Honor Among Thieves

by Jeffrey Archer

  Kratz nodded and Cohen ran across the tarmac and lowered the tailgate, before getting into the cab and jumping behind the wheel of the truck. He switched on the engine, pushed the gear lever into first and moved the vehicle slowly forward until the safe was left dangling in mid-air. Aziz and Kratz then pushed the trolley a few yards across the tarmac so that it was directly below the dangling safe, Kratz gave the thumbs-up a second time and the crane operator slowly began lowering the five tons of steel, inch by inch, until it came to rest on the trolley, causing the large rubber wheels to compress abruptly.

  The safe now rested in front of the double doors, waiting for the carpenter to arrive before it could progress on its inward journey. The Major shrugged his shoulders even before Kratz had mouthed the question.

  As Cohen backed the truck into a parking space designated by the Major, an Iraqi, dressed in a dishdash and a red-and-white keffiyeh and carrying a tool bag appeared at the barrier.

  Once the guards had thoroughly checked the tool bag, tipping all its contents out onto the ground, they allowed him through. The carpenter gathered up his tools, took one look at the safe, another at the double doors and understood immediately why his boss had described the problem as urgent. Scott stood back and watched the craftsman as he began to unscrew the hinges on one of the doors.

  “So where’s Dollar Bill’s counterfeit at the moment?” asked Kratz.

  “Still in my bag,” said Scott. “I’m going to have to do some work on it, or they’ll spot the difference the moment I’ve exchanged it for the original.”

  “Agreed,” said Kratz. “You’d better get on with it while the carpenter’s working on the door. Meanwhile, I’ll try and keep the Major occupied.”

  Kratz sauntered over to the carpenter and started chatting to him while Scott disappeared into the front of the truck carrying his bag. Once the Major saw what Kratz was doing he ran across to join them.

  Scott stared through the cab window as he extracted Dollar Bill’s copy from the cylinder and tried to recall where the main damage was on the original. First he made a tear in the top right-hand corner, then he spat on the names of John Adams and Robert Treat Paine. After he had studied his handiwork he decided he hadn’t gone far enough and, placing the copy on the floor, he rubbed the soles of his shoes gently over the surface. He glanced up to see the Major ordering Kratz to let the carpenter get on with his job. Kratz shrugged his shoulders as Scott rolled up the copy of the Declaration and returned it to the cylinder, before sliding it down the specially-sewn long thin pocket on the inside of his trouser leg. A perfect fit.

  A few moments later the carpenter got off his knees and smiled to show he had completed his task. At the Major’s command four soldiers stepped forward and removed the doors. They carried them a few paces away and leaned them up against an outside wall.

  The Major ordered several more soldiers to push the trolley as Scott guided Madame Bertha through the doorway. Kratz and Aziz tried to follow, but the Major waved an arm firmly to indicate that only Scott could enter the building. It was Scott’s turn to shrug his shoulders.

  Inch by inch, they eased the dolly down the long corridor. The elevator doors had been left open, but it still took forty hands to lever the five tons of metal safely inside. Scott knew from his research that this part of the building had been built to survive a nuclear attack, but he wondered if the elevator would ever recover from having to carry the five-ton safe down six floors. He was only thankful that Madame Bertha was going down, not up.

  The elevator doors slowly closed and the Major quickly led Scott through a side door and down the back stairs, followed by a dozen soldiers. When they reached the basement, the doors of the elevator were already open and Madame Bertha stood there, majestically waiting. The Major pointed to the floor with his swagger stick: ten of the soldiers fell to their knees and began pulling the trolley inch by inch until they finally managed to coax it into the corridor. The elevator was then sent up to “—5,” and six of the soldiers ran back up the stairs, jumped into the empty elevator and returned to the basement so they could push the safe from the other side.

  The carpenter had already removed the first set of doors they would encounter when the safe entered the Council Chamber, but was still working on the second set when the dolly reached the entrance. The delay gave Scott an opportunity to supervise the moving of the large table up against the side wall and the placing of the chairs on the table so that the safe would have a clear passage into the far corridor.

  As he went back and forth Scott had several opportunities to stare at the Declaration, even study the spelling of the word “Brittish.” He quickly realized that the parchment was in an even worse condition than he had thought.

  Once the doors were finally removed, the soldiers began pushing the safe across the Chamber and out into the short corridor on the last few yards of its journey. When they had reached the end of the corridor opposite the specially prepared recess, Scott supervised the last few inches of its move until they could push the five tons of steel no further. Madame Bertha had finally come to her resting place against the far wall.

  Scott smiled, and Major Saeed made another phone call.

  The old woman explained to Hannah that the next shift was to be at three o’clock that afternoon, and they would be expected to have the Council Chamber ready for the meeting that was to take place at six the following day. They hadn’t been able to do a proper job on the first shift that morning because of that safe.

  Hannah had followed the cleaners, watching as they peeled off one by one and went their separate ways. She selected an old woman carrying the heaviest bags, and offered to help her across the road. They quickly got into conversation, and Hannah continued to carry the bags all the way to her front door, explaining that she only lived a few streets away.

  “Come inside, my dear,” the old lady said.

