Spy Catcher: The J.J. McCall Novels (Books 1-3) (The FBI Espionage Series) (81 page)

Chapter 34

Tuesday — U.S. Embassy, Moscow

Six sat on his bed feeling dejected after his fruitless visit with Mosin. He’d spent the better part of ten hours scouring Moscow, searching every place intelligence reporting had indicated Mosin visited to find the missing intel—and still came up empty-handed. He glanced at the calendar; they had only four days left before the stand-down, and he had only two days before Ghost and his crew collected Mosin. Resigned to give up questioning Mosin about the intel’s location, he set out to find another path to the truth.

Wracking his brain, he’d convinced himself he had missed something. A clue somewhere that would help him achieve his mission—he’d never failed in one and refused to do so now. Perhaps the answer would arrive with the FBI’s computer forensics report, but he couldn’t depend on the findings with any certainty. He had no idea what contents were on the hard drive. Furthermore, despite his trash talking to Mosin, the Bureau might not even have the capability to break the encryption. And even if, by some miracle, they did accomplish that feat before Friday, he’d still need time to sift through the information and find the missing piece to the puzzle. He needed to identify another option.

Six reached into his nightstand drawer and pulled out the pocket litter he’d retrieved from Mosin’s pants—a medical prescription and a receipt from a tattoo parlor. He read them both but never thought much of either before; his mind was bogged down in distractions. Thought perhaps Mosin needed to obtain medicine before traveling. People did it all the time. But as he studied the writing, he noticed the doctor prescribed antibiotics. He glanced at the doctor’s name and location.
Odd
, he thought. The National Institute of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda? Why would a fugitive on the run from the FBI, and defecting to Russia no less, stop at NIH for some service requiring an antibiotic?

Six rushed to his laptop and Googled Dr. Dharmesh Badal, the prescribing physician. His eyes bulged when he read his specialty.

Are you kidding?

Six gazed at the wall, his vision blurring and refocusing in cycles as his thoughts materialized and congealed in his mind.

It all made sense now. Mark would think him out of his gourd without some hard evidence…and there was only one way to get the information yesterday, which was when he needed it. He’d skip the bureaucratic red tape and get some help to poke a proverbial a thumb in Dr. Badal’s eye.

He started to call J.J. but contacting her three days in a row might start to appear suspicious. Yes, he wanted to hear her voice every day, but his request was business in the strictest terms. Besides, he wanted to tread carefully. After all, J.J. had a history of running when the pressure turned up too high…and not just in a literal sense. He sent a text to her instead containing Dr. Badal’s address and office number. He asked if she could tap one of the agents at Washington Field to interview him.

She replied before he sat down his cell phone.

                                        
 
I’ll get Hopper on this today!

He had a lot of work to do if this lead panned out. He’d need to contact the State Department pronto. His biggest problem was Ghost.

Will he go for it?

Six didn’t know, but the power in Ghost’s world was about to take a dramatic shift in Six’s favor—whether he liked it or not.

First on his list—a come-to-Jesus meeting with Mark Levin, the Station Chief. Confessing they’d caught Mosin and held him in custody for days would choke down much easier with news of the intel’s location.             

When he stepped inside Mark’s office with his report, the boss was head-down in paperwork. Intelligence reports as far as the eye could see from Reports Officers submitting their write-ups for final review. Six could tell by the typeface.

“What’s going on? I’m pretty busy as you can see.”

Six shut the door behind him and sat down, grim-faced. His head was bowed, and hands folded as if confessing his sins.

Mark sat back in his chair. “Uh-oh. What’d you do now?”

Six explained every event in excruciating detail, the pain emanating less from his physical being and more from the lack of transparency. Then he went on to detail his theory on the intel’s location and present his findings in a report.

Mark scanned the pages. “I’m not even going to discuss the problematic way in which you and Ghost handled this op…but I’m not certain I’d have taken a different route under the circumstances.” Mark spun his chair toward the window and looked outside. Six had given him a lot of food for thought. “You understand what this means, don’t you? It’s a significant risk.”

“Yes, but a calculated one we’ve got to be willing to take. Otherwise, why are we here? Why do we wake up every day claiming we’re defending our country and keeping it safe if we don’t have the balls to man-up when it matters most? And right now, this matters. Take any other course of action, and we’re not doing our jobs.”

