The Marching Season Read online

  They turned from the roadway onto an unpaved pitted track. The car bounced and rocked from side to side. Michael groaned involuntarily when a burst of pain from his broken ribs tore through his side like a knifepoint.

  "Don't worry, Mr. Osbourne," a voice called out from inside the car. "We'll be there in a few minutes."

  Five minutes later the car drew to a stop. The trunk opened, and Michael felt a gust of wet wind. Two of the men took hold of his arms and pulled him out. Suddenly he was standing upright. He could feel the rain hammering on his head wounds despite the hood. He tried to take a step, but his knees buckled. His captors caught him before he hit the ground. Michael draped one arm around each of them, and they carried him into a stone cottage. They passed through a series of rooms and doorways, Michael's feet dragging along the floorboards. A moment later he was placed in a hard straight-backed chair.

  "When you hear the door close, Mr. Osbourne, you may remove the hood. There's warm water and a washcloth. Clean yourself up. You have a visitor."

  Michael removed the hood; it was stiff with dried blood. He squinted in the harsh light. The room was bare except for a table and two chairs. The peeling floral wallpaper reminded him of the guest cottage at Cannon Point. On the table was a white enamel basin filled with water. Next to the basin was a cloth and a small shaving mirror. There was a peephole in the door so they could watch him.

  Michael inspected his face in the mirror. His eyes were bruised and nearly swollen shut. There was a deep cut in the soft tissue above his left eye that needed stitches. His lips were puffy and split, and there was a large abrasion across his right cheek. His hair was matted with blood. There was a reason they had given him a mirror. The IRA had studied the art of interrogation well; they wanted him to feel weak, inferior, and ugly. The British and the RUC Special Branch had used those same techniques on the IRA for three decades.

  Michael carefully removed his coat and pulled up the sleeves of his sweater. He soaked the cloth in the warm water and went to work on his face, gently wiping away blood from his eyes, his mouth, and his nose. He leaned his head over the basin and washed the blood from his hair. He carefully ran a comb through his hair and looked at the mirror again. His features were still hideously distorted, but he had managed to remove most of the blood.

  A fist hammered on the door.

  "Put the hood back on," the voice said.

  Michael remained still.

  "I said put the fucking hood on."

  "It's covered with blood," Michael said. "I want a clean one."

  He heard footsteps outside the door and angry shouts in Gaelic. A few seconds later the door burst open and a man wearing a balaclava strode into the room. He grabbed the bloody hood and pulled it roughly over Michael's head.

  "The next time I tell you to put the hood on, you put the fucking thing on," he said. "You understand me?"

  Michael said nothing. The door closed, and he was alone again. They had imposed their will on him, but he had won a small victory. They left him sitting that way, wearing a hood that stank of his own blood, for twenty minutes. He could hear voices in the house, and somewhere a long way off he thought he heard a scream. Finally, he heard the door open and close again. A man had entered the room. Michael could hear him breathing and he could smell him: cigarettes, hair tonic, a breath of a woman's cologne that reminded him of Sarah. The man settled into the remaining chair. He must have been a large man, because the chair crackled beneath his weight.

  "You can remove the hood now, Mr. Osbourne."

  The voice was confident and naturally rich in timbre, a leader's voice. Michael removed the hood, placed it on the table, and looked directly into the eyes of the person seated across the table. He was a man of blunt edges—a broad flat forehead, heavy cheekbones, the flattened nose of a pugilist. The cleft in his square chin looked as though it had been chipped away with a hatchet. He wore a white dress shirt and tie, charcoal-gray trousers, and a matching waistcoat. The bright blue eyes burned with light and intelligence. For some reason he was smiling.

  Michael recognized the face from Cynthia Martin's files at Headquarters: a prison photograph from the Maze, where the man had spent several years in the eighties.

  "Jesus Christ! I told my men to give you a wee hiding, but it looks as though they gave you a real pasting instead. Sorry, but sometimes the lads get a little carried away."

