The Lure

47 The Judgement

Half-past three in the morning. A stillness in the glacial air blanketing Camp David, its paths now under two feet of snow. Here and there, little oases of light in the dark, illuminating the falling snow. One oasis around Chestnut, where the duty officer sat at a quiet switchboard; another surrounding Elm, little more than a hut, which a Secret Service man was using to escape the Siberian cold. And lights were burning in the lounge of Aspen, where the President, Hazel, the CIA Chief and Harris were spread around armchairs.

‘Executive Order 12333 of 1981. Part two, section eleven. “No person employed in or acting on behalf of the US Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”’ Hazel waved the document she had taken from the library in Hickory, then dropped it on the floor. She was on her fourth coffee of the night; hours of cigar smoke were drying up her throat.

Bull said, ‘Hazel, that’s a presidential ban, not a law. I can overrule it.’

‘But article two, para four of the UN Charter confers peacetime immunity of all people from acts of violence by the citizens, agents or military forces of another nation.’ She paused. ‘We can’t seriously conspire to assassinate innocent people.’

The DCI was starting on his fourth cigar. ‘What do you mean by assassinate?’

‘Come on, Al, you’re not going to give me some legal fudge?’

‘Hazel, the line between legality and illegality can be very thin. But these days we stay rigidly on the right side of it. That’s why precise definitions are fundamental. The NSC, the Department of Justice and the army’s International Law Division have all carried out legal analyses of domestic and international laws on assassination.’

‘And?’

‘The reports are all classified, but the essence is this: terrorist infrastructure is a legitimate target even if the infrastructure happens to be human.’

‘And if the infrastructure consists of nothing but an individual?’

The Director’s voice hardened. ‘If he poses a threat to the security of our country there will be nowhere to hide. I think we demonstrated that in Afghanistan.’

‘I see. So the legal niceties you mentioned, they go by the board.’

‘No, they’re more important than ever; they define us. They’re the difference between the civilised world and the barbarians we’re fighting.’

‘Okay,’ Hazel said. ‘But these aren’t terrorists. They’re innocent citizens. Young people.’ It’s going wrong, she told herself. This isn’t turning out the way I wanted.

Logie Harris said, ‘You surprise me, Ms Baxendale. Why should you care? Since you believe we’re all just animals then, to you, there are no absolute rules. Killing for expediency should be easy as falling off a log.’

Hazel flushed.

Sullivan said, ‘An enemy soldier is an innocent man, doing what he must. And he can be sixteen. It’s down to definitions again. Are they bringing us destruction, does that amount to an undeclared war, and is bumping them off like fighting a pre-emptive war?’

Bull said, ‘Logie, you got an ethical handle on this situation?’

The evangelist nodded. ‘Practically all authorities agree that the Bible sanctions the taking of life in particular circumstances. Whether at an individual level, or at the level of nations, killing is justified in self-defence.’

‘Self-defence?’ Hazel said incredulously. ‘You—’

Bull interrupted, ‘But as Hazel says, these are innocent people.’

Harris’s face was adopting the old dogmatic expression, the turned-down mouth, the fixed expression. ‘They are not. They’re emissaries of Satan and are only too willing to bring his message and insinuate it into our society. Consider the words of Paul in Ephesians six, verse eleven. “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” There are no half measures, Seth; nothing less than the whole armour. That’s about as plain as you can get. In war you kill your enemy. And this is a war declared on us by the Prince of Darkness.’

Hazel was swinging her long earrings again. ‘Logie, do you and I share the same planet?’

The President turned to the DCI. ‘Al, say I wanted you to arrange for these people to stop breathing. Without fuss. Given all the internal and external scrutiny you guys are subject to, would that be a problem? There’s my own Intelligence Oversight Board, and your internal one — the Inspector General’s office — and then there’s the congressional Intelligence Committee. And they insist on prior notification of all covert actions.’

‘An assassination need cost no more than a few air fares, a few hotel bills and some bullets. Sure we can do it, hide it away in the rounding errors. But if it worries you, Mr President, there are other routes open to you. For example you could go through the Pentagon. They have authority to carry out “special operations” which bypass congressional scrutiny altogether.’

‘Hell, that would bring in the Vice president, SecDef, the joint chiefs, the National Security Adviser and the whole damn NSC.’

‘But as you know, sir, the rules for writing reports of an NSC meeting are strict. If you gave an assassination order there’d be nothing on paper. Eisenhower and Nixon both played the game.’

Hazel couldn’t resist it: ‘And of course there was the Castro farce, eight assassination attempts by the CIA, all failures.’

‘That was the Stone Age.’

‘And now? You’re squeaky clean?’

‘We’re more efficient.’ Sullivan’s face was beginning to go pink. It might have been the heat from the flames leaping in the stone fireplace. ‘Hazel, do we really need ethics to flush nasty things down the tube?’

‘What about Callaghan and his assistant?’ Hazel asked. ‘Two Americans; and your own people. They know about this extraterrestrial signal.’

Sullivan looked uncomfortable. He glanced over at President Bull, who was leaning back in his chair. ‘It’s down to what the President wants.’

‘What do you want, Mr President?’ Hazel asked.

They held their breaths.

The President told them.