by Skye, S. D.
His radio fell silent for seconds that felt like hours. Tony and J.J. had no idea what happened. Had he been spotted and identified? Had Russian counter-surveillance jammed his radio signal? Did he have a heart attack? Nobody had a clue.
Then at once, they heard static.
“It’s...a...na,”
“Anna?” Sunnie said.
J.J. and Tony both snapped their heads toward her and rolled their eyes.
“It’s Lana!” Jiggy yelled. Finally, they had a clear signal.
“You don’t say!” Tony exclaimed.
“She’s packing up the car. Just went back inside the house. What do you want me to do?”
“She’s gonna defect!” J.J. yelled. “You just stay with her. She’s probably heading to Dulles!”
“We’ve got to get somebody out there now! Sunnie, check and see what time the flights are leaving for Moscow today. And call Mike back and let him know we’re in pursuit. It might help him loosen Chris’s tongue.”
“I’m on it!” she said, scampering toward her desk.
Tony got back on the radio. “This is Blue Leader calling all available units. I repeat all available units. What’s your twenty?!”
Money T was the first to respond. “We copy. We were leaving from our lunch location when we ran into a sinkhole from a water main break at S and Wisconsin—a one-way street. We’re stuck in a sea of traffic, no pun intended. It’s probably gonna be a minute before they let us through.”
“Tony, grab your stuff,” J.J. said. “We’re outta here! We’ll call Washington Field and get some support units to meet us at Dulles while we’re on the way. Neither Lana nor Jake will go quietly, and we’ll need back up.”
“Uhhh...Blue Leader,” Jiggy interrupts. “She’s got a couple of moving boxes. Looks like she’s not planning to return for some time. I’ll keep her in my sights.”
“We’re on the way,” J.J. said “Just stick close.
“Roger that.”
• • •
Tony pushed the pedal to the floor, hoping to arrive at Dulles Airport ahead of Lana and Jiggy. Meanwhile, Jiggy trailed Lana through the city. He kept a respectable distance, fairly certain she hadn’t yet detected his presence. He’d never worked with her before, by Jake’s design, and had only seen her in passing now and again at headquarters. She wouldn’t recognize him or his car, not right away.
She picked up speed on the 14th Street bridge, doing seventy-five in a fifty-five, snaking through traffic while Jiggy accelerated to keep pace. His car shadowed hers, moving closer and closer. But her surveillance detection maneuvers were too aggressive and drew him out of cover. He couldn’t afford to lose her. Not now.
At once, they were bumper to bumper. She glanced at Jiggy several times in her rear view mirror. Then Lana floored the gas, driving 95 from Route 95 to Route 66. She took off, zigzagging through packed lanes, barely missing the rear bumpers of the vehicles in front of her.
“Blue Leader. I’ve been spotted! I’ve been spotted!” Jiggy yelled. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, heightening every sense. “I’m still with—Oh shit!” It appeared in his rear view mirror. A car. Someone was gaining on him, nearly on his bumper. Jiggy glimpsed a male wearing sunglasses, driving a dark sedan. The man pulled up to Jiggy’s passenger side about half way to the rear passenger door, boxing Jiggy between the sedan and the concrete barrier. He couldn’t be sure, but if he didn’t know better he’d swear the man was—
“Jiggy! Jiggy! You okay?” J.J. called through the radio.
Just as he pressed the button to respond.
CRASH!
Their cars smashed together in an explosive-sounding collision. The car rammed Jiggy into the concrete barrier. He pulled away and rammed him again. The sound of shattered glass and metal scraped and grated against the rail, emitting deafening screeches. Jiggy struggled to steer and reach his radio in the passenger seat slid just beyond his reach. He leaned over and managed to grip it; then he hit transmit button. “I’ve been hit! I’ve been hit! He’s ramming me off—!”
“Who?” J.J. yelled. “Who is it?”
He snapped his head toward the passenger window and slammed on the breaks, immediately recognized the face scowling back at him.
“Jesus! It’s Jake!” Jiggy said as his car began to tilt. “My car’s leaning. I think he flattened one of my tires!” He craned his head back feeling rush of air against his face. “And I lost a window!”
