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

by Skye, S. D.

  “Out of the country, huh? When’s he due back?” Tony asked.

  His eyes shifted behind J.J., he wouldn’t make eye contact. “A week or two. I’m not sure. Should be...”

  “In the files. Got it. I’m pretty quick on the uptake.” In her mind, she rolled her eyes in disappointment. Sheldon was lying about something, but if Maddix Cooper was out of touch for any reason, the case would be stalled until his return.

  Sheldon glanced at the clock on the wall behind J.J. and paced quickly toward the door. He rapid fired, “I’ve got a meeting to get to, but here’s my number if you need anything else. You’ve got time before the files arrive to grab a cup of coffee or something and return here to review them in these empty cubicles. Call Kendel when you’re ready to leave for the day.”

  “Thanks, man,” Tony said to Sheldon’s vapors. He high-tailed out of there before they could blink. “Well, at least he was helpful.”

  “Was he?” She reached behind the desk counter, grabbed the handset from the desk phone, and dialed. The phone rang twice and voicemail picked up. “Sunnie, do me a favor? I need everything you can find on Maddix Cooper, including his travel itinerary, and see what you can dig up on Sheldon Vance, too.”

  “What was that all about?” Tony asked. “No, lemme guess. More of your women’s intuition.”

  “Don’t hate, Tony,” J.J. said, knowing Tony wished he had her gift. “Call me crazy, and I know you will, but my gut tells me Sheldon’s not exactly ‘keeping it one hundred’ if you get my drift. I aim to find out what he’s hiding.”

  Chapter 33

  Wednesday Morning—Irving Street

  4 Days Left…

  Santino’s stomach fluttered as he approached Lana’s door. He’d reminisced about their midnight liaison and the memory lingered with him into the dawn. He closed his eyes in the shower, and the scent of her hair overpowered him as if still swaying across his face in the midst of their passionate throes. He cringed as his emotions dragged him kicking and screaming to a place he had no desire to go, a place where he couldn’t stay even if he wanted to. Inside the recesses of his mind and the fragment of his heart still beating after Rosa, he recognized the upsurge of passion, the longing sensation threatening to drive him to distraction. Still he found himself drawn to her door. Once he peeked through the crack, there was no turning back—maybe not ever.

  “You packed yet?” Santino asked, his voice more animated than his expression. Truth was, he wanted her to stay, not forever but a little longer, until he’d had his fill. There was no hunger worse than craving more of a sweet fruit you could never taste again. “By my calculations, four days from now, I’ll be taking you to catch your slow boat to France. You packed yet?”

  “Are you kidding me? My entire life practically fits in my purse now. I can be packed before your stomach growls again.”

  He rubbed his abdomen. “You heard? Somehow I worked up a pretty big appetite. I was thinking, maybe we could get out of this hole for a while and go grab a bite,” he said. A boyish bashful expression seized his face. “I don’t know about you, but I’m becoming a hermit. I could use some air.”

  “Me too,” Lana answered. “But, uhhh, why don’t I cook breakfast here instead? I’m not big on restaurants these days.”

  “Ohhh, too many people, huh?”

  “No, last week I watched a 20/20 restaurant exposé where the cooks drop your food on the floor and waiters spit in your food,” she said making a hock spit noise.

  Santino frowned. “Ugh, thanks for the visual,” he said. “Way to help me work up an appetite.”

  Lana paused in silence and fell back on the bed, laughing deep from her belly. She laughed so hard she began snorting like a nerd, which made Santino collapse in laughter on the bed alongside her. His comment and her retort weren’t as funny as the levity would suggest; it just felt good to let loose, to live two minutes without the weight of the Cappi Merendino murder and the heat from Nicky Mumbles bearing down on him. As their chortles withered to quiet laughter and dissipated, Lana propped herself up on one elbow and looked down on Santino’s face. “Thank you,” she said. “I haven’t laughed so much since…since…”

  “Him, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Glad I could make you smile,” he said, “especially with all you’ve been through.”

  “No. Thank you. I needed that so much,” she said. “Listen, about last night…”

  He glanced at her with a confused expression. “I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s why your stomach sounds like a broken Harley.”

