The Marching Season (25 page)

“I was thinking about you.”

“Not all the time. I’m not angry, Jean-Paul. It’s not as if—”

She stopped herself before she could finish her thought. Delaroche wondered what she might have said. She lay on her back, her head resting on his abdomen, her dark hair spread across his chest. Street light streamed through the open curtains and fell upon her long body. Her face was flushed and scratched from lovemaking, but the rest of her body was bone white in the lamplight. It was the skin of someone who had rarely seen the sun; Delaroche doubted she had ever set foot outside the British Isles before she had been driven into hiding.

“Was she beautiful? And don’t lie to me anymore.”

“Yes,” he said.

“What was her name?”

“Her name was Astrid.”

“Astrid what?”

“Astrid Vogel.”

“I recall a woman named Astrid Vogel who belonged to the Red Army Faction,” Rebecca said. “She left Germany and went into hiding after she murdered a German police official.”

“That was my Astrid,” Delaroche said, tracing his finger along the edge of Rebecca’s breast. “But Astrid didn’t kill the German policeman. I killed him. Astrid just paid the price.”

“So you’re German?”

Delaroche shook his head.

“What are you, then? What’s your real name?”

But he ignored her question. His fingers moved from her breast to the edge of her rib cage. Rebecca’s abdomen reacted involuntarily to his touch, drawing in sharply. Delaroche stroked the white skin of her stomach and the tops of her thighs. Finally, she took his hand and placed it between her legs. Her eyes closed. A gust of wind moved the curtains, and her skin prickled with goose bumps. She tried to draw the bedspread over her body but Delaroche pushed it away.

“There were things in the houseboat in Amsterdam that belonged to a woman,” she said softly, eyes closed. “Astrid lived on that boat, didn’t she.”

“Yes, she did.”

“Did you live there with her?”

“For a while.”

“Did you make love in the bed beneath the skylight?”

“Rebecca—”

“It’s all right,” she said. “You won’t hurt my feelings.”

“Yes, we did.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was killed.”

“When?”

“Last year.”

Rebecca pushed away his hand and sat up. “What happened?”

“We were working together on something here in America, and it turned out badly.”

“Who killed her?”

Delaroche hesitated a moment; the whole thing had gone too far already. He knew he should shut it down, but for some reason he wanted to tell her more. Perhaps Vladimir was right.
A man who sees ghosts can no longer behave like a professional….

“Michael Osbourne,” he said. “Actually, his wife killed her.”

“Why?”

“Because we were sent here to kill Michael Osbourne.” He paused for a moment, his eyes flickering about her. “Sometimes, in this business, things don’t go as planned.”

“Why were you hired to kill Osbourne?”

“Because he knew too much about one of the Society’s operations.”

“What operation?”

“The downing of Trans Atlantic Flight 002 last year.”

“I thought it was shot down by that Arab group, the Sword of Gaza.”

“It was shot down at the behest of an American defense contractor named Mitchell Elliott. The Society made it appear as though the Sword of Gaza was involved so Elliott’s company could sell a missile defense system to the American government. Osbourne suspected this, so I was hired by the Director to eliminate everyone involved in the operation, as well as Osbourne.”

“Who actually shot down the plane?”

“A Palestinian named Hassan Mahmoud.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was there that night. Because I killed him when it was over.”

She drew away from him. Delaroche could see real fear on her face and feel the bed shaking gently with her trembling. She drew the blanket to her breast to hide her body from him. He stared at her, his face utterly expressionless.

“My God,” she said. “You’re a monster.”

“Why do you say that?”

“There were more than two hundred innocent people on that plane.”

“And what about the innocent people that your bombers killed in London and Dublin?”

“We didn’t do it for money,” she snarled.

“You had a cause,” he said contemptuously.

“That’s right.”

“A cause you believe is just.”

“A cause I
know
is just,” she said. “You’ll kill anyone as long as the price is right.”

“My God, you really are a stupid woman, aren’t you.”

She tried to slap him, but he caught her hand and held on to it, easily resisting her efforts to pull away.

“Why do you think the Society is willing to help you?” Delaroche said. “Because they believe in the sacred rights of Protestants in Northern Ireland? Of course not. Because they think it will advance their own interests. Because they think that it will make them money. History has passed you by, Rebecca. The Protestants have had their day in Northern Ireland, and now it’s over. No amount of bombing, no amount of killing, is ever going to turn back the clock.”

