The Mark of the Assassin Page 10

  It was the best million dollars he ever spent.

  It was raining as Elizabeth Osbourne drove westward along Massachusetts Avenue toward Georgetown. It had been a very long night, and she was exhausted. Rock Creek passed below her. She dug through the glove compartment, found a pack of old cigarettes, and lit one. It was dry and stale, but the smoke felt good regardless. She smoked only a few a day, and she told herself she could quit anytime. She would definitely quit if she became pregnant. God, she thought, I’d give anything if I could just get pregnant.

  She pushed the thought from her mind. She navigated Sheridan Circle and dropped down onto Q Street. She thought of the dinner party. Snatches of silly conversation played out in her mind. Visions of Mitchell Elliott’s grand house passed before her eyes like old movies. One image remained long after she arrived home, as she lay in bed awake, waiting for Michael. It was the image of Mitchell Elliott and Samuel Braxton, huddled together like a pair of giggling schoolboys in the darkened garden, toasting each other with champagne.

  NOVEMBER

  11

  SHELTER ISLAND, NEW YORK

  It was the New Yorker that first christened Senator Douglas Cannon “a modern-day Pericles,” and over the years Cannon did nothing to discourage the comparison. Cannon was a scholar and historian, an unabashed liberal and democratic reformer. He used his millions of inherited wealth to promote the arts. His sprawling Fifth Avenue apartment served as a gathering place for New York’s most famous writers, artists, and musicians. He fought to preserve the city’s architectural heritage. Unlike Pericles, Douglas Cannon never commanded men in battle. Indeed, he detested guns and weaponry as a rule, except for the bow and arrow. As a young man he was one of the world’s best archers, a skill he passed on to his only child, Elizabeth. Despite his deep-seated mistrust of guns and generals, Cannon saw himself fit to oversee his nation’s military and foreign policy; he had forgotten more history than most men in Washington would ever know. During his four terms in the Senate, Cannon served as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Select Committee on Intelligence.

  When his wife, Eileen, was alive they spent weekdays in Manhattan and weekends on Shelter Island, at the sprawling family mansion overlooking Dering Harbor. After her death the city held less and less for him, so he gradually spent more time on the island, alone with his sailboat and his retrievers and Charlie, the caretaker.

  The thought of him alone in the big house troubled Elizabeth. She and Michael went up whenever she could get away for a couple of days. Elizabeth had seen little of her father as a child. He lived in Washington, Elizabeth and her mother in Manhattan. He came home most weekends, but their time together was fleeting and lacked spontaneity. Besides, there were constituents to see, and fund-raisers to attend, and bleary-eyed staff members vying for his attention. Now the roles were reversed. Elizabeth wanted to make up for lost time. Mother was gone, and for the first time in his life her father actually needed her. It would be easy to be bitter, but he was a remarkable man who had lived a remarkable life, and she didn’t want his last years to slip away.

  Michael’s meeting with Carter and McManus ran late, and Elizabeth got stuck on the telephone with a client. They rushed to National Airport in separate cars, Elizabeth in her Mercedes from downtown Washington, Michael in his Jaguar from headquarters in Langley. They missed the seven o’clock shuttle by a few minutes and drank beer in a depressing airport bar until eight. They arrived at La Guardia a few minutes after nine and took the Hertz bus to pick up the rental car. The ferries were operating on the winter schedule, which meant the last boat left Greenport at 11 p.m. That gave Michael ninety minutes to drive ninety miles on congested roads. He barreled eastward along the bleak corridor of the Long Island Expressway, expertly weaving in and out of traffic at eighty miles per hour.

  “I guess that defensive driving school they put you through at Camp Perry has its applications in the real world,” Elizabeth said, nails digging into the armrest.

  “If you want, I’ll show you how to jump from a moving car without being noticed.”

  “Don’t we need that special briefcase you keep in your study? What’s it called? A jig?”

