Looking back, Knowles had been naive to think it would stop there. Perhaps deep down he had always known what he was really agreeing to. But he had done it anyway. He could not allow the footage to be released. And nor could he really afford the life of a politician. Through Cunningham, he solved both of these problems. And so Knowles had thrown his lot in with him, and with his unseen, unknown employers. And all it had cost him in those first years? A few abstentions and a few votes which, he told himself, he might have taken and made anyway.

It was, then, a symbiotic relationship. A simple quid pro quo. Everyone got what they wanted from it. Until that balance of interests came to an end.

It was during the 2016 presidential campaign that everything changed. A race to the White House that was not worthy of the description; never had there been a candidate so plainly guaranteed to win as John Knowles. He had almost forgotten how to doubt in himself, and so it was that – when asked by Cunningham to take a policy stance with which he disagreed – Knowles stood his ground. He said ‘no’, with little thought to the consequences.

And he lived to regret it.

What Knowles discovered that day was that, inevitable as his presidency was, he would never truly control the White House. The threat of the footage was bad enough. It would undoubtedly end his career at a stroke. His whole persona – his myth – was based on that mission. A mission about which he had now lied repeatedly, by always omitting the actions of Lopez.

But the footage was not the worst of it. It was not even close . . .

Because it was then that Knowles learned of the set-up that Cunningham and his organisation had put in place years before. Of the trained witnesses. Of the faked assault. Of the terrified, cooperative villagers. All of it designed to frame Knowles for an atrocity he did not commit. All of it supported by the video evidence to prove his own lies.

And all designed to take down not just him but his entire team. Eighteen men. All patriots who had endured hell for their country. Who had risked their lives again and again. And who now faced an inevitable life sentence for crimes they did not commit.

It was his weak spot, and the organisation knew it. As Cunningham had explained, they expected that he would be willing to sacrifice himself. But he would not so willingly condemn his men.

And so the choice had been simple: ‘You run. You win. You do as we say. And none of this will ever happen.’

He remembered it as the day that everything had changed. That any pretence of it being an equal partnership had disappeared. He had run. He had won. And for the next three years he had done whatever was asked of him. Cunningham had called the shots on issue after issue. He set the agenda where he wanted. From tax to defence. From foreign policy to their current focus, environmental protection. As was the arrangement, Knowles had deferred to his deputy assistant and to the organisation on every subject that touched on their interests. He had compliantly handed his office to Kelvin Cunningham.