by S. D. Skye
“Vorobyev? Why?”
“Your mole, he passed information in an emergency drop last night which implicated Vorobyev…instead of me. Golikov plans to kill Vorobyev when he returns to Moscow this Friday, along with Viktor. It’s all my fault.” His voice trailed off. Knowing his past, she could sense the guilt. It was almost palpable.
Son of a bitch! She screamed in her head. Just as she suspected, the mole was indeed getting desperate, and his mistake was too close for comfort. Of all the intelligence officers in the residency, he nailed the guy only one position away from her source.
But why implicate a declared officer who’d never cooperated with the FBI?
J.J. struggled to figure out why he fingered Dmitriyev. If she could, it might lead her to his identity. J.J. shuddered at the thought of the repercussions, the chaos, both inside the FBI and the Agency. Moscow Station must be reeling.
“Agent McCall. Are you still there?”
“Oh...I’m sorry. Yes. Just trying to figure out why the mole would implicate Vorobyev, that’s all. He’s never worked for us and he’s declared. Doesn’t make sense. Have Golikov’s people gotten to him?” she asked as her mind whirled. If her suspicions were accurate and the mole had access to the vault, he had seen or overheard something.
“Yes, but he’s still alive. Barely. The mole offered no proof, no additional information. He just provided a name, said you recruited Vorobyev, and mentioned something about ‘three days.’ And, of course, Vorobyev denied cooperation, but Golikov’s people are trained not to believe the truth. He and Viktor will be killed together when Vorobyev returns to Moscow on Friday. We have to do something before then. We simply must,” he implored.
“Hmmm. Three days?” J.J. asked. She half listened to Dmitriyev as she wracked her brain. Who could’ve been in the position to snitch on Vorobyev? She and Tony hadn’t spoken of Dmitriyev around anyone. Except in J.J.’s apartment, her car and . . . Could he have overheard their conversation? But as she recalled she purposely did not mention Dmitriyev’s name, even in the privacy of Jack’s office. The privacy of Jack’s office...
“I’ll. Be. Damned!” J.J. yelled.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry. I just—I think I know what happened.” She slapped her forehead.
“Agent McCall . . .”
“I’m sorry. Got distracted for a moment.”
“I hate to complicate this situation further but you are well aware of my past. I could not in good conscience continue to cooperate with you if Vorobyev suffers or is killed because of my crimes. Besides, since Vorobyev was detained, Golikov’s people have taken control of the case. It would be a great risk to attempt to access it.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I can’t assist you. At least not you clear my brother and Vorobyev and Golikov’s people stand down.”
On her list of shit she didn’t want to happen, she never considered losing her key source as an option. One step forward, two steps back.
“Obviously, your position is disappointing, but how could I not understand with everything that happened to you and Plotnikov?” she said. However calculated, her empathy was sincere. The more concern she expressed for his personal safety, the more loyal he’d be over the long-term. But at the moment, her patience had thinned. “I’ll figure out a way to make this right.”
Strikes fucking number three and four.
Again, she nearly asked what more could go wrong. But the universe always answered in exasperatingly troublesome ways. Now she not only needed to identify and arrest the mole, but also clear Plotnikov and Vorobyev. While she admired Dmitriyev’s concern for his comrade, he had seriously monkey-wrenched an already impossible situation.
“Can you share any information that might help me help you and them? I gotta tell you, we’re running on empty and we can’t do this without your help. We just can’t,” she said, exaggerating to milk from him as much information possible.
“Well, I glimpsed two things in his file before I handed them over this morning. One, the mole supposed to be making another drop Thursday morning. He requested a payment immediately. Normally, we’d verify the information before requesting authorization for such action, but because his intelligence has been so invaluable, the Center agreed to pay him half.”
“What’s half?”
“Based on the information he usually provides, my guess is the payment will probably be somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000. But it could be more, could be less.”
More than my salary, she thought. Perhaps I should consider a change of professions.
“Where’s the drop location?”
“Rock Creek Park. They took the file before I had time to view the exact drop time and location. But one of Golikov’s people will be retrieving the package to avoid any future compromises.”
“Sheesh, do you know how big that park is? We’ll need every G east of the Mississippi to cover down on the location if we want to catch him,” she said. Then another idea struck her. One that might get them they help they needed. “If you overhear any information on the location at all, I need to you to text me from the throw away cell I gave you, and it’s critical that you throw it away.”
“Okay, I will try my best.” He paused for a moment. “Listen, I must hurry back to the embassy but there is one more piece of information that might interest you.”
Chapter 34
Wednesday Afternoon…
J.J. waited anxiously for Dmitriyev to deliver the additional piece of information she hoped would help her break the case once and for all.
“The mole, he’s part of a joint operation that counterintelligence has been working with illegals support for at least the last six or seven years...maybe longer.”
“Counterintelligence working jointly with illegals support?” she said. It was an FBI agent’s nightmare. Tactically, they were the hardest targets to work against—one cunning and the other elusive, a tough combination. “Wait a minute. That’s why Aleksandr Mikhaylov is one of the handlers.” She stated her suspicions as fact to see whether Dmitriyev would confirm or deny. She’d believed he was dirty from the moment he came into the country and his ability to shake the Gs and operate almost entirely in the black confirmed her suspicions.
