Dream of a Falling Eagle m-14

by George C. Chesbro

  Lucas Tremayne had gone slightly pale, but his voice was steady when he said, "You and Mongo don't look any the worse for wear, and you've been working on this for half a year."

  "Mongo and I do this sort of thing for a living. We're armed to the teeth, and we're constantly surveying our surroundings and thinking about our safety, not scripts and camera angles. Also, we enjoy a kind of limited professional immunity. Kill you, and the publicity focus would be on your links to Haiti and how the generals or ex-Ton-ton Macoutes or Fraph finally gave you some payback. It would scare Haitians. Kill us, and the focus would be on what we were doing that got us killed-namely investigating the CIA's links to Haiti. We keep backup copies of all our files and records in a safe deposit box that we feed every night. Our murders would seriously piss off a lot of important people, and get lots of publicity that would result in a lot of investigative reporting. That scares the CIA; they want to head us off at the pass, not have the mountain fall on them. Publicity about them is precisely what they're trying to avoid. Besides, Lucas, the issue is moot. We're finished with our field work. Now it's just a matter of tying together what we've got and writing up our report."

  "I hear what you're saying," Tremayne said quietly. "But there still must be some way I can be useful. You need somebody to answer your phone? Type up the report?"

  Garth glanced at me and raised his eyebrows slightly, then set his drink down and got up from his chair. "Excuse me for a couple of minutes."

  My brother left the room, and Lucas Tremayne and I stared at each other. Finally I said, "Making that last film of yours was a gutsy thing to do. Its subject isn't exactly a favorite topic of conversation. If it hadn't been the success it was, it could have seriously damaged your career."

  The film director shrugged, smiled thinly. "I do what I can for people and causes I care about-just like you and Garth do. All I did was make a movie on a controversial subject nobody wants to talk about. I think what you're doing is incredibly gutsy, and I'm not sure I buy what Garth told me about your professional immunity. You've surely been in danger from the first day you started working on this project."

  "Oh, I'm sure the company would be delighted if we fell off a cliff or got run over by a truck-just as long as it didn't point to them. But we're being well paid for the risk."

  "I don't believe you're doing it for money."

  He had that right. Diddling the CIA, or trying to, was a labor of love-but for reasons that had to remain secret. "Garth meant no disrespect by not mentioning this Haiti investigation to you."

  "I understand, Mongo."

  "I mean no disrespect either, but Beauvil really had no business discussing this with a civilian. Whatever his feelings or reasons, he could have put you at risk. Do you understand why you should keep all this to yourself? You shouldn't even discuss this with your family-especially not with your family."

  Tremayne colored slightly, but he didn't protest. Finally he nodded at me and flashed a grin. "I've been following your exploits for some time-even before Garth and I became friends. You're quite a celebrity yourself."

  "Yeah. You think the world is ready for a big-budget film about a dwarf private detective? I see Schwarzenegger in the lead, with maybe DeVito playing Garth."

  He laughed. "I think it's a wonderful idea. I'm going to pitch it to Arnold and Danny the next time I see them."

  Garth walked back into the room. He was carrying the photographs Carl Beauvil had sent us. He selected the head-and-shoulders shot of the man in the priest's collar, handed it to Tremayne. "Like you said, you know a hell of a lot of Haitians. Ever see this guy before?"

  The man with the gray eyes and hair barely glanced at the photograph before looking back up at Garth. "I've not only seen him, but I know him personally."

  Well, well, well. I drained off the rest of the Scotch in my glass, rose to get some more.

  "Who is he?" Garth asked.

  "Guy Fournier-Dr. Guy Fournier. He's Haitian, a defrocked Roman Catholic priest who was an antigovernment activist in Haiti long before Aristide arrived on the scene, and long before me. His life must certainly have been at risk, for years, and it was probably only his collar that saved him; the past Haitian governments and the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Haiti have always had what you might call a close working relationship."

  "Not only the governments," Garth said dryly. "Not a few of those friendly neighborhood padres have turned up on lists of paid CIA informers."

  "It doesn't surprise me. Fournier also happens to be a collector of Haitian art, which is how I know him. We go to a lot of the same galleries, shows, and auctions."

  I took a long pull at my second drink, sat back down on the couch. "Why was he defrocked?"

  "Ostensibly for preaching liberation theology, which was the same as heresy to the hierarchy. But the real reason they defrocked him was to remove a thorn in their side and make him a softer target for Fraph thugs. They considered him a real pain in the ass. Friends helped him get out of the country a few months before Aristide was restored to power. Otherwise, he would have ended up getting his arms and legs cut off in Fort Dimanche. He lives right here in New York. His Ph.D. is in comparative religion, and that's what he teaches now, downtown at Mongo's former place of employment."

  Garth asked, "Why didn't Beauvil recognize him?"