Mark turned to his desk and leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. Then he steepled his fingers and pressed the tips against his lips. After a few tense moments of silence, he said. “You’ve got authorization. I’ll provide the top cover. Let’s stick it to this son of a bitch once and for all.”

Six smiled. Mark had made the right decision. Ghost might balk, but Six was running the op now.

“Hey,” Mark said as Six turned to leave. “Not so fast. We’ve still got a problem on our hands. Another panicked phone call from Stan. The emergency line. Said he called from a payphone but I don’t trust any unsecured Russian communications channel. I’m afraid if we don’t devise a strategy to infiltrate him into the embassy within the next few days, the FSB will roll him up.”

Six clenched his eyes shut for a moment and bit his bottom lip.

“You talk about keeping our country safe? All eyes are on Russia. Every press agency from here to Timbuktu has media in the region waiting to see what kind of crazy Putin will concoct next. How many sources do you think we’ll recruit if we let Stan die with half the world watching? If you don’t have any ideas, you better come up with one—fast!”

Six turned around and returned to his seat. “I’ve been wracking my brain. Never thought it’d be this hard to exfil a dead man.”

Mark shook his head chuckled. “Yeah, somebody should’ve told him dead men must wear disguises…at all times.”

“If we attempt a covert op and get caught, not only will we screw ourselves, we’ll blow our NOC. Fifteen years down the shitter. We’ll never get a cover that good again.”

Mark stood up, walked to the office window, and stared at the embassy personnel pressing through the cold on the way to their morning grinds. “I suppose we could back channel it with the FSB. Tell them the truth. Make a spy trade in exchange for getting him out as part of a deal. There must be someone they want released.”

Six shook his head. “Not a bad idea except they got everyone they wanted in the illegals trade. Who would we give them? The only person we’re holding that even approaches Stan’s level is Hanssen. The FBI would sooner blow up Supermax than turn him over.”

Mark pursed his lips. “True…”

Six eyes widened, and his posture perked up. “But, what you said…you know, the truth may not be a bad idea.” He remembered his conversation with J.J.
Show them what they want to see.

Mark’s face snapped toward him. “What are you talking about?”

Six stared at Mark in silence, examining every inch of his face, the gears in his mind spinning at breakneck speeds. “Come with me.”

Six led him to the secure vault where the station kept the disguises. He placed a men’s, short-cut brunette wig on Mark’s head and looked at his face again. “No, the shape of your chin and jaw is all wrong. I need to find someone else.”

He scanned the long line of file safe’s lining the wall and walked to the one furthest from him. He spun the combination and pulled the latch to open the drawer. Inside, he found the album containing photos of all American personnel posted to the embassy. He rested the book on top of the safe and, in feverish sweeps, flipped the pages until he found the picture-perfect candidate.

“Come here,” he said, waiting on Mark to join him. “Him. That’s who I need to get this done.”

Mark glared down at the book and then back at Six as if he’d grown a unicorn head with a bedazzled horn. “Slayton McCarthy? Have you taken your medication this morning?”

“Somebody once told me, ‘what the eyes see, and the ears hear, the Russians believe.”

“And?”

“Let’s show them what they want to see, tell them what they want to hear—and then watch them squirm when they find out they’re wrong,” Six said, pointing at the dignified figure in the photo. He’d never noticed before, but with a little more gray in his hair and a shaved mustache….

Mark groaned under his breath. “This is either the stupidest idea that I’ve ever heard…or it’ll earn you a medal.”

“Time will tell…but I don’t see any other way….not a
better
one, anyway.”

“Keeping it real, I’m not sure whether this will work but it’s brilliant. We’ve got to get Director and White House approval. Jesus. We’ve never attempted an operation of this magnitude before. Say a few Hail Marys,” Mark said before turning away. Then he stopped in his tracks and turned back to Six. “My only question is…where in hell are we going to plant the information so the SVR can steal it?”

“Oh, that’s the easy part,” Six said. “In the White House.”

Mark’s eyebrows drew together.

“The hard part will be getting Slayton to agree…and making sure the timing is right.”