“Ahhhh, I’m impressed,” he said. “Yes, he is the primary handler and has been since day one. Apparently, the asset dropped a note in Mikhaylov’s car window to establish the first contact years ago. We’ve been working them jointly because the illegals support operational line is short on officers and Mikhaylov is nearing the end of his second and possibly last tour.”
“That’s odd,” she said. “The mole is FBI so he should’ve been passed off to your counterintelligence department…to you.”
“Correct,” he said. “These circumstances are very unusual indeed. The Center always has its reasons. I’m still unaware of what they are.”
When their call ended, J.J. questioned whether the mole had a specific reason for approaching Mikhaylov or happened across his open car window by coincidence. It seemed highly unlikely that the incident was mere happenstance, as might be the case with someone who doesn’t know Russian intelligence—but not with an experienced FBI agent. No, the mole selected Mikhaylov—the illegals support officer—for a reason.
Illegals, Russian intelligence officers under the deepest covers, came to the United States from friendly, benign foreign countries, such as Canada. They then sought U.S. citizenship and sensitive government positions, usually communicated with US-based Russian intelligence officers or the Center through the most covert means—dead drops, coded and encrypted communications transmissions. She questioned what would prompt the mole to place a letter in Mikhaylov’s car. Some kind of personal relationship? The notion, while far-fetched, was certainly worth considering.
Dmitriyev’s call had sparked more questions than it answered. But two things were certain: First—she and Tony needed to devise a plan to save Karat and Vor
obyev’s hides if they wanted maintain access to Dmitriyev. Second—they needed to consider the possibility that the mole could be an illegal. And if indeed one of J.J.’s colleagues from the vault was involved, personnel files might contain critical answers. If J.J. and Tony could stop putting out fires long enough to ask Sunnie to review them, the information may tie one of the bigot listed personnel to a friendly foreign country. Then they could arrest the son of a bitch once and for all.
The pressure mounted, and the sky rained confusion, and J.J. began to fold emotionally. Tony couldn’t expect her to keep her promise under these circumstances.
She reached under the passenger seat, grabbed her flask, and checked to make sure the coast was clear before taking a long sip of her savior. She sat still and waited for that moment, the moment when it smoothed the edges on her crumpled nerves.
She slipped the container under the seat, pushed the key into the ignition and put the car into gear. BAM! She ran into the telephone pole ahead of her.
“Damn!”
She had meant to put the car in reverse, but put it in drive instead. She jolted her forward in her seat, slamming her knee against the lower edge of the dash. Nothing seemed broken except her front fender, no doubt, but her knee ached like hell. The ensuing adrenaline rush made her hand tremble like the oak leaf she spotted drifting in the strong fall wind.
As if her luck couldn’t get any worse, a Prince George’s County Police officer, on duty and in uniform, stepped out of the carry-out with a bag of Chinese just in time to witness the entire incident. He was headed for her car.
Shit!
• • •
Later at Headquarters
J.J. met Tony to devise a solution to their new problem—Vorobyev—as well as solve the lingering ones. He reserved a conference room in his old White Collar Crime unit on the fifth floor at her request. If her suspicions were correct, the mole had placed a listening device in the office, probably Jack’s office. No conversation was safe until they located and removed it.
When she limped into the cramped room, their Xerox copy of Plotnikov’s real case files were sprawled across the table as Tony eyed her with concern.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“I, uhhh, put the car in drive when I meant to put it in reverse. P.G. cop saw the whole thing, but I played blond. He didn’t cite me.”
He jumped out of his seat and swept to J.J.’s side, pulling a chair out so she could sit down. Then he took the adjacent seat and waited for her eyes to meet his, but she avoided his gaze.
“J.J., you weren’t drinking, were you? If you get a DUI, they’ll snatch your badge, you know that, right?” he urged.
“I was fine, Tony. It was just a stupid mistake, one that I’ll never make again. I was distracted and lost focus. Now, can we please get down to business? We don’t have time for lectures.”
He nodded, eying her skeptically.
Without haste, J.J. brought him up to speed on the day’s events. Dmitriyev had given her an earful about Vorobyev and Karat, the mole’s next drop, and the potential illegals connection, which stumped them both.
“So, why’d you ask to meet here? I hadda pull a few strings to borrow this space,” he said.
“Well, if my suspicions are correct...”
“And they usually are,” he interjected.
“The mole planted a bug somewhere in our office, I suspect Jack’s office. That’s the only place where you and I discussed Dmitriyev without specifically mentioning his name.”
“A bug in headquarters?” Tony appeared dumbfounded by the accusation. He leaned forward, waiting for J.J.’s explanation.
“Remember the conversation we had in Jack’s office when I told you we’d have the answers to nail the bastard in three days?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s assume the mole overheard me, which I believe he did. I never mentioned Dmitriyev by name. I called him ‘our friend’ and mentioned that, in three days, he would have the information we needed to nail the mole.”
