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  But knowing all this, I still wondered about the point Gerard was trying to make.

  Finnerty’s involvement with COINTELPRO was news to me, but not exactly earthshaking. There’d been plenty of public support for Hoover’s program at the time, and condemnation had come mostly after the fact, when the academics finally figured out what was really going on. But COINTELPRO was long dead now, every bit as dead as Hoover himself. The idea that Kevin Finnerty was trying to dig the old tyrant back up, along with his preposterous ideas, was ludicrous.

  “How long have you been watching him?” I asked. “Finnerty, I mean.”

  “He was twenty-four when Hoover brought him to headquarters to develop COINTELPRO. He’s sixty-one this year.”

  “Thirty-seven years?” I swung around to Ambassador Marchand. “The French government has been spying on Kevin Finnerty for four decades?”

  The ambassador looked at Gerard, and I knew why. Gerard was like me, expendable. It was his job to say the words. Should the merde hit the fan, the splatter would be kept far away from Marchand.

  “Not at all,” Gerard said. “Not at the current level, anyway. But we have kept ourselves aware of Finnerty’s career since Hoover’s death in 1972.” He paused. “Much more so since the World Trade Center attack and the war against terrorism … with Carnivore and it’s newest spinoff, Magic Lantern … finally, with the growing American acceptance of government snooping in order to keep the country safe.” He shook his head. “What we’ve discovered isn’t good. We dare not ignore it any longer.”

  I sat forward in my chair. “We? You’re including me?”

  “That wasn’t our plan, not until you intruded.”

  “Intruded? I still don’t even know …”

  My voice died as I recalled our afternoon at the tennis club again, Gerard’s bizarre reaction to Finnerty’s name.

  “The other day at the club,” I said. “You weren’t in a hurry to call the Paris police, not about Brenda Thompson, anyway. You were rushing back to the ambassador so he could make a different call altogether. So he could call your government directly.”

  “I made a mistake to let you see my reaction, a stupid mistake. Now we have to let you in, to keep you from destroying the progress we’ve made toward getting rid of Finnerty once and for all.”

  “Again with the ‘we.’ Who the hell are you talking about?”

  “Us, Puller. The small community who live on this planet. Without an unbreakable democracy in your country we’re all endangered. We might not like you, but we can’t allow you to collapse.” He glanced at Brodsky. “So we watch. We watch you, we watch everybody. We all of us watch each other.”

  “Maybe so, but by watching me you mean the FBI. By ‘me’ you mean Kevin Finnerty. What you’re telling me is you think the FBI is attacking our Bill of Rights. That an assistant director of the FBI is heading the attack. You can’t mean that. Even if you do, you can’t possibly expect me to take your word for it.”

  Ambassador Marchand broke in.

  “Of course we don’t, Agent Monk. Our president has also authorized us to show you something no American has ever seen. But first you must listen a while longer. Our evidence will mean nothing without perspective.”

  I looked at him, shook my head, then nodded for Gerard to continue.

  “Carnivore,” he began. “Its nominal purpose is to monitor criminal activity that uses e-mail. With court authority, it enables the bureau to read e-mail messages between criminals. It’s a powerful weapon against both criminals and terrorists, and the strict need for federal court oversight makes it simply an extension of the telephone wiretapping that has existed for years.”

  “I know all that already.”

  “Magic Lantern is another story altogether. This program enables the FBI to monitor individual keystrokes on a suspected computer. Every single character the keyboard sends both to RAM and to the hard disk, including e-mail sent throughout the country and the world. Virtually, the entire record of activity for a computer and the person using it. It still requires a court order, but the opportunity for abuse is hundreds of times worse. An unscrupulous FBI agent can see much more than e-mail, can monitor every Web site a computer visits, every word posted to a message board, every book or magazine either bought over the Internet or researched via the World Wide Web. In the hands of a renegade agent, Magic Lantern is personal liberty’s worst nightmare. If that renegade is the assistant director in charge of the Washington Metropolitan Field Office—privy to the most sordid secrets of the capital’s highest leaders—the entire American government can be compromised.”

