The Bigot List: (A J.J. McCall Novel) (25 page)

Tony pulled a twenty dollar bill from his wallet. Before he could hand it to her, Sunnie snatched it and headed to the cashier line.

“All right,” J.J. whispered. “I know your Italian sucks. What did you really say?”

“I’m not sure.” Tony chuckled. “But I think I told her I had to go to the bathroom.”

“Good one,” she patted him on the back. Then her face contorted. She appeared uneasy. “We should get back to the office.”

“What’s a matta with you?” Tony asked.

“You ever get the feeling you’ve forgotten something important?”

A
s Sunnie entered the Special File Room, she took a deep breath and sashayed to the customer service counter. Personnel files and the most sensitive codename cases were stored under heavy security there.

“There’s my man, Wendell!” Sunnie prepared to put on yet another Academy Award winning performance. Wendell, with his nerdy style and
resistible
charm, was shunned by his colleagues for his unsophisticated manner and pathetic crush on Sunnie. He’d been begging her for a date for too long and gave in to her every demand with ease, mere putty in her uninterested hands.

She leaned over the counter and fanned herself. Gave him a glimpse of what he wanted to see. He was always more pliable staring down at her distractions.

“Is the air on? It’s quite warm in here, don’t you think?”

“Quite,” he said. He couldn’t tell you the color of her eyes, but he could tell you the number of the dye that was used to create the thread holding the cleavage area of her sweater together. He licked his       ChapStick-deprived lips and peered shamelessly at the divide between her breasts.

“So, when you gonna take me to dinner?” she asked.

He snorted and blushed. “Every time I ask, you tell me you have a boyfriend.”

“You’re not going to give up that easily, are you?” She smiled flirtatiously. “Anyway, I need a teeny tiny favor.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

She handed him her file request form. “I need to look at these personnel files. Can you pull them for me?”

He scanned the sheet then looked at her over the top of his glasses. “Wow. These must be pretty popular employees. This is the second request today.”

“Second?”

He glanced over both shoulders, checked to ensure no one else was listening to their conversation. Of course, the room was empty except them, but he seemed excited by the intrigue. He whispered, “Director Freeman’s secretary submitted an earlier request. It’s part of some big investigation.”

“Is that right?” she replied.

“Yeah. So, I can’t let you take them.”

She released a woeful sigh. “Wendell, this is really important. Life and death.”

“I dunno,” he said, hemming and hawing. 

She moved close to him and traced her finger around his ear to his lips. “Please, Wendell.”

His body trembled. “Woo!” he screeched, wiping his brow. “O-O-Okay. But you can’t leave the room. Grab a seat at a booth and review them here. Please make it fast. They’re coming in an hour.”

“You’re a life saver! I owe you one,” she choked out.

Sunnie didn’t hate Wendell. In fact, with some new glasses, clothes, and a decent haircut, he wouldn’t be half bad. Still not her type, but not half bad.

He lifted the heavy stack and placed them in the booth closest to the service desk, no doubt by design. He gave her cleavage one last glance. “Just let me know when you’re done.”

Sunnie took a seat, removed the file from the stack, and flipped the first page open when she felt Wendell’s eyes on her. She whipped her head toward him. “Okaaay, you can go now. Run along.”

When she turned her attention back to the file contents, she noticed Lana’s name. She hadn’t planned to review it, but she couldn’t resist the urge to peek. After all, that’s why the Bureau paid her the big bucks, for her inquisitiveness.

She thumbed through page after page, scrutinizing each sheet. The more she read, the faster her pulse raced. All of a sudden, her mouth felt dry. J.J. and Tony were missing a big piece of their puzzle.

The first page contained Lana’s polygraph examination report.
I’ll be damned
. Sunnie’s eyes widened as she scanned Lana’s biographical information. Full name. Date of birth. Place of birth.

Sunnie fell back onto her seat, vowing to take a moment to pause for her conniption later. She snapped herself out of the shock. No time for that. She had to skim through each of the files as quickly as possible. Jack, Chris, everyone. In just a few short minutes, J.J. and Tony would have the information that might change the course of their entire investigation.

