"Please, Mr. Secretary.  This is a private conversation.  He is not in Ecuador , as both of us know.  Smith - the real Valentine Michael Smith, not the one who has appeared in the newscasts - escaped from confinement - and, I should add, illegal confinement - at Bethesda Medical Center on Thursday last, in company with Nurse Gillian Boardman.  He kept his freedom and is now free - and he will continue to keep it.  If any of your large staff of assistants has told you anything else, then someone has been lying to you... which is why I am speaking to you yourself.  So that you can straighten it out."