Spy Catcher: The J.J. McCall Novels (Books 1-3) (The FBI Espionage Series) (11 page)

Chapter 17

Saturday Morning – Back at the Alexandria Jail

M
ore than a decade earlier, during the Hanssen damage assessment, a sketchy Russian source suggested a second mole was burrowed deep within the Intelligence Community. The heads of all Intelligence Community agencies initiated Operation ICE Phantom—Intelligence Community Phantom—to find the turncoat allegedly more dangerous, more insidious than Hanssen and Ames combined.

A stagnant search had since yielded nothing, nothing except a dead-end ghost chase. As of late, the only mark of his existence was J.J.’s dead sources. They’d been dropping off too quickly, suggesting the mole was afraid, desperate. These facts were all but completely ignored by senior leadership who opted to claim ignorance, a game J.J. and Tony could ill afford to play.   

One source vanished from the face of the earth and the other was brutally murdered. Only one remained thanks to the son-of-a-bitch selling secrets like popcorn at National’s stadium. And the new target would no doubt be Viktor Plotnikov, codenamed Karat.

J.J. broke every rule and regulation to protect him: falsified FD-302s, the Bureau’s official interview reports; intentionally wrote a false assessment identifying him as a low-level diplomat to conceal that they knew his true identity; and Robert Ludlum couldn’t produce better fiction than that found in his “duplicate” case file. She even designed his codename as an operational security measure. The misspelling would differentiate those who’d seen his file from those who’d merely heard about him. She refused to lose another source to the ICE Phantom or Golikov’s thugs.

Jack drowned in denial, and J.J. and Tony had long suspected his reasons were rooted in more than professional self-preservation. ICE Phantom had struck during his duty, his watch. The blame was squarely at Jack’s doorstep. Rather than confront the problem, Jack thought it better for his career to simply ignore the problem. Rumors of moles deterred other agencies from sharing intelligence with the Bureau and frightened sources that feared arrest, imprisonment, death, or some combination of the three. Not to mention, they wreaked havoc on an already tenuous relationship between the FBI and CIA.

Now, sitting in jail, the problem had returned to bite Jack squarely in the ass. 

“The bigot list? Who do—”

“Chris,” Jack said with hardly a moment’s pause. Didn’t even allow her to finish the question.

“
Chris
? Wait, Lana’s
Chris
?”

“Yeah, I think he’s in love with Lana,” Jack said. The red in his face intensified. He squeezed his hands and cracked his knuckles repeatedly, the sound of which made J.J. cringe. “No. That’s not true. He’s very much in love with Lana, almost to the point of obsession.”

J.J. shifted in her seat, constantly examining her feelings. “And? What’s that got to do with
you
?”

He looked at J.J. stone-faced. She waited for an answer when the gravity of his statement pulled her smack into the reality of his insinuation. “Wait.
You
…and
Lana?”
The words propelled from her mouth like vomit.

J.J. dropped her head in shock and disbelief. What could Lana possibly want with Jack?

“What can I say? She came onto me.”

“Uhhh...rewind,” J.J. said, twirling her finger counter-clockwise. “
She
. . . came onto
you?”

“Yes.”

Still no reaction.

Wow.

After some thought, his story made sense, even with the Lana detail. Everyone knew she’d cozied up to him to advance her career. J.J. didn’t know how cozy until that moment. If Chris had truly been obsessed with Lana and became aware of her relationship with Sabinski, what better way to get rid of his competition than...set him up for espionage?

No, didn’t make sense. Obsessed people stalked their victims, let the air out of their tires, poured sugar in their gas tanks, and pushed the objects of their desire down flights of stairs in fits of jealous rage; they didn’t frame them for espionage. Just didn’t quite add up. Not that she should care. He wasn’t her problem. 

“Well, that explains everything, doesn’t it? Who knew she was so . . .
multitalented
,” she snipped, suppressing the urge to slip in another dig. “So, let me ask you this. If you thought enough of Lana to reassign my cases to her, then why didn’t you ask
her
to come help you?”

“I called for the person I believe I can trust.”

