Honour Among Thieves (27 page)

The
nurse then placed a mask over Scott’s nose and mouth that was connected to an
oxygen supply on the wall. Attached to the side of the mask was a rubber bag,
which she began pumping regularly every three or four seconds with her left
hand as she held his head steady with her right. Scott’s lungs were immediately
filled with oxygen.

The
consultant placed an ear over Scott’s heart again. He could still hear nothing.
He raised his head and nodded to an orderly who began rubbing paste on
different parts of Scott’s chest. Another nurse followed him, placing small
electronic discs on the paste marks. The wires from the discs were connected to
a heart monitor machine that stood on a table by the side of the trolley.

The
fine line that ran across the machine and registered the strength of the
heartbeat produced a weak signal.

The
consultant smiled below his mask, as the nurse continued to pump oxygen into
the patient’s mouth and nose.

Suddenly,
without warning, the heart machine gave out a piercing sound. Everyone in the
operating theatre turned to face the monitor, which was now showing a thin,
flat line running from one side of the screen to the other.

‘Cardiac
arrest!’ shouted the consultant. He jumped forward and placed the heel of his
hand over Scott’s sternum, and with both arms firmly locked he began to rock
backwards and forwards as he tried to push a volume of blood from the heart to
resuscitate his patient. Like a proficient weightlifter, he was able to pump
away with his arms at a rate of forty to fifty times a minute.

A
houseman wheeled forward the defibrillator. The consultant placed two large
electric clamps onto the front and side of Scott’s chest.

‘Two
hundred joules,’ said the consultant. ‘Stand clear.’ They all took a pace back
as a shock was transferred from the electric discharge machine and ran through
Scott’s body.

They
stared at the monitor as the consultant jumped forward again and continued to
pump Scott’s chest with the palms of his hands, but the thin green line did not
respond. ‘Two hundred joules, stand clear,’ he repeated firmly, and they all
stood back again to watch the effect of the electric shock. But the line
remained obstinately flat. The consultant quickly returned to pumping Scott’s
chest with his hands.

‘Three
hundred and sixty joules, stand clear,’ said the consultant in desperation, but
the nurse who raised the number on the dial knew the patient was already dead.

The
consultant pressed a button, and they all watched the highest shock allowed
pass through Scott’s body, assuming that must be the end. They turned their
attention to the monitor.

‘We’ve
lost him,’ was on the consultant’s lips, when to their astonishment they saw
the line begin to show a faint flicker. He leaped forward and began pumping
away with the palms of his hands as the flicker continued to show irregular
fibrillation. ‘Three hundred and sixty joules, stand clear,’ he said once
again. The button was pressed and their attention returned to the monitor.
Fibrillation returned to a normal rhythm. The youngest doctor cheered.

The
consultant quickly located a vein in Scott’s left arm and jabbed a needle
directly into it, leaving a cannula sticking out to which a saline drip was
quickly attached.

Another
doctor rushed into the theatre and, facing his superior, said, ‘The antidote is
GTN.’

A
nurse went straight over to the poisons cabinet and extracted a phial of
glyceryl trinitrate, which she passed to the consultant, who had a syringe
ready. He extracted the blue liquid from the phial, shot a little into the air
to be sure it was flowing freely, then pumped the antidote into a side valve of
the intravenous drip. He turned to watch the monitor. The flicker maintained a
constant rhythm.

The
consultant turned to the senior nurse and said, ‘Do you believe in miracles?’

‘No,’
she replied. ‘I’m a Jew. Miracles are only for Christians.’

Hannah
began to form a plan, a plan that would brook no interference from Kratz. She
had made the decision to accept the job as senior secretary to the Ambassador,
and to accompany him back to Iraq.

As
the hours passed, her plan began to take shape. She was aware there would be
problems. Not from the Iraqi side, but from her own people. Hannah knew that
she would have to circumvent Mossad’s attempts to take her out, which meant
that she could never leave the embassy, even for one moment, until the time
came for the Ambassador to return to Iraq. She would use all the techniques
they had taught her over the past two years to defeat them.

When
she was in Iraq, Hannah would make herself indispensable to the Ambassador,
bide her time and, once she had achieved her objective, happily die a martyr’s
death.

She
had been left with only one purpose in life now that Simon was dead. To
assassinate Saddam Hussein.

‘Department
of Commerce.’

‘Alex
Wagner, please,’ said the Archivist.

‘Who?’

‘Alex
Wagner. Office of Personnel.’

‘Just
a minute.’ Another stretched minute.

‘Personnel.’

‘This
is Calder Marshall, Archivist of the United States. I called yesterday for Ms
Wagner and you told me to try again today.’

‘I
wasn’t here yesterday, sir.’

‘Well,
it must have been one of your colleagues. Is Ms Wagner available?’

‘Just
a minute.’

This
time the Archivist waited several minutes.

‘Alex
Wagner,’ said a brisk female voice.

‘Ms
Wagner, my name is Calder Marshall. I’m the Archivist of the United States, and
it’s extremely important that I contact Mr Rex Butterworth, who was recently
detailed to the White House by the Commerce Department.’

‘Are
you a former employer of Mr Butterworth’s?’ asked the brisk voice.

‘No,
I am not,’ replied Marshall.

‘Are
you a relative?’

