The Bigot List: (A J.J. McCall Novel) (5 page)

Thursday Afternoon…

“U
hhh, heads up everybody. Plotnikov has departed the main building,” Jake said. “But he’s not alone—and his hands are full.”

“I don’t even understand why J.J.’s so pressed to watch this guy. He’s a nobody,” Jiggy complained, speaking freely because J.J. and Tony were in the vault. “I could be at home catching up on the
Young and the Restless
.”

Jake let out a strained chuckled and hopelessly watched his mark. The counterintelligence operational line chief for Washington’s Russian intelligence residency escorted Plotnikov from the residential wing to his diplomatic vehicle and jumped into the driver’s seat. “Well, J.J. doesn’t have to worry about Golikov’s people or counterintelligence
following
him. Aleksey Dmitriyev is his fucking chauffeur.” 

“What the hell?” Jiggy said. “Plotnikov can’t meet our guy with a counterintelligence guy in the car. I mean, aren’t these the guys who tortured and shot spies working for the FBI?” 

“Correct,” Jake said. “And it looks like they’re carrying luggage.”

Dmitriyev had two jobs in the residency: one—recruit American intelligence personnel willing to collect classified American intelligence and sell it to the Russians; and two—prevent Russian embassy personnel from cooperating with American intelligence. With Dmitriyev at his side, Plotnikov could do nothing except buckle his seatbelt and enjoy the ride.

When the words “leaving with luggage” finally processed through the team’s minds, murmurings bubbled across the airwaves.

“Wait a minute,” Jiggy said, interrupting the chatter. “You said luggage. As in suitcases?”

“No. As in suitcases,” Jake replied. “Something wrong with your English today?”

“Could be comms equipment.” Jiggy said, apparently trying to avoid any thought of the worst-case scenario.

“I doubt it,” Jake said. “Shit! J.J. and Tony are in the vault and I don’t have the number to the bat phone. Should I stay with them or abort?” Jake hoped Jiggy would suggest aborting the op. What purpose would going through the motions serve?

“We should be asking you—Obi Wan,” Jiggy replied.

“I’m thinking no way he’s gonna make the meet with a security officer in the car.”

“That may be true, but I say we stick to Plotnikov like honey to a bee’s ass no matter what,” Jiggy said. “I refuse to be the one to tell J.J. we dropped coverage and don’t know what happened to the mark.”

“Good point,” Jake said.

The gates opened. Jake peered into his targets’ car through his Steiner binoculars. Embroiled in a heated discussion, Dmitriyev didn’t bother scanning for surveillance which meant he didn’t give a damn about the G presence or he knew he could evade them.

Jake made a mental note and prepared for the ride as he watched them pull through the exit gate. “Okay, team, they’re out. I’ve got the eye.”

Time to rock
, Jake thought.

Dmitriyev’s vehicle approached a stop sign at the corner of Tunlaw and Calvert Road, a few blocks from the embassy grounds. Jake pulled in behind them, using the three civilian cars he’d allowed to pull in front of him as cover.

“Traffic’s heavy,” Jake advised his team. “We shouldn’t be crappin’ our clothes during hairpin turns today. I’m heading east on Calvert. You in position, Jiggy? If I should lose him, you gotta pick him up.”

The team decided to use leapfrog surveillance, switching the eye among multiple cars posted in positions ahead of the lead eye—in this case Jake. The Russians would never see the same face, the same car. But Dmitriyev, a seasoned counterintelligence officer, would expect the Gs to be there whether he spotted the team or not.

“Copy that, Jake. I’m locked and loaded. Ready to roll,” Jiggy responded.

Minutes into the surveillance, Plotnikov’s arm pointed out the window toward a Starbucks on Wisconsin Avenue. He motioned Dmitriyev to pull over to the right. Once at the curb, Dmitriyev stopped and got out. When Jake radioed the status, the silence suggested the move had left everyone scratching their heads.

“Since when do counterintelligence guys hop out
for coffee? Something’s not right,” Jake said. “Get a shadow on him, so we can find out what the hell is going on in there. He knows we’re watching. Any other units nearby?”

“This may be a stretch, but any of y’all ever think he might be going in for a Caramel Macchiato?” Jiggy joked. “I’d pimp my sister for one right now. I’m just sayin’.”

They had no time for jokes, but everybody laughed.

“Jumping out! I’ve got this one,” Cham’s voice called out. She always took control when the boys lost focus.

