The Marching Season (29 page)

CHAPTER 41

WASHINGTON

“What should I call you?”

“I use many names, but I was called Jean-Paul Delaroche for the longest, and so I think of myself as him.”

“So I’m to call you Delaroche?”

“If you wish,” Delaroche said, and pulled his lips down into a frown that was very French.

Despite the late hour, there still was a good deal of traffic on the Capital Beltway, the remnants of Washington’s eternal evening rush. Michael turned onto Interstate 95 and headed north toward Baltimore. The car was a rented Ford, which Michael had collected from National Airport after fleeing Key Bridge in a taxi-cab. At first the driver had refused to open the door to a pair of men in suits who looked as though someone had just beaten the daylights out of them. Then Delaroche flashed a stack of twenties, and the driver said that if they wanted to go to the moon, he would get them there by morning.

Delaroche was seated in the front passenger seat, foot propped on the dash. He was rubbing his ankle and scowling at it, as if it had betrayed him. He carelessly lit yet another cigarette. If he was anxious or afraid, he showed no signs of it. He cracked the window to release the cloud of smoke. The inside of the car suddenly stank of wet farmland.

For years after Sarah’s murder, Michael had tried to picture her killer in his mind. He supposed he had imagined that he was bigger than he actually was. Indeed, Delaroche was rather small and compact, with the tightly wound muscles of a welterweight. Michael had heard his voice once before—at Cannon Point, the night he had tried to kill him—but listening to him speak now, Michael understood that he was not one man but many. His accent drifted about the map of Europe. Sometimes it was French, sometimes German, sometimes Dutch or Greek. He never spoke like a Russian; Michael wondered if at this point he could even speak his native language.

“By the way, the gun was empty.”

Delaroche sighed heavily, as if he were bored by a tedious television program.

“The standard-issue handgun for CIA officers is a high-powered Browning automatic with a fifteen-shot clip,” he said. “After reloading, you fired three shots at me through the front door, four through the windshield, and eight into the back of the Saab.”

“If you knew the gun was empty, why didn’t you just drop me from the bridge?”

“Because even if I had killed you I had almost no chance of escape. I was wounded. I had no gun, no vehicle, and no communications. You were the only weapon I had left.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I have something you want, and you have something I want. You want to know who hired me to kill you, and I want protection from my enemies so I can live in peace.”

“What makes you think I intend to live up to that bargain?”

“Men don’t quit the CIA unless they have principles. And men don’t come back to the CIA when their president asks them unless they believe in honor. Your honor is your weak point. Why did you choose this life anyway, Michael? Was it your father who drove you to it?”

So, Michael thought. Delaroche has spent as much time analyzing me as I have him.

“I don’t think I would have made the same decision if the roles were reversed,” Michael said. “I think I would have let you fall from the bridge and enjoyed the sight of your body floating down the river.”

“That’s not something to boast about. You are virtuous, but you are also highly emotional, and that makes you easily manipulated. The KGB understood that when they placed Sarah Randolph in your path, and when they ordered me to kill her in front of your eyes.”

“Fuck you!” Michael said. He was tempted to stop the car and beat the hell out of Delaroche. Then he remembered the fight on the bridge and how easily Delaroche had nearly killed him with his bare hands.

“Michael, please slow down before you kill us both. Where are we going, by the way?”

“What happened to your face?” Michael said, ignoring Delaroche’s question.

“You issued an Interpol alert, along with a computer composite of my face, so I had plastic surgery.”

“How did you learn about the alert?”

“One thing at a time, Michael.”

“Was the plastic surgeon a man named Maurice Leroux?”

“Yes,” Delaroche said. “How did you know?”

“Because British Intelligence was aware of the fact that Le-roux did work from time to time for people like you. Did you kill him?”

Delaroche said nothing.

“He didn’t do you any favors,” Michael said. “You look hideous.”

“I realize that,” Delaroche said coldly, “and I blame you.”

“You’re a murderer. I don’t feel sorry for you because you had a bad experience with a plastic surgeon.”