“Tony, this is it!” J.J. scrolled through her cell phone after the text ringtone sounded. Dmitriyev finally sent the text message they’d been waiting for—the location for the money pickup.

“About time! What did he say?”

“He says the drop is going down at noon in Rock Creek park’s location 5, right off of Beech drive.”

“But Chris is still at his poly exam. Do we need to go?”

“Yeah, we better cover our bases and get some coverage, just in case.” She glanced down at her watch and held it up to Tony’s face. “Damn, there’s no way we can get into position in time.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Tony said. “Let’s radio Jake and get him up there.”

J.J.’s eyebrows scrunched. Ever since she returned from the morning operation she had a feeling something was missing. She finally realized what it was. “Wait a minute. Jake’s supposed to be here . . . with the package. Is he back yet?”

“I was in the cafeteria with you, remember?”

“Oh . . . right.” She stood up from the guest chair in Tony’s cubicle. Hurriedly, she tromped around poking her head in partitions elsewhere in the office. As she headed back toward Tony’s desk, her skin tingled as if warning her that the shit was but a breeze away from the fan.

“Don’t panic. You know how Jake is,” Tony said. “He probably stopped off to get a burger or something. I mean we’ve been at it since five this morning.”

“Hmmmm.” Overcome with regret, she wished she hadn’t ignored her earlier intuition, her gift. But this was Jake, a man she’d worked with for the past five years. A man she’d treated to lunch and attended basketball games with. A man who’d learned as much about her cases as Tony. A man who’d...her stomach sank. “You may be right, but I’m seriously not getting the warm and fuzzies about this. Get him on the radio. Now!”

“His radio’s down, remember?”

She pressed her eyelids closed. “How convenient.” An almost sickening sensation permeated her. “We need Jiggy on this. He should still be in the area.”

“Roger that,” Tony said.

“In the meantime, I’m going to try and reach Jake on his cell phone.”

“Jiggy,” Tony said after grabbing the radio. “This is Blue Leader One. What’s your twenty? We need you.”

Static poured through the speaker for a moment just long enough to make J.J. nervous.

“Copy that Blue Leader,” Jiggy said, to Tony’s relief. “I’m about fifteen minutes from location one.”

“Okay, we need you to break every traffic law possible and get to location five! The drop’s going down in less than a half hour and we’ll never make it in time.”

“All right. I’m on my way. I’ll radio in when I arrive.”

Tony laid the handset on his desk and ran to find J.J. at her cubicle. She looked up, her face tense with distress.

“I just called Jake’s phone. His cell’s no longer in service.”

“What!” Tony said. “What the hell is going on?”

J.J. knew, the way she knew Santa didn’t exist. He’d gotten away clean with the contents of the real drop intended for the Russians, which they would pay a boat load of money to get their hands on. And he could pretty much name his price. She regretted that she had not been firmer with Tony. If they didn’t get the package back, they’d have hell to pay when Director Freeman found out.

•  •  •

“Blue Leader, it’s Jiggy. Do you copy?” He pulled into the small cul-de-sac. If J.J. and Tony’s source got his information right, the drop would take place in minutes. Maybe seconds.

“We copy,” Tony said. “See anything yet?”

Jiggy scanned the park. “No, nothing so far. There are a couple of cars here. I’m going to park in the rear of the lot so I’ll have a better view. Hang tight.”

“Don’t forget to turn on your dash cam,” Tony said.

Jiggy turned his head to the rear, backing into a spot parallel to the parked cars. By the time he turned around to stop the ignition and turn on the camera, he noticed someone, a man maybe, throw a garbage bag into the back seat of the vehicle. An oversized hoodie and sunglasses shrouded his hair and face.

“Blue Leader, I think we’ve got something. Maybe a male five-feet, eight inches. Dark clothing, a hoodie. Can’t get any more of a physical description but I saw them throwing an object wrapped in a garbage bag into the back seat. Looks like a white male from what I can see.”