  “Thank you,” replied Hannah, feeling more like the wolf than Little Red Riding Hood.

  Slipping a small whisky into the old woman’s coffee had proved harmless enough, and it certainly loosened her tongue. Two Valium dropped in the cleaner’s second coffee ensured that it would be several hours before she woke. Mossad had taught Hannah five different ways of breaking into a car, a hotel room, a briefcase, even a small safe, so a drugged old woman’s handbag was no great challenge. She removed the special pass and slipped out of the house.

  “She’s now heading back in the direction of the Ministry,” said the voice into the mobile phone. “We’ve checked the old woman. She passed out and probably won’t come around until this time tomorrow. The only thing that’s been taken is her security pass.”

  When Hannah arrived back at her desk there was no sign that the Deputy Foreign Minister had returned, so she checked with the switchboard. There had only been three calls: two said they would call back tomorrow, and the third didn’t leave a message.

  Hannah replaced the handset and typed out a note explaining that she had gone home as she wasn’t certain whether the Deputy Foreign Minister would be returning that day. As long as he didn’t check his messages until after five o’clock, there would be no reason for him to become suspicious.

  In the privacy of her little room, Hannah exchanged her office clothes for the traditional black abaya with a pushi covering her face. She checked herself in the mirror before once again leaving the building, silently and anonymously.

  * * *

  “I’m almost sure it’s her coming out of the Ministry,” said the voice into the mobile phone, “but she’s changed into traditional dress and is no longer wearing glasses. She’s heading towards Victory Square again. I’ll keep you briefed.”

  Hannah was back in Victory Square before the first cleaner was expected to arrive for work. Although the crowd was now smaller, she was still able to remain inconspicuous. She looked across the road towards the courtyard. The safe was no longer to be seen, and the crane too had disappeared. The truck was now backed up against the wall.
Hannah strained to see if Kratz was one of the figures sitting in the front of the truck, but she couldn’t penetrate the haze of smoke.

  Hannah turned her attention to a building she had never entered but felt she knew well. A full-scale plan of each floor was attached to a board in the operations room of Mossad’s headquarters in Herzliyah, and you couldn’t take the second paper of any exam on Iraq without being able to draw every floor of the building in detail. Information was added all the time, from the strangest sources: escaped refugees, former diplomats, ex-Cabinet Ministers who were Kurds or Shi’ites, even the former British Prime Minister Edward Heath.

  The first cleaner arrived a few minutes before three, presented her pass and then hurried across the tarmac before disappearing into a side door of the building. The second appeared a few moments later, and followed the same procedure. When Hannah spotted the third making her way along the far side of the sidewalk, she slipped across the road and filed in behind her as she walked towards the barrier.

  “She’s crossed the road, reached the barrier and the guard is now checking her pass,” said the voice into the mobile phone. “As instructed, they’ve let her through. She’s now walking across the tarmac and following another woman through the side door. She’s in, the door’s closed. We’ve got her.”

  “Now you open the safe,” said Major Saeed.

  Scott swiveled the dials to their coded numbers, and the first bulb turned green. The Major was impressed. Scott then placed the palm of his hand on the white square, and a few seconds later the middle bulb turned green. The Major was mesmerized. Scott leaned forward and spoke into the voice box, and the third light turned green. The Major was speechless.

  Scott pulled the handle and the door swung open. He jumped inside and immediately extracted the cardboard tube from the inside of his trouser leg.

  The Major spotted it at once, and flew into a rage. Scott quickly flicked off the cap, took out the poster of Saddam Hussein and unpeeled it, letting the backing paper fall to the ground before he strolled to the far side of the safe and fixed the portrait of Saddam to the wall. A smile returned to the Major’s face as Scott bent down, rolled up the backing paper and slid it into the tube.

  “Now I teach you,” said Scott.

  “No, no, not me,” said Major Saeed. He held his phone up in the air and said, “We must return to the yard.”

  Scott felt like swearing as he stepped out of the safe, dropping the tube and allowing it to roll across the floor to the darkest corner. The plan he had so carefully prepared with Kratz would no longer be possible. He reluctantly left the open safe and joined the Major as he marched quickly towards the Council Chamber, this time not allowing Scott any opportunity to hold him up.

  * * *

  Once Hannah had joined the other cleaners inside the building, she told them that her mother had been taken ill and that she had been sent to cover for her. She tried to assure them that it was not the first time she had done so, and was surprised when they asked no questions. She assumed that they were fearful of being involved with a stranger.

  Hannah picked up a box of cleaning equipment and made her way down the back stairs. The plan displayed on the walls at Herzliyah was proving impressively accurate, even if nobody had managed the exact number of steps to the basement.

  When she reached the door that led into the bottom corridor she could hear voices coming from the direction of the Council Chamber. Whoever it was must be heading for the elevator. Hannah backed up against the wall so she could just see them through the thick pane of wire-mesh glass in the center of the door.

  The two men passed. Hannah didn’t recognize the Major, but when she saw who was with him, her legs gave way and she almost collapsed.

  Once they were back in the courtyard, the Major dialed a number. Scott strolled over to Kratz, who was standing behind the truck.

