Honour Among Thieves (12 page)

Hannah
stepped out of the High Street Kensington underground station a few minutes
before six. She strolled up the wide pavement into Palace Green and on as far
as the Philippine Embassy before turning back to reach the Israeli Mission just
before the appointed hour. She smiled at the policeman as she climbed the steps
up to the front door.

Hannah
announced her name to the receptionist, and explained she had an appointment
with the Councillor for Cultural Affairs. ‘First floor. Once you reach the top
of the stairs, it’s the green door straight in front of you.’

Hannah
climbed the wide staircase slowly, trying to gather her thoughts. She felt a
rush of apprehension as she knocked on the door. It was immediately opened with
a flourish.

‘A
pleasure to meet you, Hannah,’ said a young man she had never seen before. ‘My
name is Kratz. Sorry to call you in at such short notice, but we have a
problem. Please take a seat,’ he added, pointing to a comfortable chair on the
other side of a large desk. Not a man given to small talk, was Hannah’s first
conclusion.

Hannah
sat bolt upright in the chair and stared at the man opposite her, who looked
far too young to be the Councillor for Cultural Affairs. But then she recalled
the real reason for the Colonel’s posting to London. Kratz had a warm, open
face, and if he hadn’t been going prematurely bald at the front, he might even
have been described as handsome.

His
massive hands rested on the desk in front of him as he looked across at Hannah.
His eyes never left her and she began to feel unnerved by such concentration.

Hannah
clenched her fists. If she was to be sent home she would at least state her
case, which she had already prepared and rehearsed.

The
Councillor hesitated as if he were deciding how to express what needed to be
said. Hannah wished he would get on with it. It was worse than waiting for the
result of an exam you knew you had failed.

‘How
are you settling in with the Rubins?’ Kratz enquired.

‘Very
well, thank you,’ said Hannah, without offering any details. She was determined
not to hold him up from the real purpose of their meeting.

‘And
how’s the course working out?’

Hannah
nodded and shrugged her shoulders.

‘And
are you looking forward to going back to Israel?’ asked Kratz.

‘Only
if I’ve got a worthwhile job to go back to,’ Hannah replied, annoyed that she
had lowered her guard. She wished Kratz would look away for just a moment.

‘Well,
it’s possible you may not be going back to Israel,’ said Kratz.

Hannah
shifted her position in the chair.

‘At
least, not immediately,’ added Kratz. ‘Perhaps I ought to explain. Although you
have four more months of your course to complete’ – he opened a file that lay
on the desk in front of him – ‘your tutor has informed us that you are likely
to perform better in the final exams than any of the other five remaining
agents, as I’m sure you know.’

It
was the first time she had ever been described as an agent.

‘We
have already decided you’ll be part of the final team,’ Kratz said, as if
anticipating her question. ‘But, as so often happens in our business, an
opportunity has arisen which we feel you are the best-qualified person to
exploit at short notice.’

Hannah
leaned forward in her chair. ‘But I thought I was being trained to go to
Baghdad.’

‘You
are, and in good time you will go to Baghdad, but right now we want to drop you
into a different enemy territory. No better way of finding out how you’ll
handle yourself under pressure.’

‘Where
do you have in mind?’ asked Hannah, unable to disguise her delight.

‘Paris.’

‘Paris?’
repeated Hannah in disbelief.

‘Yes.
We have picked up information that the head of the Iraqi Interest Section has
asked his government to supply him with a second secretary. The girl has been
selected and will leave Baghdad for Paris in ten days’ time. If you are willing
to take her place, she will never reach Charles de Gaulle airport.’

‘But
they’d know I was the wrong person within minutes.’

‘Unlikely,’
said Kratz, taking out a thicker file from a drawer of his desk and turning a
few pages. ‘The girl in question was educated at Putney High School and then
went on to Durham University to study English, both on Iraqi government grants.
She wanted to remain in England but was forced to return to Baghdad when
student visas were rescinded just over two years ago.’

‘But
her family...’