Jake watched in his side-view mirror as she exited her vehicle and approached the store entrance.

By the time she reached the door, Dmitriyev had returned to the entrance with two steaming coffee cups in hand. He bowed his head at Jake before getting into the car, a provocation if he’d ever seen one.

Jake slammed his hand against his thigh, infuriated by Dmitriyev’s blatant smugness. With that, Jake authorized himself to cover more aggressively. He’d hug their bumper no matter what J.J. said.

Dmitriyev waited for a break in traffic and eased out, then exploded down Wisconsin Avenue. The Daytona 500 had slower starts. Jake reacted too late.

He’d been duped.

Dmitriyev made the stop as a ploy to draw out surveillance, and it worked.

Zigzagging in an out of traffic, Dmitriyev weaved through the streets like a fucking nutcase. Jake’s Charger engine roared, tires hugging the road as if on train rails. He tried to stay on Dmitriyev without breaking cover or killing an innocent bystander, but the pockets of stopped traffic and wayward pedestrians proved too much to avoid. As they approached the intersection at Wisconsin and R Streets, he saw her. A grandmother with a rolling walker and two kids at her side stepped into the crosswalk against the light.

“Noooo, get out the way!” he yelled, leaning forward on his steering wheel.

They moved onto the road. Only twenty feet ahead. Jake was going too fast.

Too fast.

SCREECH!

He slammed his brakes, fishtailed to a stop, and banged his hand against the steering wheel. Dmitriyev disappeared and left nothing in his wake except smoke and exhaust fumes.

Jake snatched his radio from the passenger seat. “I’ve lost him. I’ve lost him! He’s on fire. Headed down Wisconsin. Here we go people! Jiggy he’s less than two minutes away. Don’t lose him!”

“Dude, already? He beat you in the paint!”

Jiggy idled at the intersection of Wisconsin and O Street, a one-way street a few blocks down from where Dmitriyev smoked Jake. Jiggy’s itchy foot hovered over the gas pedal, waiting to slam and roll the minute his target appeared. No sooner than Jiggy spotted him, Dmitriyev careened over the horizon and hooked a right, barely avoiding a head-on collision with Jiggy’s vehicle.

“Shiiiiiit!” Jiggy yelled. “He turned! He turned!”

Dmitriyev’s car tilted as it spun onto the street. His hair-trigger move put the fear of God in Jiggy.

“Idiot! You almost side-swiped my door!” he yelled. Dmitriyev was long gone. “Damn! Too much traffic coming.”

He jerked his head left and right, looking for an out. Nothing opened up. Couldn’t make a U-turn fast enough. Change of plans. Jiggy decided to hook a right on Wisconsin Avenue. He’d catch him a block down, off P Street.

“Jiggy you got him? You got him? What’s goin’ on?” Jake yelled. He’d begun to sweat from his armpits, nervous.

Jiggy fumbled for his radio.
Damn, he was supposed to go straight
! he thought. He had selected the position on the one-way street explicitly so Dmitriyev couldn’t turn into him from Wisconsin Avenue. And that bastard did it anyway.

It’s almost as if he knew where I’d be sitting,
he thought.

“Damn! He’s in the wind! Gone.” Jiggy said, after wrapping his sweaty palms around his radio. “I think he’s headed south toward M Street. I’m gonna try to get turned around and catch up with him! Cham? Money T? Anybody else got eyes on?”

“Negative,” Cham replied. “We’re stuck at S Street. Dmitriyev ran the light and MPD rolled up behind us. If we pursued, we’d have gotten pulled over and lost him anyway. But I’ve got a hunch about where he may be headed. Money T and I are going south.”

Once traffic cleared, Jiggy circled back on the next block, accidentally blowing a stop sign. Dmitriyev’s car was nowhere in sight…but another was. Not two seconds later—
Whoop! Whoop!
The melodic stylings of the D.C. police sirens.

Son of a bitch!

Jiggy grabbed his radio. “Jake, what’s your twenty? I’ve got a big negatory on his location.”

Jake blew out a long hard breath. “I’m heading back to headquarters.”

“Don’t know what to tell you dude. I’ve got no idea in which direction he’s driving, and MPD just pulled me over. Dmitriyev drives like freakin’ Dale Earnhardt on crack and
I
get popped.”

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.” He went on to explain the painful details.

“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 meeting wasn’t gonna happen.” Jake threw up his hands. “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 into 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.”

“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. He’d been 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.