  “Did you manage to switch the Declaration?” were Kratz’s first words.

  “No, I didn’t have time. It’s still on the wall of the Chamber.”

  “Damn. And the copy?”

  “I left it in the tube on the floor of the safe. I couldn’t risk bringing it out.”

  “So how are you going to get back into the building?” asked Kratz, looking towards the Major. “You were meant to use the time—”

  “I know. But it turns out he’s not the one who’ll be in charge of the safe. He’s getting in touch with whoever it is I’ll have to instruct.”

  “Not what we needed. I suspect that with the Major our first plan would have been a lot easier,” said Kratz. “I’d better brief the others so we can work on an alternative if things go wrong again.”

  Scott nodded his agreement, and he and the Mossad leader strolled over to the truck where Aziz and Cohen were sitting in the cab smoking. As the Colonel climbed into the front, two cigarettes were quickly stubbed out. Kratz explained why they were still waiting, and warned them that this could be the professor’s last chance to get back into the Council Chamber. “So when he comes out next time,” he explained, “we must be ready to go. With a little luck, we might still make the border by midnight.”

  How could he possibly be alive? Hannah thought. Hadn’t she killed him? She had seen his dead body carried out of the room. She tried to organize her thoughts, which ranged from absolute joy to utter fear. She recalled her senior instructor telling her, “When you’re in the front line, never be surprised by anything.” She felt she now had the right to contradict him, if she was ever given the chance.

  Hannah pushed the door open and crept into the corridor, which was deserted except for a pair of soldiers chatting by the door of the Chamber. She realized she couldn’t hope to get past them and into the Chamber without being questioned.

  With a pace to go, she was told to stop, and came to a halt between them. After they had checked the cleaning box thoroughly, the one with two stripes on his arm said, “You know it’s our duty to search you as well?” Hannah made no comment while he bent down, lifted her long black robe and placed his hands on her ankles. The second one let out a raucous laugh as he put his fingers around the front of her neck, and began moving his hands down over her shoulders and across her breasts, while his colleague moved his hands up her legs and onto her thighs. As the first soldier reached the top of her legs, his colleague pinched her nipples. Hannah pushed them both away and stepped into the Chamber. They made no attempt to follow, although their laughter increased in volume.

  The table had been returned to the center of the room and the chairs casually rearranged around it. She began by straightening the table before placing the chairs at an equal distance from each other, while still trying to take in the fact that Scott was alive. But why would the CIA send him? Unless…she stared up at the massive portrait of Saddam Hussein as she straightened his chair at the head of the table. Then her eyes came to rest on the document that was nailed next to his picture.

  The American Declaration of Independence was fixed to the wall in exactly the place the Deputy Foreign Minister had claimed it was.

  Chapter Thirty

  Two Cars swept up to the barrier and were ushered quickly through without the suggestion of a check. Scott watched carefully as a large group of soldiers surrounded the vehicles.

  When a tall, heavily built man stepped out of the second car, Aziz said under his breath, “General Hamil, the Barber of Baghdad. He carries an unsharpened razor on his keyring.”

  Kratz nodded. “I know his complete life history,” he said. “Even the name of the young Lieutenant he’s currently living with.”

  Major Saeed was now standing to attention, saluting the General, and Scott didn’t need to be told that this man was of a different rank and caliber than the one he had been dealing with until then. He studied the face of the man dressed in an immaculate tailored uniform with several more rows of battle ribbons than the Major, wearing black leather gloves and carrying a swagger stick. It was a cruel face. The troops who stood around him were unable to disgu
ise their fear.

  The Major pointed to Scott and said, “You, come.”

  “I’ve got a feeling he means you,” said Kratz.

  Scott nodded and strolled across to join them.

  “Mr. Bernstrom,” the General said, removing the glove from his right hand, “I am General Hamil.” Scott shook his hand. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting. But don’t let me hold you up any longer. Please show me your safe, which Major Saeed seems so impressed by.”

  Without another word the General turned and began walking towards the building, leaving Scott with little choice but to follow. For the first time in his life, Scott was terrified.

  Hannah picked up a duster and some polish and began to rub in small circles on the table while taking a more careful look at the Declaration of Independence. The parchment was in such terrible condition that she doubted if it could be repaired even if Scott were able to get it back to Washington.

  She peered around the door into the short corridor, and spotted the safe she had seen on the truck earlier that day. It was open, but was guarded by two more thugs, chatting as much as the other two who were stationed at the door of the Council Chamber.

  Hannah made her way slowly down the corridor, dusting and polishing the ledge of the wooden skirting until she was opposite the safe and had a clear view inside. She took a pace forward and peered in as if she had never seen anything like it in her life before. One of the soldiers kicked her and she fell into the safe. The inevitable raucous laughter followed. She was about to turn around and retaliate when she saw the long cardboard cylinder in one corner, almost hidden in the shadow. She leaned across and rolled it quickly towards her until it was safely under her long skirt. She wondered if she could use it to get a message to Simon. Hannah left her duster and polish on the floor of the safe, stepped out backwards and bolted down the corridor, as if to escape the guards.