The Eleventh Commandment
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This article refers to the novel by Jeffrey Archer. For other meanings see The Eleventh Commandment (disambiguation).
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The Eleventh Commandment is a novel by Jeffrey Archer, first published in 1998. The title refers to the commandment Thou Shalt Not Get Caught.
[edit] Plot introduction
The chief of the CIA, Helen Dexter, decides, on her own, to order the murder of political figures of other nations on the basis of their views on the USA. The book starts with the murder of a candidate for the Bolivian presidency. During this time, Helen finds out that she would be fired if she is found out to be ordering assassinations on several nations. To cover up her work she plans to have her chief assassin, Connor Fitzgerald, eliminated. The CIA rejects Connor's resignation and asks him to go on a final mission to assassinate a candidate for the Russian presidency. While attending a speech, Connor is arrested and placed in a Russian jail to be executed. A friend of his arrives in time and tries to rescue him by making a bargain with the Russian Mafia. In exchange for Fitzgerald to be replaced with his friend, Fitzgerald will have to assassinate the Russian president. Fitzgerald fails in the attempt and "dies." Later on he returns home with the name of a professor and he has lost his arm.
[edit] Plot summary
Helen Dexter is a highly formidable and cunning Director of the CIA, who is aided in her vicious ideas by her equally shrewd sycophant, Nick Gutenburg, the deputy Director. The story starts with Connor Fitzgerald, a highly professional and efficient agent, who is sent to Columbia to assassinate the presidential candidate Ricardo Guzman. Fitzgerald later learn that these assassination missions were not assigned by the White House, but orders actually emanated from Langley, CIA. Tom Lawrence,who is under great pressure to have his Arms Reduction bill passed, and who heartily despises Dexter, suspects CIA involvement in the assassination. He orders his closest friend and white House Chief of Staff Andy Lloyd to set Chris Jackson, the former Deputy Director, who had been sacked by Dexter because he was too decent for her health, to accumulate evidence of Dexter's crime. Dexter, reading between the lines understands that only Connor Fitzgerald would pose a threat to her long held position in Langley, so she conceives a plan to have him assassinated, thus in order to remove the last shred of evidence.
Meanwhile we learn more about Fitzgerald and his history. Fitzgerald, it was told, was born of a decent, god fearing family, a family that sought honor and loyalty before their personal well being. Connor goes to Yale and finds Maggie there. And after a very unceremonious and unplanned date, they decide to marry. Maggie was also a very headstrong and astute woman, and she gave birth to Tara Fitzgerald 10 months after the marriage. Before Connor Fitzgerald was sent on his last mission by the CIA, he stayed in Australia to meet Stuart, his would be son-in-law.
Meanwhile an equally formidable foe arises in Russia, Victor Zermiski, a short heighted but wicked presidential candidate, and his plans to turn Russia into a nuclear market pose the greatest threat to Tom Lawrence's Arms Reduction Bill. Dexter, however uses him to her advantage, and her plans have all the hallmarks of professionalism held only by a CIA official. She sends Fitzgerald on his last mission of his CIA employment to Russia, and was ordered to assassinate Zerimski if he won the Presidency. Dexter however uses her extremely elusive and sharp bishop in Russia, Andy Mitchell who had disguised himself as a cultural attache for USA, and haves Connor arrested him in St. Petersburg , while Mitchell spreads word that Connor is a Mafya Hitman. Connor is arrested and sent to the infamous Crucifix prison. Zerimski becomes president and sends orders to have Connor executed.
In the same timeline, Chris Jackson is doing all he can to collect evidence. He was very sure that Fitzgerald, who was his oldest friend, was trapped and framed by CIA. He witnesses Connor's arrest, and to have him released pleads the Russian Mafya to help him. The Czar of Mafya agrees on a condition that when Fitzgerald is released, he would assassinate Zerimski for the mafya. The story then enthralls the readers by its most powerful and emotional twist. We are taken in a different timeline, when twenty eight years ago Connor went on to fight in Vietnam, along with Chris Jackson, who was the platoon commander. The Vietcong decided to execute both men, but Connor was not prepared to die. He persuaded Jackson to accompany him in escaping. For days and days they ran for their lives, and Connor continued the arduous escaping journey even when Jackson lost heart and fell unconscious, carrying Jackson on his shoulders. Jackson repaid Connor for saving his life by the only method he could. He helped Connor escape from the Crucifix and wore his identity, and was eventually hanged. Connor became aware about the sacrifice a long time later on.
During the course, Maggie Fitzgerald became suspicious of her husband's absence. She threatens the CIA that if Connor is not returned she would inform the press of his position within the CIA and his mission in Moscow. The CIA keeps close tabs on her, but Connor is too professional for them. he kidnaps his wife, his daughter and her fiancé right under CIA's nose. Connor , grieved with the death of his closest friend and furious with Dexter's inhumane acts, returns to the States to carry out the task entrusted to him by the Mafia, because the Russian idiosyncratic President is on a visit to Washington. Helped by the Russian Mafia comrades, he devices a plan. But at this moment Connor trusts no one, even though he confided his plans to the Mafia, he did not intend to carry it out in that way. What was planned was to assassinate Zerimski in the Russian Embassy, but Fitzgerald attempts to murder him when the two presidents are watching a football game between the Packers and Redskins. But before he could murder him, he was himself shot in the arm. Fitzgerald hides, wounded and near dead, in the stadium girder. Meanwhile Zerimski's speech in Washington made it clear that he was in for a raging nuclear competition, and Tom Lawrence's bill is rejected. But during all this hussle, Tom Lawrence learns of Connor Fitzgerald, learns that he was so loyal to his country that he was prepared to murder if he thought the order had come from the White house, which of course what Dexter had hoodwinked him into believing. With a stroke of luck Lawrence finds Fitzgerald and asks him to sign a testimony of Dexter's crime.
It comes as a great surprise that the plan to assassinate Russian president was made by Zerimski himself. He wanted to stage an attempted assassination in the Russian embassy, so that he could scream to the world that USA had ordered a CIA Officer to kill him, and so he could get rid of Lawrence. He does not succeed however as Connor rejects the plan, falling for the contingency one in the stadium.
Lawrence fires Dexter, telling her that Connor had testified against her, but unfortunately had died with his wounds. In the last pages we read about Connor's funeral, where thousands of men came to pay their respect to one of the most loyal and honourable man America would have raised, along with President Lawrence. One remarkable quote by Connor's friend Cark Koeter to Fitzgerald's wife: "Ma'am you will find people all around the world who will never be able to fully repay Connor Fitzgerald."
But the end is another surprise because Connor arrives from Australia, disguised as a Mathematics Professor, with only one arm and tells Maggie that the president had found it appropriate for him to be "dead." Maggie is hysterical with relief and shock to find her husband alive. Lawrenece is still in a political helter-skelter, with Zerimski as a foreign for, and Dexter as a house roach, who then resorts to oppose Lawrence by becoming a senator.