“All right. You stay on him. What’s the plate number? We’ll go ahead and run it while we wait for your next update.”

“Roger that. Looks like we’ve got D.C. plates Juliet Charlie, five-zero five-zero.”

Tony and J.J. snapped their heads toward each other. J.J. remembered the mole wrote a letter signed as “Juliet Charles” and snatched the radio out of Tony’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” J.J. said. “Did you say Juliet Charlie?”

W
hen Mike turned to Don with his eyebrows raised, Chris folded like a broken beach chair under a Sumo wrestler. They had him, and Chris knew it. And from the expression on Mike’s and Don’s faces, they knew it too. “Uhhh...why don’t you pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable,” Mike said to Don. “I think we may be here a while.”

Chris’s voice trembled as much as his hands. He gripped the arm of the chair to suppress the obvious shaking.

“Would you like something to drink? Some water?” Mike asked.

Chris nodded. The profuse sweating had left him parched, apparent from his dry, cracking lips. He struggled to find some semblance of comfort or calm. Koshechka’s voice echoed in his mind; he envisioned her scorn-filled glare, watching him literally dissolve into a puddle of perspiration and fear. He thought he’d be strong enough to withstand the stress of the examination, but his body told him what his mind wouldn’t allow him to believe.

He no longer wished to try.

For so long he’d struggled with his own deception, and the shame from the lives and careers he’d destroyed as a result of his constant treachery; it haunted him. Sitting across from his soon-to-be interrogators, he realized it would require more strength to tell another lie than to tell the truth. Still, he’d keep them off Koshechka’s scent for as long as possible. When she eventually realized he wouldn’t be returning home from his examination, she’d run away with their child and never look back. His only regret was the thought that his only child would grow up without knowing the sacrifice he’d made to keep him (or her) free.

“Since this is no longer a polygraph interview, we must read you your rights. We’d also like to record our conversation with your consent.”

Chris tightened his grip on the chair arms and nodded yes. Then Don cited Miranda.

“Do you understand these rights as I’ve explained them to you?”

“I’m still an agent. I’m vaguely familiar with this part,” Chris retorted.

“Now,” Don said, “let’s take this from the beginning. This Koshechka you mentioned earlier. What’s her birth name?”

He hesitated still trying to concoct a way to tell a deceitful truth. He finally conceded to tell them something they wanted to know, even if not everything they
needed
to know. “Svetlana. Her name is Svetlana Aleksandrovna Mikhaylova.”

“Is she a diplomat at the Russian Embassy?”

“No. As far as I know she has no affiliation with the Embassy, at least no direct affiliation.”

“Hmph,” Don said. “Except that she spies for them,
right
?”

Spies
, Chris said to himself. For the first time, Chris had begun to separate his love for Koshechka from the evil he’d done. He and she were spies, traitors against his country if not hers. Guilt overcame him like a biblical plague, God’s curse for his wrongdoing. The feeling was only compounded by the devastation he’d bring upon his father and grandfather when the truth about his cooperation with the Russians hit the press.

Mike piped in. “Does she have a residence in D.C.?”

He hesitated again but said nothing.

“Come on, Chris. I see you’re trying to protect her, but you must realize by now that she was just using you,” Mike said.

“This is her job,” Don interjected. “She lies and steals for a living. She doesn’t love you. You were nothing more than a middleman, a fall guy, the first line of defense in case the worst happened. And the worst has happened. Where are you? And where is she?”

Chris squirmed in his seat, avoiding their judgmental glares.

“If you’re gonna be a fool, don’t be
her
fool,” Don continued. “She’s playing you. Correction, she played you before you ever knew you were in the game. Her plan was always to put
you
in the hot seat.”

Don’s speech stung Chris as his mind flashed back to the moment he caught her in Jack’s office. The mere memory filled his heart with the kind of rage that made weak men cause their women to disappear in darkened woods or off river banks. Truth was he didn’t even know if the baby belonged to him. For all he knew, it could’ve been Jack’s baby. With little effort, his tongue loosened.

