Alex hopped out of the car and put on shades and a baseball cap. Jeremy followed suit, then they locked arms and walked slowly and casually down the alley, just a few yards behind their target.
Hadden approached the picnic tables, where several people sat. There was a family with three children at one of the tables, packing their cooler and food containers and getting ready to leave. They were noisy and gregarious, but he didn’t pay any attention to them and didn’t stop there; he continued walking down the alley.
Several tables farther, two older men were playing backgammon, completely absorbed in their game and letting out sounds of frustration or exhilaration to go with the rolls of their dice. Hadden slowed down, as if captivated by the game, and stopped, watching the players.
“Who’s winning?” Hadden asked.
“I am,” one of the men replied.
“The hell you are,” the other one said. “Not as long as I have breath in me.”
Hadden smiled and patted the first man on his shoulder, leaning into him and discreetly sliding a small envelope in the man’s jacket pocket.
Alex and Jeremy almost missed that.
“That’s it, that was the drop, we got it,” Jeremy said.
“No, we don’t,” Alex replied, grabbing him in a side hug and taking what appeared to be a selfie, but in fact snapping a quick and somewhat distant image of the man at the backgammon table.
“Let’s go,” Jeremy said impatiently, “Hadden’s leaving.”
“So let him,” Alex said calmly, “we know where to find him. We have a bigger problem, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Yeah, and I’m arresting the bigger problem now,” Jeremy said, reaching in his pocket for his cell to call the backup unit stationed at the park entrance.
“No, you’re not,” she said, forcing his hand away from his pocket.
“Jesus, woman, what the hell is wrong with you?” Jeremy snapped.
“Don’t you wanna know where this lead takes us? If you book him now, I’m sure he’ll clam up and you got nothing else.”
“There isn’t a single case in the FBI’s procedure manual where we let spies go free when we catch them red-handed. What if we lose him? Then what?”
“Give me a minute, will you please?” Alex replied unperturbed, and sent the picture via encrypted text message, with just two letters typed under it, “ID.”
Hadden had disappeared around the corner, headed most likely for his car, and the two of them took a bench under an old oak tree, with a direct line of sight to the backgammon game that still continued. She sensed the frustration in Jeremy, who could have easily closed the case as a win and make amends for his lack of partner retention, but she didn’t care. She still fostered some hope that this case might somehow be related to her mystery man, the Russian ghost with the initial V.
A chime coming from Alex’s mobile got their attention a few minutes later. A new text message read, “Major Evgheni Smolin, Russian Foreign Intelligence (SVR), entered via Toronto Pearson as Rudnitsky inbound from Zurich. Then crossed as Duncan, Canadian passport, at Niagara Falls on April 9. Current address, Smithfield Virginia, Novachenko residence.”
“There, see?” Alex said, exhilarated to see the suspect was, indeed, Russian. “Now let’s set up surveillance to find out who else is invited to this party.”
…54
“There he is,” Jeremy said, pointing at Hadden’s Acura, following the gentle curves of Norview Avenue, headed for the highway. “Let’s pull him over.”
She grunted, still angry that Jeremy insisted on picking up Hadden himself, and he let the two surveillance teams follow Smolin. Smolin is who she cared about; Smolin could potentially hold information about her mystery man, while Hadden was yesterday’s news.
Jeremy flipped a switch on the console of his Dodge Charger and the blue lights embedded in his radiator mask turned on, accompanied by the siren. Alex couldn’t stifle a smile.
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” she said.
The Acura slowed down and came to a stop.
“Stay here,” Jeremy said and got out of the car. Alex obeyed him for about ten seconds, then jumped out of the car and followed him.
Quentin had handed Jeremy his driver’s license.
“Step out of your vehicle, sir, we need to perform a sobriety test,” Jeremy said, acting just like an off-duty highway patrolman.
The moment Hadden got out of his car that changed. Jeremy grabbed him and turned him around, forcing him face down against his car’s hood, and cuffing his hands behind his back.
“Quentin Hadden, you are under arrest for espionage and treason. You have the right to remain silent—”
“Hey, I know you,” Hadden said, looking at Alex.
