The Marching Season

by Daniel Silva

  Ahmed Hussein was residing in a squat four-story apartment house in Ma'adi, a dusty suburb along the Nile a few miles south of downtown Cairo. Hussein was short, less than five and a half feet tall, and small of frame. His hair was cut close to the scalp, his beard piously unkempt. He took all his meals and received all his visitors inside the flat, venturing outside only to go to the mosque across the street five times each day to pray. Sometimes he stopped in the coffeehouse next to the mosque for tea, but usually his troop of amateur security men insisted he return directly to the flat. Sometimes, they all piled into a dark blue Fiat for the short trip to the mosque; sometimes they walked. It was all in the dossier.

  Delaroche began his journey to Cairo three days later, on an overcast windless morning. He took coffee on his terrace above Cape Mavros, a flat sea all around him, and then drove the Volvo into Chora and left it in a parking lot. He could have flown directly to Athens, but he decided to take a ferry to Paros and fly on from there. He was in no rush, and he wanted to watch his tail for signs of surveillance. As the boat cleared Korfos Bay and passed the small island of Delos, he strolled the decks and examined the faces of the other passengers, committing them to memory.

  In Paros, Delaroche took a taxi from the waterfront to the airport. He dawdled at a telephone kiosk, a newsagent, and a cafe, all the while checking the faces around him. He boarded the flight to Athens; no one from the ferry was among those on board. Delaroche sat back and enjoyed the short flight, watching the gray-green winter sea passing below his window.

  He spent the afternoon in Athens, touring the ancient sites, and in the evening boarded a flight for Rome. He checked into a small hotel off the Via Veneto under the name Karel van der Stadt and began speaking fractured English with a Dutch accent.

  Rome was cold and damp, but he was hungry, so he hurried through the drizzle to a good restaurant he knew on the Via Borghese. The waiters brought red wine and endless appetizers: tomato and mozzarella, roasted eggplant and peppers marinated in olive oil and spices, omelette and ham. When the appetizers ended the waiter appeared and said simply, "Meat or fish?" Delaroche ate sea bass and boiled potatoes.

  After dinner he went back to his hotel. He sat down at the small writing table and switched on his notebook computer. He logged on to the Internet and downloaded an encrypted file. He typed in his password, and once again the gibberish turned to clear text. The new file was an updated watch report on Ahmed Hussein's activities in Cairo. Delaroche had worked for a professional intelligence service, and he knew good fieldwork when he saw it. Hussein was under the surveillance of a top-notch service in Cairo, most likely the Mossad.

  In the morning, Delaroche took a taxi to Leonardo da Vinci airport and boarded an early afternoon Egypt Air flight to Cairo. He checked into a small hotel in downtown Cairo and changed into lighter clothes. He took a taxi to Ma'adi in the late afternoon. The driver raced along the Corniche, dodging cyclists and donkey carts, as the setting sun turned the Nile into a ribbon of gold.

  By dusk, Delaroche was taking sweet tea and pastries in the coffeehouse across from Ahmed Hussein's flat. The muezzin sounded the evening call to prayer, and the faithful streamed toward the mosque. Ahmed Hussein was among them, surrounded by his motley troop of bodyguards. Delaroche watched Hussein carefully. He ordered more tea and pictured how he would kill him tomorrow.

  The following day, Delaroche took lunch on the sun-drenched terrace cafe at the Nile Hilton. He spotted the blond man in the sunglasses, sitting alone among the tourists and rich Egyptians with a large bottle of Stella beer and a half-empty glass. A thin black attache case rested on the chair next to him.

  Delaroche walked to the table. "Mind if I join you?" he asked, in Dutch-accented English.

  "Actually, I was just leaving," the man said, and stood up.

  Delaroche sat down and ordered lunch.

  He placed the attache on the ground next to his feet.

  After lunch Delaroche stole a motor scooter. It was parked outside the Nile Hilton, in the madness of Tahrir Square, and it took him a matter of seconds to pick the ignition lock and fire the engine. It was dark blue, coated in a fine layer of Cairo's powderlike dust, and seemed to be in good working order. There was even a helmet with a dark visor.

