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

by S. D. Skye

  Tony shook his head and shrugged. Both he and J.J. struggled to find a solution and leaving the package in the park to retrieve later was not an option.

  “Why don’t I take it and hold it for you,” Jake said. “As soon as you leave, he’ll probably follow you out. Then I can bring the package back to headquarters.”

  J.J. felt a slight sensation behind her ear. She reached her arm out then hesitated. Jake had never given her reason to mistrust him before. And he certainly wasn’t the ICE Phantom. With no regular access to files, he couldn’t steal and sell them. Still, her “gift” had never failed her before. Not once. She felt uneasy and pulled the package to her gut. “No offense Jake, but I’m not letting this package out of my sight.”

  Tony shrugged. “J.J., don’t be ridiculous. We’ve got to wait on the text message, right? Jake can take the package and meet us. We’ll let the teams take a lunch break and head back to headquarters to talk to Sunnie.”

  Tony grabbed the package from J.J.’s hand and held out to Jake. Although she had nothing to go on but a slight sensation, J.J. snatched it back.

  “Nope. That’s okay. We’ll deal with it.”

  Jake scoffed. “It’s me, Jake. Not some spy. Don’t worry.”

  “Shit shit!” she yelped. It was the crotch itch…again. And this time it felt more like a stab than the usual crawling sensation. Her knees buckled. “Sorry, it’s the, uhhh, it’s the thing. You know…”

  They both shrugged it off.

  Jake had lied big time.

  About what, J.J. didn’t know, but every fiber of her being warned her, Don’t put the package in Jake’s hand! She had no time to assess him. She glared at Jake, her head cocked to the side. All she could do was stand frozen, weighing her options while Tony glared at her as if she’d lost the little bit of mind she had left.

  “We can handle it,” J.J. insisted.

  Tony’s jaw tightened and he stared her down. “Really? Why are you being such a hard ass?” Tony asked, confused as hell, determined to have his way. “What’s a matta with you? Give him the package already.”

  He didn’t understand the problem and she couldn’t explain, not then, not there. When J.J. didn’t budge, Tony snatched the package from her hand and returned it to Jake, who backed out of J.J.’s reach as he shifted his gaze nervously between the two.

  “Take it and go,” Tony ordered, strong-arming J.J. to keep her from reaching Jake. “See you back at headquarters in a few. And charge up that radio, so we can get a hold of you when the next phase of this op goes down. Ya hear me?”

  “Loud and clear,” Jake said with a canary-ate-cat smile emerging upon his lips. He trekked down the trail at a rapid pace.

  “What was that all about? It’s Jake for Christ’s sake!” Tony said, admonishing J.J. for her behavior. Maybe she’d gotten it wrong for the first time in her life. But her heart sank as she feared the worst. The package contained TOP SECRET information. Will he take it back to headquarters? Or disappear? She didn’t know. But based on the physiological reaction, she suspected the latter. Within the hour, she’d know.

  “I can’t explain.”

  “You can’t or you won’t.”

  “I just had a bad feeling. Call it women’s intuition. I know I’m standing on shaky ground but sometimes, you’ve got to trust that I know what the hell I’m doing.”

  Tony and J.J. exhaled and headed toward the park entrance. “Is it too early for a shot of vodka?” she asked.

  “For you, yeah. Anytime is too early,” Tony replied, his voice between jest and serious as a heart attack.

  When they arrived at the car, Russian car had already left, but Jake’s car was still in the lot. He hadn’t returned.

  “Guess they gave up waiting,” J.J. said, scanning the lot. “But Jake’s still here. We should go get him.”

  “Just let it go,” Tony said to J.J. “We’ll see him back at H-Q in a few minutes. Let’s get outta here.”

  J.J. grabbed her cell phone from the glove compartment and checked for Dmitriyev’s text.

  “Anything yet?”

  “Nothing,” she glanced at her watch, “but we’ve still got a little time.” She slipped into the passenger seat.

  Tony took the driver’s seat and started the ignition. “Let’s just hope time doesn’t run out.”

