The Marching Season Page 18
"We need a code name," Wheaton said, trying to think of something else, anything else, besides the sounds emanating from the monitors. "We don't have a code name."
"My father worked on a similar operation during the war," Graham said, his fingers flickering lightly over the keyboard. "MI5 fed Double Cross material to a female German spy through an American naval officer."
"What was the code name?"
"I believe it was Kettledrum."
"Kettledrum," Wheaton repeated. "Nice ring to it. Kettledrum it is."
"How did it turn out?" Michael asked.
Graham stopped playing and looked up.
"We won, darling."
It was an MI5 technician named Rodney who saw it first and awakened the rest of the team. Wheaton had claimed the only bedroom for himself. Michael slept on the couch; Graham dozed fitfully in an overstuffed wing chair like a restless passenger on a transatlantic flight. Heavy-eyed, they crowded around the bank of video monitors and watched as the woman sat down at the desk in McDaniels's study and began softly rifling the contents of his briefcase.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, looks like we just cracked the Ulster Freedom Brigade," Wheaton said. "Congratulations, Michael. You're buying dinner tonight."
Preston McDaniels lay awake in bed, his back to the door. He had tried to sleep but couldn't, so he just remained very still, until he heard her slip from the bed and leave the room. He imagined her in his study, picking through his papers. He was overcome by wave after wave of conflicting emotions. He was embarrassed that he had been so easily taken in, humiliated that Wheaton and Michael Osbourne had made him a pawn in their game. More than anything else, he felt betrayed.
For a few moments, while she was making love to him, McDaniels imagined that she really did have feelings for him regardless of her motives. He would cut a deal, he thought. He would arrange things so they could be together when it was all over.
He heard the door open. He closed his eyes. He felt her body settle next to his. He wanted to roll over and take her in his arms, pull her body down on his, feel her legs around him. But he just lay there, pretending to sleep, wondering what he would do without her when it was all over.
25
LONDON
"It's called Hartley Hall," Graham Seymour said, late that morning in Wheaton's office. "It's located here, along the north Norfolk Coast." He tapped at the large Ordnance Survey map with the tip of his pen. "It has several hundred acres of grounds for walking and riding, and of course the beach is nearby. In short, it's the perfect sort of place for an American ambassador to spend a quiet weekend in the country."
"Who owns it?" Michael asked.
"A friend of the Intelligence Service."
"A close friend?"
"Did his bit during the war and a few odd jobs during the fifties and sixties, but nothing heavy."
"Anything public that could link him to British Intelligence?"
"Absolutely not," Graham said. "The Ulster Freedom Brigade would have no way of knowing that the ambassador's host was connected to the Service."
Wheaton said, "What are you thinking, Michael?"
"That Douglas wants to spend a weekend outside London in the English countryside, a private weekend with minimal security at the house of an old friend. We put it on his schedule and feed it to the woman through McDaniels. With a bit of luck the Ulster Freedom Brigade will bite."
"And we'll have an SAS team waiting for them," Graham said. "The scenario has one other important benefit: There will be no possibility of civilian casualties, because of the remote location."
"Arresting people isn't really the specialty of the SAS," Wheaton said. "If we go through with this, and the Ulster Freedom Brigade takes the bait, a lot of blood is going to be spilled." He looked first at Graham, who remained silent, and then at Michael.
"Better their blood than Douglas's," Michael said. "I recommend we do it."
"I need to run it up the food chain," Wheaton said. "The White House and the State Department are going to need to sign off on this one. It might take a few hours."
"What about the woman?" Michael said.
"We followed her this morning when she left McDaniels's flat," Graham said. "She was telling McDaniels the truth. She's living in a flat in Earl's Court. Moved in a couple of weeks ago. We have a team watching the flat."
"Where is she now?"
"It appears she's sleeping."
"I'm glad someone's getting some sleep around here," Wheaton said.
He picked up his secure phone and dialed Monica Tyler's office at Langley.
"This is all your idea, isn't it?" Preston McDaniels said. "You're a real sonofabitch. Anyone can see that."
They were seated on a bench overlooking the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Wind moved in the willow trees and made ripples on the surface of the lake. Clouds, heavy with coming rain, floated above them. Michael tried to spot Graham's watchers. Was it the man tossing bread crumbs to the ducks? The woman on the next bench reading Josephine Hart? Perhaps the lanky blond boy in the dark blue anorak doing tai chi on the lawn?
Twenty minutes earlier, Michael had shown McDaniels the videotape of his lover sneaking into his study and picking through the contents of his briefcase. McDaniels had nearly become physically ill. He had demanded fresh air, so they had walked in silence, across Mayfair and along the footpaths of Hyde Park, until they had reached the lake. McDaniels was trembling; Michael could almost feel the park bench vibrating with his shaking. He remembered how he had felt when he learned Sarah Randolph had been working for the KGB. He had wanted to hate her but could not. He suspected Preston McDaniels felt precisely the same way about the woman he knew as Rachel Archer.
"Did you get any sleep?" he asked mildly.
