Spy Catcher: The J.J. McCall Novels (Books 1-3) (The FBI Espionage Series) (6 page)

Chapter 7

J
.J.’s thoughts returned to Plotnikov as she contemplated on her conversation with Tony. Her stomach turned and fear flooded every crevice and pore. If Viktor didn’t make the drop, where was he? Where did Dmitriyev take him? She didn’t know if he’d return to the embassy—or in how many pieces. She was helpless and could do nothing except glance at her cell phone every thirty seconds, waiting on the lookouts to call. As much as J.J. despised the mere thought, she needed to inform Jack…as if he didn’t already know what happened.

Traitorous son of a bitch.

She relished in one small hope, the day she’d collect enough evidence to arrest him.

J.J. paused to mentally rehearse her speech when she saw them, smarmy agent Chris Johnson and his co-case agent Lana Michaels. She was a brunette, blue-eyed bombshell who exuded sex and sin. With his Tom Cruise looks and an added six inches in height, they were a match made in a Tommy Hilfiger underwear advertisement. One behind the other, they paced toward her, prepared to insert themselves into Tony’s and J.J.’s conversation.

J.J. huffed.

The mid-winter arctic was warmer than the relationship between J.J. and Lana. There was zero love lost between them. Zilch. Sentiments abundantly clear from the scorched glares they exchanged every time they were forced into each other’s presence.

As for Lana and Sabinski, well, they shared a mutual respect for one another. She kissed his ass, and he returned the favor. She’d been at the Bureau nearly seven useless years and hadn’t recruited a single source—yet Sabinski never missed an opportunity to give her a leg up, so to speak. All of Lana’s cases had been reassigned, clipped from the hard-working agents who’d developed them. All under the guise of requiring Lana’s Russian language skills, a ridiculous notion given Russians serving under diplomatic cover must be proficient in English to be selected for U.S. tours.

Sabinski had once threatened to transfer Karat to Lana, but Plotnikov would hear nothing of the sort. He adamantly refused, arguing he didn’t require a translator. Then he threatened to cease cooperation with the FBI if J.J. didn’t remain his handler. His refusal may have saved his life. Few agents would have lied to protect him the way J.J. had.

“What are you two doing here?” Tony asked. He and J.J. were both surprised to see them in the office. They were scheduled to provide assistance on a joint task force with Coast Guard Intelligence all day. A crap assignment Sabinski had doled out in order to feign fairness. “Thought you were on surveillance today.”

“Yeah, we were on the water this morning,” Chris responded. His awkward glance toward Lana spoke volumes. “But, uhhh, Lana here dropped her weapon in the river.”

“Again?” J.J. and Tony remarked simultaneously. This was the third weapon in three years. Every competent agent in the vicinity rolled their eyes. For a brunette, Lana had blond tendencies.

“It was raining. My hand slipped,” she said, in a lame effort to defend herself, wearing her usual too-tight skirt and boobs seeping out of her too-tight silk blouse. Every day in the office with Lana was akin to a night at the Kitty Kat Club. She’d been ogled and gossiped about since she first sashayed through the entrance, and she couldn’t care less. To her, sex equaled power, and she brandished her feminine wiles more often than her 9-mm.

“Oh yeah. Sabinski’s looking for you,” Lana snapped, a slight hint of arrogance evident. Lana’s self-righteous sneers usually meant trouble. J.J. had landed in the hot seat once again. No surprise given her crap-filled afternoon.

Lana smirked and sauntered off. J.J. rolled her eyes and prepared for his wrath. She grunted and sucked her teeth.

“McCall! Get in here. Right now!” the portly one bellowed from his nearby sty.

Tony pointed the finger-gun at his head and pretended to pull the trigger against his temple. He offered it to J.J.

“Please, don’t tempt me.”

J.J. trudged toward Jack’s office, just a few feet away. She rapped her knuckles against the frame. Jack peered up from a file sitting on his wooden desk, suitably dark enough to hide coffee and Kit Kat stains. He pulled off his glasses and grunted, “Yeah, close the door behind you and have a seat.”

She sat in one of the two guest chairs across from him and peered at the ordered obsessive-compulsive chaos on his desk. Each item in its place. Not neat, just in its place. She scanned the office as he finished flipping through a case file, then glimpsed Plotnikov’s photo just before he closed the jacket. A look of disgust seized her face.

