Spy Catcher: The J.J. McCall Novels (Books 1-3) (The FBI Espionage Series) (56 page)

Chapter 50

Friday—Russian Embassy

Aleksey played stunned at the Resident’s accusation. To suggest Aleksey was unable or unwilling to deal with a traitor in the service wasn’t true, at least to the Resident’s knowledge, unless…

“What do you mean this is why you’ve called us here today. I—I don’t understand your meaning?”

“You will in a moment,” the Resident said, staring at Aleksey for what seemed like an eternity. He sucked in a deep breath and rubbed his temples. “This morning I received an urgent cable from the Center. A Washington officer has betrayed us.”

“A Washington officer?” Mikhaylov said. “But who could  possibly—”

Komarov peered at the Crooked Twins and then said, “Stanislav Vorobyev.”

Aleksey’s mouth fell open and his chest rose and fell in dramatic heaves. It couldn’t be. Why would he do such a thing? He was being framed. There was no other reasonable explanation. Aleksey had perhaps too hastily brushed off Vorobyev’s fears and concerns that he was being hassled, probably a vain attempt to assuage his own guilt. He never conceived even a remote possibility that Stan would take matters into his own hands and resort to such drastic measures. He still couldn’t. “No! Impossible! He would never betray his country. Never!”

“I thought you might react this way, but I’m afraid it’s true,” the Resident began. “He strangled one of our counterintelligence officers to death, General Stepanov, and took off with the crown jewels.”

“Killed an officer?” Aleksey said. “This is preposterous. The Center has been watching too many spy movies. I can’t make any sense of that.”

Filth
chenko huffed and rolled his eyes. “What do we expect from a friend of that swine!” he barked and then glared at Dmitriyev. “I’ll be sure to convey your ridiculous sentiment to Stepanov’s family.”

“Wait, Stepanov?” he said. “You mean, Rasputin?” Aleksey said of Golikov’s chief tattletale. He alone was responsible for the torture and deaths of more officers than hostile foreign services in recent years. “Are we really going to sit here and pretend he wasn’t a piece of shit? He had more enemies in Moscow than Russia has citizens. Any one of a thousand officers would have done the same thing given the opportunity, including a few people sitting around this table!”

Aleksey had no doubt Vorobyev killed Stepanov in self-defense, a view he would hold alone judging from the expressions bearing down on him.

The Resident pounded his fist against the table. “Enough!” he said. “I want silence from all of you,” he growled, glaring at Aleksey and the scum Filchenko in particular. “We have far more urgent issues to discuss than whom between Vorobyev and Stepanov is the bigger dickhead. Okay? Beginning with the fact that every single American operation is in jeopardy. We have no idea how much information he stole before he ran away like a spineless snake—but if the intelligence is in the hands of the Americans, decades of work has just been flushed down the toilet.”

“Do we believe he got away?” Aleksey asked.

“It’s hard to say,” the Resident said. “We believe him to be hiding like a coward in the American Embassy, but right now he could be anywhere. Our watchers did not note any unusual activity or visitors last night. So, we simply cannot say.”

“What…what about his family?” Aleksey asked, holding a straight face. Inside, he dreaded the consequences if they were stuck in Moscow following such a brazen betrayal, having had first-hand knowledge of similar pain for most of his childhood and early adult years.

“He sent them to Prague on the pretense of vacationing. He’s now gone underground. The FSB has deployed every available resource to locate him. If he’s in Moscow, he will not leave under his own power.”

“I hope they bury him next to Osama Bin Laden,” Filchenko  barked.

“He should be so lucky,” one of the Crooked Twins said, elbowing his sidekick with a chuckle. He stepped from the wall for the first time. “By the time Golikov and Mashkov get through with him, there won’t be enough of him left to feed a cat.”  

The chill in their voices iced Aleksey’s veins. For everyone’s sake, he prayed Vorobyev was in the American Embassy. If he were anywhere on the streets of Moscow, he’d be a dead man before he could ever reach safe harbor. Putin would rain down a steel curtain of security so thick his only means of escape would be the wings of an angel or face down in an unmarked grave with his soul destined for hell.

Chapter 51

Friday Night—Kendel’s House

J.J. was relieved by the sound of footsteps padding quickly across the wood foyer as she tip-toed slowly back toward the door and peeked inside, watching from a safe distance as Kendel struggled with her demons in a fight for her life. The cavalry arrived in the hall outside the bedroom door and waited for J.J. to explain.