  Delaroche drove south through the Garden City section of Cairo—past the fortified American embassy, past dilapidated villas, sad reminders of a grander time. The contents of the attache case, a Beretta 9-millimeter automatic and silencer, were now in a holster beneath his left arm. He sped through a narrow alley, past the back of the old Shepheard's Hotel, turned onto the Cor-niche, and raced south along the Nile.

  He arrived in Ma'adi before sunset. He waited about two hundred yards from the mosque, purchasing flatbread and limes from a peasant boy on the street corner, head covered with the helmet. The amplified voice of the muezzin sounded, and the call to prayer echoed over the neighborhood.

  God is most great.

  I testify that there is no god but God.

  I testify that Muhammad is the Prophet of God.

  Come to prayer. Come to success. God is most great. There is no god but God.

  Delaroche saw Ahmed Hussein emerge from his apartment house, surrounded by his bodyguards. He crossed the street and entered the mosque. Delaroche gave the boy a few crumpled piastres for the bread and limes, climbed on the motor scooter, and started the engine.

  According to the reports, Ahmed Hussein always stayed in the mosque at least ten minutes. Delaroche drove half a block and stopped at a kiosk. He leisurely purchased a pack of Egyptian cigarettes, some candy, and razors. He placed these items in the larger bag containing the bread and limes.

  The faithful were beginning to trickle out of the mosque.

  Delaroche started the engine.

  Ahmed Hussein and his bodyguards emerged from the mosque into the rose-colored dusk.

  Delaroche opened the throttle, and the motorbike leaped forward. He raced along the dusty street, dodging pedestrians and slow-moving cars, just the way he had practiced on the track above Merdias Bay, and brought the bike to a sliding stop in front of the mosque. The bodyguards, sensing trouble, tried to close ranks around their man.

  Delaroche reached inside his coat and withdrew the Beretta.

  He leveled it at Hussein, taking aim at his face; then he lowered the gun a few inches and pulled the trigger rapidly three times. All three shots struck Ahmed Hussein in the chest.

  Two of the four bodyguards were pulling weapons from beneath their garments. Delaroche shot one through the heart and the other through the throat. The last two bodyguards threw themselves to the ground next to the bodies. Delaroche gunned the engine and raced away.

  He melted into the teeming slums of south Cairo, ditched the motorbike in an alleyway, and dropped the Beretta down a sewer. Two hours later he boarded an Alitalia flight to Rome.

  9

  LONDON

  "HOW LONG WILL YOU BE STAYING IN THE UNITED KINGDOM? " THE officer in the passport control booth asked rapturelessly.

  "Just a day."

  Michael Osbourne handed over his passport, which bore his real name because the Agency had taken back his false passports upon his retirement—at least the ones they knew about. Over the years several friendly intelligence services had also granted him passports out of professional courtesy. He could travel as a Spaniard, an Italian, an Israeli, or a Frenchman. He even had obtained an Egyptian passport from an asset inside that country's intelligence service, which permitted him to enter certain Middle Eastern countries as a fellow Arab rather than an outsider. None of those intelligence services had asked for their passports after Michael's departure from the secret world. They were locked in Douglas Cannon's safe on Shelter Island.

  The inspection of his passport was taking longer than usual. Obviously, it had been flagged by the British security services. The last time Michael was in England he had been caught in the middle of the Sword of Gaza's attack at Heathrow Airport. He had also co
nducted an unauthorized meeting with a man named Ivan Drozdov—a KGB defector under the care of MI6—who was murdered later that afternoon.

  "Where are you staying in the United Kingdom?" the officer asked tonelessly, reading from the small computer screen in front of him.

  "In London," Michael said.

  The officer looked up. "Where in London, Mr. Osbourne?"

  Michael gave the officer the address of a hotel in Knights-bridge, which he dutifully wrote down. Michael knew the officer would give the address to his supervisor, and the supervisor would give it to Britain's internal Security Service, MI5.

  "Do you have a reservation at your hotel, Mr. Osbourne?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Is it in your name?"

  "Yes."

  The officer handed back the passport. "Enjoy your stay."