Mark chuckled. “Oh, that’s not hard. It’s impossible.”

Six set his mind to contact J.J. They needed help from within the Russian Embassy in Washington to make this operation work. And with J.J. in New York, there was only one way to task the source. He had to go through Washington Field—Hopper Mack.

Chapter 35

Tuesday Morning — New York City

Interviewing Zory Kozlov had revealed one key piece of information—he’s not the official accountant and he had no access to the financial records. They’d been chasing a ghost for days and still didn’t know the identity of the actual target. He revealed that the answer could be found in the evidence collected from the van. After examining each piece, they found—nothing.

“Well,” J.J. said, turning to Tony. “Does your butt feel smoky? Because I’m beginning to suspect our friend, Zory, blew a bunch of it up our asses. Nothing’s here…except
nothing
.”

“Maybe he was dicking with us to get us to back off.”

J.J. pressed her lips together. “Maybe. But seems like a ridiculous strategy…to piss off the people holding your future in their hands. There’s gotta be something we’re missing.” She lifted the pages from the table with her gloved fingers and examined them front and back. “This is some bullshit, okay? I don’t have time for —”

Tony peered up at her. “For what?”

J.J. snapped her back straight against the chair and held the page up to the light. “He said just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“And?”

“If something is present, but you can’t see it…”

“It’s…
invisible
?” Tony piped in.

“Invisible, indeed. Such as ink? The tradecraft is old but simpler than using complicated codes and calculations. And if the Feds or the cops picked them up, the blank pages would appear to be little more than scraps of trash.”

Tony glanced over her shoulder and locked his eyes on the paper. “How do we find out?”

“Invisible ink usually requires some type of agent, depending on the kind of ink. Sometimes, UV light works, but what drug courier drives around with a UV light on hand. Maybe heat will do it. Check with the evidence tech to see if we can get a desk lamp.”

Moments later, Tony reappeared with one in hand. J.J. grabbed it from his grip and plugged it into the nearest wall. She held the paper over the light until the letters begin to form.”

“Well, isn’t this peachy? All written in Cyrillic.”

“Great. Got to be a Russian speaker somewhere in this office. Let’s check with Manny and see.”

As they entered the squad bay doors, a voice called from a distance. “J.J., Devin Fitzpatrick needs to see you in his office. Right now. He’s been trying to call. It’s an emergency.”

J.J. pulled out her cell phone and glanced at the screen. “Piece of crap phone. I haven’t been able to keep a strong signal since I got here. Better go find out what this is about. Hope he’s not ripping me a new one for the busted op…again.”

“Oh, yeah,” the agent called. “Tony, he said you should go, too. It affects both of you.”

They exchanged uncomfortable glances and pressed forward to Fitzpatrick’s office.

From the minute she set foot across the doorway and locked her eyes on his face, she could see
bad news
written all over it. Her mind raced. She feared Director Freeman had taken a turn for the worse. Maybe even her family. She braced herself and said a quick prayer.

He waved his hand, gesturing for them to come inside. “Shut the door behind you and have a seat.”

“What’s this about?” J.J. said, anxiousness permeating her voice. “Is my family okay?”

“Yes, yes. All is well on the home front, at least to my knowledge. No, this concerns
you
.”

“Okay,” she said, her curiosity piqued. She looked at Tony with a concerned expression and then back at Fitzpatrick. “What’s going on?”

“One of our narcotics undercovers passed a message to me today. It’s the Russians…they’ve put an open contract on your head.”

“On me?” she said, bolting forward in her seat and gripping the chair arms. “And by
contract
, you mean—” 

“Yes. They’re hiring the first taker to kill you. Two million. And the word on the street is someone has accepted. I was afraid this might happen.”

Her expression distressed, J.J. turned to Tony. Even when he saved her from Lana’s bullet, she’d never seen genuine fear in his eyes the way she did at that moment. Maybe because he’d been born into a world where if someone put out a contract on your life, you died; she wasn’t surprised, nor was she comforted.

“Do you think they’re serious? I mean, do you believe they want me dead…or are they just trying to scare me into hiding?”

“Both. But make no mistake about it—two million qualifies as we-want-you-dead money. Generally, we might see $250K or a half mill. Not two million,” he said.