“Kendel’s inside, banging her back against wall with what looks like her service pistol dug into her temple,” J.J. spoke in a whispered tone, her somber expression speaking volumes above the tone in her voice. “And I think she’s coked out. Found an empty bag on the dresser.”

“Kendel? My Kendel?” Six said. “I knew that motherfucker was shady. Never thought he’d get her addicted to drugs.”

“She’s a big girl. Gotta take some of the blame,” J.J. grabbed his arm firmly and looked him dead in the eye. “But Six, this is DEFCON 1, situation critical, and her life is hanging in the balance. Please, please, please don’t go in there and be…”

His eyebrow scrunched. “Be what?”

“Yourself,” she said. “I mean, be yourself, just the version of you that has, you know,
a heart
, empathy…
feelings
.”

He snatched himself out of J.J.’s grip and started forward. J.J. snatched him up again, this time by the collar.

“Are you crazy?” Six barked in a loud whisper.

“No,
I’m
not. But clearly
she
is. And I have more experience with crazy women than you do. So give me a minute. When I signal, you come inside.” He nodded in agreement and gestured for her to walk ahead.

J.J. returned to Kendel, keeping a non-threatening distance. “I’m going to trust you, Kendel, and in return, Lord knows I pray you’ll trust me.” J.J. held her hands in the air, including the one holding her Glock. Then she brought them down in front of her where Kendel could see, unloaded the clip, and rested both on either side of her after she sat Indian style on the floor. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me. Is this about the drugs? I saw the empty bag on the dresser.”

A slow sob erupted from Kendel’s mouth as her body trembled in anguish. “How did I get here?”

“I want to talk about it,” J.J. said. “But I gotta tell you, the sight of you with the, you know, pressed against your temple is seriously freaking me out. I’m not asking you to put it down or hand it to me. Just please, take it away from your head.”

Kendel turned to J.J. and glared, the life drained from her eyes.

“Please,” J.J. said.

With her hand still wrapped around the gun’s grip, she allowed her back and head to rest against the wall, and folded her arms across her body. Finally, the sobs began to subside; she rolled her face toward J.J. and spoke. “I blame you for this.”

J.J. jerked her head backward in surprise. “Me?”

Through her peripheral vision, J.J. could see Six move toward the door but she gave him the hand. He stopped cold and backed up.

“I would’ve had a different life with Six,” she said. “I never would’ve been susceptible to that low-life, degenerate, asshole Maddix Cooper. The fucking snake! Now, the life I’ve worked so hard to build, my career, my house…”

“For what it’s worth, I had no idea you existed until it was too late,” she said.

“I figured as much,” she said, “because I know Six.”

“Listen, I understand that—” 

“No, no,
you don’t
understand.
You will never
understand!” Her aggravation intensified with every word. Instead of taking two steps forward, she’d taken three steps backward. “I’ve met kings, princes, heads of state from countless nations, and I was on a first-name basis with the President of the United States…now, I’m nothing but a broke, drug addict destined for an 8x8 cell next to some of the very people I’ve sent down.”

“He took your money?”

“Said he found an investment,” she began, “said he would triple my cash even before I realized it was missing. And my dumb ass believed him. Ha! But why wouldn’t I? We had the same security clearance. He was living the life I wanted…or so I thought. Nothing but window dressing.

“I’d already accepted his proposal. As far as I knew, I was investing with my husband, not just some guy I had a thing with once.”

“How much did you give him?” J.J. asked.

“Two-hundred fifty thousand,” she said. “Half the proceeds of my condo sale. The other half I sunk into this house.”

“Oh my God,” J.J. covered her mouth when she realized that was the exact amount of money Maddix had given Tomlin to buy the Devil’s Rest. He stole money from his fiancé to get Tomlin on the hook. J.J. couldn’t help but think that if she was Kendel, she wouldn’t be holding a gun to her own head. Maddix, on the other hand, wouldn’t be so lucky.

“Oh, yeah. Story gets worse. Months later Maddix informs me that he’s lost every penny. When I tried to take out a second mortgage to pay off my debt, I found out my house was underwater.”

“Worth less than you owe…”

“A lot less. So, I depended on Maddix for every penny I needed to stay afloat.”

“Right where he wanted you.” J.J. seethed inside, fuming at Maddix’s manipulation. “What about the coke?”