  Michael picked up his slender garment bag, passed through customs, and entered the arrival hall. He had telephoned his old London car service from the plane. He scanned the waiting crowd, looking for his driver and, instinctively, any sign of surveillance: a familiar face, a figure that seemed somehow out of place, a set of eyes watching him.

  He spotted a small limousine driver in a dark suit holding a cardboard sign that said MR. STAFFORD. Michael crossed the hall and said, "Let's go."

  "Take your bag, sir?"

  "No, thanks."

  Michael slumped down in the backseat of the Rover sedan as it crawled through the thick morning traffic toward the West End. The motorway had given way to the Edwardian facades of the hotels along the Cromwell Road. Michael knew London all too well; he had lived in a flat in Chelsea for more than ten years, when he was working in the field. Most CIA officers stationed abroad work from embassies, with diplomatic jobs for cover. But Michael had worked in counterterrorism, recruiting and running agents in the terrorist playgrounds of Europe and the Middle East. An assignment like that was next to impossible under diplomatic cover, so Michael had operated as an NOC, which in the lexicon of the Agency meant he had "nonofficial cover." He posed as a salesman for a company that designed computer systems for businesses. The company was a CIA front, but the job permitted Michael to travel throughout Europe and the Middle East without suspicion.

  Michael's control officer, Adrian Carter, used to say that if there ever was a man born and bred to spy it was Michael Os-bourne. His father had worked for the OSS during the war and then entered the clandestine service of its successor, the CIA. Michael and his mother, Alexandra, followed him from posting to posting—Rome, Beirut, Athens, Belgrade, and Madrid—with short tours at Headquarters in between. While his father was running Russian spies, Michael and his mother absorbed languages and cultures. Michael's dark skin and hair allowed him to pass for an Italian or a Spaniard or even a certain type of Lebanese Arab. He used to test himself in markets and cafes, to see how long he could go without being recognized as an outsider. He spoke Italian with a Roman accent and Spanish like a native of Madrid. He struggled a bit with Greek but mastered Arabic so thoroughly the shopkeepers in Beirut's souk assumed he was Lebanese and didn't cheat him.

  The car arrived at the hotel. Michael paid off the driver and got out. It was a small hotel, with no doorman and no concierge—just a pretty Polish girl behind an oak desk with keys hanging on pegs behind her. He checked in and asked for a 2 P.M. wake-up call.

  Retirement had not robbed Michael of a healthy professional paranoia. For five minutes he inspected the room, turning over lamps, opening closet doors, tearing apart the telephone and then carefully reassembling it. He had performed the same ritual in a thousand hotel rooms in a hundred different cities. Only once had he ever found a bug—a Soviet-made museum piece crudely attached to the telephone of a hotel room in Damascus.

  His search turned up nothing. He turned on the television and watched the morning news on the BBC. Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam has vowed that the new Protestant paramilitary group, the Ulster Freedom Brigade, will never be allowed to destroy the Good Friday accords. She has called on the chief constable of the RUC, Ronnie Flanagan, to redouble his efforts to capture the leaders of the terrorist group. Michael shut off the television and closed his eyes, still dressed in the clothes he had worn on the flight. He slept fitfully, wrestling with his blanket, sweating in his clothing, until the telephone screamed. For an instant he thought he had been transported behind the Iron Curtain, but it was only the flaxen-haired Polish girl at the front desk, gently informing him it was two o'clock.

  He ordered coffee, showered, and dressed in jeans, bucks, black mock-turtleneck sweater, and blue blazer. He hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob and left a telltale in the jamb.

  Outside, the sky was the color of gunpowder, and cold wind bent the trees in Hyde Park. He turned up the collar of his overcoat, knotted the scarf at his throat, and he started walking, first along Knightsbridge, then the Brompton Road. He spotted the first watcher: balding, mid-forties, leather jacket, stubble on his chin. Anonymous, ordinary, unthreatening, perfect for pavement work.