  “Jib,” Michael corrected her. “It’s called a jib, Elizabeth.”

  “Excuse me. How does it work?”

  “Just like a jack-in-the-box. Throw the switch, and a spring-loaded dummy pops up. If you’re being followed, it looks like two people are in the car.”

  “Neato torpedo!” she said sarcastically.

  “It also comes in handy for the HOV lanes.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No, Carter keeps one in his car all the time. When he’s running a little late he just throws the switch, and presto!—instant carpool.”

  “God, I love being married to a spy.”

  “I’m not a spy, Elizabeth. I’m a—”

  “I know, I know, you’re a case officer. Keep it under ninety, will you, Michael? What happens if we get pulled over?”

  “They taught us a few things about that, too.”

  “Such as?”

  Michael smiled and said, “I could shoot him with a tranquilizer dart from my pen.” An incredulous look appeared on Elizabeth’s face. “You think I’m joking?”

  “You’re such an asshole sometimes, Michael.”

  “I’ve been told that a time or two.”

  At ten o’clock he switched on the radio to catch the network hourly on WCBS.

  “President James Beckwith has picked his man to head the State Department during his second term. He’s longtime friend and political supporter Samuel Braxton, a prominent Washington attorney and power broker. Braxton says he’s honored and surprised by the nomination.”

  Elizabeth groaned as Sam Braxton’s tape-recorded voice came on the radio. Michael had been consumed by the case during the last days of the campaign, but like most of Washington he watched James Beckwith’s remarkable victory carefully. The race changed the moment Flight 002 went down. Andrew Sterling was virtually frozen out. Nothing he said or did captured the attention of the media, which had grown bored with the interminable campaign and was thrilled to jump ship to a more exciting story. The Oval Office address sealed Sterling’s fate. Beckwith had swiftly punished the Sword of Gaza for the attack, and he had done it with decisiveness and flair. The missile defense initiative buried Sterling in California. The morning after the speech, the major California newspapers all published articles describing the positive impact the program would have on the state’s economy. Sterling’s lead in California evaporated almost overnight. On election night James Beckwith carried his home state by seven percentage points.

  Michael switched off the radio.

  Elizabeth said, “He’s dancing on air.”

  “Who?”

  “Braxton.”

  “He should be. His man won, and now he gets to be secretary of state.”

  “The firm threw a party for him this afternoon when he got back from the press conference at the White House. He blathered on and on about how it was the most difficult decision of his life. He said he turned the President down the first time because he didn’t want to abandon the firm. But the President asked a second time and he couldn’t say no twice. God, it was such a bunch of bullshit! Everyone in town knows he’s been campaigning for the job for weeks. Maybe he should have been a litigator instead of a deal-maker.”

  “He’ll be a good secretary of state.”

  “I remember a president who said, ‘My dog Millie knows more about foreign policy than my opponent.’ I think that applies to Sam Braxton as well.”

  “He’s smart, he’s a quick study, and he’s damned good on television. The professionals at Foggy Bottom can deal with the nuts and bolts of policy. Braxton just needs to make tough decisions and sell them to the American people and the rest of the world. If he does that, he’ll succeed.”

  Elizabeth told him about her conversation with Susanna Da
yton.

  “She asked me for help. I told her I couldn’t do it. It was unethical and I could be disbarred. She dropped it.”

  “You’re a wise woman. Why didn’t she go with the story?”

  “She didn’t have the goods.”

  “That’s never stopped Susanna before.”

  “Michael!”

  “Elizabeth, the press looks a little different when viewed from my seat.”

  “She thought she had the goods, but her editors didn’t agree. They spiked the piece and told her to keep digging. She was furious. If the story had come out before Election Day, it would have been big news.”

  “Is she still working on it?”

  “She says she is. In fact, she says she’s making serious progress.” Elizabeth laughed. “You know, the two biggest winners in this whole affair are Sam Braxton and his client, Mitchell Elliott. Braxton gets to be secretary of state; Elliott gets to make ten billion dollars building kinetic kill vehicles for the missile defense program.”

