The Mark of the Assassin

the dock and peered
    into the swirling waters. Sometimes, an hour would pass before he would
    awaken from his trance. Sometimes, Elizabeth would watch him from the
    lawn and wonder exactly what he was thinking.
    OF THE AFTERMATH, Michael knew only what he read in the newspapers or
    saw on television, but like any man born to the secret world he
    generally regarded the news media as annoying background music. Each
    morning the new caretaker would drive to the pharmacy in Shelter Island
    Heights and pick up the newspapers--The New York Times, The Wall Street
    Journal, Newsday--and leave them on Michael's bedside table. By New
    Year's Day Michael felt strong enough to make the journey too. He would
    sit in the front passenger seat of his Jaguar and stare silently out the
    window at the water and the bare winter trees. His interest receded as
    January wore on, and by Inauguration Day he had stopped reading the
    papers altogether. Beckwith successfully weathered the storm. Credit was
    given to his wife, Anne. Anne had become the President's most important
    adviser since the death of Paul Vandenberg. Newsweek put her on the
    cover Christmas week. Inside was a glowing article about her political
    acumen; Anne would have to play a critical role from the shadows if the
    second Beckwith term was to succeed. It was Anne, according to
    Washington's chattering class, who goaded the President into pressing
    for sweeping campaign finance reform. With the fervency of the newly
    converted, Beckwith called for a ban on unregulated contributions to the
    parties--the "soft money"--and pressed broadcasters to give candidates
    free airtime. By Inauguration Day his approval ratings had reached sixty
    percent. Two of Beckwith's closest friends and supporters did not fare
    as well. Samuel Braxton was forced to withdraw his nomination to be
    secretary of state. He denied all wrongdoing but said he did not want to
    tie American foreign policy in knots by engaging in a long and divisive
    confirmation fight. It was Anne, according to the media, who pushed
    Braxton off the cliff. Alatron Defense Systems voluntarily withdrew from
    the national missile defense project after Andrew Sterling, Beck-with's
    defeated rival and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
    promised to conduct "the congressional equivalent of a rectal exam" on
    Mitchell Elliott. The contract was awarded to another California defense
    contractor, and Sterling gave his reluctant support, ensuring the system
    would be funded and deployed. Two days before the inauguration, the FBI
    and U.S. Park Police released the findings of their investigation into
    the death of White House Chief of Staff Paul Vandenberg. Investigators
    found no evidence to suggest his death was anything but a suicide. The
    investigation into the murders of Max Lewis and Virginia state trooper
    Dale Preston produced no arrests. The Washington Metropolitan Police
    Department quietly ended its investigation into the murder of Susanna
    Dayton. The case file remained technically open.
    ELIZABETH SPENT LONG WEEKENDS on the island. She worked three days a
    week from the New York office of Braxton, All-worth & Kettlemen while
    she gradually shed her case load and auditioned new firms. Because of
    her record and her political connections, she had no shortage of
    suitors. The venerable New York firm Titan, Webster & Leech offered the
    most money and, more important, the most flexibility. She accepted their
    offer and faxed Samuel Braxton her letter of resignation that same
    afternoon.
    MICHAEL HEALED FASTER than his doctors expected. Snow fell the first
    week of January, and the weather turned bitterly cold. But the following
    week the air warmed, and his doctors ordered him out of the house for
    gentle walks. The first two days he gingerly strolled the grounds of
    Cannon Point, his right arm in a sling because October's bullet had
    shattered his collarbone and cracked his shoulder blade. On the third
    day he walked in the wind on Shore Road, a pair of Adrian Carter's
    security men trailing softly behind him. In a week's time he walked to
    the village and back in the morning, and in the late afternoon he would
    walk the long, rocky beaches of Ram Island. In the evenings he wrote in
    Douglas Cannon's library overlooking Dering Harbor. After three days he
    showed the first draft to his father-in-law. Cannon edited with a red
    pencil, sharpening Michael's stiff bureaucratic prose, honing the logic
    of the