The Marching Season (31 page)

CHAPTER 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 watch: 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.
I 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 preservation 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.”

Michael looked at Delaroche, who was shaking his head.

“She’s lying,” he said. “The Director arranged everything for me here—transportation, weapons, everything. He specifically decided to carry out the assassination in Washington because he knew the ambassador would be more vulnerable here than in London. It was timed to coincide with the Northern Ireland conference to increase the impact on the peace process.” He paused a moment, eyes moving from Michael to Monica and back again. “She’s very good, but she’s lying.”

Monica ignored him, looking at Michael.

“This is why we didn’t want Delaroche to be taken into custody, Michael. Because he would lie. Because he would fabricate. He would say anything to save his own skin.” Her gaze moved from Delaroche to Michael. “And the problem is, you believe him. We wanted him eliminated, because if he was arrested, we suspected he might pull a stunt like this.”

“It’s not a stunt,” Delaroche said. “It’s the truth.”

“You should have played your part better, Michael. You should have just taken your revenge for Sarah Randolph and killed him. But now you’ve created quite a mess—for the Agency and for yourself.”

Monica stood up, signaling that the meeting had come to an end.

Michael said, “If you insist on playing it this way, you leave me no other choice but to go to Counterintelligence and the Bureau with my suspicions about you. You’ll spend the next two years going through the Agency equivalent of Chinese water torture. Then the Senate will want a piece of you. Your legal bills alone will bankrupt you. You’ll never work in government again, and no one on Wall Street will touch you with a barge pole. You’ll be destroyed, Monica.”

“You don’t have enough proof, and no one will believe you.”

“The son-in-law of Ambassador Douglas Cannon alleges that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in the attempt to assassinate him. That’s a helluva story. There’s not a reporter in Washington who wouldn’t jump all over it.”

“And you’ll be prosecuted for leaking Agency secrets.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Adrian Carter stepped into the room. Monica looked at him; then her eyes settled back on Michael.

“A witch hunt will destroy the Agency, Michael. You should know that. Your father was caught up in the Angleton mole hunt, wasn’t he? It almost ruined his career. Is this your way of taking revenge on the Agency for your father? Or are you still resentful of me because I had the gall to suspend you once?”