“Where is he now?” J.J. yelled.
Jiggy watched Jake speed up to catch Lana as he put the car in park and prepared to step out and survey the damage. Jiggy had been driving rim to asphalt, couldn’t go any further if he wanted to. And God knows he wanted to. He wanted nothing more than to take Jake to school—the school of hard knocks...and jabs...and uppercuts.
“About a mile ahead now. Joke’s on him, though,” Jiggy smirked. “Looks like there’s a pocket of bumper-to-bumper construction traffic up ahead. Hope you guys aren’t taking 66. Traffic’s tight.”
“No, we’re on 395 South and we’ve got nothing but clear roads ahead. You need us to call emergency?”
“No, I can do it. Good luck. And tell Tony to bash that sucker’s face in when he catches him. For all of us.”
J.J. held the radio to Tony’s mouth. He needed to keep his hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road. “I’ve got your back, Jig. Get yourself some help and we’ll check on you later.”
Her heart thumped through her ribcage as she exhaled. “Man, I’m gonna kick the crap out of Lana when I get my hands around her neck. Gettin’ my pressure up.”
No sooner than the words left their mouths—Whoop Whoop! A Virginia State Police cruiser turned on his takedown lights, signaling for them to pull over. Both grunted in frustration when a text from Sunnie buzzed J.J.’s cell phone.
The next flight to Moscow departs at 2:07 pm.
She checked her watch. “Damn it! The flight leaves at 2:07. It’s 1:15! We don’t have time for this shit!!”
“Calm down, J.J. We’ll show him our creds and we’re outta here. We are the F-B-motherfuckin’-I!” Tony joked.
J.J. chuckled and shook her head.
The officer, a 12-year-old with the smell of fresh-out-of-training on his breath, leaned down toward the window. “Afternoon. You were going 75 in a 55. License and registration, please.”
“Afternoon officer, we’re FBI,” Tony said. Both he and J.J. flashed their credentials. “We’re in the middle of an operation and we need to get to Dulles.”
“FBI, huh?” the cop said, lowering his sunglasses to the edge of his nose. “Hmph. I applied to be an agent and they rejected me, said I was psychologically unfit. License and registration, please!”
“But—”
“License and registration, please!”
His attitude set J.J. on fire. “Excuse me, what is your badge nu—”
Tony hushed her before she could finish. Then he scoured his glove compartment for his registration and pulled his license from his wallet. “Here you go, sir,” he choked out.
“I’ll be just a moment!” he said, dragging his feet.
J.J. looked down at her watch again—1:22.
Son of a bitch!
• • •
Chris eyed Mike as he re-entered the interview room and returned to his seat. “I cleared all of the dead drops. I marked the signals. She used Jack and Jim to gain access to files.”
Chris’s voice trembled as he struggled to lift his gaze from the table. Not because he’d lied during the interview, rather, for the first time in a long time, he had to face his own ugly truth.
“Jim knew her true identity and even helped get her hired, but Jack… I’m sure he wasn’t aware of her activities. I kept telling her she’d pushed the envelope too far.”
“Did she coerce you in any way? Threaten or blackmail you?” Mike asked.
His chin dropped to his chest, his shoulders hunched. “I wish I could say yes, but no. No, she didn’t. I
fell in love with her, would’ve done anything to hold onto her.”
“Including sell your soul to the devil—or the Russians as it were.”
“You can think what you want about me. I tried to confess a dozen times, but she told me if one of us went down we’d all go down.”
“All?”
“Me, her, Cartwright…” he said. “So she trained me to beat the polygraph.”
Mike and Don glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. “Hold up. You’re telling us she trained you to defeat the poly?”
“Yeah, she did. But, we see how well that worked out, right?” he said, wiping his brow. “After I passed the test today, we’d planned to pick up the cash and make arrangements to defect. We tried to get enough to raise the baby.”
“Baby?” Mike laughed.
“Leave the country?” Don said.
“She said her handler gave her passports for both of us. All we needed to do was make it to Dulles airport and they’d put us on the first available Aeroflot flight out—the government still owns the airline so…”
Mike sat back in his seat. At that point, Don stepped in and took over.
