CLOAK & CORKSCREW: 39) DENOUEMENT
My Saturday Evening Post: A Serial Novel of Intrigue & Lunacy
77.
Jose Hernandez intended to get a jump on events. Arrive in Venezuela a few days earlier than Penner and Woodward, check in with his superiors, take a meeting with DISIP’s director: congratulations, perhaps, in advance of the event for a job well done.
He also hoped to wangle an invitation to meet Hugo Chavez.
And so he booked Avianca from Washington-Dulles to Bogota, with on-going service to Caracas.
As Hernandez sipped rum and Coke in the bar while waiting to board, a striking woman of color approached, sat upon a stool and winked at him.
Hernandez smiled. She’s on my flight, I hope.
“Hi there,” said Jones in a friendly manner.
The Venezuelan flashed his best smile, trying to conceal his stained yellow teeth.
“You seem familiar to me,” said Jones.
“Really?” Hernandez could not resist his broadest smile, nicotine stains be damned.
“Yes, didn’t I see you at The Ivy, a restaurant in West Hollywood?”
Hernandez suddenly had a bad feeling about this. His smile disappeared. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“Sure, now I remember. You were with that movie star, Josh Penner.”
Hernandez gulped his rum and Coke. “My plane,” he mumbled, turning to leave.
A male in a dark suit suddenly appeared smack in front of him. “FBI.” He flapped his badge.
Hernandez turned to Jones.
“Yep.” She smiled. “I’m with him.”
“Diplomatic immunity,” hissed Hernandez in one quick burst.
“Maybe,” said Jones. “We’ll sort that out while you’re in custody.”
“But I must catch my plane,” bellowed Hernandez. “My government, it will protest this violation.”
“Yep,” said Jones. “We’re used to protests from your country.”
78.
Jack Woodward had spent a few days foreshadowing, among colleagues, his trip to Caracas, spreading word that he had conceived an imaginative project by recruiting an American movie star, a friend of the Venezuelan leader, to create a diplomatic back-channel at the highest level.
Meantime, Jose Hernandez was held in isolation, while FBI agents “went through the motions” of establishing his credentials as a diplomatic and immunity status—and drawing up paperwork that would eventually officiate Hernandez’s deportation for “activities incompatible for a diplomat.”
As Woodward approached first-class check in for the same Avianca flight Hernandez had missed two days earlier, Josh Penner sidled up to him and whispered, “Something strange has happened.”
“What are you talking about?” snapped Woodward.
“I tried to reach Hernandez.” He paused for effect. “But he seems to have disappeared.”
“What do you mean, disappeared?”
“He’s gone. The embassy doesn’t know where he is.”
A couple days earlier, Woodward would have been concerned. But now, bags packed, boarding pass within his grasp, onward and upward.
“There’s more,” said Penner, glancing furtively around the terminal. “I was followed here.”
“You what?”
“Men in dark suits, in black cars. They reminded me of studio executives. Except this isn’t Hollywood.”
Woodward paled. He tried, inconspicuously, to look around. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Over there.” Penner gestured with a head nod over Woodward’s shoulder.
Woodward turned.
Sure enough, four men in dark suits were talking amongst one another.
“Good, God!” gasped Woodward. “I’ve got to use the toilet.”
The previous few days, Woodward had stuffed his briefcase, and one-third of his garment bag, with every shred of Top Secret intelligence on Venezuela he could lay his hands on. Now he needed to get rid of it. Fast.
He wheeled around and aimed himself at the public men’s room.
But Woodward did not make it through the door, his path blocked by three other men in dark suits.
And one woman. Jenny Jones. “Going somewhere?” she asked him.
And then eight persons were around him, introducing themselves as Special Agents with the FBI.
Nearby, Bradley Bish of TZM videotaped the ruckus. At his side, directing him, his collagueNatalie Ruvo. And their boss, TZM chief Brooke Holden.
Mildly irritated by unexpected media attention, Jenny Jones flapped her badge and arrested Woodward on suspicion of conspiracy to commit espionage.
The TZM trio continued to shoot as Woodward was handcuffed, hustled out the terminal and bundled into the back of an Excalibur.
Next they returned to the Avianca desk, where Penner posed himself for an interview.
One hour later, TZM’s story hit the internet:
Dateline Washington. Hollywood star Josh Penner, working secretly for both the CIA and FBI, today solved a major espionage case leading to the arrest, moments ago, of a senior State Department official.
Within a week, Hollywood scriptwriters were commissioned to write a screenplay for a movie, with the working title Cloak and Corkscrew.
Josh Penner would play himself. And eventually win his second Oscar for best actor.
Igor Kuntevich was convicted in France of two premeditated murders-- homicide volontaire assasinat—and sentenced to life, twice, which meant approximately 50 years in prison. He would eventually be traded back to Russia in exchange for a soccer player snagged at Moscow airport with cannabis.
In addition to terminating, with extreme prejudice, their finest FSB officer in Europe, along with an important French agent, thereby disrupting major arms shipments at a loss of billions of dollars, the Russian SVR had taken several other unwise actions in response to disinformation provided by Tom Richardson’s manuscript.
Tom Richardson disappeared on paid leave until reassignment, six months later, to the San Francisco office of Foreign Research, focused largely on China’s efforts to spy on Silicon Valley. He married Sophie Gunderson and they worked together, producing three children along the way.
Jenny Jones fast-tracked her way from the FBI’s LA field office to headquarters, eventually becoming assistant director for national security.
Despite inadvertent success, Charles Mulberry resigned from the CIA for a less-stressful job as a counselor to sufferers of OCD at UCLA’s world-renowned clinic. As a condition of employment, he requested, and was granted, an exemption from having to treat Hollywood celebrities.
And that’s that.
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Next week: A new serial espionage tale of intrigue & lunacy titled The Misfit Unit.