  Michael said nothing.

  "Your name is Michael Osbourne, and you work for the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. Several years ago you recruited an agent inside the Irish Republican Army named Kevin Maguire. You ran Maguire in a joint operation with MI5. When you returned to Virginia you handed Maguire to another case officer, a man named Buchanan. Don't bother to deny any of this, Mr. Osbourne. We don't have the time, and I mean you no harm."

  Michael said nothing. The man was right; he could deny everything, say it was all a mistake, but it would only prolong his captivity, and it might lead to another beating.

  "Do you know who I am, Mr. Osbourne?"

  Michael nodded.

  "Humor me," he said, lighting two cigarettes, keeping one for himself and handing one to Michael. After a moment a pall of smoke hung between them.

  "Your name is Seamus Devlin."

  "Do you know what I do?"

  "You're the head of IRA Intelligence."

  There was a sharp knock at the door and a few murmured words in Gaelic.

  Devlin said, "Turn around and face the wall."

  The door opened, and Michael heard someone enter the room and place an object on the table. The door closed again.

  "You can turn around now," Devlin said.

  The object that had been laid on the table was a tray with a pot of tea, two chipped enamel mugs, and a small pitcher of milk. Devlin poured tea for both of them.

  "I hope you've learned a valuable lesson tonight, Mr. Os-bourne. I hope you've learned that you can't penetrate this army and get away with it. You think we're just a bunch of stupid Taigs? A bunch of dumb Micks from the bogs? The IRA has been fighting the British government for nearly a hundred years on this island. We've picked up a thing or two about the intelligence business along the way."

  Michael drank his tea and remained silent.

  "By the way, if it makes you feel any better, it was Buchanan who led us to Maguire, not you. The IRA has a special unit that follows volunteers suspected of treason. The unit is so secret I'm the only one who knows the identities of the members. I had Maguire followed in London last year, and we saw him meeting with Buchanan."

  That piece of news didn't make Michael feel any better. "Why grab me?" he said.

  "Because I want to tell you something." Devlin leaned across the table with his dockworker's hands beneath his chin. "The CIA and the British services are trying to track down the members of the Ulster Freedom Brigade. I think the IRA can be of help. After all, it's in our interests too that this violence be brought under control quickly."

  "What do you have?"

  "A weapons cache in the Sperrin Mountains," Devlin said. "It's not ours, and we don't think it belongs to one of the other Protestant paramilitaries."

  "Where in the Sperrin Mountains?"

  "A farmhouse outside the village of Cranagh." Devlin handed Michael a slip of paper with a crudely drawn map showing the location of the farm.

  Michael said, "What have you seen?"

  "Trucks coming and going, crates being unloaded, the usual."

  "People?"

  "A couple of lads seem to live there full time. They patrol the fields around the house regularly. Well armed, I might add."

  "Does the IRA still have the farm under watch?"

  "We pulled back. We don't have the equipment to do it right."

  "Why give this to me? Why not give it to the British or the RUC?"

  "Because I don't trust them, and I never will. Remember, there are some elements within the RUC and British Intelligence who have cooperated with the Protestant
paramilitaries over the years. I want these Protestant bastards stopped before they drag us into a full-scale war again, and I don't trust the British and the RUC to do the job alone." Devlin crushed out his cigarette. He looked at Michael and smiled again. "Now, was that worth a couple of cuts and scrapes?"

  "Fuck you, Devlin," Michael said.

  Devlin burst out laughing. "You're free to go now. Put on your coat. I want to show you something before you leave."

  Michael followed Devlin through the house. The air smelled of frying bacon. Devlin led him through a sitting room into a kitchen with copper pots hanging above the stove. It might have been something out of an Irish country magazine, if not for the half-dozen men seated around the table, glaring at Michael through the slits in their balaclavas.

  "You'll need this," Devlin said, taking a wool cap from the rack next to the door and placing it carefully on Michael's swollen scalp. "A dirty night out tonight, I'm afraid."

