The Marching Season

Picholine is actually the wine room, dark and cool, with hundreds of bottles lying in stained-oak floor-to-ceiling racks. Monica Tyler sat alone, bathed in the gentle glow of the recessed lighting, a file spread before her. She closed the file and put away her gold-rimmed reading glasses as Michael and Carter entered the room.
    "Michael, so good to see you again," she said. She remained seated and held out her right hand at a strange angle so that Michael wasn't certain whether he was expected to shake it or kiss it.
    It was Monica Tyler who had hastened Michael's departure from the Agency by ordering an internal investigation into his conduct in the TransAtlantic affair. She had been the executive director then, but six months later, President Beckwith had nominated her to be the director. Beckwith had entered that phase of any two-term presidency when the most important item on his agenda was securing his place in history. He believed nominating
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    Monica Tyler to be the first woman to head the CIA would help. The Agency had survived novices before, Michael thought, and the Agency would survive Monica Tyler.
    Monica ordered a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse without looking at the wine list. She had used the room for important meetings when she worked on Wall Street. She assured Michael that their conversation was utterly private. They made small talk about Washington politics and benign Agency gossip while deciding what to order. Monica and Carter spoke in front of Michael the way parents sometimes speak in front of children—he was no longer a member of the secret fraternity and therefore not to be entirely trusted.
    "Adrian tells me he failed to convince you to return to the Agency," Monica said abruptly. "That's why I'm here. Adrian wants you back in the CTC, and I want to help Adrian get what he wants."
    Adrian wants you back, Michael thought. But what about you, Monica?
    She had turned her body to Michael and settled her unfaltering gaze on him. Somewhere during her ascent, Monica Tyler had learned to use her eyes as a weapon. They were liquid and blue and changed instantly with her mood. When she was interested her eyes became translucent and fastened on her subject with therapeutic intensity. When she was annoyed—or, worse yet, bored—her pupils froze over and her gaze turned unreflecting. When she was angry her eyes flickered about her victim like searchlights, scanning for a kill zone.
    Monica had had no experience in intelligence when she came to Langley, but Michael and everyone else at Headquarters quickly learned that underestimating Monica could be fatal. She was a prodigious reader with a powerful intellect and a spy's flawless memory. She was also a gifted liar who had never been
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    saddled with a cumbersome moral compass. She controlled the circumstances around her like a seasoned professional field officer. The rituals of secrecy fit Monica as well as her tailored Chanel suit.
    "Frankly, I understand why you chose to leave in the first place," she said, placing an elbow on the table and a hand beneath her chin. "You were angry with me because I had suspended you. But I revoked that suspension and removed all references to it from your service record."
    "Am I supposed to be grateful, Monica?"
    "No, just professional."
    Monica paused as the first course was presented. She pushed her salad away from her a few inches, signaling she had no intention of eating. Carter kept his head down and devoured a plate of grilled octopus.
    "I wanted out because you let me down and the Agency let me down," Michael said.
    "An intelligence service has rules, and officers and agents must live by those rules," Monica said. "I shouldn't have to explain this to you, Michael. You grew up in the Agency. You knew the rules when you signed up."
    "What's the job?"
    "Now that's more like it."
    "I haven't agreed to anything yet," Michael said quickly. "But I'll hear what you have to say."
    "The President has ordered us to create a special task force on Northern Irish terrorism."
    "Why would I want to come back and get involved in Northern Ireland? Ulster is a British problem and a British matter. We're just spectators."
    "We're not asking you to come out of retirement and penetrate the Ulster Freedom Brigade, Michael," Carter said.
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    "That's what I do, Adrian."
    "No, Michael, that's what you used to do," Monica said.
    "Why the sudden push inside the Agency on Northern Ireland?