The Marching Season

by Daniel Silva

  "I still can't believe you actually punched Seamus Devlin."

  "Neither can I, but goddammit, it felt good."

  "Do you know how many people would love to smack him oner

  "I suspect it would be a long line."

  "A very long line, darling. Did it hurt?"

  "Him or me?"

  "You," Graham said, reflexively rubbing one long bony hand with the other.

  "A little."

  "I'm sorry about Maguire."

  "He was a damned good agent." Michael lit a cigarette. The smoke grabbed at the back of his throat, and when he coughed he clutched his broken ribs in pain. "What's the thinking inside Thames House? Are you going to put the site under watch?"

  "The top floor is a bit incredulous, to be honest," Graham said. "They're also quite miffed over the loss of Maguire."

  " Wheaton thinks it's a trap—that the IRA wants to kill a few intelligence officers."

  "Wheaton would think that. That's the way he'd do it."

  "I think the information is good," Michael said. "Devlin knew we would be skeptical. That's why he met face-to-face, to show us he was serious."

  "You're probably right," Graham said. "I'll try to push things along quietly from the inside. In fact, I may pop over to Ulster and handle it myself. I need a break from Helen. She's entered a new phase, retro punk. She's spiked her hair, and she listens to nothing but the Clash and the Sex Pistols."

  "This too shall pass," Michael pronounced solemnly.

  "I know, but I'm just afraid the next one will be something worse."

  Michael laughed for the first time in many days.

  At Cannon Point, Elizabeth laid a pair of large quilts on the floor of the bedroom. She placed the children on the quilts, first Jake, then Liza, and surrounded them with stuffed animals, squeeze toys, and rattles. For twenty minutes she lay on the floor between them, playing, and making the same silly cooing sounds that drove her mad before she had children. She sat down on the end of the bed and just watched them. She had forced herself to abandon her trial preparations and focus on nothing but the children for the entire weekend. It had been wonderful; that morning she had taken the children for a long walk along the Shore Road, then to lunch at her favorite restaurant in Sag Harbor. It would have been perfect, except for the fact that her husband and her father were both in London.

  She marveled at how different the children were already. Liza was like her mother: outgoing, social, talkative in her own way, eager to please others. Jake was just the opposite. Jake lived in his head. Liza was already trying to tell everyone what she was thinking. Jake was private. He kept secrets. He's four months old, she thought, and he's already just like his father and his grandfather. If he becomes a spy I think I'll shoot myself.

  Then she thought of the way she had been treating Michael, and she immediately felt guilty. She had no right to resent Michael for accepting the Northern Ireland task-force job. In fact, she had come to the conclusion that it had been foolish of her to allow him to leave the Agency in the first place. He was right. It was an important job, and for some reason it seemed to make him happy.

  Elizabeth looked at the children. Liza was chattering at a tiny stuffed dog, but Jake lay on his back, gazing upward through the window, lost in his own secret world. Michael was what he was, and there was no use trying to change him. Once, she had loved him for it.

  She thought of Michael in Belfast, and a chill ran over her. She wondered what he was doing—whether he had gone to dangerous places. She would never get used to the idea of his leaving home and going into the field. Such a silly term, she thought: "the field," as if it were some sort of pleasant meadow where nothing bad ever happened. When he was away she had a constant ball of anxiety in her abdomen. At night she slept with a light burning and the television playing softly. It wasn't necessarily that she feared for his safety; she had seen Michael in action before, and she knew he could take care of himself. The anxiety came from the knowledge that Michael became a different man when he was away. When he came home he always seemed a bit like a stranger. He lived a different life when he was in the field, and sometimes Elizabeth wondered whether she was a part of it.

  She saw headlights on the Shore Road. She went to the window and watched as a car stopped at the security gate. The guard waved the car into the compound without telephoning the house first, which meant the driver was Michael.

  "Maggie?" Elizabeth called.

  Maggie came into the room. "Yes, Elizabeth?"

  "Michael's home. Can you watch the children for a minute?"