He stood up, walked to the front of his desk and took a seat on the corner. “Italians won’t take it. Killing an agent is bad for business. The Russians, though, they are the coldest, most ruthless sons of bitches I’ve ever worked against. When they have a vendetta, they become hell-bent on making their enemies pay. We’re lucky the contract targeted you…and not your entire family.”

“Shit,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. She kept a calm exterior but felt dizzy, off-balance as if she had a case of vertigo. Her vision seemed to double. Her world had been unsteadied.

A contract.

While her aggressive investigations had landed her in hot water in the past, she never for a second believed they’d land her in a grave.

“I don’t think it’s going to be enough for you to lay low. My advice to you is to return to D.C. and take a few weeks off until this all blows over. Once you’re out of New York, I think you’ll be safer. Not safe, mind you, but better off than you are staying here.”

All sound in the room disappeared. Tony, Fitzpatrick—they vanished. J.J. stood alone between her past and her future. What should she do? Return to D.C. Shrink and hide like a coward—or do her job. Fitzpatrick’s opinion meant little to her. He’d been giving her grief since she arrived. Every time she attempted to make a move, he threw up more walls than the Chinese. He’d be thrilled to see her leave whimpering and wounded with her tail tucked between her legs.

As a sign of his misfortune, J.J. had never been one for shrinking.

She thought about her life, her family. Fighter’s blood ran through her veins, deep red, hot, and valorous. Her mother, her father, they never backed down from a challenge. When she was in elementary school, fifth grade, a knuckleheaded boy named Ralph bullied J.J. for months. To her it seemed God put him on Earth to make her life miserable. Every day, jokes about her dark skin, her thin frame, the height which made her tower over most kids in her class. He pushed her, knocked her books out of her hand, pulled her hair. She took each denigrating act with grace. Then, one day, he went one Yo’ Mamma joke too far. She snapped. Leaped across the desk and pulverized this boy, taller and bigger than she. Mrs. Campbell marched her down to the main office, her hair wild, her knuckles bruised and scraped. The principal made her call her mother at work and confess her sins. J.J.’s hands shook as she dialed the number. Her fingers and lips trembled like leaves in the fall wind. She explained the entire story to her mother…the bullying, the meanness, the constant picking away at her peace. After a moment of silence, her mother asked one question…and only one question.

“Did you win?”

J.J. smiled proudly and said, “Yes.”

“That’s my girl,” she said. “We’ll talk when you get home.”

The Russians were welcomed to pick a fight with her if they wanted. At the end of the day, there’d be one man standing—a woman. FBI Special Agent J.J. McCall.

“I’m not going anywhere until I’ve accomplished what I came here to do. My mother always taught me never to pick a fight, but if someone brought one to my door, stomp the shit out of them. Make sure they walked away scared ever to bring another. I arrived in New York with my stomping boots on. So, if you’ll excuse me...”

“J.J., wait!” Tony pleaded, asking her to listen with a level of reason she couldn’t muster in that or any moment.

“Tony…” she said, trying to be understanding but firm. “I’ll be careful…vigilant, but no one will ever make me run. The faster you help me wrap up this case, the faster we can return to headquarters—on our own terms.”

Tony turned to the squad supervisor, his expression pained, and thanked him for his time before dragging J.J. into the hall.

“J.J., this isn’t a game. It’s serious, okay? I think you should reconsider your decision to stay. Go back to headquarters.”

“You give me one good reason
I
should leave—and
you
shouldn’t.”

Tony stammered, trying to find the words to convince her. He no doubt believed the circumstances surrounding their contracts were different but not in her eyes. Besides, they were so close to wrapping up the case they’d be gone in a few days regardless.

“Let’s find a Russian speaker. Once we get the translation, we’ll visit Zory and end this thing once and for all. Oh, and I need to research Zory’s tattoo. The meaning could help us figure out a way to get through to him.” Her eyes fell upon his troubled expression. “Listen, you’re worried about me, just like I worried about you. But I trusted you to handle yourself. Now, I’m asking you to do the same for me.”

He pinched his lips together and grimaced. “Fine,” he said. “But I’m not letting you out of my sight.”