The Mark of the Assassin

  “I still need some clothes,” Michael said.

  “Make a list, and I’ll send someone.”

  “I need to get some air. I need to do something. If I have to spend the next twelve hours locked up in a safe flat watching television, I’m going to go fucking stir-crazy.”

  Wheaton picked up the receiver of his internal telephone, clearly annoyed, and murmured a few unintelligible words into the mouthpiece. A moment later two officers appeared in the door, dressed in matching light gray suits.

  “Gentlemen, Mr. Osbourne would like to spend the afternoon at Harrods. Make sure nothing happens to him.”

  “Why don’t you just send a few of the Marine guards in full uniform?” Michael said. “And actually, Marks and Spencer will be just fine.”

  They took a taxi to Oxford Street, one officer next to Michael on the bench, the other squeezed onto a jump seat. Michael went into Marks & Spencer and purchased two pairs of corduroy trousers, two turtleneck cotton pullovers, a gray woolen sweater, underwear and socks, and a dark green waterproof coat. The watchers trailed after him, picking through stacks of sweaters and rows of suits like a pair of communists on their first voyage to the capitalist West. Next he went to a chemist’s shop and bought a new shaving kit: razors, shaving cream, toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant. He wanted to walk, so he carried his things along Oxford Street, gazing in shop windows like a bored businessman killing time, instinctively checking his tail for signs of surveillance. He saw no one but the Agency men, twenty yards behind.

  Gentle rain fell. Dusk descended like a veil. Michael picked his way through the crowds pouring in and out of the Tottenham Court Road tube stop. Late-autumn evening in London; he loved the smell of it. Rain on pavement. Diesel fumes. Lager and cigarettes in the pubs. He remembered nights like these when he would leave his office, dressed in a blue suit and salesman’s tan overcoat, and go to Soho to find Sarah at her coffeehouse or wine bar, surrounded by her dancers or her writers or her actors. Michael was an outsider in their world—a symbol of convention and everything they despised—yet in their presence Sarah focused only on him. She flaunted the romantic regulations of her clan. She held his hand. She kissed his mouth. She shared whispered intimacies and refused to divulge them when pressed.

  Michael, crossing Shaftesbury Avenue, wondered how much was real and how much was invention. Had she ever loved him? Was it an act from the first moment? Why did she tell the Russians she wanted out? He pictured Sarah in her appalling flat, body rising to him in candlelight, long hair falling over her breasts. He smelled her hair, her breath, tasted salt on translucent skin. Their lovemaking had been religious; if it was a complete lie, then Sarah Randolph was the finest agent he had ever encountered.

  He wondered whether she had learned anything of value. Perhaps he should have declared her to Personnel. They would have looked into her background, put her under surveillance, spotted her meeting with her Russian controller, and the whole thing could have been avoided. He wondered what he would tell Elizabeth. Promise you’ll never lie to me, Michael. You can keep things from me, but never lie to me. I wish I could tell you the truth, he thought, but I’m damned if I know what it is.

  Michael sat down on a bench in Leicester Square and waited for his watchers to catch up. They caught a taxi to the safe flat, located in an offensive white building overlooking Paddington Station. The interior was worse than Michael remembered—stained clubhouse furniture, dusty drapes, plastic cups and dishes in a wartime kitchen. The stink of the rooms reminded Michael of his Dartmouth fraternity house. Wheaton had stocked the fridge with cold cuts and beer from Sainsbury’s. Michael showered and changed into a set of his new clothing. When he emerged, his minders were eating sandwiches and watching English football on a flickering television. Something about the scene depressed him terribly. He needed to telephone Elizabeth in New York, but he knew they would quarrel, and he didn’t want to do it with the Agency listening in.

  “I’m going out,” Michael announced.

  “Wheaton says you’re supposed to stay put,” one of them said, through a mouthful of ham, cheddar, and French bread.

