The Seven Year Itch (28 page)

Chapter 45

S
unnie rolled an office
chair between J.J. and Tony and laid the file on her lap. “Okay you guys, you
may want to sit down for this!” Sunnie said, pausing when Tony’s phone rang.
“You need to get that?”

“No go ahead. I’ll call ‘em back in a minute.”

“Whatcha got for us?” J.J. folded her arms across her chest
and listened intently.

“Hmmm...where to begin, where to begin?” She flipped through
the few pages of chicken scratch she’d written in the file room. “Where’s the
information on Jack? Jack...Jack...Oh here it is!”.

Tony and J.J. stared expressionless.

“What? I’m a researcher not an organizer,” Sunnie snapped. “
Anyway
. . . did you know Jack was on a
medication called Paxil?”

Tony straightened his back. “No...but I’ve seen the
commercials.” He turned to J.J. “See, I told you he was taking crazy pills.”

Sunnie chuckled. “Actually it’s a drug for panic, depression,
obsessive compulsive disorders, etc. You know he’s got that thing with the
arranging stuff on his desk
just so
.
I always thought he was a little
off
,”
she said, spinning her index finger around her temple, speaking at a frantic
pace. “Anyway, I Googled the side effects of the drug and it appears that
Paxil—if taken in excessive doses—can cause a rapid heartbeat.”

“Excessive doses, huh?” J.J. remembered her jailhouse meeting
with Jack when he confessed his rapid heartbeat and sweating episode during the
poly. She assumed his poor dieting caught up with him. Could it be the
medication? “Well that may explain why he tanked the polygraph. But why would
he take an excessive dose right before his test? They expressly tell you not to
take anything the night before.”

“Maybe he was feeling anxious and couldn’t deal with it,”
Tony said.

“Of course...then again we’re assuming he knew he was taking
it,” J.J. added. “Jack is a creature of habits, eats the same thing, every day,
at the same time. Wouldn’t be hard for someone to slip something in on him if
they were trying to set him up. But we’ll come back to this. What else ya got?”

“Well, I know you didn’t ask me to check any information on
Lana…,” Sunnie said sheepishly, “…but Wendell accidentally gave me her file . .
. and you know I’m naturally
inquisitive
.”

“Nosy!” J.J. and Tony said in unison.

“You two an act now?” she said rolling her neck. “Anyway,
seems Miss Lana didn’t do as well on her polygraph exam as she led on.”

She reached into a folder and pulled out three sheets of
paper from Lana’s polygraph results. Sunnie handed them both to J.J. who
scanned them until she came to the polygraphers notes about the retests. Tony
looked over her shoulder.

“Whaaaaat?” J.J. said.

“I know. Surprising, huh?” Sunnie responded. “Turns out Lana
had trouble with her polygraph—both of them!”

Tony’s phone rang again. J.J. eyed him, waiting on him to
answer his call. But he turned his index finger in circles, gesturing Sunnie to
go ahead and wrap it up.
 

“I see the notes here but what happened?” Tony said,
anxiously awaiting her response.

“Seems she passed on all the counterintelligence issues,”
Sunnie began.

J.J. and Tony eyed one another then turned to Sunnie. It
didn’t make sense. The counterintelligence issues, those questions related to
cooperation with a foreign intelligence service, were the entire reason for
taking an examination.

“I don’t understand, if she passed on the counterintelligence
issues then she passed the test. Everything else is moot.”

Sunnie shook her head. “No, look at the notes more carefully.
She failed miserably on one of the control questions...you know, the baseline
questions they ask to differentiate which readings represent a lie versus the
truth.”

“How in hell do you fail a control question?” J.J. asked.

Tony’s phone rang again. Sunnie and J.J. exchanged looks
before staring down Tony. He shrugged it off again and gestured to Sunnie to
continue.

“Good question. I’ll tell you how. To determine Lana’s truthfulness,
they asked ‘Are you a U.S. Citizen?’ The answer should’ve been ‘Yes’ and shown
no deception.”

“Okay. And?”

“When Lana replied ‘Yes’ the readings registered deceptive.
Significantly so.”

“Deceptive? To the citizenship question?” J.J. asked, incredulous
at the possibility.

That couldn’t be. J.J. wracked her brain until it struck her
that the only way to fail the question was that Lana believed she was not a
U.S. citizen.

 
“Get outta here,” Tony said. “How’d she
end up passing the test?”