“If you believe that, why are you doing this?”

“I don’t believe in anything. This is what I do. I’ve killed in the name of every failed cause in Europe. Yours is just the latest”—he let go of her and she drew away, rubbing her hand as if it had touched something evil—”and I hope the last.”

“I should have kept walking that day in Amsterdam.”

“You’re probably right. But now you’re here, and you’re stuck with me, and if you do precisely as I say, you might actually survive. You’ll never see Northern Ireland again, but at least you’ll be alive.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” she said. “You’re going to kill me when this is all over, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not going to kill you.”

“You probably killed Astrid Vogel, too.”

“I didn’t kill Astrid, and I’m not going to kill you.” He pulled away the blanket and exposed her body to the light. He held out his hand to her, but she remained still.

“Take my hand,” Delaroche said. “I won’t hurt you. I give you my word.”

Rebecca took his hand. He pulled her to him and kissed her mouth. She resisted for a moment; then she surrendered, kissing him, clawing at his skin as if she were drowning in his arms. When she guided him into her body, she suddenly went very still, staring at Delaroche with an animal directness that unnerved him.

“I like your other face better,” she said.

“So do I.”

“When this is over, maybe we can go back to the doctor who did this and he can make your face like it was before.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” he said.

She seemed to understand exactly what he was saying.

“If you’re not going to kill me,” she said, “then why did you tell me your secrets?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Who are you, Jean-Paul?”

CHAPTER 36

WASHINGTON

The following morning Michael and Elizabeth flew from New York to Washington, along with the children and Maggie. They separated at National Airport. Michael took a chauffeured government sedan to the White House to brief National Security Adviser William Bristol on Northern Ireland; Elizabeth, Maggie, and the children crowded into a car-service Lincoln for the ride into Georgetown.

Elizabeth had not been back to the large redbrick Federal on N Street in more than a year. She loved the old house, but climbing the curved brick steps she was suddenly overwhelmed with bad memories. She thought of the long struggle with her own body to have children. She thought of the afternoon Astrid Vogel had come here to take her hostage so the assassin called October could murder her husband.

“Are you all right, Elizabeth?” Maggie asked.

Elizabeth wondered how long she had been standing there, key in hand, unable to unlock the door.

“Yes, I’m fine, Maggie. I was just thinking about something.”

The alarm chirped as she pushed back the front door. She punched in the disarm code, and it fell silent. Michael had turned the place into a fortress, but she would never feel completely safe here.

She helped Maggie get the children settled, then carried her suitcase upstairs to the bedroom. She was unzipping the bag when the doorbell rang. She walked downstairs and peered through the peephole. Outside was a tall brown-haired man in a blue suit and tan raincoat.

“Can I help you?” she said, without opening the door.

“My name is Brad Heyworth, Mrs. Osbourne. I’m the Diplomatic Security Service agent assigned to watch your house.”

Elizabeth opened the door. “DSS? But my father doesn’t arrive from London for another six hours.”

“Actually, we’ve been watching the house for a couple of days now, Mrs. Osbourne.”

“Why?”

“After the incident in Britain, we decided it was probably best to err on the side of caution.”

“Are you alone?”

“For now, but when the ambassador arrives we’ll add a second man to the detail.”

“That’s reassuring,” she said. “Would you like to come inside?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Osbourne, I need to stay out here.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re around.”

“Thank you, Agent Heyworth.”

Elizabeth closed the door and watched as the DSS man walked down the front steps and got back in his car. She was glad he was there. She went upstairs and sat down at the desk in Michael’s old study. She made a series of brief telephone calls: to Ridgewell’s catering, to the valet service, to her office in New York to check messages. Then she spent another hour returning calls.

Maria, the cleaning lady, arrived at noon. Elizabeth dressed in a nylon track suit and went outside. She bounced down the front steps, waved to Brad Heyworth, and jogged down the brick sidewalk of N Street.

At the Embassy Row hotel, Delaroche had hung the DO not disturb sign outside the room and double-locked the door. For the past hour he had been listening to Elizabeth Osbourne: talking on the telephone, talking to her nanny and her children, talking to the DSS agent guarding the house. Delaroche now knew exactly when Douglas Cannon would arrive from London and when he would leave for the White House the next morning to attend the Northern Ireland conference. He also knew that the DSS agent parked in front of the house was named Brad Heyworth and that a second agent would join the detail after the ambassador’s arrival.