  I wanted to argue, but Gerard was right.

  Carnivore was a slippery slope, and the French government wasn’t the only one who thought so. On the heels of 9/11, Magic Lantern had barely squeaked through the House, but its passage had drawn a renewed wave of protest, and there was no way the Senate would concur. I told Gerard as much, that to me the issue seemed moot.

  “We thought so, too, until Senator Randall changed her mind.”

  I stared at him as I remembered my own reaction in my motel room down in Brookston when I’d seen the CNN story of the senator’s abrupt about-face on the issue.

  “I don’t know how that happened, either,” I said, “but Jeanette Randall’s subcommittee is not the entire Senate. All her people can do is recommend passage of the new bill, or deny it.”

  “And when is the last time the Senate turned down anything her committee wanted?”

  “Not often,” I had to admit.

  “Try never.”

  “Never, then, but Senator Randall must have had her reasons. She must have discovered something important to make her come so far around in the other direction.”

  Gerard moved to the big-screen TV behind him, pushed some buttons, then stepped aside as the screen grew bright. He held the remote controller in his hand as he spoke.

  “She did, indeed,” he said. “I think you’ll agree she certainly did.”

  He aimed the clicker and the screen came to life. The picture quality was perfect, so was the sound. The videotape was as professional as anything done in a studio.

  On the tape, Kevin Finnerty and Senator Jeannette Randall were seated at a restaurant table. A tuxedoed waiter with a heavy French accent brought coffee, then asked if they wanted menus, bowed and left when they waved him away. In the bottom right-hand corner of the screen was the time, 9:52 A.M., and the date. The same day, I realized, that I’d seen that CNN story.

  I turned to Gerard. “What the hell is this? How …? Where did you …?”

  “Later,” Gerard said. “Just watch first. Just watch and listen.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  On the screen, Kevin Finnerty set down his coffee cup.

  “I know, Senator,” he said to Jeannette Randall across the table, the camera’s wide-angle lens providing a perfect view of both of them. “I know you have an important committee meeting in an hour. I wouldn’t have asked for these few minutes were it not absolutely necessary.”

  “You should be a politician, Mr. Finnerty. You’re here for one reason only. Because I’m turning you people down. Because you’re hoping for an eleventh-hour reprieve.”

  “Magic Lantern is too important for politics. I just want you to do the right thing.”

  “To give you carte blanche, you mean. To let you and your people have whatever you think you can get away with.”

  Finnerty leaned toward her, his voice ice-cold now.

  “You’re making a big mistake, a huge mistake. We need Magic Lantern. To have any chance at all against the kind of people we’re fighting, we must have it.”

  She shook her head. “Half my committee agrees with you, but they don’t have the votes to make it happen. Thank God there are still a few of us who care about the Bill of Rights.”

  “We’re alone here, Senator. Don’t bother to make a speech. We all care about the Bill of Rights, but if you think innovative law enforcement will bring down the Con
stitution, you’re simply wrong.”

  “You call dismantling the Fourth Amendment innovative? Have you read it lately?”

  “I read a lot of things. Mostly about the animals who hide behind it to keep themselves out of prison.”

  “Better that some go free, wouldn’t you say? Better that than an innocent man in prison.”

  “Spend a day inside, Senator. See how many innocent ones you can find.”

  “That isn’t the point and you know it.”

  “We don’t want to do away with the Fourth Amendment—I shouldn’t even have to tell you that—but the world has changed. The Framers didn’t have telephones, couldn’t possibly have foreseen the anonymity of cyberspace. Sure as hell they wouldn’t agree that computers come with an inherent right to privacy. Or that the government has no right to treat electronic criminality differently than any other kind.”

  “Magic Lantern goes much further than that.”

