The Marching Season

Ulster Freedom Brigade were departing McConville's pub, Graham Seymour was arriving at the American embassy. Wheaton's office felt like the command bunker of an army in retreat. The suicide of Preston McDaniels had ignited a firestorm in Washington, and Wheaton had been on the telephone-for most of the past twenty-four hours, trying unsuccessfully to put it out. The State Department was furious with the Agency for their handling of the affair; indeed, Douglas Cannon had been placed in the unenviable position of secretly protesting the actions of his own son-in-law. President Beck-with had summoned Monica Tyler to the White House and read her the riot act. Monica had taken out her anger on Wheaton and Michael.
    "Please tell us you have some good news," Michael said, as Graham sat down.
    "Actually, I do," Graham said. "Scotland Yard's decided to play ball. Later this evening they'll put out a statement that the
    230 Daniel Silva
    suicide at Tottenham Court Road was an escaped mental patient. The Northern Line is notorious for that sort of thing. There's a psychiatric hospital in Stockwell, south of the river."
    "Thank God," Wheaton said.
    Michael felt himself relax slightly. The suicide needed to be kept secret if the operation was to continue. If the Ulster Freedom Brigade learned McDaniels had jumped in front of a Northern Line train, they might very well conclude the information they had stolen from him was tainted.
    Graham said, "How will you cover up things here?"
    "Fortunately, McDaniels has no family to speak of," Wheaton said. "State has reluctantly given us some latitude. As far as the cover story goes, McDaniels had to return to Washington for two weeks. If the woman calls here looking for him, she'll be given that story and a personal message from McDaniels."
    "The woman has a name, by the way," Graham said. "E-Four picked her up when she arrived in Belfast early this morning. Her real name is Rebecca Wells. Her husband was Ronnie Wells, a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force intelligence section who was murdered by the IRA in 'ninety-two. It looks as though Rebecca has picked up the threads of her husband's work."
    "And the RUC is giving her room to run?" Michael asked.
    "They followed her to Portadown in order to establish her identity, but that's as far as it goes," Graham said. "As of right now she's running free."
    "Is the SAS on board?"
    "I'm meeting with them at their headquarters in Hereford tomorrow to brief them. You're both welcome to attend. Strange lot, the SAS. I think you might actually enjoy it."
    Wheaton stood up and rubbed his red, swollen eyes.
    "Gentlemen, the ball is in the court of the Ulster Freedom
    The Marching Season 231
    Brigade." He pulled on his suit jacket over his wrinkled shirt and headed for the door. "I don't know about either of you, but I need some sleep. Don't bother me unless it's urgent."
    The first night had been clear and calm and bitterly cold. Kyle Blake and Gavin Spencer decided to wait; one more night would make no difference, and the forecast looked promising. The second night was perfect: thick cloud cover to weaken the infrared glasses of the SAS men, wind and rain to help cover the sound of their approach. Kyle Blake approved, and Spencer dispatched two of his best men to do the job. One was a British army veteran who had done time abroad as a mercenary. The other was a former UDA gunman, the same lad who had killed Ian Morris. Spencer had code-named the first Yeats and the second Wilde. He sent them into the field a few hours after sundown and instructed them to attack an hour or so before dawn—just like the Peep O'Day Boys.
    The farmhouse stood in the basin of a small glen. Around the farm were several acres of cleared pasturelands, but beyond the fence line rose hills covered with dense trees. It was on one of these hillsides, the one directly east of the farmhouse, that the E4 and SAS men had established their watch post. On the second night, the hillside lay beneath a blanket of low, thick cloud.
    Yeats and Wilde wore black. They used coal dust to darken their pale Ulster complexions. They approached from the east, through the thick pine, up and down the rolling terrain, moving just a few feet each minute. Sometimes they lay very still for several minutes at a time, bodies pressed to the sodden earth,
    232 Daniel Silva
    peering at their quarry through night-vision binoculars. When they had closed to within a quarter mile they separated, Yeats moving off