The Eleventh Commandment

Thou shalt not be caught. This is the 11th commandment for agents of the CIA. Unfortunately for Connor Fitzgerald, a high-ranking agent, his last mission before retirement—the assassination of a Colombian presidential candidate unfavorable to American interests—raised some dust in the US presidency. This is because the President did not sanction it. It was ordered by Helen Dexter, the director of the CIA who was pursuing her own personal agenda. In spite of her denial, the assassination was traced to the CIA. To cover her back, she plans to eliminate him, seeing him as the only person that could expose her. So she sends him on another mission under pretense that it was sanctioned by the president, this time to Russia, and does all her best to ensure that Connor does not return alive.

This time the mission is to assassinate the Russian presidential candidate. Halfway through, she exposes him and he is caught, imprisoned, tried and is about to be hanged. Through the Russian mafia, he escapes the hangman, thanks to a friend that decides to give up his own life for him. Now the mafia wants him to still carry out the assassination of their presidential candidate. The Russian candidate is elected and decides to visit the US. Connor trails him there for a very interesting climax and conclusion.

It was depressing to read that the hero, Connor Fitzgerald, had died in hospital, after his friend Chris Jackson sacrificed his own life so he could live. It was like a waste of the CIA’s two top talents just because the heartless woman at the top wanted to save her job. But then after his presidential burial, a surprising twist is thrown in just before the last page. Connor had not died after all, but had taken a new identity for security reasons. To end the tale, six months after he was supposedly buried, he makes a sudden appearance to his wife living abroad in Australia, bearing this new identity.

February 12, 2015. Review initially written in 2004. Novel first published in 1998.