Honor Among Thieves

by Jeffrey Archer

  “Three hundred and sixty joules, stand clear,” said the consultant in desperation, but the nurse who raised the number on the dial knew the patient was already dead.

  The consultant pressed a button, and they all watched the highest shock allowed pass through Scott’s body, assuming that must be the end. They turned their attention to the monitor.

  “We’ve lost him,” was on the consultant’s lips, when to their astonishment they saw the line begin to show a faint flicker. He leaped forward and began pumping away with the palms of his hands as the flicker continued to show irregular fibrillation. “Three hundred and sixty joules, stand clear,” he said once again. The button was pressed and their attention returned to the monitor. Fibrillation returned to a normal rhythm. The youngest doctor cheered.

  Another doctor rushed into the room and, facing his superior, said, “The antidote is GTN.”

  The consultant quickly located a vein in Scott’s left arm and jabbed a needle directly into it, leaving a cannula sticking out to which a saline drip was quickly attached.

  A nurse went straight over to the poisons cabinet and extracted a vial of glyceryl trinitrate, which she passed to the consultant, who had a syringe ready. He extracted the blue liquid from the vial, shot a little into the air to be sure it was flowing freely, then pumped the antidote into a side valve of the intravenous drip. He turned to watch the monitor. The flicker maintained a constant rhythm.

  The consultant turned to the senior nurse and said, “Do you believe in miracles?”

  “No,” she replied. “I’m a Jew. Miracles are only for Christians.”

  Hannah began to form a plan, a plan that would brook no interference from Kratz. She had made the decision to accept the job as senior secretary to the Ambassador, and to accompany him back to Iraq.

  As the hours passed, her plan began to take shape. She was aware there would be problems. Not from the Iraqi side, but from her own people. Hannah knew that she would have to circumvent Mossad’s attempts to take her out, which meant that she could never leave the embassy, even for one moment, until the time came for the Ambassador to return to Iraq. She would use all the techniques they had taught her over the past two years to defeat them.

  When she was in Iraq, Hannah would make herself indispensable to the Ambassador, bide her time and, once she had achieved her objective, happily die a martyr’s death.

  She had been left with only one purpose in life now that Simon was dead. To assassinate Saddam Hussein.

  “Department of Commerce.”

  “Alex Wagner, please,” said the Archivist.

  “Who?”

  “Alex Wagner. Office of Personnel.”

  “Just a minute.” Another stretched minute.

  “Personnel.”

  “This is Calder Marshall, Archivist of the United States. I called yesterday for Ms. Wagner and you told me to try again today.”

  “I wasn’t here yesterday, sir.”

  “Well, it must have been one of your colleagues. Is Ms. Wagner available?”

  “Just a minute.”

  This time the Archivist waited several minutes.

  “Alex Wagner,” said a brisk female voice.

  “Ms. Wagner, my name is Calder Marshall. I’m the Archivist of the United States, and it’s extremely important that I contact Mr. Rex Butterworth, who was recently detailed to the White House by the Commerce Department.”

  “Are you a former employer of Mr. Butterworth’s?” asked the brisk voice.

  “No, I am not,” replied Marshall.

  “Are you a relative?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m afraid I cannot help you, Mr. Marshall.”

  “Why’s that?” asked the Archivist.

  “Because the Privacy Act prohibits us from giving out any personal information about government employees.”

  “Can you tell me the name of the Commerce Secretary, or is that covered by the Privacy Act too?” the Archivist asked.

  “Dick Fielding,” said the voice abruptly.

  “Thank you for your assistance,” said the Archivist.

  The phone went dead.

  When Scott woke, his first memory was of Hannah. And then he slept.

  When he woke a second time, all he could make out were blurred figures who appeared to be bending over him. And then he slept.

  When he woke again, the blurs began to take some shape. Most of them seemed to be dressed in white. And then he slept.

  When he woke the next time it was dark and he was alone. He felt so weak, so limp, as he tried to remember what had happened. And then he slept.

  When he woke, for the first time he could hear their voices, soothing, gentle, but he could not make out the words, however hard he tried. And then he slept.

  When he woke again, they had propped him up in bed. They were trying to feed him a warm, tasteless liquid through a plastic straw. And then he slept.

  When he woke, a man in a long white coat, with a stethoscope and a warm smile, was asking in a pronounced accent, “Can you hear me?” He tried to nod, but fell asleep.

  When he woke, another doctor—this time he could see him clearly—was listening attentively as Scott attempted his first words. “Hannah. Hannah,” was all he said. And then he slept.

  He woke again, and an attractive woman with short dark hair and a caring smile was leaning over him. He returned her smile and asked the time. It must have sounded strange to her, but he wanted to know.

  “It’s a few minutes after three in the morning,” the nurse told him.

  “How long have I been here?” he managed.

  “Just over a week, but you were so close to death. I think in English you have the expression ‘touch and go.’ If your friends had been a moment—” And then he slept.

  When he woke, the doctor told Scott that when he’d first arrived they thought it was too late, and twice he’d been pronounced technically dead. “Antidotes and electrostimulation of the heart, combined with a rare determination to live and one nurse’s theory that you might be a Gentile, defied the technical pronouncement,” he declared with a smile.

