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 In fact, we have every reason to believe that the person in question no longer represents a threat to this country.’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
tenburg nodded as Dexter reached the door.
‘I would have thought a sentence of six, perhaps seven years at the most, would be more appropriate in your case. And with a little assistance from the White House, you need only end up serving three to four.’
Dexter stopped dead in her tracks.
‘But that would of course mean your agreeing to …’
‘I’ll agree to anything. Anything,’ Gutenburg spluttered.
‘… to testifying on behalf of the prosecution.’
Gutenburg nodded again, and Lloyd extracted a two-page affidavit from the other file resting on his lap. The former Deputy Director spent only a few moments reading the document before scribbling his signature across the bottom of the second page.
The Director rested a hand on the doorknob, hesitated for some time, then turned and walked slowly back to the desk. She gave her former Deputy one last look of disgust before picking up the pen and scrawling her signature between the pencilled crosses.
‘You’re a fool, Gutenburg,’ she said. ‘They would never have risked putting Fitzgerald on the stand. Any half-decent lawyer would have torn him to shreds. And without Fitzgerald, they don’t have a case. As I’m sure the Attorney-General has already explained to them.’ She turned again to leave the room.
‘Helen’s quite right,’ said Lawrence, retrieving the three documents and handing them to Lloyd. ‘If the case had ever reached the courts, we could never have put Fitzgerald on the stand.’
Dexter stopped in her tracks for a second time, the ink not yet dry on her resignation.
‘Sadly,’ said the President, ‘I have to inform you that Connor Fitzgerald died at seven forty-three this morning.’
BOOK FOUR
THE QUICK AND THE DEAD
36
THE CORTEGE continued its slow progress over the brow of the hill.
Arlington National Cemetery was packed for a man who had never sought public recognition. The President of the United States stood on one side of the grave, flanked by the White House Chief of Staff and the Attorney-General. Facing them was a woman who hadn’t raised her head for the past forty minutes. On her right stood her daughter; on her left her future son-in-law.
The three of them had flown over from Sydney two days after receiving a personal telephone call from the President. The large crowd assembled at the graveside could not have left Maggie Fitzgerald in any doubt how many friends and admirers Connor had left behind.
At a meeting the previous day at the White House, Tom Lawrence had told the widow that Connor’s last words had been of his love for her and his daughter. The President went on to say that although he had only met her husband once, he would remember him for the rest of his life. ‘This from a man who meets a hundred people a day,’ Tara had written in her diary that evening.
A few paces behind the President stood the newly appointed Director of the CIA and a group of men and women who had no intention of reporting to work that day. They had travelled from the four corners of the earth to be there.
A tall, heavily-built man without a hair on his head stood slightly to one side of the other mourners, weeping uncontrollably. No one present would have believed that the most ruthless gangsters in South Africa would have been delighted to know that Carl Koeter was out of the country, if only for a couple of days.
The FBI and the Secret Service were also present in large numbers. Special Agent William Braithwaite stood at the head of a dozen sharpshooters, any one of whom would have been satisfied to end their careers regarded as the successor to Connor Fitzgerald.
Higher up the slope of the hill, filling the cemetery as far as the eye could see, were relatives from Chicago, academics from Georgetown, bridge players, Irish dancers, poets and people from every walk of life. They stood with their heads bowed in memory of a man they had loved and respected.
The cortege came to a halt on Sheridan Drive, a few yards from the graveside. The eight-man honour guard lifted the coffin from the gun carriage, raised it onto their shoulders and began the slow march towards the grave. The coffin was draped in the American flag, and resting on top were Connor’s battle ribbons. The Medal of Honor lay in the centre. When the pallbearers reached the graveside they lowered the coffin gently to the ground, and joined the other mourners.
Father Graham, who had been the Fitzgeralds’ family priest for over thirty years, raised his arms in the air.
‘My friends,’ he began. ‘Priests are often called upon to sing the praises of parishioners who have passed away, with whom they were barely acquainted and whose achievements were not always apparent. But this cannot be said of Connor Fitzgerald. As a student, he will be remembered as one of the finest quarterbacks the University of Notre Dame has ever produced. As a soldier, no feeble words of mine could possibly match the citation written by Captain Christopher Jackson, his platoon commander: “A fearless officer in the face of danger, who always placed his men’s lives before his own.” As a professional he gave almost three decades’ service to his country; you only have to look around to see the high regard in which he was held by his peers. But most of all, as a husband to Maggie and a father to Tara, we will remember him. Our hearts go out to both of them.’
