The Zero Option

Book excerpt: The Cold War is going badly for President Reagan's administration. Support in Europe for the Soviet Union is on the rise, while acceptance of the new US intermediate range nuclear missiles is waning. Enter Roy Garret, a bright young NSA analyst with a plan. It goes into effect on the morning of 1 September 1983 when Korean Air Lines commercial passenger flight 007 takes off from Anchorage, Alaska, heading for Seoul. The airliner rendezvous with a US spy plane over the Bearing Sea, overflies a top secret Soviet submarine base and is then shot down off Sakhalin Island... Or is it? No wreckage or bodies are recovered. And a radar tape that shows what really happened to KAL 007 has gone missing. On board the downed airliner were 269 souls, including one US Congressman with too many secrets. Thirty years later, the missing radar tape falls into the hands of the daughter of a KAL 007 passenger and the son of the US spy plane commander. Determined to keep the facts hidden after all these years is New Mexico Governor Roy Garret, who is now contesting the US presidency. What follows is a desperate chase across Russia to uncover the truth once and for all from beneath the snows of Siberia. Can two young idealists outwit the forces ranged against them, or will Uncle Sam and the Russian Bear sweep history under the carpet again?