The Marching Season Read online

  It was possible that any one of the existing Protestant groups had carried out the attacks and used the pseudonym Ulster Freedom Brigade to deflect suspicion. It was also possible that the Ulster Freedom Brigade was a new group consisting of members with no previous paramilitary experience. Michael had another theory: The Ulster Freedom Brigade was a small, highly organized, and experienced group of Protestant hard-liners who had defected from the mainstream organizations because of the cease-fire. The trio of attacks was too professional and too successful to be the work of inexperienced operatives. The leaders were obviously ruthless and would go to great lengths to protect the security of the organization, demonstrated by the fact that all three terrorists who took part in the attacks were now dead. Identifying its members was going to be difficult if not impossible.

  Michael had spent most of the day reviewing the dossiers of every known member of those paramilitary organizations. Their faces flashed before him now: prison mug shots, intelligence surveillance photographs, artist sketches.

  One other face flashed before him: the blurry, incomplete image of October. Michael had suspected he was alive. Now he had proof, the photograph of a scarred hand. Still, he knew the chances of catching him were small. All he could do was put out the alert and hope for another break.

  Michael ordered a beer from the flight attendant. He telephoned the apartment again, but there was still no answer. He usually spoke to Elizabeth several times a day because she called home constantly to check on the children. Today, they had not spoken since Douglas's swearing-in ceremony. He had been back at work just one day, but already he could sense a distance between them. He felt guilty, but he also felt a contentment—a sense of purpose; indeed, a sense of excitement—that he had not felt in many months. He hated to admit it, but the Agency seemed like home. Sometimes it was a dysfunctional home, with quarreling adults and incorrigible children, but it was home nonetheless.

  He found Elizabeth lying in bed, surrounded by paper. He kissed her neck, but she rubbed the spot as though it itched. He undressed, made a sandwich, and climbed into bed next to her.

  "I'd ask you how your day was," she said, "but I know you couldn't tell me anyway."

  "It felt good to be back to work," he said, and immediately regretted it.

  "Your children are fine, by the way."

  He placed the sandwich on the nightstand and removed Elizabeth's legal pad from her grasp.

  "How long is this going to last?" he asked.

  "How long is what going to last?"

  "You know what, Elizabeth. I want to know how long you're going to treat me like a pariah."

  "I can't pretend that I'm happy about this, Michael. I can't pretend that I'm not overwhelmed by my job and the children, and now my husband is commuting to Washington." She lit a cigarette, snapping the lighter with too much force. "I hate that place. I hate what it does to you. I hate what it does to us."

  "Your father presents his credentials to the Queen next week in London. I need to go to London for a couple of days. Why don't you come with me so we can spend some time together?"

  "Because I can't go jetting off to London just now," she snapped. "I have a trial coming up. I have children. You have children, in case you've forgotten."

  "Of course I haven't forgotten."

  "You just went to London. Why do you have to go back so soon?"

  "I need to renew some old contacts."

  "In London?"

  "No, in Belfast."

  16

  LONDON

  The official residence of the American ambassador to Great Britain is Winfield House, a redbrick Georgian mansion located on twelve acres in the middle of London's Regent's Park. Barbara Hutton, the heiress to the Wool worth fortune, built the house in 1934, when she came to London with her husband, the Danish aristocrat Count Haugwitz-Reventlow. She divorced the count in 1938 and returned home to the United States, where she married Cary Grant. After the war she sold Winfield House to the U.S. government for the sum of one dollar, and Ambassador Winthrop Aldrich took up residence there in 1955.

  Douglas Cannon had stayed at Winfield House twice before, during official trips to London, yet, settling in that first day, he was again overwhelmed by its elegance and size. As he surveyed the grand, airy rooms of the ground floor, he found it hard to believe that Barbara Hutton had built Winfield House as a private home.

  When Michael arrived two days later, Douglas escorted him from one vast room to the next, showing off the furnishings and decorations as though he had selected and paid for each himself. His favorite room was the Green Room, a large light-splashed space overlooking the side garden, with hand-painted Chinese wallpaper meticulously pillaged from the walls of an Irish castle. There, he could sit next to the fire, beneath the giant Chippendale mirrors, and watch peacocks and rabbits wandering through the dells and willows of the garden.