  “Ohhhh, that last night. Go ahead.”

  “Well, I’m very vulnerable and our…you know…was probably a mistake.” She laid her head on his chest and continued. “But I don’t care. Meeting you couldn’t have happened at a more perfect time and I can never thank you enough for what you’ve done.”

  “Oh, yes you can,” he said, his smile wry. The warm and fuzzy feelings of the moment hadn’t subsumed his memory; he was helping her largely because she was paying for his services. Even still, he continued, “I know we don’t have much time together, but whadaya say we make the best of the time we have left. Deal?”

  “Deal,” she said taking his hand in hers. “Now that we’ve got that settled…” She popped up from her seat, grabbed the ink pen and notepad resting on her dresser, and began to scribble feverishly.

  “You’re not writing up a contract, are you?” Santino asked.

  She didn’t respond until she finished and then handed him the sheet. “No. It’s the grocery list. The faster you pick up the food, the faster we lose the Harley.”

  He leaned over and pecked her on the cheek, before bolting up from the bed and preparing to leave. “You’re coming with me, right?”

  “Why? You need me to help you carry the bags?”

  “Ha ha.” He said with a fake laugh. “I’ll be back in a few.”

  Lana sat motionless, until the door shut. She jumped up peered out the window and watched until Santino’s car pulled off. Then, with her camera phone in hand, snuck into his bedroom, which he carelessly left unlocked. Already his instincts were off; he’d started slipping. She smirked smugly and began her search. She needed some insurance. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for, but she’d know when she spotted it.

  As she rummaged through his space, she was methodical about leaving everything more orderly than she found it. After checking the bed, she made it up, pulling the sheets tight and fluffing the pillows. As she ran her hands beneath the folded underclothes in his underwear drawer, she felt a thin stack of papers under her fingers. She pulled them out and sifted through each one by one.

  Old love letters from a woman—Rosa.

  The paper was wrinkled and worn as if he’d read them a thousand times. At the bottom of the stack was a Hudson Reporter newspaper article. The headline in the read, “Hoboken Woman Mowed Down by Drunk Driver.”

  Lana pulled the cell phone from her bra, snapped a picture, and returned the stack beneath his unmentionables, lining them up military style. She hated using email. The Service taught them that the FBI monitored communications like the Russian Security Services. That’s why Russian intelligence minimized the use of landline phones, electronic communications, and the postal service. They preferred the old ways, dead drops and face-to-face meetings in foreign countries. On a chair in the corner, she noticed the jeans he wore the day before.

  She lifted them, squeezed to check for pocket litter, and felt a large square bulge in the back pocket.

  His wallet.

  “Shit!” she yelped. Her hands quivered as she took the wallet in hand, folded the pants, and returned them to the chair. She spun around to return to her bedroom and screamed, “Oh my God!” She pressed her trembling palm over her pounding heart. “You scared me to death!”

  Santino hulked over her, seething with his face twisted in a scowl and his
fists balled. “What the hell are you doing in here?!”

  • • •

  Wednesday Morning – Surveillance Detail

  At o’dark thirty in the Surveillance Group Operations Center conference room, Kyle conducted his pre-op brief in front of a band of sleepy-eyed Gs chugging coffee like happy hour Budweisers. The pack of khaki-clad twenty- and thirty-somethings cast blank stares at the projector screen. He painstakingly reviewed every detail of the operation on the zoomed-in map of the 19th Street area where Filchenko made his routine cover stops.

  “This is our perimeter,” he said, circling the five-block area surrounding the Potbelly’s restaurant. “The flatbed with the switch car will be posted in this garage a few doors down from the target area. We’ve already cleared it with the owner.”

  “So let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” Hopper said. “Filchenko parks at the meter and fails to drop money as usual. I follow him inside and engage him in conversation—a welcome to the U.S. greeting from the FBI.”

  “Yeah, it’s routine. They all know we’re coming at some point. Little does he know today’s his lucky day,” Kyle said. “But wait until he starts eating. Cheap bastards won’t leave an unfinished meal, even to get away from the FBI.”