  “I don’t give a damn what Wheaton says. I’m not going to sit here with you two clowns all night.” Michael paused. “Now, we can go together, or I can lose you both in about five minutes, and you’ll have to call Wheaton at home and tell him about it.”

  They drove to Belgravia and parked outside the Seymours’ apartment in Eaton Place. The watchers waited in the Agency sedan. The street shone with rain and light from the ivory facades of the Georgian terrace. Through the windows Michael could see Helen in her kitchen, attention focused on that evening’s culinary disaster, and Graham upstairs in the drawing room, reading a newspaper. He walked down the steps, wet with rain, and rapped on the paned glass of the kitchen door. Helen opened the door and kissed his cheek. “What a wonderful surprise,” she said.

  “Mind if I impose?”

  “Of course not. I’m making bouillabaisse.”

  “Have enough for one extra?” Michael asked, bile reflexively rising at the back of his throat.

  “But of course, darling,” Helen purred. “Go upstairs and drink with Graham. This attack at Heathrow has upset him terribly. God, what a nasty business that was.”

  “I know,” Michael said. “Unfortunately, I was there.”

  “You’re joking!” she exclaimed. Then she looked at his face and said, “Oh, no, you’re not joking, are you, Michael? You look terrible, poor lamb. The bouillabaisse will make you feel better.”

  When Michael entered the sitting room, Graham looked up and said, “Well, if it isn’t the hero of Heathrow.” He set down his copy of the Evening Standard. The headline read TERROR AT TERMINAL FOUR.

  A plate of brie and coarse country paté sat on the coffee table, next to a large loaf of bread. Graham had devoured half of it. Michael smeared some of the cheese on a piece of bread and looked cautiously at the pâté.

  “Don’t worry, love. I bought it from a shop off Sloane Square. She’s been threatening to learn how to make it at home. Next she’ll start baking bread, and I’ll be finished.”

  In the background Michael could hear the BBC news on Graham’s fine German stereo system. Graham had a perfect ear and probably could have been a concert pianist if the service hadn’t got their hooks into him. His talent had atrophied over the years, like an unspoken second language. He tinkered on his Steinway grand once or twice a week, while Helen murdered his dinner, and he listened to other men play music. Michael could hear a witness describing the blue-suited traveler who killed one terrorist and subdued another.

  “I need to phone Elizabeth, and I didn’t want half of London Station listening in. Mind if I use your telephone?”

  Graham pointed to the telephone on the coffee table.

  Michael said, “I need something a little more private. She’s not going to like what I’m about to tell her.”

  “Bedroom’s down the hall.”

  Michael sat down on the edge of the bed, picked up the telephone, and dialed. Elizabeth answered on the first ring, voice agitated.

  “My God, Michael, where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”

  It was not the way he wanted the conversation to begin. His first instinct was to blame it on the Agency, but Elizabeth had long ago lost patience with excuses about the unique demands of his job.

  “Wheaton told me he’d talked to you. By the time I was able to get to a telephone, you’d already left for New York. Besides, I wanted to use an unmonitored phone.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “With Helen and Graham.”

  Elizabeth had spent a fair amount of time with the Seymours and liked them very much. Two years earlier, when Graham had come to Washington for some counterterrorism liaison work, the four of them had spent a long weekend together at the Shelter Island house.

  “Why aren’t you on your way home? My extraction is scheduled for ten a.m. I need you to be here.”
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  “There are no more flights today. I won’t be able to make it home in time.”

  “Michael, you work for the Central Intelligence Agency. They can get a plane. Tell them the circumstances. I’m sure they’ll be very understanding.”

  “It’s not that simple. Besides, it costs tens of thousands of dollars. They’re not going to do that for me.”

  Elizabeth exhaled heavily. Michael could hear the flick of her cheap lighter, and she stopped talking long enough to light another Benson & Hedges.