  The enormous house was so quiet that, on the morning of Douglas's credentialing ceremony, Michael awakened to the distant toll of Big Ben. As he dressed in white tie and tails in the window of his upstairs guest room, he watched a red fox stalking a white swan across the half-lit lawn.

  They rode to the embassy in Douglas's official car, shepherded by a team of Special Branch bodyguards. Shortly before eleven o'clock, Grosvenor Square was filled with the clatter of horses. Michael looked out and spotted the marshal of the diplomatic corps, arriving in the first of three carriages. The embassy staff broke into applause as Douglas stepped off the elevator and made his way through a gauntlet of marine guards.

  Douglas rode in the first carriage, next to the marshal. Michael rode in the third with three senior staff members. One of them was the CIA London Station chief, David Wheaton. Wheaton was an unabashed Anglophile; with his morning coat and head of oiled gray hair, he looked as though he were auditioning for a part in Brideshead Revisited. Wheaton had never made a secret of the fact he detested Michael. A hundred years ago Wheaton had worked for Michael's father, recruiting Russian spies. Michael's father believed Wheaton lacked the social skills and street smarts to be a good agent-runner and gave him a devastating fitness report that nearly derailed his career.

  The Agency decided to give Wheaton another chance; men like Wheaton, men with the right pedigree, the right education, and the right rabbis, were always given a second chance. He was packed off to southern Africa to be the chief of station in Luanda. Six months later he was stopped at a police checkpoint on his way to a meeting with an agent. In the glove box was his "black book"—the names, contact procedures, and pay schedules for every CIA asset in Angola. Wheaton was declared persona non grata and an entire network of agents was arrested, tortured, and executed. The loss of fourteen men never seemed to weigh too heavily on Wheaton's conscience. In his own report on the disaster, he faulted his agents for failing to hold up under interrogation.

  The Agency finally pulled Wheaton from the clandestine service and assigned him to the Soviet desk at Headquarters, where he thrived in the backbiting, pipe-smoking bureaucracy. London was a victory lap for an altogether unremarkable—and sometimes disastrous—career. He ran the station as though it were his private fiefdom. Michael had heard rumblings of a rebellion in the ranks. The Agency abbreviation for chief of station is COS, but among the officers in London, COS stood for "COckSucker."

  "Well, if it isn't the hero of Heathrow," Wheaton said, as Michael climbed into the carriage and sat down on the wooden seat. During the attack at Heathrow, Michael had subdued one gunman and killed another. The Agency awarded him a citation for bravery. Wheaton had never forgiven him for it.

  "How have you been, David?"

  "I thought you retired."

  "I did, but I missed you, so I came back."

  "We need to talk."

  "I'm looking forward to it."

  "I'm certain you are."

  Tourists and pedestrians gawked as the carriages moved through the thick midday traffic from Grosvenor Square to Park Lane, around Hyde Park Corner, and d
own Constitution Hill. They seemed disappointed it was only a group of middle-aged diplomats and not some exciting member of the royal family.

  As the carriages drew inside the gates of Buckingham Palace, a small band—the same band that accompanies the changing of the guard—burst into a spirited rendition of "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Douglas stepped from his carriage and was greeted by the Queen's private secretary and the Foreign Office chief of protocol.

  They ushered him inside the palace, up the grand staircase, and through a series of gilded rooms that made Winfield House seem like a fixer-upper. Michael and the senior embassy staff followed a few paces behind. Finally, they came to a set of double doors. They waited for a moment until somewhere a secret signal was flashed and the doors drew back.

  Queen Elizabeth II stood in the middle of a cavernous room. She wore a dark blue suit with the ever-present handbag dangling from her wrist. The permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, Sir Patrick Wright, waited at her side. Douglas walked the length of the room, a little too quickly, and bowed correctly before her. He held out the envelope containing his credentials and recited the prescribed line: "I have the honor, Your Majesty, to present the letter of recall of my predecessor and my letter of credential." Queen Elizabeth took the envelope and casually handed it to Sir Patrick without looking at the contents.

