Shall We Tell the President? (26 page)

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Authors: Jeffrey Archer

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Mark was stunned. “Thank you very much, sir. I would be delighted.” Bang goes the five-year plan.
“You said something, Mark?”
“No, sir.”
“In private, Mark, you must stop calling me ‘sir,' if we're going to work together all the time; it's more than I can stand. You can call me Halt or Horatio—I don't mind which.”
Mark couldn't help laughing.
“You find my name amusing, Mark?”
“No, sir. But I just made $3,516.”
“Testing: one, two, three. Loud and clear. Could you give us a voice test, please, Madam President?” asked the floor producer, now less agitated. “What did you have for breakfast?”
“Toast and coffee,” said the President resonantly.
“Thank you, Madam. That's fine. Ready to roll.”
All the cameras were focused on the President, who sat behind her desk, somber and serious.
“When you're ready, Madam President.”
The President looked into the lens of Camera One. “My fellow Americans, I speak to you tonight from the Oval Office in the wake of the bloody assassination of Senator Harrison on the steps of the Capitol. Robert Everard Harrison was my friend and colleague, and I know we will all feel his loss greatly. Our sympathy goes out to his family in their distress. This evil deed only strengthens my determination to press for legislation early in the new session strictly limiting the sale and the unauthorized ownership of guns. I will do this in memory of Senator Robert Harrison, so that we may feel he did not die in vain.”
The Director looked at Mark; neither of them spoke. The President continued, repeating her belief in the importance of gun control and why the measure deserved the full support of the American people.
“And so I leave you, my fellow citizens, thanking
God that America can still produce men who are willing to risk their own lives for public service. Thank you and good night.”
The camera panned to the Presidential Seal. Then the Outside Broadcast units took over and switched to a picture of the White House with the flag at half-mast.
“It's a wrap, Harry,” said the female floor producer.
“Let's do a re-run and see what it looks like.”
The President in the Oval Office, and the Director and Mark in Janet Brown's room watched the re-run. It was good. The Gun Control bill will sail through, thought Mark.
The chief usher arrived at Janet Brown's door. He addressed the Director.
“The President wonders if you and Mr. Andrews would be kind enough to join her in the Oval Office.”
Both men rose from their chairs and followed in silence down the long marble corridor of the West Wing, passing pictures of former presidents, intermingled with oil paintings commemorating famous incidents in American history. They passed the bronze bust of Lincoln. When they reached the East Wing, they stopped at the massive white semi-circular doors of the Oval Office, dominated by the great Presidential Seal. A Secret Service man was sitting behind a desk in the hallway. He looked up at the chief usher, neither spoke. Mark watched the Secret Service agent's hand go under the desk, and he heard a click. The Seal split as the doors opened. The usher remained in the entrance.
Someone was unclipping a tiny microphone from
under the President's collar, and the remnants of make-up were being removed by an attentive young woman. The television cameras had already gone. The usher announced, “The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. H.A.L. Tyson, and Special Agent Mark Andrews, Madam President.”
The President rose from her seat at the far end of the room and waited to greet them. They walked towards her slowly.
“Sir,” said Mark under his breath.
“Yes, Mark?”
“Shall we tell the President?”
NOVELS
A Prisoner of Birth
Shall We Tell the President?
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less
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)
SHORT STORIES
A Quiver Full of Arrows
A Twist in the Tales
Twelve Red Herrings
The Collected Short Stories
To Cut a Long Story Short
Cat O' Nine Tales
PLAYS
Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Exclusive
The Accused
SCREENPLAYS
Mallory: Walking Off the Map
False Impression
PRISON DIARIES
Volume One: Hell
Volume Two: Purgatory
Volume Three: Heaven
JEFFREY ARCHER
“One of the top ten storytellers in the world.”
—Los Angeles Times
“There isn't a better storyteller alive.”
—Larry King
“Archer plots with skill, and keeps you turning the pages.”
—The Boston Globe
“Cunning plots, silken style … Archer plays a cat-and-mouse game with the reader.”
—The New York Times
“Archer is a master entertainer.”
—Time
“A storyteller in the class of Alexandre Dumas … unsurpassed skill …making the reader wonder intensely what will happen next.”
—The Washington Post
and
SHALL WE TELL THE PRESIDENT?
“Outrageous and top-notch terror.”
—Vogue
“The only difference between this book and
The Day of the Jackal
is that Archer is a better writer.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Authentic, literate, and scary.”
—Cosmopolitan
“The countdown is the thing; the pace, the pursuit, the what-next, the how-is-it-going-to-come-out …”
—The Boston Globe
“Holds the reader in a vicelike grip.”
—Penthouse
A PRISONER OF BIRTH
“A compelling read.”
—Newsday
“Dynamite … plot twists and a slam-bang finale.”
—The Washington Post
“Thoroughly enjoyable.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Compulsively readable.”
—Library Journal
“Gripping.”
—The Vancouver Sun
“An exercise in wish fulfillment. The good may suffer, but the bad will get theirs in the end. The fun is watching it unfold.”
—St. Petersburg Times
(Florida)
CAT O' NINE TALES
“The economy and precision of Archer's prose never fails to delight. The criminal doesn't always get away with his crime and justice doesn't always prevail, but the reader wins with each and every story.”
—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
FALSE IMPRESSION
“A worthy successor to
The Da Vinci Code
. Sail along from one high crime to the next … . Archer is a great plotter …[and] in the middle of the action, [he] drops research gems.”
—Liz Smith,
New York Post
“Archer is back in top form with [this] latest thriller.”
—Library Journal
(starred review)
“Thoroughly imagined …entertaining …thrilling.”
—Denver Post
“Murder and a high-stakes art-world theft are cleverly blended [in this] exciting …global thrill-ride.”
—Vancouver Sun
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
SHALL WE TELL THE PRESIDENT?
Copyright © 1977, 1985 by Jeffrey Archer.
Chappell Music Company: From “At Long Last Love” by Cole Porter. Copyright © 1938 by Chappell & Co., Inc. Copyright renewed. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Jobete Music Co. Inc.: From “Didn't We” by Jimmy Webb. Copyright © 1967 by Jobete Music Co. Inc. Used by permission.
All rights reserved.
St. Martin's Paperbacks are published by St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Cover photo © Terry Ashe / Getty Images.
eISBN 9781429998017
First eBook Edition : March 2011
For information address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
First Pocket Books printing / November 1987
St. Martin's Paperbacks edition / January 2009

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