armed guards jumped to attention when the colonel stepped out of the vehicle. He ignored them and walked to the shipping container that held KAL 007’s most valuable cargo. Two armed sergeants standing by the only door came to attention. Korolenko motioned at them to open up. One man checked the slot in the door. Satisfied by what he saw, he unlocked the heavy padlock, released the chain and slipped the greased bolt. The door opened and Korolenko stepped inside.
‘Good morning, Congressman,’ he said to the disheveled man sitting on the side of a cot welded to the floor of the container.
Lawrence McDonald had been asleep when he’d heard the door opening and one of his eyes was gummed partially shut. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
Korolenko noted the man’s tone. He was angry.
‘Today is the day.’
‘The day for what?’
Korolenko folded his arms and regarded the prisoner. So this man was a representative of the American people, he thought. Not so formidable after all.
‘A decision has been made that affects you.’
‘What decision?’
‘Yesterday Moscow announced to the world that it shot down an intruding aircraft, an aircraft believed to have been on a reconnaissance mission. Do you know what this means?’
‘It means that your commie friends in Moscow were too cowardly and sniveling to admit from the start that they’re bloodthirsty pirates.’
A half smile occupied Korolenko’s mouth. There was still plenty of defiance left in the man. ‘In fact, it means that the world believes KAL 007 is somewhere on the bottom of the Sea of Japan. It means that you are now our permanent guest, along with your fellow passengers.’
The Adam’s apple in Lawrence McDonald’s throat bobbed up and down. ‘Washington will never fall for it. You can’t make a 747 disappear.’
‘Perhaps your omnipotent CIA is not as pervasive as you have been led to believe, Lawrence.’
‘You won’t get away with it.’
‘I wondered whether you would say that. I have heard it said many times in your movies.’ Korolenko snapped out an order over his shoulder and the two sergeants came in with leg and wrist chains. He then chuckled and said to the congressman, ‘I believe the correct answer is that we are getting away with it.’
The guards strode past the colonel. One of them pulled his nightstick and tapped McDonald’s arm. From recent experience, the congressman knew what was expected of him. He compliantly presented his hands to his captors, who fitted the chains. He then slid his feet forward away from the cot, the ankles slightly apart, so the manacles could be locked into place. The two guards lifted him to his feet.
‘If Washington has turned its back on us, then it’s because the administration can see a benefit in it. You’re being manipulated, Colonel. How does it feel to be a pawn?’
Korolenko nodded at the guards and a black hood was produced
and slipped over the American’s head.
‘This is not necessary,’ came the congressman’s muffled voice from beneath it.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ said Korolenko. ‘Also it is necessary for you to stop talking. You will not speak until I say otherwise. This rule will be enforced.’
Colonel Korolenko pointed at the guard’s nightstick and then at the congressman’s leg. The guard nodded, drew the nightstick back and smacked it hard against the American’s thigh. The unexpected shock of the impact made McDonald cry out as his leg buckled beneath him. The guards were ready and half dragged him out of his temporary cell.
Colonel Korolenko chose to ride with the captain of the detail in the back of a glossy black Fifth Chief Directorate ZIL. Ahead, five armored vehicles provided by the Fourth Transportation Directorate accompanied the two Ural trucks moving the prisoners. The convoy sped through busy Moscow intersections, the cross traffic held back by at least half a dozen military police officers on speeding motorcycles. It was the quickest trip Korolenko had ever made to the center of the sprawling city from Ramenskoye Airfield forty kilometers to the southwest. Korolenko had felt that a lower-key passage through Moscow might have been more suitable. Others within the Fifth Directorate had wanted no chances taken. Their desire was to have the prisoners safely under lock and key as soon as possible, and their collective voice won the decision. Who or what was possibly going to intercept the prisoners in the heart of the Soviet Union’s capital? Korolenko had wondered. Nevertheless, he gave way to discretion. He had played his part. High-security prisoner transportation was their job, not his. It was time others took the lead.
Colonel Korolenko and the Fifth Directorate captain did not speak. It was Korolenko’s prerogative to begin any conversation with the junior officer and he chose not to. It had been a long day. Nine time zones had been crossed in the last eight hours and he was tired.
The convoy took the Sadevaya–Sukharevskaya ulitsa route, approaching its destination from the north to avoid the worst of Moscow’s inner-city snarl. As the convoy turned to the right, Korolenko glanced out the window and recalled the familiar streetscape of Myasnitskaya ulitsa, buildings lingering from earlier in the century rubbing shoulders with more masculine structures from Stalin’s time. Muscovites hurried along the sidewalks in the late evening gloom, looking at their feet as they walked in their black overcoats and jackets. The mood of the city was said to be uncertain. Korolenko believed he could feel it. After the stability of Brezhnev and now the rumored failing health of Andropov, these were indeed uncertain times.
The colonel had driven down this very ulitsa countless times, first as a captain and then as a major, en route to work. Another right-hand turn and the convoy motored into Furkasovsky perelok, a dark cobbled cave of a street. The motorcycle police fanned out, blocking the street at both ends. The armored vehicles pulled to the side, allowing the prison trucks to take the lead. They stopped a little further on, and waited as a heavy gate set into the wall rolled up into its recess. The trucks and the ZIL then began to inch slowly forward, into the rear receiving entrance of the Lubyanka—KGB headquarters and the most feared prison in all of the Soviet Union.
The gate came down behind Korolenko’s ZIL and the courtyard filled with uniformed KGB officers, enlisted men and dogs.
‘Nicely handled, Comrade Captain,’ Korolenko told the man he’d been sitting beside as the car door was opened from the outside.
‘Spasiba, ser,’ replied the younger officer. Thank you, sir.
Colonel Korolenko received a salute from the enlisted man holding open his door.