“Can you tell us about your, uhhh, Koshechka’s relationship with Jake McGee?” Mike asked.
Chris’s eyes protruded from their sockets. “How’d you figure it out?” Chris asked, disappointed he couldn’t hold out longer. She’d probably realized by now that his polygraph hadn’t proceeded well and was preparing to leave. But he couldn’t be certain. Maybe they’d shed some light.
Don’s eyes darted between them, as he was not yet privy to the information Sunnie had shared with Mike.
“Never mind that. You just tell me what you can about her relationship with Jake.”
Chris shrugged. “They didn’t have one as far as I know, nothing outside of work. I’m positive of that.”
“You sure you’re positive?”
He hesitated. “Yeah . . . I’m positive. Why do you ask?”
Mike leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Hate to break this to you Chris,” he began, “but your darling Koshechka is on her way to Moscow if my instincts serve me well . . . and they usually do.”
His eyes widened and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly. She knew. She’d made her escape. “Now?”
“Yep. Right now,” Mike said. “With Jake McGee.”
Chris sucked in a hard breath as if his lungs had collapsed, and he struggled for air, shaking his head furiously.
“No, she wouldn’t. She loves me. We’re having a baby . . . she loves me.” He tried to convince himself more than Mike and Don. Then, on the edge of tears, he buried his face in his hands, conceding his fight to believe in her. He’d been played like Monopoly set. And before the day’s end, he’d be resting on a cot in the Alexandria Detention Center.
“That bitch!” he screamed. He slammed his fist against the chair arm, his eyes empty, those of a man possessed. “That two-timing slut bitch!”
Don kicked in, “No, I think she was more like a three-timing slut bitch.”
“Now we’re cooking with gas!” Chris’s anger pleased Mike. “Wondered when your balls were gonna drop. Are you ready to tell us everything and stop protecting her now?”
Chris nodded yes.
Mike rubbed his hands together rapidly, getting warmed up for the next phase of the interview. “Your former colleagues are probably trying to head them off at Dulles as we speak. Let’s just hope they catch them in time.”
Chapter 46
Later Thursday Afternoon…
“Aeroflot Flight 3-0-2-5 to Sheremetyevo will board in ten minutes at Gate B41,” an attendant announced over the airport intercom system. Dulles Airport was bustling with afternoon travelers.
Lana, dressed down from her more revealing wardrobe, wore dark-colored Dockers and a reversible navy/red hoodie to help her blend in with the crowd. She scanned the security checkpoint, watching for unusual movements, listening for hurried footsteps pacing toward her. She heard nothing, nothing except the sound of freedom, her escape merely a few feet ahead. She turned her head over her shoulder to look at her darling Jake. He was just a few families behind. He’d taken an extended bathroom break, so she stayed in line.
She emptied her pockets into the plastic X-ray container, sat her purse inside. Her most current weapon was in the holster on her back—she’d left the others, the ones she reported missing, inside her house. Once J.J. figured out Lana’s true identity, once Chris realized she had defected and inevitably blabbed their extent of their activities, the Bureau could search her former residence and retrieve them. They’d no doubt comb every square inch of her Cape Cod before sunset. In the meantime, she’d be long gone, back to a place where she’d have no use for them, a place where she’d be a hero to her country and once again the sunlight in her father’s eyes.
She reached in her purse for the leather case, the one containing her FBI credentials. She’d flash them one last time to clear the checkpoint, then chuck them in the trash where they belonged. Almost seven years under their noses and they couldn’t find her, not if she wore a sign on her back. She laughed to herself. She and her darling Jake had made fools of them all—J.J., Tony, Chris and the rest of the FBI. Idiots, she thought to herself. In just a few short hours, she’d be back in Moscow, ready to move into her government-furnished flat. She’d assume her well-earned desk job at the Center during the day. And at night—Jake.
“Remove your weapon, please,” the TSA officer directed. “Place it on the X-ray machine.”
Hmph. Odd, she thought. They usually didn’t ask her to remove it. Just allowed her to pass through metal detectors. A new rule? No matter. She only had a few more steps. Her new life waited, so there was no need to argue with these overpaid peons now.