“I’m not a murderer, I’m an assassin. There’s a difference. I used to kill people for my country, but now my country no longer exists, so I kill for money.”

“That makes you a murderer in my book.”

“Are you telling me that such men don’t work for your organization? You have your assassins too, Michael. So, please—don’t try to claim the moral high ground.”

“Who hired you to kill Douglas Cannon?”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“You’re not taking me to a CIA safe house, I hope?”

“Who hired you to kill Douglas Cannon?”

Delaroche looked out the window for a while and then drew a deep breath, as if he were about to dive beneath the surface and remain there for a long time.

“Perhaps I should start from the beginning,” Delaroche said finally. He turned from the window and looked at Michael. “Be patient and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

Delaroche spoke as if he were reciting the story of someone else’s life instead of his own. When he struggled with English, he would switch to one of the other languages he and Michael had in common: Spanish or Italian or Arabic. Not two hours before, he had coldly murdered two DSS agents, yet as far as Michael could tell he suffered no aftereffects from the act of killing. Michael had killed only once—a Sword of Gaza terrorist at Heathrow Airport—and he had been haunted by nightmares for weeks.

He told Michael about the man he knew only as Vladimir. They had lived in a large KGB flat in Moscow and had a pleasant dacha not far from the city for weekends and holidays. Delaroche was known then by his Christian name, which was Nicolai, and his patronymic, which was Mikhailovich. He was allowed no contact with other children. He did not attend normal state schools, he did not belong to any sports clubs or Party youth organizations. He was never permitted to leave the flat or the dacha without Vladimir at his side. Sometimes, when Vladimir was ill or too tired, he would send an unsmiling goon named Boris to accompany the child.

Eventually, Vladimir began to teach him languages.
To have another language is to have another soul,
Vladimir would say.
And for the life that you are about to lead, Nicolai Mikhailovich, you will need many souls indeed.
Delaroche wrinkled his face like an old man and hunched his shoulders. Michael, watching him, marveled at his ability to transform himself into someone else. When he spoke in the voice of Vladimir, he sounded like a Russian for the first time.

Sometimes a tall dour man with Western suits and Western cigarettes would visit, Delaroche continued. He would study the young boy as a sculptor might study a work in progress. Many years later Delaroche would learn the identity of the tall man. He was Mikhail Voronstov, the head of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB—his father.

In August 1968, at the age of sixteen, he was sent to the West. He crossed into Austria from Czechoslovakia, posing as the child of Czech dissidents fleeing the Russians. He stayed in Austria for a time, then moved on to Paris, where he lived as a homeless street urchin until the Church took him in.

It was in Paris that he discovered he could paint. Vladimir had never permitted him to pursue anything but languages and tradecraft.
There isn’t time for frivolous pursuits, Nicolai Mikhailovich,
he would say.
We are racing against the clock.
He would spend afternoons drifting through the museums, studying great works. He attended art school for a time and even managed to sell a few of his works on the street.

Then the man named Mikhail Arbatov appeared, and the killing began.

“Arbatov was my control officer,” Delaroche said. “At first I handled internal matters—dissidents, potential defectors, that sort of thing. Then I took on a different kind of mission.”

Michael ticked off a series of assassinations that he knew Delaroche had carried out: the Spanish minister in Madrid, the French police official in Paris, the BMW executive in Frankfurt, the PLO official in Tunis, the Israeli businessman in London.

“The KGB wanted to take advantage of the terrorist and nationalist movements inside the borders of the NATO alliance and its allies,” Delaroche said. “The IRA, the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades of Italy, the Basques in Spain, Direct Action in France, and so on. I killed on both sides of the divide, simply in order to create disorder. There were many more killings than the ones you’ve named, of course.”

“And when the Soviet Union collapsed?”

“Arbatov and I were set adrift.”

“So you went into private practice?”

Delaroche nodded, rubbing his ankle.

