CLOAK & CORKSCREW: 23) EPIPHANIES

My Saturday Evening Post: A Serial Novel of Intrigue & Lunacy

NOTE: I accidentally skipped Chapter 23 (this one). It should have preceded Chapter 24, which appeared last Saturday. Apologies.

48.

Jennifer Jones, FBI special agent in the Los Angeles field office, first heard the news from a colleague calling from the Washington Field Office.  Josh Penner in custody for air rage.

She hoped it would end there.  But it did not.  Soon after, Jones received a call from the Special Agent-in-Charge of Boston’s field office.

“We have a high profile perp who says he will speak only to you,” he said.  “What’s that about?”  His agents, he added, wanted to question Josh Penner, but the movie star responded to every question with the same answer:  “I will speak only to Jennifer Jones, an FBI agent based in Los Angeles.”  Oddly, he continued, Penner did not even ask for a lawyer or demand bail.  “He just wants you.”

And so, after seeking approvals from her boss, and from headquarters, Jenny Jones, with no small amount of trepidation, boarded a Boston-bound Airbus.

At Suffolk County Jail, an escort delivered her to a prisoner visiting room where Penner sat disheveled and unshaven.  His eyes lit up when she entered the room.  He waited till she sat opposite him, table in between.  “I got set up!” he hissed.

“Set up?”  Jones’s eyes widened with incredulity.  “But you attacked someone!”

“He’d been following me everywhere.  He goaded me.  It was practically self defense.”

“That’s not what over a dozen witnesses have testified to police,” said Jones, shaking her head.  “This is serious.”

“I know, I know.  That’s why I wanted you here instead of a lawyer.”

 “Under the circumstances, a lawyer is precisely what you need, not me.”

 Penner shook his head and glanced around the room.  “I was working for the CIA,” he whispered.

If she didn’t already know this to be true, she would have thought that Penner, in his current state, was nuts.  She looked at him with a non-committal expression.

“They won’t help me,” he added.

 Little wonder, she thought.

 “And there’s also the work I was doing for you, for the FBI.”

Now Jones glanced around nervously.

“You need to get me out of here so I can do what you wanted me to do with Jose Hernandez.’

Jones shook her head.  “It doesn’t work like that.  Not only did you commit a serious crime, you’ve set the media on fire.  We can’t afford to be connected to something with such a high profile.”

Penner smirked.  “Well, you are connected.  You asked me to do certain things for the FBI, and you’re sitting here right now.”

Jones’s eyes narrowed; suddenly concerned for her fast-track career.  “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m saying, I’m done with the CIA.  Get me out of here and I’ll do anything you want.”

 “I… we… I just don’t have that kind of authority.”

“Drop the charges on the grounds of national security,” Penner suggested.

“There aren’t any such grounds for assault and battery.”

Penner steamed, glared at Jones.  “Okay, to hell with you and the CIA.  I’ll go to the guy at State,” he muttered, thinking aloud.

Jones took a few seconds to absorb this.  “The State Department?”

“What’s it to you?  You won’t help me when I’m down?  I’ll find someone else who will.”         

“What guy in the State Department?”         

“A bigwig.  He wants a favor from me.”

“What favor?”

“He wants it so bad, he’s blackmailing me.”

“Blackmailing you?”

Penner sensed that he’d unexpectedly hit a hot button. He sat back, smirking—and feeling relaxed for the first time since his arrest.

Jones steadied her gaze into Penner’s eyes.  “Does this,” she whispered, “have anything to do with Jose Hernandez?”

“No.”

 Now the FBI special agent relaxed.

“It has to do with Chavez,” said Penner.

“Hugo Chavez?”  Jones’s body re-tensed.

Penner nodded.

Jones whipped out a notebook and pen.  “So let me get this straight.  You’re saying someone from the State Department contacted you because of your connection to Hugo Chavez?”

Penner nodded again.

“And he gave you his name?”  Jones poised pen to paper.

“Of course.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Of course,” said Penner, who suddenly realized he inadvertently knew something of great importance.  “After you get me the out of this hell-hole.”

49.

Igor Kuntevich took no chances with the treasure trove of intelligence in his possession.  The first thing he did was download Tom Richardson’s manuscript on a CD-Rom disk and also onto a miniature flash-drive, lest he somehow be separated from his computer, by accident or design.

The disk he sent by DHL to himself in Moscow; the flash-drive he carried in his underwear.

Assuming the CIA, by then, knew of his existence, and perhaps even about the consummated “publishing” deal, he also took no chances with his personal safety and travel arrangements.  Although in a hurry to return to Moscow, he decided against air travel, lest he be detained at the request of the United States.

So Kuntevich boarded a Vienna-bound train, and continued by railroad to Prague, where he slept overnight in a low-profile hotel before renting a car for onward travel to Moscow.

The more he read and re-read Richardson’s material, the more excited he became—and fearful that someone would pop out and steal it away from him, maybe even kill him.

Richardson’s manuscript was far more valuable than anyone at SVR headquarters could possibly have imagined.  Just wait until they see what I got.  And for only a million dollars?