He left his study and strode down the long marble corridor of the newly commandeered office block towards the open door, his entourage moving swiftly ahead of him. He paused for a moment on the top step to look down at the gleaming motorcade. He had instructed Party officials that he must always have one more limousine than any previous President.
He climbed into the back of the third car and checked his watch: seven forty-three. The police had cleared the road an hour before so that the motorcade could proceed without encountering a single vehicle travelling in either direction. Holding up the traffic makes the local inhabitants aware that the President is in town, he explained to his Chief of Staff.
The traffic police estimated that the journey, which would normally have taken twenty minutes, should be completed in less than seven. As Zerimski shot through traffic lights of whatever colour and swung across the river, he didn’t even glance in the direction of the Hermitage. Once they reached the other side of the Neva, the driver of the leading car pushed the speedometer up to a hundred kilometres an hour to be sure the President would be on time for his first official engagement that morning.
As he lay on his bunk, the prisoner could hear the guards marching down the stone passageway towards him, the noise of their boots becoming a little louder with each step. He wondered how many of them there would be. They stopped outside his cell. A key turned in the lock and the door swung open. When you have only moments to live, you notice every detail.
Bolchenkov led them in. The prisoner was impressed that he had got back so quickly. He lit a cigarette and inhaled once before offering it to the prisoner. He shook his head. The Chief shrugged his shoulders, ground the cigarette out on the stone floor with his foot, and left to greet the President.
The next person to enter the cell was the priest. He was carrying a large open bible and softly chanting some words that meant nothing to the prisoner. Next were three men he recognised immediately. But this time there was no razor, no needle, just a pair of handcuffs. They stared at him, almost willing him to put up a fight, but to their disappointment he calmly placed his hands behind his back and waited. They slapped on the cuffs and pushed him out of the cell into the corridor. At the end of the long grey tunnel he could just make out a pinprick of sunlight.
The President stepped out of his limousine, to be welcomed by the Chief of Police. It amused him that he had awarded Bolchenkov the Order of Lenin on the same day as he had signed an order to arrest his brother.
Bolchenkov led Zerimski into the yard where the execution would take place. No one suggested removing the President’s fur-lined coat or hat on such a bitterly cold morning. As they crossed the courtyard, the small crowd huddled up against one wall began to applaud. The Chief saw a frown cross Zerimski’s face. The President had expected far more people to turn up to witness the execution of a man who had been sent to kill him.
Bolchenkov had anticipated that this might present a problem, so he leaned over and whispered in the President’s ear, ‘I was instructed to permit only Party members to attend.’ Zerimski nodded. Bolchenkov didn’t add how difficult it had been to drag even the few people present into the Crucifix that morning. Too many of them had heard the stories of how, once you were in, you never got out.
The Chief came to a halt by a plush eighteenth-century chair that Catherine the Great had bought from the estate of the British Prime Minister Robert Walpole in 1779, and that had been requisitioned from the Hermitage the previous day. The President sank into the comfortable seat directly in front of the newly erected gallows.
After only a few seconds Zerimski began fidgeting impatiently as he waited for the prisoner to appear. He looked across at the crowd, and his eyes rested on a young boy who was crying. It didn’t please him.
At that moment the prisoner emerged from the dark corridor into the stark morning light. The bald head covered in dried blood and the thin grey prison uniform made him look strangely anonymous. He appeared remarkably calm for someone who had only a few more moments to live.
The condemned man stared up into the morning sun and shivered as an officer of the guard marched forward, grabbed his left wrist and checked the number: 12995. The officer then turned to face the President and read out the court order.
While the officer went through the formalities, the prisoner looked around the yard. He saw the shivering crowd, most of them wary of moving a muscle for fear that they might be ordered to join him. His eyes settled on the boy, who was still weeping. If they had allowed him to make a will, he would have left everything to that child. He glanced briefly at the scaffold, then settled his gaze on the President. Their eyes met. Although he was terrified, the prisoner held Zerimski’s gaze. He was determined not to let him have the satisfaction of knowing just how frightened he was. If the President had stopped staring back at him and looked down at the ground between his feet, he would have seen for himself.