“They changed the control question, asked whether her age was
thirty-two,” Sunnie said. “But hold the phone, there’s more...”

•
 
•
 
•

Jiggy followed the unknown subject’s car at a
safe distance. Although the subject had checked his rear view mirror several
times, Jiggy felt certain he hadn’t been spotted. Jiggy parked a short distance
from the driveway, and watched him pull up to the house, then waited for them
to enter before moving any closer. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he
moved to a closer space.

Scanning the area and absorbing his surroundings, the
location seemed eerily familiar, but he couldn’t recall why. He seemed to
remember visiting the street with Jake after a night of heavy drinking. Yes,
that was it. Jake.

About a year before, Jake had gone over the deep end,
obsessed with his new girlfriend. He droned on about how beautiful and sexy she
was, wouldn’t introduce her to anyone on the team, which Jiggy found odd. He
(if not the rest of the team) had met all of Jake’s ladies. The team was like
family...before her.

Over time, Jake grew distant, started behaving jealous and
possessive, paranoid even. One game night, he’d cajoled Jiggy into riding by
the house two or three times, checking her driveway for cars belonging to
potential late night visitors. But Jake’s suspicions were never satisfied, so
he fell deeper and deeper in love with this mystery woman.

Why would surveillance of an espionage suspect lead him to
Jake’s girlfriend’s house, unless...

Jiggy covered his face and threw his head back in disbelief.

Shit!
Maybe she was
a honey trap set by the Russians.
But
no way in hell would Jake ever turn.
He’d
never volunteer
, Jiggy thought, shaking off his suspicions as ludicrous.
She must’ve manipulated him. Blackmailed him. Drugged him. Something. Anything.
Jake was a lot of things—a player, a jerk, and an occasional jackass—but he was
no traitor. Perhaps he’d been more pissed about getting rejected from Quantico
than Jiggy suspected. Failing the medical exam over an old collar bone injury
he sustained during a college football game, obliterating his childhood dream,
had to be a significant blow. But he wouldn’t be vengeful enough to spy for the
Russians...

Would he?

Jiggy pursed his lips as he lifted the radio. “Blue leader.
This is Jiggy. You copy?”

•
 
•
 
•

“I checked Lana’s biographical information,”
Sunnie said. “Turns out she’s a naturalized citizen; she wasn’t born here. Her
name was Madeleine Bouchard. She came to the U.S. as a student from Canada, got
a job after she graduated. After applying for and eventually gaining
citizenship, she legally changed her name to Lana Michaels. A little sexier I
guess. Cartwright, who was up to his ears in debt at the time, helped get her
hired. Coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, Cartwright was debt
free a year later.”

J.J. collapsed in a chair while she collected her thoughts.
Lana a foreigner? Jesus Christ! She’d spent so much of her career trying to
identify Russian spies at the embassy, she never thought she’d find one in FBI
Headquarters. The more her mind churned, the more the scenario made sense. And
the more it made sense, the more sickened J.J. felt.

“So . . . what are you getting at?” Tony asked.

J.J. spoke up. “I know exactly what she’s getting at. Don’t
you see Tony? She failed the citizenship question. So whatever words she spews
from her mouth, in her mind—and dare I say
heart
if she actually has one—her true allegiance is not to the United States.”

“Are you suggesting she’s spying for Canada?” Tony said,
shaking his head. “Because Canadians don’t even spy for Canada. When’s the last
time you saw Canadian Service at the top of a hard target list?” he joked.

“No Ton’,” J.J. chuckled and shook her head. “Try a little
further
east
.”

Tony stood stunned as his phone rang for the hundredth time.
J.J. was fed up with the interruptions.

“Tony please answer that friggin’ phone! I can’t take
anymore. We’ll wait.”

He expelled a frustrated breath and pressed the answer
button. “Donato.”

“Tony, this is Mike. Where the hell have you been? I’ve been
trying like hell to reach you.”

“Sorry, Man. We were getting a briefing from our star
analyst,” he said, winking at Sunnie. “What’s up?”

“Your boy Chris just confessed to working with the Russians,”
Mike said. “His handler is . . .”

“Fucking rat!” Tony placed his hand over the receiver and
whispered, “Chris confessed and gave up the handler’s name.”

J.J. and Sunnie sat at attention.

“Svetlana
Aleksandrovna
Mikhaylova,” Tony repeated. “7700 Kalorama Road.”