  Michael followed Devlin along a muddy footpath. It was so dark he might as well have been wearing the hood again. He could see the outline of Devlin's wrestler's physique in front of him, marching along the path, and he felt himself strangely drawn to him. When they reached the barn, Devlin hammered on the door and murmured something in (Gaelic. Then he pulled open the door and led Michael inside.

  It took Michael a few seconds to realize that the man tied to the chair was Kevin Maguire. He was naked and shivering with cold and terror. He had been beaten savagely. His face was horribly distorted, and blood flowed from a dozen different cuts—above his eyes, on his cheeks, around his mouth. Both eyes were swollen shut. There were wounds on every part of his body: contusions, abrasions, lacerations from being whipped with a belt, burns from cigarettes being ground into his skin. He was sitting in his own excrement. Three men in balaclavas stood guard around him.

  "This is what we do to touts in the IRA, Mr. Osbourne," Devlin said. "Remember this the next time you try to convince one of our men to betray the IRA and his people."

  Maguire said, "Michael, is that you?"

  Michael moved forward carefully, slipping between Maguire 's tormentors and kneeling at his side. He knew there was nothing he could say, so he just wiped some of the blood from his eyes and laid a hand gently on his shoulder.

  "I'm sorry, Kevin," Michael said, his voice hoarse with emotion. "My God, I'm so sorry!"

  "It's not your fault, Michael," Maguire whispered. He paused for a moment because the effort required to speak caused him more pain. "It's this place. I told you. Nothing's going to change here. Nothing's ever going to change in this place."

  Devlin stepped forward and took Michael's arm, pulling him away. He walked Michael back outside. "That's the real world in there," Devlin said. "I didn't kill Kevin Maguire. You killed him."

  Michael spun and punched Devlin. The blow landed high on his left cheekbone and sent him sprawling into the mud. Devlin just laughed and rubbed his face. A pair of men came running out of the house. Devlin waved them away.

  "Not bad, Michael. Not bad at all."

  "Get him a priest," Michael said, breathing hard. "Let him have his last confession. Then put a bullet in him. He's suffered enough."

  "He'll get his priest," Devlin said, still rubbing his face. "And I'm afraid he'll get his bullet too. But remember one thing. If you and your British mates don't stop the Ulster Freedom Brigade, this place will blow. If that happens, don't try to penetrate us, because the fucking tout will end up just like Maguire."

  They drove for a very long time. Michael tried to keep track of the turns so he might find the farm again, but after a while he just closed his eyes and tried to rest. Finally, the car stopped. Someone hammered on the trunk and said, "Is your fucking hood on?"

  "Yes," Michael answered. He had no strength left for mental games, and he wanted to be away from them. Two men lifted him out and laid him in the wet grass bordering the roadway. A moment later they placed something next to him.

  "Leave the hood on until you can't hear the car engine anymore."

  Michael sat up as they drove off. He ripped away his hood, hoping to catch a glimpse of the identification number, but they had doused the lights. Then he turned to see what they had placed next to him and found himself staring into the lifeless face of Kevin Maguire.

  19

  LONDON

  "They obviously followed you to the meeting," Wheaton said, with the certainty of a man who never permitted the facts to get in the way of his theory, especially if it resolved things in his favor.

  "I engaged in a thorough SDR, totally by the book," Michael said. "I was clean. They followed Maguire to the meeting, not me. That's why he passed on the first two sites—because he suspected he was being watched. I only wish he'd had the good sense to trust his instincts. He'd still be alive."

  Michael was sitting at a table in the small private kitchen of Winfield House. It was early evening, nearly twenty-four hours since the IRA had snatched him from the streets of Belfast. They had dumped him outside the village of Dromara. Michael had had no choice but to leave Maguire's body by the roadside and get as far away as he could as quickly as possible. He had walked to Banbridge, a Protestant town southeast of Portadown, and flagged down a delivery truck. He told the driver he had been robbed and beaten and that his car had been stolen. The driver was bound for Belfast but said he would be willing to take Michael to the RUC station in Banbridge to file a report. Michael said he would prefer to get back to his hotel in Belfast and file a report there. After arriving at the Europa in Belfast, Michael awakened Wheaton in London. Wheaton made the necessary calls to his British counterparts and arranged for an RAF helicopter to collect Michael from Aldergrove Airport.

