The Seven Year Itch (6 page)

Chapter 6

T
he STE, a secure phone J.J. often referred to as the ‘Bat
Phone’, rang inside the vault. She and Tony had nearly finished fixing and
  
photocopying the files, so they could
prepare to head to Rock Creek Park to clear the drop. The end to this “mole
business,” as Mr. Cartwright called it, was near.

“McCall,” J.J. answered.

“I’m back. And I’m afraid I don’t have good news.” Jake’s
voice sounded like burnt coffee and cigarette smoke. “Meet you at your desk.”

Her stomach plummeted to the floor. Something had gone wrong,
and she instinctively knew. Best laid plans always went awry.

J.J. glanced at Tony with an oh-shit face. They both raised
their eyebrows, silently left the vault, and entered the fray.

Back in the office, spastic phones rang and gun-toting,
business casual-clad FBI agents milled about the office trying to look
important and busy. She approached Jake whose face bore the weight of failure
and a sheepish grin.

“Whatcha got for me?” J.J. asked.

“We lost him.” His voice was flat, day old pancake flat.

J.J. suppressed the emotional surge and maintained her cool.
She couldn’t afford to rattle Jake or arouse suspicions about Plotnikov’s
true
  
importance. She’d already ripped
him a new one several days prior. His skills had degraded and he knew it. The
Russians had all but requested him to provide surveillance coverage.

 
“I don’t understand,”
she began, “this was supposed to be a routine op. What the hell happened?”

“Dmitriyev,” Jake said. “He got in the car with Plotnikov.
Drove him.”

“Dmitriyev?” It struck her that Dmitriyev had met Plotnikov
at the airport when he arrived.

“We stayed on them but about two miles into the surveillance,
but they juked us...well, me. Made a cover stop at Starbucks to draw us out.
When Dmitriyev returned to the car, he slammed on the gas. I stuck with him for
about a mile before a grandma and some kids jaywalked in middle of the friggin’
intersection. Jiggy tried to catch up with him but got pulled over by MPD.”

“Son of a bitch!” Tony grumbled before J.J. could nudge him.
“So we don’t know if he, uhhh, met the cut out.”

Jake shook his head.

Cool had officially left the building. A slight sense of
panic crept in. The pit in J.J.’s stomach evolved into a galactic wedge.

“To be honest, J.J., I don’t think staying with them mattered
much since Dmitriyev was escorting him. That wasn’t gonna happen.” Jake threw
his hands up. “Besides, looked like he was carrying baggage. With intelligence
officers you can never be sure about the contents, but...”

“Plotnikov’s got over a year left on his tour,” J.J. reasoned
out loud to restore the slight sense of hope Jake had robbed. “Had to be
Dmitriyev’s comms equipment or something.”

Visions of a bullet piercing Plotnikov’s skull whirred
through her mind. She could barely stifle her rage, frustrated and fearful for yet
another source’s life. How could she resign now? She promised he wouldn’t
suffer the same fate as his father. She had a sinking feeling it might be too
late for him. Too late again.

She wanted a drink, needed one.

The irony. For the first time in months she didn’t want to
quit. Yet once Sabinski found out
another
source might’ve disappeared, he’d probably fire her anyway. She pursed her
lips and hung her hand high on her hip, the way a mother does before scolding
her child. Then she shrugged. The time for lectures had passed.

“Well that does it, huh?” Tony said, heaving a long sigh.

“Sabinski’s gonna chew me a second one,” J.J. added.

Jake’s glance grazed the floor as he headed toward the door.
“We’ll get him next time. Let’s just be glad the information wasn’t critical.”

She turned to Tony. “The hits keep on coming,” J.J. mumbled.
“You would’ve loved my resignation speech to Sabinski. A ten minute
dissertation loaded with suggestions on new locations to stick my badge and
gun. Looks like my escape’s on hold.”

Tony exhaled, appearing more relieved than empathetic. “What
do we do now?”

“One thing’s for certain: I’m not going anywhere until I find
out what happened to my source. And if that mole had anything to do with
Dmitriyev’s little ride along today, he better pray to God that I don’t find
him before Washington Field does.”

Jake shuffled toward the door, his chin hanging below his
balls.