  "I can't be certain, but probably because Carl has never lived in Haiti. He was born here. Fournier wasn't that well known outside of Haiti. Also, Carl's a policeman, and that's not a profession most Haitians have a lot of use for. They're afraid of the police. Carl does an enormous amount of work for his people, but he's still essentially isolated within the community. He's probably never even heard of Fournier. Incidentally, this looks like it could be a surveillance photo taken by the army, Fraph, or the police over there. May I ask where you got it?"

  I said, "It was on a voodoo altar in the basement of the murder victim's home in Spring Valley."

  Lucas Tremayne frowned slightly. "That's odd."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. I'm no expert on voodoo, but a voodoo altar just seems an odd place to find a picture of a Roman Catholic priest. Could it have been set down there by chance, by accident?"

  "No," Garth replied, and handed his friend the second photograph. "This is a picture of the altar itself. You can see that this man's photograph is placed right in the middle, in the center of that circle of candles, carvings, and painted symbols, with the cross beneath it. Mean anything to you?"

  Tremayne shook his head in disgust, then pursed his lips slightly. "I hate this voodoo shit. It's probably done more harm to the Haitian people than the generals, Fraph, and Ton-ton Macoutes, who've all used voodoo as a weapon against the people. It's a self-inflicted wound. I do recognize some of these things around the photograph as voodoo fetishes. They mean something."

  I grunted. "The question is, what?"

  "May I keep this photograph of the altar?"

  "No," Garth said, reaching out to retrieve both photographs from the other man's hand.

  "I may not be an expert on voodoo, but I'm certain I can find somebody who is."

  "You flash that photograph around, and you're likely to conjure up some people you really don't want to meet. Among other bad habits they have, they cut out people's hearts."

  "Garth, I'm not going to flash-"

  "Say good night, Lucas," Garth said with a thin smile, gently but firmly grasping his friend's elbow and lifting him up off the sofa. "Mongo and I have to get our beauty rest."

  "But I want to find out more about this for you!"

  "Nope. Not a word to anyone. You've already been more than helpful in identifying this Guy Fournier for us. Mongo and I don't have time to track down any more leads even if you could produce them for us, and I'm sure the Spring Valley police and FBI are following up. Safe trip home."

  "But I haven't finished my drink!"

  "Not to worry; Mongo will finish it for you."

  We walked with Tremayne to the
parking garage in the next block where he had left his car. After he paid the attendant, he turned to shake hands, and said, "Look, I'm sorry for barging in on you guys like that. I tried calling you right after I left the reception where I talked to Carl, but your secretary had gone home, and I didn't know what message to leave. Then I got antsy, so I just drove in on the chance I'd catch up with you."

  "Jesus, Lucas," Garth said, squeezing the other man's shoulder, "don't apologize. We might never have identified this Fournier. He could provide us with a few telling details we don't have now, and he might prove to be a valuable witness later on."

  "You think so?"

  "We'll see-you won't. Good night, my friend."

  Lucas Tremayne waved to us as he got into his Range Rover when it was brought to him, then drove off. I turned to Garth. "Time pressure or no, we've got to go for it, right?"

  "Sure. Like I told Lucas, Fournier might be able to connect some of the dots we're writing up right now."

  "You go talk to him. I'm about ten times faster on the computer than you are."

  "No, you go. Academe is your province, and he'll have heard your name bandied about more than once in those hallowed halls. He'll be more comfortable with you. Besides, I'm on the verge of a breakthrough; I think I'm about ready to begin using four fingers."

  Chapter 5

  Dr. Guy Fournier's office at the university was on the third floor of a four-story, rather nondescript building called Faul Hall on the southwest edge of the sprawling campus in lower Manhattan, just off Washington Square. I had decidedly mixed feelings upon returning to the university where I had worked for so many years at a job I'd loved, abruptly walking away because of an act of betrayal, one of a series of betrayals that had almost cost Garth and me our lives. I was early for our appointment, and the door was open, so I went in. The office was rather long and narrow, with two walls taken up by floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases crammed full of books in English and French. There was a small wooden desk to the left of the doorway, and its surface was piled high with a clutter of student papers and books festooned with multicolored book markers. A gleaming computer workstation was set up against the opposite wall, next to a dirt-streaked window that looked out on a fire escape and a view of the campus that would have been more pleasant if the window hadn't been so dirty. The work-station and its cleared perimeter comprised the only neat area in the office; the floor was littered with stalagmite-like stacks of more books and old magazines, also in English and French. It looked more like a neglected storage area than a place to meet students. I sat down on a stack of ancient National Geographies and waited.

  Dr. Guy Fournier arrived precisely at 11:15, the appointed time. His office might be shabby, but he was not. The white-haired man wore sharply creased black slacks, expensive black loafers, and a lightweight gray blazer over a white cotton turtleneck. The man had presence. He was a little over six feet, and stood very erect, almost as if he were at attention. In person, his large, gleaming black eyes in the triangular face were even more striking than in his photograph, which had apparently been taken a few years before. I put him in his early sixties.

  "A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Fournier," I said, rising off the magazines and extending my hand. "I'm Robert Frederickson. I very much appreciate your agreeing to see me. Your door was open, so I came in. I hope you don't mind."

