Honor Among Thieves

“Well, I wondered if before you did that, you might find the time to have a meeting with the President and myself?”

Marshall hesitated only because the request had taken him by surprise.

“Of course. What time would suit you?”

“Shall we say ten o’clock?”

“Yes, sir. Where would you like me to come?”

“The North Entrance of the White House.”

“The North Entrance, of course.”

“Jack Leigh, my Executive Assistant, will meet you in the West Wing reception area and accompany you to the Oval Office.”

“The Oval Office.”

“And Calder…”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary?”

“Please do not mention your resignation to anyone until you’ve seen the President.”

“Until I’ve seen the President. Of course.”

“Thank you, Calder.”

“Glad to have been of assistance, sir.”

Chapter Twenty

“I’d like to begin by thanking you all for attending this meeting at such short notice,” said the Secretary of State. “And, in particular, Scott Bradley, who has only recently recovered from—” Christopher hesitated for a moment, “a near-tragic accident. I know we are all delighted by the speed of his recovery. I should also like to welcome Colonel Kratz, who is representing the Israeli Government, and Dexter Hutchins, the Deputy Director of the CIA.

“Only two of my staff are with me today: Jack Leigh, my executive assistant, and Susan Anderson, one of my senior Middle East advisers. The reason for numbers being limited on this occasion will become all too obvious to you. The issue we are about to discuss is so sensitive that the fewer people who are aware of it, the better. To suggest in this instance that silence is golden would be to underestimate the value of gold.

“Perhaps, at this juncture, I could ask the Deputy Director of the CIA to bring us up-to-date on the latest situation. Dexter.”

Dexter Hutchins unlocked his briefcase and removed a file marked “For the Director’s Eyes Only.” He placed the file on the table in front of him and turned its cover.

“Two days ago, Mr. Marshall, the Archivist of the United States, reported to the Secretary of State that the Declaration of Independence had been stolen from the National Archives; or, to be more accurate, had been switched for a quite brilliant copy that had passed not only the scrut

iny of Mr. Marshall, but also that of the Senior Conservator, Mr. Mendelssohn.

“It was only when Mr. Marshall attempted to recontact a Mr. Rex Butterworth, who had been temporarily assigned to the White House as a Special Assistant to the President, that he became worried.”

“If I could just interject, Mr. Hutchins,” said Jack Leigh, “and point out that though Mr. Butterworth was a former employee of the Commerce Department, should the press ever get hold of this you can be certain they would only refer to him as a ‘Special Assistant to the President.’ ” Warren Christopher nodded his agreement.

“When Calder Marshall discovered that Butterworth hadn’t returned after his vacation,” continued Dexter Hutchins, “and that he had also left without giving a forwarding address, he naturally became suspicious. Under the circumstances, he considered it prudent to ask Mr. Mendelssohn to check and see if the Declaration had in any way been tampered with. After putting the parchment through several preliminary tests—a separate memorandum has been sent to all of you on this—he came to the conclusion that they were still in possession of the original document.

“But Mr. Marshall, a cautious man, remained skeptical, and contacted the President’s scheduler, Miss Patty Watson—details also enclosed. Following that conversation, he asked the Conservator to carry out a more rigorous scrutiny.

“Mr. Mendelssohn spent several hours alone that evening going over the parchment word by word with a magnifying glass. It was when he came to the sentence, ‘Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren,’ that the Conservator realized that the word ‘British’ had been spelled correctly, and not with two t’s as in the original Declaration executed by Timothy Matlack. When this piece of news was imparted to Mr. Marshall, he immediately offered his resignation to the Secretary of State, a copy of which you all have.”

“If I could come in here, Dexter,” said Secretary Christopher. “Just for the record, the President and I saw Mr. Marshall in the Oval Office yesterday. He could not have been more cooperative. He assured us that he and his colleague, Mr. Mendelssohn, will say and do nothing in the immediate future. He did add, however, his feeling of disgust at continuing to display a counterfeit copy of the Declaration to the general public. He made us both, that is to say the President and myself, agree that should we fail to recover the original document before its disappearance becomes common knowledge, we would confirm that his resignation had been dated May 25th, 1993 and accepted on that date by myself as custodian of the Declaration. He wished it confirmed in writing that he had in no way connived to deceive his staff or the nation he served. ‘I am not in the habit of being deceitful,’ were his final words before leaving the Oval Office.

“If it is possible,” continued Christopher, “for a public servant to make the President and the Secretary of State feel morally inferior, Mr. Marshall achieved it with considerable dignity. However, that does not change the fact that if we don’t get the original parchment back before its theft becomes public knowledge, the media are going to roast the President and me slowly over a spit. One thing’s also for sure: the Republicans, led by Dole, will happily wash their collective hands in public. Carry on, Dexter.”

“Under the Secretary of State’s instructions, we immediately formed a small task force at Langley to profile every aspect of the problem we are facing. But we quickly discovered that we were working under some severe restrictions. To begin with, because of the sensitivity of the subject and the people involved, we could not do what we automatically would have done in normal circumstances, namely consult the FBI and liaise with the D.C. Police Department. That, we felt, would have guaranteed us the front page of the Washington Post, and probably the following morning. We mustn’t forget that the FBI is still smarting over the Waco siege, and they would like nothing better than for the CIA to replace them on the front pages.