Test of Resolve

by Peter Murphy

Overview

A denounced President, her kidnapped daughter, a Hindu extremist group and the threat of nuclear war: America is once again thrown into turmoil in Peter Murphy's sequel to Removal

As Ellen Trevathan settles into her presidency, she feels confident to come out as a lesbian to the press, an announcement that unleashes a storm of criticism against her authority. Her personal life becomes increasingly unstable when her daughter, Dani, is kidnapped by a Hindu extremist group, Svatantra Kashmir (SK). Director of the FBI, Kelly Smith, is called in to investigate and is soon immersed in a situation with far wider implications.

Under pressure to comply with orders made by SK, Ellen has to tackle the threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan and ensure the safety of her daughter. As the crisis escalates, public duty and personal concerns are thrown into conflict. The severity of the situation demands that one has to be sacrificed, and only Ellen can choose...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781843441892
Publisher:	No Exit Press
Publication date:	11/21/2013
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	581 KB

About the Author

Born in 1946, Peter Murphy graduated from Cambridge University and pursued a career in the law in England, the United States and The Hague. He practised as a barrister in London for a decade, then took up a professorship at a law school in Texas, a position he held for more than twenty years. Towards the end of that period he returned to Europe as counsel at the Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague for almost a decade. In 2007 he returned to England to take up an appointment as a judge of the Crown Court. He retired as Resident Judge and Honorary Recorder of Peterborough in 2015.

Peter started writing fiction more than twenty years ago, but following his retirement from the bench he became a full-time author, often drawing on the many experiences of his former career. Two political thrillers about the American presidency: Removal and Test of Resolve were followed by eight legal thrillers in the Ben Schroeder series about a barrister practising in London in the 1960s and 1970s. Alongside those he also penned the light-hearted series of short story colllections featuring Judge Walden of Bermondsey in the 'Rumpole' tradition, based in part on his own experiences as a lawyer and judge, and recently published A Statue for Jacob, based on the true story of Jacob de Haven.

Peter passed away in September 2022.

Born in 1946, Peter Murphy graduated from Cambridge University and pursued a career in the law in England, the United States and The Hague. He practised as a barrister in London for a decade, then took up a professorship at a law school in Texas, a position he held for more than twenty years. Towards the end of that period he returned to Europe as counsel at the Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague for almost a decade. In 2007 he returned to England to take up an appointment as a judge of the Crown Court. He retired as Resident Judge and Honorary Recorder of Peterborough in 2015.

Peter started writing fiction more than twenty years ago, but following his retirement from the bench he became a full-time author, often drawing on the many experiences of his former career. Two political thrillers about the American presidency: Removal and Test of Resolve were followed by eight legal thrillers in the Ben Schroeder series about a barrister practising in London in the 1960s and 1970s. Alongside those he also penned the light-hearted series of short story collections featuring Judge Walden of Bermondsey in the ‘Rumpole' tradition, based in part on his own experiences as a lawyer and judge, and recently published A Statue for Jacob, based on the true story of Jacob de Haven.

Peter passed away in July 2022.

Read an Excerpt

Test of Resolve

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By Peter Murphy, Irene Goodacre

Oldcastle Books

Copyright © 2013 Peter Murphy
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84344-191-5

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CHAPTER 1

May 25

The visitor did not come often – not more than once every two or three years – but his routine was always the same. He would fly to Houston from Washington DC, having arrived there, Bev's family could only assume, from whichever Indian city he was currently using as his base. He would rent a medium-size car at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, and drive into the city, carefully obeying every speed limit, every stop sign. He would park near the family's home, in the anonymity of a shopping crescent on West Gray, where there was a Starbucks and a Black-Eyed Pea restaurant, and where the short stay of a nondescript rental car would not attract attention. He was always smartly dressed in a western-style suit and tie, the suit a lightweight dark gray, the tie red, worn over a pristine white shirt, his black shoes meticulously shined. He carried a smart black briefcase. All this, also, was for the sake of anonymity, of blending into the background. Bev knew from his previous conversations with him that the Visitor found western dress stifling, oppressive, and would have much preferred to be in the white Kurta pyjamas and sandals he always wore at home. But the Visitor was a man to whom detail was a way of life, because he had sometimes owed his life to the care he took over detail, and he had become an expert in the art of the inconspicuous.