  “Not one bit further. Same rules, same safeguards. Our program doesn’t change any of the basics.”

  “It doesn’t have to change the rules, not when it’s impossible to tell when you’re breaking them.” She appeared to stare over his head for a moment, then straight into his eyes. “It’s the fox and the henhouse, Mr. Assistant Director. The bureau has always walked a fine line with the Fourth Amendment. The Magic Lantern program—batteries of supercomputers monitoring the keystrokes of millions of home computers—puts you way over that line.” She shook her head. “You’re not going to do it on my watch. Never on my watch.”

  “We’re in a war, and you talk about fine lines, about breaking rules … the possibility of breaking rules. Well, what about the bad guys? How many rules do you think they might break?” His voice got louder. “You don’t give us this, we can’t win!”

  “Win what? Your version of the Land of the Free? A country where the FBI decides who’s free and who isn’t?”

  “That’s uncalled for, Senator, and I resent it. An even playing field is all I want for this country, for what’s left of this country, thanks to people like you. What we’ve got now is anarchy. Drugs and violence. Metal detectors in our schools, for Christ’s sake!” He leaned toward her. “The Bill of Rights protects the people from their government, but who’s supposed to protect the people from themselves?”

  “My God, I hear you talk like that and I’m all the more convinced I’m right.” She was almost out of her chair now. “You might want to overthrow the Constitution, but don’t expect me to help. If you’re trying to form a police state, you’ll have to climb over my dead body to do it.”

  “I guess that’s up to you. But it doesn’t need to happen that way.”

  She sat back again. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you actually threatening me?”

  “Quite the opposite. I very much want to help you.”

  Finnerty reached for the black leather briefcase on the floor next to his chair, lifted it to his lap and withdrew a manila envelope, closed the briefcase, and returned it to the floor. He slid the envelope across the table. Senator Randall stared at it for a moment, then at him.

  “What’s this?”

  “You have family in California, Senator.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “There are twenty photographs in that envelope, along with a summary report. I’ll start with the first picture.”

  She pulled the documents from the envelope, examined the top photograph.

  “My daughter, Sarah,” she said. “Sarah Hansen and her husband, Jack. My grandchildren.” I could see her touch the picture and smile, but the smile disappeared as she looked back at Finnerty. “There better be a damned good reason for this.”

  “There’s never been a better reason.” He pointed at the top photo. “Whole family here, looks like, on the deck of their house in La Jolla, the blue Pacific behind them. Couple of million dollars worth of house, easy.”

  “Jack’s a lawyer, a Boalt Hall lawyer. Trust me, he can afford it.”

  “He’s a member of the bar, I’ll give you that, but I don’t think he goes to his office much.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Exhibit 2, Senator, the second picture. Sarah and Jack at a nightclub in Tijuana. See the man sitting to Jack’s right? Lots of hair, lots of teeth?”

  “God damn it, Finnerty, Jack’s an international lawyer. He’s got clients everywhere! Not only Mexico but all through the Caribbean and South America. A certain amount of socializing goes with the territory.”

  “Of course, it does. In this case it’s a few miles south of Tijuana … the Rosarito Beach Hotel. The man in the picture is Nogales-Rios. Juan Pablo Nogales-Rios.”

  Senator Randall grabbed the photo and stared at it, then flipped the photo back to the table. “So Jack and Sarah had dinner with a suspected drug dealer. In a foreign country. So what?”

  But her voice gave away the truth. I could see it in the language of her body, as well. She was a professional politician. Had to know what was coming.

  “Suspected drug dealer, you call him,” Finnerty said, “the DEA’s number one target worldwide.” He cleared his throat. “You’re a bright lady, Senator. I’m neither fooled nor impressed with your act.”

  She shrugged. “Last I heard it isn’t against the law for a lawyer to have a thief as a client. As a matter of fact, it takes us right back to the Bill of Rights, doesn’t it?”

