The Marching Season

with its sweeping rococo plasterwork, and into the drawing room. They stood in the center of the room, necks craned at the original plasterwork ceiling, staring at the rich array of roses, orange blossoms, grapes, pears, and pomegranates. "This panel is devoted to game birds found locally here along the Norfolk Coast," Hartley said, aiming his long arm like a rifle. "As you can see, there are partridge, pheasant, plover, and woodcock."
    "It's just magnificent," Douglas said.
    "But you must be exhausted, and I could go on all evening," Hartley said. "Let me show you to your room. You can freshen up and relax for a few minutes before dinner."
    They ascended the center staircase and followed the corridor past a series of closed doors. Hartley showed Douglas into the Chinese bedroom. There was an eighteenth-century four-poster bed and a brightly colored knotted Exeter carpet. At the foot of the bed were a Japanese black lacquer cabinet and a single carved Chippendale chair.
    A man was seated in the chair, his back to the door. He stood as Hartley and Douglas entered the room. For an instant Douglas had the sensation of staring at his own reflection in a fogged glass. His mouth actually fell open as he held out his hand toward the other man and waited for him to take it. The man just stood there, smiling slightly, clearly enjoying the effect of his presence. He was precisely the same height and stature as Douglas, and his thinning gray-white hair had been cut and styled in a similar fashion. His skin had the same open-air quality:
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    ruddy cheeks, leathery complexion, large pores. The features were slightly different—the eyes a bit narrower—but the effect was overwhelming.
    The door to the dressing room opened and Michael stepped into the room, followed by Graham Seymour. Michael noticed the look on his father-in-law's face and burst out laughing.
    "Ambassador Douglas Cannon," he said, "I'd like you to meet Ambassador Douglas Cannon."
    Douglas shook his head and said, "I'll be goddamned."
    Rebecca Wells spent the afternoon bird-watching. She had been in Norfolk for three days, living in a small caravan on the beach outside Sheringham. She had toured the coastline from Hunstanton in the west to Cromer in the east, walking the Peddars Way and the Norfolk Coast path with her field glasses and her cameras, photographing the rich variety of local birds—plover and curlew, redshank and partridge. She had never been to Norfolk, and for a little while each day she actually seemed to forget the reason she had come. It was a magical place of salt marshes, tidal creeks, mudflats, and beaches that seemed to stretch to the horizon—flat, desolate, starkly beautiful.
    Late that afternoon she entered the Great North Wood adjacent to Hartley Hall. She knew from her guidebooks that the Hartley family had turned over the wood to the government thirty years ago. Now it was a nature preserve and campground. She walked along a sandy footpath, soft with pine needles and fallen sprigs of fir, and settled herself into a blind.
    She pretended to be photographing a flock of migrating brent geese. Her real target was Hartley Hall, which stood just south of the wood, across a meadow dead with winter. The ambassador was scheduled to arrive at four o'clock. She reached the blind at
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    three forty-five; she didn't want to linger too long needlessly. The sun dropped below the horizon, and the air turned bitterly cold. The western sky was streaked with watercolor hues of purple and orange. The sea wind came up and stirred the trees. She rubbed her face with her wool gloves for warmth.
    At 4:05 P.M. she heard cars passing along the road through the wood. A moment later they emerged from the shadows and sped along Hartley's private access road. A man emerged from the grand porch as the small motorcade pulled into the drive. Rebecca Wells raised her field glasses to her eyes. She watched as Douglas Cannon climbed out of the back of the limousine and shook the other man's hand. For several minutes they toured the grounds of Hartley Hall. Rebecca Wells watched them carefully.
    When they had completed their circuit of the house and vanished inside, she stood and packed away her camera and field glasses into a nylon rucksack. She followed the trail through the woods, back to the car park where she had left her hired Vaux-hall, and drove along the narrow coast road back to her caravan on the beach.
    It was quite dark