  "I'm so pleased President Beckwith had the foresight and good sense to appoint someone of your stature to London at a time like this," the Queen said. "If I may speak bluntly Ambassador Cannon, I don't understand why your presidents usually appoint their political supporters to London rather than professionals like you."

  "Well, Your Majesty, I'm not a professional either. I'm a politician at heart. To my knowledge there's only been one professional Foreign Service officer to serve as ambassador in London: Raymond Seitz, who represented President Bush."

  "He was a lovely man," the Queen said. "But we look forward to working with you. You're very experienced when it comes to international affairs. If I recall correctly, you were the chairman of that committee in the Senate—oh, Patrick, help me—"

  "The Senate Foreign Relations Committee," Sir Patrick put in.

  "Yes, I was."

  "Well, the situation in Northern Ireland is very tense now, and we need the support of your government if we are going to see this peace process through to its conclusion."

  "I look forward to being your partner, Your Majesty."

  "As do I," she said.

  Douglas could sense the Queen was restless; the conversation had reached its natural conclusion.

  "May I present the senior members of my staff, Your Majesty?"

  The Queen nodded. The doors opened and ten diplomats strode into the room. Douglas introduced each of them. When he described Wheaton as his political liaison officer, the Queen eyed Douglas dubiously.

  Douglas said, "I'm a widower, Your Majesty. My wife died several years ago. My daughter couldn't be here with me today, but may I introduce you to my son-in-law, Michael Osbourne?"

  She nodded, and Michael entered the room. A look of recognition flashed in Queen Elizabeth's eyes. She leaned close to him and said softly, "Aren't you the one who was involved in that business at Heathrow Airport last year?"

  Michael nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty, but—"

  "You don't have to worry, Mr. Osbourne," the Queen whispered conspiratorially. "You'd be surprised the things they tell me. I assure you I can be trusted with a secret."

  Michael smiled. "I'm sure that's true, Your Majesty."

  "If the day ever comes that you put this business behind you, I'd like to honor you properly for what you did that day. Your actions saved countless lives. I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to meet until now."

  "We have a deal, Your Majesty."

  "We do indeed."

  Michael stepped back and stood next to the embassy staff. He looked at Wheaton and smiled, but Wheaton grimaced slightly, as though he had just swallowed his cuff link.

  They retraced their path through Buckingham Palace. Wheaton appeared at Michael's side and grabbed the back of his elbow. Wheaton was a tennis player; he had a powerful right hand from squeezing a tennis ball to relieve the anxiety of command. Michael resisted the impulse to pull away. Wheaton was a bully, probably because he had been bullied himself.

  "I want to go on the record with you, Michael," Wheaton said pleasantly. Wheaton was always going "on the record" and "off the record," which Michael thought was absurd for an intelligence officer. "I think your little day trip to Belfast is a lousy goddamn idea."

  "Do you really think it's appropriate to use language like that in here, David?"

  "Fuck you, Michael," he whispered.

  Michael pulled his elbow from Wheaton's grasp.

  "Kevin Maguire is no longer your asset," Wheaton said. Michael shot Wheaton a glance of disapproval for committing the death-penalty offense of speaking an agent's name aloud in an unsecured room. Wheaton regarded intelligence work as a game to be played and won. Conducting a sotto voce discussion of an agent while strolling the rooms of Buckingham Palace fit nicely with his own image of himself. "If you want him debriefed for the purposes of the task force, his control officer from London Station should handle it."

  "Harbinger was my agent," Michael said, using Maguire's code name. "I recruited him and I ran him. I was the one who coaxed him into giving us information that saved countless lives. I'm going to meet with him."

  "Now is not the time for taking a stroll down memory lane, especially not in a town like Belfast. Why don't you brief Harbinger's control officer on what you need? He can go in and make the meeting."

