“I’ll be particularly pleased to give your hundred dollars to the Republican Party today,” Florentyna said. “Nothing would give me more pleasure than seeing Parkin and Brooks bite the dust.”
Florentyna sighed as she hit a bad short iron from the tee toward the tenth green.
“I’m far from beaten yet,” said Edward.
Florentyna ignored him. “What a waste my years in government have been,” she said.
“No, I can’t agree with that,” said Edward, still practicing his swings. “Eight years in Congress, a further seven in the Senate and ending up the first woman Vice President. And I suspect history will ultimately record your role over the invasion of Pakistan far more accurately than Parkin has felt necessary. Even if you have achieved less than you’d hoped, you’ve made the task a lot easier for the next woman who wants to go the whole way. Ironically I believe if you were the Democratic candidate at the next election, you would win easily.”
“The public opinion polls certainly agree with you.” Florentyna tried to concentrate, but sliced her tee shot. “Damn,” she said as her ball disappeared into the woods.
“You’re not at the top of your game today, V.P.,” said Edward. He proceeded to win the tenth and eleventh holes but then threw away the twelfth and thirteenth with overanxious putts.
“I think we should build a Baron in Moscow,” said Florentyna when they had reached the fourteenth green. “That was one of my father’s greatest dreams. Did I ever tell you that the minister for tourism, Mikhail Zokovlov, has long been trying to interest me in the idea? I have to go on that frightful culture trip to Moscow next month, which will be a wonderful opportunity to discuss the idea with him in detail. Thank God for the Bolshoi Ballet, borscht and caviar. At least they’ve never tried to get me in bed with some handsome young man.”
“Not while they know about our golf deal,” chuckled Edward.
They split the fourteenth and fifteenth and Edward won the sixteenth hole. “We are about to discover what you are like under pressure,” said Florentyna.
Edward proceeded to lose the seventeenth by missing a putt of only three feet, so that the match rested on the last hole. Florentyna drove well, but Edward, thanks to a lucky bounce off the edge of a small rise, came within a few feet of her. He put his second shot only twenty yards from the green and found it hard to suppress a smile as they walked down the center of the fairway together.
“You have a long way to go yet, Edward” said Florentyna as she sent her ball flying into a sand trap.
Edward laughed.
“I would remind you how good I am with a sand wedge and putter,” said Florentyna, and proved her point by pitching the ball only four feet from the hole.
Edward chipped up from twenty yards to within six feet.
“This may be the last chance you’ll ever have,” she said.
Edward held his putter firmly and jabbed at the ball and watched it teeter on the edge of the hole before disappearing into the cup. He threw his club high into the air and cheered.
“You haven’t won yet,” said Florentyna, “but no doubt it will be the nearest you’ll ever get.” She steadied herself as she checked the line between ball and hole. If she sank her putt, the match was halved and she was off the hook.
“Don’t let the helicopters distract you,” said Edward.
“The only thing that is distracting me, Edward, is you. Be warned, you will not succeed. Since the rest of my life depends on this shot, you can be assured I shall not make a mistake. In fact,” she said, taking a step back, “I shall wait until the helicopters have passed over.”
Florentyna stared up into the sky and waited for the four helicopters to fly past. Their chopping noise grew louder and louder.
“Did you have to go to quite such lengths to win, Edward?” she asked as one of the helicopters began to descend.
“What the hell is going on?” said Edward anxiously.
“I have no idea,” said Florentyna. “But I suspect we are about to find out.”
Her skirt whipped around her legs as the first helicopter landed a few yards off the green of the eighteenth hole. Even as the blades continued to rotate an army colonel leaped out and rushed over to Florentyna. A second officer jumped out and stood by the helicopter, holding a small black briefcase. Florentyna and Edward stared at the colonel as he stood to attention and saluted.
“Madam President,” he said. “The President is dead.”
Florentyna clenched her hand into a tight fist as the eighteenth hole was surrounded by agents from the Secret Service. She glanced again at the black nuclear command briefcase which was now her sole responsibility, the trigger she hoped she would never have to pull. She was reminded that moment what real responsibility meant.
“How did it happen?” she asked calmly.
The colonel continued in clipped tones. “The President returned from his morning jog and retired to his room to shower and change for breakfast. It was over twenty minute before any of us felt that something might be wrong so I was sent to check, but it was already too late. The doctor said he must have had a massive coronary. He had had two minor heart attacks during the last year, but on both occasions we managed to keep them out of the press.”
“How many people know of his death?”
“Three members of his personal staff, his doctor, Mrs. Parkin and the attorney general, whom I informed immediately. On his instructions, I was detailed to find you and see that the oath of office is administered as quickly as is convenient. I am then to accompany you to the White House, where the attorney general is waiting to announce the details of the President’s death. The attorney general hopes that these arrangements meet with your approval.”