  “You think there’s some connection?”

  “I don’t know what to think. You should have seen them at the dinner party after Beckwith made the announcement. My God, I thought they were going to kiss each other.”

  The expressway ended, and they passed through the town of Riverhead. Michael headed north along a two-lane country road bordered by immense fields of sod and potatoes. A full wet moon dangled low in the eastern sky. They turned onto Route 25 and raced eastward across the North Fork. Now and again the trees broke, and Long Island Sound shone black in the moonlight.

  Elizabeth lit a cigarette and cracked the window. It was a signal that she was nervous or angry or unhappy. Elizabeth spent all her energy dissembling at work all day. When she was at home or surrounded by friends, she was pathologically incapable of concealing her emotions. When she was happy, her eyes flashed and her mouth curled into a permanent smile. When she was upset, she stalked and snapped and frowned. Elizabeth never smoked when she was happy.

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “You know what’s wrong.”

  “I know. I just thought you might want to say it out loud.”

  “All right, I’m nervous as hell this isn’t going to work and that I’m never going to be able to have a baby for us. There, I said it. And you know what? I still feel like shit.”

  “I wish I could do something.”

  She reached out and took his hand. “Just be there for me, Michael. The one thing you can do for me is to stay at my side throughout this thing. I need you there in case it doesn’t work. I need you to tell me it’s all right and you’ll still love me forever.”

  Her voice choked. He squeezed her hand and said, “I’ll love you forever, Elizabeth.”

  He felt helpless. It was an alien sensation, and he didn’t like it. By nature and training he was suited to identifying problems and solving them. Now he could do very little. His physical contribution would take place in a small dark room in a matter of minutes. After that he could be supportive and attentive and caring, but Elizabeth and her body would have to do the rest. He wanted to do more. He had asked Carter to be allowed to work out of the New York Station and to shorten his hours. Carter had agreed. Personnel was on the backs of all chiefs and supervisors about raising the Agency’s dismal morale. Carter groused that the Agency should change its motto from “and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” to “people caring about people.”

  “I’m going to tell you one other thing, Michael. I’m not going to get crazy about this. I’m going to try it once. If it doesn’t work, I’m going to give up, and we’re going to move on with our lives. Do I have your support on that?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Susanna and Jack tried four times. It cost them fifty thousand dollars, and it made her crazy.” She hesitated. “She’s convinced Jack left her because she couldn’t give him children. He’s crazy about that shit. He wants a son to carry on the family name. He thinks he’s an ancient king.”

  “I think it’s fortunate she didn’t have a child. Jack would have left her anyway, and she’d be a single working mother.”

  “What do you know that I don’t know?”

  “I know he was never happy, and he wanted out of the marriage for a long time.”

  “I didn’t know you boys were so close.”

  “I can’t stand the sonofabitch. But he drinks, and he talks. And I’m a good listener. I’m trained to be a good listener. It’s made me the victim of quite a few crashing bores in my day.”

  “I love her to death. She deserves to be happy. I hope she finds someone soon.”

  “She will.”

  “It’s not as easy as it sounds. Look how long it took me to find you. Know any good single men?”

  “All the single men I know are spies.”

  “Case officers, Michael. They’re called case officers.”

  “Sorry, Elizabeth.”

  “You’re right. The last thing I want Susanna to do is marry a fucking spook.”

  Michael drove onto the ferry with five minutes to spare. It was windy and bitterly cold. The ferry bucked across the choppy waters of Gardiners Bay. Spray broke over the prow, washing over the windshield of the rental car. Michael got out and leaned against the rail in the frigid November night air. Across the water, on the shore of the island, he could see the Cannons’ floodlit white mansion. The senator loved to leave the lights on when they were coming. Michael imagined bringing children on the ferry. He imagined spending summers with them on the island. He wanted children too—as much if not more than Elizabeth. He kept these feelings to himself. The last thing she needed was more pressure.