  “I’ve been watching CNN all day,” she said, changing subjects abruptly. “They talked to some witnesses who said a passenger took down one of the terrorists and killed another with his own gun. The man they described sounded suspiciously like you.”

  “What did Wheaton tell you?”

  “Oh, no, Michael, I’m not going to let you two get your story straight. What happened? The truth.”

  Michael told her.

  “Jesus Christ! You couldn’t just stay down and wait for it to end? You had to pull some stunt? Play hero and risk your life?”

  “I wasn’t playing hero, Elizabeth. I reacted to a situation. I did what I was trained to do, and I probably saved a few lives as a result.”

  “Well, congratulations. What would you like me to do?” Her voice trembled with emotion. “Stand up and lead the applause for nearly making me a widow?”

  “I didn’t nearly make you a widow.”

  “Michael, I had to listen to a stranger on television describe how one of the terrorists had a gun aimed at your head and how you were able to kill him before he killed you first. Don’t lie to me.”

  “It wasn’t that dramatic.”

  “So why did you kill him?”

  “Because I had no other choice.” Michael hesitated. “And because he deserved to die. I’ve been pursuing people like him for twenty years, but I’ve never had a chance to see them in action. Today, I did. It was worse than I ever could have imagined.”

  He was not playing for sympathy, but his words softened her anger.

  Elizabeth said, “God, I’m sorry. How are you, anyway?”

  “I’m fine. I nearly broke my hand punching him, and somewhere along the line I must have banged my knee because it hurts like hell. But otherwise I’m fine.”

  “Serves you right,” she said, then quickly added, “but I’ll still kiss you all over when I see you tomorrow.”

  Michael hesitated. Elizabeth, radar at full power, said, “You are coming home tomorrow, aren’t you?”

  “Something’s come up. I need to spend another day here.”

  “ ‘Something’s come up.’ Come on, Michael, you can do better than that.”

  “It’s the truth. I wish I could tell you what it was, but I can’t.”

  “Why can’t someone else do it, whatever it is?”

  “Because I’m the only one who can.” Michael paused. “There’s one thing I can tell you—the orders come directly from the President.”

  “I don’t give a damn where the orders come from!” Elizabeth snapped. “You promised me you’d be back in time. Now you’re breaking that promise.”

  “Elizabeth, the situation is out of my control.”

  “That’s bullshit! Nothing is out of your control. You do exactly what you want to do. You always have.”

  “It’s just one extra day, then I’ll be back. I’ll come straight to New York. I’ll be there in time for your implantation.”

  “Well, gosh, Michael, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. Why don’t you stay in London an extra day or two, take in some theater or something?”

  “That’s not fair, Elizabeth, and it’s not helping the situation.”

  “You’re goddamned right it’s not fair.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Whatever you do, Michael, don’t rush back for my sake, because I’m not sure I want to see you right now.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m saying. I’m just angry and hurt and disappointed in you. And I’m scared as hell, and I can’t believe you’re making me go through this alone.”

  “It’s not my choice, Elizabeth. It’s my job. I don’t have any choice.”

  “Yes, you do, Michael. You do have a choice. That’s what frightens me the most.”

  She was quiet for a moment, the hiss of the satellite connection the only sound on the line. Michael had run out of things to say. He wanted to tell her he loved her, tell her he was sorry, but it seemed like a stupid thing to do.

  Finally, Elizabeth said, “When we were on the telephone at Heathrow, before the attack, you said you had something to tell me.”

  Michael thought back through the confusion and violence of the terror at Heathrow and realized he was about to tell her the things he had learned about Sarah. The last thing he wanted to do now was make the situation worse by telling Elizabeth he had been investigating the murder of his former lover.

  “I can’t remember what we were talking about,” he said.

  Elizabeth sighed. “My God, you’re a terrible liar. I thought all you spies were supposed to be good at deceiving people.” She paused, waiting for him to say something, but he had nothing left to say. “Good luck tomorrow, whatever it is you’re doing. I love you.”