The pattern of his visits never varied. He would first spend up to an hour with Bev's parents. Bev's father, Amit, was a dentist with a successful practice in the affluent River Oaks area of the city, where the family also lived in a discreet detached house guarded by a high fence. The house was not particularly large by affluent Houston standards, but it had every modern convenience, including a heated swimming pool, and was appropriate for a dentist of Amit's standing. Bev's mother, who had long ago adopted the name Marsha, had retired from her position as personal assistant to the president of a bank. The couple had lived in Houston for more than thirty years. Before moving to the United States, they had lived in New Delhi, where both had received a wide, liberal education. Amit had learned his dentistry there, pulling teeth and inserting fillings in hundred degree heat with humidity to match – much like Houston without the air conditioning, he would sometimes joke – and with geckos running up and down the walls. Despite his undoubted skills, he had to re-qualify when he arrived in America in deference to the usual institutional suspicion of foreign qualifications, an annoyance he bore with his usual stoicism.

Bev never knew exactly what passed between the Visitor and his parents. He was always sent to his room until the Visitor was ready to see him. But he knew that money changed hands. He had seen it. As an adventurous 10-year-old he had spied through a keyhole on one such meeting and had seen the Visitor remove from his briefcase wad after wad of crisp green banknotes, which he then handed to his father. Even as a 10-year-old boy, Bev found this odd. He was aware that his father earned a good living as a dentist, and that his mother was also quite capable of commanding a high salary. He did not stay at the door long enough to hear what they were discussing, which he assumed would be related to what the Visitor had to say when his turn came to meet him; but it seemed to Bev that sometimes, from his bedroom upstairs, he could hear his mother crying.

The Visitor was tall and imposing, over six feet in height, with proportionate build. He had a dignified, erect bearing, and thick gray hair, threatening to turn pure white. During his last visit, some two years ago, Bev had judged him to be between sixty and seventy years of age.

The Visitor always began by asking him about his education, on which he seemed to place great store. Through middle school and high school, Bev had to account for his grades, for any lapses in discipline, and for all his extra-curricular activities. As he grew older, there were questions about girlfriends, their names, families, areas of town, studies, ambitions, interests. He was also questioned about the family's Hindu faith. The family worshiped together regularly at a temple on Hillcroft in Houston's Indian district, just a short drive from home.

When the Visitor had last spoken with him, Bev had not found it difficult to reassure him. By that time, his high school grades and activities had taken him to Rice University, where he was majoring in politics with a minor in history. He was working hard and doing well. His love for football was still with him, but was now confined to the role of spectator. He had got away with his lack of size in high school, where he had sometimes come on from the bench as a wide receiver. But his slim frame and light weight ruled out any hope of college football. He now had a steady girlfriend, Shesi, who hailed from a respectable and long-established Indian family. Her father was an importer of rugs, Indian jewelry and other luxuries, and she was learning the business under his tutelage. As his oldest child, she expected to take it over eventually.

No, Bev had insisted, his studies had in no way diminished his religious belief. The truth was, faith and doubt competed every day in his mind; the statues, incense and chants had relaxed the hold they had on him as a child. No, he had insisted, his historical studies had not turned him from his convictions about the correctness of India's political stances; the justice of her opposition to Pakistan; the historical record of the brutality of British Rule. The truth was, he mostly saw not black and white, but many shades of gray; a plague on all their houses, questions of justice and blame seemed to Bev to become easily blurred in the tortuous political webs of the modern world. No, Bev had insisted, his relations with Shesi were chaste and pure. The truth was, they had been sexual partners for over a year, naked and unashamed whenever time permitted, careful in their use of condoms, but joyful in the passion between them. The Visitor took no notes and displayed no reaction to the information Bev gave. But he told him, as he always told him, that he was special; that he would understand more when he was older; and that he must hold himself in readiness for some great service.

