The Zero Option

by David Rollins

  ‘Stay till eleven thirty,’ Akiko said. Emails were still coming in, but all were either crank callers or reward hunters.

  Ben shrugged. They had nowhere else to go. He didn’t want to say it, but he could see them getting on the freedom bird and heading home within days. He found a Russian gossip magazine and flipped through it, killing time, looking up whenever the front door opened to let people come and go. At eleven thirty he stood and stretched. ‘C’mon. This is bullshit.’

  Akiko had no choice but to agree.

  They headed back to the hotel, dispirited. Going up to their floor, Ben undid his coat and felt around in the pocket for the door key. He took it out, along with a business card from the café. He didn’t remember collecting one. There was writing on the back in blue ink. Something startled him: the numbers 007.

  ‘Hey—I just found this in my pocket.’ He showed Akiko the card. ‘Did you put it there?’

  Akiko shook her head. ‘No.’

  The elevator stopped and they got out.

  The writing was Russian. ‘What’s it say?’ he asked.

  Astonishment swept across Akiko’s face. ‘It says, “007. Sept 1, 4:07 a.m., 261 of 269 PAX landed Dolinsk-Sokol base, Sakhalinskaya. Komsomolskaya, Koltsevaya line, 2:30 p.m., today.”’

  The Komsomolskaya metro station was a work of art: domed ceilings, revolutionary iconography and colorful mosaics. It was a large station twenty minutes from the center of Moscow and, from the size of it, obviously a transport hub. But at 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon, the foot traffic was steady without being a stampede. Whoever they were meeting here had chosen the venue and time with good reason.

  Ben and Akiko took up a position in front of a tiled mural depicting a complicated scene showing happy workers of the revolution mining ore for the manufacture of machine guns to be used against the oppressors. At least, that was Ben’s take on it. They had no idea of the identity of the person they were meeting here, though obviously he or she knew them.

  Several likely contenders came and went—men of imposing bearing who vaguely reminded Ben and Akiko of Colonel Andrei back at the museum.

  ‘My name is Sergei Glazkov,’ came a rasping voice from behind Ben, startling him. ‘And you are?’

  Ben turned and saw a short, hunched man wearing a black puffy parka and the omnipresent furry hat Akiko had told him was called a ushanka. The man walked by them slowly without stopping or looking up. He was utterly plain in every way. A cigarette was wedged between the gloved fingers of his right hand. He took a drag and then spat on the ground.

  ‘Tell us why we’re here first,’ Ben said.

  Sergei stopped and, without looking at them, said, ‘You believe in the power of advertisement. I am but a slave to its will.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You ran advertisement—007. You have forgotten already? I am responding. We cannot stand here. Follow me. You have tickets for train?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Akiko.

  ‘Follow me, not close. Wait till we are on train.’

  Sergei took the escalator to another level and loitered on the platform, which was peppered here and there with travelers. A rush of air preceded the train, which decelerated with a screech and pulled to a stop. Sergei went in one door, Ben and Akiko in another at the far end of the carriage. Ben noted that several other passengers entered with them and the carriage was around a third full.

  As the train pulled away, Sergei caught Ben’s eye and gave a nod for him and Akiko to approach.

  ‘Why are we on this train?’ Akiko asked him.

  ‘Train is safe. You can see who gets on, who gets off. And there is too much noise for listening device. Tell me why you want to know about the Korean airliner.’

  ‘My father was on Korean Air Lines Flight 007,’ Akiko said, continuing the small disinformation begun at the museum. ‘We have studied the incident. We do not believe the plane crashed in the sea.’

  ‘You are foolish to come here, to Russia.’

  ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘People would kill to protect such a lie. And you run advertisement.’ He grinned and shook his head at the audacity.

  ‘Your turn,’ said Ben, failing to see anything humorous. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A former Soviet citizen.’

  ‘How did you find us?’ he asked. ‘You weren’t at the café.’

  ‘I watch the café. You arrive after eight. No one follow you. You leave twenty-five minute to twelve. I follow you, but you not notice. You stop at traffic light. I brush past, put card in pocket. You are not spies.’

