by Skye, S. D.
She still battled moments of doubt, the instances of which had nearly disappeared unnoticed until…
“His name is Six. And why’s he got to be a douche bag?” She snatched the frame from his hand and replaced it on the shelf. For some time now, she’d been planning to take the damn thing down. But with Tony Snoopers in the house, she’d have to wait until he departed for the evening. She refused to give him a second’s pleasure of thinking that his sneers had any effect on her decision to remove it.
“What kind of name is Six, anyway? His folks hadda give him a name he could spell?” Tony drew the number six in the air with his index finger.
“Ha, ha, ha! You’re so funny. No. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Princeton. I assure you he has no problems with his spelling,” she said, avoiding an explanation she didn’t want to provide.
“So what’s with the ‘Six’ already?”
“If you must know, Six is a nickname he received because he can bounce a quarter on his six-pack,” she joked, patting her stomach.
Tony rolled his eyes and pretended to vomit. “Oh. I thought it might be his rating in the sack.”
“No. If that’s what it stood for, they’d call him Ten.” A pregnant pause followed shortly behind her quip, a testament to the jab’s effectiveness. J.J. kicked off her shoes and squiggled her feet into the plush carpet. “What’s it to you anyway?”
“Hey, it’s your business. I was just askin’.” He carried the trash bag toward the dining room table, ran his finger across the surface, collecting dust along the way. Then he shot her a “bad housekeeper” look, as if she didn’t already know.
“So, how long you been dating this. . . Six?” he asked, his tone amusingly bitter.
“I’m not, not anymore.”
“Is ‘at right? So what’s his picture still doing on your shelf then?”
“Haven’t had a chance to take it down yet.” She avoided his gaze and headed toward the bedroom. “Now, if you’re done with your inquisition, I’m gonna change.”
J.J. closed her bedroom door and flopped back-first on the bed. Her hands smothered her face as she cringed. She knew bringing him to her place would be a mistake, one she realized too late.
She brooded over Six’s picture every day in the first few months following the break-up. Finally, she’d forgotten it was there, that is, until Tony dredged it up. He’d opened an old wound, picked the scab. How long before it healed again? She rolled over, pulled a flask from her nightstand drawer. Two gulps. Just a little something to take off the edge. That’s all. She glanced at her watch. Scandal, her usual evening indulgence, would have to wait. They’d have a long night ahead of them.
She grabbed a can of lemon-fresh furniture spray and returned to the living room. When she approached the table, J.J. could see Tony’s eyes meander down her body, starting from her face and caressing each bend and curve until he glimpsed the pink foot coverings resting on the plush beige carpet. He stifled a chuckle and backed up his chair so she could spray and wipe the table down. “About time you cleaned this place.”
“I’m an FBI agent, not Martha Stewart.”
She shot a puff of lemon-scented spray wax in his direction. He coughed dramatically and fanned his face.
“Now, can I get you a beer before I sit down?”
“Sure,” he responded.
Tony was thirsty, but maybe not so much for the beer. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him. He drank her in with his eyes as she opened the refrigerator door. After a lingering stare, he diverted his attention to the work at hand. He laid the evidence bag on the table and pulled rubber gloves from his pocket.
She arrived a few moments later. The two long-necked bottles of Yuengling had begun to perspire. She opened the first with her teeth, stunning Tony into silence. He gawked at J.J. as if he’d just witnessed her swinging from a chandelier in a porn flick.
“What? You gotta be The Hulk to open a beer bottle? Get over it.” She placed the bottle in his hand.
He bowed his head in gratitude and tapped the mouth of his bottle against hers. “Salut!”
“Salut!” She smiled weakly. Her knees buckled.
Mmmm, she mumbled. The touch of Sicily in his voice danced in her ear, sent chills through her body. Her emotions welled within. Suddenly, she was the one who needed to shake him off.
She placed the mouth of the bottle to her lips and drew the cold lager inside, allowing the cool fluid to wash across her tongue. She wished his lips had met hers instead and longed to repeat that moment in the park, but she was more than a little relieved they’d resisted the temptation. “What are we toasting to?” she asked.
“Hmmm. Why don’t we make it to...a productive night.”
• • •
Thursday night…
Russell Freeman devoured the dinner cooked by his divine wife, Rayna. She tried to force him to take the night off. No work, no phone calls. But all to no avail. His mind was on the job. He stared at the remnants of his T-bone until his vision blurred.
“Honeeeeey, it’s time to blow out your candle and make a wish,” Rayna sang. Her glowing latte-colored skin almost negated the need for candlelight. Russell had been too distant, too consumed with his mystery case to notice. “Honey? ... Honey? Rayna calling Russ. Is anyone home?”
He snapped out of his daze and forced a smile. He’d been outed in the worst way. “Oh, I’m sorry, baby. My mind was somewhere else.”
She shook her head. Her brilliant smile disappeared behind a look of indifference. “As usual. Now, blow out your candle before I use it to set you on fire.”
He gazed at her, his every expression pleading for her forgiveness. But her unforgiving expression replied, “Go to hell!” Russell let out an uneasy chuckle, smoothed her cheek with his fingertips. “Okay. Okay. Here we go.” He closed his eyes just long enough to make a wish. Then puckered his lips and blew.
