The Marching Season

ZEALAND
    Ambassador Douglas Cannon was released from George Washington University Hospital on an unusually hot morning in the second week of April. Overnight it had rained, but by mid-morning the puddles were blazing beneath a fierce sunlight. Only a small company of reporters and cameramen waited outside in the drive, for Washington's media suffer from a sort of collective attention deficit syndrome, and no one was really interested in watching an old man leaving the hospital. Still, Douglas managed to "make news," as they say in the trade, when he loudly demanded to walk rather than ride out in the obligatory wheelchair—so loudly, in fact, that he could be heard by the reporters outside. "I was shot in the back, goddammit, not the legs," Cannon rumbled. His remarks were reported that night on the evening news, much to the ambassador's delight.
    He stayed at the house on N Street in Georgetown for the
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    first two weeks of his recovery, then went home to his beloved Cannon Point. A small crowd of well-wishers waved and shouted as Douglas's car passed through Shelter Island Heights. He remained at Cannon Point for the rest of the spring. The security guards accompanied him as he walked the stony tide line of Upper Beach and the footpaths of Mashomack Preserve. By June he felt strong enough to go for a sail aboard Athena. Uncharacteristically, he surrendered the helm to Michael, but he barked orders and criticized his son-in-law's seamanship so forcefully that Michael threatened to throw him overboard off Plum Island.
    Old friends urged Douglas to resign his post in London; even President Beckwith thought it would be best. But at the end of June, he returned to London and settled into his office at Grosvenor Square. On July 4, Independence Day, he made a special appearance before Parliament, then traveled to Belfast, where he received a hero's welcome.
    To coincide with his visit, the British and American intelligence and security services released the findings of their joint investigation into the Ulster Freedom Brigade's attempt to kill Cannon in Washington. The report concluded that there were two terrorists involved, a woman named Rebecca Wells, who was also involved in the Hartley Hall affair, and an unidentified man who apparently was a professional assassin hired by the group.
    Despite a worldwide search, both terrorists remained at large.
    Within hours of Cannon's visit to Northern Ireland, a large car bomb exploded outside a market near the corner of the White-rock Road and the Falls Road. Five people died and another sixteen were injured. The Ulster Freedom Brigade claimed re-
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    sponsibility That night a fringe Republican group calling itself the Irish Liberation Cell avenged the attack by setting off a massive truck bomb that flattened much of central Portadown. The group promised to continue its attacks until the Good Friday peace accords were dead.
    For many weeks the endless corridors at Langley crackled with rumors of a shake-up on the Seventh Floor. Monica was leaving, according to one rumor. She was staying forever, according to another. Monica had fallen out of favor with the president. Monica was about to become secretary of state. The most popular rumor among her detractors was the story that she had suffered a nervous breakdown. That she had become delusional. That in a fit of psychotic rage she had tried to smash her precious mahogany office furniture to splinters.
    Inevitably, the pervasive rumors about Monica reached the ears of The Washington Post. The newspaper's intelligence correspondent chose to discard the more salacious things he had heard, but in a lengthy front-page piece he did report that Monica had lost the confidence of the Agency's rank and file, the barons of the intelligence community, and even the President himself. That afternoon, during a photo opportunity with schoolchildren in the Rose Garden, President Beckwith said that Monica Tyler retained his "full and complete confidence." Translated from Washington-speak into plain English, the remark meant that Monica Tyler was being measured for the drop.
    She was besieged with interview requests. Meet the Press wanted her. Ted Koppel telephoned personally to invite her on Nightline. A booker from the staff of Larry King Live actually tried to talk her way past the guards at the front gate. Monica turned them all away. Instead, she released a written statement
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    saying that