Honor Among Thieves

by Jeffrey Archer

  “The perfect time of year to be sailing the Bosphorus,” said Dollar Bill. “Especially if you hope to meet a rather remarkable girl when you reach the other side,” he added, looking up at Scott. “So, I’d better have the Declaration finished by Monday, hadn’t I, Professor?”

  “At the latest,” said Hutchins as Scott stared down at the little Irishman.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  When Al Obaydi arrived back in Paris he collected his bags from the twenty-four-hour storage depot, before joining the line for a taxi.

  He gave the driver an address, without saying it was the Iraqi annex to the Jordanian Embassy—one of the tips in Miss Saib’s “do’s and don’ts” in Paris. He hadn’t warned the staff at the embassy that he would be arriving that day. He wasn’t officially due to take up his appointment for another two weeks, and he would have gone straight on to Jordan that evening if there had been a connecting flight. Once he had realized who Mr. Riffat was, he knew he would have to get back to Baghdad as quickly as possible. By reporting directly to the Foreign Minister, he would have gone through the correct channels. This would protect his position, while at the same time guaranteeing that the President knew exactly who was responsible for alerting him to a possible attempt on his life, and which Ambassador, however closely related, had left several stones unturned.

  The taxi dropped Al Obaydi outside the annex to the embassy in Neuilly. He pulled his cases out of the back without any help from the driver, who remained seated obstinately behind the wheel of his car.

  The embassy front door opened just an inch, and was then flung wide, and a man of about forty came running down the steps towards him, followed by two girls and a younger man.

  “Excellency, Excellency,” the first man exclaimed. “I am sorry, you must forgive me, we had no idea you were coming.” The younger man grabbed the two large cases and the girls took the remaining three between them.

  Al Obaydi was not surprised to learn that the first man down the steps was Abdul Kanuk.

  “We were told you would be arriving in two weeks’ time, Excellency. We thought you were still in Baghdad. I hope you will not feel we have been discourteous.”

  Al Obaydi made no attempt to interrupt the nonstop flow of sycophancy that came pouring out, feeling the man must eventually run out of steam. In any case, Kanuk was not a man to get on the wrong side of on his first day.

  “Would Your Excellency like a quick tour of our quarters while the maid unpacks your bags?”

  Since there were questions Al Obaydi felt only this man could answer, he took advantage of the offer. Not only did he get the guided tour from the Chief Administrator, but he was also subjected to a stream of uninterrupted gossip. He stopped listening after only a few minutes: he had far more important things on his mind. He soon longed to be shown to his own room and left alone to be given a chance to think. The first flight to Jordan was not until the next morning, and he needed to prepare in his mind how he would present his findings to the Foreign Minister.

  It was while he was being shown around what would shortly be his office looking out over a Paris that was turning from the half light of dusk to the artificial light of night, that the Administrator said something Al Obaydi didn’t quite catch. He felt he should have been paying closer attention.

  “I’m sorry to say that your secretary is on vacation, Excellency. Like the rest of us, Miss Ahmed wasn’t expecting you for another two weeks. I know she had planned to be back in Paris a week ahead of you, so that she would have everything ready by the time you arrived.”

  “It’s not a problem,” said Al Obaydi.

  “Of course, you’ll know Miss Saib, the Deputy Foreign Minister’s secretary?”

  “I came across Miss Saib when I was in Baghdad,” replied Al Obaydi.

  The Chief Administrator nodded, and seemed to hesitate for a moment.

  “I think I’ll have a rest before dinner,” the Ambassador said, taking advantage of the temporary halt in an otherwise unending flow.

  “I’ll have something sent up to your room, Excellency. Would eight suit you?”

  “Thank you,” said Al Obaydi, in an attempt to put an end to the conversation.

  “Shall I place your passport and tickets in the safe, as I always did for the previous Ambassador?”

  “A good idea,” said Al Obaydi, delighted to have at last found a way of getting rid of the Chief Administrator.