“Right. I’m with you.”
“Well, if the mole checked to see what was happening in the embassy within the next three days, he would’ve found out that Vorobyev was departing, then he wrongly assumed that I was referring to Vorobyev—not Dmitriyev.”
“Wow,” Tony said, his frustration obvious. “We’ve got to get in there later tonight and locate it. Only someone in the unit would’ve had access to Jack’s office.”
“Exactly.”
She grabbed an old photocopy Plotnikov’s real case files from the table and flipped it open. The page containing the list of operational locations in Rock Creek Park that she’d compiled over the years was located near the back. “So now we gotta figure out a way to clear Vorobyev and Karat, not only to save their lives but to ensure Dmitriyev will maintain contact with us. He’s too valuable a source to lose,” J.J. said.
“How the hell are we gonna pull that off? Walk up to the embassy and tell Golikov’s people they got the wrong guy because the FBI said so? I mean c’mon.”
“If only the answer were that simple,” J.J. nodded her head. She pushed her fingers through her hair, scratched the scalp as if doing so would stimulate her brain. “I got nothin’. I mean that idea’s about as crazy as getting the mole to say, ‘My bad! I made a mist—.”
She cut herself off, her eyes widened.
“What?”
“That’s it! That’s the solution! Even when you’re not brilliant, you’re brilliant.”
Chapter 35
J.J. swept out of her chair and flounced around the room. Deep in thought, she tapped her finger against her lips. But could this plan really work? She shook her head no. It was too difficult, too many pieces had to fall in place, especially at a time when every step forward was always followed by two steps backward. Then again, what was the alternative? Let Vorobyev and Plotnikov die? Lose Dmitriyev? Probably wouldn’t work, but they had to try.
“What...what is it?”
“The drop. That’s the answer, don’t you see?” she said. “If the mole tells the Russians that the information implicating Vorobyev was part of a big set-up, an internal FBI investigation to flush out ICE Phantom, they’ll believe him, call off Golikov’s dogs, and Vorobyev will be cleared.”
“Keep going. I like the sound of your idea so far.” Tony folded his arms over his chest. “But I’m anticipatin’ one tiny little problem? How do you propose we get the mole, whom we haven’t actually identified yet, to confess all of this to the Russians…as if he ever would.”
“I’m getting to that part,” she said impatiently, rushing to make sense of her own thoughts. “We don’t. We switch the drop. And, in our package, we include a note from the mole clearing Vorobyev. They’re typewritten. We don’t have to worry about handwriting.”
“You mean the same drop that’s happening in the location we don’t know and at a time that we also don’t know?”
“Okay, Mr. Glass Half Empty.”
“J.J., it’s freakin’ empty. No other way to see it.”
“Yes, there is, if we get our shit together and speak to SAC McDonald, pronto!” J.J. said, referring to the Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field Office. “We’ll ask him for as many G teams as he’ll authorize to blanket that park.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Listen, all intelligence services pretty much use the same tradecraft and I’ve been through every square inch of the park. I’ve located all the best operational spots. We’ll post the Gs in those locations and pray we get the right one. Unless you have another idea?”
He shook his head no. “Not bad, not bad at all, McCall,” he said. “But what about Karat? And what are we going to use for passage material? They’re going to be expecting some valuable counterintelligence information not the crap we give up in double agent operations.”
“True,” J.J. said, moving about nervously. She sat down then stood up again and resumed pacing then blew out a lo
ng breath and threw up her hands in resignation. “We have no choice. Double agent passage material will have to do. It’s crap, but I don’t see any other—”
“What?”
“Wait a minute!” Her face beamed. “You ever play chess?”
“Yeah, what the hell’s ‘at got to do with anything?”
“It’s the last thing Cartwright said to me before he died. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the pawn to get the king.”
“Sacrifice the pawn?” Tony asked as he watched J.J. whir around the room. “The question is who’s the pawn in this scenario?”
“Karat,” she said.
“Wait! You’re suggesting we give up Karat…to save Karat?”
She nodded.
“Have you been drinking again?” he said. His face reddened. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, J.J. We’ve been jumping through our asses to save this man’s neck for years and now you want to rat him out to the Russians?”
“Yes…and no,” she said, a smile emerging on her face. “For drop material, we’re going to give the Russians his entire Top Secret operational file, from beginning to end.”
Tony ran his fingers through his hair. “You mean, you want to give up this file?”
“Hell, no,” she said, waiting to see light dawn on Marblehead.
“Then I don’t under—” His eyes widened.
“By George, I think he’s got it! Now, while I start mapping out the strategy, you call Sunnie and tell her to leave the file in your desk. She’s got vault access.”
• • •
J.J. and Tony worked tirelessly through the evening. Their justification to conduct the op and request the G support had to be rock solid. They’d broken every rule and bypassed every Bureau regulation in the book. The bureaucratic red tape they hurdled was too long to be measured in miles. No time to get the proper authorizations. One boss was dead, another in jail, and one of their colleagues was spying for the Russians. She’d reasoned they had a pretty good case for taking the more circuitous route to solving this case.