“It’s not obvious? I was at the lowest point in my entire life, trapped with a man who I hated, beholden to a man who personified everything in humanity that I despised,” she said. “He offered me a ride up from the abyss and I took it. But a ride with the devil is never free. And accepting that ride can only lead to hell. Found out later, too late, that he cut it with crystal meth…”

“Oh, God. To increase the addictiveness,” J.J. responded, her voice soft with empathy. “Kendel…”

She nodded. “I knew about the contracting. Thought he used
those
proceeds to afford his lifestyle. I swear on my father’s grave I knew nothing about the bug or the scanners until Walter identified the problem. Never thought they’d stoop to that level.”

“No?” J.J. asked, feeling the slight sense of an itch for the first time during their entire conversation. It’d become quite clear to J.J. that Maddix’s kind of low had no limits, no bounds, no respect for what was right—and no loyalty. And Kendel at the very least
suspected
that he was the scum he turned out to be. “Where’s he now?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Said he had a date with the devil first thing in the morning,” Kendel replied. “Tried to make me leave with him. When I didn’t agree, well, you can guess what happened given the state of my living room. Wherever he’s going, he’s limping!”

The Devil’s Rest.
He was planning to hide in the boat…or set sail. If he decided to run, he wouldn’t get far.   

“You ever experience the pain of losing everything, J.J.?”

She shook her head. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, guess what?” she asked. “I’m not going to either.”

“No!” J.J. screamed.

Kendel’s eyes glazed over as if her soul left her body. She returned the gun to her temple. J.J. sucked in a deep breath. She leaned backward out the door, far enough to stick her hand outside, and she flapped it back and forth urgently waving Six inside.

“Don’t!” Six urged. He folded his hands together and pleaded with her to put the gun down. “You don’t want to do this to yourself. I’m the one who deserves it. Do it to me.”

J.J.’s eyes bulged open as she moved aside and allowed him to enter. J.J. had hoped he’d serve as a distraction, not a target. Six asking anyone to take a shot at him for the wrong he’d done was akin to suicide.

Kendel wrapped both hands around the butt and pointed the gun at his head. “Don’t tempt me! Now, back the fuck up. I mean it! Stop moving!”

Six ignored her and continued to tip slowly toward her with the confidence of a jungle cat. He was still out of her arm’s reach, but he’d moved closer than J.J. dared to tread. “Don’t you see that despite everything that has happened between us, I still love you? I will always love you. Don’t you understand? Do you think I could live with myself if anything happened to you…
because of me
?”

J.J. marveled at his sensitivity. She had never seen him be so kind so loving toward another human being. Not even her. She dismissed the slight feeling of jealousy at the relief that he had managed to move even closer. Despite Kendel’s constant refusal, she wanted him near her. J.J. could relate to that.

“I swear to God, if you take one step closer, I’ll pull the trigger,” Kendel screamed. “I swear I will!”

Six fell to his knees in front of Kendel. J.J. swore she saw a stream of tears washing down Six’s cheek. Was he really crying?

“Please forgive me,” he said, gently caressing her cheek and wiping the tears from her eyes all while the Glock shook in her hand. Then he pulled back his fist and cold-cocked her in her dead in the jaw. Knocked her flat with one body-shaking blow. The gun was now lying on a pair of red Jimmy Choos.

“What the hell, Six?!” J.J. yelled in abject horror. Her jaw dropped into her lap at the sight of Kendel’s forced slumber. “Jesus, I need some chocolate. Where’s my purse?”

Tony heard the resounding thud of Six’s sucker punch and ran to the doorway. “What happ—are you kidding me?”

“What? She’s no longer a threat to herself or others, and in case you hadn’t noticed,
we’re
the others. So, sue me.” He stood to lift her limp body from the floor. “I’ll get some clothes on her. Anybody got ‘cuffs?”

“But…but…I thought you…” J.J. stammered. “Forgive me. For five minutes, I thought you’d actually heard me when I said have heart.”

“I did hear you. Just didn’t listen. Better for me to put a fist on her jaw than for her to put a bullet into her head, right?” he asked. “Now, what are we going to do with her? Don’t forget we’ve still got a subject to take down.”

Tony looked at J.J. “She’s looking at a possible obstruction charge. We don’t have enough to hold her for more than 24 hours, but I think we gotta try to put her into protective custody until we can get her some help. Last thing we need is for her to put one in her temple…or take header off the Wilson Bridge.”

“Call Washington Field and let them pick her up. Let them know what’s going on,” J.J. said as the sound of thunder rumbled in the night. “In the meantime, with this weather, Maddix isn’t going anywhere tonight.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “We’ve got time to slow him down. If we give that douchebag the slightest opening, he’s goin’ underground. And he’s got enough money to stay under for a long time to come if we don’t catch him first.”