The Marching Season Read online

  He sat down on a bench and looked up at the lights burning in the windows of their apartment. He thought of the day he and Elizabeth had first met, a sweltering afternoon on the Chesapeake Bay aboard the sailboat of a mutual friend, six months after the murder of Sarah Randolph. The Agency had determined that Michael's cover was hopelessly blown; he had been pulled from the field in London and given a tedious desk job at Langley. He was miserable in his work and still devastated by Sarah's death. He never even looked at other women. Then he was introduced to Elizabeth Cannon—the beautiful, accomplished daughter of the famous senior senator from New York—and for the first time since that night on the Chelsea Embankment, Michael actually felt the shadow of Sarah Randolph receding.

  They made love to each other that night, and afterward Michael lied to her about what he did for a living. In fact, he lied to her about his work for months. It was only when they discussed marriage for the first time that he was forced to tell her the truth: that he worked for the CIA running penetration agents against terrorist groups, and that a woman he had loved desperately had been murdered before his eyes. Elizabeth slapped his face and told him she never wanted to see him again. Michael thought he had lost her forever.

  Their relationship never quite recovered from those first lies. Elizabeth equated Michael's work with other women because of Sarah. Each time he went away, she reacted as if he had betrayed her. When he returned home from the field she would unconsciously search his body for the marks of other lovers. The day he left the Agency had been the happiest day of her life. Now it was all going to start again.

  Michael crossed the street and stepped beneath the awning over the doorway to his building, slipped past the doorman, and took the elevator to a private foyer on the fourteenth floor.

  He found Elizabeth where he had left her two hours earlier, sprawled on the couch beneath a large window overlooking the park, surrounded by piles of manila folders. The ashtray on the floor was filled with half-smoked cigarettes. She was defending a Staten Island tugboat company that was being prosecuted by the federal government for allegedly causing an oil spill off New Jersey. The case was going to trial in two weeks—her first trial since returning to the firm. She was working too many hours, drinking too much coffee, and smoking too much. Michael kissed her on the forehead and removed the smoldering cigarette from her fingertips. Elizabeth glanced at him over her reading glasses, then returned her gaze to the yellow legal pad where she was making notes in her looping, sprawling hand. Absently, she reached out for her pack of cigarettes and lit another.

  "You're smoking too much," Michael said.

  "I'll quit when you do," she said, without looking up from her work. "How was dinner?"

  "Dinner was fine."

  "What did they want?"

  "They want me to come back. They have a job for me."

  "What did you tell them?"

  "That I wanted to talk to you first."

  "That sounds to me like you want to take it."

  She dropped her legal pad on the floor and removed her reading glasses. She was exhausted and tense, a lethal combination. Michael, looking into her eyes, suddenly lost the will to continue, but Elizabeth pressed him.

  "What's the job?"

  "They want me to head a special task force on Northern Ireland."

  "Why you?"

  "I've worked in Northern Ireland, and I've worked at Headquarters. Monica and Adrian think that's the perfect combination for the job."

  "Monica tried to have you thrown out of the Agency a year ago, and your great friend Adrian did precious little to stop her. Why the sudden turnaround?"

  "She says all is forgiven."

  "And you obviously want to accept their offer. Otherwise you would have turned them down on the spot."

  "Yes, I want to take it."

  "Jesus Christ!" She crushed out her cigarette and lit another. "Why, Michael? I thought you were done with the Agency. I thought you wanted to move on with your life."

  "So did I."

  "Then why are you letting them drag you back in?"

  "Because I miss working! I miss getting up in the morning and having someplace to go."

  "So get a job, if you want. It's been a year since you were shot. You're fully recovered now."

  "There aren't a lot of companies looking for employees with skills like mine."

  "So do some volunteer work. We don't need money."

  "We don't need money because you have a job. An important job."

  "And you want to have an important job too."

  "Yeah, I think helping to bring peace to Northern Ireland would be a fulfilling and rewarding experience."

  "I hate to burst your bubble, but the people of Northern Ireland have been killing each other for a very long time. They'll make peace or make war regardless of what the CIA thinks about it."

  "There is something else," Michael said. "Your father is about to become the potential target of terrorists, and I want to make certain nothing happens to him."

  "How very noble and selfless of you!" Her eyes flashed. "How dare you drag my father into this? If you want to go back to the Agency, at least have the decency not to use my father as a crutch."

  "I miss it, Elizabeth," he said gently. "It's what I do. I don't know how to do anything else. I don't know how to be anything else."

  "God, that's pathetic. Sometimes I feel so sorry for you. I hate this part of you, Michael. I hate the secrets and the lying. But if I stand in your way—if I put my foot down and say no—then you'll resent me, and I won't be able to stand that."

  "I won't resent you."

  "Have you forgotten you have two infant children sleeping down the hall?"

  "Most fathers with young children also manage to hold down a job."

  She said nothing.

  "Monica says I can work from New York Station a couple of days a week and take the shuttle back and forth the other days."

  "You two seem to have everything all worked out. When would your new best friend like you to start?"