  Hopper nodded. “Okay, the special ops group switches cars, circles the block, installs both GPS units and then returns and swaps them again.”

  “Here’s the trick, though. His back’s gotta face the window—which goes against every instinct of an intel officer. You’ve gotta make him not only comfortable with sitting with you, but with being positioned with his back to the door, you understand?”

  “Yeah. And as long as I keep him distracted for the couple minutes it takes to get the car on the flatbed, we shouldn’t have any problems. If he looks outside, our car will be sitting in the parking space.”

  “You got it,” Kyle said as he scanned the lifeless faces around the room. “Everybody good? Everybody know where you’re supposed to be?”

  Kyle stood there waiting for some energy, enthusiasm but saw nothing except a wave of half-hearted head-nods followed by muffled groans. His fingers curled into his hand and jaw tensed. His face turned 1969-Mustang candy-apple red. He gripped the base of the glossy blue ceramic FBI mug resting on the podium, his hand numb to the fresh heat, and slammed the mug against the far wall. The glass exploded then fell in barely audible thumps onto the carpeted floor.

  “Does anybody understand what the fuck we’re doing here today? Anybody?” Kyle screamed at the top of his lungs. Startled, his audience froze with eyes widened. “Apparently not because you’re sitting around here all dead-eyed and nonchalant like this is fucking Baywatch and you’re going on beach patrol!”

  He walked the perimeter of the room, and, one by one, glared in every single eye as he continued his rant. “Lana Michaels isn’t our garden variety Russian spy. In case your head’s been jammed up your ass for the last week, she’s a murderer, an FBI Agent killer. And if we don’t get her off the streets, she’s got at least one more agent in her sights.

  “This operation is our single best chance of not only preventing the Russians from providing her with support, but locking her away for good. Raise your hand if you think that’s an important mission.”

  Every hand shot up in the air, whether the sentiment was genuine or not.

  “Then wake the fuck up and act like it!” he said. “Jazz and Jiggy are team leads and Cham is supporting. Everyone is dismissed…except you three,” he said, pointing his index finger at Cannon, Slicer, and Hopper. “I need a word.”

  “Just one?” Cannon mumbled.

  “You wish!” Kyle fired back.

  They huddled around him at the front of the room as he took a seat on the edge of the table. “What the hell’s going on here, today? It’s like an army of the walking dead.”

  Slicer shrugged. “We’ve been on 16-hour shifts for a week straight. Everybody’s pretty exhausted.”

  “Yeah. Guess the week’s been rough for everyone involved,” he said, “but I’ve got a lot riding on this case and can’t afford to let it get away from me,” Kyle said, unable to release his grief for the life of the friend and agent she took.

  “You mean, the Bureau, right?” Hopper asked, clearly not knowing when to seal his mouth shut.

  “I don’t need you to correct me, Junior,” Kyle barked. “I’m the reason she’s still out there. And I’ve got to help take her down.”

  He stood and walked over to the projection screen. “You two will be posted here,” Kyle said, pointing to parking spaces just outside the Potbelly’s L Street entrance. “Cannon—you signal me when Hopper’s got our target distracted. Slicer, you conduct countersurveillance. If anything goes wrong, I need you step in and backup Hopper, you understand?”

  “I thought the FBI didn’t make mistakes,” Slicer joked.

  “We don’t,” Kyle said. “But if I’ve learned anything about the Russians, their favorite tool of tradecraft is the monkey wrench. If they throw one in the mix, we’ve got to be prepared for it.”

  Slicer’s glance swung from Hopper to Cannon before he nodded. “Roger that.”

  Chapter 34

  Wednesday Afternoon—Surveillance Detail

  The hardened knot in Hopper’s stomach had tightened enough to tether the U.S.S. Enterprise to the Boston Harbor. Parked inside his FBI-issued Malibu, he waited to commence the op: Installing the GPS in Filchenko’s car. He hoped the bold move would lead them to Lana Michaels. A few minutes passed when he was startled out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps passing him. The afternoon K Street lunch crowd wore three-piece Jos. A. Banks specials and trudged through the sea of brake lights in the stop-and-go traffic, seeking food and respite from their mind-numbing nine-to-fives.