“Thank you, Colonel. We’d better return to my home immediately.”
Florentyna, accompanied by Edward, the colonel, the officer with the black box and four Secret Service agents, climbed aboard the army aircraft. As the chopper whirled up into the air, Florentyna gazed down at the eighteenth green where her ball, a diminishing white speck, remained four feet from the hole. A few minutes later, the helicopter landed on the grass in front of Florentyna’s Cape Cod house while the other three remained hovering overhead.
Florentyna led them all into the living room, where young Richard was playing with his father and Bishop O’Reilly, who had flown in for a quiet weekend.
“Why are there helicopters flying over the house, Grandma?” Richard asked.
Florentyna explained to her grandson what had happened. William and Joanna rose from their chairs, not sure what to say.
“What do we do next, Colonel?” asked Florentyna.
“We’ll need a Bible,” said the colonel, “and the oath of office.”
Florentyna went to her study table in the corner of the room and from the top drawer took out Miss Tredgold’s Bible. A copy of the Presidential oath was not as easy to find. Edward thought it might be in Theodore White’s The Making of the President: 1972, which he remembered was in the library. He was right.
The colonel phoned the attorney general and checked that the wording was correct. Pierre Levale then spoke to Bishop O’Reilly and explained how he should administer the oath.
In the living room of her Cape Cod home, Florentyna Kane stood beside her family, with Colonel Max Perkins and Edward Winchester acting as witnesses. She took the Bible in her right hand and repeated the words after Bishop O’Reilly.
“I, Florentyna Kane, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Thus Florentyna Kane became the forty-third President of the United States.
William was the first to congratulate his mother and then they all tried to join in at once.
“I think we should leave for Washington, Madam President,” the colonel suggested a few minutes later.
“Of course,” Florentyna turned to the o
ld family priest. “Thank you, Your Excellency,” she said. But the bishop did not reply; for the first time in his life, the little Irishman was lost for words. “I shall need you to perform another ceremony for me in the near future.”
“And what might that be, my dear?”
“As soon as we have a free weekend Edward and I are going to be married.” Edward looked even more surprised and delighted than he had at the moment he heard Florentyna had become President. “I remembered a little too late,” she continued, “that if you fail to complete a hole in match-play competition, it is automatically awarded to your opponent.”
Edward took her in his arms as Florentyna said, “My darling, I will need your wisdom and your strength, but most of all your love.”
“You’ve already had them for nearly forty years, V.P. I mean…”
Everyone laughed.
“I think we should leave now, Madam President,” the colonel prompted. Florentyna nodded in agreement as the phone rang.
Edward walked over to the desk and picked it up. “It’s Ralph Brooks. Says he needs to speak to you urgently.”
“Would you apologize to the Secretary of State, Edward, and explain I am not available at the moment.” Edward was about to convey the message when she added, “And ask him if he would be kind enough to join me at the White House immediately.”
Edward smiled as the forty-third President of the United States walked toward the door. The colonel accompanying her pressed a switch on his two-way radio and spoke softly into it: “Baroness returning to Crown. The contract has been signed.”
Also by Jeffrey Archer
Novels
Paths of Glory
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less
Shall We Tell the President?
Kane & Abel
The Prodigal Daughter
First Among Equals
A Matter of Honor
As the Crow Flies
Honor Among Thieves
The Fourth Estate
The Eleventh Commandment
Sons of Fortune
False Impression
The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot
(with the assistance of Professor Francis J. Moloney)
A Prisoner of Birth
Short Stories
A Quiver Full of Arrows
A Twist in the Tale
Twelve Red Herrings
The Collected Short Stories
To Cut a Long Story Short
Cat O’Nine Tales
Screenplays
Mallory: Walking Off the Map
Plays
Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Exclusive
The Accused
Prison Diaries
Volume One: Hell
Volume Two: Purgatory
Volume Three: Heaven
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“Jesse” by Janis Ian, © 1972, 1973, Frank Music Corp. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER
Copyright © 1982 by Jeffrey Archer.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-5409-9
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Sins of the Father
Jeffrey Archer
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1
“MY NAME IS Harry Clifton.”
“Sure, and I’m Babe Ruth,” said Detective Kolowski as he lit a cigarette.
“No,” said Harry, “you don’t understand, there’s been a terrible mistake. I’m Harry Clifton, an Englishman from Bristol. I served on the same ship as Tom Bradshaw.”
“Save it for your lawyer,” said the detective, exhaling deeply and filling the small cell with a cloud of smoke.
“I don’t have a lawyer,” protested Harry.
“If I was in the trouble you’re in, kid, I’d consider having Sefton Jelks on my side to be about my only hope.”
“Who’s Sefton Jelks?”
