The Marching Season

there's—"
    "I said I can't talk about it, Elizabeth. So please drop it."
    He turned away from the French doors and walked past her without speaking.
    Elizabeth saw that his face was the color of ash.
    The Society for International Development and Cooperation convened its annual summer conference in a lakeside chateau,
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    high in the mountains of New Zealand's South Island. The site had been chosen long in advance, and the frozen lake and dense fogs of the New Zealand winter proved a befitting allegory for the Society's dreadful state following Picasso's demise. The Director's background at MI6 had prepared him for the occasional blown operation, but nothing at the Intelligence Service could compare with the global folding of the tents that occurred in the hours after Picasso's unveiling. Overnight, all operations ceased. Plans for new undertakings were quietly scrapped. Communication fell silent. Money stopped flowing. The Director sealed himself in his mansion in St. John's Wood with only Daphne for company and did what any good operations man does after a right royal cock-up—he assessed the damage. And when he felt the time was right, he quietly set about stitching together the scattered remnants of his secret order.
    The conference on South Island was supposed to be a sort of coming-out party. But the Society's rehabilitation was halting at best. Two members of the executive committee did not even bother to attend. One tried to send a proxy, a suggestion the Director found laughable. Shortly after convening the meeting, the Director, in a rare fit of pique, moved to expel them both. The motion passed on a voice vote, which Daphne dutifully recorded on her steno pad.
    "Item number two on the agenda is the passing of Picasso," the Director said, then gently cleared his throat. "Her death came as a terrible shock to you all, I'm sure, but at least she's no longer in a position to do the Society any harm."
    "I congratulate you for dealing with the problem so professionally," said Rodin.
    "But you don't understand," the Director said. "Her death truly did come as a shock, because the Society had absolutely nothing to do with it."
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    "But what about October? He is still alive, is he not?"
    "I would assume that to be the case, I'm not certain. Perhaps the CIA has hidden him. Perhaps Michael Osbourne killed him and covered it up. The only thing I can say for certain is that all our attempts to locate him have failed."
    "Perhaps I could be of assistance," said Monet, the chief of operations for Israel's Mossad. "Our men have proved themselves capable of finding fugitives in the past. Finding a man like October shouldn't prove too terribly difficult."
    But the Director slowly shook his head. "No," he said. "Even if October is still alive, I doubt he'll ever be a problem to us in the future. In my opinion, it's best to let the matter drop."
    The Director looked down and shuffled his papers.
    "Which brings me to the third item on our agenda, the situation in the former Yugoslavia. The Kosovo Liberation Front would like our help. Gentlemen, we're back in business."
    EPILOGUE
    LISBON " BRELES, FRANCE
    Jean-Paul Delaroche had taken a small flat in a sagging amber apartment house overlooking the harbor in Lisbon. He had been to Lisbon just once, and only briefly, and the change in setting gave new life to his work. Indeed, he experienced his most productive period in many years. He worked diligently from morning until midafternoon, producing fine works of the churches and the squares and the boats along the waterfront. The owner of an eminent Lisbon gallery saw him painting one afternoon and enthusiastically offered to show his work. Delaroche accepted his card with his paint-smudged fingers and said he would think about it.
    At night he went hunting. He stood on his balcony and looked for signs of surveillance. He walked for hours, trying to draw them into the open. He went cycling in the countryside and dared them to follow. He bugged his own flat to see if anyone was
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    entering when he was away. On the last day of November he accepted the fact that he was not being watched.
    That evening he left his flat and walked to a good cafe for dinner.
    For the first time in thirty years he left his gun behind.
    In December, he rented a Fiat sedan and drove to France. He had left Breles, the old fishing village on the Breton coast, more than a year ago and had not set foot there