The Marching Season

possible."
    140 Daniel Silva
    Michael stared at the scarred hand in the photograph. "If he wants to work, he has to move," Carter said. "And if he tries to move we'll be on his ass."
    Michael smiled and handed Carter the photograph.
    Carter said, "Glad you accepted my invitation to come back?"
    "Fuck, yes."
    Michael missed the seven o'clock shuttle by five minutes. He called the apartment in New York to tell Elizabeth he would be late, but there was no answer, so he left a message and drank a beer in the airport bar until his flight was called.
    On the plane he stared out the window while images of Northern Ireland played out in his mind. He had spent much of the day cloistered in Cynthia Martin's cubicle, studying the paramilitary organizations of Ulster.
    It was possible that any one of the existing Protestant groups had carried out the attacks and used the pseudonym Ulster Freedom Brigade to deflect suspicion. It was also possible that the Ulster Freedom Brigade was a new group consisting of members with no previous paramilitary experience. Michael had another theory: The Ulster Freedom Brigade was a small, highly organized, and experienced group of Protestant hard-liners who had defected from the mainstream organizations because of the cease-fire. The trio of attacks was too professional and too successful to be the work of inexperienced operatives. The leaders were obviously ruthless and would go to great lengths to protect the security of the organization, demonstrated by the fact that all three terrorists who took part in the attacks were now dead. Identifying its members was going to be difficult if not impossible.
    Michael had spent most of the day reviewing the dossiers of
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    every known member of those paramilitary organizations. Their faces flashed before him now: prison mug shots, intelligence surveillance photographs, artist sketches.
    One other face flashed before him: the blurry, incomplete image of October. Michael had suspected he was alive. Now he had proof, the photograph of a scarred hand. Still, he knew the chances of catching him were small. All he could do was put out the alert and hope for another break.
    Michael ordered a beer from the flight attendant. He telephoned the apartment again, but there was still no answer. He usually spoke to Elizabeth several times a day because she called home constantly to check on the children. Today, they had not spoken since Douglas's swearing-in ceremony. He had been back at work just one day, but already he could sense a distance between them. He felt guilty, but he also felt a contentment—a sense of purpose; indeed, a sense of excitement—that he had not felt in many months. He hated to admit it, but the Agency seemed like home. Sometimes it was a dysfunctional home, with quarreling adults and incorrigible children, but it was home nonetheless.
    He found Elizabeth lying in bed, surrounded by paper. He kissed her neck, but she rubbed the spot as though it itched. He undressed, made a sandwich, and climbed into bed next to her.
    "I'd ask you how your day was," she said, "but I know you couldn't tell me anyway."
    "It felt good to be back to work," he said, and immediately regretted it.
    "Your children are fine, by the way."
    He placed the sandwich on the nightstand and removed Elizabeth's legal pad from her grasp.
    142 Daniel Silva
    "How long is this going to last?" he asked.
    "How long is what going to last?"
    "You know what, Elizabeth. I want to know how long you're going to treat me like a pariah."
    "I can't pretend that I'm happy about this, Michael. I can't pretend that I'm not overwhelmed by my job and the children, and now my husband is commuting to Washington." She lit a cigarette, snapping the lighter with too much force. "I hate that place. I hate what it does to you. I hate what it does to us."
    "Your father presents his credentials to the Queen next week in London. I need to go to London for a couple of days. Why don't you come with me so we can spend some time together?"
    "Because I can't go jetting off to London just now," she snapped. "I have a trial coming up. I have children. You have children, in case you've forgotten."
    "Of course I haven't forgotten."
    "You just went to London. Why do you have to go back so soon?"
    "I need to renew some old contacts."
    "In London?"
    "No, in Belfast."
    16
    LONDON
    The official residence of the American ambassador to Great Britain is Winfield House, a redbrick Georgian mansion