  "Your father's going to be sworn in at the State Department the day after tomorrow. The President wants him in London right away. I thought I would spend a few hours at Headquarters and get settled in."

  Elizabeth stood up and stalked across the room. "Well, congratulations, Michael. Forgive me if I don't crack open a bottle of champagne."

  15

  WASHINGTON CIA HEADQUARTERS NEW YORK

  Douglas Cannon was sworn in as the American ambassador to the Court of St. James's during a ceremony on the seventh floor of the State Department. Secretary of State Martin Clar-idge administered the oath, which was the same as the oath for president. Douglas swore to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," and two hundred hastily invited guests burst into applause.

  The ceremonial room at the State Department gives onto a large balcony looking south over the Washington Mall and the Potomac River. The skies were clear and the temperature mild after the brutal cold snap, so after the ceremony most of the guests fled the overheated room for the fresh air outside. The Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial shone in the bright sunlight. Michael stood apart from the crowd, drinking coffee from a dainty china cup and smoking a cigarette for protection. What do you do? is the second line of most conversations in Washington, and Michael wasn't in the mood to tell lies.

  He watched Elizabeth, moving effortlessly through the crowd. She hated growing up in a political family, but it had given her the skills to work a room like an incumbent president. She bantered easily with the secretary of state, several members of Congress, and even a few reporters. Michael was filled with admiration. He had been trained to blend in, to move unseen, to search constantly for trouble. Receptions made him nervous. He sliced his way through the crowd until he arrived at Elizabeth's side.

  "I have to go now," he said, kissing her cheek.

  "When will you be home?"

  "I'll try to make the seven o'clock shuttle."r />
  One of her old law partners spotted Elizabeth and drew her into conversation. Michael walked away through the brilliant light. He glanced once more at Elizabeth, but she had donned her sunglasses, and Michael couldn't tell whether she was looking at him or her old friend from the firm. Elizabeth had good tradecraft. He had always thought she would have made an excellent spy.

  Michael crossed Memorial Bridge and drove north along the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The river shimmered below him. Bare tree limbs moved in the wind. He had the sensation of driving through a flickering tunnel of light. In the old days, before he had sold his Jaguar, driving back and forth from their home in Georgetown to Headquarters was the favorite part of his day. It wasn't quite the same in a rented Ford Taurus.

  He turned into the main entrance of the CIA, stopped at the bulletproof guard shack, and gave the Special Protective Services officer his name; since he no longer had an Agency identification card he handed over his New York driver's license. The officer checked the name against a list. He provided a pink pass for the dashboard—the choice of color always mystified Michael—and directions to the visitors' lot.

  Walking through the white marble entrance hall, Michael had the sensation of floating through a room from childhood. Everything seemed a little smaller and a little dirtier than he remembered. He walked over the Agency seal set in the floor. He glanced at the statue of Bill Donovan—the founder of the CIA's predecessor, the wartime Office of Strategic Services—and at the wall of stars for CIA officers who had been killed in the line of duty.

  He walked to the guard desk, next to a series of high-tech security turnstiles, and presented himself to the morning duty officer. The guard dialed Adrian Carter's line and murmured a few words into the receiver. Then he hung up and, eyeing Michael suspiciously, told him to have a seat on one of the padded black benches in the entrance hall. A trio of pretty girls wearing jeans and sweatshirts clattered past and slipped through the turnstiles. The new CIA, Michael thought: the children's crusade. What would Wild Bill Donovan think of this place? Suddenly, he felt very old.

  Carter smiled uncharacteristically ten minutes later as he approached from the other side of the security barricade.

  "Well, well, well, the prodigal son returneth," Carter said. "Let him in, Sam. He's a troublemaker, but he's relatively harmless."

  "What the hell took you so long?" Michael said.

  "I was stuck on the phone with Monica. She wants an assessment on the situation in Northern Ireland by tomorrow."

  "Jesus Christ, Adrian, I haven't even been to my desk yet."

  "First things first, Michael."

  "What?"

  "Office of Personnel, of course."

  Carter deposited Michael at Personnel, and for three hours he endured the ritual hazing required to reenter the secret world. He promised that he had no intention of betraying secrets to a foreign power. That he did not abuse alcohol or take illegal drugs. That he was not a homosexual or sexual deviant of any kind. That he did not have debts he could not pay. That he was not experiencing marital problems—other than the problems caused by my return to the Agency, he thought. Having signed and initialed all the necessary documents, he was photographed and given a new identification card with a chain to wear around his neck while inside Headquarters. He suffered through the inane lecture about not displaying the badge in public. He was also given a computer log-in and a security clearance so he could retrieve classified documents from the Agency's computerized file system.

  The Counterterrorism Center had moved during Michael's absence, from cramped quarters on the sixth floor of the old headquarters building to a sprawling expanse of white cubicles in the South Tower. To Michael, entering the vast room that morning, it looked like the claims department of an insurance conglomerate. The CTC had been established during the Reagan administration to counteract a wave of terrorist attacks against Americans and U.S. interests overseas. In the lexicon of Langley it was designated a "center" because it drew on the personnel and resources of both the clandestine and the analytical sides of the CIA. It also included staff from other government agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Justice Department, the Coast Guard, and the Federal Aviation Administration. Even the CIA's archrival, the FBI, played a major role in the CTC, something that would have been condemned as heresy in the days of Michael's father.