“All clear,” the TSA agent said as she stepped through the scanner.
She reached for her weapon. It wasn’t there. She panicked. Her head flitted around the area until she identified the problem.
“Surprised to see me?” J.J. said, smiling at the shock on Lana’s face. A large, scowling Italian stood behind her as J.J. dangled Lana’s weapon from her index finger. J.J.’s Glock was trained on the traitor’s head.
Lana shriveled in her momentary daze, her eyes darting to the X-ray machine where the TSA agent stood, his hands the size of baseball mitts and her shoes and purse in his hands. She had no creds, no gun, no passport, and no boarding pass.
“Where the hell did you think you were going?” Tony said, grabbing Lana’s gun from J.J. and zipping it into his jacket pocket.
Lana gasped, her surprise at J.J.’s appearance evident. Her face turned ghostly pale as she took a step back. But she’d never give up without a fight. Where there was a will, there was a way. And she’d find a way.
• • •
“Where’s the fucking drop, Lana?” J.J. eased toward Lana, her 9-mm still aimed and ready to fire. At the worst time, her hand began to tremble again. The numbness, it dulled the feeling in her fingers. Her grip weakened against the handle.
No. No. Not now!
“You all right, J.J.?” Tony said. He eased up slowly behind her. She could feel his body heat against her back.
“I’m okay!” she barked.
“Jake, run!” Lana screamed before launching a kick to J.J.’s firing arm, her foot slamming into the bone in J.J.’s wrist. She stepped back hard into Tony and threw them both off balance. Meanwhile, J.J.’s gun fell and slid a short distance, slamming against the base of the X-ray machine. J.J. and Lana dove, scrambled toward the weapon. Lana edged out J.J. out by inches, seconds.
J.J. gritted her teeth and continued to tug and pull Lana’s clothes. If Lana grabbed her gun, she was dead. And she’d have no one but herself to blame. Her denials could’ve gotten her and Tony—the man she respected, the man she adored, the man she loved—killed. She desperately stretched her arm, willed the feeling back into her fingers. But Tony’s size fourteen foot landed against Lana’s ribcage, send
ing her reeling onto her side. She rolled onto her hands and knees, and scrambled through the metal detector as startled passengers screamed and backed out of the way.
Dazed for only a few seconds, Lana sprinted down the walkway in trouser socks toward the escalators. J.J. could see Jake running with a saddle bag in the distance. He’d taken the intel but had waited long enough to ensure Lana broke free.
Tony pulled J.J to her feet and both returned their guns to their holsters and took off after their targets, pursuing them with incensed abandon. If Jake and Lana made it to the Aerotrain on the next level down, they were both as good as gone.
TSA called for back-up, but the agents present couldn’t leave the checkpoint.
“I won’t let you down again!” J.J. yelled to Tony, who was on her heels. “Where the hell is Washington Field?”
“I don’t know but Jake’s getting away!” Tony said, kicking in the jets. “Catch up with you ahead.”
The moment he passed her, fatigue set in. Her Belvedere binge began to drag her down, and she sucked wind as she chugged down the passenger walkway too many steps behind Lana. The vodka leaded her limbs, slowed her sprint. Exhausted, hung-over she wanted to give up, but she couldn’t. She had promises to keep, to Viktor, to Tony, to herself.
“I’ll never drink again,” she thought to herself. “I’ll never drink again.” She took a deep breath and picked up the pace.
Jake was the farthest ahead and had managed to dissolve into the crowd. Lana, slowed by the dense crowds and the slippery linoleum, was still in view a few meters ahead. Lana was clueless, had no idea J.J. still had an eye on her. When at last J.J....tripped. Over a child’s stray duffle bag.
Shit!
She’d fallen in the middle of a chase like the inept TV agents she mocked. She wanted to kick herself, but the kick would have to wait. She dragged herself to her feet, trying to find a way through the crowd, trying to make up the few feet of distance she’d lost. The announcer made the last call for the flight to Moscow. Lana was too far away from the gate to catch a flight, but she put more distance between them. Step by step. Getting too close to the Aerotrain escalator for J.J.’s comfort.
