The Marching Season

Amsterdam, he thought, the way people kept their curtains open and allowed passersby to gaze into their homes and assess their possessions.
    He had been there before; he knew the challenges that N Street posed to a man like him. There were no cafes in which to dawdle over coffee, no shops for diversionary purchases, no squares or parks to kill time without attracting attention—
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    just large expensive homes, with nosy neighbors and security systems.
    They walked past the Osbournes' house. A black sedan was parked across the street. Seated behind the wheel was a man in a tan raincoat, reading the sports section of The Washington Post. So much for the Director's theory that Ambassador Cannon would be easy to kill while he was in Washington, Delaroche thought. The man hadn't even set foot in town yet, and already the house was under watch.
    Delaroche paused a block away and made photographs of the home where John Kennedy had lived when he was a senator from Massachusetts. A number of Cabinet secretaries lived in Georgetown; their homes were under constant surveillance. If the official was involved in national security, such as the secretary of state or the defense secretary, their bodyguards might even have a static post in a nearby apartment. But Delaroche felt confident that Douglas Cannon's security consisted entirely of the man in the tan raincoat—at least for now.
    He led Rebecca south on Thirty-first Street for a half block, until they reached an alley that ran behind the Osbournes' house. He peered into the half darkness; just as he suspected, it looked as if the back of the house was not under watch.
    Delaroche handed Rebecca a cellular telephone. "Stay here. Call me if there's trouble. If I'm not back in five minutes, leave and go back to the hotel. If you don't hear from me within a half hour, contact the Director and request an extraction."
    Rebecca nodded. Delaroche turned and set out down the alley. He paused behind the Osbournes' house, then deftly scaled the fence and dropped into a well-tended garden surrounding a small swimming pool. He looked overhead and followed the lines leading from the telephone pole in the alley to the point where they attached to the house. He crossed the garden and
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    knelt in front of the telephone switch box at the back of the house. He unzipped the backpack and removed his tools and a flashlight. Holding the flashlight between his teeth, he loosened the screws holding the cover of the switch box in place and studied the configuration of the lines for a moment.
    There were two lines leading into the house, but Delaroche only had the equipment to tap one of them. He suspected one line was probably reserved for telephone calls, the other for a fax machine or modem. He reached inside the backpack again and withdrew a small electronic device. Attached to the Osbournes' telephone line, it would relay a high-frequency radio signal to Delaroche's cellular phone, allowing him to monitor the Osbournes' telephone calls. It took Delaroche only two minutes to install the device on the Osbournes' primary line and reattach the cover of the switch box.
    The second device would be much easier to install, since it required only a window. It was a bugging mechanism that, when attached to the exterior of a window, would detect the vibration of sound waves inside a structure and convert them back into audio. Delaroche attached the sensor pad to the lower portion of a window off the main living room. It was concealed by a shrub outside and an end table inside. He buried the converter and transmitter unit in a patch of mulch in the garden.
    Delaroche retraced his steps across the lawn. He tossed the backpack over the fence, then scaled it and dropped down into the alley. The two units he had just placed on the Osbournes' house had an effective range of two miles, which would allow him to monitor the Osbournes from the security of their hotel room at Dupont Circle.
    Rebecca was waiting for him at the end of the alley.
    "Let's go," he said.
    He took her by the hand and walked back to the Volvo.
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    Delaroche sat in front of a receiver the size of a shoe box, testing the signal of the transmitter he had placed on the Osbournes' window. Rebecca was in the bathroom. He could hear the sound of water running into the basin. She had been there for more than an hour. Finally, the water stopped running and she came out, wearing a hotel bathrobe, her