“Hey!” J.J. shouted to Jake. He hesitated before turning
toward her. “Do me a favor. Have the lookouts contact me the minute Plotnikov
and Dmitriyev return to the embassy.”

Jake nodded and disappeared into the hall. J.J. turned to
Tony and lowered her voice, as if keeping the monumental screw-up secret was
even a remote possibility. “Every day I’m more certain that Jack is the mole.
Only five of us are aware of Plotnikov. The Gs don’t have enough details about
what’s going on to even attempt to compromise him.”

“I agree. I just wish we had the evidence to pinch that son
of a bitch. If only Viktor had made that drop, we could’ve proved it.” Tony
consoled her, gently rubbing her back. “Listen, I realize it’s a long shot, but
I say we check to see if he left the signal anyway.”

She gave him the side-eye.

“Yeah, yeah, he probably didn’t,” Tony continued. “But it can’t
hurt to look, can it?”

J.J. weighed her options and Tony’s suggestion was about as
good as it would get. “All right. You’ve got a deal. Let me write up this
Pulitzer Prize winning report about today’s adventures and turn it in to Jack.
Then we’ll get the hell out of here.”

“There’s something else you oughtta know,” Tony whispered,
pulling J.J. inside his cubicle. “One of my boys in the Inspector General’s
office stopped me in the hall. He got word that Cartwright is launching a new
internal investigation to find the
ICE
Phantom,
whoever he is. And they’re starting with everyone on the bigot
list with access to the vault.”

“Well, it’s about time! I wondered how many cases we’d have
to lose before someone got a clue that we’ve got a problem. I mean I’m lying
like a cheap toupee to protect our last source. How bad do the breaches have to
get?”

“I heard they suspect he’s a CIA case officer, but they’re
gonna put all of us on the box if one more FBI asset gets recalled to Moscow.”

The polygraph.

Taken by all Bureau employees and equally dreaded by all.
Usually required during routine background reinvestigations or on the rare
occasion that security suspected an active mole.

“Put us on the box?!” J.J. yelped. She remembered where they
were standing and lowered her voice to a whisper. “You’re kidding right? This
is a problem. A
major
major
problem.”

Tony leered at J.J., confused. “A problem...
for us
?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”

“Tony, we’re both cursed to the grave with Catholic guilt.
And the only accurate information we’ve written in our
Karat
reports to Sabinski are the
dates
…
sometimes
. Do you
think we have a snowball’s chance in hell of passing a polygraph? And if we
tell the truth about our double reporting methods and Sabinski finds out...”

“Ahhh!”

“Exactly! And I don’t even want to think about what’ll happen
if we
fail
,” she said.

“We’d become the prime suspects for ratting out our own
sources and get locked up.”

She shook her head. “That’s just for starters. Sources have
been murdered because of this mole. Whoever gets arrested for
these
compromises isn’t just going to
jail...or Supermax. We’re talking death penalty charges.”

Tony expelled a long heavy breath and glanced at J.J. Her
shoulders curled forward and she swallowed hard.

“This is no time to breathe,” she said. “Say your Hail Marys
and hope like hell Viktor left the drop so we can stop Jack before he drops the
hammer on us.”

For some time, both she and Tony had been of the belief that
Jack was the
ICE Phantom
,
accessing files with no need-to-know, a narcissistic personality with an
equally grandiose sense of self-importance, all smothered in a Grand
Canyon-sized grudge. In his estimation, Bureau executives lacked sufficient
intelligence to give him the senior executive position he believed he so richly
deserved. His contempt for the Bureau was barely surface deep.

Compromise. Ego. He displayed the classic motivations to
commit espionage and seemed the most logical to turn. But they had little more
to go on than a hunch.
 

Chapter 7

J.J.
’s thoughts returned to Plotnikov as she contemplated 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 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 with the Coast
Guard,” Chris responded. His awkward glance toward Lana spoke volumes. “But,
uhhhh, 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 as she 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 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 Twizzler from the
family-sized container on his desk, noisily crackling the paper. After he
chomped, 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 Twizzler 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 exclaimed, lurching 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 it 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 her 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.
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 but 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 holding
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 Bonnano family before getting
arrested seven years before on racketeering charges.

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 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,
Sabinski 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 slapped the handcuffs
on him and dragged him to jail by the lone strand of hair left on
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 Disney Land
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. 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 her hands 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.

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