Honor Among Thieves

by Jeffrey Archer

  “And the alarm system?” asked Scott when he had come to an end.

  “All you have to remember is that the red buttons by the light switches activate the alarm, but at the same time close all the exits.”

  Scott nodded, but it was some time before he asked his next question. “And Hannah?”

  “Nothing’s changed. My first task is to get you in and then back out with the original document. She still remains an unlikely bonus, although she obviously knows what’s going on.”

  Neither of them spoke again until Sergeant Cohen pulled off the highway into a large gravel rest area packed with trucks. He parked the vehicle at an angle so that only the most inquisitive could observe what they were up to, then jumped out of the cab, pulled himself over the tailgate and grinned at the Kurd who was lounging against the safe. Between them they removed the tarpaulin that covered the massive structure as Scott and Kratz climbed up to join them in the back of the truck.

  “What do you think, Professor?” asked Aziz.

  “She hasn’t lost any weight, that’s for sure,” said Scott, as he tried to remember the nightly homework he had done in preparation for this single exam.

  He stretched his fingers and smiled. All three bulbs above the white square were red. He first turned all three dials to a code that only he and a man in Sweden were aware of. He then placed his right hand on the white square, and left it there for several seconds. He leaned forward, put his lips up against the square and spoke softly. “My name is Andreas Bernstrom. When you hear this voice, and only this voice, you will unlock the door.” Scott waited as the other three looked on in bemused silence. He then swiveled the dials. All three bulbs remained red.

  “Now we discover if I understood the instructions,” said Scott. He bit his lip and advanced again. Once more he twiddled the dials, but this time to the numbers selected by Saddam, ending with zero-seven-zero-four-nine-three. The first light went from red to green. Aziz smiled. Scott placed the palm of his hand in the white square and left it there for several seconds. The second light switched to green.

  Scott heard Kratz sigh audibly as he stepped forward again. He put his lips to the white square so they just touched the thin wire mesh. “My name is Andreas Bernstrom. It’s now time for the safe to—” The third light turned green even before he had completed the sentence. Cohen offered up a suppressed cheer.

  Scott grasped the handle and pulled. The ton of steel eased open.

  “Not bad,” said Cohen. “What do you do for an encore?”

  “Use you as a guinea pig,” said Scott. “Why don’t you try and close the safe, Sergeant?”

  Cohen took a step forward and with both hands shoved the door closed. The three bulbs immediately began flashing red.

  “Easy, once you get the hang of it,” he said.

  Scott smiled and pulled the door back open with his little finger. Cohen stared open-mouthed as the lights returned to green.

  “The lights might flash red,” said Scott, “but Bertha can only handle one man at a time. No one else can open or close the safe now except me.”

  “And I was hoping it was because he was a Jew,” said Aziz.

  Scott smiled as he pushed the door of the safe closed, swiveled the dials and waited until all three bulbs turned red.

  “Let’s go,” said Kratz, who Scott felt sounded a little irritated—or was it just the first sign of tension? Aziz threw the tarpaulin back over Madame Bertha while his colleagues jumped over the side and returned to the cab.

  No one spoke as they continued their journey to the border until Cohen let out a string of expletives when he spotted the line of trucks ahead of them. “We’re going to be here all night,” he said.

  “And most of tomorrow morning, I expect,” said Kratz. “So we’d better get used to it.” They came to a halt behind the last truck in the line.

  “Why don’t I just drive on up front and try to bluff my way through?” said Cohen. “A few extra dollars ought to…”

  “No,” said Kratz. “We don’t want to attract undue attention at any time between now and when we cross back over that border.”

  During the next hour, while the truck moved forward only a couple of hundred yards, Kratz went over his plans yet again, covering any situation he thought might arise once they reached Baghdad.

  Another hour passed, and Scott was thankful for the evening breeze that helped him doze off, although he realized that he would soon have to roll the window up if he wished to avoid freezing. He began to drift into a light sleep, his mind switching between Hannah and the Declaration, and which, given the choice, he would rather bring home. He realized that Kratz was in no doubt why he had volunteered to join the team when the chances of survival were so slim.

  “What’s this joker up to then?” said Cohen in a stage whisper. Scott snapped awake and quickly focused on a uniformed official talking to the driver of the truck in front of them.

  “It’s a customs official,” said Kratz. “He’s only checking to see that drivers have the right papers to cross the border.”

  “Most of this lot will only have two little bits of red paper about five inches by three,” said Cohen.

  “Here he comes,” said Kratz. “Try and look as bored as he does.”

  The officer strolled up to the cab and didn’t even give Cohen a first look as he thrust a hand through the open window.

  Cohen passed over the papers that the experts at Langley had provided. The official studied them and then walked slowly around the truck. When he returned to the driver’s side, he barked an order at Cohen that none of them understood.

  Cohen looked towards Kratz, but a voice from behind rescued them.

  “He says we’re to go to the front of the line.”

  “Why?” asked Kratz suspiciously. Aziz repeated the question to the official.

  “We’re being given priority because of the letter signed by Saddam.”