Jack slammed the folder shut.

When the hell did he get Plotnikov’s file? She’d just noticed it missing and his signature wasn’t on the log. Tony had mentioned the comms plan was missing too. The reason was now quite evident. Thankfully, he had a copy of doctored file. No information inside would get Viktor killed.

She struggled to hold his glance.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “You got an update on Karat?”

She ran her fingers through the strands of hair dangling over her shoulder, grasped the back of her neck and let out a long frustrated breath.

“I know what you’re gonna say, but understand that the Gs had him…at least until the target made a cover stop and shook them. But KARAT couldn’t make the meet today anyway. He had an escort.”

“An escort? Who?” Jack asked as if he already had been told the answer.

“Dmitriyev.” She waited for a change in his facial expression, a sign of shock or surprise. The sign never appeared. “Tony and I will be leaving to check the signal shortly. Just in case.”

He grabbed an individually wrapped Twizzlers from the family-sized container on his desk, noisily crackling the paper. After he chomped a licorice stick, the arrogant glutton folded his arms across his rotund belly and cocked his head to the side.

“Don’t even bother!” he snapped as he bent forward and wagged the uneaten portion in her face. “Cham and Money T picked up Plotnikov and Dmitriyev near Dulles as they entered the airport parking lot. Plotnikov was on the afternoon Aeroflot flight back to Moscow.”

“What!” She lurched forward in her seat.
No. No. No!
The screams echoed in her head. Her eyes flooded with contempt. How could Jack sit before her so nonchalant and unaffected knowing Plotnikov had disappeared and he was responsible?

The sound of a gunshot ripped through her mind, sending a chill through her entire core. She envisioned Plotnikov collapsing on the floor and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force the thought from her mind. J.J. vowed to prove Jack’s guilt. He’d get locked up before he struck again.

“Yeah. Another one bites the dust.” His glib tone was almost too much for J.J. to withstand. Her eyes darted across the surface of his desk, scanning for potential murder weapons. A paperweight. A lamp. A Twizzler. “He’s probably dead by now with his hand in a parcel headed to Moscow station thanks to you.”

His words dripped with snide condescension. Given the day she’d had, J.J. would’ve have liked nothing better than to stuff the Twizzler down his throat until he shit red licorice sticks. An incredulous look consumed her expression. “If I didn’t know any better, Jack, I’d be inclined to think you were making an accusation.”

“Well, somebody better get me some fucking answers. This is the fourth source recalled in almost seven years. Three out of four of them belong to you. I wonder why
you
, of all the agents assigned to work counterintelligence, are so . . .
unlucky
.”

Because I work for a traitor! she thought. J.J. stared in stunned silence. Couldn’t believe what the asshole had suggested. He had some gumption, taking so lightly the deaths of men who risked more to protect the United States than he ever would.

“Could it be because I’m the only one who’s recruited anyone in four of the last seven years?”

J.J. struggled to stay composed, but she had no choice except to hold her tongue. She’d need to keep her job for a little while longer. Locating her source and nailing Jack’s ass to the wall were more important than acting on professional grudges.

“I should’ve put Lana on this one. She’s a fuckin’ pro. You on the other hand...”

She clasped the armrests to push herself up from the chair. The decorum-deficient piece of her mind burned across her tongue and nipped at her lips as she inhaled a calming breath.

“Let’s not go there. You and I both know I’m the best recruiter you’ve got. Lana hasn’t recruited a single source in nearly seven years and has more guns floating in the river than the Gambino Family. Blond hair, blue eyes, and big boobs do not a professional make. Now if you’ll excuse me...”

Jack leaned forward in his seat and sneered. “Neither do shit brown daughters of domestic terrorists . . . or your little guinea wise guy partner,” Jack said of J.J. and Tony. His father had been a capo in the Bonanno family before getting arrested on racketeering charges seven years before.

J.J. froze and glared at Sabinski, then shifted her body at an angle as if to avoid the sun’s glare. She tightly pinched her lips together, until she could feel teeth marks in her flesh. Every ounce of common sense in her body screamed, begged her to lay the badge and gun on his desk and tell him where to shove them. Her tongue was locked, loaded, and ready to fire. But she’d put her yearning to verbally thrash Jack aside. An insubordination complaint would pit his word against hers. And the words of a woman, especially a black woman, meant a little bit of nothing in this man’s FBI.

