Spy Catcher: The J.J. McCall Novels (Books 1-3) (The FBI Espionage Series) (48 page)

Chapter 36

Wednesday Evening—The White House

J.J.’s eyes glazed over as she reviewed the last page of yet another personnel file in their temporary West Wing office. She rubbed her tired eyes as she prepared to interview the first mole suspect. She could hardly decipher her notes which had been scribbled so fast they resembled appeared as if they’d been written by a sociopathic mail bomber.

Tony wasn’t faring much better. The exhaustion from weeks of intense investigation coupled with reading volumes of personnel files had worn his patience thin. He’d rubbed his temples red, and she’d heard less heavy breathing out of him during their midnight trysts.

First on the list was Edward Tomlin, the Navy intel officer and defense attaché. J.J.’s main concern in his file was his reported bombshell of a Ukrainian wife. How he still had access to intelligence, she didn’t know. To maintain his clearances with a wife from the former republic meant he was very clean or ultra-dirty—the information in the file was insufficient to discern which.

By the end of the day, she’d know one way or the other. The only hiccup she could foresee was an inevitable clash with Gia. While Tony’s suggestion that Gia use her defense intelligence experience to highlight any inconsistencies was a good idea in theory, J.J. feared her presence would cause more dissention between she and Tony rather than unearth a few lies.

J.J. stood up from her desk and took a long, deep stretch. “Gia on her way? Tomlin should be here any minute.”

“Yeah, she just sent me a text. Kendel’s bringing her down now,” he said.

“Oh, she sent you a text, huh?”

“Yeah, because you told me to call her,” he snapped. “Really, J.J.? Green ain’t a good color on you. I like brown much better.”

J.J. had a bad feeling about them. She didn’t know why; she just did. Before J.J. could respond, there was a knock at the door. Tony rushed to grab it. “Ahh, here she is. Just in the nick of time,” Tony said.

Gia walked in and looked around with an uncomfortable expression on her face. “Hey, J.J. Where should I sit?”

“Here,” J.J said, ushering her inside. “Tomlin should arrive in a few. Shouldn’t take long.”

Most agents had to conduct a battery of questioning sessions with subjects, their friends, co-workers, and associates to develop the comprehensive picture necessary to detect inconsistencies. J.J.’s lie detection ability eliminated the need—ultimately cutting down on the time it took her to solve her cases. She didn’t give a shit about the stats. The more cases she solved, the more bad guys she took off the streets.

There was a second knock at the door. When Tony opened it the second time a rail-thin, bespectacled guy walked in. His features were indistinct and easily forgotten. J.J. struggled to find the words that she’d use to describe the tall, skinny man with glasses except “man.”

They all dispensed with the idle pleasantries and introductions, then made their way into the conference room. After J.J. and Tony displayed their badges and credentials, Tomlin started to blink incessantly. J.J. couldn’t tell whether he had a tick or the usual nerves people get when submitting to FBI interviews.

“Can I ask what this is all about?” he asked.

J.J. carefully measured her reply. Sometimes the best way to encourage honest responses was to divert suspicions to someone else. But Tomlin was nervous, his face reddened, his hands shaking. He had something to hide. In his case, she’d hit him square between the eyes. He’d either fight or flee. An attempt to flee would warrant a deeper look.

J.J. looked at Tony and responded, “We’re investigating some very specific security breaches that we believe occurred in the White House and State Department during the period in which you worked in both places. We have no suspects at this time. We’re just conducting exploratory interviews, okay?”

He nodded and exhaled. “Oh, I see. Well, that’s a relief. I don’t know anything about a security breach.”

A crawling sensation began in the tip of her toes. But it didn’t explode through her as it would’ve if he’d been flagrantly dishonest. Still, he was lying about something.

“We don’t have many questions. Let’s get through them so we can get you back to work,” J.J. began. “We understand you served as a Defense Attaché in Moscow from 1996 to 1998. Can you tell us a little about your assignment there?”

He nodded. “I represented Naval Intelligence. Targeted the GRU—Russian military intelligence. We met regularly to discuss Iraq issues. At that time Russia wanted the U.S. to back down from Iraqi sanctions, and we wanted them to support the sanctions. It was a tense time.”

“So, you regularly met with Russian intelligence as part of your job. Did you report those contacts to your security officer?”

“Yeah, I submitted AARs every day, uhh, After Action Reports.”

She waited for a reaction. There was none. She hadn’t hit the sweet spot yet. She’d keep poking until she struck gold.

“Were you ever approached by a member of Russian intelligence?”

“Approached? I don’t understand your meaning.”

The crawling sensation returned and intensified. She stomped her foot beneath the table forged ahead. The sweet spot was near.

“I’m sorry, let me make it plain,” she said. “Did a member of any Russian intelligence service—or someone you suspected was a member of Russian intelligence—request, coerce, or attempt to coerce you to provide any information, to include classified information, outside of your reported contacts.”

His eyes bulged. He opened his mouth but no words came. Then he shook his head no.

“Is that a ‘
no
’?” J.J. snapped, beginning to lose her patience. “I need you to answer verbally.”

“Yes, Agent McCall,” he snapped. “That’s a no.”

The crawl rushed into her thighs and backside. She wriggled in her seat before regaining composure. As usual, Tony looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. She played it off as if nothing happened. “We understand you have a Ukrainian wife. How did you meet her?”

“At a bar in Moscow.”

“She approached you?”

“Yes, yes. She did.”

J.J. expected him to answer in the affirmative and she also expected that response would be the truth. Honeytraps always targeted foreign service personnel very aggressively. But the sensation of ants permeating her arms signaled that he’d told yet another lie. The wife was not the aggressor.
If she didn’t approach him, then how did they meet
? 