  "You haven't been operational in the field for a long time, Michael," Wheaton said. "Maybe you missed something."

  "You're suggesting that I got Kevin Maguire killed?"

  "You're the only case officer that was there."

  "I remember how to spot surveillance. I remember the parameters for making a meeting or passing on one. Devlin said they'd known Maguire was working for us for months."

  "Seamus Devlin is not exactly a source I trust."

  "He knew Buchanan's name."

  "Maguire probably gave it to him under torture."

  Michael knew it was impossible to win this argument. Jack Buchanan worked for London Station. He was one of Wheaton's men, and Wheaton would go to the mat to protect him.

  "Obviously, one of you fucked up, and fucked up badly," Wheaton said. "We've lost one of our most valuable assets, our British cousins are in a tizzy, and you're lucky to be alive."

  "What about Devlin's information?"

  "It's all been passed on to Headquarters and MI5, in accordance with our original arrangement on the Maguire matter. Obviously, we can't put a site under watch in Northern Ireland. The British will have to make that decision, and they need to weigh it against other operational priorities. Quite frankly, it's out of our hands at this point."

  "That information cost the life of my agent."

  "Maguire wasn't your agent. He was our agent, the British and ours. We ran him jointly, and we shared in the take, remember? We're all upset he was blown."

  "I don't want to lose an opportunity to crack the Ulster Freedom Brigade because we're jittery about the way we got the information."

  "You must admit the whole thing was a bit unorthodox. What if the information from Devlin is smoke?"

  "Why would the IRA do that?"

  "To murder a few British intelligence officers and SAS men. We give the information to the British, the British put a team in place, and the IRA sneaks up on them in the middle of the night and slits their throats."

  "The IRA is abiding by the cease-fire and the peace accords. They have no reason to set up the British."

  "I still don't trust them."

  "The information is good. We need to act on it quickly."

  "It's a British matter, Michael, and therefore it's a British decision. I
f I try to lean on them they won't like it, just as we wouldn't like it if the roles were reversed."

  "So let me do it quietly."

  "Graham Seymour?"

  Michael nodded. Wheaton made a show of careful deliberation.

  "All right, arrange a meeting with him tomorrow, then get the fuck out of here. I want you stateside." Wheaton paused a moment and examined Michael's face. "It's probably better that you stay here another day anyway. I wouldn't want your wife to see you like this."

  Michael went to bed early but couldn't sleep. Each time he closed his eyes the whole thing played out inside his head: the beating in the back of the car, Devlin's Cheshire-cat smile, Maguire's dead eyes. He pictured his agent, strapped to the chair, beaten beyond recognition, beaten until there was nothing left of his face. Twice he stumbled into the bathroom and was violently sick.

  He remembered Devlin's words.

  I didn't kill Kevin Maguire. . . . You killed him.

  His body ached every place they had hit him. No position was comfortable enough to sleep. Whenever he felt sorry for himself he thought of Maguire and his miserable, humiliating death.

  Michael took pills for the pain and finally pills to make him sleep. He dreamed about it all night, except in his dreams it was Michael who beat Kevin Maguire and Michael who put a bullet in the back of his head.

  "That's some eye," Graham Seymour said, the next morning.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?"

  Michael put his sunglasses back on even though the skies were overcast. They were walking side by side along a footpath on Parliament Hill in Hampstead Heath. Michael needed to rest, so they sat down on a bench. To their left, Highgate Hill rose into the mist. In front of them, beyond the heath, spread central London. Michael could make out the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance. Children flew colorful kites around them as they spoke.