The Eleventh Commandment (1998) Read online

  The two men spent the rest of the short journey preparing for the meeting that was about to take place in the Oval Office. The President’s helicopter landed on the South Lawn, and neither of them spoke as they made their way towards the White House. Lawrence’s secretary was waiting anxiously by the door.

  ‘Good morning, Ruth,’ the President said for the third time that day. Both of them had been up for most of the night.

  At midnight the Attorney-General had arrived unannounced and told Ruth Preston that he had been summoned to attend a meeting with the President. It wasn’t in his diary. At two a.m. the President, Mr Lloyd and the Attorney-General had left for the Walter Reed Hospital - but again, there was no mention of the visit in the diary, or of the name of the patient they would be seeing. They returned an hour later and spent another ninety minutes in the Oval Office, the President having left instructions that they were not to be disturbed. When Ruth arrived back at the White House at ten past eight that morning, the President was already on his way to Andrews air base to say farewell to Zerimski.

  Although he was wearing a different suit, shirt and tie from when she had last seen him, Ruth wondered if her boss had gone to bed at all that night.

  ‘What’s next, Ruth?’ he asked, knowing only too well.

  ‘Your ten o’clock appointment has been waiting in the lobby for the past forty minutes.’

  ‘Have they? Then you’d better send them in.’

  The President walked into the Oval Office, opened a drawer in his desk and removed two sheets of paper and a cassette tape. He placed the paper on the blotter in front of him and inserted the cassette in the recorder on his desk. Andy Lloyd came in from his office, carrying two files under his arm. He took his usual seat by the side of the President.

  ‘Have you got the affidavits?’ asked Lawrence.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lloyd replied.

  There was a knock on the door. Ruth opened it and announced, ‘The Director and Deputy Director of the CIA.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr President,’ said Helen Dexter brightly, as she entered the Oval Office with her Deputy a pace behind. She too had a file under her arm.

  Lawrence did not return her salutation.

  ‘You’ll be relieved to know,’ continued Dexter, as she took a seat in one of the two vacant chairs opposite the President, ‘that I was able to deal with that problem we feared might arise during the visit of the Russian President. In fact, we have every reason to believe that the person in question no longer represents a threat to this country.’

  ‘Could that possibly be the same person I had a chat with on the phone a few weeks ago?’ asked Lawrence, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘I’m not quite sure I understand you, Mr President,’ said Dexter.

  ‘Then allow me to enlighten you,’ said Lawrence. He leaned forward and pressed the ‘Play’ button of the tape recorder on his desk.

  ‘I felt I had to call and let you know just how important I consider this assignment to be. Because I have no doubt that you’re the right person to carry it out. So I hope you will agree to take on the responsibility.’

  ‘I appreciate your confidence in me, Mr President, and I’m grateful to you for taking the time to phone personally …’

  Lawrence pressed the ‘Stop’ button.

  ‘No doubt you have a simple explanation as to how and why this conversation took place,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not sure I fully understand you, Mr President. The Agency is not privy to your personal telephone conversations.’

  ‘That may or may not be true,’ said the President. ‘But that particular conversation, as you well know, did not emanate from this office.’

  ‘Are you accusing the Agency of …’

  ‘I’m not accusing the Agency of anything. The accusation is levelled at you personally.’

  ‘Mr President, if this is your idea of a joke …’

  ‘Do I look as if I’m laughing?’ asked the President, before hitting the ‘Play’ button again.

  ‘I felt it was the least I could do in the circumstances.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr President. Although Mr Gutenburg assured me of your involvement, and the Director herself called later that afternoon to confirm it, as you know, I still felt unable to take on the assignment unless I was certain that the order had come directly from you.’

  The President leaned forward and once again pressed the ‘Stop’ button.

  ‘There’s more, if you want to hear it.’

  ‘I can assure you,’ said Dexter, ‘that the operation the agent in question was referring to was nothing more than a routine exercise.’

  ‘Are you asking me to believe that the assassination of the Russian President is now considered by the CIA to be nothing more than a routine exercise?’ said Lawrence in disbelief.

  ‘It was never our intention that Zerimski should be killed,’ said Dexter sharply.

  ‘Only that an innocent man would hang for it,’ the President retorted. A long silence followed before he added, ‘And thus remove any proof that it was also you who ordered the assassination of Ricardo Guzman in Colombia.’

  ‘Mr President, I can assure you that the CIA had nothing to do with …’

  ‘That’s not what Connor Fitzgerald told us earlier this morning,’ said Lawrence.

  Dexter was silent.

  ‘Perhaps you’d care to read the affidavit he signed in the presence of the Attorney-General.’

  Andy Lloyd opened the first of his two files and passed Dexter and Gutenburg copies of an affidavit signed by Connor Fitzgerald and witnessed by the Attorney-General. As the two of them began reading the statement, the President couldn’t help noticing that Gutenburg was sweating slightly.

  ‘Having taken advice from the Attorney-General, I have authorised the SAIC to arrest you both on a charge of treason. If you are found guilty, I am advised that there can only be one sentence.’

  Dexter remained tight-lipped. Her Deputy was now visibly shaking. Lawrence turned to him.

  ‘Of course it’s possible, Nick, that you were unaware that the Director hadn’t been given the necessary executive authority to issue such an order.’

  ‘That is absolutely correct, sir,’ Gutenburg blurted out. ‘In fact she led me to believe that the instruction to assassinate Guzman had come directly from the White House.’

  ‘I thought you’d say that, Nick,’ said the President. ‘And if you feel able to sign this document’ - he pushed a sheet of paper across the desk - ‘the Attorney-General has indicated to me that the death sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment.’

  ‘Whatever it is, don’t sign it,’ ordered Dexter.

  Gutenburg hesitated for a moment, then removed a pen from his pocket and signed his name between the two pencilled crosses below his one-sentence resignation as Deputy Director of the CIA, effective nine a.m. that day.

  Dexter glared at him with undisguised contempt. ‘If you’d refused to resign, they wouldn’t have had the nerve to go through with it. Men are so spineless.’ She turned back to face the President, who was pushing a second sheet of paper across the desk, and glanced down to read her own one-sentence resignation as Director of the CIA, also effective nine a.m. that day. She looked up at Lawrence and said defiantly, ‘I won’t be signing anything, Mr President. You ought to have worked out by now that I don’t frighten that easily.’

  ‘Well, Helen, if you feel unable to take the same honourable course of action as Nick,’ said Lawrence, ‘when you leave this room you’ll find two Secret Service agents on the other side of the door, with instructions to arrest you.’

  ‘You can’t bluff me, Lawrence,’ said Dexter, rising from her chair.

  ‘Mr Gutenburg,’ said Lloyd, as she began walking towards the door, leaving the unsigned sheet of paper on the desk, ‘I consider life imprisonment, with no hope of parole, too high a price to pay in the circumstances. Especially if you were being set up, and didn’t even know what was going on.’

  Gu