  ‘No, we’re not spies,’ said Ben, a little bewildered.

  ‘It is what I just said. So, you want to know about Korean plane?’

  ‘Your note said there were 261 passengers,’ Akiko said. ‘What happened to the other eight?’

  ‘Why not let this go?’

  ‘Because my mother might still be alive.’

  ‘You said your father on plane.’ Sergei laughed. ‘Now I am extra sure you are not spies.’

  Akiko blushed.

  The train slowed. Passengers stood and moved toward the doors. The Russian stopped talking until the train had resumed its journey.

  ‘Two hundred and sixty-one passengers and crew survive the flight.’

  ‘What happened to the others?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Missile strike kill them.’

  ‘How do you know all this? How can we believe you?’ Akiko asked.

  ‘It is up to you whether you believe or not. I cannot prove this to you.’

  ‘How do you know what happened to the plane and its passengers?’ Ben said.

  ‘In 1983, I was KGB—Fifth Directorate—at Lubyanka. What you would call sergeant. Hard to believe now, maybe, but then I was very popular with ladies. I have affair with KGB woman whose husband, another guard, witness interrogation of American. She tell me this. She tell me also he was politician.’

  Akiko and Ben glanced at each other, the electricity that passed between them difficult to contain.

  ‘There were other prisoners brought to prison at same time: pilot and crew, journalists, computer scientists—eighteen people. They arrive September 8. I know it was this date because it was my lover’s birthday and her husband had to work. So we celebrate without him.’ Sergei rewarded himself with a private smile at the memory.

  ‘What happened to them?’ Akiko asked.

  ‘Pilot and crew are executed. The others are held in prison cells below ground. Politician is taken somewhere else—I don’t know where.’

  ‘What happened to the 243 passengers who didn’t end up in the Lubyanka?’ Ben enquired.

  Sergei shook his head. ‘This I do not know.’

  ‘Where do you think they might have been sent?’

  ‘There were labor camps. West of Khabarovsk, in the hills. It is said some still operate.’

  The train slowed to a stop. People got on and off. Once the train was moving again, Ben said, ‘The reward. You haven’t asked about it.’

  Sergei waved his hand. ‘I am not caring for reward.’

  ‘Then why talk to us?’ Akiko asked.

  ‘I work hard for revolution. I enlist in KGB. I am trained. I am good communist. And then Kremlin fools lose control. And we, the proletariat, give up everything. We give our lives for revolution and then we are betrayed, abandoned, forgotten. Then criminals move in; take everything—everything that was ours. They leave nothing. Not food, not job, nothing to believe, no future. But I am lucky. I have beautiful daughter. She marry rich Ukrainian car dealer. I do not need reward. You give me one thing I want.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Revenge. Go to Khabarovsk. Look there.’

  The train began to slow.

  ‘I have told everything I know,’ said Sergei. ‘I get off here. You take train to next station, change platform, go back.’

  The train stopped with a jolt, the doors slid open.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Sergei said. ‘Perhaps I will
see you again at café.’

  ‘Spasiba,’ said Akiko. Thank you.

  ‘Thanks, buddy.’

  Ben held out his hand and they shook.

  Seconds later, the ex-KGB man was absorbed by the milling crowd on the station. A number of passengers pushed their way into the train. Akiko and Ben took the remaining seats.

  ‘Do you believe all that?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘He didn’t want the reward. Makes a nice change. I’d like to believe he was genuine.’

  ‘But you are not sure.’

  ‘He got the dates right. The Soviets admitted to the shootdown on September 6. Jerome Grundy believes the high-value passengers would have been moved soon after. September 8 fits. The politician would be Lawrence McDonald. They held him for a while, and then shipped him off to some other more secret place to wring what they could out of him.’ He nodded. ‘It feels believable.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If we’re prepared to accept everything he said, it’s more confirmation that the tape is real, that the plane landed, and that Curtis and Yuudai were on to something.’

  Akiko wiped an eye.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘My mother—she is alive. I know it.’

  The train slowed again. They got out as instructed, walked through a set of arches and stood on the platform for the train heading back to Komsomolskaya.