“I see,” J.J. said in a sugary sweet voice with a venomous undertone. “Let me confer with my colleagues outside for a second and we’ll conclude our discussion in a minute.”

Gia and Tony shot J.J. sideways glances and followed her out of the room.

“What’s going on?” Tony asked.

J.J. scratched her head, reminding herself that she had an insight they weren’t privy to. They wouldn’t understand her impatience.

“How do you think this is going so far?” J.J. asked. “Because I believe he’s lying like a dusty rug.”

Gia glanced and J.J. and Tony and said, “He’s extremely nervous, but nothing he said struck me as untruthful.”

J.J. snapped her head toward Tony. “And you? What’s your opinion?”

“I dunno, but I tend to agree with Gia. Although I’ll also admit something isn’t right with this guy. He’s awfully twitchy. Can’t put my finger on it.”

“I also think he’s twitchy, largely due to the fact that he’s lying his ass off. Are you watching his mannerisms? Couldn’t be more obvious to me than if we wrote ‘liar’ on a flag and flew the pole from his left nostril,” J.J. said. “I mean he’s blinked so many times
my
eyes are getting dry. And he’s probably sweat out half of his body weight in the last fifteen minutes.”

Gia bit her bottom lip. “Yeah, but that room’s a little warm.”

“
A little warm
. Not the Mojave desert,” J.J. said. “Listen, I’m going back in. Play along with me and he’ll either fold, or we’ll have to lock Tony in a room with him so Tony can play bad cop.”

J.J. returned inside and took her seat. Gia and Tony followed suit.

She flipped through her papers authoritatively and lined them up in front of him. “If you could please review my notes and then sign at the bottom to verify your truthfulness. We’ve decided to wrap up this interview early.”

Tomlin appeared confused. “Is there a problem?”

“Quite frankly I’m not convinced that your answers have been forthright, you know, truthful. And I simply don’t have the time or the patience to coddle you. We’re going to institute a Code Red, Level 7 investigation—that’s an internal FBI code,” she said. “For the record, my colleagues disagree with my assessment, but in another sign that it’s not your lucky day, I
outrank
them.”

“What does Code Red, Level 7 mean?”

J.J. tightened her lips and lowered her head. Her expression was grave. Then Tony piped in. “It’s not good,” he said, shaking his head. He looked at J.J. with pleading eyes. “Do we really need to do that? I mean, think of his family. You do have a family, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Gia added. “Give the guy a break.”

J.J. shook her head and fiddled with the band on her Movado.

“Hmph. That’s unfortunate. Your job. Your clearances. Ugh.” Tony turned to J.J. again. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider? I mean, look at him.”

Gia, Tony, and J.J. all stared at him. He appeared as if he’d disintegrate from the stress.

“No, you’re free to go,
after
you sign this paper. It’s very important that we have your signature. After that, we’ll be in touch…
soon
.”

“I’m not signing a damn thing!” He bolted up from his seat, his gaze volleying back and forth between his interviewers. He slowly made his way to the door, appearing deep in thought along the way. He looked around one last time, exited, and closed it behind him.

All eyes turned to J.J.

“You sure this is gonna work?” Gia asked.

“No,” J.J. answered. “But nothing beats a failure but a try.”

• • •

FBI Headquarters – Washington D.C
.

J.J. asked Six to hang back at headquarters and provide guidance to Sunnie, who was conducting the initial analysis on the Situation Room entry records. With his operational knowledge, he could help right her direction if she went off on a tangent, something easy to do with the sheer volume of information. After listening to several successive rounds of huffs and puffs and groans, Six circled around to Sunnie’s desk. He’d seen her from time to time while visiting J.J. back when he and she were still an item. He knew that J.J. thought highly of her even though many other agents didn’t. In his eyes, J.J.’s endorsement was the only one she needed.

He poked his head around her cubicle wall to find her face down in between two heaping piles of computer printouts. In fact, her desk was no longer visible beneath the ordered chaos.

“Everything okay over here?” Six asked.

“No,” Sunnie didn’t budge to glance up and her voice was muffled. “Who are you?”

“Six. I’m on the task force with Agent McCall….J.J.”

She popped up her head and turned to him.

“What’s the problem? Maybe I can help,” Six said.

“The problem is I’ve been staring at these printouts for twenty hours and I still feel like there’s a major gap in my analysis.”

“I’ve reviewed everything. You and Walter have done a pretty thorough analysis, especially given the volume of data you had to contend with.”

“It’s not good enough for J.J.,” Sunnie said. “If she were here, she’d be filling my head full of metaphors right now…like leave no stone unturned. If you fall off the bike, brush yourself off and try again. Or maybe, it’s the last key in the box that opens the lock.”

“You forgot, fall down seven times, stand up eight. Listen, maybe a break will do you some good. Care to join me in the cafeteria for a cup of coffee or a snack?”

“Snack?” She perked up. “Now you’re talking my language. I’ll walk with you.”

She led the way out of the office and through the busy halls as employees prepared to depart into the afternoon rush.

“So,” Six began, “how do you like working with Tony and J.J.?”

She shrugged. “It’s cool,” Sunnie said. “But we both know that’s not what you really want to ask me. What you really want to know is whether they are happy together.”

“Are they?” 

Sunnie started walking. “That’s none of my business…or yours for that matter. But if I had a man who looked like
him
, there are no fewer than a zillion other things I could do with my time than find reasons to be unhappy. But maybe that’s just me.”

“Touché,” he said. “She ever mention me?”

“Yeah, usually when discussing the death penalty and contract killers.”

She stopped abruptly in her footsteps, snapped her fingers, and muttered the word, “
Contract
.”

She’d had an epiphany.