  Scott asked if someone called Hannah had been to see him. The doctor checked the board at the end of his bed. There had been only two visitors that he was aware of, both of them men. They came every day. And then Scott slept.

  When he woke, the two men the doctor had mentioned were standing one on each side of his bed. Scott smiled at Dexter Hutchins, who was trying not to cry. Grown men don’t cry, he wanted to say, especially when they work for the CIA. He turned to the other man. He had never seen a face so full of shame, so ridden with guilt or eyes so red from not sleeping. Scott tried to ask what had caused him such unhappiness. And then he slept.

  When he woke, both men were still there, now resting on uncomfortable chairs, half asleep.

  “Dexter,” he whispered, and they both woke immediately. “Where’s Hannah?”

  The other man, who Scott noticed was recovering from a black eye and a broken nose, took some time answering his question. And then Scott slept, never wanting to wake again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Department of Commerce.”

  “The Director, please.”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Marshall, Calder Marshall.”

  “Is he expecting your call?”

  “No, he is not.”

  “Mr. Fielding only takes calls from people who have previously booked to speak to him.”

  “What about his secretary?” asked Marshall.

  “She never takes calls.”

  “So how do I get a booking with Mr. Fielding?”

  “You have to speak to Miss Zelumski in reservations.”

  “Can I be put through to Miss Zelumski, or do I have to make a reservation to speak to her as well?”

  “There is no need to be sarcastic, sir. I’m only doing my job.”

  “I’m sorry. Perhaps you’d put me through to Miss Zelumski.”

 
Marshall waited patiently.

  “Miss Zelumski speaking.”

  “I’d like to reserve a call to speak to Mr. Fielding.”

  “Is it domestic, most-favored status or foreign?” asked a bored-sounding voice.

  “It’s personal.”

  “Does he know you?”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Then I can’t help. I only deal with domestic, most-favored status or foreign.”

  The Archivist hung up before Miss Zelumski was given the chance to say “Glad to have been of assistance, sir.”

  Marshall tapped his fingers on the desk. The time had come to play by new rules.

  Cavalli had checked into the Hôtel de la Paix in Geneva the previous evening. He had booked a modest suite overlooking the lake. Neither expensive nor conspicuous. After he had undressed, he climbed into bed and tuned in to CNN. He watched for a few moments, but found that the news of Bill Clinton having his hair cut on board Air Force One while it was parked on a runway at Los Angeles airport was getting more coverage than the Americans shooting down a plane in the no-fly zone over Iraq. It seemed the new President was determined to prove to Saddam that he was every bit as tough as Bush.

  When he woke in the morning, he jumped out of bed, strolled across to the window, drew the curtains and admired the fountain in the center of the lake whose water spouted like a gushing well high into the air. He turned to see that an envelope had been pushed under the door. He tore it open to discover a note confirming his appointment to “take tea” with his banker, Monsieur Franchard, at eleven o’clock that morning. Cavalli was about to drop the card into the wastepaper basket when he noticed some words scribbled on the bottom.

  After a light breakfast in his room, Cavalli packed his suitcase and suitbag before going downstairs. The doorman answered his questions in perfect English, and confirmed the directions to Franchard et cie. In Switzerland hall porters know the location of banks, just as their London counterparts can direct you to theaters or football grounds.

  As Cavalli left the hotel and started the short walk to the bank, he couldn’t help feeling something wasn’t quite right. And then he realized that the streets were clean, the people he passed were well-dressed, sober and silent. A contrast in every way to New York.

  Once he reached the front door of the bank, Cavalli pressed the discreet bell under the equally discreet brass plate announcing “Franchard et cie.”

  A doorman responded to the call. Cavalli walked into a marble-pillared hall of perfect proportions.

  “Perhaps you would like to go straight to the tenth floor, Mr. Cavalli? I believe Monsieur Franchard is expecting you.”

  Cavalli had only entered the building twice before in his life. How did they manage it? And the porter turned out to be as good as his word, because when Cavalli stepped out of the elevator, the chairman of the bank was waiting there to greet him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Cavalli,” he said. “Shall we go to my office?”

  The chairman’s office was a modest, tastefully decorated room, Swiss bankers not wishing to frighten away their customers with a show of conspicuous wealth.

  Cavalli was surprised to see a large brown parcel placed in the center of the boardroom table, giving no clue as to its contents.

  “This arrived for you this morning,” the banker explained. “I thought it might have something to do with our proposed meeting.”

  Cavalli smiled, leaned over and pulled the parcel towards him. He quickly ripped off the brown-paper covering to find a packing case with the words “TEA: BOSTON” stamped across it.

  With the help of a heavy silver letter-opener which he picked up from a side table, Cavalli prized the wooden lid slowly open. He didn’t notice the slight grimace that came over the chairman’s face.

  Cavalli stared inside. The top of the box was filled with Styrofoam packing material, which he cupped out with his hands and scattered all over the boardroom table.

  The chairman quickly placed a wastepaper basket by his side, which Cavalli ignored as he continued to dig into the box until he finally came to some objects wrapped in tissue paper.

