The Marching Season (18 page)

“When I approved Operation Kettledrum, gentlemen, I didn’t expect it would come at a price like this,” Blair said, without waiting for introductions. “My God, two E-Four officers and two SAS men dead.”

Michael and Graham remained silent, waiting for the prime minister to continue.

“The whole of Northern Ireland is going to awaken to this news in a few minutes, and when it does the Catholic community is going to react strongly.”

Graham cleared his throat. “Prime Minister, I assure you—”

“I’ve heard your assurances, gentlemen, but what I want now are results. If the peace process is to survive, we must get the gun out of Irish politics—decommission the paramilitaries. And in this atmosphere, the IRA is never going to give up their weapons.”

“If I may speak, Prime Minister?” Michael said.

Blair nodded briskly. “Please do.”

“The fact that the Ulster Freedom Brigade engaged in an action like this suggests to me they’ve taken the bait. They are planning to assassinate Ambassador Cannon in Norfolk. And if they proceed they will be dealt a devastating blow.”

“Why not arrest Gavin Spencer and this Rebecca Wells woman now? Surely that would deal the Ulster Freedom Brigade a serious blow as well. And it would show the Catholics that we
are
doing something to stop these murderous thugs.”

“The RUC doesn’t have the kind of evidence necessary to produce an airtight case against Spencer,” Graham said. “And as for Rebecca Wells, she’s more valuable to us in the field than she would be behind bars.”

Blair began shuffling papers, a sign the meeting had concluded.

“I’m going to allow this to continue,” he said, then paused for a moment. “Despite what my critics say about me, I don’t often engage in hyperbole. But if this group isn’t stopped, the peace process will be destroyed, truly. Good morning, gentlemen.”

CHAPTER 27

THE NORFOLK COAST, ENGLAND

Hartley Hall stood two miles from the North Sea, just southeast of the town of Cromer. A Norman aristocrat built the first manor house on the site in the thirteenth century. Beneath the present structure, in the labyrinth of cellars and passages, were the original medieval arches and doorways. In 1625, a wealthy merchant from Norwich named Robert Hartley built a Jacobean mansion atop the Norman manor house. To create a barrier between his home and the storms of the North Sea, he planted several thousand trees in the sandy soil along the northern edge of his land, even though he knew it would be generations before the trees reached maturity. The result was the North Wood, two hundred acres of firs, Scots pines, maples, sycamores, and beeches. Ambassador Cannon marveled at the trees as his small motorcade passed through the dark grove. A moment later, Hartley Hall floated into view.

Robert Hartley’s descendant, Sir Nicholas Hartley, stepped out of the south porch as the cars pulled into the gravel drive. He was a large man with a barrel chest and a thick forelock of sandy gray hair. A pair of setters scampered at his feet. Douglas climbed out of the second car and walked a few steps across the drive with his right arm extended. The two men shook hands as though Douglas owned the manor house down the road and had been coming to Hartley Hall for fifty years.

Hartley suggested a brief walk, even though it was not quite 40 degrees and the dusk was fading rapidly. He had no job and few interests other than chronicling the history of his ancestral home, and he lectured Douglas intensely as they moved about the grounds. A pair of Special Branch men trailed softly behind them, followed by the dogs.

They admired the Jacobean south front, which had been designed and built by the Norfolk master mason Robert Lyminge. They meandered past the wisteria-covered east wing, with its large traceried windows and Flemish gables. They gazed upon the magnificent orangery, a large interior greenhouse overlooking the parterre where potted orange and lime trees were stored during the cold months. Beyond the walled garden lay the deer park, which once supported a herd of three hundred. They walked south along a footpath, past the stables and a terrace of servants’ cottages. The five-hundred-year-old St. Margaret’s Church stood atop a small promontory, a silhouette against the blue-black twilight. Around it lay the remains of a fifteenth-century village that had been abandoned after an outbreak of plague.

By the time the two men reached the south front again, the last of the dusk was gone. Light shone through the mullion-and-transom windows, illuminating small patches of the gravel drive. They passed through the rusticated door and entered the great hall. Douglas admired the fifteenth-century English stained glass, the portraits of Hartley’s ancestors, and the oak writing table beneath the window. He ingratiated himself with his host by being the first American visitor to correctly identify the table as Flemish Renaissance.

They passed through the dining room, 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:

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 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 by now, the campground nearly empty, just a family of transient travelers and a group of Danish teenagers who were backpacking across Norfolk. The four members of her team were spread throughout other campgrounds along the coast. The tide was running out, and the air had the sharp tang of the mudflats and marshes. Rebecca let herself into the caravan and switched on the portable electric heater. She lit the propane stove, boiled water, and made a pot of Nescafe. She filled a thermos bottle with the coffee and poured the remainder into a ceramic mug. She drank the coffee as she walked along the beach.

It was odd, she thought, but for the first time in a very long while she felt a strange sense of peace. It was this place, she thought: this beautiful, mystical place. She thought how strange it was to pass through a village and see no signs of sectarian conflict: no Union Jacks and Tricolors, no warlike murals or political slogans scrawled on walls, no fortresslike police stations. Her entire life had been consumed by the conflict. Her father had been involved in the Protestant paramilitaries, and she had married a man from the UVF. She had been raised to hate and distrust Catholics. In Portadown, the conflict was everywhere; there was no escaping it. To be Protestant in Portadown had given her life a sense of purpose. She felt her place in history. The rituals of hatred, the cycles of killing and revenge, had provided a macabre sense of order to things.