  "Because I want to do it myself"

  "Michael, I know we've had our disagreements, but I offer this counsel very sincerely. You're a desk man now, not a field officer. You're forty-eight years old, and you were nearly killed a year ago. Even the best of us would lose a step. Let me send my man in to meet with Harbinger."

  "I haven't lost a step," Michael said. "And as for Northern Ireland, it hasn't changed in four hundred years. I think I'll be able to take care of myself while I'm there."

  They stepped outside into the bright sunlight of the courtyard.

  Wheaton said, "Harbinger wants to use your old procedures for the meeting. If he doesn't decide to make a meeting in two days, he wants you out of Belfast. You read me?"

  "I read you, David."

  "And if you fuck this up, I'll have your ass."

  17

  BELFAST

  Flights for Northern Ireland depart from a separate sec-tion of Heathrow's Terminal One, where passengers negotiate a gauntlet of security before boarding. Michael posed as a travel writer doing a piece for a magazine about the beauties of the Ulster countryside. During the flight he read guidebooks and maps. The English businessman seated next to him asked if Michael had been to Belfast before. Michael smiled stupidly and said it was his first time. The plane passed Liverpool and headed over the Irish Sea. The pilot announced that they had just left the airspace of the United Kingdom and would be touching down in Belfast in twenty-five minutes. Michael laughed to himself; even the British had trouble remembering Northern Ireland is actually part of the United Kingdom.

  The plane descended through broken cloud. Northern Ireland is rather like a vast farm interrupted by a couple of large cities, Belfast and Londonderry, and hundreds of small towns, villages, and hamlets. The countryside is carved into thousands of square plots—some emerald, some the color of limes and olives, some fallow and brown. To the east, where the waters of Belfast Lough opened onto the Irish Sea, Michael glimpsed the castle at Carrickfergus. Belfast lay at the foot of Black Mountain, straddling the lough. Once it had been a thriving linen and shipbuilding center—the Titanic was built in the shipyards of Belfast— but now it looked like any other British industrial city fallen on hard times, a low smoking labyrinth of redbrick terraces.

  The plane touched down at Aldergrove Airport. Michael dawdled in the arrival lounge for
a while to see if he could spot any surveillance. He bought tea in a cafe and browsed in the gift shop. One wall was covered with books on the conflict. There were brightly colored souvenir shirts and hats that perversely shouted northern Ireland! as if it were Cannes or Jamaica.

  The wind nearly tore Michael's coat from his body as he stepped outside. He passed the taxi stand and boarded an Ulster Bus coach for the city center. Belfast conjures images of civil conflict, of gunsmoke and cordite, but the first smell that greeted Michael was the stench of manure. The bus passed through a checkpoint, where a pair of RUC officers was tearing apart a van. Fifteen minutes later it reached the city center.

  Downtown Belfast is a charmless place—cold and neat, too new in some spots, too old in others. It was bombed countless times by the IRA, twenty-two times alone on July 21, 1972, Bloody Friday. Northern Ireland was the one place on earth that made Michael uncomfortable. There was a viciousness, an incoherence and medieval quality to the violence, that unsettled him. It was one of the few cities where Michael struggled with language. He could speak Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic, reasonable Hebrew, and passable German and Greek, but English spoken with the hard-edged accent of West Belfast bewildered him. And Gaelic, which many Catholics speak fluently, was meaningless gibberish; to Michael it sounded a bit like a shovel blade plunging into gravel. Still, he found the people remarkably friendly, especially to outsiders, quick to buy you a drink or offer you a cigarette, with a black sense of humor derived from living in a world gone mad.

  He checked into his room at the Europa Hotel and spent ten minutes searching for bugs. He managed to sleep but was awakened by a siren and a recorded voice telling him to evacuate the hotel immediately. He telephoned the front desk, and the girl cheerfully informed him it was only a test. He ordered coffee from room service, showered and dressed, and went downstairs. He had ordered a rental car from the concierge. It was waiting outside in the small circular drive, a bright-red Ford Escort. Michael went back inside the hotel and asked the concierge if the rental company had something in a subtler color.