Too crackbrained to know when to quit while he was behind, Sabin-ski continued his rant. “As your E.E.O. rep, I’d advise you to report me. But I don’t feel like entertaining any reports against me,” he chuckled, his teeth as yellow as a tub of I Can’t Believe This is Butter.

She failed to see the humor.

How she longed for it, the day when she could slap the handcuffs on him and drag him to jail by the lone strand of hair left on his watermelon-sized nugget.

She bolted up from her seat and started toward the door. Attempted to leave before choice four- and five-letter words spewed past her lips. Why give him the satisfaction of knowing he could make her completely lose her composure. She did, however, leave him with one final thought.

“If you ever spit those hateful comments or utter a single syllable about my father again, I promise you an E.E.O. complaint will look like the Tea Cup ride at Disneyland compared to the nightmare I’ll bring to your doorstep!”

She strutted to his desk, her breath heavy and fingers trembling with fury as she reached toward him. Jack’s eyes bulged and his countenance lit with panic. There was no question. He wanted to scream at her, but the sound locked in his throat.

J.J. proceeded to knock over every OCD-arranged knick-knack she could reach. She then dry washed her hands and threw them up in victory. With his bottom jaw scraping the floor, she turned to leave.

Jack sat back hard against his seat. This was a different J.J. and she could see he was caught off guard. She’d never jumped down his throat heels first; rather she’d normally grin and bear his verbal vitriol. He paused, unsure of how heavily to tread. “I won’t tolerate your insubordination! Touch my desk or speak to me that way again, and I’ll you have fired.”

He had no idea how much she wanted to dare him. No sooner than the words passed his lips, a slight sensation emerged in her earlobe.

Bluffing, as usual.

Emboldened, J.J. shot a glare over her shoulder. “You promise?”

Chapter 8

J
.J. burned with angry fire. As she raced from Jack’s office, her feet pounded hard against the floor. She charged toward the vault entrance, frustrated. Pissed off. Thirsty. She hadn’t planned to walk into the vault except for the fact that she could take a swig without everyone staring down her throat. J.J. had been teetering on a thin line for years and Jack had managed to push her over. Now she didn’t want a drink, she needed it.

“What’s going on, J.J.?” Tony asked, concerned. He hurried his pace to catch up with her. Once he was out of earshot of their nosy colleagues, she stopped and turned to him.

“Refresh my memory. What’s the penalty for first-degree murder?”

J.J. badged into the vault, placing her index finger into the new biometric scanners, the most hi-tech security used in the Bureau outside of the labs at Quantico. She waved her badge in front of the infrared reader until the lock clicked and then entered; Tony followed close on her heels.

“What happened? What did he say?”

She collapsed into a chair and buried her face in her hands, tried to shake off the disastrous meeting. Then she pulled her spare flask from a desk drawer and opened it in front of Tony. He bit his lip; his neck stiffened.

“J.J.”

She took a short gulp and twisted the cap shut. She never took more than a sip or two at a time. A slow drizzle. “Trust me, when I tell you what happened you’re going to want some too.” She handed the flask to him. “What do you want first, the
bad
news or the
worse
news?”

“Gimme the worst first,” he said, sitting at attention and wagging his hand to refuse her offer.

“It’s Plotnikov...he was recalled to Moscow.” She returned the flask to the drawer. “He’s gone, probably dead by now if Golikov’s people had anything to do with it.”

“You’re yankin’ my chain. I don’t even believe this shit!”

“Believe it.” J.J. peered at him and then tilted her head toward the ceiling. “I just got word from Archie Bunker. He tried to pin the blame on me, said he should’ve assigned the case to Lana. No, no, please contain your astonishment.”

“Lana? Get the fuck outta here! She couldn’t recruit a Mouseketeer into the Mickey Mouse club.”

He took a seat beside J.J. and rubbed his hand against her back. Their eyes met for a moment, but she never held his glance for longer than a few seconds at a time. His glare pierced her, exposed her vulnerabilities in a way she’d prefer not to reveal to him...or any man for that matter.