Sunnie bolted upright. “Hold up! I’ve seen that address
before,” Sunnie flipped through her notes. “Where have I seen that before?
Where have I seen it before?” she muttered more times than J.J. cared to hear.

J.J. almost wanted to ask Sunnie to quit while she was behind
. Her mind churned. Svetlana. Aleksandrovna
Mikhaylova. Svetlana. Svet. Lana. Lana Mikhaylov. Mikhaylov. Michaels. Lana
Michaels?

“That’s Lana’s home address!” Sunnie yelled.

J.J. fell back against her chair, buried her face in her
hands and shook her head.
No. No. No.

“You sure?” Tony asked.

“Yeah. I’m positive. I got a photocopy of her bio . . . see
here?”

“Mother flying fu—” J.J. yelled, glaring at Tony. “Do you
understand what this means? Svetlana Aleksandrovna Mikhaylova. Lana fucking
Michaels. I’ll be damned.”

“Thanks, Mike. I gotta go.”

Tony sunk into his chair and checked his email for the NCIC
report. “You’re really not gonna believe this shit. It’s also the address to
which Jake registered his car.”

“Jake too? She gets
around
.
I’m just sayin’,” Sunnie said.

J.J. nodded in agreement.

“Wait!” Tony yelled, experiencing an epiphany of his own.
“J.J., did you hear what you just said? Svetlana
Aleksandrovna
. Her patronymic is
Aleksandrovna
. That means her father’s name is . . .”

“Aleksandr. As in Aleksandr Mikhaylov—the fucking illegals
support officer at the Russian Embassy!”

“Get Jiggy on the radio!” J.J. ordered.

No sooner than Tony lifted the radio did Jiggy’s voice sound
through wave of static.
Cheap ass radios
,
Tony cursed to himself.

“This is Blue leader. We copy. What’s your twenty?”

“Uhhh, looks like I’m on Kalorama road at,” Jiggy squinted to
see the house numbers but he could barely make out the numbers due to the
distance. The house was set back more than forty feet from the curb. “I can’t
really . . .”

“Let me help you out,” J.J. said. “Seventy-seven hundred.”

He craned his head toward the neighbor’s house whose address
was more visible and did the math. “Yeah,” he said. “How’d you guess?”

“Well turns out—”

“Wait a minute, guys. You won’t believe who’s leaving the
house right now . . . with two very large suitcases,” Jiggy said.

“Who is it?” J.J. asked, expecting him to respond
Jake
.

Instead he gasped. “She’s got blond hair!”

“Who?” J.J. yelled nearly falling from her seat. “Who is it?”

Chapter 46

“J
iggy? Jiggy? Do you read me Jiggy who is it?”

His radio fell silent for seconds that felt
like hours. Tony and J.J. had no idea what happened. Had he been spotted and identified.
Had Russian counter-surveillance jammed his radio signal? Did he have a heart
attack? Nobody had a clue.

Then at once, they heard static.

“It’s...a...na,”

“Anna?” Sunnie said.

J.J. and Tony both snapped their heads toward her and rolled
their eyes.

“It’s Lana!” Jiggy yelled. Finally they had a clear signal.

“You don’t say!” Tony exclaimed.

“She’s packing up the car. Just went back inside the house.
What do you want me to do?”

“
She’s gonna
defect!”
J.J.
yelled. “You just stay
with her. She’s probably heading to Dulles!”

“We’ve got to get somebody out there now! Sunnie, check and
see what time the flights are leaving for Moscow today. And call Mike back and
let him know we’re in pursuit. It might help him loosen Chris’s tongue.”

“I’m on it!” she said, scampering toward her desk.

Tony got back on the radio. “This is Blue Leader calling all
available units. I repeat all available units. What’s your twenty?!”

Money T was the first to respond. “We copy. We were leaving
from our lunch location when we ran into a sink hole from a water main break at
S and Wisconsin—a one-way street. We’re stuck in a sea of traffic, no pun
intended. It’s probably gonna be a minute before the let us through.”

“Tony, grab your stuff,” J.J. said. “We’re outta here! We’ll
call Washington Field and get some support units to meet us at Dulles while
we’re on the way. Neither Lana nor Jake will go quietly, and we’ll need back
up.”

“Uhhh...blue leader,” Jiggy interrupts. “She’s got a couple
of moving boxes. Looks like she’s not planning to return for some time. I’ll
keep her in my sights.”

“We’re on the way,” J.J. said “Just stick close.

“Roger that.”

