The Marching Season

looked at his wristwatch and counted the seconds.
    As Michael Osbourne leaped over the fence into the alley, he heard a man shouting obscenities. A split second later he heard tires screeching and the engine of a small car revving. By the sound of it, Michael guessed the car was heading toward M Street. He also guessed that it was October, trying to escape. He sprinted down Thirty-third Street to M Street, turned right, and kept running.
    Delaroche spotted Osbourne running along M Street with a gun in his hand, scattering startled pedestrians. Delaroche slowly turned and looked straight ahead, waiting for the light to turn green.
    The Beretta lay on the passenger seat. Delaroche wrapped his right hand around the grip and placed his finger across the trigger. He thought, Perhaps I'll get an opportunity to fulfill the terms of the contract after all.
    The Marching Season 357
    Osbourne arrived in the intersection. He stood in the crosswalk directly in front of the Saab, gun in hand, staring up Thirty-fourth Street. He was breathing heavily, eyes flickering back and forth.
    Delaroche lifted the Beretta slowly and laid it on his lap. He considered shooting Osbourne through the windshield but decided against it. Even if he did manage to hit Osbourne, he would be left with a damaged car for his escape. He reached out with his left hand and pressed a button on the armrest, lowering his window as the light turned green.
    Several other cars had pulled up behind him, and the drivers were honking their horns, not realizing that there was a man with a gun standing in the middle of the intersection.
    Delaroche sat motionless, waiting for Osbourne to make his move.
    Michael stood in the intersection, heart pounding, ignoring the cacophony of car horns. He checked the faces inside every car: a forty-something suit in a light-gray Saab, a pair of rich students in a red BMW, a couple of Georgetown patricians in a rattling diesel Mercedes, a Pizza Hut delivery boy.
    Everyone was honking except for the man in the Saab. Michael looked at him carefully. He was rather ugly: heavy cheeks, a blunt chin, a broad, flat nose. Michael had seen the face somewhere before but couldn't figure out where. He stared at him while the faces of his past appeared in his mind, one by one, like images on a screen, some clear and sharp, some unfocused and scratchy. Then he realized where he had seen the man before— on Morton Dunne's computer screen at OTS.
    Michael aimed the Browning at October's face.
    "Get out of the carl Now!"
    39
    WASHINGTON
    The vast intersection at the base of Key Bridge is one of the most congested and chaotic in all of Washington. Traffic from the towering bridge, M Street, and the Whitehurst Freeway all converge at the same point. During the morning and evening rush hours the intersection is jammed with commuter traffic. At night, it is filled with cars streaming into the restaurants and nightclubs of Georgetown. Above it all stand the black stone steps made infamous by The Exorcist— sad, covered in graffiti, stinking of urine from drunken Georgetown students who consider taking a piss there a rite of passage.
    None of this entered Delaroche's mind, however, as he sat behind the wheel of the Saab, staring down the barrel of Michael Osbourne's Browning automatic. When he ordered him out of the car, Delaroche pressed the accelerator to the floor and leaned down.
    The Marching Season 359
    Michael fired several shots through the windshield as the car raced forward; then he dived out of the way as the Saab careened into the intersection.
    Delaroche sat up behind the wheel, regained control, and raced toward the entrance of Key Bridge.
    Michael rolled away from the oncoming car and rose onto one knee. He took aim at the back of the Saab as it moved swiftly away from him, shutting out the blaring of car horns.
    He had eight rounds left in the Browning and no backup clip.
    He fired all eight shots before Delaroche could make the turn onto the bridge.
    Seven tore through the trunk and embedded in the rear seat.
    The eighth hit the fuel tank, and the Saab exploded.
    Delaroche heard the explosion and instantly felt the heat of the burning gasoline. Cars screeched to a halt around him. A young man in a Redskins sweatshirt ran to Delaroche's aid. Delaroche aimed the Beretta at his head, and the man in the sweatshirt fled toward Francis Scott Key Park.
    Delaroche leaped out of the car and saw Michael Osbourne running toward him.
    He raised the