The Marching Season

spare tire, wrapped in a greasy rag, they had discovered a few suspicious-looking papers.
    Graham borrowed the officer's flashlight and shone it on the papers. He flipped through them quickly, committing as many of the details as he could to memory, and handed them back to the officer.
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    "Place them where you found them/' he said. "Exactly the way you found them."
    The RUC man nodded and did as he was told.
    "Hide a tracking beacon in the car and let him go," Graham said. "And then get me back to Belfast as fast as you fucking can. We've got a rather serious problem, I'm afraid."
    23
    NEW YORK » PORTADOWN
    It was seven o'clock in the evening when Michael Osbourne stepped outside the CIA's New York Station in the World Trade Center and flagged down a taxi. It had been nearly two weeks since his return from London, and he was beginning to settle comfortably into the routine of his new life inside the Agency. He usually worked three days a week in Washington and two in New York. Counterintelligence was wrapping up its inquiry into the death of Kevin Maguire, and Michael was confident his version of events would be accepted: Maguire was under suspicion by the IRA before Michael's trip to Belfast, and his death, while unfortunate, was not Michael's fault.
    The taxi crawled uptown through snarled traffic. Michael thought of Northern Ireland—of the dim lights of Belfast below the Black Mountain, of Kevin Maguire's broken body strapped to a chair. He rolled down the window and felt the cold air on his face. Sometimes he went a few minutes without thinking of
    The Marching Season 205
    Maguire, but at night, or when he was alone, Maguire's ravaged face always intruded. Michael was anxious for the information Maguire and Devlin had given him to bear fruit; if the Ulster Freedom Brigade was destroyed, Maguire's death would not be meaningless.
    The taxi driver was an Arab with the untrimmed beard of a devout Muslim. Michael gave him an address on Madison Avenue, five blocks from the apartment. He paid off the taxi and walked the crowded sidewalks, stopping to gaze into store windows, checking his tail constantly. It was the nagging fear: that one day an old enemy would appear and take his revenge. He thought of his father, searching his car for bombs, tearing apart telephones, and checking his tail for physical surveillance until the day he died. The secrecy was like a disease, the anxiety like an old and trusted friend. Michael was resigned to the fact it would never leave him—the assassin called October had seen to that.
    He walked west to Fifth Avenue, then turned right and headed uptown. The business of intelligence required remarkable patience, but Michael was beginning to grow restless when it came to October. Each morning he scanned the cables, hoping to catch some glimpse of him on a watch list—a sighting in an airport or a train terminal—but nothing had appeared. As more time elapsed, the trail would grow colder.
    Michael entered his building and took the elevator up to the apartment. Elizabeth was already home. She kissed his cheek and handed him a glass of white wine.
    "Your face is beginning to look almost normal again," she said.
    "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
    She kissed his mouth. "Definitely a good thing. How are you feeling?"
    He looked at her quizzically. "What the hell's gotten into you?"
    206 Daniel Silva
    "Nothing, sweetheart, I'm just happy to see you."
    "It's good to see you too. How was your day?"
    "Not bad," she said. "I spent the day preparing my main witness for testifying in court."
    "Is he going to hold up?"
    "Actually, I'm afraid he's going to get killed under cross."
    "Are the children still awake?"
    "They're going down now."
    "I want to see them."
    "Michael, if you wake them up, so help me God—"
    Michael walked into the nursery and leaned over the cribs. The children slept end to end, head to head, so they could see each other through the slats. He stood there for a long time, listening to them breathing softly. For a few minutes he felt peace, a sense of contentment he had not known in a long time. Then the anxiety crept up on him again, the fear that his enemies might harm him or his children. He heard the telephone ringing. He kissed each of them and went out.
    In the living room Elizabeth held out the telephone to him.
    "It's Adrian," she said.
    Michael took the phone from her hand. "Yeah?"
    He listened for a few minutes without speaking, then