Zero Option

2

Senior Investigator David Stafford stood out in the hallway with his boss, Colonel Parsons, and listened impassively to the sentence of exile.

“Atlanta, Georgia, Dave. There are worse places in this world.”

Stafford nodded his head. slowly, not looking at Parsons or at any of the people passing them in the busy hallway.

“And you know I’m doing this to save your ass, don’t you? Ray Sparks is the southeastern regional supervisor. You and he go back. He’s willing to stash you there, no questions, no bullshit. You go down there, you work this DRMO auction thing, and you keep a low profile. Get your arm well, get Alice and the divorce off your mind, and then we’ll bring you back once everybody up here calms down.”

Stafford nodded again, not really listening. This hallway meeting was the culmination of the worst eighteen months of his life. He felt like telling the colonel, Thanks, but why don’t I just resign, make it easier on everybody? Except that, at the moment, he had nowhere to go, a mortgage and car loans to pay, a resume with political feces all over it, a useless right arm, a wrecked marriage, and some serious enemies in high places right here in River City. It wasn’t like he had a lot of options … The colonel was watching him, waiting for some kind of reply.

“I appreciate it, boss,” Stafford said, still staring down at the floor.

“I hate it, of course. I hate every bit of it.” Then he looked up at the colonel. “But I really do appreciate it. Where the hell is Georgia, anyway?”

Parsons grinned. “That’s the ticket. You’ll be pleasantly surprised. But remember, no bomb throwing. No making big deals out of a little deals.

This DRMO case has been around for a while, and there’s probably less there than meets the eye. So once you get there, take your time. Your TDY orders are ready down at Travel. Get ‘em and get gone, before the Communists find out about it.”

The colonel clapped him once, forcefully, on his left shoulder, thank God, and then he was alone in the hallway, conscious of the stares and the muted comments. He took a deep breath and headed down to get his travel orders. The sooner the better, the colonel-had said. Well, what the hell, he thought. It might be a nice change to go someplace where his first name wasn’t Goddamn.

On Friday evening, Carson returned to the DRMO parking lot after getting dinner at a local restaurant. He parked his green Army-issue pickup truck in his reserved spot in front of the building, then lowered his window. He could hear over the soft purr of the truck’s engine the demil line running, the sound of rending metal clearly audible behind the admin building. He rolled the window back up and shut the truck down.

Eight-thirty. About thirty minutes more process time on the evening shift. The assembly teams would have left hours ago, after lining up at the feed conveyor belt with stuff to be shredded. Then it would be just the demil operator left to run the line until the conveyor came up empty, after which he would secure the plant. Carson, as manager, controlled the shift assignments. He had made sure Bud Lambry would be on this evening’s shift.

Carson had stopped by a metal shop out on State Road 42 and had a machinist cut a section of pipe about three inches in diameter, shine it up on a lathe, and fit two threaded caps over the ends. The size had been right, but the weight was wrong, so he’d had them fill it with sand. The lathe operator had made a joke of asking Carson if he was making a pipe bomb. Carson played along, told him he was going to blow up the IRS building in Chamblee, just outside of Atlanta. The lathe operator had asked if he wanted some help.

His plan was to take the sand-filled cylinder to his office, switch it with the real one in the red tube, and then carry the thing across to the demil building and explain to Bud that the operation was” blown, that they were going to have to destroy the cylinder. The only problem would come if Bud insisted on opening the red packing tube, at which point he would see that the Army warning labels were missing from the substitute cylinder. Carson didn’t know whether or not Lambry had ever opened the outer tube, but he was going to have to take that chance. He had tried peeling one of the labels off the actual cylinder and it had immediately torn, probably by design, to indicate tampering. The way to do this was to go fast, to go in there looking all hot and bothered, glancing over his shoulder for cops, and pitch the thing onto the demil line before Lambry had time to think about it. Lambry was a dumb ass; it should work.

He looked again at his watch and then pulled a portable cell phone out of his briefcase and punched in the DRMO number, followed by the extension for the demil control room. The phone rang five times before it was picked up. Lambry’s voice came over the line, barely audible over the shattering noise of the machine. “Demil. Lambry.”

“It’s me. How much longer on the run?”

“Thirty minnits, mebbe. You got sumpthin’?”

“We’ve got us a big problem. I’m driving in. I’ll come over there.

Nobody around, is there?”

“Naw. Whut kinda big problem?”

“Tell you when I get there, Bud,” Carson replied, then hung up. Five.minutes later, he was walking across the tarmac, carrying the red packing tube with the fake cylinder inside. The outside lay-down area was lighted with large rose quartz halogen security lights. He walked confidently across the tarmac, the noise of the demil machine, which the crew all called “the Monster,” getting louder — as he approached. Then he stopped. There would be no way to talk in there, not with the Monster going full bore. Instead, he went over to the adjacent warehouse, the one from which the Monster was fed, and let himself in through the keypad lock system.

The lights were on in the feed-assembly area. He checked to make sure no one else was in the building. The feed belt was running, and he could see that there were about sixty feet of material left on this shift’s demil run. The belt was crawling forward at about two miles per hour, slowly enough to give the machine in the next building time to chew.

Even with the rubber noise-barrier strips in the opening between the two buildings, the racket from the Monster was crashingly loud.

He walked over to the steel door connecting the warehouse and the demil building. He looked through the small window in the door, but it revealed only the business end of the Monster, with its gaping maw at the end of the belt, and those seven huge band-saw blades descending voraciously into the materials consigned to destruction. He couldn’t go through, for only the demil operator had the keys. Mounted just to the right of the door was a telephone. Looking around again to make sure no one else was in the warehouse, he punched in the control console number.

“Demil. Lambry.”

“Leave it running and come next door, Bud,” he said, almost shouting.

