The Marching Season Read online

  "I can't guarantee that."

  "Worst-case scenario, you'll have the audio as a backup."

  Delaroche said, "You have any guns besides that museum piece you're carrying?"

  Moore had a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver.

  "I like these museum pieces because they don't jam," Moore said, smacking his thick hand against the holster. "But I might be able to lay my hands on a couple of automatics."

  "What kind?"

  "Colt forty-fives."

  "No Glocks or Berettas?"

  "Sorry," Moore said, face perplexed.

  "A Colt or two would be fine," Carter said.

  "Yes, sir," Moore said. "Mind telling me what this is all about?"

  "Not a chance."

  Delaroche followed Michael up the stairs to the bedroom. Michael went to the closet, opened the door, and pulled down a small box from the top shelf. He opened the box and took out the Beretta.

  "I believe you dropped this the last time you were here/' Michael said, handing the gun to Delaroche.

  Delaroche's scarred right hand wrapped around the grip, and his finger reflexively slipped inside the trigger guard. Something about the way Delaroche handled the weapon so effortlessly made Michael feel cold.

  "Where did you get this?" Delaroche asked.

  "I fished it out of the water off the end of the dock."

  "Who restored it?"

  "I did."

  Delaroche looked up from the gun and stared at Michael quizzically. "Why on earth would you do that?"

  "I'm not sure. I guess I wanted a reminder of what it really looked like."

  Delaroche still had a 9-millimeter clip in his pocket. He slipped it into the weapon and pulled the slider, chambering the first round.

  "If you like, I suppose you could fulfill the terms of your contract at this moment."

  Delaroche handed the Beretta back to Michael.

  At four o'clock that afternoon Michael entered Douglas's study and dialed Monica Tyler's office at Headquarters. Carter listened on another extension, his hand over the receiver. Monica's secretary said Director Tyler was in a senior staff meeting and couldn't be interrupted. Michael said it was an emergency and was passed on to Tweedledee or Tweedledum, Michael was never certain which was which. They kept him waiting the statutory ten minutes while Monica was pulled from the meeting.

  "I know everything," Michael said, when she finally came on the line. "I know about the Society, and I know about the Director. I know about Mitchell Elliott and the TransAtlantic affair. And I know you tried to have me killed."

  "Michael, are you truly delusional? What on earth are you talking about?"

  "I'm offering you a way out of this quietly."

  "Michael, I don't—"

  "Come to my father-in-law's house on Shelter Island. Come alone—no security, no staff. Be here by ten P.M. If you're not here by then, or if I see anything I don't like, I'll go to the Bureau and The New York Times and tell them everything I know."

  He hung up without waiting for her answer.

  Thirty minutes later the secure telephone rang in the study of the Director's London mansion. He was sitting in a wing chair next to the fire, feet propped on an ottoman, working his way through a stack of paperwork. Daphne slipped into the room and answered the phone.

  "It's Picasso," Daphne said. "She says it's urgent."

  The Director took the receiver and said, "Yes, Picasso?"

  Monica Tyler calmly told him about the call she had just received from Michael Osbourne.

  "I suspect October is the source of his information," the Director said. "If that's true, it would seem to me that Osbourne has a rather weak case. October knows very little about the overall structure of our organization, and he is hardly a credible witness. He is a man who kills for money—a man without morality and without loyalty."

  "I agree, Director, but I don't think we should simply dismiss the threat."

  "I'm not suggesting that."

  "Do you have the resources to eliminate them?"

  "Not on such short notice."

  "And if I simply arrest October?"

  "Then he and Osbourne will tell their story to the world."

  "I'm open to suggestions."

  "Do you know how to play poker?" the Director asked.

  "Figuratively or literally?"

  "A little of both, actually."

  "I believe I understand your point."

  "Listen to what Osbourne has to say and evaluate your options. I know I don't need to remind you that you swore an oath of allegiance to the Society. Your first concern is upholding that oath."

  "I understand, Director."