“Listen don’t let him get to you. He probably forgot to take his crazy pills today.”

J.J. shrugged. “Well, looks like we’re all getting hooked up to the box unless we can find this damn mole. I’d half hoped the package from Karat might give us a clue as to his identity. But, right now, we got nothing’.”

“I know. Let’s just hope we’re the last on the list to take the polygraph. It’ll buy us some time to figure out what happened to Karat and find the rat. And I gotta tell ya, I feel sorry for him when I do,” Tony threatened.

“Maybe we can send him to Supermax to keep Hanssen company. He probably needs a new boyfriend right about now.”

Tony smiled, happy to see her spirits lifted once again. “Thatta girl … anyway, let’s grab something to eat and we’ll go check the signal,” he said.

“You eat. I’ll drink.”

The fates bestowed upon her the boss from hell and the co-case agent from heaven and leaving one meant leaving both behind. If Sabinski had a fraction of Tony’s good nature, she might not be so willing to turn in her badge. “Sounds good but I gotta make a quick phone call first. You think Kevin Douglass from the Organized Crime-Drug Section still has the pink convertible Mini Coop they seized from the Bonanno raid—
”
She winced, cut herself off a moment too late.

Whatever discomfort Tony had, he shrugged it off. “Probably. I don’t think it’s been auctioned yet. Why you wanna know?”

“Remember my promise to Jake?”

Tony nodded and chuckled. “Remind me to light a candle for your soul at mass this Sunday. Yeah, make the call. I wish I could see his face.”

“Hey, he asked for a convertible. A convertible it is.”

•  •  •

Thursday Evening…

At the Hawk-n-Dove, J.J.’s favorite watering hole, Tony gulped the last of his lager as she drank him in. He was easy on her eyes as Sunday morning and hard on her feminine sensibilities. Tony’s glance lingered in her direction more times than she cared to admit, but she kept her mind locked on the task at hand. Usually. Besides, they were both relationship-challenged workaholics. Neither one had a personal history conducive to…humans. Hard to believe it’d only been a year. They meshed well inside the office and out.

J.J. felt Tony’s eyes on her. He sat unnaturally still twirling his fingers as she shamelessly inhaled the last of her burger and fries. She loved that about him, the fact that he didn’t judge when she scarfed her food down. But she didn’t like his expression, the one that said a lecture was imminent.

“We should talk about the white elephant in the room,” he said.

“I prefer blue gorillas,” J.J. joked in an effort to lighten his tone.

“Blue gorilla, white elephant. I don’t care. I’m just gonna say it,” Tony began, his voice laden with apprehension. “I’m a little worried about you. I mean, you say you’ve got everything under control but this shit has a way of sneaking up on ya. I gotta make sure you’re all right. You’re the one who has my back. Maybe you should think about gettin’ some help.”

Tony. He’d never been this direct, nor the look of worry so pronounced, evident. She felt in control. Mostly. The timing, the problems, everything else was out of balance. As soon as her troubles ended she’d recover, get back to her old self.

“First of all, I’m okay. When have you ever seen me sloppy drunk or out of control? Never. So, I take a sip here and there to knock off the nerves. It’s no big deal,” she said, delivering her rehashed speech. “Besides, if I went to get the help that I obviously
don’t need
, I’d have to report it to security. And you think I can’t get a promotion now? That’s all the excuse Sabinski would ever need to put me on airport surveillance for the rest of my career.”

“But—”

“But nothing Tony. I’m going through a lot right now. She died 25 years ago next Friday. Did you know that?”

He shook his head.

“And then Polyakov’s hand, Plotnikov’s departure, and only God in heaven knows where he is, if he’s still alive. So cut me some slack. I’d be more surprised if I
weren't
drinking.” She twirled her thumbs to relieve her own tension. Finally, Tony’s shoulders relaxed. “Now, can we just toss back a couple of beers? If it bothers you that much, I’ll lay off the booze. Just a beer every now and then. Is that satisfactory?”

He nodded, seeming unsure of whether to believe her or whether she even believed herself. But he nodded.

“You know, if I was one of your boys, you’d offer to buy me a beer and just say I was blowing off steam.”

