The Marching Season

Beretta and fired three times.
    Michael Osbourne dived behind a parked car.
    Delaroche started toward Key Bridge, but a car, seemingly oblivious of the burning vehicle in the center of the intersection, sped toward him. Delaroche leaped just before impact and tumbled over the windshield.
    He lost his grip on the Beretta, and it clattered into the path of the oncoming traffic.
    Delaroche looked up and saw Michael Osbourne running
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    toward him. He stood and tried to run, but his right ankle buckled, and he collapsed onto the asphalt.
    He struggled to his feet and willed himself forward. His ankle felt as though there were broken glass just beneath the skin. He managed to reach the sidewalk of Key Bridge.
    A man stood there, watching the spectacle, holding the handlebars of a poor-quality mountain bike.
    Delaroche punched the man in the throat and took the bike.
    He climbed onto the saddle and tried to pedal, but when he exerted force with his right foot the pain made him scream. He pedaled with one leg, his left leg, while his right simply rode up and down with the rotation of the cranks.
    He turned and looked over his shoulder. Michael Osbourne was running toward him. Delaroche pedaled faster, but between his broken ankle and the poor quality of the bike, Osbourne was gaining on him. Delaroche felt utterly defenseless. He had no weapon and a rattletrap bicycle for transport. To make matters worse, he was injured.
    More than anything else, Delaroche suddenly felt rage—rage at his father and Vladimir and everyone else at the KGB who had condemned him to a life of killing. Rage at himself for allowing the Director to force him into this assignment. Rage at himself for failing once again to kill Osbourne. He wondered how Osbourne had known it was him behind the wheel of the Saab. Had Maurice Leroux betrayed him before he killed him that night in Paris? Had the Director betrayed him? Or had he once again underestimated the intelligence and ingenuity of the man from the CIA, the man who had sworn to destroy him? That it would all end like this—with Delaroche on a creaking bike and Osbourne chasing him on foot—was almost laughable. He realized that even if he managed to get away from Osbourne now, his chances of going very far were growing slimmer by the minute.
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    He turned and looked once more and saw that Osbourne had gained more ground. He forced himself to pedal with both legs, ignoring the pain in his ankle, while he decided what he was willing to do to get off the bridge alive.
    Michael slipped the Browning back into the shoulder holster and sprinted across the bridge, pumping hard with his arms. For an instant he was transported back to the Virginia state finals of the mile. Michael had made a brilliant tactical move in the final lap to place himself in perfect position to overtake the leader in the final hundred yards, but when they reached the homestretch he had not had the courage to endure the pain necessary to win. He had become virtually hypnotized by the other boy's back— the fluttering of his jersey in the wind, the lean muscles of his shoulders—as he pulled farther and farther away and broke the tape. And he remembered his father, so furious that Michael had lost that he wouldn't even console him after the race.
    He had closed to within ten yards of October.
    He had run nearly a mile since dashing from the house. His legs were heavy, his muscles tight from the prolonged sprint. His arms burned, and his throat tasted of rust and blood from gasping for air. He had been pursuing October for years, using all the resources and technical services the Agency had to offer, but it all came down to this, a mind-bending sprint across Key Bridge. This time he was not going to shy away from the pain. This time he was not going to be hypnotized by his opponent's back, pulling farther and farther away. His head leaned back, and he roared like a wounded animal, thrashing at the air with his hands as if trying to pull himself forward.
    October was now just a few feet away.
    Michael leaped and rode him to the ground with a heavy crash.
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    October landed on his back, Michael on top of him, sitting on his abdomen.
    Michael punched him twice in the face, the second blow splitting the flesh high on Delaroche's cheekbone, then grabbed his throat with both hands and began to strangle him.
    He had lost all sense of reason and sanity. He was squeezing October's throat,