“So, are you saying you
don’t
feel you can trust Lana?”

Silence.

He didn’t respond, just stared into the distance.

J.J. stood to leave again.

“She’s through with me. You know it, and I know it. I’m in jail and can no longer help her career. I’ve never deluded myself about our relationship,” Jack said. He lowered his head, pressed his hands against his temples. “Besides, other than you and Tony, I’m beginning to wonder who in headquarters can be trusted. Think about it J.J., I take a polygraph one minute and the next I’m in jail? That’s not Bureau procedure, and you know it. Why was there such a rush to search my house? No one had enough pull with the judge to get an expedited warrant except Freeman…or—”

“Cartwright,” she said.

He’d made a valid point. Something definitely didn’t add up. But
Cartwright
ordered the search. The same Cartwright who pressed J.J. to stay and dig deeper. If involved in setting up Jack, why would he ask J.J. to pursue the mole when he himself might be the one she’d end up arresting? That didn’t make sense either.

“Will you help me J.J.?”

The door buzzed, and she wrapped her fingers around the handle. “I don’t know, Jack. We shit-brown daughters of domestic terrorists and sons of Guinea wise guys will need some time to consider your request. In the meantime, make sure you sleep with your back to the wall.”

The venom spewing from her mouth brought J.J. as much discomfort as it probably had Sabinski. Perhaps the Belvedere had loosened her tongue too much.

A vision of her mother’s countenance flashed in her mind. Her mother’s disappointed voice spoke to her heart. “J.J., I raised you better than that!”

She turned back to him to apologize but couldn’t choke the words out. Perhaps a full apology was a step too far. After a second’s hesitation, her voice softened. “They got you in solitary?”

He nodded. “They don’t mix cops in with the population,” he said. “J.J...the prosecution’s asking for the death penalty.”

Why did I even have to ask?
she questioned. That’s the part she hated about being a woman. Compassion beyond reason.

Based on J.J.’s reaction to Jack’s story, the Bureau had arrested the wrong suspect, and Jack had just enough honor to ensure he’d never cop a plea for this charge and leave the real mole on the streets.

Her only questions were whether the investigation had been ordered to frame Jack.

And if so who was
really
behind it.

J.J. forced herself not to look back again. She couldn’t. The sincerity in his desperation had somehow managed to permeate the wall she’d built to protect herself from his verbal floggings. The armored door slammed closed behind her, and the resulting breeze made the skin on the back of her neck prickle.

J.J. took a few steps into the hall when Tony greeted her. He ran his fingers through the silken twists in his curly black hair, distracting her for a brief moment.

“I take it you heard everything,” she said.

“Yeah, I listened to the whole sob story. The snake,” Tony responded. “I gotta tell you, I’m glad the ass wipe got pinched. I’d love to see him go down for this, especially after what he said to you. And it’d sure solve our problems.”

All J.J. could do was stare, and then she rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. If she allowed Jack take the rap for the compromises, she and Tony wouldn’t need to worry about taking the polygraph examinations or losing their jobs. And she’d never have to deal with Jack’s ass again.

On the other hand, the Bureau would still have a mole to contend with. Their sources would still be in danger of compromise and death. And the son of a bitch traitor would continue to walk free.

“What’s with the face? You don’t actually believe this guy, do you? I mean, c’mon, suggesting that Cartwright had something to do with setting him up? He’s reaching, don’t you think?”

“Please, I haven’t heard a taller tale since O.J. pled not guilty. But as far-fetched as his story may sound, I know he’d rather be roasted alive on a spit than ask
me,
of all people, for help.”

“Well, if you think I’m lifting a fucking finger to help that jerk-off, you can fughettaboudit. Ain’t happenin’. After what he said to you? He’s getting exactly what he deserves as far as I’m concerned. Let him fry.”

“But Ton—”

“I don’t want to hear it. You help him; you’re on your own.”

What else did she expect? He didn’t know what motivated J.J.’s change of perspective. And she couldn’t explain her reasoning, not without sounding like a lunatic. She was singing a new song and he’d gotten stuck on the old one.