  "Of course."

  Elizabeth ran down the stairs. She grabbed a coat from the hook in the entrance hall and wrapped it around her shoulders as she hurried across the drive toward the car.

  She threw her arms around him and said, "I've missed you, Michael. I'm so sorry about everything. Please forgive me."

  "For what?" he said, kissing her forehead softly.

  "For being such a horse's ass."

  She squeezed him, and Michael groaned. She pushed him away, a puzzled looked on her face, and pulled him into a patch of light leaking from a window.

  "Oh, my God. What happened to you?"

  20

  LONDON *■ MYKONOS ATHENS

  One week after Michael Osbourne's departure from Lon-don, a silver Jaguar slipped into the drive of the Georgian mansion in St. John's Wood. In the backseat sat the Director. He was a small man, narrow of head and hips, with sandstone hair gone to gray and eyes the color of seawater in winter. He lived alone with a boy from the Society for protection and a girl called Daphne, who served as a receptionist and tended to his personal needs. His driver, a former member of the elite Special Air Service commandos, climbed out and opened the rear door.

  Daphne stood outside the entranceway, shielded from the driving rain by a large black umbrella. She always looked as though she had just returned from a holiday in the tropics. She was six feet tall with skin the color of caramel and brown hair streaked with blond that fell about her throat and shoulders.

  She stepped forward and escorted the Director into the entrance hall, carefully holding the umbrella aloft to make certain he remained perfectly dry. The Director was prone to recurring bronchial infection; for him the damp of the English winter was the equivalent of walking across a minefield without a grid.

  "Picasso is on the secure line from Washington," Daphne said. The Director had spent thousands of pounds on speech therapy to eliminate the lilt of Jamaica from her accent. Now she had the voice of a BBC newsreader. "Will you take the call now, or shall I ring her back?"

  "Now is fine."

  He walked straight to his study, pressed the blinking green button on the telephone, and picked up the receiver. He listened for several minutes, murmured a few words, and listened again.

  "Everything all right, petal?" Daphne asked, after the Director had replaced the receiver.

  "We need to go to Mykonos in the morning," he said. "I'm afraid Monsieur Delaroche is in rather serious trouble."

  It still felt very much like winter in London, but it was mild and sunny when the Island Air turboprop carrying the Director and Daphne touched down on Mykonos early the following afternoon. They checked into a hotel in Chora and strolled along the waterfront in Little Venice until they found the cafe. Delaroche sat at a table overlooking the harbor. He wore khaki shorts and a sleeveless boater shirt. His fingers were red and black with paint. The Director shook his hand as though he were searching for a pulse; then he pulled the white cotton handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and dabbed at his palm.

  "Any signs of the opposition?" the Director asked mildly.

  Delaroche shook his head.

  "Why don't we adjourn to your villa," the Director said. "I do like what you've done with the place."

  Delaroche drove them in his battered Volvo station wagon to Cape Mavros. His canvases and easel rattled in the rear storage compartment. The Director sat in the front seat, clutchin
g the armrest as Delaroche sped over the narrow rolling road. Daphne lay sprawled over the backseat, the breeze from the open window tossing her hair.

  Delaroche served supper on the terrace. When they had finished, Daphne excused herself and lay on a chaise out of earshot.

  "I commend you on your work in the Ahmed Hussein case," the Director said, raising his glass of wine.

  Delaroche did not return the gesture. He took no pleasure from the act of killing, only a sense of accomplishment from carrying out his assignment in a professional manner. Delaroche did not consider himself a murderer; he was an assassin. The men who ordered the killings were the real murderers. Delaroche was just the weapon.

  "The contractors are quite pleased," the Director said. His voice was as dry as dead leaves. "Hussein's death has provoked exactly the response they had hoped. It has, however, left us with a bit of a security issue where you are concerned."