He heard the arrival of a cleaning woman called Maria who spoke with a heavy Spanish accent: South American, Delaroche guessed—Peru or perhaps Bolivia. He heard Elizabeth Osbourne announce that she was going for a run and would be back in an hour. He jumped as she slammed the front door on her way out.

Five minutes later he was startled by a howling noise that sounded like the roar of a jet engine. It was so loud Delaroche had to rip the headphones from his ears. For a moment he feared some calamity had befallen the Osbournes’ house. Then he realized it was only Maria, running her vacuum near the window where Delaroche had planted his microphone.

Douglas Cannon’s dinner party started out as an intimate gathering for eight, but in the aftermath of the Hartley Hall affair it had metamorphosed into a catered bash for fifty, with rented tables and chairs and a squad of college boys in blue jackets to park cars in the crammed streets of Georgetown. Such was the nature of celebrity in Washington. Douglas had lived and worked in the city for more than twenty years, but someone had tried to kill him, and that made him a star. The CIA and British Intelligence had contributed to the ambassador’s sudden notoriety by spinning a tail of Douglas’s calm under fire at Hartley Hall, even though he was safely tucked in his bed at Winfield House by the time the assault began. Douglas had willingly played along with the elaborate
ruse de guerre.
Indeed, he derived a certain adolescent delight from deceiving the barons of the Washington media.

The guests began arriving a few minutes after seven o’clock. There were two of Douglas’s old friends from the Senate and a handful of congressmen. The Washington bureau chief of NBC News came, along with her husband, who was the bureau chief of CNN. Cynthia Martin came alone; Adrian Carter brought his wife, Christine. To protect Michael, who was still a clandestine member of the Agency, Carter and Cynthia said they worked on Northern Ireland issues for the State Department. Carter wanted a moment alone with Michael, so they adjourned to the garden and stood by the pool.

“How did things go with Bristol this morning?” Carter asked.

“He seemed impressed with the product,” Michael said. “Beckwith stuck his head in the door for a minute, too.”

“Really?”

“He said he was pleased with the outcome of Operation Kettledrum and that the peace process was back on track. You’re right, Adrian, he wants this thing bad.” Michael hesitated. “So am I officially finished with Northern Ireland?”

“When the delegations leave town, we’ll turn it over to Cynthia and move you back to the Mideast section.”

“If there’s one constant at the Agency, it’s change,” Michael said. “But I still would like to know why Monica decided to shuffle the deck now and why she wants me off the October case.”

“As far as Monica is concerned, the October file is closed. She thinks that even if October is still alive and working he poses no threat to Americans or American interests, and therefore he does not cross the radar screen of the Center.”

“Do you agree?”

“Of course not, and I’ve told her as much. But she
is
the director, and ultimately she decides who we target.”

“A real man would resign in your position.”

“Some of us don’t have the financial flexibility to take courageous moral stands, Michael.”

Elizabeth appeared at the French doors.

“Would you two please come inside?” she said. “It’s not as if you never get a chance to talk.”

“We’ll be there in a minute,” Michael said.

“One other thing,” Adrian said, when Elizabeth had gone. “I heard about your little portrait session with Morton Dunne in OTS the other day. What the hell was that all about?”

“A plastic surgeon named Maurice Leroux was murdered in Paris a couple of weeks ago.”

“And?”

“I was wondering if October may have changed his face.”

“And then killed the doctor who did it?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“Listen, Michael—Monica has taken you off the case. I don’t want any more freelancing on your part. No surfing through files, no private operations. As far as you’re concerned, October is dead.”

“You’re not threatening me, are you, Adrian?”

“Actually, I am.”

Delaroche removed his headphones and lit a cigarette. The large dinner party had overwhelmed his microphone, so that the only thing he heard was a constant hum, interrupted by incomprehensible snatches of conversation or occasional bursts of laughter.

He switched off the tape machine and removed his Beretta 9-millimeter from its stainless-steel carrying case. He broke down the weapon and meticulously wiped each piece with a smooth rag, while he decided how he was going to kill the ambassador and Michael Osbourne.