‘Father
was killed in the war with Iran and the mother has gone to live with her sister,
just outside Karbala.’ ‘Brothers and sisters?’

‘A
brother in the Republican Guard, no sisters. It’s all in the file. You’ll be
given a few days to study the background before you have to make up your mind.
Tel Aviv is convinced we’ve a good chance of dropping you in her place. Your
detailed knowledge of Paris is an obvious bonus. We would only leave you there
for three to six months at the most.’

‘And
then?’

‘Back
to Israel in final preparation for Baghdad. By the way, if you decide to take
on this assignment, our primary purpose is not to use you as a spy. We already
have an agent in Paris. We simply want you to assimilate everything around you
and get used to living with Arabs and thinking like them. You must not keep any
records, or even make notes. Commit everything to memory. You will be debriefed
when we take you out. Never forget that your final assignment is far more
important to the state of Israel than this could ever be.’ He smiled for the
first time. ‘Perhaps you’d like a few days to think it over.’

‘No,
thank you,’ said Hannah. This time it was Kratz who looked anxious. ‘I’m happy
to take on the job, but I have a problem.’

‘What’s
that?’ asked Kratz.

‘I
can’t type, and certainly not in Arabic’

The
young man laughed. ‘Then we’ll have to lay on a crash course for you. You’d
better leave the Rubins’ immediately and get yourself moved into the embassy by
tomorrow night. They won’t ask you for an explanation, and don’t offer any.
Meanwhile, study this.’ He passed over a manila folder with the name ‘Karima
Saib’ written across the top in bold letters. ‘Within ten days you must know
its contents by heart. The knowledge you retain may save your life.’

Kratz
rose from his side of the desk and walked round to accompany Hannah to the
door. ‘Just one more thing,’ he said as he opened the door for her. ‘I believe
this is yours.’

The
Councillor for Cultural Affairs handed Hannah a small, battered suitcase.

In
a car on the way to Georgetown, Cavalli explained to his father that within a
hundred yards of the gallery the sirens would have been turned off and the
limousines would peel away one after another as they reached the next six
intersections, losing themselves in the normal morning traffic.

‘And
the actor?’

‘With
his wig removed and wearing dark glasses, no one would give Lloyd Adams a
second look. He’ll be taking the Metroliner back to New York this afternoon.’

‘Clever.’

‘Once
their licence plates have been switched, the six limos will return to the city
in a couple of days with their original New York plates.’

‘You’ve
done a highly professional job,’ said his father.

‘Yes,
but that was only the dress rehearsal of a single scene. What we’re planning in
four weeks’ time is to put on a three-act opera with the whole of Washington as
our invited audience.’

‘Try
not to forget that we’re being paid one hundred million for our troubles,’ the
old man reminded him.

‘If
we deliver, it will be good value for money,’ said Cavalli as the car drove
past the Four Seasons Hotel. The chauffeur turned left down a side street and
came to a halt outside a quaint old wooden house. Angelo was waiting by a
little iron gate at the top of a small flight of stone steps. The chairman and
chief executive got out of the car and followed Angelo down the steps at a
brisk pace, without speaking.

The
door at the bottom was already open. Once they were inside, Angelo introduced
them to Bill O’Reilly. Bill led them down the corridor to his room. When he
reached the locked door he turned the key as if they were about to enter
Aladdin’s cave. He opened the door and paused for just a moment before
switching on the lights, then led his little party to the centre of the room,
where the two manuscripts awaited their inspection. He explained to his
visitors that only one was a perfect copy of the original.

Bill
passed both men a magnifying glass, then took a pace backwards to await their
judgement. Tony and his father were not quite sure where to start, and began
studying both documents for several minutes without uttering a word. Tony took
his time as he went over the opening paragraph, ‘When in the course of human
events...’, while his father became fascinated by the signatures of Francis
Lightfoot Lee and Carter Braxton, whose colleagues from Virginia had left them
so little room at the foot of the parchment to affix their names.

After
some time, Tony’s father stood up to his full height, turned towards the little
Irishman and handed back the magnifying glass, and said, ‘Maestro, all I can
say is that William J. Stone would have been proud to know you.’