  He removed a piece of the tissue paper to reveal a teacup in the Confederate colors of the First Congress.

  It took Cavalli several minutes to unwrap an entire tea set, which he laid out on the table in front of the puzzled banker. Once it was unpacked, Cavalli also appeared a little mystified. He dug into the box again, and retrieved an envelope. He tore it open and began reading the contents out loud.

  This is a copy of the famous tea set made in 1777 by Pearson and Son to commemorate the Boston Tea Party. Each set is accompanied by an authentic copy of the Declaration of Independence. Your set is number 20917, and has been recorded in our books under the name of J. Hancock.

  The letter had been signed and verified by the present chairman, H. William Pearson VI.

  Cavalli burst out laughing as he dug deeper into the wooden box, removing yet more packing material until he came across a thin plastic cylinder. He had to admire the way Nick Vicente had fooled the U.S. Customs into allowing him to export the original. The banker’s expression remained one of bafflement. Cavalli placed the cylinder in the center of the table, before going over in considerable detail how he wanted the meeting at twelve to be conducted.

  The banker nodded from time to time, and made the occasional note on the pad in front of him.

  “I would also like the plastic tube placed in a strongbox for the time being. The key to the box should be handed over to Mr. Al Obaydi when, and only when, you have received the full payment by wire transfer. The money should then be deposited in my No. 3 account in your Zurich branch.”

  “And are you able to tell me the exact sum you anticipate receiving from Mr. Al Obaydi?” asked the banker.

  “Ninety million dollars,” said Cavalli.

  The banker didn’t raise an eyebrow.

  The Archivist looked up the name of the Commerce Secretary in his government directory, then picked up his phone and pressed one button. 482-2000 was now programmed into his speed dial.

  “Department of Commerce.”

  “Dick Fielding, please.”

  “Just a moment.”

  “Office of the Director.”

  “This is Secretary Brown.”

  The Archivist had to wait only a few seconds before the call was put through.

  “Good morning, Mr. Secretary,” said an alert voice.

  “Good morning, Mr. Fielding. This is Calder Marshall, Archivist of the United States of America.”

  “I thought…”

  “You thought…?”

  “I guess they must have misunderstood. How may I help you, Mr. Marshall?”

  “I’m trying to trace a former employee of yours. Rex Butterworth.”

  “I can’t help you on that one.”

  “Why? Are you also bound by the Privacy Act?”

  Fielding laughed. “I only wish I was.”

  “I don’t understand,” said the Archivist.

  “Last week we sent Butterworth a merit bonus, and it was returned, ‘No forwarding address.’”

  “But he has a wife.”

  “She got the same response to her last letter.”

  “And his mother in South Carolina?”

  “She’s been dead for years.”

  “Thank you,” said Calder Marshall, and put the phone down. He knew exactly whom he had to call next.

  Dummond et cie is one of Geneva’s more modern banking establishments, having been founded as late as 1781. Since then the bank has spent over two hundred years handling other people’s money, without religious or racial prejudice. Dummond et cie had always been willing to deal with Arab sheik or Jewish businessman, Nazi Gauleiter or British aristocrat, in fact anyone who required their services. It was a policy that had always reaped dividends in every trading currency throughout the world.

  The bank occupied twelve floors of a building just off the place de la Fusterie. The meeting
that had been arranged that Tuesday at noon was scheduled to take place in the boardroom on the eleventh floor, the floor below the chairman’s office.

  The chairman of the bank, Pierre Dummond, had held his present position for the past nineteen years, but even he had rarely experienced a more unlikely coupling than that between an educated Arab from Iraq and the son of a former Mafia lawyer from New York.

  The boardroom table could seat sixteen, but on this occasion it was only occupied by four. Pierre Dummond sat in the center of one of the long sides under a portrait of his uncle, the former chairman, François Dummond. The present chairman wore a dark suit of elegant cut and style that would not have looked out of place had it been worn by any of the chairmen of the forty-eight banks located within a square mile of the building. His shirt was of a shade of blue that was not influenced by Milan fashions, and his tie was so discreet that, moments after leaving the room, only a remarkably observant client would have been able to recall its color or pattern.

  On Monsieur Dummond’s right sat his client, Mr. Al Obaydi, whose dress, although slightly more fashionable, was nonetheless equally conservative.

  Opposite Monsieur Dummond sat the chairman of Franchard et cie, who, any observer would have noticed, must have shared the same tailor as Monsieur Dummond. On Franchard’s left sat Antonio Cavalli, wearing a double-breasted Armani suit, making him look as if he had dropped in on the wrong meeting.

  The little carriage clock that sat on the Louis-Philippe mantelpiece behind Monsieur Dummond completed twelve strokes. The chairman cleared his throat and began the proceedings.

  “Gentlemen, the purpose of this meeting, which was called at our instigation but with your agreement, is to exchange a rare document for an agreed sum of money.” Monsieur Dummond pushed his half-moon spectacles further up his nose. “Naturally, I must begin, Mr. Cavalli, by asking if you are in possession of that document?”