  Scott put the phone down and turned to face Dexter Hutchins, who was leaning back in the large leather chair at his desk, his hands clasped behind his head and a questioning look on his face.

  “So where are they?” asked Dexter.

  “Kratz wouldn’t give me the exact location, for obvious reasons, but at his current rate of progress he feels confident they’ll reach the Jordanian border within the next three days.”

  “Then let’s pray that the Iraqi Ministry of Industry is as inefficient as our experts keep telling us it is. If so, the advantage should be with us for at least a few more days. After all, we did move the moment sanctions were lifted, and until you showed up in Kalmar, Pedersson hadn’t heard a peep out of anyone for the past two years.”

  “I agree. But I worry that Pedersson might be the one weak link in Kratz’s chain.”

  “If you’re going to take these sorts of risks, no plan can ever be absolutely watertight,” said Dexter.

  Scott nodded.

  “And if Kratz is less than three days from the border, you’ll have to catch a flight for Amman on Monday night, assuming Mr. O’Reilly has finished his signatures by then.”

  “I don’t think that’s a problem any longer,” said Scott.

  “Why? He still had a lot of names to copy when I last looked at the parchment.”

  “It can’t be that many,” said Scott, “because Mr. Mendelssohn flew in from Washington this morning in order to pass his judgment, and that seems to be the only opinion Bill is interested in.”

  “Then let’s go and see for ourselves,” said Dexter as he swung himself up out of his chair.

  As they left the office and made their way down the corridor, Dexter asked, “And how’s Bertha’s bible coming along? I turned a few pages of the introduction this morning and couldn’t begin to get a grasp of why the bulbs turn from red to green.”

  “Only one man knows Madame Bertha more intimately than I do, and at this moment he’s pining away in Scandinavia,” said Scott as they climbed the stone steps to Dollar Bill’s private room.

  “I also hear that Charles has designed a special pair of trousers for you,” Dexter said.

  “And they’re a perfect fit,” replied Scott with a smile.

  As they reached the top of the steps, Dexter was about to barge in when Scott put an arm on his shoulder.

  “Perhaps we should knock? He might be—”

  “Next you’ll be wanting me to call him ‘sir.’”

  Scott grinned as Dexter knocked quietly, and when there was no reply, eased the door open. He crept in to see Mendelssohn stooping over the parchment, magnifying glass in hand.

  “Benjamin Franklin, John Morton and George Clymer,” muttered the Conservator.

  “I had a lot of trouble with Clymer,” said Dollar Bill, who was looking out of the window over the bay. “It was the damn man’s squiggles, which I had to complete in one flow. You’ll find a couple of hundred of them in the wastepaper basket.”

  “May we approach the bench?” asked Dexter. Dollar Bill turned and waved them in.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Mendelssohn. I’m Dexter Hutchins, Deputy Director of the CIA.”

  “Could you possibly be anything else?” asked Dollar Bill.

  Dexter ignored the comment and asked Mendelssohn, “What’s your judgment, sir?”

  Dollar Bill continued to stare out of the window.

  “It’s every bit as good as the copy we currently have on display at the National Archives.”

  “You are most generous, sir,” said Dollar Bill, who turne
d around to face them.

  “But I don’t understand why you have spelled the word ‘British’ correctly, and not with two t’s as it was on the original,” said Mendelssohn, returning his attention to the document.

  “There are two reasons for that,” said Dollar Bill as six suspicious eyes stared back at him. “First, if the exchange is carried out successfully, Saddam will not be able to claim he still has his hands on the original.”

  “Clever,” said Scott.

  “And second?” asked Dexter, who remained suspicious of the little Irishman’s motives.

  “It will stop the professor from bringing back this copy and trying to pass it off as the original.”

  Scott laughed. “You always think like a criminal,” he said.

  “And you’d better be thinking like one yourself over the next few days, if you’re going to get the better of Saddam Hussein,” said Dollar Bill as Charles entered the room, carrying a pint of Guinness on a silver tray.