  "Perhaps you will be presented with an opportunity to resolve the matter yourself."

  "I've never done that sort of thing, Director."

  "It's not so difficult, Picasso. I'll wait to hear from you."

  He hung up the telephone and looked at Daphne.

  "Begin calling the members of the executive council and the division chiefs. I need to speak to each of them urgently. I'm afraid we may be forced to close down shop for a while."

  Monica Tyler hung up the telephone and stared out her window at the Potomac. She walked across the room and stopped in front of a Rembrandt, a landscape she had purchased at auction in New York for a small fortune. Her eyes ran over the painting now: the clouds, the light spilling from the cottage, the horseless trap in the grass of the meadow. She took hold of the frame and pulled. The Rembrandt swung back on its hinges, revealing a small wall safe.

  Her fingers worked the tumblers automatically, eyes barely looking at the numbers; a few seconds later the safe was open. She began removing items: an envelope containing one hundred thousand dollars in cash, three false passports in different names from different countries, credit cards corresponding to the names.

  Then she removed one final item, a Browning automatic.

  Perhaps you will be presented with an opportunity to resolve the matter yourself.

  She changed clothes, exchanging the tailored Chanel for a pair of jeans and a sweater. She placed the items from the safe into a large black leather handbag. Then she packed a small overnight bag with a change of clothes.

  She pulled the handbag over her shoulder and reached inside, wrapping her hand around the grip of the Browning; she had been trained by the Agency to handle a gun. A member of her security detail was waiting outside in the hall.

  "Good afternoon, Director Tyler."

  "Good afternoon, Ted."

  "Back to Headquarters, Director?"

  "The helipad, actually."

  "The helipad? No one told us anything about—"

  "It's all right, Ted," she said calmly. "It's a private matter."

  The security man looked at her carefully. "Is there something wrong, Director Tyler?"

  "No, Ted, everything's going to be just fine."

  43

  SHELTER ISLAND, NEW YORK

  Michael maintained a tense vigil on the lawn of Cannon Point. He was drinking Adrian Carter's vile coffee and smoking his own vile cigarettes, pacing the frozen grass with a pair of Douglas's bird-watching binoculars around his neck. God, but it was a cold night, he thought. He looked once more at the western sky, the direction Monica would come, but there was only a spray of wet stars, scattered over the black carpet of space, and a sliver of moon, white as exposed bone.

  Michael looked at his watch—9:58 P.M. Monica's never on time, he thought. "Monica will be ten minutes late for her own funeral," Carter once cracked, while cooling his heels in Monica's dreary anteroom. Maybe she won't come, Michael thought, or maybe I just hope she won't. Maybe Adrian had been right. Maybe he should just forget about the whole thing, leave the Agency— for good, this time—and stay on Shelter Island with Elizabeth and the children. And what? Live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, waiting for Monica and her friends to send another assassin, another Delaroche?

  He checked the time once more. It was his father's old wa
tch: German-made, big as a silver dollar, waterproof, dustproof, shock-proof, childproof, faintly luminous. Perfect for a spy. It was the only one of his father's possessions Michael had taken after he died. He even kept the lousy expansion band that left a puckered brickwork pattern on the skin of his wrist. Sometimes he would look at the watch and think of his father—in Moscow, or Rome, or Vienna, or Beirut—waiting for an agent. He wondered what his father would think of all this. He never told me what he was thinking then, Michael thought. Why should now be any different?

  He heard a thumping sound that could have been a distant helicopter, but it was only the nightclub across the water in Greenport—the house band gearing up for yet another dreadful set. Michael thought of his motley operational team. Delaroche, his enemy, his living proof of Monica's treachery, waiting to be wheeled onto the stage and wheeled off again. Tom Moore, parked in front of his monitors in the guest cottage, about to get the shock of his life. Adrian Carter, pacing behind him, chainsmoking Michael's cigarettes, wishing he were anywhere else.

