The Marching Season

dead."
    Spencer let it drop. He switched on the radio to help pass the time. He turned onto the Al and headed toward Banbridge. A few moments later Rebecca groaned. "Pull over."
    He braked to a halt on the apron of the road. Rebecca opened the door and stumbled out into the rain. She fell to her hands and knees in the light from the headlamps and was violently sick.
    WASHINGTON
    The meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President James Beckwith had been scheduled well in advance; the fact that it fell just one week after the Ulster Freedom Brigade launched its wave of terror was coincidence. In fact, both men went out of their way to portray the meeting as a routine consultation between good friends, which in most respects it was. As the prime minister arrived at the White House from Blair House, the guest quarters across the street, President Beckwith assured his visitor that the mansion had been named in his honor. The prime minister flashed his famous tooth-and-gums smile and assured President Beckwith that the next time he came to London a British landmark would be named in his honor.
    For two hours the President and the prime minister met with their aides and assistants in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. The agenda included a wide range of issues: coordination
    The Marching Season 39
    of defense and foreign policy, monetary and trade policy, ethnic tension in the Balkans, the Middle East peace process, and, of course, Northern Ireland. Shortly after noon the two leaders adjourned to the Oval Office for a private lunch.
    Snow drifted over the South Lawn as the two men stood at the window behind Beckwith's desk and admired the view. A large fire burned brightly in the fireplace, and a table was set before it. The President confidently took his guest by the arm and shepherded him across the room. After a lifetime in politics, James Beckwith was comfortable with the ceremonial aspects of his job. The Washington press corps routinely said he was the best performer to occupy the Oval Office since Ronald Reagan.
    Still, he was beginning to tire of it all. He had barely won reelection, trailing his opponent, Democratic senator Andrew Sterling of Nebraska, throughout the campaign until an Arab terrorist group blew a jetliner from the sky off Long Island. Beckwith's skillful handling of the crisis—and his quick retaliatory strikes against the terrorists—had helped turn the tide.
    Now he had settled comfortably into lame-duck status. The Democratic-controlled Congress had scrapped the primary goal of his second term, the construction of a national missile defense system. His agenda, such as it was, consisted of a series of minor conservative initiatives that required no congressional backing. Two members of his cabinet were being picked apart by independent counsels for financial misconduct. Every night over dinner Beckwith and his wife, Anne, talked less about politics and more about how they would spend their retirement in California. He had even granted Anne's longtime wish to take their summer vacation in the mountains of northern Italy. In years past his strategists had warned that vacationing abroad would be politically disastrous. Beckwith simply didn't care any longer. Close
    40 Daniel Silva
    friends attributed the drift to the loss of his friend and chief of staff Paul Vandenberg, who apparently had shot himself to death on Roosevelt Island in the Potomac River a year earlier.
    The two men sat down to lunch. Tony Blair was a notoriously fast eater—a fact included in Beckwith's briefing books—and he had devoured his grilled chicken breast and rice pilaf before Beckwith had consumed a quarter of his meal. Beckwith was famished after the morning of intense discussions, so he made the British leader sit patiently while he finished the last of his lunch.
    Their relationship had soured the previous year, when Blair publicly criticized Beckwith for launching air strikes against the Sword of Gaza, the Palestinian terrorist group blamed for the downing of a TransAtlantic Airlines jet off Long Island. Several weeks later the Sword of Gaza retaliated by attacking the TransAtlantic ticket counter at London's Heathrow Airport, killing several Americans and British travelers. Beckwith never forgot Blair's rebuke. Known to be on a first-name basis with most of the world's leaders, Beckwith pointedly referred to Blair as "Mr. Prime Minister." Blair responded in kind by always referring to Beckwith