This information disturbed Bev, because he had no conscious understanding of what the Visitor's occasional presence meant, or of what his words signified. It all seemed too grandiose, something set apart from Bev's everyday life; something that invaded his life from another world; something sinister, even; and he had no confidence that he was in any way special. Yet, on another level, there were moments – rare but unmistakable – when he experienced a sudden tantalizing glimpse into the mystery, perhaps a dim memory of words spoken in the distant past. On this level, he almost felt that he knew the truth, and would remember it fully when some future moment came. But the glimpse would vanish as suddenly as it had come in the glare of daily life.

He suspected, of course, that the visits were unusual. None of his friends had ever reported anything similar within their families. But he did not dare ask his friends questions or tell them about the Visitor. He had been instructed from an early age that the visits, and what the Visitor said, were to be mentioned to no one outside the family. It was because Bev was special that the Visitor came, his parents said. No one outside the family would understand. Until recently Bev had followed this instruction faithfully, partly out of respect for his parents, and partly because he was not sure anyone would believe him even if he told them.

But the uncertainty and the sheer weirdness of it all played on his mind and, by the time of the last visit, as he was about to become a college graduate, the need for a second opinion, the need for reassurance, had become overwhelming. A few days after the visit, he had confided in Shesi. He told her after they had made love, which was when they always talked about things. Shesi believed him without hesitation, and quickly offered a decisive reality check. No, it was not a normal situation; no, it did not happen in other families, even Indian families. Was it weird? It was beyond weird, verging on the insane. She suggested a number of courses of action, ranging from coming to live with her family, to taking off to Canada, Australia or, as the evening wore on, anywhere. In a reckless moment, she offered to accompany him, wherever he chose to go. She was pleased that he seemed to like that idea. But these suggestions were not real life, and she did not press them.

That last visit had been almost three years ago. Bev was now in law school. The Visitor had never mentioned a choice of career but his parents, on the other hand, while seeming to leave open the whole range of options, often seemed to lean towards the law or the military. Politics was a third option, perhaps to follow after some success in one of the first two. Bev had no wish to join the military. He was physically very fit and mentally agile, both qualities suitable to an officer, but by temperament he was not aggressive or confrontational, and he had no patience for uniforms or pomp and ceremony. With no other prospects when he graduated from Rice, and with the offer of unconditional financial support through law school, Bev took the plunge. He studied hard, achieved a reasonable score on the LSAT, and was admitted to South Texas College of Law in downtown Houston, not very far from Rice. His political studies had sharpened his understanding of the role of the law in American life, and it seemed to him to be a game he could play well and enjoy. In the back of his mind also was the thought that the law would provide the means for independence. Once independent, he could consign the Visitor to the past. He could have nothing to do with him if he so chose, refuse to see him, tell him to his face to take his weirdness elsewhere. He could opt for a normal life.

The Visitor came on May 25, while he was at home early in the summer vacation at the end of his second year of law school. He was preparing to leave for a summer school program in international criminal law at the University of Cambridge in England. Independence and normality were only a year or two away.

CHAPTER 2

'Good evening,' Conrad Beckers said, facing the camera with the discreet, confidential smile which, over the years, had become almost as much a national institution as the man himself.

'This is a special night for us on the News Show on National Public Television, because we have with us the woman at the center of the tumultuous events that have shaken our nation to its core in recent months. A woman who, most Americans believe, saved our system of democracy, indeed our American way of life, for future generations in the face of armed resistance to the rule of law. She has appeared on the News Show several times during the intervening period, but always at times of stress, during the rebuilding of our government, when our discussions were dictated by the demands of the moment. Tonight there is an opportunity for a less harried talk. Our guest is the President of the United States, Ellen Trevathan. Madam President, welcome.'

The camera angle widened to show the President sitting to Beckers' left.