  Michael heard the thump of the helicopter long before he could see it. For an instant he thought there might be two, or three, or even four. Instinctively, he reached for the Colt automatic that Tom Moore had given him, but after a moment he saw the lights of a single helicopter approaching over Nassau Point and Great Hog Neck, and he realized it was only the night wind playing tricks on his ears.

  He thought of the morning, two months earlier, when the helicopter bearing President James Beckwith had made the same journey to Shelter Island, setting off the chain of events that had led him to this place.

  The images played out in his mind as the helicopter drew nearer.

  Adrian Carter on the levee of the reservoir in Central Park, seducing Michael into coming back.

  Kevin Maguire strapped to a chair, and Seamus Devlin smiling over him. / didn't kill Kevin Maguire, Michael. You killed him.

  Preston McDaniels being crushed beneath the wheels of the Misery Line train.

  Delaroche, smiling over the rail of Key Bridge. Do you know the story of the frog and the scorpion crossing the Nile?

  Sometimes intelligence work is like that, his father used to say—like chaos theory. A breath of wind disturbs the surface of a pond, moving a reed of grass, which sends a dragonfly to flight, which startles a frog, and so on and so on, until, ten thousand miles away and many weeks later, a typhoon destroys an island in the Philippines.

  The helicopter swept low over Southold Bay. Michael looked at his father's wristwatch: one minute past ten. The helicopter descended over Shelter Island Sound and Dering Harbor, then set down on the broad lawn of Cannon Point. The engines shut down, and the rotor gradually stopped twisting. The door opened, and a small staircase unfolded to the ground. Monica climbed out, a black bag over her shoulder, and marched resolutely toward the house.

  "Let's get this nonsense over with," she said, brushing past Michael. "I'm a very busy woman."

  Monica Tyler was not a pacer, but she was pacing now. She toured Douglas Cannon's living room like a politician inspecting a trailer park after a tornado—calm, stoic, empathetic, but careful not to step in anything foul. She paused from time to time, now frowning at the floral slipcover on the couch, now grimacing at the rustic throw rug in front of the fire.

  "You have cameras somewhere, don't you, Michael," she said, making a statement rather than asking a question. "And microphones." She continued her restless journey around the room. "You don't mind if I close these curtains, do you, Michael? You see, I've been through that little course at the farm too. I may not be an experienced field man like you, but I know a little something about the clandestine arts." She made a vast show of closing the curtains. "There," she said. "That's much better."

  She sat down, a reluctant, arrogant witness taking her place in the dock. The log fire began to spit. She crossed one leg over the other, resting her long hands on the faded denim of her jeans, and settled a frozen gaze on Michael. The prosaic surroundings had stolen her physical intimidation. There was no gold pen to wield like a stiletto, no glossy secretary to interrupt a meeting that had unexpectedly turned unpleasant, no Tweedledum and Tweedledee, watchful as Dobermans, clutching their leather folders and secure cell phones.

  Delaroche entered the room. He was smoking a cigarette. Monica glared at him with disdain, for tobacco, like personal disloyalty, was among her many pet peeves.

  "This man is called Jean-Paul Delaroche," Michael said. "Do you know who he is?"

  "I suspect he is a former KGB assassin code-named October who now works as an international contract killer."

  "Do you know why he's here?"

  "Probably because he nearly killed your father-in-law last night in Georgetown, despite our best efforts to stop him."

  "What game are you playing, Monica?" Michael asked sharply.

  "I was about to ask you the same question."

  "I know everything," he said, calmer now.

  "Believe me, Michael, you don't know everything. In fact, you know next to nothing. You see, your little escapade has severely jeopardized one of the most important operations currently being conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency."

  The room had gone silent, except for the fire, which was spitting again, crackling like small arms. Outside, the wind was moving the leafless trees, and one was scratching against the side of the house. A truck grumbled along Shore Road, and somewhere a dog was barking.

  "If you want the rest, you have to shut down your microphones," Monica said.