  Dollar Bill thanked Charles, removed his reward from the tray and walked to the far side of the room before taking the first sip.

  “May I ask…?” began Scott.

  “I once spilled the blessed nectar all over a hundred-dollar etching that I had spent some three months preparing.”

  “So what did you do then?” asked Scott.

  “I fear that I settled for second best, which caused me to end up in the slammer for another five years.” Even Dexter joined in the laughter. “However, on this occasion I raise my glass to Matthew Thornton, the final signatory on the document. I wish him good health wherever he is, despite the damn man’s t’s.”

  “So, am I able to take the masterpiece away now?” asked Scott.

  “Not yet, young man,” said Dollar Bill. “I fear you must suffer another evening of my company,” he added before placing his drink on the window ledge and returning to the document. “You see, the one problem I have been fighting is time. In Mr. Mendelssohn’s judgment, the parchment has an 1830s feel about it. Am I right, sir?”

  The Conservator nodded, and raised his arms as if apologizing for daring to mention such a slight blemish.

  “So what can be done about that?” asked Dexter Hutchins.

  Dollar Bill flicked on a switch and the Xenon lamps above his desk shone down on the parchment and filled the room with light, making it appear like a film set.

  “By nine o’clock tomorrow morning the parchment will be nearer 1776. Even if, because you have failed to give me enough time, I miss perfection by a few years, I remain confident that there’ll be no one in Iraq who’ll be able to tell the difference, unless they are in possession of a Carbon 14 Dating machine and know how to use it.”

  “Then we can only hope that the original hasn’t already been destroyed,” said Dexter Hutchins.

  “Not a chance,” said Scott.

  “How can you be so confident?” asked Dexter.

  “The day Saddam destroys that parchment, he will want the whole world to witness it. Of that I’m sure.”

  “Then, I’m thinking a toast might be in order,” said the Irishman. “That is, with my gracious host’s permission.”

  “A toast, Bill?” said the Deputy Director, sounding surprised. “Whom do you have in mind?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Hannah,” said the little Irishman, “wherever she may be.”

  “How did you know?” asked Scott. “I’ve never mentioned her name.”

  “No need to, when you write it on everything from the backs of envelopes to steaming windows. She must be a very special lady, Professor.” He raised his glass and repeated the words, “To Hannah.”

  The Chief Administrator sat and waited patiently until the maid had removed the Ambassador’s dinner tray. He then closed his door at the other end of the corridor.

  He waited for another two hours, until he felt certain all the embassy staff had gone to bed. Confident he would be the only one left awake, he crept back down to his office and looked up a telephone number in Geneva. He dialed the code slowly and deliberately. It rang for a long time before it was eventually answered.

  “I need to speak to the Ambassador,” he whispered.

  “His Excellency retired to bed some time ago,” said a voice. “You’ll have to call back in the morning.”

  “Wake him. Tell him it’s Abdul Kanuk in Paris.”

  “If you insist.”

  “I do insist.”

  The Chief Administrator waited for some time before a sleepy voice eventually came on the line.

  “This had better be good, Abdul.”

  “Al Obaydi has arrived in Paris unannounced, and two weeks before he was expected.”

  “You woke me in the middle of the night to tell me this?”

  “But he didn’t come directly from Baghdad, Excellency. He made a slight detour.”

  “How can you be so sure?” said the voice, sounding a little more awake.

  “Because I am in possession of his passport.”

  “But he’s on vacation, you fool.”

  “I know. But why spend the day in a city not known for attracting tourists?”

  “You’re talking in riddles. If you’ve got something to tell me, tell me.”

  “Earlier today, Ambassador Al Obaydi paid a visit to Stockholm, according to the stamp on his passport, but he returned to Paris the same evening. Not my idea of a vacation.”