She picked up the cutter from the linen table cloth and sliced hard into the mango cake, his favorite. The little things mattered most, and she showed him every day. Oh, he knew she loved him deeply. She was, after all, his high school sweetheart. But after four years of college, three years of law school, fifteen years serving as an FBI agent, twelve years as a federal prosecutor, and seven years as a judge, her patience had worn toilet-paper thin. She’d made no secret of the fact that she longed for the day when he’d belong to her, and only her, once again. Most days, she lived with a ghost, a man home with her in spirit but his mind and body were someplace else.
She slipped a piece of cake on his plate. “It’s about work, right?” she said, filling the empty seat beside him.
“Yeah...you know how it is,” he said, feeling the warmth of her hand rub along his thigh, her signature move. Most days, it would be sufficient to motivate him into the boudoir. At that moment, however, it felt more irritating than stimulating.
“Care to talk about what’s going on?”
Her question was met with silence. Perhaps sensing his reticence, she pulled back.
He exhaled in frustration. Certainly, he wanted to share the details of his day with her but he couldn’t. Most husbands had license to disclose the nine-to-five drudge. Russell’s job was nine-to-infinity, and the specifics were mostly classified national security information.
“I—” he started, preparing to offer yet another excuse for his silence. But she interrupted. He needn’t bother.
“Never mind! I know, I know. If you tell me, you’ll have to kill me.” She shrugged and snapped. “That line’s getting old, Russ. Old and tired like me. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
“Baby…,” He tried to put his arms around her shoulder, but she jerked away and slipped out of the chair.
“I’m exhausted. It’s been a long day,” she said, heading toward the staircase.
“I’m following right behind you.”
She stopped in her tracks and turned to him, her body stiff, the lilt in her voice smothered in venom. “Do me a favor, Russ. Don�
�t!”
Sadly, Freeman felt more relief than guilt. Off the hook for the night, he let out a frustrated sigh and dropped his face into the palm of his hands. If he didn’t find out who’d been compromising these cases sooner than later, his marriage might meet the same sticky end as the Bureau’s sources.
• • •
Early Friday Morning…
More than two hours later, Tony and J.J. had sifted through everything Karat passed, the massive pile of documents he had smuggled out of the residency before the SVR recalled him to Moscow. He didn’t provide the codes as they had expected, as they had hoped.
No, the material he passed was infinitely more important, of greater valuable than anything they could’ve imagined.
Pages and pages of Xeroxed files, operational files, no doubt slated for encrypted transmission or for transport by diplomatic pouch to Moscow Center.
U.S. military intelligence information reports, CIA communication cables. Pages and pages pilfered from FBI case files and surveillance reports. NSA signals intelligence reports. Defense Intelligence attaché reports. Human intelligence source reports on Russian intelligence officers operating in the United States and abroad. An intelligence disaster as bad as Hanssen and Ames combined.
The sound of J.J.’s heartbeat thumped in her ears, her body tensed. She could feel her veins constrict the flow of blood through her entire panic-stricken body. The compromise wasn’t as bad as they initially thought.
No, it was worse.
Much worse.
Her level of distress compounded a hundred fold each and every time she turned a new page. All the major agencies in the community had been burned. No, burned didn’t adequately describe the massive security failure that had left the Bureau and the intelligence community with their balls flapping in the wind. They’d been charred to the core, gutted like a school of mahi-mahi at a midnight Luau. With this information in the hands of the Russians, the community would need to shut down half the nation’s intelligence operations targeting Russians around the world. Not tomorrow—yesterday. And the CIA would have to exfiltrate at least three assets operating in Moscow or they were dead, Golikov cautionary tales.
“FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA. This traitor’s giving up the baby and bathwater,” she said. But one question nagged at her. “How could a code clerk get his hands on this? I mean, look, Tony. These are photocopies of original documents. He wouldn’t have had access. Encryption codes and cables, yes. Original documents? No.”
Tony shrugged. “I’m at a loss. I’m just glad we’ve got ‘em so we can find this nut job.” He wiped his perspiring brow with the back of his hand. “Looks like Plotnikov photocopied every document the rat passed. Case files, surveillance and lookout logs, message traffic, everything. And we’re even more screwed because most of this information is available to the entire community through the joint communication system, except some NSA SIGINT collection and the military special ops reports.”
“Yeah. Every agency, military and civilian, has access. Anyone with a log-on and password could pull this information from the network. Even with cyber forensics, it would be nearly impossible to pinpoint the source.”
“Yeah, you’re—” Tony started. He flipped through the stack of papers carefully before sinking into his chair in disbelief and resignation. “No...not the surveillance reports and lookout logs. That information is only available at FBI Headquarters and the field offices. We don’t share these reports on the Joint network.”
“Shit! I’ll be...”
“Damn!” Tony yelled in frustration. Tony turned to J.J., his face solemn. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“Yeah. No one else could access the surveillance and lookout logs. I can’t speak for the other intel, but whoever took these documents has got to be an FBI agent. And judging from these cases,” she heaved a weighty sigh, “he’s someone with access to the vault. Someone who probably smirks in our faces every damn day knowing that we’re working our asses off so that they can cash in our cases in for a few thousand dollars and a Jaguar.”