  Chapter 40

  Chris’s gut wrenched. Part of him felt relieved the operation was over, yet deep in the conscience he’d longed suppressed, he’d almost wished J.J. was as smart as her reputation purported, that she could’ve rolled him up and freed him from his hell. He’d grown tired of always looking over his shoulder waiting for his colleagues in raid jackets to corner and arrest him. But he’d gotten away. He’d made another drop. His fear shifted to the hope that the information was valuable, some of the most damaging he’d ever provided. The Russians would pay him handsomely enough to set up him and Koshechka for a long time.

  He pulled into the parking lot adjacent to the FBI’s offsite polygraph location off Pennsylvania Avenue, stepped onto the cobbled sidewalk. The jitters kicked in. He couldn’t pull his nerves together. Sweat poured as from a hooker in church on communion Sunday. Too late to confess his sins now. His throat tightened. But he swallowed hard and proceeded with the plan. They told him he could beat it, evidenced by the test runs he passed with flying colors. But he started to talk himself out of success, told himself he couldn’t beat the polygraph unless Jesus himself sat in the chair and took the test in his place.

  The closer he got to the entrance door, the more his pores rained. He appeared as if he’d just stepped out of hell’s sauna—the fiery furnace in which his conscienceless soul may be destined to rest by the time the day was over. But his Koshechka depended on him, and the new baby too. So he dug somewhere down deep in his core and scrounged the courage to man up and move forward with the plan. She was right, they had a lot of money, but not nearly enough. Certainly too little to last them the rest of their lives and they’d be on the run for at least that long. Another cool million and they could sever their ties to the area, move to where they could live modestly, without fear of arrest.

  He checked in at the receptionist’s desk and asked for the bathroom key. At the sink moments later, he splashed cool water on his reddened face to reduce his temperature and glared at himself in the mirror. The reflection sickened him. He’d sacrificed his life, his entire being, for the love of Koshechka. After all was said and done, he wondered if she’d ever be worth the steep price he’d paid.

  Chris yanked a paper towel from the dispenser and dabbed it under each arm. It soaked in seconds. He was desperate for a shot of something 80-proof or higher. But ingesting anything except water would all but ensure his failure. He wouldn’t make it past the pretest questioning. No, if he was going to fail, he wanted to do so going down in a blaze of duplicitous fire.

  “Mr. Johnson?” Mike said as he re-entered the reception area.

  Chris nodded his head and offered his damp hand. “Yes. I’m Chris. I’m here for the test this morning.”

  Mike clasped and shook hands with Chris, then wiped the dampness on his pant leg. “Everybody’s always nervous, but this should go smoothly. You’ve got nothing to be worried about, unless, of course, you’ve been spying for the Russians. In that case, this will feel just south of hell,” he joked.

  Chris longingly eyed the exit as his mouth exposed a sheepish grin. “Ha, ha!” he chuckled. “That’s a good one.”

  “Polygraph humor,” Mike said. “Right this way.”

  During the hour-long pretest interview, Chris answered everything as Koshechka taught him. Then Mike escorted him into a small room. Beside the table with the polygraph laptop sat a disturbing chair, the electric chair’s baby cousin. Once seated, Mike strapped the larger of the white belts around Chris’s torso to monitor his heart rate. The blood pressure monitor placed on his arm tightened moments later. A pair metal sensors resting on the table’s edge were attached to his fingers. They
monitored his perspiration levels. Soaked from the start, Chris thanked the heavens that sweat alone did not determine one’s guilt or innocence. He would’ve failed the test before they flipped the switch. A second polygrapher, an observer, sat cloaked behind one-way glass. Chris stared at his reflection and allowed his mind to drift off, which relaxed him for a few moments. Then he shook his head to bring himself back to reality.

  After taking a moment to explain testing procedures, Mike stepped out of the room, warning Chris that the exam would begin when he returned. His hands trembled on the chair arms as he stared blankly, trying to calm himself, clear his mind. Eventually, he fixed his mind on the vision of his Koshechka, imagined laying his head against her round belly as the baby pressed his little feet against Chris’s cheek.

