Between a rock and a hard place
Chapter 1. Just another case
Summary: If there was one thing Jubal was sure of, it was that if they found out he was a federal agent, he was as good as dead.
The brutal blow hit him in the mouth and Jubal tasted his own blood again.
When he had come out of the unconsciousness caused by the blow to the back of the head earlier, he quickly discovered that: one, his head hurt terribly; two, he was tied to a chair in one of the back storerooms; and three, his jacket, belt and watch had been removed, as well as his shoes.
It was curious that the latter was what made him feel most vulnerable, and gave him the clue that his captors' intention was not to punish him, but to get information out of him. If the prisoner feels helpless, it is easier to make him talk.
The front of his cheap shirt was stained with blood from his split eyebrow. There had already been several blows to his face and ribs, but they still hadn't asked him anything . It seemed like they were just softening him up a bit. His eye was swelling up, but what hurt the most, however, was the blow to his head. He was dazed and had trouble focusing his vision. Jubal feared that he had concussion.
In any case, after what he'd learned earlier that day, if there was one thing Jubal was sure of, it was that if they found out he was a federal agent, he was as good as dead. So he could keep his mouth shut, no matter what they did to him.
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When the case first came to JOC's attention, Jubal thought it was just another case. An influential New York couple had sued a Russian adoption agency for fraud for asking for large amounts of money for six months and continuing to delay the agreed-upon delivery date of the child.
Under other circumstances, he would have been assigned to the Fraud division, but the involvement of babies in the transaction potentially made it child trafficking, and that was a very serious crime.
They began by investigating the agency: Schastlivaya Vstrecha, Inc. The name was an adapted romanization of the Russian счастливая встреча and meant "Happy Reunion". Charming. On paper everything seemed legal. The children had been placed for adoption in Russia and the agency was charging a not too exorbitant fee of a few tens of thousands of dollars for carrying out all the necessary paperwork, procedures and interlocution with the Russian authorities to deliver the children to their new, eager and wealthy parents. However, the complaint said that the agency had been collecting much more money under the table, allegedly to spare clients tedious trips of a purely bureaucratic nature to the Russian state.
The first thing that struck them was how few adoptions they had made since the company opened. Only seven in a year and a half seemed low turnover to keep a company open.
But it was Elise who came up with the first relevant clue, when she discovered that all the papers submitted to Social Services to document six of those seven adoptions were, after careful analysis but without a shadow of a doubt, manipulated copies of the first one.
It was then that Jubal already started to have a bad feeling about the case.
They began monitoring the offices of Schastlivaya Vstrecha, Inc. They set up a surveillance post in another nearby property and gathered information 24 hours a day.
It was very disturbing to see a baby being delivered without being seen arriving at any time.
The company was located on the first floor of the warehouse building of a logistics company, whose loading bays were constantly being served by trucks. Some of them were loaded at the port on a regular basis. This led them to think that perhaps the children were smuggled into the country and, maybe even taken from their families in their place of origin.
Isobel and Jubal discussed it with each other and together decided to commission Scott Forrester's team to investigate the Russian side of the operation. Even if it was almost impossible for the FBI to operate in Russia, they were sure to get some cooperation in a case like that.
While they were also investigating the logistics company, an opportunity arose to place an undercover agent in the adoption agency. One of Maggie's informants came with a tip-off that Schastlivaya Vstrecha was looking for someone reliable to fill a security guard position. It seemed like the perfect chance to find out what was really going on in there.
Jubal volunteered. He had undercover experience, had posed as someone of Russian descent before, and understood the language even if he couldn't speak it fluently.
For Isobel, it was a difficult decision. It wasn't that she doubted Jubal's ability to accomplish the mission; she was confident he could do it effectively and professionally. But, since Rina's death from the attack orchestrated by Vargas, Jubal had been asking for more field work, putting himself more and more on the front line and looking to take more and more risks. It was very unsettling the dynamic he seemed to be getting himself into.
In any case, Isobel was unable to find any counter-argument or any alternative that would not delay them terribly. With infants of such a young age in danger, she did not want to take any chances and, in spite of the ominous feeling she felt, decided to send Jubal to do the job.
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