The Marching Season

who lack the vision to see that the Agency has a role in this new world of ours. The game has passed you by, Michael, and you're too stupid to even notice."
    "You've used the Agency as a personal plaything to advance your own interests, and now I'm taking it back."
    She pulled her bag over her shoulder, turned, and walked out.
    "It's your move, Monica," Michael repeated, but she simply kept walking. A moment later they heard the whine of the helicopter engine coming to life again. Michael stepped onto the veranda in time to see Monica's chopper lift from the lawn and disappear over the waters of the Sound.
    400 Daniel Silva
    They spent the next day waiting. Carter stood on the veranda, field glasses around his neck, staring toward the Sound like a border guard on the Berlin Wall. Michael circled the house, marching along stony beaches and through the woods, searching for signs of an enemy buildup. All the while Delaroche just watched them, a slightly bemused bystander to the wreck he had caused.
    Carter stayed in touch with Headquarters. Has anyone heard from Monica? he would ask innocently at the conclusion of each conversation. The answers grew more intriguing as the day progressed. Monica's canceled all meetings. Monica's holed up in her office. Monica's not taking calls. Monica's gone underground. Monica's refusing food and drink. Michael and Carter debated the significance of the reports, as spies are prone to do. Was she drawing up the terms of surrender or preparing a counterattack?
    In the afternoon Carter went into the village for food. Delaroche cooked omelettes for them, propped on a stool because he couldn't stand long on his swollen ankle. They drank one bottle of wine, then another. Delaroche provided the entertainment. For two hours he lectured: training, tradecraft, assignments, cover identities, weaponry, and tactics. He told them nothing they could ever use against him, but he seemed to take pleasure from even the slightest unburdening of secrets. He said nothing of Sarah Randolph or Astrid Vogel or the night a year earlier at Cannon Point, when he and Michael had shot each other. He remained very still as he spoke, hands folded on the table, left hand covering the right in order to hide the puckered scar that had led Michael to him.
    Carter asked the questions, because Michael was already somewhere else. Oh, he was listening, Carter thought—Michael, the human Dictaphone, capable of monitoring three conversations and reciting each of them back to you a week later—but a corner of his mind was turning over another problem. Finally,
    The Marching Season 401
    Carter switched to Russian, a language Michael did not speak well, and the two men finished their conversation in private.
    At dusk, Michael and Delaroche walked. Michael the former track star had wrapped Delaroche's ankle in heavy white tape. Carter remained behind in the house; it would be like eavesdropping on quarreling lovers, and he wanted no part of it. Still, he could not resist the urge to step onto the veranda and watch them. He was not a voyeur, just a control officer, looking out for his agent and old friend.
    They walked along the bulkhead toward the dock, Delaroche limping slightly. As the light grew weaker, Carter could not tell one from the other, so similar were the two men in height and build. He realized then that in many ways they were two halves of the same man. Each possessed traits present, but successfully repressed, in the other. If not for birthright, the haphazard roulette wheel of time and place, each might very well have walked the opposite path: Jean-Paul Delaroche, virtuous intelligence officer; Michael Osbourne, assassin.
    After a long time—an hour, Carter guessed, because uncharacteristically he had neglected to record the time the conversation began—Michael and Delaroche started back toward the house.
    They paused at Michael's rental car and faced each other over the hood. Carter still could not tell which was which. One seemed to be speaking with intensity, the other lazily kicking at the ground with the toe of his shoe. When the conversation ended, the one who had been kicking the ground held out his hand over the hood of the car, but the other refused to take it.
    Delaroche withdrew his hand and climbed into the car. He drove through the security gate and sped into the darkness along Shore Road. Michael Osbourne walked slowly up to the house.
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