  “And who do we thank for that?” asked Kratz, still not fully convinced.

  “Bill O’Reilly,” said Scott, “who was only too sorry he couldn’t join us on the trip. But he’s been given to understand that it’s quite impossible to get draft Guinness anywhere in Iraq.”

  Kratz nodded, and Sergeant Cohen obeyed the official’s instructions, allowing himself to be directed into the lane of oncoming traffic as he began an unsteady two-mile journey to the front of the line. Vehicles legally progressing towards Amman on the other side of the road found they had to swerve onto the loose rubble of the hard shoulder if they didn’t want a head-on collision with Madame Bertha.

  As Cohen completed the last few yards to the border post, an angry official came running out of the customs shed waving a fist. Once again it was Aziz who came to their rescue, by recommending that Kratz show him the letter.

  After one look at the signature, the fist was quickly exchanged for a salute.

  “Passport,” was the only other word he uttered.

  Kratz passed over three Swedish and one Iraqi passport with two red notes attached to the first page of each document. “Never pay above the expected tariff,” he had warned his team. “It only makes them suspicious.”

  The four passports were taken to a little cubicle, studied, stamped and returned by the official, who even offered them the suggestion of a smile. The barrier on the Jordanian side was raised, and the truck began its mile-long journey toward the Iraqi checkpoint.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Hamid Al Obaydi was dragged into the Council Chamber by two of the Presidential Guards and then dumped in a chair several yards away from the long table.

  He raised his head and looked around at the twelve men who made up the Revolutionary Command Council. None of their eyes came into contact with his, with the exception of the State Prosecutor’s.

  What had he done that these people had decided to arrest him at the border, handcuff him, throw him in jail, leave him to sleep on the stone floor and not even offer him the chance to use a toilet?

>   Still dressed in the suit he had crossed the border in, he was now sitting in his own excrement.

  Saddam raised a hand, and the State Prosecutor smiled.

  But Al Obaydi did not fear Nakir Farrar. Not only was he innocent of any trumped-up charge, but he also had information they needed. The State Prosecutor rose slowly from his place.

  “Your name is Hamid Al Obaydi?”

  “Yes,” replied Al Obaydi, looking directly at the State Prosecutor.

  “You are charged with treason and the theft of state property. How do you plead?”

  “I am innocent, and Allah will be my witness.”

  “If Allah is to be your witness, I’m sure he won’t mind me asking you some simple questions.”

  “I will be most happy to answer anything.”

  “When you returned from New York earlier this month, you continued your work in the Foreign Ministry. Is that correct?”

  “It is.”

  “And was one of your responsibilities checking the government’s latest position with reference to UN sanctions?”

  “Yes. That was part of my job as Deputy Ambassador to the UN.”

  “Quite so. And when you carried out these checks, you came across certain items on which embargoes had been lifted. Am I right?”

  “Yes, you are,” said Al Obaydi confidently.

  “Was one of those items a safe?”

  “It was,” said Al Obaydi.

  “When you realized this, what did you do about it?”

  “I telephoned the Swedish company who had built the safe to ascertain what the latest position was, so that I could enter the facts in my report.”

  “And what did you discover?”

  Al Obaydi hesitated, not sure how much the Prosecutor knew.

  “What did you discover?” insisted Farrar.

  “That the safe had been collected that day by a Mr. Riffat.”

  “Did you know this Mr. Riffat?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “So what did you do next?”

  “I rang the Ministry of Industry, as I was under the impression that they were responsible for the safe.”

  “And what did they tell you?”

  “That the responsibility had been taken out of their hands.”

  “Did they also tell you into whose hands the responsibility had been entrusted?” asked the Prosecutor.

  “I don’t remember exactly.”

  “Well, let me try and refresh your memory—or shall I call the Permanent Secretary to whom you spoke on the phone that morning?”

  “I think he may have said that it was no longer in their hands,” said Al Obaydi.

  “Did he tell you whose hands it was in?” repeated the Prosecutor.

  “I think he said something about the file being sent to Geneva.”

  “It may interest you to know that the official has submitted written evidence to confirm just that.”

  Al Obaydi lowered his head.

  “So, once you knew that the file had been passed on to Geneva, what did you do next?”

  “I phoned Geneva and was told the Ambassador was not available. I left a message to say that I had called,” said Al Obaydi confidently, “and asked if he would call back.”

  “Did you really expect him to call back?”

  “I assumed he would.”

  “You assumed he would. So what did you write in your report, in the sanctions file?”

  “The file?” asked Al Obaydi.

  “Yes. You were making a report for your successor. What information did you pass on to him?”

  “I don’t remember,” said Al Obaydi.

  “Then allow me to remind you once again,” said the Prosecutor, lifting a slim brown file from the table. “‘The Ministry of Industry has sent the file concerning this item directly 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.’ Did you write that?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “You can’t remember what the Permanent Secretary said to you; you can’t remember what you wrote in your own report when property of the state might have been stolen, or worse…But I shall come to that later. Perhaps you would like to check your own handwriting?” said the Prosecutor as he walked from the table and thrust the relevant sheet in front of Al Obaydi’s face. “Is that your writing?”

