Honor Among Thieves

by Jeffrey Archer

  M.o.l.

  State Security

  Deputy Foreign Minister

  Kalmar

  Al Obaydi glanced at the first heading, M.o.l. He had remained in contact with a fellow student from London University days who had risen to Permanent Secretary status at the Ministry of Industry. Al Obaydi felt his old friend would be able to supply the information he required without suspecting his real motive.

  He dialed the Permanent Secretary’s private number, and was delighted to find that someone was at his desk.

  “Nadhim, it’s Hamid Al Obaydi.”

  “Hamid, I heard you were back from New York. The rumor is that you’ve got what remains of our embassy in Paris. But one can never be sure about rumors in this city.”

  “For once, they’re accurate,” Al Obaydi told his friend.

  “Congratulations. So, what can I do for you, Your Excellency?”

  Al Obaydi was amused that Nadhim was the first person to address him by his new title, even if he was being sarcastic.

  “UN sanctions.”

  “And you claim you’re my friend?”

  “No, it’s just a routine check. I’ve got to tie up any loose ends for my successor. Everything’s in order as far as I can tell, except I’m unable to find out much about a gigantic safe that was made for us in Sweden. I know we’ve paid for it, but I can’t discover what is happening about its delivery.”

  “Not this department, Hamid. The responsibility was taken out of our hands about a year ago after the file was marked ‘High Command,’ which usually means for the President’s personal use.”

  “But someone must be responsible for a movement order from Kalmar to Baghdad,” said Al Obaydi.

  “All I know is that I was instructed to pass the file on to our UN office in Geneva as we don’t have an embassy in Oslo. I’m surprised you didn’t know that, Hamid. More your department than mine, I would have thought.”

  “Then I’ll have to get in touch with Geneva and find out what they’re doing about it,” said Al Obaydi, not adding that New York and Geneva rarely informed each other of anything they were up to. “Thanks for your help, Nadhim.”

  “Any time. Good luck in Paris, Hamid. I’m told the women are fabulous, and despite what you hear, they like Arabs.”

  Al Obaydi put the phone down and stared at the list on his pad. He took even longer deciding if he should make the second call.

  The correct course of action with the information he now possessed would be to contact Geneva, alert the Ambassador of his suspicions and let Saddam’s half brother once again take the praise for something he himself had done the work on. He checked his watch. It was midday in Switzerland. He asked his secretary to get Barazan Al-Tikriti on the phone, knowing she would log every call. He waited for several minutes before a voice came on the line.

  “Can I speak to the Ambassador?” he asked politely.

  “He’s in a meeting, sir,” came back the inevitable reply. “Shall I disturb him?”

  “No, no, don’t bother. But would you let him know that Hamid Al Obaydi called from Baghdad, and ask him if he would be kind enough to return my call.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the voice, and Al Obaydi replaced the phone. He had carried out the correct procedure.

  He opened the sanctions file on his desk and scribbled on the bottom of his report: “The Ministry of Industry has sent the file concerning this item direct to Geneva. I phoned our Ambassador there but was unable to make contact with him. Therefore, I cannot make any progress from this end until he returns my call. Hamid Al Obaydi.”

  Al Obaydi considered his next move extremely carefully. If he decided to do anything, his actions must once again appear on the surface to be routine, and well within his accepted brief. Any slight deviation from the norm in a city that fed on rumor and paranoia, and it would be him who would end up dangling from a rope, not Saddam’s half brother.

  Al Obaydi looked down at the second heading on his notepad. He buzzed his secretary and asked her to get General Saba’awi Al-Hassan, Head of State Security, on the line. The post was one that had been held by three different people in the last seven months. The General was available immediately, there being more Generals than Ambassadors in the Iraqi regime.

  “Ambassador, good morning. I’ve been meaning to call you. We ought to have a talk before you take up your new appointment in Paris.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Al Obaydi. “I have no idea who we still have representing us in Europe. It’s been a long time since I served in that part of the world.”

  “We’re a bit thin on the ground, to be honest. Most of our best people have been expelled, including the so-called students whom we’ve always been able to rely on in the past. Still, not a subject to be discussed over the phone. When would you like me to come and see you?”

  “Are you free between four and five this afternoon?”

  There was a pause before the General said, “I could be with you around four, but would have to be back in my office by five. Do you think that will give us enough time?”

  “I feel sure you’ll be able to brief me fully in that period, General.” Al Obaydi put the phone down on another routine call.

  He stared at the third name on the list, who he feared might prove a little harder to bluff.

  He spent the next few minutes rehearsing his questions before dialing an internal number. A Miss Saib answered the phone.

  “Is there a particular subject you wish to raise with the Deputy Foreign Minister?” she asked.

  “No,” replied Al Obaydi, “I’m phoning at his specific request. I’m due for a little leave at the end of the week and the Deputy Foreign Minister made it clear he wished to brief me before I take up my new post in Paris.”

  “I’ll come back to you with a time as soon as I’ve had a chance to discuss your request with the Minister,” Miss Saib promised.

  Al Obaydi replaced the phone. Nothing to raise any suspicions there. He looked back at his pad and added a question mark, two arrows and another word to his list.