  The line went dead. Michael quickly redialed, but when the call went through he received nothing but the annoying blare of a busy signal. He tried again, but it was the same, so he hung up the telephone and went downstairs to face Helen’s dinner.

  “Maybe you should ask Carter to send someone else,” Graham said.

  They were seated outside in the garden, around a wrought-iron table, smoking Graham’s cigarettes. The rain had stopped, and the moon shone intermittently through broken cloud.

  “We can’t send someone else. They asked for me. They know my face. If we try to send someone else, the whole thing will go down the drain.”

  “Ever consider the possibility you’re walking straight into a trap? These are dicey times. The Sword of Gaza might enjoy taking down a company man, especially after the stunt you pulled at Heathrow today.”

  “They gain nothing by killing me. You know as well as I do that they don’t kill indiscriminately. They kill for a reason, and only when they believe it will advance their cause.”

  “I take it Elizabeth is less than thrilled about the situation.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. She doesn’t know what I’m doing tomorrow, but she doesn’t like it.” Michael told him everything. While the nature of their work sometimes mandated professional discretion, there were few personal secrets between them.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, mate. Sounds rather serious to me.”

  “I don’t need a marriage counselor right now. I know I’m fucking up, but I want to hear what Awad has to say.”

  “My experience with these bastards suggests he won’t say anything useful.”

  “He wouldn’t be putting himself in jeopardy if he didn’t have something to tell us.”

  “Why don’t you just snatch the bastard and throw him in jail? Or better yet, see to his expedient demise.”

  “It’s tempting, but we don’t operate like that. Besides, they’ll only hit back harder.”

  “Can’t get much harder than it got today, darling.”

  A siren howled in the direction of Sloane Square. Michael reflexively thought of Sarah.

  Graham said, “Ever find friend Drozdov?”

  Michael nodded.

  “He tell you anything useful?”

  “He was quite helpful, actually. He knew who I was. He told me why Sarah was killed.”

  Michael told him the story. When he finished, Graham said, “Jesus Christ, I’m sorry, Michael. I know how much she meant to you.”

  Michael lit another cigarette. “You didn’t tell anyone from your team that I was planning on paying Drozdov a visit, did you?”

  “Are you kidding? The top floor would have my
ass if they found out. Why do you ask?”

  “Because a couple of clods in a white Ford minivan followed me out there and then saw me to Heathrow.”

  “Not ours. Maybe Wheaton put you under watch.”

  “I’ve considered that possibility.”

  “He’s a sonofabitch, your Wheaton. The gentlemen in the executive suite at Vauxhall Cross can’t wait for the day he heads back to Langley for a victory lap round headquarters.”

  “Did he tell SIS about the meeting with Awad tomorrow?”

  “Not that I know of, and I’d be on the notification list for something like that.”

  “And you’re not going to tell your team about it, are you, Graham?”

  “Of course not. Usual rules apply, darling.” Graham tossed his cigarette into a now-withered flower bed. “You’re not in the market for an experienced wing man are you?”

  “When was the last time you operated in the field?”

  “It’s been awhile; it’s been awhile for you too. But some things you don’t forget. If I were you, I’d want someone watching my back right about now.”

  25

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Paul Vandenberg switched on the television monitors in his office and watched the first feeds of all three network newscasts simultaneously. Each devoted the entire first block of the broadcast to the attack at Heathrow. There were live reports from London, the White House, and the Middle East, and background reports on the Sword of Gaza. The tone of the reports was generally positive, though anonymous European diplomatic sources blamed the United States for attacking the Sword of Gaza bases in the first place. Vandenberg could live with criticism from the Europeans. Congress was on board—even some of the more dovish Democrats like Andrew Sterling, Beckwith’s defeated opponent, had pledged support—and the New York Times and the Washington Post had bestowed their editorial blessings. Still, twenty American civilians coming home from London in body bags were bound to erode some public support for the President’s actions.