  Michael remained motionless. Monica reached for her handbag, as if getting up to leave.

  "All right," Michael said. He stood, walked to Douglas's desk, and opened a drawer. Inside was a microphone, about the size of a finger. Michael held it up for Monica to see.

  "Disconnect it," she said.

  He pulled the microphone from its cable.

  "Now the backup," she said. "You're too paranoid to do something like this without a backup."

  Michael walked to the bookshelves, removed a volume of Proust, and pulled out the second microphone.

  "Kill it," Monica said.

  Delaroche looked at Michael. "She has a gun in the handbag."

  Michael walked over to the chair where Monica Tyler was seated, reached inside the bag, and pulled out the Browning.

  "Since when do CIA directors carry weapons?"

  "When they feel threatened," Monica said.

  Michael set the safety and tossed the Browning to Delaroche. "All right, Monica, let's get started."

  Adrian Carter was a worrier by nature, a personality trait somehow at odds with the job of sending agents into the field and waiting for them to come out again. He had endured many tense vigils concerning Michael Osbourne over the years. He remembered the two endless nights he had spent in Beirut in 1985, waiting for Michael to return from a meeting with an agent in the Bekaa Valley. Carter had feared Michael had been taken hostage or killed. He was about to give up when Michael stumbled into Beirut, covered in dust and smelling of goats.

  Still, nothing compared to the uneasiness Carter felt now, as he listened to his agent confronting the director of Central Intelligence. When she demanded that Michael disable the first microphone, Carter was not terribly worried—there were two in the room, and an experienced field man like Michael would never give up his ace in the hole.

  Then he heard Monica demand disconnection of the second, followed by thumping and scratching as Michael dug it from the bookshelf. When the feed from the room fell silent, he did the only thing a good agent-runner can do.

  He lit another of Michael's cigarettes, and he waited.

  "A short time after I was appointed DCI, I was approached by a man who referred to himself only as the Director." She spoke like an exhausted mother, reluctantly telling a fairy tale to a child who refuses to go to bed. "He asked me if I would be willing to join an elite club, a group of international intelligence officers, financiers, and businessmen dedicated to the pr
eservation of global security. I suspected something was amiss, so I reported the incident to Counterintelligence as a potential recruitment by a hostile organization. CI thought it might be operationally productive if we danced with the Director, and I agreed. I sought approval from the president himself to begin the operation. I met with the man called the Director three more times, twice in Northern Europe and once in the Mediterranean. At the end of the third meeting, we came to terms, and I joined the Society.

  "The Society has very long tentacles. It is involved in covert operations on a global scale. I immediately began collecting intelligence on membership and operations. Some intelligence was laundered through the Agency, and we took countermeasures. Sometimes, we deemed it was necessary to allow Society operations to continue, because disrupting them could jeopardize my position inside the hierarchy of the organization."

  Michael watched her as she spoke. She was calm and collected and utterly lucid, as though she were reading a prepared speech to a gathering of shareholders. He was in awe of her; she was a remarkable liar.

  "Who's the Director?" Michael asked.

  "I don't know, and I suspect Delaroche doesn't know either."

  "Did you know he had been hired to kill my father-in-law?"

  "Of course, Michael," she said, narrowing her eyes scornfully.

  "Then what was that song and dance in the executive dining room about? Why did you remove me from the case?"

  "Because the Director asked me to," she said flatly, then added, "Let me explain. He thought it would be easier for Delaroche to carry out the assignment if you were no longer in charge of the case. So I removed you and quietly took steps to ensure your father-in-law's safety. Unfortunately, those steps were not successful."

  "If that was the case, why wasn't he provided additional protection in Washington?"

  "Because the Director assured me that Delaroche would not operate on American soil."

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Because we didn't want you to do anything rash that might jeopardize the security of the operation. The goal was to draw Delaroche into the open so he could be eliminated—taken off the market, as it were. We didn't want you to frighten him away by locking your father-in-law inside a vault and throwing away the key."