  The back of Delaroche's neck turned suddenly hot with a rush of anxiety. Throughout his career he had obsessively guarded his personal security. Most people in his line of work regularly had plastic surgery to change their appearance. Delaroche dealt with it another way: Only a handful of people who knew what he really did for a living had ever seen his face. The only photographs made of him were the pictures in his false passports, and Delaroche had slightly altered his appearance in each one to make them useless to police and intelligence services. When he passed through airports or train terminals he always wore a hat and sunglasses to hide his face from surveillance cameras. Still, he was aware of the fact that the CIA knew of his existence and had compiled a rather extensive dossier on his killings over the years.

  "What kind of security issue?" Delaroche asked.

  "The CIA has issued an alert to Interpol and all friendly intelligence services. You've been placed on an international watch list. Every passport control officer and border policeman in Europe has one of these."

  The Director withdrew a folded piece of paper from the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to Delaroche. Delaroche unfolded the paper and found himself staring at a composite sketch of his own face. It was remarkably lifelike; obviously it had been produced by a sophisticated computer.

  "I thought they believed I was dead."

  "So did I, but obviously they now assume you are very much alive." The Director paused to light a cigarette. "You didn't shoot Ahmed Hussein in the face, did you?"

  Delaroche shook his head slowly and tapped his forefinger against his chest. Delaroche had but one professional vanity— over the years he had killed most of his victims with three gunshots to the face. He supposed he had done it because he had wanted his enemies to know he existed. Delaroche had only two things in his life, his art and his trade. He left his paintings unsigned for reasons of security, and those he sold were sold anonymously. He had chosen to leave a signature on his killings.

  "Who's behind this?" Delaroche said.

  "Your old friend, Michael Osbourne."

  "Osbourne? I thought he retired."

  "He was brought out of retirement recently to lead a special CIA task force on Northern Ireland. It seems Osbourne has some expertise in that area as well."

  Delaroche handed the composite back to the Director. "What do you have in mind?"

  "It seems to me we have two options. If we do nothing, I'm afraid your ability to work has been seriously diminished. If you cannot travel, you cannot work. And if your face is known to policemen around the world, you cannot travel."

  "Option number two?"

  "We give you a new face and a new place to live."

  Delaroche looked out at the sea. He knew he had no choice but to endure plastic surgery and change his appearance. If he could not work, the Director would terminate their relationship. He would lose the protection of the Society and lose the ability to earn a living. He would have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, wondering which day his enemies would come for him. Delaroche, more than anything, wanted security, and that meant accepting the Director's offer.

  "You have someone who can do the work?"

  "A Frenchman named Maurice Leroux."

  "Is he trustworthy?"

  "Absolutely," the Director said. "You can't leave Greece until the surgery is done. Therefore, Leroux will have to come here. I'll rent a flat in Athens where he can do the work. You can recuperate there until the scars have healed."

  "What about the villa?"

  "I'll keep it for the time being. I need a venue for the spring meeting of the executive council. This will do nicely."

  Delaroche looked around him. The isolated house on the north side of Mykonos had given him everything he needed: privacy, security, excellent subjects for his work, challenging terrain for his cycling. He did not want to leave it—just as he had not wanted to leave his last home, on the Breton coast, in France— but there was no choice.

  "We'll need to find you a new place to live," the Director said. "Do you have a preference?"

  Delaroche thought for a moment. "Amsterdam."

  "Do you speak Dutch?"

  "Not much, but it won't take long."

  "Very well," the Director said. "Amsterdam it is."

  Stavros the real estate agent arranged for a caretaker. Delaroche told him he would be away for a long time but that a friend might use the villa from time to time. Stavros offered to take Delaroche to the taverna for a farewell meal; Delaroche politely declined.

  He spent his last day on Mykonos painting: the square in Ano Mera, the terrace of his villa, the rocks at Linos. He worked from first light until dusk, until his right hand, the hand that had been wounded, began to ache.

  He sat on the terrace and drank wine until the setting sun painted his whitewashed villa a shade of raw sienna that Delaroche could never hope to duplicate on canvas.