  When Mike re-entered the room, Chris faced the ceiling as if waiting for the answer to his prayers to drop out of the light fixture.

  “Are you ready?” Mike asked.

  Chris was too tense to speak, so he nodded.

  “Great. Let’s get started.”

  Don and Mike sat in a state of utter confusion. They examined the result charts, four hours’ worth, periodically glancing at Chris through the one-way glass and then again at one another.

  “I’m curious to hear your thoughts, Mike,” Don said. “I don’t mind telling you, something isn’t adding up.”

  “I agree,” Mike said, scanning the readings. “Look here at the control questions. These are the readings for all of the counterintelligence issues,” he said pointing to the specific areas of concern. “But look at him,” Mike said as they watched Chris crumble over the edge of his seat. “And did you see his heart rate? It was almost off the charts...but consistently so.”

  “I know,” Don said. “I mean, the results are obvious.”

  “Yes, they are,” Mike added. “He passed. His readings are high, but he passed.”

  “But something’s definitely off.”

  “Before we give him his results, I say we just talk to him for a minute and see what he has to say.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea. And if I were you, I’d take the minimalist approach,” Don said. “The less said, the better.”

  They returned to the room, solemn and bearing emotionless expressions. Each had perfected the poker face. Don leaned against the wall while Mike returned to his seat behind the laptop.

  Overheated, Chris’s gaze ping-ponged, shifting back and forth between the two. His face reddened as he stared down at his feet. He grew quiet, lost in his guilt. Their expressions told him everything he needed to know. He’d nailed his coffin. He rubbed his hands up and down his pant legs and broke eye contact.

  “Is there anything you’d like to tell us before we provide you some feedback on your results?”

  “I failed, right?” He grabbed his forehead, hunched his shoulders and mumbled, “I told her it wouldn’t work.”

  Don folded his arms across his chest and shot a glance at Mike, acknowledging both of their suspicions. “Uhhh...you told who what wouldn’t work?”

  Chapter 41

  Early Thursday Morning…

  “Comrade Aleksey!” Igor barked. “Come with us!”

  Dmitriyev stayed close to his desk the entire morning, waiting for Golikov’s people to return with the drop. As the line chief, he knew they’d need his assistance in verifying the information as they were more thug than sophisticated operatives. They’d have little idea how to gauge the value of the source’s intelligence. But their stark, cold expressions concerned him. Perhaps, J.J. had not made the drop. Maybe the operation had been compromised.

  Even though he feared he was walking to his death, he gravely followed them down the long darkened corridor which led to the secure facility, thinking of all the people he wished he could say goodbye to, wondering what his final words would be. They occupied the “interview” room, the same room where they had only days ago interrogated Vorobyev, the floor was still stained with the remnants of Stan’s beating. They allowed Dmitriyev to enter first.

  He balled his fists tight, prepared to defend himself if attacked from behind and determined to go down fighting until the end. The sound of blood coursing through his veins loudened. He quickly scuttled to the back of the room and took a seat within close proximity to a fire extinguisher hanging in the corner.

  The door slammed shut. Igor and Aleksey took their seats. They stared at him, malice colored every expression.

  “You understand why we’ve asked you here today, right?” Vasiliy asked, his scowl unflinching.

  Dmitriyev nodded and said nothing.

  Igor reached beneath the table.

  This is it! Dmitriyev thought to himself. The faint sound of plastic rumbled beneath. Maybe they’d planned to suffocate him. That was well within the KGB’s stable of execution methods.

  Dmitriyev watched and prayed, bracing himself for their wrath.

  Igor’s hand emerged, finally. Dmitriyev gasped before he noticed the duct taped package in his hand. Igor stripped the tape from the edges and removed the contents, a stack of papers.

  “We need you to take a look at this information and assess its worth,” Igor said as he pushed the papers across the table.