“A few thousand? No, J.J. This information is potentially worth millions of dollars, you hear me? Millions.”
What they had once only suspected, Plotnikov’s drop had removed all doubt. The FBI was at least one source of the problem—not the CIA, not the NSA, not DIA, but the FBI. And they still didn’t have enough evidence to convict anyone, including Jack.
J.J.’s anxiety was compounded by Tony’s earlier revelation. If his contact from the Director’s office got his information straight, the next few days might spell the end of at least two careers. They would be subjected to polygraph examinations that both were doomed to fail.
They were working against time, and every second that passed brought them one step closer to becoming the primary suspects, locked up, and facing death penalty charges.
Tony eyed a typewritten sheet of paper and scratched the faint stubble on his chin. “Now, this one’s interesting. It’s a photocopy of a typewritten note. Looks like it’s from the source. Check it out.”
He handed the paper to J.J. and she began to read it aloud.
The house we built was strong, but I’m beginning to detect a few cracks in the foundation. They must be sealed before the entire structure collapses. My best to Mikhaylov. Juliet Charles. (Solnyshko).
“Solnyshko? What the hell does that mean?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, smirking. “But Lana’s a Russian speaker. Why don’t we take this to her in the morning and ask? I’m sure she’d be happy to help.”
J.J.’s expression hardened. “Yeah, right. Over my cold, dead, maggot-eaten body. I think Sunnie’s a Russian speaker. I’ll ask her.” Sunnie was one of only two black intelligence analysts within the headquarter-based counterintelligence organization. Recruited from Howard University, J.J.’s alma mater, she was the go-to-girl for all analysis. She’d made an art of creating actionable intelligence, something they could use to build cases, make arrests. She idolized Condoleezza Rice, the only other African-American she knew (living or dead) who also spoke fluent Russian.
J.J. leaned back in her chair, trying to calm her thoughts. “God my head is spinning. I don’t think I can process anything else tonight.”
Tony examined the note again, and then looked at J.J. in frustration. “I hate these cryptic fucking notes. Why can’t people just say, ‘My name is Joe Smith. I work for the FBI and I’m a traitor.”
“A little thing called the Supermax . . . and lethal injection.”
She yawned long and deep, exhausted from the days misadventures. Tony succumbed a few seconds later.
“It’s nearly 4 am. Let’s get some sleep and take the package to the vault late tomorrow afternoon. Then we’ll report it,” J.J. suggested.
“That’s easier said than done,” Tony said. “If we’re right and the mole has access to the vault, who can we trust?”
Chapter 13
Friday Morning…
Jack, blank-faced and disoriented, sat wired to the computerized polygraph instrument, his pulse beating at an unusually high rate. He attempted to clear his mind, stare at the white space on the wall in front of him as his examiner had instructed, but his thoughts refused to be stilled.
Memories raced, replaying visions of the less-than-honorable moments of his life, as a film loop turning over and over again. Such as the time he stole a candy bar from the local corner store when he was ten and Mr. Sharma chased him for two blocks. And the times, three times to be exact, that he cheated on his case studies during his sixteen weeks of new agents’ training in Quantico. And the dozens of times he’d concocted reasons to reassign J.J.’s cases with no warning or justification in order to boost the subpar career of the woman he loved. And why could he not shake the memory of the moment he removed Plotnikov’s file from the cabinet safe without signing the log? Or the countless nights he engaged in classified pillow talk with Lana, divulging details of sensitive investigations of which she ha
d no need to know?
The closet-sized room’s stark walls closed in around him. The perspiration sensors on his digits pinched his fingertips as he gripped the edge of the armrest. He tapped the heel of his shoe against the floor tile in rapid motion. The sound resonated like the timer of his life ticking down to nothing. Why had his last polygraph been so much easier, so much less painful? His heart didn’t ram through his chest the last time, not this fast. Not this hard. Sweat didn’t rain through his pores as if he’d just run the Marine Corps marathon.
There was only one difference between this day and the morning of his last exam. A night with her.
Lana.
He tried to free his mind of the negative thoughts pushing their way through. She adored him as much as he loved her. Perhaps he’d gotten too excited during their tryst. After all, he could hardly control himself in her presence. One glance at her supple breasts sent his nature in the fully loaded and upright position. She’d always been more woman than he could handle. But, even at his age, he’d welcomed the challenge, the intensity of his desire for her. He sought to quench his thirst every chance he got, a thirst that could never be satiated. He couldn’t let her go.
The irony of Jack’s predicament struck him. He was only two years away from his 57th birthday. Two years away from collecting his hard-earned retirement and pension. Two more years and he wouldn’t be subjected to these silly examinations ever again. But two minutes from this moment, his career might be over.
• • •
In an adjoining room of equal size and blandness, they stood in front of the polygraph laptop, the primary and observing testers, Mike Sullivan and Don Anderson. They were perplexed. The test results from the four-hour long examination had stunned them into silence, and both of their faces bore strained expressions.
