The Marching Season

crushing his windpipe, screaming at him savagely, yet a strange calmness had come over the assassin's face. His blue eyes flickered over Michael, and a vague half smile appeared on his lips.
    Michael realized October was deciding how best to kill him. He squeezed harder.
    October reached up suddenly and seized Michael's hair with his left hand. He pulled Michael's head toward him and drove the thumb of his right hand into Michael's eye socket.
    Michael screamed in agony and released his grip on October's throat. The assassin turned his hands to hatchets and struck Michael simultaneously twice on the temples.
    Michael nearly lost consciousness. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision, then realized that he was on his back, and the assassin had slipped away from him.
    Michael struggled to his feet. October was already standing, feet apart, hands near his face, eyes fastened on Michael's. He spun and delivered a vicious roundhouse kick to the side of Michael's head.
    Michael stumbled from the sidewalk onto the roadbed of the bridge, directly into the path of a speeding Metro bus. The driver leaned on the horn. Michael leaped out of the way, into the arms of October.
    The assassin crouched and, using Michael's momentum, lifted him over the railing.
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    Delaroche waited for the sound of Michael's body hitting the water more than a hundred feet below, but there was nothing. He stepped forward and looked down. Michael had managed to grab hold of the base of the railing with one hand on his way down, and now he was dangling over the water. Michael looked up, blood in his mouth, and stared at Delaroche.
    The easiest thing to do would be to stomp on his hand until he lost his grip, but for some reason the idea was abhorrent to Delaroche. He had always killed silently and swiftly, appearing from nowhere and vanishing again. Killing a man in this manner seemed somehow barbaric to him.
    He leaned down and said, "Let me go, and I will help you."
    "Fuck you," Michael said, grimacing.
    "That's not terribly wise on your part." Delaroche reached down through the railing and took hold of Michael's left wrist. "Reach up and take my hand."
    Michael was beginning to lose his grip on the railing.
    "You just killed my father-in-law," he said. "You tried to kill me and my wife. You killed Sarah."
    "I didn't kill them, Michael. Other people killed them. I was just the weapon. I'm not responsible for their deaths any more than you are responsible for the death of Astrid Vogel."
    "Who hired you?" Michael rasped.
    "It doesn't matter."
    "It matters to me! Who hired you?"
    But Michael's grip was beginning to weaken.
    Delaroche took hold of his left arm with both hands.
    Michael reached into his jacket with his right hand, withdrew the Browning, and aimed it at Delaroche's head. Delaroche held
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    on to Michael's hand, staring at the gun. Then he smiled and said, "Do you know the story of the frog and the scorpion crossing the Nile?"
    Michael knew the parable; anyone who had ever lived or worked in the Middle East knew it. A frog and a scorpion are standing on the banks of the Nile, and the scorpion asks the frog to ferry him to the other side. The frog refuses, because he is afraid the scorpion will sting him. The scorpion assures the frog he will not sting him; to do so would be foolish, because then both of them would drown. The frog sees the logic of this statement and agrees to take the scorpion to the other side. When they reach middle of the river, the scorpion stings the frog. "Now we both will drown," the frog cries as his body goes numb with the scorpion's venom. "Why did you do that?" The scorpion smiles and says, "Because this is the Middle East."
    "I know the story," Michael said.
    "We have been locked in this conflict for too many years. Perhaps we can help each other. Revenge is for savages, after all. I understand you were in Northern Ireland recently. Look at what revenge has done for that place."
    "What do you want?"
    "I will tell you what you want to know most—who hired me to kill Douglas Cannon, who hired me to kill the conspirators in the TransAtlantic affair, who hired me to kill you because you knew too much." He paused. "I will also tell you about the person in your organization who is involved with these people. In exchange, you will provide me with protection and allow me access to my bank accounts."
    "I don't have the authority to make a deal like that."
    "Perhaps not the