The Mark of the Assassin
in
Cyprus."
"But never an attack on an airliner," Tyler said, when the last image
vanished from the screen. "None that we know of. In fact, we believe
they've never struck an American target before."
Michael switched on the lights. Monica Tyler said, "The Director is
scheduled to brief the President at eight A.M. tomorrow. During that
meeting, the President will decide whether to order air strikes against
those training facilities. The President wants answers. Gentlemen, in
your opinion, did the Sword of Gaza shoot down that airliner?"
Michael looked first at Carter, then at McManus. Carter took it upon
himself to answer the question, since he was the senior man there. He
cleared his throat gently before speaking. "Monica, for all we know as
of this moment, it might have been the Sword of Gaza, or it might have
been the Washington Redskins."
"THAT LAST REMARK was a thing of beauty," Michael said, as they walked
out the front doors and into the night. He turned up his collar against
the cold and lit a cigarette. Carter walked next to him, one hand
clutching a briefcase, the other rammed into his pocket. Carter always
managed to look slightly lost and vaguely irritated. Those who did not
know him tended to underestimate him, a quality that served him well
both in the field and in the bureaucratic trenches of Langley. He spoke
six languages and could melt into the backstreets of Warsaw or Athens or
Beirut with equal ease. Someone must have told him to spruce up his
wardrobe for headquarters, because he was always immaculately turned out
in costly English and Italian suits. Fine clothing did not hang
naturally on Carter's short, slouching frame; a thousand-dollar Armani
ended up looking like a cheap knockoff from one of the suspect boutiques
along Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. Michael always thought he looked
slightly ridiculous, like a clerk in an exclusive men's shop who wore
suits he could not afford. But Carter was an obsessive who never did
anything halfway--his tradecraft, his wife and family, his jazz. His
newest passion was golf, and he restlessly practiced his stroke with
plastic golf balls in his small glass-enclosed office. Once Michael
slipped a real ball among the replicas. Carter promptly launched it
through his office window during a conference call with Monica Tyler and
the Director. The following day Carter received a bill for the repairs
and a reprimand from Personnel. "She drives me nuts sometimes," Carter
muttered softly. He had served as Michael's control officer when Michael
was working without official cover and couldn't come to embassies. Even
now, walking toward the west parking lot of headquarters, they moved as
though they were conducting a debriefing under hostile surveillance.
"She thinks gathering intelligence is as easy as putting together a
quarterly earnings report."
"She has the Director's complete trust and therefore should be handled
carefully."
"Listen to you--the headquarters man all of a sudden."
Michael tossed his cigarette into the dark. "There's something about
this attack that stinks."
"More than the fact that two hundred and fifty people are lying on the
bottom of the Atlantic?"
"That body in the boat makes no sense."
"None of it makes sense."
"And there's something else."
"Oh, Christ. I've been waiting for this."
"The way Mahmoud was shot in the face like that."
They stopped walking. Carter turned and looked up at Osbourne.
"Michael, let me give you a piece of advice. Now is not the time to go
chasing after your Jackal again."
They walked in silence until they reached Michael's car. "Why is it that
you drive a silver Jaguar and live in Georgetown and I drive an Accord
and live in Reston?"
"Because I have better cover than you do, and I'm married to a rich
lawyer."
"You're the luckiest man I know, Osbourne. If I were you I wouldn't fuck
it up."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means what's done is done. Go home and get some sleep."
MICHAEL'S FATHER ended up hating the Agency, but somewhere along the
line, whether it was his intention or not, he created in his son the
makings of a perfect intelligence officer. Michael came to the attention
of the Agency during his junior year at Dartmouth. The talent spotter
was a professor of American literature who had worked for the Agency in
Berlin after the Second World War. He saw in the ragged, bearded college
student the makings of a perfect field
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