  Aleksey steadied his trembling hand as he reached across the table to grab the contents. He slowly and deliberately thumbed through each page, examining each page for information that would save his brother and friend. Several minutes passed before he spoke.

  “Hmph. A wide variety of material, similar to what the source usually provides, but this Karat case is interesting. If I’m not mistaken, he has provided the entire FBI file from the case’s inception until a few days ago—this is rare, very rare. Based on the latest communication, it appears as if the FBI was unaware that Plotnikov was a code clerk. They thought he was a clean diplomat working the missile defense problem.”

  “Stupid Americans!” Igor said, laughing from his belly.

  Vasiliy sat pensively and listened.

  “And you see the dates on these cables?” he said, holding them up to face his colleagues. “These cannot be falsified. They are system generated, so these appear to be valid documents.”

  Igor looked at Vasiliy who frowned.

  On the underside of the stack he found an envelope, a letter…the letter.

  “Did you see this?” Dmitriyev said, holding the typewritten envelope up for both to view. “This appears to be some kind of communication from the asset.”

  Aleksey carefully slipped his thumb into the gap at the opening and tore through the seam. He removed the lone sheet of paper and read it to himself.

  After a moment passed, he cocked his head to the side as he handed the envelope’s contents to Vasiliy. “It seems we have two new developments,” Aleksey said.

  Vasiliy quickly reviewed the letter, which indicated the mole had, in fact, been mistaken in implicating Vorobyev. He scratched his head, as his brow furrowed. “This is indeed a...development as you say. Could this be true?”

  “I don’t know,” Aleksey said, trying not to oversell. “What I can offer is that this letter is written in a manner consistent with the others we’ve received from him in the past.”

  “I see.” Vasiliy passed the contents to Igor, who glazed over the document. Then they eyed each other as the significance sunk in.

  “I can’t tell you how to act in this situation, as that is between you and your boss,” Aleksey said. “But it seems to me, if we had enough confidence in the source to condemn Comrades Vorobyev and Plotnikov, we must be equally resolute in exonerating them. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Igor and Vasiliy glanced at each other again, both knowing.

  “Go.” Vasiliy said to Igor. “I will call Golikov and inform him of this Karat case. He will be anxious to know.”

  Dmitriyev’s gaze followed Igor out the door, the tension released in his shoulders. He could finally relax, at least for the moment. He only hoped J.J. would be successful in identifying the mole before he hi
mself became the next victim of Golikov’s heavy-handed justice.

  • • •

  “That’s the last one,” Vorobyev said to himself, sealing the envelope containing his final letter to his wife and children. He hoped someday they would understand why such drastic measures were necessary.

  He’d spent the entire night reviewing his personal papers to ensure there was nothing Golikov’s people could twist into their sadistic lies or exploit in a smear campaign to damage his post mortem reputation. His family would suffer enough. He couldn’t bear to leave any business unfinished that might cause them additional pain.

  Vorobyev dressed himself in his favorite black suit, the one his wife had picked out for him during his tour in Italy many years ago. Told him he was too good for the cheap suits he usually bought for work; his position required a proper suit fit for a man representing his country. And he felt like a king every time he dressed in her gift to him. His life, his love, his dearest, his Marina.

  He meandered around until he reached his bedroom, then collapsed onto his mattress back first and stared at the ceiling.

  Within seconds, he realized he didn’t want a cold, blank wall to be his last memory.

  On his dresser stood the photos of all his family and friends in happier times. He collected each, arranged them on his nightstand, and then reached under the pillow and wrapped his hand around the cool, steel grip. He fixed his finger on the trigger and rolled his feet onto the bed, facing everyone he held near and dear. Tears trickled down his cheeks as he pressed the barrel hard against his temple. He took one last look and slowly pulled the trigger.

  “God . . . have mercy on my soul.”

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  The loud knock startled him. He bolted upright, slipped the gun underneath his pillow, and eased toward the door. Had to be Golikov’s people. No one else would be allowed to consort with an accused and, for all intents and purposes, convicted spy.