  Unnoticed by them was a man of average height and weight in a blue and white ski parka at the other end of the platform. When the train arrived, he waited until the two foreigners he was tailing took it before climbing on board himself.

  Sergei changed trains at Krasnopresnenskaya, changed again at Chekhovskaya and exited the metro back at Kuznetsky Most. It was after 4:30 and getting dark. He stopped at a supermarket, bought some bread, dried fish and vodka for dinner, then walked the kilometer through heavy snow to his home, an apartment in the Plaza Mediterrano, an old Soviet building renovated by the bored wife of an oil baron. It was well after five when he arrived there, and dark. The light outside the building was poor, and the snow hadn’t yet been shoveled off the sidewalk, so he didn’t hear the footsteps coming up behind him until it was too late. His first awareness of another’s presence was a tap on his shoulder and the word, ‘Izvinitye’, excuse me.

  As Sergei turned, an icicle about half a meter long, snapped off a neighboring eaves, was swung down into the base of his neck. The tip ripped through the collar of his parka, slashed his carotid artery and continued far into his windpipe where the tip broke off and began to melt. Sergei knew he was dead before his knees buckled. The killer took a snow shovel leaning against a wall and prodded the apartment’s overhanging eaves, releasing an avalanche of ice stalactites, some of which skewered the corpse. He then hurried off, completely unaware of the presence of a witness.

  February 6, 2012

  Gainesville, Florida. ‘Don’t let the fact that I’m packing intimidate you,’ said FBI Special Agent Miller Sherwood, glancing at the Glock 17 holstered beneath his armpit.

  ‘Actually, Sherwood, it feels strangely reassuring,’ Lana said, stroking his ego.

  In fact, that Miller now carried a gun didn’t so much intimidate her as make her downright nervous. There was a juvenile quality to Miller Sherwood. He was the type who’d stand in front of the mirror drawing his weapon on his own reflection until he was sure he had the right facial expression to go with the move. Sherwood had ended up receiving a commendation for his action at the El Paso shooting, instead of the dismissal Lana thought he deserved. His Pavlovian response to this, she suspected, would be to resolve everything with his weapon. Her boss, Sam Whittle, had said he was going to get her a partner who could break down doors. Well, he’d given her one who could do it with his head, and probably would.

  From what she could gather, Sherwood didn’t seem too pleased to be back on this case with her, either. There was more exciting work to be done with his new employer—counterterror, and so forth. Being repartnered with her at NSA was like taking one step forward and two back. But neither of them could argue with the umpire’s decision, and doing so would make no difference to the outcome. They were stuck with each other for the duration.

  And so it had been a long day on a road that, aside from taking them to Gainesville, had led nowhere. It started in Miami with an interview with Ben’s attorney, Kayson Bourdain. Lana discovered that the lawyer had known Curtis Foxx personally, which was interesting enough. But until the reading of the will, he had apparently never met Ben. Bourdain said that he had no idea what was in safe deposit box number 007 in Orlando. A phone call to Nikki Harbor, Ben’s mother, confirmed that she didn’t know, either.

  Tex Mitchell was the man Lana really wanted to catch up with. Mitchell, however, had disappeared after withdrawing $20,000 from his bank account and announcing to his staff that he was taking all accrued vacation time. After the business with the cell phones and his background exposed to NSA practices, Lana was sure he’d manage to stay below the NSA’s radar until he was good and ready to surface. Nevertheless, she’d called Saul Kradich back at NSA HQ and given him Mitchell’s license plate number to play with.

  Lana and Sherwood were now sitting in a rental across the road from Grundy’s, the bar in Gainsville that Ben had visited, Sherwood playing with the veins on top of his hand, pushing the blood back behind the valves with a pen. The day had turned nasty with cold, wet squalls sweeping across from the Gulf. It was a Monday evening, and most folks wouldn’t be thinking about spending it out on the town. Two university types ducked into the bar to escape a wind gust that whipped up a sheet of water off the road and threw it onto the sidewalk.

