Dream of a Falling Eagle

taking place under the eyes of others, one or more of whom might be his superiors, I felt sympathy for the man.

He'd been sent in virtually cold, with a limited briefing, and had apparently had little idea of what he was going to hear.

'You're Haitian, aren't you, Detective?'

'I said I'd ask the questions, Frederickson.'

I removed two business cards from my pocket, set them down between us on the table. 'Detective Beauvil,' I said evenly, 'I want you to do us all a favor. It will help enormously if we can carve out the parameters of this conversation we're having. The one number is the FBI field office in New York. The FBIs have grown to thoroughly despise the Fredericksons over the years; they think we're really arrogant sons of bitches. The feeling is mutual. But they'll tell you we're straight arrows, and that we're on the side of the angels on this one. They'll also strongly urge you to cut us some slack on this business of not immediately calling you when we walked into the crime scene.'

'What the hell does the FBI have to do with this?'

'Let them tell you. You might ask for Special Agent Mackey, but you can speak to anybody there. The FBIs will be working with you very closely on this case, which I'm sure makes your heart sing. The other number is where you can reach our current client. She'll vouch for us and tell you what we're up to. But she's tough as nails, and she is going to fire our asses if she finds out we went traipsing through a crime scene before reporting it-which I admit we did, but we didn't disturb anything. We had good reason. So I'd appreciate it if you'd be a bit discreet when you explain to her what we're doing sitting here in the Spring Valley police station. She's a retired senator, and if you'll look at the card I'm sure you'll recognize her name.'

The detective didn't look at the cards. 'You were overheard suggesting the removal of an item from the basement of the victim's house.'

'Just idle chatter. Garth and I always joke around like that.'

Beauvil's eyes were cold as he abruptly reached out and brushed his arm across the table, sweeping the cards to the floor. He took a small tape recorder from the pocket of his suit jacket, set it down between us, and turned it on. 'This incident took place within the village of Spring Valley, Frederickson, and we don't need the FBI or some retired senator to tell us how to do our job. If you want to make a statement, do it.'

'I thought I already had.'

'You haven't even begun to tell me what I want to hear. You want to keep tap dancing, we'll book the two of you and you can wait overnight in a cell for arraignment in the morning. Robert Frederickson, you've been read your rights and have waived your right to the presence of an attorney. Is that correct?'

'That's correct,' I replied, leaning back in my chair and breathing another heavy sigh.

'Are you making this statement of your own free will?'

'Well, that might be stretching the-'

'Start at the beginning. Why were you at the house of the murder victim?'

'We had an appointment. He was expecting us.'

'He was expecting you?'

'That's what I said.'

'Judging from your pronounced lack of sorrow at his demise, I take it you weren't exactly friends. Why would he agree to see you?'

'We had the goods on him. He knew we knew he was in this country illegally, on a very expertly forged passport we dearly would have loved to get our hands on. He was afraid we could get him shipped back to Haiti, or expose his identity and past to the Haitian community here. He didn't care for either prospect, and we'd led him to think we could cut a deal. We were planning to squeeze his ass for more information.'

'On behalf of this retired senator?'

'On behalf of the president of the United States.'

That got his attention, and he sat up straighten 'You told me this woman was your client.'

'Senator Harriet Frawley. She's the head of a Special Presidential Commission.'

'Investigating what?'

'Willful malfeasance and criminal activity on the part of the Central Intelligence Agency, specifically its Operations Directorate, over the past thirty years, with an eye toward drastically overhauling-or even dismantling- the CIA, thus saving American taxpayers a minimum of three billion dollars a year and the world a lot of grief.'

Beauvil stared at me, and I stared back. We sat in silence for what seemed to me a long time, but was probably only a minute or two. Finally the detective said, 'Go on.'

'Go on? That was my punch line. Haven't I sung enough for our supper? I explained to you what we were doing at the vic's house, and why we were poking-uh, looking-around. We're investigating something that's much bigger than this one murder. I've also assured you that we're the good guys, and we have the FBI and a retired senator who's working for the president of the United States to back us up. Garth lives here in Rockland County-in Cairn. Call Chief Bond of the Cairn PD if you want character references.'

'Ah yes, Cairn,' Beauvil said with more than a trace of sarcasm in his voice. 'Hollywood on the Hudson, home of the rich and famous.'

'Not just the rich and famous, Detective, and Cairn isn't Hollywood on the Hudson. Give me a break and spare me the local politics. I'm saying you have a local police chief to vouch for Garth and me. Garth is local. If you pursue this, The Journal News is going to splash it all over page one. Then The New York Times and the rest of the national media will pick up on the story, and soon after that Garth and I will be taken off this investigation. We wouldn't like that. This case is personal to my brother and me. But, even more important, premature publicity is not what the commission wants or needs, and the entire investigation could be compromised. Granted that it would be the Fredericksons' fault, because we displayed a serious lapse in judgment by waiting too long to call you, but if this blows up, the Spring Valley PD could take some hits too. You said you didn't want the department to look foolish.'

'The Spring Valley Police Department is simply doing its job by investigating a murder. You and your brother were caught disturbing the crime scene.'

'We didn't disturb any-'

'Tell me more about this commission, Frederickson. Why should the president want to dismantle the CIA?'

'I didn't say he did. I want him to take apart the whole damn outfit, because I don't think reorganization or other half measures will do the trick. The problems there are systemic. But dismantling is only one of several measures he-or, more likely, his successor-will have to consider. The commission's job is to gather information, submit a final report, and possibly make recommendations. May I ask if you followed the Aldrich Ames case?'

Beauvil nodded curtly.

'Ames was a worm that got loose, and as a result a whole lot of other worms started wriggling to get out of sight at the bottom of the can. He was the most destructive traitor in American history, a man responsible for the deaths of at least two dozen agents. But the real culprit is the CIA culture. Ames couldn't have held a job outside the agency selling used cars, but his superiors entrusted him with the nation's secrets and gave him life-and-death control over scores of people. Ames was a known drunk, incorrigibly irresponsible and sloppy. That was his track record over the years. So what did the CIA do with this fool? They kept promoting him. And what happened after it was discovered he was a Soviet mole? Nothing. Nobody even got demoted, much less fired, and a couple of retired officers got mildly nasty letters.'

'I said I was familiar with the Ames case, Frederickson.'

'The point is that the Ames incident finally tipped the scales. A lot of important people in government have been unhappy with the CIA for a long time, because the agency has been out of control for a long time. But not much could be done because the CIA and its friends were too powerful, and it was seen as necessary to counter Russia and the KGB. All this, of course, changed with the collapse of the USSR and when it was discovered that the CIA had been consistently overestimating Russian strength for decades in order to keep fattening their own budget. The Ames incident opened all this up. People who thought their Operations department-which is what that multibillion dollar circus is really all about-was staffed with a lot of James Bonds discovered it was really a Woody Allen movie. A number of congressional committees were planning to hold hearings, hut the last election changed