“You’re really not gonna help?” she asked as she started toward the exit.

“You heard me!” he snapped, refusing to budge an inch.

Stubborn fucking Italian!
she thought to herself.

She couldn’t believe he was so determined to remain defiant.

“Fine,” she growled, matching his coarse tone. “The Bureau pays me to catch spies, so unlike you I’m just going to do my job. On my own!”

Tony huffed as they both plodded to their cars quietly seething.

J.J. had never seen this side of him before and didn’t care to see it again. Ever. In the time they’d worked together, he’d never held his ground so firmly. Now she was truly screwed. Not only did she need to find the mole and clear the name of the boss she despised, she’d have to do it alone.

Chapter 18

Late Sunday Morning…

J
.J. strategized her next move on the way to her standing Sunday brunch reservation at the McCall house. Tony’s ultimatum hadn’t helped her present dilemma, but could she really blame him? For months, they’d both believed with every fiber of their beings that Jack was the mole—and they were both wrong. Thanks to her so-called gift, she was the only person in the FBI who knew the truth. Shit pissed her off. Not only because she didn’t want to help the racist bastard, but whatever investigation she conducted to find the real mole would benefit Jack. As much as she wished she could take Tony’s attitude and let him fry, one simple fact remained—the mole was still free. And as long as he remained free, no operation or source was safe from his reach. She’d been forced by circumstance to do a job she never thought she’d have to do—clear Jack’s name. To make matters worse, she still had few clues to go on. They had sufficient information to confirm the presence of a mole, but too little to identify him.

Work called, but she’d first need to endure her father’s weekly diatribe on the ills of singledom.
Ugh.

The scent of fried eggs and bacon wafted into J.J.’s nose as she entered her father’s 1960s, all-brick duplex off Irving Street, where front porches still had swings and neighbors were still nosy. Photos of a young Max McCall posing with Huey Newton, Bobby Seal, and other Black Panthers hung throughout the house. Her mother was undercover at the time, managed to stay out of most photos.

Special Agent Naomi Jones McCall was among the first black women recruited by the FBI near the end of J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure. He established a Top Secret program to recruit educated black agents that not even Hoover himself would publicly acknowledge. She received orders from the COINTELPRO director, who ran a covert program to “disrupt and neutralize” subversive “Communist” organizations and political dissidents such as the NAACP and the Black Panther Party. Naomi targeted the latter. The Bureau sent her undercover to infiltrate and quell illegal arms activity that might undermine U.S. national security. Her operations were only documented in Hoover’s secret files, most of which were destroyed by his long-time secretary shortly after his death.

A star agent, Naomi’s gift helped her to identify and arrest corrupt Panther Party officials involved in harboring illegal firearms—of which they were few and far between. Certainly fewer than she’d expected given the propaganda she’d been indoctrinated with only days after raising her right hand at the academy graduation.

Eventually, she met and fell in love with the disarmingly handsome Max McCall—the one man who never made her itch. Her mother’s gift revealed an inner goodness Max’s gruff, disillusioned exterior concealed. And his greatest crime against society was establishing school breakfast program at the local elementary school. Max told J.J. that after he proposed marriage, her mother had planned to quit the FBI “soon.” But “soon” never came. She had sensitive sources to protect and no colleagues she regarded well enough to trust, not with their lives.

Before she could resign, she was critically wounded in the line of duty during some mysterious operation, the details of which had never been fully disclosed, at least not to J.J. For years she inquired about what happened but no one provided answers, not even her father. As she grew older, in the recesses of her mind, she’d planned to someday get the answers straight from the FBI.

She stopped off at the powder room to wash her hands before entering the kitchen. When she stepped into the doorway, Max turned to her, his smile warm with affection.

“Ahhhh, there she is! My daughter the pig!” He held his arms out to welcome her despite his too frequent digs about her employer. Max McCall, now in his mid-60s, donned distinctive salt and pepper hair, and his usual Sunday attire, a black Reverend Run Adidas sweat suit.

She walked over and embraced him before grabbing the coffee pot. “That’s
federal
pig to you, Dad, which would make your son a city pig.”