The officer, having completed his commission, rolled up his scroll and marched away. This was the sign for two of the thugs to come forward, grab one of the prisoner’s arms each, and lead him to the scaffold.
He walked calmly past the President and on towards the gallows. When he reached the first of the wooden steps, he glanced up at the clock tower. Three minutes to eight. Few people, he thought, ever know exactly how long they have left to live. He almost willed the clock to strike. He had waited twenty-eight years to repay his debt. Now, in these final moments, it all came back to him.
It had been a hot, sweaty May morning in Nan Dinh. Someone had to be made an example of, and as the senior officer, he had been singled out. His second-in-command had stepped forward and volunteered to take his place. And, like the coward he was, he had not protested. The Vietcong officer had laughed and accepted the offer, but then decided that both men should face the firing squad the following morning.
In the middle of the night, the same Lieutenant had come to his bedside and said they must try to escape. They would never have another chance. Security at the camp was always lax, because to the north lay a hundred miles of jungle occupied by the Vietcong, and to the south twenty-five miles of impenetrable swamp. Several men had tried their luck with that route before, and their luck had run out.
The Lieutenant said he would rather risk dying in the swamps than face the certainty of death by firing squad. As he stole away into the night, the Captain had reluctantly joined him. When the sun appeared above the horizon a few hours later, the camp was still within sight. Across the stinking, mosquito-infested swamp they could hear the guards laughing as they took turns to fire potshots at them. They had dived below the surface of the swamp, but after only a few seconds they had to come up and struggle on. Eventually, after the longest day of his life, darkness fell. He had begged the Lieutenant to carry on without him, but he had refused.
By the end of the second day, he wished he had been allowed to face the firing squad instead of dying in that godforsaken swamp in that godforsaken country. But on and on the young officer went. For eleven days and twelve nights they didn’t eat, surviving only by drinking from the endless torrents of rain. On the twelfth morning they reached dry land and, delirious from illness and exhaustion, he collapsed. He later learned that for four more days the Lieutenant had carried him through the jungle to safety.
The next thing he recalled was waking in an army hospital.
‘How long have I been here?’ he asked the nurse who was tending him.
‘Six days,’ she said. ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’
‘And my friend?’
‘He’s been up for the past couple of days. He’s already visited you once this morning.’
He fell asleep again, and when he woke he asked the nurse for a pen and paper. He spent the rest of the day sitting in his hospital bed writing and rewriting the citation. When he had made a fair copy, he asked that it should be sent to the commanding officer.
Six months later, he had stood on the White House lawn between Maggie and her father
and had listened to the citation being read out. Lieutenant Connor Fitzgerald stepped forward and the President had awarded him the Medal of Honor.
As he began to mount the steps of the gallows, he thought of the one man who would mourn him when he discovered the truth. He had warned them not to tell him, because if he found out, he would break the contract, give himself up and return to the Crucifix. ‘You must understand,’ he had explained to them, ‘that you are dealing with a totally honourable man. So be sure that the clock has struck eight before he finds out he’s been deceived.’
The first chime sent a shiver through his body, and his thoughts were brought back to the moment.
On the second chime, the little boy who had been crying ran up to the foot of the gallows and fell on his knees.
On the third, the Chief placed a restraining arm on a young Corporal who had taken a step forward to drag the child away.
On the fourth, the prisoner smiled down at Sergei as if he were his only son.
On the fifth, the two thugs pushed him forward so that he was standing directly below the dangling rope.
On the sixth, the hangman placed the noose around his neck.
On the seventh, he lowered his eyes and stared directly at the President of the Russian Republic.
On the eighth, the hangman pulled the lever and the trapdoor opened.
