know . . .”
“Oldest line in the book, Buzz.”
“Cut me some slack, Logan. I’m a burned-out, underpaid civil servant.”
We went way back, Buzz and I. One of the original go-to guys, he’d been there and done that a hundredfold by the time I clocked in at Alpha. Twice he’d been wounded on missions, the last time in Libya. Bleeding from just about everywhere from a rocket-propelled grenade that had exploded five feet away, Buzz ran down the terrorist who’d fired it at him and blew off the back of his head with a short-barreled, pistol-grip shotgun that Buzz called “The Bitch.” Only afterward did he realize that the terrorist was an eleven-year-old boy. Fragments from the RPG eventually claimed Buzz’s right eye, while recurrent nightmares of having killed a child robbed him of the desire to pull the trigger on anyone else ever again. He was assigned desk duty. By the time I arrived at Alpha, Buzz had built a network of personal contacts within the spook community so comprehensive, it had acquired its own acronym, BIA—the Buzz Intelligence Agency.
I asked him if he’d heard about what had happened to Echevarria, knowing that he undoubtedly possessed far more details than I did.
“I heard,” Buzz said, “poor bastard.”
“Anything you can enlighten me with?”
“Stand by one.”
I could hear him get up from his desk to go close his office door. Then he was back.
“He was doing contract work for folks across the river,” Buzz said. “Job apps, backgrounders, non-class shit is what I heard.”
“You think what happened to him was job-related?”
“That’s been knocked down. At least in this shop. I can’t speak for the shop he was freelancing for. They’ve still got an open file on him. I know that much. He and your old lady split. You heard that, right?”
“She told me. Actually, I’ve gotten sort of peripherally involved in the case, asking around, talking to a few people.”
“About what happened to Arlo, you mean?” “Roger that.”
“Jesus, Logan, the broad dumps you like a hot rock and now you’re holding her fuckin’ hand? Is that what happens? You move out there to the People’s Republic of California, next thing you know, you’re joining some masochist cult.”
“I needed the cash.”
“I guess you gotta do what you gotta do, eh?” Buzz said. “Look, I’m not saying what happened to Echevarria made my day, but I can’t say I wasn’t all that broke up when I heard about it, either. The guy was a dirtbag, going after that gal of yours. Last time I had anything halfway good to say about him, you and her were still together. I always thought that was a pretty shitty thing he did.”
I thanked Buzz for his loyalty and asked him to keep me posted on anything else he might pick up through the grapevine on Echevarria’s death. He assured me he’d call, but only if I agreed to buy him a six-pack the next time we crossed paths. I promised him a case.
That Echevarria was contracting for the CIA—“folks across the river,” as Buzz put it—wasn’t surprising. A lot of pensioners double dip as independent contractors after retiring from any number of federal intelligence organizations. What was surprising was that the CIA was actively investigating the murder. Typically, the agency let sleeping dogs lie. Probing the suspicious death of a covert operative can make it easier for foreign intelligence agents to confirm that the operative did, in fact, have ties to Langley. Other operators could be compromised as a result, along with the methods they used to carry out their clandestine missions. Whole spy networks have been unraveled virtually overnight in such fashion, their members rounded up and summarily shot.
Buzz had indicated that Echevarria was doing routine work for the CIA when he died, performing non-classified background checks on job applicants. Hardly cloak and dagger stuff. Why, then, would the agency continue probing his death when the LAPD’s
“Oldest line in the book, Buzz.”
“Cut me some slack, Logan. I’m a burned-out, underpaid civil servant.”
We went way back, Buzz and I. One of the original go-to guys, he’d been there and done that a hundredfold by the time I clocked in at Alpha. Twice he’d been wounded on missions, the last time in Libya. Bleeding from just about everywhere from a rocket-propelled grenade that had exploded five feet away, Buzz ran down the terrorist who’d fired it at him and blew off the back of his head with a short-barreled, pistol-grip shotgun that Buzz called “The Bitch.” Only afterward did he realize that the terrorist was an eleven-year-old boy. Fragments from the RPG eventually claimed Buzz’s right eye, while recurrent nightmares of having killed a child robbed him of the desire to pull the trigger on anyone else ever again. He was assigned desk duty. By the time I arrived at Alpha, Buzz had built a network of personal contacts within the spook community so comprehensive, it had acquired its own acronym, BIA—the Buzz Intelligence Agency.
I asked him if he’d heard about what had happened to Echevarria, knowing that he undoubtedly possessed far more details than I did.
“I heard,” Buzz said, “poor bastard.”
“Anything you can enlighten me with?”
“Stand by one.”
I could hear him get up from his desk to go close his office door. Then he was back.
“He was doing contract work for folks across the river,” Buzz said. “Job apps, backgrounders, non-class shit is what I heard.”
“You think what happened to him was job-related?”
“That’s been knocked down. At least in this shop. I can’t speak for the shop he was freelancing for. They’ve still got an open file on him. I know that much. He and your old lady split. You heard that, right?”
“She told me. Actually, I’ve gotten sort of peripherally involved in the case, asking around, talking to a few people.”
“About what happened to Arlo, you mean?” “Roger that.”
“Jesus, Logan, the broad dumps you like a hot rock and now you’re holding her fuckin’ hand? Is that what happens? You move out there to the People’s Republic of California, next thing you know, you’re joining some masochist cult.”
“I needed the cash.”
“I guess you gotta do what you gotta do, eh?” Buzz said. “Look, I’m not saying what happened to Echevarria made my day, but I can’t say I wasn’t all that broke up when I heard about it, either. The guy was a dirtbag, going after that gal of yours. Last time I had anything halfway good to say about him, you and her were still together. I always thought that was a pretty shitty thing he did.”
I thanked Buzz for his loyalty and asked him to keep me posted on anything else he might pick up through the grapevine on Echevarria’s death. He assured me he’d call, but only if I agreed to buy him a six-pack the next time we crossed paths. I promised him a case.
That Echevarria was contracting for the CIA—“folks across the river,” as Buzz put it—wasn’t surprising. A lot of pensioners double dip as independent contractors after retiring from any number of federal intelligence organizations. What was surprising was that the CIA was actively investigating the murder. Typically, the agency let sleeping dogs lie. Probing the suspicious death of a covert operative can make it easier for foreign intelligence agents to confirm that the operative did, in fact, have ties to Langley. Other operators could be compromised as a result, along with the methods they used to carry out their clandestine missions. Whole spy networks have been unraveled virtually overnight in such fashion, their members rounded up and summarily shot.
Buzz had indicated that Echevarria was doing routine work for the CIA when he died, performing non-classified background checks on job applicants. Hardly cloak and dagger stuff. Why, then, would the agency continue probing his death when the LAPD’s
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