The Marching Season

War II who sent men and women to their death in order to deceive Nazi Germany. She would never permit the Agency to be castrated. She would never allow the United States to be without an adequate intelligence service. And she would do anything to make certain she was the one who was running it. Which is why she had joined the Society and why she abided by its code.
    At 1 A.M. she picked up the receiver on the secure telephone and dialed. A few seconds later she heard the pleasant, cultured voice of the Director's assistant, Daphne. Then the Director came on the line.
    "You no longer need to worry about Osbourne," she said.
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    "He's been reassigned, and the October case file has been effectively closed. As far as the CIA is concerned, October is dead and buried."
    "Well done," the Director said.
    "Where's the package now?"
    "Bound for the Caribbean," he said. "It should be arriving in the States sometime in the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours. And then it will be all over."
    "Excellent," she said.
    "I trust you will pass along any information that might help the package arrive at its destination on time."
    "Of course, Director."
    "I knew I could count on you. Good morning, Picasso," the Director said, and the line went dead.
    35
    CHESAPEAKE BAY, MARYLAND
    The Boston Whaler bounced over the choppy waters of the Chesapeake. The night was clear and bitterly cold; a bright three-quarter moon floated high above the eastern horizon. Delaroche had doused the running lights shortly after entering the mouth of the bay. He reached forward and pressed a button on the dash-mounted navigation unit. The GPS system automatically calculated his precise longitude and latitude; they were in the center of the busy shipping lanes of the Chesapeake Channel.
    Rebecca Wells stood next to him, clutching the wheel of the Whaler's second console. Without speaking, she pointed over the prow. Ahead of them, perhaps a mile away, shone the lights of a container vessel. Delaroche turned a few degrees to port and sped toward the shallow waters of the western shore.
    Delaroche had meticulously plotted his course up the Chesapeake during the long ride from Nassau to the East Coast. They had made that leg of the journey aboard a large oceangoing
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    yacht, piloted by a pair of former SAS men from the Society. He and Rebecca stayed in adjoining staterooms. By day they studied NOAA charts of the Chesapeake, reviewed the dossiers of Michael Osbourne and Douglas Cannon, and memorized the streets of Washington. At night they went onto the aft deck and took target practice with Delaroche's Berettas. Rebecca pressed him for his name, but each time she asked, Delaroche simply shook his head and changed the subject. Out of frustration she christened him "Pierre," which Delaroche detested. On the last night aboard the yacht, he admitted that he had no real name, but if she felt it necessary to refer to him by something, he should be called Jean-Paul.
    Delaroche still was furious about being forced to work with the woman, but the Director had been right about one thing: She was no amateur. The conflict in Northern Ireland had sharpened her skills to a fine edge. She had a superb memory and sound operational instincts. She was tall and quite strong for a woman, and after three nights of training with the Beretta, she was a more than adequate shot. Delaroche was concerned with only one thing—her idealism. He believed in nothing but his art. Zealots unnerved him. Astrid Vogel had been a believer like Rebecca once—when she was a member of West Germany's communist terrorist group, the Red Army Faction—but by the time she and Delaroche worked together she had been stripped of her ideals and was in it only for the money.
    Delaroche had memorized every detail of the Chesapeake— the shoals, the rivers and bays, the flats and the headlands. All he required was a reading from his GPS unit to know exactly where he was in relation to land. He had passed Sandy Point, Cherry Point, and Windmill Point. By the time he reached Bluff Point he had grown stiff and sore with the cold. He cut the engines, and they drank hot coffee from a thermos flask.
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    He checked the GPS navigation unit: 38.50 degrees latitude by 76.31 degrees longitude. He knew he was approaching Curtis Point, a headland at the mouth of the West River. His destination was the next tidal river feeding into the bay from Maryland, the South River,