As the body of Christopher Andrew Jackson swung above him, Zerimski began to applaud. Some of the crowd halfheartedly joined in.
A minute later the two thugs carried the lifeless body down from the gallows. Sergei rushed forward to help them lower his friend into the crude wooden coffin that lay on the ground beside the scaffold.
The Chief accompanied the President back to his limousine and the motorcade sped out of the prison gates even before the coffin lid had been nailed down. Four prisoners lifted the heavy casket onto their shoulders and headed towards the graveyard. Sergei walked by their side, out of the yard to a patch of rough ground at the back of the prison. Even the dead were not allowed to escape from the Crucifix.
If Sergei had looked back, he would have seen the rest of the crowd running out through the prison gates before they were slammed shut and the vast wooden bolts pushed back in place.
The pallbearers stopped by the side of an unmarked grave that other prisoners had just finished digging. They dropped the casket unceremoniously into the gaping hole and then, without a prayer or even a moment’s pause, shovelled the recently dug sods of earth on top of it.
The boy didn’t move until they had completed their task. A few minutes later, the guards herded the prisoners back to their cells. Sergei fell on his knees, wondering how long they would allow him to remain by the grave.
A moment later a hand was placed on the boy’s shoulder. He looked up and saw the Chief standing above him. A fair man, he’d once told Jackson.
‘Did you know him well?’ the Chief asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Sergei. ‘He was my partner.’
The Chief nodded. ‘I knew the man he gave his life for,’ he said. ‘I only wish I had such a friend.’
23
‘MRS FITZGERALD is not quite as clever as she thinks she is,’ said Gutenburg.
‘Amateurs rarely are,’ said Helen Dexter. ‘Does that mean you’ve got hold of the video?’
‘No, although I have got a pretty good idea where it is,’ said Gutenburg. He paused. ‘But not exactly where.’
‘Stop being a smartass,’ said Dexter, ‘and get to the point. You don’t need to prove to me how clever you are.’
Gutenburg knew that this was about as near as he would ever get to receiving a compliment from the Director.
‘Mrs Fitzgerald doesn’t realise that her home and office have been bugged for the past month, and that we’ve had agents watching her since the day her husband flew out of Dulles three weeks ago.’
‘So what have you found out?’
‘Not a lot when the individual bits of information are taken in isolation. But if you piece them together, they start making a picture.’ He pushed a file and a tape recorder across the table.
The Director ignored them. ‘Talk me through it,’ she said, beginning to sound a little irritated.
‘During Mrs Fitzgerald’s lunch with Joan Bennett at the Cafe Milano, the conversation was inconsequential until just before she left to return to work. It was then that she asked Bennett a question.’
‘And what was that question?’
‘Perhaps you’d like to hear for yourself.’ The Deputy Director pressed the ‘Play’ button on the tape recorder and sat back.
‘Me too. Black, no sugar.‘ Footsteps could be heard walking away. ‘Joan, I’ve never asked you to break a confidence before, but there’s something I have to know.’
‘I hope I can help, but as I’ve already explained, if it concerns Connor, I’m probably as much in the dark as you are.’
‘Then I need the name of someone who isn’t in the dark.’
There followed a long silence before Joan said, ‘I suggest you look at the guest-list for Connor’s farewell party.’
‘Chris Jackson?’
‘No. Unfortunately, he’s no longer employed by the Company.’
There was another long silence.
‘That smooth little man who left without saying goodbye? The one who said he worked in loss adjustment?’
Gutenburg flicked off the tape.
‘Why did you ever go to that party?’ snapped Dexter.
‘Because you instructed me to find out if Fitzgerald had landed a job that would keep him in Washington. Don’t forget that it was his daughter who gave us the lead that made it possible to convince Thompson that it might not be wise to employ him. I’m sure you recall the circumstances.’
The Director frowned. ‘What happened after Mrs Fitzgerald left the Cafe Milano?’
‘Nothing significant until she returned home that night, when she made several calls - she never makes personal calls from the office - including one to Chris Jackson’s cellphone.’