•
 
•
 
•

Tony pushed the pedal to the floor, hoping to
arrive at Dulles Airport
 
ahead of Lana and
Jiggy. Meanwhile, Jiggy trailed Lana through the city. He kept a respectable
distance, fairly certain she hadn’t yet detected his presence. He’d never
worked with her before, by Jake’s design, and had only seen her in passing now
and again at headquarters. She wouldn’t recognize him or his car, not right
away.

She picked up speed on the 14
^th
Street bridge,
doing seventy-five in a fifty-five, snaking through traffic while Jiggy
accelerated to keep pace. His car shadowed hers, moving closer and closer. But
her surveillance detection maneuvers were too aggressive and drew him out of
cover. He couldn’t afford to lose her. Not now.

At once, they were bumper to bumper. She glanced at Jiggy
several times in her rear view mirror. Then Lana floored the gas, driving 95
from Route 95 to Route 66. She took off, zigzagging through cars, barely
missing the rear bumpers of the vehicles in front of her.

“Blue leader. I’ve been spotted! I’ve been spotted!” Jiggy
yelled, adrenaline coursing through his veins, heightening every sense. “I’m
still with—Oh shit!” It appeared in his rear view mirror. A car. Someone was
gaining on him, nearly on his bumper. Jiggy glimpsed a male wearing sunglasses,
driving a dark sedan. The man pulled up to Jiggy’s passenger side about half way
to the rear passenger door, boxing Jiggy between the sedan and the concrete
barrier, sitting safely in Jiggy’s blind spot. He couldn’t be sure, but if he
didn’t know better he’d swear the man was—

“Jiggy! Jiggy! You okay?” J.J. called through the radio.

Just as he pressed the button to respond.

CRASH!

Their cars smashed together in an explosive-sounding
collision. The car rammed Jiggy into the concrete barrier, then pulled away and
rammed him again. The sound of shattered glass and metal scraping and grating
against the rail was almost deafening. Jiggy struggled to steer and reach his
radio in the passenger seat slid just beyond his reach. He leaned over and
managed to grip it; then he hit transmit button. “I’ve been hit! I’ve been hit!
He’s ramming me off—!”

“Who?” J.J. yelled. “Who is it?”

He snapped his head toward the passenger window and slammed
on the breaks, immediately recognized the face scowling back at him.

“Jesus! It’s Jake!” Jiggy said as his car began to tilt. “My
car’s leaning. I think he flattened one of my tires!” He craned his head back.
“And I lost a window!”

“Where is he now?” J.J. yelled.

Jiggy watched Jake speed up to catch Lana as he put the car
in park and prepared to step out and survey the damage. Jiggy had been driving
rim to asphalt, couldn’t go any further if he wanted to. And God knows he
wanted to. He wanted nothing more than to take Jake to school—the school of
hard knocks...and jabs...and uppercuts.

“About a mile ahead now. Joke’s on him though,” Jiggy
smirked. “Looks like there’s a pocket of bumper-to-bumper construction traffic
up ahead. Hope you guys aren’t taking 66. Traffic’s tight.”

“No, we’re on 395 South and we’ve got nothing but clear roads
ahead. You need us to call emergency?”

“No, I can do it. Good luck. And tell Tony to bash that
sucker’s face in when he catches him. For all of us.”

J.J. held the radio to Tony’s mouth. He needed to keep his
hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road. “I’ve got your back, Jig. Get
yourself some help and we’ll check on you later.”

Her heart thumped through her ribcage as she exhaled. “Man,
I’m gonna kick the crap out of Lana when I get my hands around her neck.
Gettin’ my pressure up.”

No sooner than the words left their mouths—
Whoop
Whoop
!
A
Virginia State Police cruiser turned on his takedown lights, signaling for them
to pull over. Both grunted in frustration when a text from Sunnie buzzed J.J.’s
cell phone.

The
next flight to Moscow departs at 2:07 pm.

She checked her watch. “Damn it! The flight leaves at 2:07.
It’s 1:15! We don’t have time for this shit!!”

 
“Calm down, J.J. We’ll
show him our creds and we’re outta here. We are the F-B-motherfuckin’-I!” Tony
joked.

J.J. chuckled and shook her head.

The officer, a 12-year-old with the smell of fresh-out-of-training
on his breath, leaned down toward the window. “Afternoon. You were going 75 in
a 55. License and registration, please.”

“Afternoon officer, we’re FBI,” Tony said. Both he and J.J.
flashed their credentials. “We’re in the middle of an operation and we need to
get to Dulles.”

