The Marching Season

Silva
    "I wasn't in London the entire time."
    "Oh, really," she said. "Where the hell were you?"
    "I stopped in Cairo for a day."
    "You stopped in Cairo for a day? What the hell does Cairo have to do with Northern Ireland?"
    "Nothing," he said. "I needed to see an old friend about something."
    "What?"
    Michael hesitated.
    "You don't work for them anymore, so you can't hide behind their regulations," she said icily. "I'd like to know why you went to Cairo."
    "Can we talk about this later?" he said. This was code for I-don't-want-to-quarrel-in-front-of-the-nanny, who was in the backseat with the children.
    "You have that look, Michael. That look you used to have when you came home from the field and couldn't tell me where you'd been or what you'd been doing."
    "I'm going to tell you everything. Just not now."
    "Well, I'm glad you're back, darling," Elizabeth said, looking away again. "You look wonderful, by the way. You always did look nice with a tan."
    Douglas was already asleep when they reached the island. Elizabeth and the nanny put the children down. Michael went to their bedroom and unpacked. His hair smelled of Cairo—diesel, dust, and woodsmoke—so he showered. When he came back into the bedroom, Elizabeth was seated at her dressing table, pulling earrings from her ears and rings from her fingers. He remembered a time when she would sit at her dressing table for an hour, taking
    The Marching Season 107
    pleasure in her appearance and her ability to make it more perfect. Now she worked quickly and without joy, like an assembly-line worker. Since his retirement Michael did nothing quickly. Haste in others mystified him.
    "Why did you go to Cairo?" Elizabeth said, violently brushing her hair.
    "Because a leader of Hamas was assassinated there a couple of days ago."
    "Ahmed Hussein," she said. "I read about it in the Times."
    "There was something about the way the job was carried out that intrigued me, so I went and knocked on a few old doors."
    He told her of his meeting with Yousef Hafez. He told her of the Mossad team and the Egyptian countersurveillance. Then he told her about the videotape.
    "I want to see it," she said.
    "A man gets shot to death, Elizabeth; it's not make-believe."
    "I've seen people shot before."
    He inserted the tape into the VCR. A street scene appeared on the screen, robed men streaming from a mosque. A few seconds later a motorcycle roared into the frame at high speed. The motorcyclist stopped suddenly at the steps of the mosque, and his arm swung up. He fired several times, the silenced handgun emitting no discernible sound. The shots struck a small bearded man, turning his white robe crimson with blood. The man on the motorcycle fired twice more, shooting a second man in the chest and a third through the throat. The engine roared again, and the gunman vanished into traffic. Michael stopped the tape.
    "Jesus Christ," Elizabeth said softly.
    "I think it may be him," Michael said. "I think it's October."
    "How can you tell?"
    108 Daniel Silva
    "I've seen him move. I've seen him handle a gun. The way his arm swings before he fires—it's very distinctive."
    "He's wearing a helmet, so you can't see his face. The tape proves nothing."                           .
    "Maybe, maybe not."
    Michael rewound the tape. Ahmed Hussein was alive again. The motorcycle swept into the frame and skidded to a stop. The assassin's arm swung up. Michael froze the image of the killer leveling his gun at his first victim, arm straight out from his side. Then he walked to the closet, opened the doors, and took down a small box from the top shelf. He opened the box and pulled out a gun.
    "What the hell is that?"
    "It's his gun," Michael said. "The one he dropped in the water off the dock that night. It's a Beretta nine-millimeter competition pistol. I'm not sure, but I think it's the same kind of gun used by the killer in Cairo."
    "That's still hardly conclusive evidence," Elizabeth said.
    "He dropped the gun because I shot him in the hand." Michael tapped the television screen. "His right hand, the hand we can see holding the gun."
    "What's your point, Michael?"
    "I shot him with a high-powered Browning automatic. The round probably tore through his hand, broke bones, left an ugly scar. If I find a scar on that hand, I'll be certain it's him."
    "It's awfully far away to see something as small as a scar."
    "The Agency has computers capable of bringing out the smallest detail in videotape images. I