The Seven Year Itch (8 page)

Ahhh. 51
.

The perfect tune. Moments later, the music began to play.
Tony gave J.J. the stink eye before she laughed and paced quickly back to her
seat. She wouldn’t miss this for the world, the performance of Tony’s life.

He bobbed his head to the beat, on rhythm to J.J.’s surprise.
Then the first stanza began. “I like big butts and I cannot lie....”

•
 
•
 
•

The burnt orange and amber-colored leaves
drifted in the fall breeze as Tony pulled up to the street corner. They’d
arrived at the designated mailbox. Idyllic brick cape cods lined the streets in
the residential area surrounding the signal location. They made it convenient
to the embassy for a reason.
Karat
could reach it by just taking a leisurely 20-minute stroll.

Peering out of the passenger window, J.J. was thankful the
last ray of sun had yet to fade. She could check the box without drawing undue
attention with a flashlight. She snatched her glasses off in frustration and
sat back hard against her seat.

“Nothing. Damn!” she said, disappointed. Against her better
judgment, she’d already begun to kid herself, thought Tony’s bright idea might
yield a sliver of hope.

“What were your instructions?” Tony asked.

“A vertical chalk mark on the south side of the box. This is
the south side. No mark.”

Tony leaned forward and examined the area as if he’d see
something with his “man” vision that she couldn’t.

J.J. rolled her eyes, shot him a glare. “Really?” she asked,
her voice slathered in sarcasm. “Nothing’s there.”

He shrugged. “Dmitriyev was with him so…whadaya gonna do?”
Glancing to his right, Tony noticed an ice cream shop in the distance. “You
want ice cream?” Tony asked. “There’s a shop just up the block.”

“If this is some feeble attempt to help me eat my troubles
away, well...you should’ve thought of it sooner.”

As he spun the steering wheel to the right, J.J. pressed her
forehead against the window. The ice cream shop was just a few hundred feet
away. In an act of sheer desperation, she eyed the box from her peripheral
vision.
 

She gasped. “Wait a minute. Stop, Tony. Stop!”

“What is it?” he yelled.

“Back up to the box! I think I saw something.”

Chapter 9

“J
esus! You scared the crap out of me.”

She grabbed his arm, pulled him toward her.

“Look! Right there!”

Tony’s gaze shifted in circles. Then his chin collapsed into
his lap. “How the hell did he pull that off?”

They’d spotted the faint but visible mark. Plotnikov had
placed it on the wrong side of the mailbox. J.J. blinked a few times, believing
her imagination had run wild.

How in hell could Plotnikov mark the signal with Dmitriyev in
the car? Her mind churned. Maybe he slipped out in the middle of the night and
made the drop? Hmmm. No, the lookouts would’ve seen him leaving and noted the
incidents on the log. A piece of this puzzle was missing—something important.
And she had no clue what it was.

But the package was there. Encryption codes.
ICE Phantom
’s identity.
 
The unknowing, the stress was unbearable.

“We’ve got to check the dead drop location now. We’ll get ice
cream after. The park’s about to close.”

Tony shook his head. “What happened to your priorities?”

•
 
•
 
•

The sun hung low in the horizon when Tony and
J.J. wheeled into Rock Creek Park. The drop only steps away, the end to years
of compromised cases and dead sources were finally coming to a close. And in
the location where it all began for them mere months before. It was perfect for
her, D.C.’s largest recreational area. The park contained so many nooks and
hidden places to suit her operational needs. Off-the-beaten path walking
trails, rocks, and footbridges, it was replete with ideal locations. Dead drops
could be easily concealed and signals marked without being disturbed for days,
even months.

They pulled into a cul-de-sac, a semi-circle shaped parking
lot right off Beech Drive, a main thoroughfare. Very little traffic passed
through the spot in the late evenings because no lighting had been installed on
the walking trails. J.J. reached in Tony’s back seat to find the operational
backpack they stored in his car for those occasions they needed to retrieve
drops at night. Inside were a flashlight, rubber gloves, and evidence kits. The
rubber gloves ensured they wouldn’t contaminate any potential evidence with
their own prints. Crime lab techs lifted prints on everything. The skull caps
and black nylon windbreakers were reversible, grey and black, in case they
needed to alter their appearances while on foot. But this night the lot was
desolate, no one but them, the bats, the trees, and the chilling breeze.
Concealing their identities was the least of their concerns.

“Listen, Tony, we need to step up the pace. Park Police will
be making their rounds to lock up soon. I don’t want to have to explain that
we’re FBI agents here to pick up Top Secret documents our Russian spy left for
us in a dead tree stump.” She stuffed the gloves in her pocket. “They get just
south of pissed when the FBI doesn’t advise them about ops on their turf.”