“She lives in Northwest. 7700 Kalorama Road.”

Don jotted down the information. “Uhhhh, could you excuse us for one minute? Mike, if I could see you outside for a quick second?”

Don led Mike into the hall and closed the door behind them, returning moments later. He took a deep breath, his eyes filled with pity. Chris dropped his chin to his chest. He wasn’t the first man beguiled by the charms of a beautiful Russian spy and certainly wouldn’t be the last. Many men had done much more for less.

“Sorry about that. We just need to run a quick check on the name to make sure you’re being truthful with us. Now where were we?”

Mike stepped into an adjacent interview room to make a call. Tony could pass the information to his analyst and let her run the checks. Since he was in the middle of an operation, the information might be of immediate use. He dialed Tony’s cell.

No answer.

Dialed again.

No answer...again.

Determined to keep trying until he got through, he dialed again. “Where the hell is he?”

•  •  •

J.J. waited for Jiggy’s response.
Juliet Charlie
. Couldn’t be sheer coincidence.

“Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?” Jiggy said. He tapped on the radio, causing it to squelch. “Yes. Juliet Charlie, five zero five zero.”

“Jiggy. Listen to me carefully. Don’t let that car out of your sight! I don’t care if you have to hitch your car to the bumper, don’t lose ‘em this time,” J.J. pressed.

The backup lights on the suspect’s vehicle lit up and he was set to trail him from the park. “Okay . . . looks like we’re
buggin’
out!” Jiggy said. “Puttin’ both hands on the wheel and I’ll radio in when I’ve got something to report.”

“All right,” J.J. said. “We’re gonna call NCIC to run the plate and get back to you. Let us know as soon as you can get a better physical description.”

Tony hurriedly pressed the numbers on his desk phone.

“Hey, this is Special Agent Tony Donato in the CI Division. I need you to run a plate for me. We’re in the middle of a surveillance and we need this information A-S-A—,” he said. “Sure, I’ll hold.”

Incredulous, he crossed his eyes at J.J. A needed laugh in a tense moment. “Yeah, I’m here. The plate—,” Tony said, cut off again. “Sure, I’ll—”

Moments later, he read off the plate number and stuck up his middle finger at the phone. Nothing happened fast in the FBI. Everything in Bureau time, which was too often ten minutes past late.

“Yeah?” he said. His jaw dropped as he jotted notes on a pad. “Son of a bitch!”

J.J. snapped her head toward him. “What is it? What is it?”

“Sorry, ma’am. Not you.”

“What is it?”

“Shhhh!” Tony said to J.J. as he handed her the paper. “Okay, thank you.”

J.J.’s nose scrunched as she skimmed the paper. “Jacob fucking McGee!” The note confirmed her deepest suspicion. First heartbroken, then incensed, her mind swam as she struggled to grasp the gravity of the information, literally sending her into shock. She’d trusted him. He’d never given her a moment’s pause or an ill-timed itch. But it was clear she hadn’t been asking the right questions to the right people. “But . . . Chris and Jake working together? I mean, they barely speak, and I don’t believe that’s an act. No way they’re collaborating.”

“Jake bolted with the real drop and probably picked up the cash. Pretty hard to dispute no matter how you slice it.”

“I know how it appears, but think about this for a minute. Jiggy and Jake are best friends. He would’ve recognized Jiggy’s car. And if he saw Jiggy’s car he would’ve reacted, don’t you think?”

“I dunno. I mean Jake could have more than one car. As for not spotting Jiggy, it’s strange, I’ll give you that. But maybe he just wasn’t paying attention.”

“Not paying attention? In the middle of an operation?” J.J. pursed her lips. “
Please
. I get so wired during ops I’ve heard bees shit. I don’t think so.”

J.J. ran her fingers through her hair in frustration. They were still digging up more questions than they could answer, and time was running out.

No sooner than the thought crossed her mind, Sunnie burst through the door and ran straight to Tony’s desk. “Oooooooh! You guys are gonna love me . . . well, more than you already do. Have I got some intel for you!”