The Zero Game

“Only if they ask for it,” Lowell says, pretending to be playful. Strike two. He may’ve been a great friend, but that disappeared the moment he sent me running out of that restaurant.

“I know what you’re thinking, Harris – but you don’t understand the position I was in. He threatened my family… came to my daughter’s playground… even smashed my head when I tipped you off that night,” he says, showing me the Band-Aid on the back of his head.

Now he’s going for sympathy. Strike three and he’s out. “Fuck you, Lowell! You understand me? Fuck you! The only reason Janos was there that night was because you told him! You set it up!”

“Harris, please…”

“So what’s the next dart you’ll jab in my neck? Did you tell him I’d be hiding here, too, or is that what you’re saving for dessert?”

“I swear to you, Harris – I’m not working with him.”

“Oh, and I’m supposed to believe you now?”

“Harris, let’s just go,” Viv says, grabbing my arm.

“Do you even realize how stupid it was to come here?” I ask. “You think Janos didn’t follow your every step?”

“If he did, he’d be standing here right now,” Lowell points out. It’s a fair point. “Now can’t you just listen for a second?” he begs.

“Whattya mean, like trust you? Sorry, Lowell, we’re all sold out of that this week!”

Realizing he’s getting nowhere, he studies Viv and sees his new target. “Young lady, can you…?”

“Don’t talk to her, Lowell!”

“Harris, I’m fine,” Viv says.

“Stay away from her, Lowell! She’s not part of-” I cut myself off, fighting to stay in control. Don’t lose it, I tell myself. I bite the inside of my cheek just to kill the rage. We’re running out of time. I open the door and point Lowell toward it. “Good-bye, Lowell.”

“Can’t you just-?”

“Good-bye.”

“But I-”

“Get out, Lowell. Now!”

“Harris, I know who they are,” he finally blurts.

Watching him carefully, I check the pitch of his eyebrows and the anxious tilt of his neck. I’ve known Lowell Nash most of my professional life. No one’s that good a liar. “What’re you talking about?” I ask.

“I know about the Wendell Group… or whatever they call themselves. I had them put through the system. At first glance, they’re as solid as Sears – registered in Delaware, doing a furniture-importing business – but when you dig a little deeper, you see they’re a subsidiary of a corporation in Idaho, which has a partnership in Montana, which is part of a holding company that’s registered back in Antigua… The list kept going, layer upon layer, but the whole thing’s a front.”

“For the government, right?”

“How’d you know?”

“You could see it in the lab. Only a government would have that kind of cash.”

“What lab?” Lowell asks.

“In the mine.” From the look on his face, this is all brand-new. “In South Dakota… they’ve got an entire lab hidden in an old gold mine,” I explain. “You could tell from the machinery that the experiments-”

“They were building something?”

“That’s why we-”

“Tell me what they were building.”

“This is gonna sound nuts…”

“Just say it, Harris. What were they making?”

I look at Viv. She knows we don’t have a choice. If Lowell were in on it, he wouldn’t be asking the question.

“Plutonium,” I say. “We think they’re creating plutonium… from the atomic level up.”

Lowell stands there, frozen. His face goes pale. I’ve seen him nervous before, but never like this.

“We have to call someone…” he stutters. His arm flies into his jacket pocket, reaching for his cell phone.

“You can’t get a signal down here.”

Seeing I’m right, he scans the office. “Is there a…?”

“On the dresser,” I say, pointing to the phone.

Lowell ’s fingers pound across the digits, dialing his assistant. “William, it’s me… Yeah,” he says, pausing a moment. “Just listen. I need you to call the AG. Tell him I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He again stops. “I don’t care. Pull him out of it.”

Lowell slams down the phone and races for the door.

“It still doesn’t make sense,” Viv calls out. “Why would the U.S. government build plutonium when we already have plenty? All it can do is get in the wrong hands…”

Lowell stops and turns. “What’d you say?”

“I-It doesn’t make-”

“After that.”

“Why would the U.S. government-?”

“What makes you think it’s our government?” Lowell asks.

“Pardon?” I ask.

Viv’s just as confused. “I thought you said…”

“You have no idea who owns Wendell, do you?” Lowell asks.

The room’s so silent, I hear the blood flowing through my ears. “ Lowell, what the hell is going on?” I ask.

“We traced it back, Harris. It was well hidden: Idaho, Montana – all the states that make it harder to do a good corporate records search. Whoever set it up knew all the magic tricks. After Antigua, it bounced to a fake board of directors in Turks and Caicos – which was no help, of course – but they also listed a registered agent with a local address in Belize. Naturally, the address was fake, but the name… it went to the owner of a government-owned concrete company in, of all places, Sana’a.”

“Sana’a?”

“Capital city of Yemen.”