“But you’re not just ‘one of the boys’ to me, J.J. That’s why I give a damn.
Hai capito
?”

She nodded and smiled in the uncomfortable silence. He cared for her, and she knew it. She just didn’t have time to care as much for herself. They both took long sips to finish their first beers and sat the glasses at the end of the table, seconds were on the way. She was much more relaxed until she stoked Tony’s ire. The details of her conversation with Sabinski didn’t go down as smoothly as the beer.

“I don’t understand why you don’t report that scumbag. I mean, there’s gotta be something we can do.”

“Please, Tony. You’ve been at the Bureau almost as long as I have.
You know
what happens to supervisors accused of racism, sexism, or any other kind of ‘ism’.”

Tony picked up his glass to take another sip of his beer. “Yeah, they get promoted.”

“Bingo. Then spend the rest of their careers making your life a miserable hell from a high-ranking position. And with even greater authority to fire your ass. No thanks. And I don’t need anymore drama than I’m already mired in.”

“Well, just wait and see what Cartwright’s gonna do. He’s the AD for crying out loud. If anyone can make the situation right, he can.”

“As soon as we nail this bastard and take care of Plotnikov―” she began, avoiding his piercing stare. She couldn’t face him when speaking of leaving. He too often made her want to stay.

He leaned forward and smiled, his deep gaze forcing her to look at him. He effortlessly disarmed her, shifted J.J.’s thoughts from her misery to his eyes, just as she knew he would.

“What?” she said, feeling naked in a room full of strangers.

He chuckled. “Nothing. Just wanted to make you forget what you were about to say.”

Her lips curled upward as she bowed her head in concession. “Mission accomplished.”

• • •

The burnt orange and amber-colored leaves drifted in the fall breeze as Tony pulled up to the street corner. They’d arrived at the mailbox designated for the dead drop. Idyllic brick cape cods lined the streets in the residential area surrounding the signal location. They made it convenient to the embassy for a reason. Karat could reach it by just taking a leisurely 20-minute stroll.

Peering out of the passenger window, J.J. was thankful the last ray of sun had yet to fade. She could check the box without drawing undue attention with a flashlight. She snatched her glasses off in frustration and sat back hard against her seat.

“Nothing. Damn!” she said, disappointed. Against her better judgment, she’d already begun to kid herself, thought Tony’s bright idea might yield a sliver of hope.

“What were your instructions?” Tony asked.

“A vertical chalk mark on the south side of the box. This is the south side. No mark.”

Tony leaned forward and examined the area as if he’d see something with his “man” vision that she couldn’t.

J.J. rolled her eyes, shot him a glare. “Really?” she asked, her voice slathered in sarcasm. “Nothing’s there.”

He shrugged. “Dmitriyev was with him so…whadaya gonna do?” Glancing to his right, Tony’s eyes locked on something in the distance. “You want ice cream?” Tony asked. “There’s a shop just up the block.”

“If this is some feeble attempt to help me eat my troubles away, well...you should’ve thought of it sooner.”

As he spun the steering wheel to the right, J.J. pressed her forehead against the window. The ice cream shop was just a few hundred feet away. In an act of sheer desperation, she eyed the box from her peripheral vision. 

She gasped. “Wait a minute. Stop, Tony. Stop!”

“What is it?” he yelled.

“Back up to the box! I think I saw something.”

“Jesus! You scared the crap out of me,” he said.

She grabbed his arm, pulled him toward her.

“Look! Right there!”

Tony’s gaze shifted in circles. Then his chin collapsed into his lap. “How the hell did he pull that off?”

They’d spotted the faint but visible mark. Plotnikov had placed it on the wrong side of the mailbox. J.J. blinked a few times, believing her imagination had run wild.

How in hell could Plotnikov mark the signal with Dmitriyev in the car? Her mind churned. Maybe he slipped out in the middle of the night and made the drop? Hmmm. No, the lookouts would’ve seen him leaving and noted the incidents on the log. A piece of this puzzle was missing—something important. And she had no clue what it was.

But the package was there. Encryption codes. ICE Phantom’s     identity.  The unknowing, the stress was unbearable.

“We’ve got to check the dead drop location now. We’ll get ice cream after. The park’s about to close.”

Tony shook his head. “What happened to your priorities?”