“Yes, you know me,” Alex replied dryly. “That doesn’t change a thing.”
Jeremy helped Hadden get in the back seat of the Charger.
“I will need an attorney,” Hadden said.
Jeremy burst into laughter. “What? You think we caught you robbing a convenience store and you still have rights? Where you’re going there are no lawyers, and you have no rights and no privileges. The sooner you get that into your head, the better off you’ll be.”
Hadden remained quiet for the duration of the short trip to FBI headquarters. Upon arrival, Jeremy booked him and had someone put him in an interrogation room.
Alex trotted behind him and followed quietly everything he did.
“Jeremy, I want to sit in on the interrogation. I wanna ask him some questions, my way.”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Please,” she insisted, “it’s really important to me. I think I can get to him. I read in his file he has a lot of frustrations with his employer. I can use that, I’ve experienced it myself and I can create rapport with him. Please, let me try.”
“No, Alex, I’m sorry, I can’t. We can’t allow contractors to sit in interrogations; it’s against the procedure.”
“And since when do you give a damn about procedure?” Alex asked in a raised voice, letting frustration get to her.
“Since I have a son to think of,” he blurted out before thinking.
“Oh,” she said quietly, backing down. “I understand.”
Jeremy rubbed the back of his neck, exasperated. “Look, you can sit in the observation room and watch.”
“OK,” she replied. “But, Jeremy?” Alex called as he was walking toward the interrogation room.
“Yeah?”
“He’s too calm, and that’s a bad sign. Be careful.”
He stood there for a second, unsure what to say, then went into the room and closed the door behind him. Alex entered the adjacent room.
She saw Jeremy take a seat across the table from a calm, composed, and somewhat sad Hadden.
“One question for you, Quentin. Why?”
Hadden looked Jeremy in the eye with a faint smile on his lips and stayed silent.
“Why betray your country? Why sell state secrets, our latest technology? Why?”
Jeremy leaned forward in his chair, reducing the distance between the two. Hadden wasn’t fazed by it. Minutes of silence went by, uninterrupted.
“They deserved it,” Hadden finally spoke. “And more.”
“Who?”
“The swine at Walcott. The corporate fat cats who can’t find it in their hearts to give us a fucking lunch break without squeezing more work out of us. The assholes who treat us like disposable objects, like doormats.”
Hadden’s voice escalated with every phrase, as emotion took over his rational brain.
“I have to put up with an arrogant idiot like McLeod every day, and what options do I have? I couldn’t transfer, they didn’t approve it. I can’t stop working, ’cause, you see, everything is a perfect slave game. The system lets you have just enough to become vulnerable, enough to have something to lose, but never enough to be free. You just can’t get ahead in this life. Everything is pointless, not worth it.”
“Why not leave Walcott, get another job?” Jeremy probed gently when he caught a second.
“And exchange swine for swine but lose my tenure benefits too? Have you worked a single minute in a for-profit organization? Or have you just indulged in the relaxed pace and job security of government employ?”
“I’m not important right now, Quentin; let’s focus on you.”
Alex cringed and bit her lip. Hadden will see that as rejection and withdraw. But she definitely didn’t expect what followed next.
“Who am I kidding?” Hadden was saying, wearing a bitter, crooked smile and letting more sadness seep into his eyes, his voice. “No one ever gives a fuck. Well, neither do I, not anymore. I’m done.”
He looked Jeremy in the eyes as he cracked something in his teeth, then started convulsing almost immediately.
Alex rushed in the room, just in time to catch Hadden taking his last breath, loaded with the distinctive smell of cyanide. There was nothing she could do.
“Fuck…” she said quietly, looking at Hadden’s distorted features.
“I–I didn’t see that one coming,” Jeremy said, looking a little lost.
“He was too calm, Jeremy,” she replied. “He had reached his decision; it was just a matter of time before he was gonna do it.”
“We got nothing out of him we didn’t already know, goddamn it,” Jeremy said angrily, his face reddened with anger and the suffocating feeling of powerlessness he must have felt.
“Yeah, but we still have Smolin out there,” Alex said encouragingly, touching Jeremy’s hunched shoulder. “There’s still something to go on with, so let’s get to work.”