Ellen Trevathan was a strikingly handsome woman, over six feet in height, her gray hair short and stylish, her dark blue eyes warm. Most observers thought that she looked every bit of twenty years younger than her age, which was comfortably above the norm for retirement. Much of her popularity derived from the fact that she had not been a career politician. She had started out as a university professor. Her writings on public administration got her noticed, and she soon made the move from a tenured professorship at George Mason University to the first of a number of high-level government jobs. She had a natural gift for dealing with people, a gift which stood her in good stead when Steve Wade asked her to run for the vice presidency on his ticket. Once in the job, she had commanded respect from political colleagues and opponents alike. Wade trusted Ellen, and allowed her an unusual amount of independent action. Taking full advantage of this, she steadily built a reputation in Washington as someone who said little in public, but quietly got things done behind the scenes. Her trademark gray-black suits cut high at the neck, Nehru style, became a familiar sight in the corridors of power. Tonight, she wore the suit over a plain white blouse, and black shoes with a low heel, one discreet silver bracelet partly visible underneath the right sleeve.

'It's my pleasure, Conrad. Good evening to everyone.'

Beckers swiveled his chair around to face her.

'Madam President, I know you have something you would like to say to the American people this evening which has nothing to do with the recent crisis, and we will come to that in just a moment. But first, with your indulgence ...'

He swiveled back to face the camera.

'... I would like to remind our viewers of the extraordinary events which brought you to the White House just a few months ago.'

Cut to film. Exterior, day time. Conrad Beckers is standing outside the Russell Senate Office Building. The weather must have been warm; he is wearing a light suit and passers-by are wearing casual tops, shorts and sandals. He faces the camera, microphone in hand.

'It has been barely a year since Ellen Trevathan became President of the United States in the most extraordinary accession in our nation's history. She is, of course, the first woman ever to serve as President. But, for most of her life, she did not seem destined for high office. When she was first elected Vice President on Steve Wade's ticket more than six years ago, very few people would have predicted that she would one day occupy the White House in her own right. Her career in politics had been a short one. Most of her career had been spent in academia, at George Mason University, where she specialized in relations between the states and the federal government. She later held two cabinet posts in which her brief was the environment and energy. She attracted little public attention and, indeed, seemed to thrive on getting things done with minimum fuss and publicity. It was, no doubt, those qualities that recommended her to Steve Wade when he came to choose a running mate. It was a choice which caused surprise in some circles, both within the party and among the public at large. But almost everyone came to agree that the choice was a wise one. She proved to be a competent, if low-key Vice President. She had let it be known within the party that she intended to run for President after Steve Wade's second term of office. But many believe that her nomination would not have been a certainty.'

The camera zoomed in for a close up on Beckers.

'But then, along came Lucia Benoni.'

Cut to film. Interior, day time. The images are of President Steve Wade: working at his desk in the Oval Office; in the White House press room speaking at a press conference; at a White House reception for foreign dignitaries; at Camp David, shaking hands with the Prime Minister of Israel and the President of the Provisional Government of Palestine. Conrad is supplying the voice-over.

'We still await the final report on those terrible events which took place nearly a year ago now. Until that report is released, there is much we do not know. What we do know is that Steve Wade had an affair with a Lebanese woman, Lucia Benoni, and lied about it to the American people, even after Benoni was found murdered, shot in the head, execution-style, in a fashionable Washington apartment. Following reports in the Washington Post, it emerged that Wade was sharing Benoni's favors with a Lebanese diplomat, Hamid Marfrela, who was himself murdered in equally mysterious circumstances a short time after Benoni. When evidence emerged of financial links between Marfrela, the President's party, and the Sons of the Land, a white supremacist group based in Oregon, there were fears that the affair with Benoni might have compromised national security. Impeachment proceedings were begun in the Senate, as a result of which Wade was convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors. Steve Wade became the only President in our history to be impeached successfully. Ellen Trevathan became President by operation of our constitution. Steve Wade was to be removed from office. That was where the story should have ended. But in fact, it was only the beginning ...'

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Test of Resolve by Peter Murphy, Irene Goodacre. Copyright © 2013 Peter Murphy. Excerpted by permission of Oldcastle Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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