  “Yes, it is. But I can explain.”

  “And is that your signature at the bottom of the page?”

  Al Obaydi leaned forward, studied the signature and nodded.

  “Yes or no?” barked the Prosecutor.

  “Yes,” said Al Obaydi quietly.

  “Did you, that same afternoon, visit General Al-Hassan, the Head of State Security?”

  “No. He visited me.”

  “Ah, I have made a mistake. It was he who visited you.”

  “Yes,” said Al Obaydi.

  “Did you alert him to the fact that an enemy agent might be heading towards Iraq, having found a way of crossing the border with the intention of perhaps assassinating our leader?”

  “I couldn’t have known that.”

  “But you must have suspected something unusual was going on?”

  “I wasn’t certain at that time.”

  “Did you let General Al-Hassan know of your uncertainty?”

  “No. I did not.”

  “Was it because you didn’t trust him?”

  “I didn’t know him. It was the first time we had met. The previous…” Al Obaydi regretted the words the moment he had said them.

  “You were about to say?” said the Prosecutor.

  “Nothing.”

  “I see. So, let us move on to the following day, when you paid a visit—because I feel confident that he didn’t visit you—to the Deputy Foreign Minister.” This induced some smiles around the table, but Al Obaydi did not see them.

  “Yes, a routine call to discuss my appointment to Paris. He was, after all, the former Ambassador.”

  “Quite. But was he not also your immediate superior?”

  “Yes, he was,” said Al Obaydi.

  “So, did you tell him of your suspicions?”

  “I wasn’t sure there was anything to tell him.”

  “Did you tell him of your suspicions?” asked the Prosecutor, raising his voice.

  “No, I did not.”

  “Was he not to be trusted either? Or didn’t you know him well enough?”

  “I wasn’t sure. I wanted more proof.”

  “I see. You wanted more proof. So what did you do next?”

  “I traveled to Paris,” said Al Obaydi.

  “On the next day?” asked the State Prosecutor.

  “No,” said Al Obaydi, hesitating.

  “On the day after, perhaps? Or the day after that?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Meanwhile, the safe was on its way to Baghdad. Is that right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And you still hadn’t informed anyone? Is that also correct?”

  Al Obaydi didn’t reply.

  “Is that also correct?” shouted Farrar.

  “Yes, but there was still enough time—”

  “Enough time for what?” asked the State Prosecutor.

  Al Obaydi’s head sank again.

  “For you to reach the safety of our embassy in Paris?”

  “No,” said Al Obaydi. “I traveled on to—”

  “Yes?” said Farrar. “You traveled on to where?”

  Al Obaydi realized he had fallen into the trap.

  “To Sweden, perhaps?”

  “Yes,” said Al Obaydi. “But only because—”

  “You wanted to check the safe was well on its way? Or was it, as you told the Foreign Minister, that you were simply going on vacation?”

  “No, but—”

  “‘Yes, but, no, but.’ Were you on vacation in Sweden or were you representing the state?”

 
“I was representing the state.”

  “Then why did you travel economy, and not charge the state for the expense that was incurred?”

  Al Obaydi made no reply.

  The Prosecutor leaned forward. “Was it because you didn’t want anyone to know you were in Sweden, when your superiors thought you were in Paris?”

  “Yes, but in time…”

  “After it was too late, perhaps. Is that what you’re trying to tell us?”

  “No, I did not say that.”

  “Then why did you not pick up a phone and ring our Ambassador in Geneva? He could have saved you all the expense and the trouble. Was it because you didn’t trust him either? Or perhaps he didn’t trust you?”

  “Neither!” shouted Al Obaydi, leaping to his feet, but the guards grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him back onto the chair.

  “Now that you’ve got that little outburst out of the way,” said the Prosecutor calmly, “perhaps we can continue. You traveled to Sweden, to Kalmar to be exact, to keep an appointment with a Mr. Pedersson, whom you did seem willing to phone.” The Prosecutor checked his notes again. “And what was the purpose of this visit, now that you have confirmed that it was not a vacation?”

  “To try and find out who it was who had stolen the safe.”

  “Or was it to make sure the safe was on the route you had already planned for it?”

  “Certainly not,” said Al Obaydi, his voice rising. “It was I who discovered that Riffat was the Mossad agent Kratz.”

  “You knew that Riffat was a Mossad agent?” queried the Prosecutor in mock disbelief.

  “Yes, I found out when I was in Kalmar,” said Al Obaydi.

  “But you told Mr. Pedersson that Mr. Riffat was a thorough man, a man who could be trusted. Am I right? So now at last we’ve found someone you can trust.”

  “It was quite simply that I didn’t want Pedersson to know what I’d discovered.”

  “I don’t think you wanted anyone to know what you had discovered, as I shall go on to show. What did you do next?”

  “I flew back to Paris.”

  “And did you spend the night at the embassy?”

  “Yes, I did, but I was only stopping overnight on my way to Jordan.”