  Carter was practicing his putt on the carpet of his spacious office and didn't see Michael arrive. The rest of the staff rose to greet him. There was Alan, a bookish FBI accountant who tracked the secret flow of money through the world's most discreet and dirty banks. There was Stephen, alias Eurotrash, who monitored the moribund leftist terror groups of Western Europe. There was Blaze, a giant from New Mexico who spoke ten different Indian dialects and Spanish with dozens of regional accents. His targets were the guerrilla movements and terrorist groups of Latin America. As usual he was dressed like a Peruvian peasant, in a loose-fitting shirt and leather sandals. He considered himself a modern samurai, a true warrior-poet; he had once tried to teach Michael how to kill with an American Express card. Michael unconsciously braced himself as he put out his hand to Blaze and watched it disappear inside his enormous paw.

  Carter came out of his office, a putter in one hand and a batch of files in the other.

  "Where do I sit?" Michael said.

  "Corner of Osama bin Laden and Carlos the Jackal."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "This place is so big now we had to create addresses for the staff to find each other." Carter pointed to small blue signs attached to the tops of the cubicles. "We had a little fun with the street names."

  He led Michael down Abu Nidal Boulevard, a long pathway between the cubicles, and turned right on Osama bin Laden Street. He stopped when he reached a windowless cubicle at Carlos the Jackal Avenue. The desk was stacked with old files, and someone had pinched his computer monitor.

  "You're supposed to get a new one by the end of the day," Carter said.

  "That means next month if we're lucky."

  "I'll get someone to clean up those files. You need to get to work. Cynthia will get you started."

  Cynthia was Cynthia Martin, a blond angel of British birth and the Center's lead officer on Northern Irish terrorism. She had studied social movements at the London School of Economics and taught briefly at Georgetown before joining the Agency. She had forgotten more about the IRA than Michael would ever know. Northern Ireland was her turf; if anyone should be heading the task force, it was Cynthia Martin.

  She looked at Michael's chaotic desk and frowned.

  "Why don't we do this at my place."

  She led Michael into her cubicle and sat down.

  "Listen, Michael, I'm not going to pretend that I'm not pissed about this." Cynthia was known for her bluntness and sharp tongue. Michael was surprised she had waited until they were in her cubicle to let him have it. "I should have been given the Irish task force, not someone who hasn't set foot in the Center in a year."

  "Nice to see you again too, Cynthia."

  "This place is still a boys' club, despite the fact the director's a woman. And even though I have an American passport, the Seventh Floor still thinks of me as that British bitch."

  "Are you finished?"

  "Yes, I'm finished. I just had to get that off my chest." She smiled and said, "How the hell are you anyway?"

  "I'm fine."

  'And your wounds?"

  "All healed."

  "Do you blame me for being upset?"

  "Of course not. You have a right to be angry." Michael paused, then said, "Adrian has given me the authority to organize the task force any way I see fit. I need a strong deputy."

  "Are you offering me the job?"

  Michael nodded.

  "Then I suppose I accept."

  He put out his hand, and Cynthia took it.

  "Welcome aboard, Cynthia."

  "Thank you, Michael. Right, we have a lot o
f ground to cover, so let's get started."

  Four hours later Adrian Carter poked his head inside Cynthia's cubicle. "I have something you need to see."

  Michael followed Carter into his office. Carter closed the door and handed Michael a large manila envelope.

  "What's this?"

  "Office of Technical Services has been working on that video of Ahmed Hussein's assassination," Carter said. "They've used a computer to enhance the image."

  Michael opened the envelope and pulled out a large photograph of a hand holding a gun. On the back of the hand, between the wrist and the first knuckles, was a puckered scar.

  "It's him, Adrian. Goddammit, it's him."

  "We've alerted Interpol and friendly services around the world. OTS is using the images we have to produce a computerized full-face portrait. As you know, the images are all partially obscured. We really don't know what he looks like. OTS wants you to fill in the blanks."

  "I've never had a great look at his face," Michael said, "but I have a general idea."

  "Get your butt down to OTS and give them a hand. I want this thing in circulation as quickly as possible."

  Michael stared at the scarred hand in the photograph. "If he wants to work, he has to move," Carter said. "And if he tries to move we'll be on his ass."

  Michael smiled and handed Carter the photograph.

  Carter said, "Glad you accepted my invitation to come back?"

  "Fuck, yes."

  Michael missed the seven o'clock shuttle by five minutes. He called the apartment in New York to tell Elizabeth he would be late, but there was no answer, so he left a message and drank a beer in the airport bar until his flight was called.

  On the plane he stared out the window while images of Northern Ireland played out in his mind. He had spent much of the day cloistered in Cynthia Martin's cubicle, studying the paramilitary organizations of Ulster.