The Marching Season

intensity and the honesty of the younger man's arguments were impressive. But Beckwith had been in politics long enough to know that one should never give away something for nothing.
    "If I appoint a superstar to London, what do I get in return?"
    Blair smiled broadly. "You get my unequivocal support for your European trade initiative."
    "Deal," Beckwith said, after a brief show of thought.
    A steward entered the room.
    Beckwith said, "Two glasses of brandy, please." The drinks appeared a moment later. Beckwith raised his glass. "To good friends."
    "To good friends."
    Blair sipped the brandy with the caution of one who rarely drinks. He replaced the snifter carefully and said, "Do you have any candidates in mind, Mr. President?"
    "Actually, Tony, I think I've got just the man for the job."
    5
    SHELTER ISLAND, NEW YORK
    For many years, little about the grand white clapboard house overlooking Dering Harbor and Shelter Island Sound had suggested that Senator Douglas Cannon owned the property. There were occasional guests requiring Secret Service protection, and sometimes there were large parties when Douglas was running for reelection and needed money. Usually, though, the house seemed like all the others along Shore Road, just a little larger and a little better cared for. After his retirement, and the death of his wife, the senator had spent more time at Cannon Point than in his sprawling Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan. He insisted the neighbors call him Douglas and, rather awkwardly, they complied. Cannon Point became more accessible than ever before. Sometimes, when tourists stopped to stare or take a photograph of the estate, the senator would appear on the manicured lawn, retrievers scampering at his heels, and stop to chat. The intruders had changed all that.
    The Marching Season 45
    Two weeks after the incident the police had allowed the senator to repair all visible reminders of the episode, thus wiping out the last of the physical evidence. An off-island contractor that no one had ever heard of—and no telephone directory seemed to list— handled the work.
    Rumors about the extensive damage swept over the island. Harry Carp, the crimson-faced owner of the hardware store in the Heights, had heard there were a dozen bullet holes in the walls of the sitting room and the kitchen. Patty McLean, the checkout girl at the Mid-Island Market, heard the bloodstains in the guest cottage were so extensive the entire floor had to be replaced and the walls repainted. Martha Creighton, the island's most prominent real estate broker, quietly predicted Cannon Point would be on the market within six months. Clearly, Martha murmured over her cappuccino at the village coffeehouse, the senator and his family would want to make a fresh start somewhere else.
    But the senator and his daughter, Elizabeth, and his son-in-law, Michael, decided to stay on. Cannon Point, once open and accessible, assumed the air of a settlement in occupied territory. Another obscure contractor descended on the property, this time to erect a ten-foot brick and iron fence and a small clapboard gingerbread hut at the entrance for a permanent security guard. When the work was complete, a second team arrived to litter the property with cameras and motion detectors. The neighbors complained that the senator's new security measures disrupted views of Dering Harbor and the Sound. There was talk of a petition, some grumbling at a village council meeting, even a nasty letter or two in the Shelter Island Reporter. But by summer everyone had become used to the new fence, and no
    46 Daniel Silva
    one could remember why anyone was upset about it in the first place.
    "You can hardly blame them," Martha Creighton said. "If he wants a fucking fence, let him have a fucking fence. Hell, I'd let him build a moat if he wanted one."
    Of Michael Osbourne, little was known on the island. He was thought to be involved in business of some sort, international sales or the murky world of consulting. He usually kept to himself when he and his wife, Elizabeth, came out to the island for the weekend. When he ate breakfast at the Heights pharmacy, or stopped at the Dory for a beer, he always brought a few newspapers for protection. Attempts at polite conversation were gently rebuffed; something of grave importance always seemed to be pulling his gaze back to his newspapers. The island's female population found him attractive and forgave his coolness as a manifestation of some