‘Valentin! Zdrastvuytye, zdrastvuytye!’ A voice from behind called a greeting.
Korolenko turned and recognized an old friend. ‘Colonel Ozerov! Hello to you, too. Kag zhihzn?’ How’s life?
The two men shook.
‘Nye zhaluyus,’ Ozerov said. Can’t complain.
Both men had been young captains at the Lubyanka together, learning the ropes from the old hands, those who had survived the purges—tough men, hard.
‘Is that gray hair I see?’ Korolenko asked, examining the back of Ozerov’s neck, the short-cropped growth beneath the band of his broad peaked cap.
‘Yes. Unlike you, I haven’t been vacationing all these years out in the mysterious Far East. You haven’t changed at all.’
‘Pha,’ Korolenko scoffed. ‘Then I see your memory is failing, too.’
Colonel Ozerov smiled. ‘I have received word, Valentin. You have done some good work for the motherland by all accounts,’ he said, getting down to business as they watched the hooded, shackled prisoners being led down a ramp, one of them being carried.
‘Lucky to be in the right place at the right time,’ said Korolenko. ‘I heard you would be heading up the project at this end.’
‘Yes. For once the rumors are true.’
‘I have written up a full report for you.’
‘Once we get them settled, share a glass or two of vodka with me and give me a verbal debrief to go with it.’
Drinking, especially on an empty stomach, was the last thing Korolenko wanted to do, but, as with General Penkeyev, he couldn’t refuse, though this time it was for different reasons. With Ozerov, an old comrade, leading the interrogation there was a chance that Korolenko could maintain a connection with Congressman McDonald and witness the man’s inevitable dissolution. That was something he wanted to see. And, indeed, General Penkeyev had slipped a temporary attachment for him through the system. Once his affairs were wound up in Sakhalin, Korolenko could return to the Lubyanka where he was to be attached to the Fifth Chief Directorate, the arm responsible for the interrogation of Soviet and foreign citizens.
‘Which one is the congressman?’ whispered Ozerov.
‘I believe that’s him now,’ said Korolenko, nodding at a man being assisted from the back of the truck and led down the ramp.
‘He doesn’t look anything special. I hope he is worth it.’
‘He’s worth it,’ said Korolenko.
‘Has he talked?’
‘No.’
‘What about the rest of them?’
‘They are sponges that will require only the gentlest of squeezes to give up their water. In my report you’ll find many notes and observations.’ He lifted the bulging briefcase by his side.
‘Excellent. Well, Valentin, excuse me for a moment,’ said Ozerov. He walked a few paces from Korolenko and stopped beside a large man in a drab green greatcoat. ‘Form them up, Sergeant,’ he said.
The sergeant immediately shouted an order. The sudden sound of a human voice appeared to bewilder the hooded prisoners; their shoulders turned toward the source. One of the dogs barked, its handler choking off the sound into a snarl and then a whimper. The security unit pushed the sixteen men and two women into a single line and then removed the hoods. Fear widened the prisoners’ eyes. All seemed to prefer the blind security provided by the utter blackness of the hood, beneath which they could comfort themselves with the security of their own breathing and the warmth of their breath. One of the women and four of the men were weeping.
The situation they found themselves in was grim in the extreme: surrounded by drab green trucks, panting attack dogs and around thirty bull-necked guards, their eyes hidden beneath peaked caps. The high enclosing walls of the courtyard were pale yellow above rain-slicked cobbles and stonework blackened with almost a century of grime and tears.
‘Welcome to Moscow, the capital city of the glorious Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,’ said Colonel Ozerov with a smile, his English as lubricious as the Volga in mid-thaw. He strolled down the line. ‘Welcome to the Lubyanka, though do not expect to get too comfortable. All of you will be moved to other establishments in due course. For those of you who know nothing of the Lubyanka, it holds a special place within the revolution of the Soviet peoples. It was for many years the tallest building in Russia because the Road of Bones in Siberia could be seen from its basement.’ The colonel chuckled
at the very old joke. ‘Comrade Stalin had many enemies imprisoned here. For countless thousands, its walls were the last things they saw. I am telling you this to serve as a warning. Here, you will follow instructions or you will pay the consequences. Fortunately, you will only have to pay them once. Nod if you understand me.’ All the prisoners nodded. ‘Good,’ he said.
Ozerov switched to Russian and said something to the sergeant, who immediately started shouting at his men. The former passengers of KAL 007 found themselves being pushed and shoved and herded up broad stairs toward the Lubyanka’s thick double doors, open like the mouth of some massive and hungry carnivore.
‘Where will you conduct the interrogation of 98987?’ Korolenko asked as he and Colonel Ozerov descended the stairs. The vodka burned like a hurricane lamp inside his stomach, making him forget how fatigued and hungry he’d been feeling.
‘There is a dacha near Zavidovo, just outside Moscow,’ said Ozerov. ‘It looks like a peasant villa, but it has an extensive cellar. Soundproofed, of course. They say Beria made use of it.’
‘If it was good enough for the old master . . .’ said Korolenko, impressed. Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, chief of the now defunct NKVD, was Joseph Stalin’s supreme architect of mass murder and disappearance. It was said he even did away with Stalin, the old Georgian, himself.
‘We’re planning to move him there within seventy-two hours. I’ll install my mistress in the town, spend the week there on important state business—or so I’ll inform my wife—and commute back to Moscow on the weekend. It’s perfect.’
‘As always, you have it all worked out, old friend.’
‘Food and televisions might be scarce, but the warmth of a young Russian maiden is still a resource the Soviet Union has in abundance,’ said Ozerov. ‘Did you marry?’
‘I came close to it once or twice, but no. I never married.’
The Zero Option Page 28