“FBI, huh?” the cop said, lowering his sunglasses to the edge
of his nose. “Hmph. I applied to be an agent and they rejected me, said I was
psychologically unfit. License and registration, please!”

“But—”

“License and registration, please!”

His attitude set J.J. on fire. “Excuse me, what is your
badge
 
nu—”

Tony hushed her before she could finish. Then he scoured his
glove compartment for his registration and pulled his license from his wallet.
“Here you go, sir,” he choked out.

“I’ll be just a moment!” he said, dragging his feet.

 
J.J. looked down at
her watch again—1:22.

Son of a bitch!

•
 
•
 
•

Chris eyed Mike as he re-entered the
interview room and returned to his seat. “I cleared all of the dead drops. I
marked the signals. She used Jack and Jim to gain access to files.”

Chris’s voice trembled as he struggled to lift his gaze from
the table. Not because he’d lied during the interview, rather, for the first
time in a long time, he had to face his own ugly truth.

“Jim knew her true identity and even helped get her hired,
but Jack… I’m sure he wasn’t aware of her activities. I kept telling her she’d
pushed the envelope too far.”

“Did she coerce you in any way? Threaten or blackmail you?”
Mike asked.

His chin dropped to his chest, his shoulders hunched. “I wish
I could say yes, but no. No she didn’t. I fell in love with her, would’ve done
anything to hold onto her.”

“Including sell your soul to the devil—or the Russians as it
were.”

“You can think what you want about me. I tried to confess a
dozen times but she told me if one of us went down we’d all go down.”

“All?”

“Me, her, Cartwright…” he said. “So she trained me to beat
the polygraph.”

Mike and Don glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. “Hold
up. You’re telling us she
trained
you
to defeat the poly?”

“Yeah, she did. But, we see how well that worked out, right?”
he said, wiping his brow. “After I passed the test today, we’d planned to pick
up the cash and make arrangements to defect. We tried to get enough to raise
the baby.”

“Baby?” Mike laughed.

“Leave the country?” Don said.

“She said her handler gave her passports for both of us. All
we needed to do was make it to Dulles airport and they’d put us on the first
available Aeroflot flight out—the government still owns the airline so…”

Mike sat back in his seat. At that point, Don stepped in and
took over.

“Can you tell us about your, uhhhh, Koshechka’s relationship
with Jake McGee?” Mike asked.

Chris’s eyes protruded from their sockets. “How’d you figure
it out?” Chris asked, disappointed he couldn’t hold out longer. She’d probably
realized by now that his polygraph hadn’t proceeded well and was preparing to
leave. But he couldn’t be certain. Maybe they’d shed some light.

Don’s eyes darted between them, as he was not yet privy to
the information Sunnie had shared with Mike.

“Never mind that. You just tell me what you can about her
relationship with Jake.”

Chris shrugged. “They didn’t have one as far as I know,
nothing outside of work. I’m positive of that.”

“You sure you’re positive?”

He hesitated. “Yeah . . . I’m positive. Why do you ask?”

Mike leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Hate to
break this to you Chris,” he began, “but your darling Koshechka is on her way
to Moscow if my instincts serve me well . . . and they usually do.”

His eyes widened and the corners of his mouth lifted
slightly. She knew, and she’d made her escape. “Now?”

“Yep. Right now. With Jake McGee,” Mike said.

Chris sucked in a hard breath as if his lungs had collapsed
and he struggled for air, shaking his head furiously.

“No, she wouldn’t. She loves me. We’re having a baby . . .
she loves me.” He tried to convince himself more than Mike and Don. Then, on
the edge of tears, he buried his face in his hands, conceding his fight to
believe in her. He’d been played like Monopoly set. And before the day’s end,
he’d be resting on a cot in the Alexandria detention center.

“That bitch!” he screamed. He slammed his fist against the
chair arm, his eyes empty, those of a man possessed. “That two-timing slut
bitch!”

Don kicked in, “No, I think she was more like a
three
-timing slut bitch.”

“Now we’re cooking with gas!” Chris’s anger pleased Mike.
“Wondered when your balls were gonna drop. Are you ready to tell us everything
and stop protecting her now?”

Chris nodded yes.

Mike rubbed his hands together rapidly, getting warmed up for
the next phase of the interview. “Your former colleagues are probably trying to
head them off at Dulles as we speak. Let’s just hope they catch them in time.”