The Seven Year Itch by S D Skye Page B

among multiple cars posted in positions ahead of the lead eye—in this case
Jake. The Russians would never see the same face, the same car. But Dmitriyev,
a seasoned counterintelligence officer, would expect the Gs to be there whether
he spotted the team or not.
    “Copy that, Jake. I’m locked and loaded. Ready to roll,”
Jiggy responded.
    Minutes into the surveillance, Plotnikov’s arm pointed out
the window, toward a Starbuck’s on Wisconsin Avenue. He motioned Dmitriyev to
pull over to the right. Once at the curb, Dmitriyev stopped and got out. When
Jake radioed the status, everyone scratched their heads.
    “Since when do counterintelligence guys hop outfor coffee? Something’s not right,” Jake
said. “Get a shadow on him, so we can find out what the hell is going on in
there. He knows we’re watching. Any other units nearby?”
    “This may be a stretch, but any of y’all ever think he might
be going in for a Caramel Macchiato?” Jiggy joked. “I’d pimp my sister for one
right now. I’m just sayin’.”
    They had no time for jokes but everybody laughed.
    “Jumping out! I’ve got this one,” Cham’s voice called out.
She always took control when the boys lost focus.
    Jake watched in his side-view mirror as she exited her
vehicle and approached the store entrance.
    By the time she reached the door, Dmitriyev returned to the
entrance with two steaming coffee cups in hand. He bowed his head at Jake
before getting into the car, a provocation if he’d ever seen one.
    Jake slammed his hand against his thigh, infuriated by
Dmitriyev’s blatant smugness. With that, Jake authorized himself to cover more
aggressively. He’d hug their bumper no matter what J.J. said.
    Dmitriyev waited for a break in traffic and eased out, then
exploded down Wisconsin Avenue. The Daytona 500 had slower starts. Jake reacted
too late.
    He’d been duped.
    Dmitriyev made the stop as a ploy to draw out surveillance,
and it worked.
    Zigzagging in an out of traffic, Dmitriyev weaved through the
streets like a fucking nutcase. Jake’s Charger engine roared, tires hugging the
road as if on train rails. He tried to stay on Dmitriyev without breaking cover
or killing an innocent bystander, but the pockets of stopped traffic and
wayward pedestrians proved too much to avoid. As they approached the
intersection at Wisconsin and R Streets, he saw her. A grandmother with a
rolling walker and two kids at her side stepped into the crosswalk against the
light.
    “Noooo, get out the way!” he yelled, leaning forward on his
steering wheel.
      They moved onto the
road. Only twenty feet ahead. Jake was going too fast.
    Too fast.
    SCREECH!
      He slammed his brakes,
fishtailed to a stop, and banged his hand against the steering wheel. Dmitriyev
disappeared and left nothing in his wake except smoke and exhaust fumes.
    Jake snatched his radio from the passenger seat. “I’ve lost
him. I’ve lost him! He’s on fire. Headed down Wisconsin. Here we go people!
Jiggy he’s less than two minutes away. Don’t lose him!”
    “Dude, already? He beat you in the paint!”
    Jiggy idled at the intersection of Wisconsin and O Street, a
one-way street a few blocks down from where Dmitriyev smoked Jake. Jiggy’s
itchy foot hovered over the gas pedal, waiting to slam and roll the minute his
target appeared. No sooner than Jiggy spotted him, Dmitriyev careened over the
horizon and hook a right barely avoiding a head-on collision with Jiggy’s
vehicle.
    “Shiiiiiit!” Jiggy yelled. “He turned! He turned!”
    Dmitriyev’s car tilted as it spun onto the street. His
hair-trigger move put the fear of God in Jiggy.
    “Idiot! You almost side-swiped my door!” he yelled. Dmitriyev
was long gone. “Damn! Too much traffic coming.”
    He jerked his head left and right, looking for an out.
Nothing opened up. Couldn’t make a U-turn fast enough. Change of plans. Jiggy
decided to hook a right on Wisconsin Avenue. He’d catch him a block down, off