  Kalmar ← ? → Geneva

  Some time in the next forty-eight hours he was going to have to decide which direction he should take.

  The first question Kratz put to Scott on the journey from Kalmar to Stockholm was the significance of the numbers zero-seven-zero-four-nine-three. Scott snapped out of a daydream where he was rescuing Hannah on a white charger, and returned to the real world, which looked a lot less promising.

  “The Fourth of July,” he responded. “What better day could Saddam select to humiliate the American people, not to mention a new President.”

  “So now at least we know when our deadline is,” said Kratz.

  “Yes, but we’ve only been left with eleven days,” replied Scott. “One way or the other.”

  “Still, we’ve got Madame Bertha,” said Kratz, trying to lighten the mood.

  “True,” said Scott. “And where do you intend to take her on her first date?”

  “All the way,” said Kratz. “That is to say, Jordan, which is where I’m expecting you to join up with us again. In fact, my full team is already in Stockholm waiting to pick her up before they begin the journey to Baghdad. All the paperwork has been sorted out for us by Langley, so there should be no holdups on the way. Our first problem will be crossing the Jordanian border, but as we have all the requisite documents demanded by the UN, a few extra dollars supplied to the right customs official should ensure that his stamping hand lands firmly on the correct page of all our passports.”

  “How much time have you allocated for the journey to Jordan?” Scott asked, remembering his own tight schedule.

  “Six or seven days, eight at the outside. I’ve got a six-man team, all with considerable field experience. None of them will have to drive for more than four hours at a time without then getting sixteen hours’ rest. That way there will be no need to stop at any point, other than to fill up with gas.” They passed a sign indicating ten kilometers to St
ockholm.

  “So I’ve got a week,” said Scott.

  “Yes, and we must hope that that’s enough time for Bill O’Reilly to complete a perfect new copy of the Declaration,” said Kratz.

  “It ought to be a lot easier for him a second time,” said Scott. “Especially since every one of his requests was dealt with within hours of his asking. They even flew over nine shades of black ink from London on the Concorde the following morning.”

  “I wish we could put Madame Bertha on the Concorde.”

  Scott laughed. “Tell me more about your back-up team.”

  “The best I’ve ever had,” said Kratz. “Five Israelis and one Kurd. All of them have had front-line experience in several official and unofficial wars.”

  Kratz noticed that Scott had raised an eyebrow at the mention of the Kurdish member of the team.

  “Few people realize,” he continued, “that Mossad has an Arab section, not large in numbers, but once we’ve trained them, only the Gurkhas make better killers. The test will be if you can spot which one he is.”

  “How many are coming over the border with us?”

  “Only two. We can’t afford to make it look like an army. One engineer and a driver. At least, that’s how they’ll be described on the manifest, but they only have one job description as far as I’m concerned, and that’s to get you into Baghdad and back out with the Declaration in the shortest possible time.”

  Scott looked straight ahead of him. “And Hannah?” he said simply.

  “That would be a bonus if we got lucky, but it’s not part of my brief. I consider the chances of your even seeing her are remote,” he said as they passed a “Welcome to Stockholm” sign.

  Scott began thumping Bertha’s bible up and down on his knees. “Careful with that,” said Kratz. “It still needs to be translated, otherwise you won’t know how to go about a proper introduction to the lady. After all, it will only be your palm and your voice she’ll be opening her heart to.”

  Scott glanced down at the 108-page book and wondered how long it would take him to master its secrets, even after it had been translated into English.

  Kratz suddenly swung right without warning and drove down a deserted street that ran parallel to a disused railway line. All Scott could see ahead of him was a tunnel that looked as if it led nowhere.

  When he was a hundred yards from the entrance, Kratz checked in his rearview mirror to see if anyone was following them. Satisfied they were alone, he flashed his headlights three times. A second later, from what appeared to be the other end of a black hole, he received the same response. He slowed down and drove into the tunnel without his lights on. All Scott could now see was a flashlight indicating where they should pull up.

  Kratz followed the light and came to a halt in front of what appeared to be an old army truck. It was stationed just inside the far end of the tunnel.

  He jumped out of the car and Scott quickly followed, trying to accustom himself to the half light. Then he saw three men standing on each side of the vehicle. The man nearest them came to attention and saluted. “Good morning, Colonel,” he said.

  “Put your men at ease, Feldman, and come and meet Professor Bradley,” said Kratz. Scott almost laughed at the use of his academic title among these men, but there were no smiles on the faces of the six soldiers who came forward to meet him.

  After Scott had shaken hands with each of them he took a walk around the truck. “Do you really believe this old heap is capable of carrying Madame Bertha to Baghdad?” he asked Kratz in disbelief.

  “Sergeant Cohen.”

  “Sir,” said a voice in the dark.

  “You’re the trained mechanic. Why don’t you brief Professor Bradley?”