  A lot of lives hung on the success of this operation and, by the minute, he’d grown more painfully aware of how little operational experience he had. He found himself questioning the soundness of Kyle’s judgment—pitting Hopper, an agent five minutes out of Quantico, against a Russian intelligence officer who was probably recruiting his hundredth asset while Hopper was at prom getting laid in the back of his father’s Cadillac Seville. He gripped his steering wheel and tried to settle his nerves, arriving thirty minutes early to give himself time to mentally create worst-case scenarios and develop responses to each. Faked his brain into believing he was more prepared and acutely aware than would bear out in reality.

  He marveled at the silver Toyota Camry identical to Filchenko’s car, even down to the sun-faded Little Tree car freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror, his diplomatic license (hidden under the fake D.C. plate), and the black scratch on the left rear bumper, sitting on the flatbed. So thoroughly executed, that if the op went bad, the key would open the doors and start the car.

  The Special Projects group had pulled off a major coup in less time than his kid took for a mid-day nap. The parking garage attendants, both with dark skin, curly black hair, and blue vested uniforms eyed him suspiciously even though their boss advised them the FBI would be hanging around for a couple of hours. He glanced down at his watch. 11:15. They should’ve been out the gate five minutes before. Hopper picked up his Motorola.

  “Hopper to Blue Team. Hopper to Blue Team. I’m in position. Looks like we’re running a little late here. Did the lookouts call out the targets yet?”

  “Negative, Hopper,” replied Cham, one of a handful of female Gs on the team. “I’ve got binoculars in one hand and the radio in the other, standby,” she said. Only minutes passed before she said, “I’ve got eyes on…wait a minute. The target vehicles are approaching the gate.”

  “Rabbit 1 and Rabbit 2,” Kyle said over the radio. “Looks like we’re about to get this party started.”

  “Uhhh, shit…Blue Team, we’ve got a problem,” Cham said. “A big one.”

  “What’s going on?” Kyle asked.

  “Rabbit 1, uhhh, Filchenko and Mikhaylov are out the gate, as expected, but…” She p
aused for a moment that seemed like an eternity. “They switched cars! I repeat they switched cars. Mikhaylov is driving Filchenko’s Camry. Filchenko’s in the burgundy Honda Accord. And they’ve both switched routes. Jazz and Jiggy have the eye. Stand by.”

  “Damn Russians and their monkey wrenches! Everything is riding on this op. The hell we can’t finish it,” Kyle barked. “Jiggy. Jazz. You stay on ‘em. My guess is they aren’t going to switch routes, even if they switch cars. Hopper, get over here. We need to talk.”

  “Copy that,” they each replied, one right after the other.

  Hopper stashed his radio under the seat and scrambled out of the car, padding toward the garage where the flatbed was tucked away on the second level.

  Panic collapsed on him, the weight suffocating.

  He had no idea how they’d wrangle themselves out of this jam. Not in this world or any other would a silver Camry ever substitute for a burgundy Honda Accord.

  Hopper yanked open the door to Kyle’s car and slipped inside, his breathing slightly heavy from the jog. Kyle tightened his lips and slammed his hands against the steering wheel.

  “Monkey wrench, huh?” Hopper said.

  Kyle nodded. “Sons of bitches. Trying to give me a fucking heart attack,” Kyle said. “Goddamned stand-down’s got us paralyzed, can’t move left or right without the fear of setting off the next Cold War. But we don’t have time to reschedule the op for a second attempt.”

  “The op is blown,” Hopper urged. “You’re not still going to try to go through with it, are you?”

  Kyle grunted, frowned, and snatched up the radio. “Blue Leader to Cham. What’s your twenty? You still on the same route?”

  “Roger that, blue leader. Except Lana’s father is taking Filchenko’s route,” she said. “Traffic’s clear. We’re doing thirty-five down Wisconsin. ETA 11:45. Stand by.”

  “Shit!” Hopper checked the time. “11:35. Only ten minutes away.”