  He went inside and set several logs ablaze in the fireplace. Then, he went through the villa, room by room, cabinet by cabinet, drawer by drawer, and burned anything that suggested he ever had existed.

  "It's a shame we have to spoil such a beautiful face," Maurice Le-roux said the following day. They were seated before a large, harshly lit mirror in the Athens flat the Director had rented for Delaroche's surgery and recovery.

  Leroux gently probed Delaroche's cheekbone with the tip of his thin forefinger.

  "You're not French," he pronounced solemnly, as though he believed this might be hard news for a fellow Frenchman to take.

  "One learns a great deal about ethnicity and ancestry in this line of work. I'd say you're a Slav of some sort, perhaps even a Russian."

  Delaroche said nothing while Leroux continued on with his lecture.

  "I can see it here, in the broad cheekbones, in the flat forehead, and in the angular jawline. And look here, look at your eyes. They're virtually almond-shaped and brilliant blue. No, no, you may have a French name, but I'm afraid there is Slavic blood coursing through your veins. Very fine Slavic blood, however."

  Delaroche looked at Leroux's reflection in the mirror. He was a weak man with large nose, a receding chin, and a ridiculous hairpiece that was far too black. Leroux was touching De-laroche's face again. He had the hands of an old woman—pale, soft, shot with thick blue veins—but they stank of a young man's cologne.

  "Sometimes it's possible to make a man more attractive through plastic surgery. I worked on a Palestinian a few years ago, a man called Muhammad Awad."

  Delaroche flinched at the mention of Awad's name. Leroux had committed the ultimate sin for a man in his line of work, revealing the identity of a previous client.

  "He's dead now, but he was quite beautiful when I'd finished with him," Leroux continued. "In your case I think the reverse is going to be true. I'm afraid we're going to be forced to make you less attractive in order to alter your appearance. Are you at peace with that prospect, monsieur?"

  Leroux was an ugly man to whom appearances mattered a great deal. Delaroche was an attractive man to whom appearances mattered very little
. He knew some women found him attractive—beautiful, in some cases—but he had never cared much how he looked. He was concerned with only one thing. His face had become a threat to him, and he would deal with it the way he dealt with all threats—by eliminating it.

  "Do what you have to do," Delaroche said.

  "Very well," Leroux replied. "You have a face of angles and sharp edges. Those angles will be turned into curves and the edges dulled. I intend to shave a portion of your cheekbones to make them smoother and rounder. I'll inject collagen into the tissue of your cheeks to make your face heavier. You have a very thin chin. I'll make it squarer and thicker. Your nose is a masterpiece, but I'm afraid it must go. I'll flatten it and make it wider between the eyes. As for the eyes, there's nothing I can do except change their color with contact lenses."

  "Will it work?" Delaroche asked.

  "When I'm finished, even you won't recognize your face." He hesitated. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

  Delaroche nodded.

  "Very well," Leroux said. "But I feel a bit like that idiot who took a hammer to the Pietd."

  He removed a pen from his pocket and began making marks on Delaroche's face.

  21

  LONDON

  Preston McDaniels was a career Foreign Service officer at-tached to the public affairs section of the American embassy in London. He was forty-five, trim, and presentable, if not conventionally attractive. He was also a lifelong bachelor who had dated few women, which had led to persistent speculation among colleagues that he was homosexual. Preston McDaniels was not a homosexual; he simply had never had a way with women. Until recently.

  It was six o'clock in the evening, and McDaniels was packing away his things and tidying up his small office. He stood in his window and looked out on Grosvenor Square. He had fought hard to get to London after years of brutal postings in places like Lagos, Mexico City, Cairo, and Islamabad. He had never been happier. He loved the theater, the museums, the shopping, the interesting places to go on weekends. He had a smart flat in South Kensington and came to work each morning by tube. His job was still rather dull—he issued routine press releases, prepared daily summaries from the British press on issues of interest to the ambassador, and coordinated press coverage of the ambassador's public events—but living in London made it all seem somehow exciting.