  Finnerty pointed at the stack of photos. “The next eighteen pictures show Jack and Nogales-Rios together in seven different Latin American countries. No Sarah, thank God, but plenty of young Jack.”

  Her voice became a monotone. “Same objection, Finnerty. Habeus corpus. Show me something other than your travelogue.”

  “That’s why I’m here. The summary report I’ve included goes way beyond the pictures. And it doesn’t look any better for him, either.”

  “I’d like to see it.”

  He shook his head, but now his voice fairly dripped with concern.

  “The bureau shares your distress. We’re worried more than anything about what might be ahead for Jack. The possibility that your son-in-law could be set up even if, as you suggest, he’s completely innocent.”

  Senator Randall said nothing. Finnerty shook his head again, for all the world an old and trusted family friend, filled with compassion for a woman on the verge of disaster.

  “What can happen down there in Latin America,” he said, “what we’ve seen happen in Mexico, in Central and South America, is almost too terrible to describe. Especially with the kinds of enemies Nogales-Rios has made.”

  Again he shook his head.

  “No one wants your son-in-law to suffer in the kind of prison we see only in movies, in the kind of country where they’ve never even heard of habeas corpus. With a wife and family horrified they’ll never see him again. Afraid he’s dead, but even more that he might be wishing he were.”

  Finnerty’s voice slid to a lower register.

  “And you. Mother and grandmother. Your family shattered by events even a United States senator has no power to control.”

  She stared at him, her hands drumming the table. She looked down at the photos again, and the report, then back at him. He spoke before she could say anything.

  “DEA’s made Jack a target. They want to sweat his family—your family—to make their case, and believe me they can do it. I think it’s political this time. I think DEA is targeting Jack because of you, and I want to put a stop to it.”

  Her shoulders sagged. I thought for a moment she might collapse, but slowly her head came back up. The blow had staggered her, but she struggled to maintain her composure as the ADIC continued.

  “I’d like to work this out at headquarters level. With the DEA director himself. Suggest to him that Jack’s been working with us, that he’s put himself in considerable danger to neutralize Nogales-Rios.”

  She said nothing, but he answered the only question she could possibly have had.

  “I don
’t know, Senator. I don’t know if it will work, but I’ll do the best I can.”

  She appeared to draw a deep breath and blow it out slowly. She turned away from the camera. Her shoulders rose and fell, trying, I could see, to come to grips with his odious quid pro quo. When Senator Jeannette Randall turned around again her face was blank with despair, then contorted by tears she could no longer control.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I continued to stare at the TV screen long after the images had disappeared.

  “Where were they?” I asked Gerard. “A restaurant, of course, but that isn’t really my question. Kevin Finnerty’s as close as you can get to the top of the FBI. Runs the FBI, people have been saying for years. How did you get something like this?”

  “You didn’t recognize La Maison? We were just there for lunch.”

  I glanced at the screen again. “I was more interested in what Finnerty was doing than where he was doing it.”

  “Have you ever met the owners?”

  I shook my head.

  “I beg your pardon, but you have. As a matter of fact, you’re sitting with them right now.”

  “La Maison? The French government owns …”

  He simply nodded.

  “But an entire restaurant?” I said. “Wired like a soundstage?” I shook my head. “Just the logistics … running a restaurant … people to hire and fire. And the chefs, for Christ’s sake! La Maison is a great restaurant. How do you come up with the chefs?”

  “My country is up to its ass in them. And no Frenchman minds firing somebody once in a while.”

  I looked around for a window, despite knowing a room like this wouldn’t have one. Suddenly I needed to see the real world, rain and all, warts and all. To check that there was still a world out there.

  “The king is dead,” I said. “Long live the king! That’s what your videotape looks like to me. There’s nothing left of Hoover but bones in a dress, but he’s still alive.” I stared at Gerard. “As long as Kevin Finnerty is around, the old bastard’s still alive.”