The Marching Season

Intelligence Agency."
    The room had gone silent, except for the fire, which was spitting again, crackling like small arms. Outside, the wind was moving the leafless trees, and one was scratching against the side of the house. A truck grumbled along Shore Road, and somewhere a dog was barking.
    "If you want the rest, you have to shut down your microphones," Monica said.
    Michael remained motionless. Monica reached for her handbag, as if getting up to leave.
    "All right," Michael said. He stood, walked to Douglas's desk, and opened a drawer. Inside was a microphone, about the size of a finger. Michael held it up for Monica to see.
    "Disconnect it," she said.
    He pulled the microphone from its cable.
    "Now the backup," she said. "You're too paranoid to do something like this without a backup."
    Michael walked to the bookshelves, removed a volume of Proust, and pulled out the second microphone.
    "Kill it," Monica said.
    Delaroche looked at Michael. "She has a gun in the handbag."
    Michael walked over to the chair where Monica Tyler was seated, reached inside the bag, and pulled out the Browning.
    "Since when do CIA directors carry weapons?"
    "When they feel threatened," Monica said.
    The Marching Season 395
    Michael set the safety and tossed the Browning to Delaroche. "All right, Monica, let's get started."
    Adrian Carter was a worrier by nature, a personality trait somehow at odds with the job of sending agents into the field and waiting for them to come out again. He had endured many tense vigils concerning Michael Osbourne over the years. He remembered the two endless nights he had spent in Beirut in 1985, waiting for Michael to return from a meeting with an agent in the Bekaa Valley. Carter had feared Michael had been taken hostage or killed. He was about to give up when Michael stumbled into Beirut, covered in dust and smelling of goats.
    Still, nothing compared to the uneasiness Carter felt now, as he listened to his agent confronting the director of Central Intelligence. When she demanded that Michael disable the first microphone, Carter was not terribly worried—there were two in the room, and an experienced field man like Michael would never give up his ace in the hole.
    Then he heard Monica demand disconnection of the second, followed by thumping and scratching as Michael dug it from the bookshelf. When the feed from the room fell silent, he did the only thing a good agent-runner can do.
    He lit another of Michael's cigarettes, and he waited.
    "A short time after I was appointed DCI, I was approached by a man who referred to himself only as the Director." She spoke like an exhausted mother, reluctantly telling a fairy tale to a child who refuses to go to bed. "He asked me if I would be willing to join an elite club, a group of international intelligence officers,
    396 Daniel Silva
    financiers, and businessmen dedicated to the preservation of global security. I suspected something was amiss, so I reported the incident to Counterintelligence as a potential recruitment by a hostile organization. CI thought it might be operationally productive if we danced with the Director, and I agreed. I sought approval from the president himself to begin the operation. I met with the man called the Director three more times, twice in Northern Europe and once in the Mediterranean. At the end of the third meeting, we came to terms, and I joined the Society.
    "The Society has very long tentacles. It is involved in covert operations on a global scale. I immediately began collecting intelligence on membership and operations. Some intelligence was laundered through the Agency, and we took countermeasures. Sometimes, we deemed it was necessary to allow Society operations to continue, because disrupting them could jeopardize my position inside the hierarchy of the organization."
    Michael watched her as she spoke. She was calm and collected and utterly lucid, as though she were reading a prepared speech to a gathering of shareholders. He was in awe of her; she was a remarkable liar.
    "Who's the Director?" Michael asked.
    "I don't know, and I suspect Delaroche doesn't know either."
    "Did you know he had been hired to kill my father-in-law?"
    "Of course, Michael," she said, narrowing her eyes scornfully.
    "Then what was that song and dance in the executive dining room about? Why did you remove me from the case?"
    "Because the Director asked me to," she said flatly, then added, "Let me explain. He thought it would be easier for Delaroche