"Of course not." The wind gusted, lifting his gray hair and exposing his bald spot. He self-consciously coaxed it back into place. "How could I sleep knowing that you bastards were probably listening to my every breath?"
Michael did not want to dispel McDaniels's notion that they were watching his every move and listening to his every utterance. He lit a cigarette and offered one to McDaniels.
"Vile habit," McDaniels snorted, and waved his hand. He glared at Michael as though he were an untouchable.
Michael didn't mind; it was good for McDaniels to feel superior for a moment, even over something so trivial.
"How long?" he said. "How long do I have to do this?"
"Not long," Michael said casually, as though McDaniels had asked how long it might be before the next train arrived.
"My God, why can't I get a straight answer from you people about anything?"
"Because there are very few straight answers in this line of work."
"It's your line of work, not mine." McDaniels waved his hand violently. "Jesus Christ] Put that thing out, will you!"
Michael tossed the cigarette onto the pavement.
"Who is she?" McDaniels asked. "What is she?"
"As far as you're concerned she's Rachel Archer, a starving playwright who's working as a waitress at Ristorante Riccardo."
"Dammit, I want to know! I have to know! I need to know that this whole ugly business might come to some good."
Michael could not argue with the logic of McDaniels's request. Oftentimes, agent-running is about motivation, and if Preston McDaniels was going to get through the operation, he needed encouragement.
"We don't know her real name," Michael said. "Not yet, anyway. We're working on it. She's a member of the Ulster Freedom Brigade. They're planning to assassinate my father-in-law. She was using you to gain access to his schedule and find the best time to make their attempt."
"My God, how could she? She's such a wonderful—"
"She's not the person you think she is."
"How could I have been such a fool?" McDaniels was staring somewhere into the middle distance. "I knew she was too young for me. That she was too pretty. But I allowed myself to actually believe that she had fallen in love with me."
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"No one's blaming you," Michael lied.
"So what happens when it's all over?"
"You go on with your job as if nothing happened."
"How can I?"
"It will be easier than you think," Michael said.
"And what about her, whoever she is?"
"We don't know yet," Michael said.
"Yes, you do. You know everything. You're setting her up, aren't you."
Michael stood abruptly, signaling that it was time to leave. McDaniels remained seated.
"How long?" he said. "How long until this is over?"
"I don't know."
"How long?" he repeated.
"Not long."
Later that afternoon Michael sat in Wheaton's office, reviewing the new addition to Ambassador Douglas Cannon's schedule, a private visit the following weekend to the home of a friend in the Norfolk countryside. At the ambassador's request, security for the visit would be extremely light, a two-man Special Branch team with no American support. Michael finished reading it and handed it across the desk to Wheaton.
"Think they'll bite?" Wheaton asked.
"They should."
"How's our boy holding up under the strain?"
"McDaniels?"
Wheaton nodded.
"As well as you might expect."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning we don't have a lot of time."
"Then this had better work."
Wheaton handed the paper back to Michael.
"Put it in his briefcase and send it home with him tonight."
It was just after four o'clock the next morning when Rebecca Wells rose from Preston McDaniels's bed and let herself into his study. She sat down at the desk, quietly opened the briefcase, and withdrew a sheaf of papers. Attached to the ambassador's usual schedule of official events was a note about a private weekend in the Norfolk countryside.
Rebecca could feel her heart hammering inside her chest as she read the memo.
It was perfect: a remote location, with plenty of advance notice for planning purposes. She took her time copying down the details. She didn't want to make a mistake.
When she finished she felt a fierce pride. She had done her job well, just as she had done in Belfast. Eamonn Dillon was dead because of the information she had provided Kyle Blake and Gavin Spencer, and soon Ambassador Douglas Cannon would be dead too.
She turned off the light and went back to bed.
At the base camp in Evelyn Square, Michael Osbourne and Graham Seymour stood before the video monitors. They watched as she carefully recorded the details of the memo concerning the ambassador's trip to Norfolk. They could sense her excitement at the discovery. When she turned off the light and left the room, Graham turned to Michael and said, "Think she took the bait?"
"Hook, line, and sinker."
The following day they watched her. They went with her to the dreary cafe outside the Earl's Court Underground stop where she had tea and a bun for breakfast. They listened when she telephoned Riccardo Ferrari at the restaurant and told him she had a family emergency, an aunt who had taken ill in Newcastle; she needed a couple of days off, four at the most. Riccardo screamed a series of obscenities at her, first in Italian, then in heavily accented English. But he won the affection of Graham Seymour's listeners when he said, "Take care of your poor aunt. There's nothing more important than family. When you're ready to come back, you come back."
Then they listened as she telephoned Preston McDaniels at his desk at the embassy and told him she would be going away for a few days. They held their breath when McDaniels asked to see her for a few minutes before she left. They breathed a sigh of relief when she told him there wasn't time.
And when she boarded a train for Liverpool, they let her run.
Preston McDaniels replaced the receiver and sat at his desk. A secretary who spotted him through the open door at that moment told Michael later that poor Preston looked as though he had just been told of a death. He jumped up suddenly, announced he needed to run an errand, and said he would be back in fifteen minutes. He took his raincoat from its hanger and rushed out of the embassy, across Grosvenor Square, toward the park.