  They arrived on the island and drove through the village of Shelter Island Heights, the streets dark, the shops tightly shuttered. It was late autumn, and the island had returned to its normal quiet state. The Cannon compound lay a mile outside the village on a finger of land overlooking the harbor on one side and Gardiners Bay on the other. As they pulled into the drive, Charlie came out of his cottage, flashlight in hand, retrievers at his heels.

  “The senator turned in early,” he said. “He asked me to help you inside.”

  “We’re all right, Charlie,” Elizabeth said. They kept clothing at the house so they could come up for weekends without bothering to bring luggage. “Get back inside before you freeze to death.”

  “All right,” he said. “Good night to both of you.”

  They crept into the house quietly and walked upstairs to their large suite of rooms overlooking the harbor. Elizabeth opened the shades; she loved to wake up to the sight of the water and the purple-orange light of winter dawn.

  A passing shower awakened them sometime after midnight. Elizabeth rolled over in the dark and kissed the back of Michael’s neck. He stirred, and she responded by taking his hand and pulling him on top of her. She wriggled out of her flowered flannel nightgown. His warm body pressed against her breasts.

  “God, Michael, I wish I could have a baby with you like this.”

  He entered her and her body rose to his. Elizabeth was surprised at how quickly she felt her body release. The orgasm washed over her in wave after wonderful wave. She held him tightly and began to laugh.

  “Be quiet or your father will wake up.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  She laughed again.

  “What’s so damned funny?”

  “Nothing, Michael. Nothing at all. I just love you very much.”

  Douglas Cannon loved to sail but hated taking the boat out in the summer. The waters of Gardiners Bay were jammed with big sloops, Sunfish, speedboats, and, worst of all, Jet Skis, which Cannon regarded as a sign the apocalypse was at hand. He had tried to have them barred from the waters around the island but failed, even after a ten-year-old girl was struck and killed off Upper Beach. Michael had hoped to spend a relaxing afternoon by the fire with a stack of newspapers, a book, and a good cabernet from Cannon’s vas
t cellar. But at noon the rain ended and a weak sun shone through broken clouds. Cannon appeared, dressed in a heavy rag-wool sweater and oilskin coat.

  “Let’s go, Michael.”

  “Douglas, you’ve got to be kidding. It’s forty degrees outside.”

  “Perfect. Come on, you need some exercise.”

  Michael looked to Elizabeth for help. She was stretched out on the couch, working over a stack of briefs.

  “Go with him, Michael. I don’t want him out there alone.”

  “Elizabeth!”

  “Oh, don’t be such a whiner. Besides, Dad’s right. You’re getting a little soft. Come on, I’ll see you boys off.”

  And so twenty minutes later Michael found himself aboard Cannon’s thirty-two-foot sloop Athena, bundled in a fleece pullover and woolen coat, pulling on a frozen jib line like some fabled Gloucester fisherman. Cannon barked orders from the wheel while Michael scrambled over the slick foredeck, readying the sails and securing lines in the twenty-mile-per-hour wind. He stubbed his toe on a cleat and nearly fell. He wondered how long he would survive in the frigid waters if he went overboard. He wondered whether the seventy-year-old Cannon could react quickly enough to save his life.

  He took one last look back at the house as wind filled Athena’s sails and the hull rose from the water and heeled gently to starboard. On the lawn he could see Elizabeth with her bow and arrow, standing 150 feet from the target, drilling one bull’s-eye after another.

  Cannon set the Athena on a broad reach across the bay. The boat heeled hard over to stern, flying across the surface of the gray-green water toward Gardiners Island. Michael sat on the windward side of the boat, hoping the sun would warm him. He struggled to light a cigarette, succeeding after two minutes of contorting his body against the wind.

  “Jesus Christ, Douglas, at least put her on a beam reach so we won’t feel the wind so much.”