  ‘We expecting any trouble from this Jerome Grundy?’ Sherwood asked, giving his veins a rest and returning to his notebook.

  ‘No, no trouble,’ Lana assured him. ‘He was one of our assets during the Cold War. I briefed you on that already,’ she prompted him. ‘The Soviet expert?’

  ‘Yeah. I remember now.’

  Lana hoped so. ‘Let’s go.’

  She opened her door, deployed an umbrella, and huddled under it as she jogged across the road, nimbly dodging traffic, Sherwood behind her. Entering the bar, she was enveloped by warm air laced with hops and malt.

  Grundy’s was close to empty. ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ played on the jukebox and Smackdown Wrestling occupied the flatscreen monitors around the bar. She recognized Jerome Grundy from photos supplied by Kradich. He was on his own behind the bar, leaning on his forearms, chatting to one of the few customers. It was a cozy place.

  Grundy raised his eyebrows at her and asked, ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘A couple of Zeros, please,’ she said.

  He excused himself to the customer he was talking to, picked two glasses out of a tray, filled them with ice and then the Coke.

  ‘Investigator Lana Englese, NSA,’ she said, showing him her ID when he put the drinks on the counter in front of her.

  ‘FBI Special Agent Miller Sherwood,’ her partner said, also showing his credentials.

  ‘The ears of the nation, with teeth,’ Grundy said, glancing at Lana and then Sherwood. ‘An interesting combination. If I’d known you were coming . . .’

  ‘Nice place you have here,’ she said.

  ‘I like it,’ he responded.

  ‘Not that busy today.’

  ‘It’s a Monday.’ He shrugged. ‘Now, what can I do for you folks, besides the Cokes?’

  ‘On the night of January 28,’ said Sherwood, ‘you had a visit from Ben Harbor. Mr Harbor is a person of interest to the Agency. Would you care to tell us what that was all about?’

  ‘No, not particularly.’

  ‘We were hoping for your cooperation, Mr Grundy,’ said Lana.

  ‘Why?’ he asked bluntly.

  ‘You worked for the government once, on the team. Mr Harbor hasn’t done anything wrong; you haven’t done anything wrong. I can’t see why you wouldn’t want to be helpful.’
<
br />   ‘Because I left the employment of Uncle Sugar years ago. I’m not in the game any more, I own a bar.’

  ‘And a very nice bar it is too, Mr Grundy,’ said Sherwood, his elbows on the benchtop, leaning forward. ‘Business looks a bit slow tonight.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s Monday.’

  ‘How long have you had this place?’

  ‘Long enough.’

  ‘Ever had any trouble with your liquor license?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really? I heard the local PD is cracking down. I also heard you’ve been keeping this place open long after the laws say you should be closed. Kids are getting drunk. There have been . . . complaints.’ Sherwood smiled, showing his teeth, one of which was broken.

  Grundy looked at Lana, who shrugged. He sighed, knew when he was beaten. ‘Ben wanted to know about the KGB, about forced labor camps, about the Lubyanka.’

  ‘Do you know why he was interested in those things?’ asked Lana, jumping through Sherwood’s breach.

  ‘He was interested in going to Russia—incarceration tourism, I think they call it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Mr Grundy, we know Ben Harbor is particularly interested in the incident involving a Korean Air Lines 747 shot down by the Soviet Air Force off Sakhalin Island in 1983.’

  Grundy nodded. ‘So . . . ?’

  ‘Why did he come to see you about it?’

  Grundy rubbed at the spotless bar with a cloth, his lips a tight seam.

  ‘Complaints . . .’ Sherwood reminded him.

  Grundy rolled his eyes. ‘Because he believed there may be survivors of the crash held in Russian labor camps. He believed I might be able to help narrow down the search.’

  ‘Why did he know to come to you?’ Sherwood asked. ‘You and Harbor have a mutual friend?’

  Grundy rubbed the benchtop. ‘Tex Mitchell.’

  Lana and Sherwood shared a glance.

  ‘This belief in survivors being held in Russia,’ asked Lana. ‘Did Harbor say what had convinced him of this?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Did he mention anything about a tape?’