She thought about what would happen after the assassination. Kyle Blake had provided her with money, a false passport, and a place to lie low in Paris. She knew she would have to remain in hiding for months, if not years. She might never be able to return to Portadown.

She finished the last of her coffee, watching the waves breaking over the beach, phosphorescent in the moonlight. I want to go someplace like this, she thought. I wish I could stay here forever.

She walked back to the caravan through the darkness, let herself inside, and switched on her laptop computer. Using a cellular modem, she connected to her Internet server and composed a brief E-mail message.

I’M HAVING A MARVELOUS TIME HERE IN NORFOLK. THE WEATHER IS COLD BUT QUITE BEAUTIFUL. TODAY, I SPOTTED SEVERAL RARE SPECIES OF BIRDS. I PLAN TO REMAIN HERE FOR A FEW MORE DAYS.

She sent the message and switched off the computer. She picked up the thermos of coffee and a packet of cigarettes. She had a very long drive ahead of her tonight. She let herself out of the caravan and climbed into the Vauxhall. A moment later she was speeding along the A148 toward King’s Lynn, the first leg of her journey to the western coast of Scotland.

“His real name is Oliver Taylor,” Graham Seymour said to Douglas. “But I’d like you to forget you ever heard it. He’s a watcher by trade, aren’t you, Oliver? One of the best, actually.”

“The resemblance is remarkable,” Douglas said, astonished.

“Oliver trains new recruits for the most part now, but we still put him out in the field now and again when we need a real pro. In fact, he spent a little time following the lovely Rebecca Wells, didn’t you, Oliver?”

Taylor nodded.

“Come this way if you would, Ambassador Cannon,” Graham said. “I’d like to show you a few things.”

Graham led Douglas and Michael into a room filled with electronic equipment and video monitors. A pair of technicians acknowledged the presence of the three men and then carried on with their work.

“This is the electronic nerve center of the operation,” Graham said. “The grounds have been littered with infrared surveillance cameras, motion detectors, and heat sensors. When the Ulster Freedom Brigade make their move, we’ll know about it here first.”

“How do you know they’ll try it?” Douglas asked.

“Because Rebecca Wells is in Norfolk,” Graham said. “She’s been here for about three days. She’s staying in a caravan out on the beach a couple of miles away. She was in the North Wood a few minutes ago when you arrived. She knows you’re here.”

“Actually, she’s just left the campground, sir,” one of the technicians said.

“Where’s she headed?”

“West on the coast road.”

“What about the caravan?” Michael asked.

“Still in the campground, sir.”

Graham said, “These men are our scythes, Ambassador Cannon. Let me introduce you to our blunt instruments.”

The Special Air Service is the elite unit of the British armed forces and one of the world’s most respected military organizations. Based in Hereford, about 140 miles northwest of London, it has one active regiment, 22 SAS, and about 550 members. The SAS is an insertion force, designed to operate behind enemy lines. It is divided into four operational squadrons, each with a different specialty: airborne, amphibious, mountain, and assault vehicles. The unit demonstrated its antiterrorist prowess in May 1980, when it successfully ended the siege of the Iranian embassy in London before a worldwide television audience. SAS recruiters seek out soldiers of above-average intelligence who demonstrate the ability to improvise and to act alone. SAS soldiers are notorious for egotism, brashness, and sarcasm, and therefore the SAS is mistrusted by much of the British military establishment. The organization’s motto is “Who dares, wins.” True to form, SAS men deliberately mutilate their own creed, sacrilegiously proclaiming, “Who cares who wins.”

The eight men in the large game room didn’t look much like any soldiers Douglas had ever seen. They had shaggy hair or no hair at all and a few wore drooping mustaches. Two were playing billiards; two more were engaged in a noisy flailing game of table tennis. The rest lay around a wide-screen television, watching a video—
The Double Life of Veronique
—and occasionally pleading for quiet. The billiards game and the Ping-Pong match fell quiet as the SAS men noticed that Douglas was in the room.

“When the Ulster Freedom Brigade makes its move, these men will be waiting for them,” Graham said. “I can assure you it will all be over very quickly. These gentlemen know what happened to their colleagues in County Tyrone the other night. The SAS is a small unit. As you might expect, they’re anxious to make amends.”

“I can understand that,” Douglas said. “But if it is possible to avoid needless bloodshed—”

“They will do their very best to take the terrorists alive,” Michael said. “It depends on how the Ulster Freedom Brigade reacts once they discover they’re walking into a trap.”

“Time to get you out of here, Ambassador Cannon,” Graham said. “You’ve done your bit. I’m afraid the ride home isn’t going to be quite as scenic as the journey here.”

Michael and Douglas parted in the great hall. As they shook hands, Douglas put an arm on his son-in-law’s shoulder and said, “Take care of yourself, Michael.”

Graham led Douglas through the house to a service entrance. A paneled van waited outside the door, engine idling. The name of a local catering service was stenciled on the side. Douglas climbed in and sat down in a special chair that had been anchored in the rear storage compartment. He winked. Graham closed the rear doors, and the van sped away.