“True. True,” he said as he removed his seatbelt.

“The last thing we need is for some keystone cop to call
Sabinski and rant about our failure to follow protocol.”

“You got that right,” he said, twisting his head toward the
backseat.
“The flashlight’s still in there, right?”

“Uhhh, I think so.”

When she turned to dig in the bag, a blinding light
obstructed her vision. Headlights. The car turned into the lot and eased closer
toward their car. She blinked rapidly, suddenly felt as if she needed to use
the bathroom. She could see nothing.

And time was working against them.

J.J. and Tony couldn’t afford to lose a single day. She
couldn’t tell whether the car had takedown lights. The sky was blue black.

“Please tell me that’s not Park Police,” J.J. said. “You know
they’ll order us out.”

Tony craned his neck, but couldn’t discern. “Damn it’s dark
out here. I can’t tell yet.”

The car pulled into a parking space. A few feet away. The
engine stopped.

“No, can’t be Park Police. They’d have rolled up behind the
car to keep us from backing out,” Tony said. “Probably some kids up to no
good.”

“
Whew!
Okay, let’s
roll.”

J.J. opened her door, planted her foot onto the moist
asphalt. A choir of crickets sounded as a light breeze swept across her face.
Then a second set of headlights appeared. The take-down lights were visible
this time. She glimpsed the faint shadow of an arm maneuvering a floodlight
hanging on the driver-side mirror.

J.J. poked her head back in the car, lowered her voice.
“Shit! This
is
Park Police! What are we gonna do?” She pulled her foot back
inside and closed the door.

“Where’s your gun?” Tony asked, his breathing markedly
faster.

“In the holster on my back,” she answered. She hoped his
solution involved something other than flashing their credentials.

“Good. Mine too,” Tony said. “Now just play along.”

Before J.J. could inhale and process what he’d said, he
grabbed her shoulder, yanked her to his chest, and kissed her deeply, as if
they’d just said “I do.” J.J.’s eyes opened wide when they should’ve closed,
and drifted closed when she should’ve been pulling away. He cupped her cheeks;
the heat from his hands warmed her. Her fingers roamed, found their way into
his hair, onto his shoulders, and down to the small of his back.
My God—his lips,
she thought.
She’d never felt such softness, such
tenderness. Slowly he eased his mouth open, and hers followed. Their tongues
intertwined in a beautiful dance. J.J. felt drugged with the purest form of
Ecstasy. She lost track of time, of space. She’d been transported to dream.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

And awakened by reality.

The officer banged on the window. His light shone directly in
their faces. Then on the floor and in the back seat.

Tony turned down the window and placed his hands on the
steering wheel so the officer could see his hands and then lowered the window.

“Didn’t you read the sign when you drove in? The park is
closed after dark. You’ll need to leave immediately so I can lock up.”

J.J. didn’t hear a word the officer said.
Is he even speaking English?
she
wondered. Neither her body nor her mind had returned from wherever Tony had
beamed her a few seconds before. The other car pulled off, distracting them all
for a moment. The officer turned his attention back to them.

“Oh, sorry, sir,” Tony said. “But my wife, she dropped her
wallet when we took a walk here earlier. It’s our anniversary and this is where
we first met. Guess we, uhhh...got a little carried away. You know how it is.”

Did he just say wife?

J.J. tucked her left hand under her thigh so the cop couldn’t
see her ringless finger. Tony words had whizzed her back to reality, caught her
off guard. So did the itching sensation that ensued a few minutes later. Her
leg jerked noticeably before she could compose herself.

“You all right, Miss?”

“Yes, it’s a condition. Forgot my medication.”
 

“So you dropped your wallet huh?”

J.J. nodded sheepishly and balled her fist. She wanted to jab
Tony in the arm.

“Women! Whadaya gonna do, right?” Tony added.

They shared a man laugh at her expense. J.J. frowned at Tony,
cocked her head to one side and shook it. He’d pay for that remark later.

“I dunno,” the cop said, debating whether to let them go.

“Pleeeeaaase, officer?” J.J. begged. “If somebody steals it,
I’ll have to replace my driver’s license, social security card, everything. And
hubby here will never let me live it down.”

He paused. “All right. All right. I can’t even count how many
times I’ve had to call out a search party to find my wife’s purses and crap.
Sheesh!” the officer said. “You’ve got five minutes and then I’ve got to lock
up. I’ll make another stop and come back. You got a flashlight?”

“Uhhh...yes, sir. Right here.” She reached her arm behind the
seat into the duffle bag and pulled it into his view. “See? We’re good to go.”

“Okay. I’ll be back in a few. Good luck finding your wallet.”

Tony stepped out of the car, waved at the officer. When he
pulled the cruiser onto the parkway, J.J. and Tony jumped out.