Dollar
Bill bowed, acknowledging the ultimate forger’s compliment.

‘But
which one is the perfect copy and which one has the mistake?’ asked Cavalli.

‘Ah,’
said the forger. ‘It was also William J. Stone who pointed me in the right
direction for solving that little conundrum.’

The
Cavallis waited patiently for Dollar Bill to continue his explanation. ‘You
see, when Timothy Matlock engrossed the original in 1776, he made three
mistakes. Two he was able to correct by simple insertions.’ Dollar Bill pointed
to the word ‘represtative’, where the letters e and n were missing, and then to
the word ‘only’, which had been omitted a few lines further down. Both of the
corrections had been inserted with a A.

‘But,’
continued Dollar Bill, ‘Mr Matlock also made one spelling mistake which he did
not correct. On one of the copies, you will find, I have.’

H
ANNAH LANDED
AT Beirut airport the night before she was due to fly to Paris. No one from Mossad
accompanied the new agent, to avoid the risk of compromising her. Any Israeli
found in the Lebanon is automatically arrested on sight.

Hannah
had taken over an hour to be cleared by customs, but she finally emerged
carrying a British passport, hand luggage and a few Lebanese pounds. Twenty
minutes later she booked herself into the airport Hilton. She explained to the
receptionist that she would only be staying one night and paid her bill in
advance with the Lebanese pounds. She went straight to her room on the ninth
floor and did not venture out again that evening.

She
received just one phone call, at 7.20. To Kratz’s question she simply replied
‘Yes,’ and the line went dead.

She
climbed into bed at 10.40, but couldn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time.
She occasionally flicked on the television to watch spaghetti Westerns dubbed
into Arabic. In between she managed to catch moments of restless sleep. She
rose at ten to seven the following morning, ate a slab of chocolate she found
in the tiny fridge, cleaned her teeth and took a cold shower.

She
dressed in clothes taken from her hand luggage of a type which the file had
indicated Karima favoured, and sat on the corner of the bed staring at herself
in the mirror. She didn’t like what she saw. Kratz had insisted that she crop
her hair so that she looked like the one blurred photograph of Miss Saib they
had in their possession. They also expected her to wear steel-rimmed
spectacles, even if the glass in them didn’t magnify. She had worn the
spectacles for the past week but still hadn’t got used to them, and often
simply forgot to put them on or, worse, mislaid them.

At
8.19 a.m. she received a second phone call to let her know the plane had taken
off from Amman with the ‘cargo’ on board.

When
Hannah heard the morning cleaners chatting in the corridor a few moments later,
she opened the door and quickly switched the sign on the knob outside to ‘Do
Not Disturb’. She waited impatiently in her room for a call saying either ‘Your
baggage has been mislaid,’ which meant she was to return to London because they
had failed to kidnap the girl, or ‘Your baggage has been retrieved;’ the code
to show they had succeeded. If it was the second message she was to leave the
room immediately, take the hotel minibus to the airport and go to the bookshop
on the ground floor, where she was to browse until she was contacted.

A
courier would then arrive at Hannah’s side and leave a small package containing
Saib’s passport with the photograph changed, the airline ticket in Saib’s name
and any baggage tickets and personal items that had been found on her.

Hannah
was then to board the flight to Paris as quickly as possible with only the one
piece of hand luggage she had brought with her from London. Once she had landed
at Charles de Gaulle she was to pick up Karima Saib’s luggage from the carousel
and get herself to the VIP carpark. She would be met by the Iraqi Ambassador’s
chauffeur, who would take her to the Jordanian Embassy, where the Iraqi
Interest Section was currently located, the Iraqi Embassy in Paris being
officially closed. From that moment, Hannah would be on her own, and at all
times she was to obey the instructions given by the embassy staff, particularly
remembering that in direct contrast to Jewish women, Arab women were subservient
to men. She must never contact the Israeli Embassy or attempt to find out who
the Mossad agent in Paris was. If it ever became necessary, he would contact
her.