He knew they were following him, Wheaton and Osbourne and the rest of them; he could feel it. He wanted to be rid of them. He wanted to never see them again. What would they do? Would they grab him? Snatch him off the streets? Bundle him into a car? He had read his fair share of spy novels. How would the hero get away from the villains in a spy novel? He would get lost in a crowd.
When he reached Park Lane he hurried north toward Marble Arch. He ducked into the Underground station, slipped through the turnstiles, and walked quickly along the connecting passageway to the platform.
A train was arriving as he reached the platform. He stepped into the carriage and stood near the doors. At the next stop, Bond Street, he stepped out of the train, crossed to the opposite platform, and boarded another train back to Marble Arch. At Marble Arch he performed the same maneuver, and a moment later he was heading east across London, feeling quite alone.
Graham Seymour rang Michael from MI5 headquarters.
"I'm afraid your man has vanished."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean we lost him," Graham said. "He lost us, actually. He performed quite a routine on the Underground. He's not half bad."
"Where?"
"Central Line between Marble Arch and Bond Street."
"Dammit. What are you doing about it?"
"Well, we're trying to find him, aren't we, darling."
"Call me if you hear anything."
"Right."
At Tottenham Court Road, Preston McDaniels left the Central Line train and walked through the connecting passageway to the Northern Line. How fitting, he thought; the dreaded Northern Line. Antiquated, wheezing, clattering, the Northern Line was forever breaking down at the height of the rush. To those forced to endure its fickle moods, it was the Misery Line. The Black Line. It was perfect, Preston thought. The London tabloids would have a field day with it.
What was it Michael Osbourne had said? You go on with your life as if nothing had happened. But how could he? He felt the platform begin to vibrate. He turned and peered into the darkness of the tunnel and saw the faint light of the approaching train.
He thought of her, beneath his body, her back arched to him, and then he pictured her in his study, stealing his secrets. He heard her voice on the telephone. I'm afraid I'm going to have to go away for a few days. . . . No, I'm sorry, Preston, but I can't see you just now. . . .
Preston McDaniels looked at his watch. They would be worried about him by now, wondering where he had gone. There was a staff meeting in ten minutes. He was going to miss it.
The train burst from the tunnel with a rush of hot air and swept into the station. Preston McDaniels took one step closer to the edge of the platform. Then he leaped onto the track.
26
PORTADOWN > LONDON • COUNTY TYRONE
THE FOLLOWING EVENING REBECCA WELLS WAS BACK IN PORTA-down, sitting in a booth in McConville's pub. Gavin Spencer entered first, followed five minutes later by Kyle Blake. The pub was crowded. Rebecca Wells spoke quietly beneath the din, briefing Blake and Spencer on what she had discovered in the briefcase of the American.
"When does Cannon arrive?" Blake asked simply.
"Next Saturday," Rebecca said.
"And how long does he stay?"
"One night, the Saturday. Then he returns to London early Sunday afternoon."
"That gives us five days." Blake turned to Gavin Spencer. "Can you pull it off in that amount of time?"
Spencer nodded. "We just need the weapons. If we can get our hands on the guns, Ambassador Douglas Cannon is a dead man."
Kyle Blake thought it over a moment, rubbing the ink and nicotine stains on his fingers. Then he looked up at Spencer and said, "So we'll get the guns."
"Are you sure, Kyle?"
"You're not losing your nerve, are you?"
"We don't have time to wait, Gavin. Every week that goes by is a victory for the supporters of the accords. Either we destroy the peace agreement now or we're stuck with it forever. And it's not just this generation that will pay the price. It's our children, our grandchildren. I can't live with that."
Blake stood up abruptly and zipped his jacket closed.
"Get those guns, Gavin, or I'll find someone who will."
As the three leaders of the Ulster Freedom Brigade were departing McConville's pub, Graham Seymour was arriving at the American embassy. Wheaton's office felt like the command bunker of an army in retreat. The suicide of Preston McDaniels had ignited a firestorm in Washington, and Wheaton had been on the telephone-for most of the past twenty-four hours, trying unsuccessfully to put it out. The State Department was furious with the Agency for their handling of the affair; indeed, Douglas Cannon had been placed in the unenviable position of secretly protesting the actions of his own son-in-law. President Beck-with had summoned Monica Tyler to the White House and read her the riot act. Monica had taken out her anger on Wheaton and Michael.
"Please tell us you have some good news," Michael said, as Graham sat down.
"Actually, I do," Graham said. "Scotland Yard's decided to play ball. Later this evening they'll put out a statement that the suicide at Tottenham Court Road was an escaped mental patient. The Northern Line is notorious for that sort of thing. There's a psychiatric hospital in Stockwell, south of the river."
"Thank God," Wheaton said.
Michael felt himself relax slightly. The suicide needed to be kept secret if the operation was to continue. If the Ulster Freedom Brigade learned McDaniels had jumped in front of a Northern Line train, they might very well conclude the information they had stolen from him was tainted.