“We’ve gotta talk. And we don’t have much time.”

He hung up before Lambry could protest. He stepped away from the connecting door and walked — back over to the conveyor line near the screened opening of the inter building aperture. A minute later, there.was a shadow of movement in the small window in the door, and Bud Lamdry stepped through, wearing his hearing protectors and hard hat above his long-nosed face. He saw Carson and paused, as if unsure of what was going on; then he came over, his eyes widening at the sight of the red tube.

Carson hastily explained that the sale was off, that the client had backed out. They were saying the thing was much too hot, too dangerous.

“They said we’d better destroy the damn thing before the Army finds out.

They suggested we put it through the demil machine. They also told me not to be there when it goes into the Monster.” “Why?” Bud said, an anguished expression on his face. “That thang’s gotta be worth some money some wheres!” Carson shook his head. “They said no way. Too hot. Too dangerous. Said there’d be hell to pay when the Army found out it was missing. That they’d execute someone for losing it, much less for.trying to sell it.

I had no idea, Bud. I don’t think we have any choice. We have to put it on the line here. There’s no other place to dispose of it.”

Without giving Bud any more time to argue, he dropped the red tube down on the conveyor belt, about ten feet upstream of the aperture between the two buildings. Bud just stood there for a minute as the red tube advanced down the line, his piggish little eyes following. Then, to Carson’s dismay, Lambry stepped forward and snatched the tube off the line.

“Now you wait jist a damn minnit,” he said. He put it down on the floor.

Keeping one eye on Carson, he knelt down and started to undo the snaps on the packing tube.

Carson thought fast. Jesus Christ, now what do I do? He’ll know I switched it! He looked around desperately for some kind of weapon, but there was nothing close, and Bud now had the last snap undone. He opened the case, pulled out the fake, and pitched the red tube back onto the belt. He stared at the cylinder for a moment, and then, still in a crouch, whirled on Carson.

“You sumbitch!” he yelled, dropping the fake on the floor. “This ain’t it! You done switched it, you sumbitch!” Eyes wild, he straightened up, snatched a folding knife out of his pocket, and, in one practiced motion, opened it, and swiped furiously at Carson’s stomach. Carson, already recoiling, felt the blade tip just touch his jacket. There was no mistaking the killing fire in Lambry’s eyes. Without really thinking, he kicked out at Lambry, hitting him in the groin. Lambry grabbed himself, shrieking in pain, dropped the knife, and stumbled backward, tripping over the edge of the conveyor belt. He was so tall that he ended up sprawling across the belt, on his backside, his hard hat flying. Almost immediately, the moving belt dragged him up against a support stanchion and turned him parallel. Lambry, flailing wildly, inadvertently stuck his right hand between the belt and one of the rollers. As Carson watched in horror, the belt roller mangled Bud’s right hand. Bud screamed anew while he thrashed around on the belt, trying to extract his hand, until he fainted from the excruciating pain.

Carson just stood there, even when he realized that Bud had passed out.

But the belt never stopped moving, carrying Lambry’s limp form into the steel safety cage enclosure flanking the interbuilding aperture. By the time Carson realized what was going to happen, he could no longer reach Lambry through the screens.

He had to stop the belt.

He ran over to the connecting door, then remembered it was locked. He looked back over at the belt, where Lambry’s inert body, the key ring visible on his belt, was pushing aside the rubber sound strips in the aperture.

Jesus Christ, Carson thought, he’ll be carried into the Monster! I’ve got to find the emergency button!

He ran frantically toward the back of the room, trying to remember where the control panel for the belt was, then saw it in the back corner. By the time he reached the console, Lambry was no longer in sight. The sound of the Monster tearing into steel boxes next door was very loud in his ears.

Have to stop the damned belt! He found the emergency button and smashed down on it.

Nothing happened.

Frantically, he did it again. Still nothing.

He snapped his head around to look at the belt, but it was still moving.

Then he saw the problem. On the upper right of the console, a red indicator light stared triumphantly back at him: system lockout.

Oh my God, he thought. Because the Monster was running, control of the belt was locked out except at the demil operator’s console — in the next building, which he couldn’t get into. He stared at the belt as it cranked inexorably forward with its cargo of military components— and Bud Lambry. He did not want to think about what was going to happen, even as his feet propelled him unwillingly back. toward the connecting door, where the small window drew his gaze the way a cobra mesmerizes its victim, closer and closer. Don’t want to look. You must. Don’t want to. Maybe he’ll wake up in time. Can’t watch this; can’t watch this … He closed his eyes as he reached the window, hoping he would hear something — anything — but heard only the roar of the blades and the shriek of disintegrating metal, which stopped for a moment. When at last he did look, it was about one second too soon. He was just in time to see the seven whipping blades emerge from the top of Bud’s skull as it disappeared into the now-bloody waterfall of cooling oil.

He reeled backward from the window, fighting to control a wave of nausea. He closed his eyes again, then looked up into the overhead beams and pipes of the warehouse. One of the ventilation pipes looked exactly like the cylinder. Jesus Christ, what had he done! It was an accident, he told himself. It was self-defense. He pulled a knife, for Chrissakes!

But he couldn’t get that final image out of his mind.

He staggered out of the assembly room to the tarmac area outside, where he lit a desperately needed cigarette with trembling fingers. He sucked down half of it in one tremendous inhalation. Get a hold of yourself, he thought. You’ve still got to go through with it, despite what’s just happened. You don’t need Lambry anymore. Concentrate on the money. Then get out of here.

But first, he realized with a queasy feeling, he had to figure out how to shut down the Monster when it was done with the run. Reluctantly, he went back into the warehouse. He retrieved the fake cylinder. There was only one way: He would have to ride through the aperture on the belt. He swallowed hard.