“Arbatov had excellent contacts and was a skilled negotiator. He served as my agent, entertaining offers, negotiating fees—that sort of thing. We split the proceeds of my work.”

“And then TransAtlantic came along.”

“It was the biggest single payday of my life, one million dollars. But I did not shoot down that jetliner. It was that Palestinian psychopath Hassan Mahmoud who shot down the plane.”

“You just disposed of Mahmoud.”

“That’s right.”

“And the body was left behind so we would conclude that the Sword of Gaza had carried out the attack.”

“Yes.”

“And then you were hired by the men who
really
shot down the jetliner to eliminate the other people involved in the operation, like Colin Yardley in London and Eric Stoltenberg in Cairo.”

“And then you.”

“Who hired you?” Michael said. “Who hired you to kill me?”

“They call themselves the Society for International Development and Cooperation,” Delaroche began. “They’re a bunch of intelligence officers, businessmen, arms merchants, and criminals who try to influence world events in order to make money and protect their own interests.”

“I don’t believe such an organization really exists.”

“They shot down the jetliner so that one of their members, an American defense contractor named Mitchell Elliott, could convince President Beckwith to build an antimissile defense system.”

Michael had suspected that Elliott was involved in this tragedy; indeed, he had put his suspicions in writing in his report to the Agency. Still, to hear Delaroche confirm his suspicions made him feel nauseated. Sweat began running over his ribs.

“They knew you were getting too close to the truth,” Delaroche said. “They decided it would be best if you were dead, so they hired me to kill you.”

“How did they know about my suspicions?”

“They have a source inside Langley.”

“What happened after Shelter Island?” Michael asked.

“I went to work exclusively for the Society.”

“Does the Society have a leader?”

“He’s called the Director. He goes by no other name. He’s an Englishman. He has a young girl named Daphne. That’s all I know about him.”

“You were the one who killed Ahmed Hussein in Cairo.”

Delaroche turned suddenly and glared at Michael.

“The Society carried out the assassination at the behest of the Mossad. How did you know it was me?”

“Hussein was under Egyptian surveillance. I saw a videotape of the killing and noticed the wound on the assassin’s right hand. That’s when I knew you were alive and working again. That’s when we issued the Interpol alert.”

“We knew about the alert immediately,” Delaroche said, staring at the back of his right hand. “The Director has excellent contacts within the Western intelligence and security services, but he said the information on the Interpol alert came from his source at Langley.”

“Why did the Society get involved in Northern Ireland?”

“Because it thought the peace agreement in Northern Ireland was bad for business. There was a meeting of the Society’s executive council last month in Mykonos. The Society decided at that meeting to kill your father-in-law and you, and I was given the assignment.”

“Was the woman in the Volvo Rebecca Wells?”

“Yes.”

“Where is she now?”

“That wasn’t part of our deal, Michael.”

“Why kill me?”

“The Director has invested a great deal of money in me, and he wanted to protect his investment. He saw you as a threat.”

“Was the source from Langley at the meeting on Mykonos?”

“Everyone was on Mykonos.”

It was after 5 A.M. when Michael and Delaroche arrived in the village of Greenport on Long Island. They drove through the deserted streets and parked at the ferry landing. The boat lay quietly in its slip; it would not make its first trip across the Sound to Shelter Island for another hour. Michael used the public telephone next to the small clapboard shack at the terminal.

“Where the fuck are you?” Adrian Carter said. “Everyone in town is looking for you.”

“Call me back at this number from a public phone.” The ten-digit number he recited to Carter bore no resemblance to the actual number for the public phone. He had given Carter the number in a crude code the two men had used in the field a hundred years ago—backward, the first digit one more than the real number, the second digit two less, the third digit three more, and so on. He did not have to repeat the number. Carter, like Michael, was cursed with a perfect memory.

Michael hung up and smoked a cigarette while he waited for Carter to dress, get in his car, and drive to a public phone. The image of Carter pulling a coat over his pajamas made Michael smile. The telephone rang five minutes later.

“Would you mind telling me what the hell is going on?”