He shook his head. “Mhm, mhm, mhm. I’m sure I raised y’all better. But to each his own, I suppose.”

“You reared us just fine,” J.J. said taking her seat at the table. “You call us pigs and
we still
come to Sunday breakfast every week. That’s got to say something about us, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. It says neither one of you likes to cook.” He laughed. “Did your brother call this morning? Probably gonna be late as usual.”

“No, I hadn’t heard from him, but you know the police chief has them working a bunch of overtime in the All Hands on Deck program. No telling when he’ll get here. And I’m too hungry to wait. Sorry, bro!”

“If that boy ever showed up for brunch on time, I might die and have a heart attack.”

“Well, don’t tell Malcolm. The way you two are constantly at each other’s throats, he’d probably start coming on time out of spite. And I personally kind of like having you around.”

Max reached into the cabinet above the stove and grabbed a couple of the “good plates” his wife spent three hours selecting at Woodward and Lothrop in the months before she passed away so many years ago. He’d bought them for their twelfth anniversary present. After her eleven years of guilt-tripping him about their Justice of the Peace wedding and non-existent reception, he finally conceded even though his money was still a little funny. She couldn’t be with them in body, but he made sure she enjoyed Sunday brunch with them in spirit.

He lifted the cast iron skillet from the burner, slid some eggs onto their plates, and his daughter all but collapsed into her seat, looking weary and sleepless. His expression shifted from one of joy to concern.

“Looks like you’ve got bags under your eyes,” he said as he laid the plates on the table. He pinched her arm. “You’ve lost some weight too. I keep telling you, J.J., if you die working yourself into the ground it’ll be in vain ‘cause all they gonna do is hire a white woman to replace you. What they got you workin’ on, anyway?”

Bags? Lost weight?
J.J. wondered why her father exaggerated so much. She’d checked herself in the mirror before leaving the house and she looked “okay,” just as she felt. She shrugged off his comments as the bantering of a concerned father and poured coffee into the supersized mugs resting on the kitchen table. “I could tell you, but―”

“You’d have to kill me. Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know.”

“Come on, Dad. You know the drill. Can’t talk shop, so there’s no sense in you worrying yourself to death about my work. I’m Max McCall’s girl. I can handle it.”

He nodded in agreement. “Okay then, how’s your love life? You datin' yet?”

She stuffed an overflowing fork full of eggs in her mouth and mumbled, “I’m not allowed to talk with my mouth full.”

He rapped his fingertips against the mahogany table. “That’s okay. I’ve got all day.”

She chewed up the food and swallowed with a hard gulp. “Jeez. I think I’d rather talk about work.”

“Ohhh, noooo, young lady, we’re talking about this right now.”

Ever since her thirty-second birthday two months prior, Max had made it his goal to ensure
her
lady eggs were harvested to produce a grandchild. “Dad, you’ll let this go if you want to live long enough to see your grandson graduate from the FBI academy,” she said, chuckling. “Stressing over my nonexistent love life will surely kill you.”

Dad shuddered and gave me the side-eye glance. “At the rate you’re going, you’ll be eligible for the
Guinness Book of World Records
by the time you give me a grandson.”

J.J. smirked and leaned back. “Careful, Dad. Your 1950s are showing. Besides, Malcolm doesn’t have any kids; he’s not married. Why don’t you hassle him for some grandbabies?”

He shot her an incredulous glare.

“What?” she said. “All those women he’s got chasing him, you could have your own rug rat assortment from multiple babies’ mamas.”

“Don’t even get me started on your brother. If I say go right, he goes left. If I asked him for some grandbabies, he’d probably bring me a pet fish. Hate to break it to you but your brother’s an idiot, God love him. Can’t blame a woman for not marrying his crazy behind. You on the other hand…”

She turned to him; her expression serious. “Well, I kind of met someone, if you must know. He’s smart, he’s an agent, and, uhhhh... he’s just a little white. . .
ish
?” she said, lowering her volume to a level perceptible only to a few breeds of dog and some small rodents.

“What you say? ‘Cause
I know
you didn’t say what I thought you said!”