  He ate an omelette in a French cafe in the Brompton Road and read the Evening Standard. A leader of the Muslim fundamentalist group Hamas had been assassinated in Egypt. Michael read the article once, then read it a second time, and thought about it some more as he walked to Harrods. The balding watcher was gone, and a new one was in his place—same model but wearing a forest-green Barbour coat instead of a leather jacket. He entered Harrods, paid an obligatory visit to the shrine to Dodi and Diana, and then took the escalator up. The man in the Barbour jacket followed him. He purchased a Scottish sweater for Douglas and a pair of earrings for Elizabeth. He went downstairs again and meandered through the food hall. A new watcher was trailing him, a rather attractive young woman in jeans, combat-style boots, and a tan quilted jacket.

  Night had fallen, and with it came a windblown rain. He left the Harrods bag at the desk of his hotel and flagged down a taxi. For the next hour and a half he moved restlessly about the West End—by taxi, Underground, and bus—through Belgravia, May-fair, Westminster, and finally Sloane Square. He walked south until he reached Chelsea Embankment.

  He stood in the rain, looking at the lights of Chelsea Bridge. It had been more than ten years since the night Sarah Randolph was shot on this spot, but the image of her death played out in his thoughts as if it were on videotape. He saw her, walking toward him, long skirt dancing across buckskin boots, the Embankment shining with river mist. Then the man appeared, the black-haired man with brilliant blue eyes and a silenced automatic—the KGB assassin Michael knew only as October, the same man who had tried to murder Michael and Elizabeth on Shelter Island. Michael closed his eyes as Sarah's exploding face flashed through his thoughts. The Agency had assured him that October was dead, but now, after reading the account of the assassination of Ahmed Hussein in Cairo, he was not so certain.

  "I think I'm being followed," Michael said, standing in the window overlooking Eaton Place.

  "You are being followed," Graham Seymour said. "The Department flagged your passport. You were a very naughty boy the last time you paid a visit to our fair island. We picked you up this morning at Heathrow."

  Michael accepted a tumbler of Scotch from Graham and sat down in the wing chair next to the fire. Graham Seymour opened an ebony cigarette box on the coffee table and took out two Dunhills, one for himself and one for Michael. They sat in silence, two old chums who have told each other every story they know and are content just to sit in each other's presence. Vivaldi played softly on Graham's elaborate German sound system. Graham closed his gray eyes and savored his cigarette and whisky.

  Graham Seymour worked for the counterterrorism division of MI5. Like Michael, he had been a child prodigy. His father had worked closely with John Masterman in the Double Cross operation of MI5 during the war, capturing German spies and playing them back against their masters at the Abwehr in Berlin. He had stayed on with MI5 after the war and worked against the Russians. Harold Seymour was a legend, and his son was
forever bumping into his memory at Headquarters and running across his exploits in old case files. Michael understood the pressure this placed on Graham, because he had experienced the same thing in the Agency. The two men had developed a friendship when Michael was based in London. They had shared information from time to time and watched each other's back. Still, friendships have well-defined limits in the intelligence business, and Michael maintained a healthy professional mistrust of Graham Seymour. He knew Graham would stab him in the back if MI5 ordered him to do so.

  "Is it all right for you to be seen with a leper like me?" Michael asked.

  "Dinner with an old friend, darling. No harm in that. Besides, I plan to feed them some good gossip about the inner workings of Langley."

  "I haven't set foot in Langley in over a year."

  "No one ever really retires from this business. The Department hounded my father till the day he died. Every time something special came up they sent a couple of nice men round to sit at the feet of the great Harold."

  Michael raised his glass and said, "To the great Harold."

  "Here, here." Graham drank some of the whisky. "So how is retirement anyway?"

  "It sucks."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, really," Michael said. "It was all right for a while, especially when I was recovering, but after a while I started to go stir crazy. I tried to write my book, then decided writing one's memoirs at forty-eight was an exercise in extreme self-absorption. So I read other people's books, I putter, and I take long walks in Manhattan."

  "What about the children?" Graham asked this question with the skepticism of a man who had elevated childlessness to a religion. "What's it like being a father for the first time at your age?"

  "What the hell do you mean by your age?"

  "I mean, you're forty-eight years old, love. The first time you try to play a set of tennis with your children you may very well drop dead of a coronary."

  "It's marvelous," Michael said. "It's the best thing I've ever done."