  “Yes, sir.” Another figure appeared out of the gloom. Scott couldn’t see his features clearly, as he was covered in grease, but from his accent he would have guessed he had spent most of his life in London. “The Heavy Expanded Mobile Tactical Truck was built in Wisconsin, sir. She has five gears, four forward, one reverse. She can be used on all terrains in most weather conditions in virtually any country. She weighs twenty tons and can carry up to ten tons, but with that weight on board you cannot risk driving over thirty miles per hour. Any higher than that and she would be impossible to stop, even though if pushed she can top 120 miles per hour.”

  “Thank you, Cohen. A useful piece of equipment, I think you’ll agree,” said Kratz, looking back at Scott. “We’ve wanted one of these for years, and then suddenly you arrive on the scene and Uncle Sam offers us the prototype model overnight. But then, at a cost of nearly a million dollars of taxpayers’ money, you’d expect the Americans to be choosy about who they loan one out to.”

  “Would you care to join us for lunch, Professor?” asked the man who had been introduced as Feldman.

  “Don’t tell me the HEMTT cooks as well,” said Scott.

  “No, sir, we have to rely on the Kurd for that. Aziz’s speciality is hamburger and French fries. If you’ve never had the experience before, it can be quite tasty.”

  The eight of them sat cross-legged on the ground, using the reverse side of a backgammon board as a table. Scott couldn’t remember enjoying a burned hamburger more. He was also glad of the chance to chat with the men he would be working with on the operation. Kratz began to talk through the different contingency plans they would have to consider once they had reached the Jordan-Iraq border. It didn’t take more than a few minutes for Scott to realize how professional these men were, or to see their desire to be part of the final team. He grew confident that the operation was in good hands, and that Kratz’s team had not been chosen at random.

  After a third hamburger he was sorry when the Mossad Colonel reminded him he had a flight to catch. He rose and thanked the cook for a memorable meal.

  “See you in Jordan, sir,” said Sergeant Cohen.

  “See you in Jordan,” said Scott.

  As Scott was being driven to the airport, he asked Kratz, “How are you going to select the final two?”

  “They’ll decide for themselves. Nothing to do with me, I’m only their commanding officer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re going to play round-robin backgammon on the way to Jordan. The two winners get a day trip to Baghdad, all expenses paid.”

  “And the losers?”

  “Get a postcard saying ‘Wish you were here.’”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hannah gathered up all the files that the Deputy Foreign Minister would require for his meeting with the Revolutionary Command Council.

  By working hours that no one else knew existed, and completing tasks the Minister had never thought would get done, Hannah had quickly made herself indispensable. Whenever the Minister needed something, it was there on his desk: she could anticipate his every need, and never sought praise for doing so. But, despite all this, she rarely left the office during the day or the house at night, and certainly seemed to be no nearer to coming into contact with Saddam. The Ambassador’s wife tried valiantly to help on the social side, and on one occasion she even invited a young soldier around to dinner. He was good-looking, Hannah thought, and seemed to be pleasant enough, although he hardly opened his mouth all evening and left suddenly without a word. Perhaps she was unable to hide the fact that she no longer had any interest in men.

  Hannah had sat in on several meetings with individual Ministers, even members of the Command Council, including Saddam’s half brother, the Iraqi Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, but she felt no nearer to Saddam himself than she had been when she lived in a cul-de-sac in Chalk Farm. She was becoming despondent, and began to fear that her frustration might become obvious for all to see. As an antidote she channeled her energies into generating reports on interdepartmental spending, and set up a filing system that would have been the envy of the clerks in the Library of Congress. But one of the many things Mossad had taught her during her arduous days of training was always to be patient, and ready, because in t
ime an opening would appear.

  It was early on a Thursday morning, when most of the Minister’s staff had begun their weekends, that the first opening presented itself. Hannah was typing up her notes from a meeting the Deputy Minister had had the previous day with the newly appointed Head of Interest Section in Paris, a Mr. Al Obaydi, when the call came through. Muhammad Saeed Al-Zahiaf, the Foreign Minister, wished to speak to his Deputy.

  A few moments later, the Deputy Minister came rushing out of his office, barking at Hannah to follow him. Hannah grabbed a notepad and chased after the Minister down the long passageway.

  Although the Foreign Minister’s office was only at the other end of the corridor, Hannah had never been inside it before. When she followed her Minister into the room, she was surprised to find how modern and dull it was, with only the panoramic view over the Tigris as compensation.

  The Foreign Minister did not bother to rise, but hastily ushered his subordinate into a chair on the opposite side of the desk, explaining that the President had requested a full report on the subject they had discussed at the Revolutionary Command Council the previous evening. He went on to explain that his own secretary had gone home for the weekend, so Miss Saib should take down a record of their meeting.

  Hannah could not believe the discussion that followed. Had she not been aware that she was listening to two loyal members of the Revolutionary Command Council, she would have dismissed their conversation as an outrageous piece of propaganda. The President’s half brother had apparently succeeded in stealing the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives in Washington, and the document was now nailed to a wall of the room in which the Council met.

  The discussion concentrated on how the news of this triumph should be released to an astonished world, and the date that had been selected to guarantee the greatest media coverage. Details were also discussed as to which square in the capital the President should deliver his speech from before he publicly burned the document, and whether Peter Arnett or Bernard Shaw of CNN should be granted special access to film the President standing next to the parchment the night before the burning ceremony took place.