  “Stockholm…Stockholm…Stockholm…” repeated the voice on the other end of the line, as if trying to register its significance. A pause, and then, “The safe. Of course. He must have gone on to Kalmar to check on Sayedi’s safe. What has he found out that he thought worth hiding from me, and does Baghdad know what he’s up to?”

  “I have no idea, Excellency,” said the Administrator. “But I do know he’s flying back to Baghdad tomorrow.”

  “But if he’s on vacation, why would he return to Baghdad so quickly?”

  “Perhaps being the Head of Interest Section in Paris is not reward enough for him, Excellency. Could he have his eyes on some greater prize?”

  There was a long pause before the voice in Geneva said, “You did well, Abdul. You were right to wake me. I’ll have to phone Kalmar first thing in the morning. First thing,” he repeated.

  “You did promise, Excellency, should I once again manage to bring to your attention…”

  Tony Cavalli waited until Martin had poured them both a drink.

  “Arrested in a barroom brawl,” said his father after he had listened to his son’s report.

  “Yes,” said Cavalli, placing a file on the table by his side, “and what’s more, he was sentenced to thirty days.”

  “Thirty days?” said his father in disbelief. The old man paused before he added, “What instructions have you given Laura?”

  “I’ve put her on hold until July 15th, when Dollar Bill will be released,” Tony replied.

  “So where have they locked him up this time? The county jail?”

  “No. According to the records at the district court in Fairmont, they’ve thrown him back into the state pen.”

  “For being involved in a barroom brawl,” said the older man. “It doesn’t make sense.” He stared up at the Declaration of Independence on the wall behind his desk and didn’t speak again for some moments.

  “Who have we got on the inside?”

  Cavalli opened the file on the table by his side and extracted a single sheet of paper. “One senior officer and six inmates,” he said, passing his research across, pleased to have anticipated his father’s question.

  The old man studied the list of names for some time before he began licking his lips. “Eduardo Bellatti must be our best bet,” he said, looking up at his son. “If I remember correctly, he was sentenced to ninety-nine years for blowing away a judge who once got in our way.”

  “Correct, and what’s more, he’s always been happy to kill anyone for a pack of cigarettes,” said Tony. “So, if he takes care of Dollar Bill before July 15th, it would als
o save us a quarter of a million dollars.”

  “Something isn’t quite right,” said his father as he toyed with a whisky, which he hadn’t touched. “Perhaps it’s time to dig a little deeper,” he added, almost as if he were talking to himself.

  He checked down the list of names once again.

  * * *

  Al Obaydi woke early the following morning, restless to be on his way to Baghdad so that he could brief the Foreign Minister on everything he’d learned. Once he was back on Iraqi soil he would prepare a full, written report. He went over the outline again and again in his mind.

  He would first explain to the Foreign Minister that, while he was carrying out a routine sanctions check, he had learned that the safe that had been ordered by the President was already on its way to Baghdad. On discovering this, he had become suspicious that an enemy of the state might be involved in an assassination attempt on the life of the President. Not altogether certain who could be trusted, he had used his initiative, and even his own time and money, to discover who was behind the plot. Within moments of his reporting the details to the Foreign Minister, Saddam was sure to find out whose responsibility the safe was, and, more important, who had failed to take care of the President’s well-being.

  A tap on the door interrupted his thoughts. “Come in,” he called, and a maid entered carrying a breakfast tray of two pieces of burned toast and a cup of thick Turkish coffee. Once she had closed the door behind her, Al Obaydi rose, had a cold shower—not by choice—and dressed quickly. He then poured the coffee down the sink and ignored the toast.

  The Ambassador left his room and walked down one flight of stairs to his office, where he found the Chief Administrator standing behind his desk. Had he been sitting in his chair a moment before?

  “Good morning, Excellency,” he said. “I hope you had a comfortable night.” Al Obaydi was about to lose his temper, but Kanuk’s next question took him by surprise.

  “Have you been briefed on the bombings in Baghdad, Excellency?”

  “What bombings?” asked Al Obaydi, not pleased to be wrong-footed.