Father Graham lowered his voice. ‘I was lucky enough to count myself among his friends. I had been looking forward to playing bridge with him again over the Christmas holiday - in fact, I was rather hoping to win back the $10 I lost to him in a rubber just before he went away on his last assignment. Dear God, I would happily give everything I possess just to be able once again to lose a game of bridge to him.
‘Sportsman, soldier, professional, lover, father, friend, and for me - although I would never have had the courage to mention it in his presence, simply because he would have laughed at me - hero.
‘Buried not far from you, Connor, is another American hero.’ The elderly priest raised his head. ‘If I were John Fitzgerald Kennedy, I would be proud to be buried in the same cemetery as Connor Fitzgerald.’
The pallbearers stepped forward and lowered the coffin into the grave. Father Graham made the sign of the cross, bent down, picked up a handful of earth and scattered it on the coffin.
‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ intoned the priest as a lone Marine bugler played Taps. The honour guard folded the flag from the coffin until it ended as a neat triangle in the hands of the youngest cadet, a boy of eighteen who, like Connor, had been born in Chicago. Normally he would have presented it to the widow with the words, ‘Ma’am, on behalf of the President of the United States.’ But not today. Today he marched in a different direction. Seven Marines raised their rifles in the air and fired a twenty-one-gun salute as the young cadet stood to attention in front of the President of the United States, and surrendered the flag.
Tom Lawrence received it, walked slowly around to the other side of the grave and stood before the widow. Maggie raised her head and tried to smile as the President presented her with the standard of the nation.
‘On behalf of a grateful country, I pass to you the flag of the Republic. You are surrounded by friends who knew your husband well. I only wish I’d had that privilege.’ The President bowed his head and returned to the other side of the grave. As the Marine band struck up the national anthem, he placed his right hand over his heart.
No one moved until Maggie had been escorted by Stuart and Tara to the entrance of the cemetery. She stood there for almost an hour, shaking hands with every mourner who had attended the ceremony.
Two men who had remained on the top of the hill throughout the service had flown in from Russia the previous day. They had not come to mourn. They would return to St Petersburg on the evening flight, and report that their services were no longer required.
37
AIR FORCE ONE was surrounded by tanks when the President of the United States landed at Moscow airport.
President Zerimski left us in no doubt that he had little interest in giving Tom Lawrence a photo opportunity for the folks back home.
Nor were there the usual ‘Welcome to Russia’ speeches delivered from a podium on the runway.
As a grim-faced Lawrence descended the aircraft’s steps, he was greeted by the sight of Marshal Borodin standing in the turret of a tank.
When the two Presidents eventually met at the Kremlin later this morning, the first item on the agenda was President Zerimski’s demand that the NATO forces which patrol Russia’s western borders be immediately withdrawn. Following the heavy defeat of his Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Conventional Arms Reduction Bill in the Senate, and the Ukraine’s voluntary return to the Soviet Union, President Lawrence knows that he is not in a position to give an inch on NATO’s role in Europe, especially since the newly elected Senator Helen Dexter keeps describing him as ‘the red stooge’.
Since Senator Dexter’s resignation as Director of the CIA last year, in order to ‘more openly oppose the President’s misguided foreign policy’, there is already talk on the Hill of her becoming the first woman President.
At this morning’s preliminary talks in the Kremlin,
President Zerimski made no pretence of …
Stuart looked up from the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald as Maggie walked into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a sweater. They had been living in the same house for over six months, and he had never seen her with a hair out of place.
‘Good morning, Stuart,’ she said. ‘Anything interesting in the paper?’
‘Zerimski’s still flexing his muscles at the slightest opportunity,’ Stuart replied. ‘And your President is having to put a brave face on it. At least, that’s the view of the Russian correspondent of the Herald.’
‘Zerimski would drop a nuclear bomb on the White House if he thought he could get away with it,’ said Maggie. ‘Isn’t there any brighter news to tell me on a Saturday morning?’
‘The Prime Minister has announced the date for the election of our first President.’
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