“That there was some fancy footwork, partner,” she said,
sucking her teeth and speaking with a cheesy Yankee Texan accent. J.J. shifted
her gaze to her watch, and then grabbed an evidence bag from the duffle. Time
was ticking and they hadn’t reached the drop location.

As they padded down bike trail, a sliver of a moonbeam and a
flashlight illuminated their path. Tony led the way, his pace swift and urgent,
his body shielding her from whatever lay ahead. The sound of falling leaves set
her nerves on edge.

Within minutes they arrived at the footbridge, roughly forty
meters in. She shone the light on the adjacent grassy area as Tony eased down
the rocky slope, then tossed him the flashlight so he could see where Plotnikov
had stuffed the bag.

Alone in the blue blackness, J.J. flinched, placed her hand
on her holster every time noises sounded in the trees. Birds, bats, whatever.
Sunday dinner was but a shot away.

Wordlessly, Tony searched the crevice between the wooden
planks and the slope.

“You see anything? The package may be small if he’s passing
codes.” She looked at her watch again. “We’ve only got a couple minutes left.”

“No. Nothing. You sure this is the right location?”

“Uh yeah. Picked it myself.”

“Still don’t see...oh here it is! Lemme see if I can grab it.
He wedged it in here pretty good.”

Wedged?
J.J.
thought.
How could a small package be
wedged?

After a few grunts, he emerged. He followed the light up the
jagged rocks embedded in the hill, climbed to the trail. The large, dark green
trash bag sealed with duct tape along the seams was classic Russian tradecraft.

“
This
is the
package?” J.J. questioned. The discovery wasn’t quite what she expected.
“Rather large to contain codes, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah. Sure is,” Tony replied. “Feels like a stack of
documents.”

They both shrugged off their concerns for the moment,
grateful
Karat
made the drop at
all. His recall to Moscow was unexpected and probably as shocking to him as to
them. His cooperation may have prompted his own murder and that thought quelled
their excitement.

J.J. shook her head, held the evidence bag open so Tony could
drop the weighty package inside.
Karat
must’ve cleaned house knowing the opportunity might be his last. He’d stick it
to the SVR before he met his fate, and now J.J. would bring his desires through
to fruition.

“He did it. He fuckin’ pulled it off.” Tony grabbed the
evidence bag from J.J. and paced toward the parking lot.

Her initial elation subsided and sadness set in. “Yeah, but
at what cost?” J.J. followed closely on his heels. “You think they’re gonna
kill him...like the others?”

“Probably. But risk is the nature of this business. Everybody
knows that. He understood the stakes. We paid him to take those chances. And he
gave his family a better life. If this information is solid, whether he’s dead
or alive, we’ll work with the CIA to get the money where it belongs. We’ve kept
our end of the deal.”

“No, you and I kept
our
end of the deal. But the FBI didn’t. Some self-serving bastard didn’t keep his
end of the deal,” she spat, as her anger welled inside. “He didn’t honor the
oath, and
Karat
might pay for his
treachery with his life.”

“Listen, I realize you’re frustrated and angry. Hell, I am
too,” Tony said. “The best thing we can do for Viktor is to make sure that he
doesn’t die in vain. We’re going to take this information and use it to find
the rat scum sucker, whoever he is. But right now we gotta get to the car
before that cop gets back. If he catches us with this big ass trash bag, we’re
toast.”

In no time they arrived at the car. J.J. tossed the drop
contents into the back seat, the Park Police officer drove up and turned down
his window.

“You guys find what you were looking for?”

“Yeah, we got it,” Tony smiled. “Thanks officer. We’ll be on
our way now.”

“Have a good evening,” he said, before turning to J.J. “And
you
…take better care of your belongings.”

She smirked at the scolding.

Tony and J.J. slipped into their seats, and the engine
revved. Rock Creek Parkway would put them at headquarters in twenty minutes.

“Looks like we’re gonna have another late night. Let’s take
this stuff to the office and review it,” Tony said.

J.J. shot Tony a glare suggesting he’d put his brain in the
bag with the drop materials. “Are you kidding me? Not after the day I’ve had.
Not even at gunpoint. Let’s just head to my place to review the package and
we’ll take it to the vault in the morning.”

“And violate Bureau security regulations?”

J.J. shot him the side-eye. “Gimme a break. Before you
started working with me, you didn’t even know the Bureau
had
regulations.”

He laughed. “Yeah, and I only learned the regs because you’re
always in trouble for breaking them. Someday, I’ll teach you how not to get
caught.”

“Tonight let’s just focus on finding the evidence to arrest
Jack,” J.J. said. “And tomorrow, all of our troubles will be over. Right?”