The Bigot List: (A J.J. McCall Novel) (26 page)

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 polygraphist’s 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 collarbone 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 the 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.”

“It’s Mike…sorry,
Mike
.” Tony said his name aloud for J.J.’s sake. “We were getting a briefing from our star analyst,” he said, winking at Sunnie. “What’s up?”

There was a few minutes of silence before Tony yelled, “Fucking rat!” He 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 Mikhaylova. Mikhaylova. 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…I’m squinting to see the house numbers, but I can barely make them out. The house is set back forty feet from the curb. I can’t really . . .”

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

There was a long silence before he said, “How’d you guess?”

Another silence.

“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?”

“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 sinkhole 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 they 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 packed lanes, 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 coursed 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. 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. He pulled away and rammed him again. The sound of shattered glass and metal scraped and grated against the rail, emitting deafening screeches. 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 feeling rush of air against his face. “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, uhhh, 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. She’d made her escape. “Now?”

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

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.”