‘Why would she do that, when she knew he’d left the Company?’
‘They go back a long way. He and Fitzgerald served in Vietnam together. In fact, it was Jackson who recommended Fitzgerald for the Medal of Honor, and who recruited him as an NOC.’
‘Did Jackson tell her about you?’ asked Dexter in disbelief.
‘No, he didn’t have a chance,’ replied Gutenburg. ‘I gave an order to block his cellphone the moment we discovered he was in Russia.’ He smiled. ‘We can, however, still identify who’s been trying to call him, and who he’s been trying to call.’
‘Does that mean you’ve found out who he’s reporting back to?’
‘Jackson has only dialled one number on that line since he landed in Russia, and I suspect he only risked that because it was an emergency.’
‘Who did he call?’ asked Dexter impatiently.
‘An unlisted number at the White House.’
Dexter didn’t even blink. ‘Our friend Mr Lloyd, no doubt.’
‘No doubt,’ replied Gutenburg.
‘Is Mrs Fitzgerald aware that Jackson is reporting directly to the White House?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Gutenburg. ‘Otherwise I suspect she would have tried to contact him herself some time ago.’
Dexter nodded. ‘Then we must make certain that she never finds out.’
Gutenburg showed no emotion. ‘Understood. But I can’t do anything about that until I’ve got my hands on the family video.’
‘What’s the latest status on that?’ asked Dexter.
‘We wouldn’t have progressed an inch if we hadn’t picked up a clue in an intercepted phone call. When Joan Bennett rang Mrs Fitzgerald from Langley at two in the morning to say she’d be with her in an hour, one of my people checked what she’d been calling up on the reference library’s computer. It soon became clear that she must have stumbled on something that made her suspect it was her old boss who was in prison in St Peter
sburg. But, as you know, she never kept her appointment with Mrs Fitzgerald.’
‘A little too close for comfort.’
‘Agreed. But when she failed to turn up, Mrs Fitzgerald drove out to the GW Parkway and waited for the police to dredge up the car.’
‘She probably saw a report on TV, or heard about it on the radio,’ said Dexter.
‘Yes, that’s what we assumed - the story led the local news that morning. Once she knew for certain it was Bennett in the car, she immediately phoned her daughter at Stanford. If she sounds a little sleepy, that’s because it was only five o’clock in the morning in California.’ He leant forward again and touched the ‘Play’ button on the tape recorder.
‘Hi, Tara. It’s Mom.’
‘Hi, Mom. What time is it?’
‘I’m sorry to call so early, darling, but I have some very sad news.’
‘Not Dad?’
‘No, Joan Bennett - she’s been killed in a car crash.’
‘Joan’s dead? I can’t believe it. Tell me it’s not true.’
‘I’m afraid it is. And I have a terrible feeling that in some way it’s connected to the reason Connor hasn’t returned home.’
‘Come on, Mom, aren’t you getting a little paranoid? After all, Dad’s only been away for three weeks.’
‘You may be right, but I’ve still decided to move that video you made of his farewell party to a safer place.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s the only proof I have that your father ever met a man called Nick Gutenburg, let alone worked for him.’
The Deputy Director touched the ‘Stop’ button. ‘The conversation continues for some time, but it doesn’t add a great deal to our knowledge. When Mrs Fitzgerald left the house a few minutes later carrying a videotape, the officer listening in realised the significance of what he’d just heard, and tailed her to the university. She didn’t go straight to the Admissions Office as usual, but dropped in at the library, where she went to the computer section on the first floor. She spent twenty minutes searching for something on one of the computers, and left with a printout of about a dozen pages. Then she took the elevator down to the audio-visual research centre on the ground floor. The officer didn’t want to risk joining her in the elevator, so once he knew which floor she’d stopped at, he went to the computer she’d been working on and tried to call up the last file that had been opened.’
The Eleventh Commandment (1998) Page 21