“You may not have heard of the sharpest lawyer in New York,” said the detective as he blew out another plume of smoke, “but he has an appointment to see you at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, and Jelks don’t leave his office unless his bill has been paid in advance.”
“But—” began Harry, as Kolowski banged the palm of his hand on the cell door.
“So when Jelks turns up tomorrow morning,” Kolowski continued, ignoring Harry’s interruption, “you’d better come up with a more convincing story than we’ve arrested the wrong man. You told the immigration officer that you were Tom Bradshaw, and if it was good enough for him, it’s going to be good enough for the judge.”
The cell door swung open, but not before the detective had exhaled another plume of smoke that made Harry cough. Kolowski stepped out into the corridor without another word and slammed the door behind him. Harry collapsed on to a bunk that was attached to the wall and rested his head on a brick-hard pillow. He looked up at the ceiling and began to think about how he’d ended up in a police cell on the other side of the world on a murder charge.
The door opened long before the morning light could creep through the bars of the window and into the cell. Despite the early hour, Harry was wide awake.
A warder strolled in carrying a tray of food that the Salvation Army wouldn’t have considered offering a penniless hobo. Once he’d placed the tray on the little wooden table, he left without a word.
Harry took one look at the food before beginning to pace up and down. With each step, he grew more confident that once he explained to Mr. Jelks the reason he’d exchanged his name with Tom Bradshaw, the matter would quickly be sorted out. Surely the worst punishment they could exact would be to deport him, and as he’d always intended to return to England and join the navy, it all fitted in with his original plan.
At 8:55 a.m., Harry was sitting on the end of the bunk, impatient for Mr. Jelks to appear. The massive iron door didn’t swing open until twelve minutes past nine. Harry leaped up as a prison guard stood to one side and allowed a tall, elegant man with silver gray hair to enter. Harry thought he must have been about the same age as Grandpa. Mr. Jelks wore a dark blue pinstripe, double-breasted suit, a white shirt and a striped tie. The weary look on his face suggested that little would surprise him.
“Good morning,” he said, giving Harry a faint smile. “My name is Sefton Jelks. I am the senior partner of Jelks, Myers and Abernathy, and my clients, Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw, have asked me to represent you in your upcoming trial.”
Harry offered Jelks the only chair in his cell, as if he was an old friend who had dropped in to his study at Oxford for a cup of tea. He perched on the bunk and watched the lawyer as he opened his briefcase, extracted a yellow pad and placed it on the table.
Jelks took a pen from an inside pocket and said, “Perhaps you might begin by telling me who you are, as we both know you’re not Lieutenant Bradshaw.”
If the lawyer was surprised by Harry’s story he showed no sign of it. Head bowed, he wrote copious notes on his yellow pad while Harry explained how he’d ended up spending the night in jail. Once he’d finished, Harry assumed his problems must surely be over, as he had such a senior lawyer on his side—that was, until he heard Jelks’s first question.
“You say that you wrote a letter to your mother while you were on board the Kansas Star, explaining why you had assumed Tom Brads
haw’s identity?”
“That’s correct, sir. I didn’t want my mother to suffer unnecessarily, but at the same time I needed her to understand why I’d made such a drastic decision.”
“Yes, I can understand why you might have considered that changing your identity would solve all your immediate problems, while not appreciating that it could involve you in a series of even more complicated ones,” said Jelks. His next question surprised Harry even more. “Do you recall the contents of that letter?”
“Of course. I wrote and rewrote it so many times I could reproduce it almost verbatim.”
“Then allow me to test your memory,” Jelks said and, without another word, tore off a sheet from his yellow pad and handed it and his fountain pen to Harry.
Harry spent some time recalling the exact words, before he set about rewriting the letter.
My dearest mother,
I have done everything in my power to make sure you receive this letter before anyone can tell you that I died at sea. As the date on this letter shows, I did not perish when the Devonian was sunk on September 4th. In fact, I was plucked out of the sea by a sailor from an American ship and thanks to him, I’m still very much alive. However, an unexpected opportunity arose for me to assume another man’s identity, and I did so willingly, in the hope it would release Emma from the many problems I seem to have unwittingly caused her and her family over the years.
It is important that you realize my love for Emma has in no way diminished; far from it. I cannot believe I shall ever experience such love again. But I do not feel I have the right to expect her to spend the rest of her life clinging on to the vain hope that at some time in the future I might be able to prove that Hugo Barrington is not my father, and that I am, in fact, the son of Arthur Clifton. At least this way, she can consider a future with someone else. I envy that man.
I plan to return to England on the first available ship, so should you receive any communication from a Tom Bradshaw, you can assume it’s me. I’ll be in touch with you the moment I set foot in Bristol, but in the meantime, I must beg you to keep my secret as steadfastly as you kept your own for so many years.
The Prodigal Daughter Page 48