  "The pleasure is mine, Dr. Frederickson," he said in a rich baritone that was pleasantly laced with a rather lilting Creole accent. He set down a worn leather briefcase on top of a stack of papers on his desk, moved across the room, and turned around the chair at the computer workstation so that it was facing the desk. "My door is always open, especially to such a distinguished visitor as yourself. Please sit down."

  I did, pulling the chair even closer. Fournier went behind his desk and settled himself into a wooden swivel chair that creaked as he leaned back and crossed his legs, folding his hands with their long fingers across his flat stomach. "Dr. Robert Frederickson," he continued, smiling easily. "Mongo le Magnifique-the name you used when you were a star with the Statler Brothers Circus. Your friends still call you Mongo. Criminologist, ex-college professor who taught at this very university, black-belt karate expert, private investigator extraordinaire. Along with your brother, an ex-police detective, you have been involved in some most unusual-one might even say bizarre-cases. I particularly enjoyed reading about your exploits with that previously unknown creature."

  "You seem to know a lot about me."

  He shrugged. "Doesn't everyone? As you can see by looking around you, I read a lot, and you are a celebrity. Time magazine once referred to you as 'the deadly dwarf.'"

  "I must have missed that issue."

  "People here still talk about you all the time. It seems you were an extremely popular professor, always playing to a packed house. And you knew your stuff, used to publish a lot of research papers. There are wild rumors, but nobody seems to know for certain the reason you left. You and your brother are currently working as part of a Presidential Commission examining the CIA. Your particular assignment is to investigate and attempt to document alleged illegal activities by the CIA in Haiti."

  "I'm impressed. May I ask how you know all this, Doctor?"

  "The formation of the Presidential Commission was never formally announced, but its existence and task are no secret to people who follow politics closely. It was reported in both The New York Times and The Washington Post. Also, I'm quite active in Haitian affairs in this country. What you're doing is common knowledge in the Haitian community throughout this country. We-most of us, that is-appreciate what you and the president are trying to do. There is much hope for righting great wrongs, but there is also a good deal of terror. Hope is not a feeling that comes easily to my people; it has been crushed, along with their bodies, too many times. News of what has happened to people who spoke to you-or who might have been willing to speak to you-has traveled fast. I'm afraid you'll meet with considerable resistance from any remaining witnesses you wish to talk to."

  "Actually, we're in the process of wrapping things up."

  "Yet you are here, and I assume your visit is in connection with your investigation. As for myself, I am not afraid. I would love nothing better than to help bring the CIA criminals to justice; they helped ruin my country. Unfortunately, despite my extensive experience with the dupes of these criminals, any hard evidence of criminal activity I have is probably considerably less than any hard evidence you now have. I can regale you for hours with some blood-chilling stories, but my guess is that you've already heard all of them. If you've come to me for some kind of documentation, I'm afraid you've wasted your time. As I'm sure you're aware, I was considered a pariah, and officials of the Church, government, and army did not exactly whisper secrets in my ear. However, I will try to answer any questions you may have, and I will be more than happy to appear as a witness at congressional hearings to testify to atrocities I have seen-but I can't prove any connection to the CIA."

  "That's very decent and courageous of you, Professor. I'll discreetly pass along your offer to the head of the commission, who'll keep it in the strictest confidence. Actually, I've come to see you about another matter."

  The man with the coal-black eyes and mesmerizing gaze frowned slightly. "Oh? And what would that be?"

  "I wanted to ask if you have any idea why someone would place your photograph on a voodoo altar."

  Fournier leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the desk and lacing his long fingers together under his narrow chin. "My photograph on a voodoo altar?"

  "Yes, sir. In the place of honor, if you will-right in the center. You seemed to be the point of the display."

  He lowered his gaze, sighed, shook his head slightly. "This is very embarrassing."

  "Why is that, sir?"

  Fournier looked back up, smiled wryly. "Haiti is a Catholic country, as I'm sure you know, Dr. Frederickson. Virtually everyone is Catholic. But Haiti is also, as you know, the h
ome of a panoply of pagan practices transplanted there by African slaves, a belief system Americans call voodoo. Unfortunately, many ordinary Haitians tend to mix the two belief systems-voodoo and Catholicism; Catholic saints become voodoo saints, and vice versa. Haitians see no contradiction. Voodoo is very old, and it's embedded in the fabric of our society. I was known as a political dissident and a fighter for the rights of the underclass-which is ninety-nine percent of our people. I was considered by many people to be a hero, and now, apparently, one of those misguided souls has promoted me to saint. The person was probably using my photograph as an object of worship."

  "That doesn't seem likely in this case." "Oh?"

  "The guy who had your picture on his altar was an ex-general by the name of Vilair Michel, a murderer and torturer who ran Fort Dimanche for a while. He was in this country illegally. You wouldn't exactly have been a hero to him, much less a saint. His background indicates he'd have preferred to have your head on a platter rather than as an object of worship on an altar. I'd have liked to ask him myself what it was all about, but when we found him his heart had been cut out."