The Mark of the Assassin Read Online Free PDF

raincoat and stepped outside the warmth of the car into the storm. She threw up her umbrella and started across the parking lot, but the wind gusted and ripped it from her grasp. She watched it for a moment, tumbling toward Reservoir Road. Something about it made her laugh helplessly. She clutched her raincoat tightly against her throat and hurried across the parking lot through the rain.
     
    “The doctor is running a few minutes behind schedule.”
    The receptionist smiled, as though it was the most interesting thing she’d said all day. Elizabeth went inside, removed her wet raincoat, and sat down. She was the last patient of the afternoon and, thankfully, she was alone. The last thing she wanted now was to make idle conversation with another woman suffering from the same problem. Rain pattered against the window overlooking the parking lot. She turned and peered out. A line of trees shed leaves to the onslaught of the wind. She looked for Michael’s Jaguar but saw no sign of it.
    She reached in her bag and removed one of her pocket cellular telephones—she carried two with her at all times to make certain she could conduct two conversations at once—and punched in Michael’s number. Again, there was no answer. She wanted to phone his office, but if he was still at Langley he would never make it in time anyway.
    She stood up and slowly paced the room. It was at times like these that Elizabeth Osbourne detested the fact that she was married to a spy. Michael hated it when she called him a spy. He patiently explained he was a case officer, not a spy. She thought it was a silly term for what Michael did. “It sounds as if you’re some kind of counselor or social worker,” Elizabeth had said, the night Michael tried to explain his work to her for the first time. He smiled his careful smile and replied, “Well, that’s not very far from the truth.”
    She had fallen in love with Michael before she learned he worked for the CIA. A friend had invited her sailing on the Chesapeake, and Michael had been invited too. It was a sweltering day in late July with very little wind. As the boat drifted over the still water, Elizabeth and Michael lay in the shade of the limp sails, drinking icy beer and talking. Unlike most men in Washington, he spoke little about his work. He said he was an international business consultant, he had lived in London for a number of years, and he had just transferred to the firm’s Washington office.
    That night they ate crab cakes and drank cold white wine at a small waterfront restaurant in Annapolis. She found herself staring at him throughout the meal. He was simply the most beautiful man she had ever seen. The day of sailing had changed him. The sun had tanned his skin and left streaks of gold in his dark hair. His eyes were deep green, flecked with yellow, like wild summer grass. He had a long, straight nose, and several times she had to restrain herself from reaching out and touching his perfect lips. She thought he was rather exotic-looking, like an Italian or a Turk or a Spaniard.
    He followed her back into the city that night along Route 50, and she took him home to her bed. She was thirty-four years old and had almost given up on the idea of marriage. But that night, taking him inside her body for the first time, she fell desperately and hopelessly in love with a man who she had met just eight hours earlier and about whom she knew next to nothing.
     
    He told her two months later, during a long weekend alone at her father’s summer home on Shelter Island. It was late September. The days were warm, but at night when the wind came up there was a bite of autumn in the air. After dinner they put on sweaters and long pants and drank coffee in Adirondack chairs on the beach.
    “I need to talk to you about my work,” he said without warning, and even in the dying twilight she could see his face had gone suddenly serious. His work had been troubling her for weeks. She found it odd that he