‘No.’

‘Then
I’m afraid I cannot help you, Mr Marshall.’

‘Why’s
that?’ asked the Archivist.

‘Because
the Privacy Act prohibits us from giving out any personal information about
government employees.’

‘Can
you tell me the name of the Commerce Director, or is that covered by the
Privacy Act too?’ the Archivist asked.

‘Dick
Fielding,’ said the voice abruptly.

‘Thank
you for your assistance,’ said the Archivist.

The
phone went dead.

When
Scott woke, his first memory was of Hannah. And then he slept.

When
he woke a second time, all he could make out were blurred figures who appeared
to be bending over him. And then he slept.

When
he woke again, the blurs began to take some shape. Most of them seemed to be
dressed in white. And then he slept.

When
he woke the next time it was dark and he was alone. He felt so weak, so limp,
as he tried to remember what had happened. And then he slept.

When
he woke, for the first time he could hear their voices, soothing, gentle, but
he could not make out the words, however hard he tried. And then he slept.

When
he woke again, they had propped him up in bed. They were trying to feed him a
warm, tasteless liquid through a plastic straw. And then he slept.

When
he woke, a man in a long white coat, with a stethoscope and a warm smile, was
asking in a pronounced accent, ‘Can you hear me?’ He tried to nod, but fell
asleep.

When
he woke, another doctor – this time he could see him clearly – was listening attentively
as Scott attempted his first words. ‘Hannah. Hannah,’ was all he said. And then
he slept.

He
woke again, and an attractive woman with short dark hair and a caring smile was
leaning over him. He returned her smile and asked the time. It must have sounded
strange to her, but he wanted to know.

‘It’s
a few minutes after three in the morning,’ the nurse told him.

‘How
long have I been here?’ he managed.

‘Just
over a week, but you were so close to death. I think in English you have the
expression “touch and go”. If your friends had been a moment -’ And then he
slept.

When
he woke, the doctor told Scott that when he’d first arrived they thought it was
too late, and twice he’d been pronounced technically dead. ‘Antidotes and
electrostimulation of the heart, combined with a rare determination to live and
one nurse’s theory that you might be a Gentile, defied the technical
pronouncement,’ he declared with a smile.

Scott
asked if someone called Hannah had been to see him. The doctor checked the board
at the end of his bed. There had been only two visitors that he was aware of,
both of them men. They came every day. And then Scott slept.

When
he woke, the two men the doctor had mentioned were standing one on each side of
his bed. Scott smiled at Dexter Hutchins, who was trying not to cry. Grown men
don’t cry, he wanted to say, especially when they work for the CIA. He turned
to the other man. He had never seen a face so full of shame, so ridden with
guilt, or eyes so red from not sleeping. Scott tried to ask what had caused him
such unhappiness. And then he slept.

When
he woke, both men were still there, now resting on uncomfortable chairs, half
asleep.

‘Dexter,’
he whispered, and they both woke immediately. ‘Where’s Hannah?’

The
other man, who Scott noticed was recovering from a black eye and a broken nose,
took some time answering his question. And then Scott slept, never wanting to
wake again.

‘department
of commerce.’

‘The
Director, please.’

‘Who’s
calling?’

‘Marshall,
Calder Marshall.’

‘Is
he expecting your call?’

‘No,
he is not.’

‘Mr
Fielding only takes calls from people who have previously booked to speak to
him.’

‘What
about his secretary?’ asked Marshall.

‘She
never takes calls.’

‘So
how do I get a booking with Mr Fielding?’

‘You
have to speak to Miss Zelumski in reservations.’

‘Can
I be put through to Miss Zelumski, or do I have to make a reservation to speak
to her as well?’

‘There
is no need to be sarcastic, sir. I’m only doing my job.’

‘I’m
sorry. Perhaps you’d put me through to Miss Zelumski.’

Marshall
waited patiently.

‘Miss
Zelumski speaking.’

‘I’d
like to reserve a call to speak to Mr Fielding.’

‘Is
it domestic, most-favoured status or foreign?’ asked a bored-sounding voice.

‘It’s
personal.’

‘Does
he know you?’

‘No,
he doesn’t.’

‘Then
I can’t help. I only deal with domestic, most-favoured status or foreign.’

The
Archivist hung up before Miss Zelumski was given the chance to say ‘Glad to
have been of assistance, sir.’

Marshall
tapped his fingers on the desk. The time had come to play by new rules.

Cavalli
had checked into the Hotel de la Paix in Geneva the previous evening. He had
booked a modest suite overlooking the lake. Neither expensive nor conspicuous.
After he had undressed, he climbed into bed and tuned in to CNN. He watched for
a few moments, but found that the news of Bill Clinton having his hair cut on
board Air Force One while it was parked on a runway at Los Angeles airport was
getting more coverage than the Americans shooting down a plane in the no-fly
zone over Iraq. It seemed the new President was determined to prove to Saddam
that he was every bit as tough as Bush.

When
Cavalli woke in the morning, he jumped out of bed, strolled across to the
window, opened the curtains and admired the fountain in the centre of the lake
whose water spouted like a gushing well high into the air. He turned to see
that an envelope had been pushed under the door. He tore it open to discover a
note confirming his appointment to ‘take tea’ with his banker, Monsieur
Franchard, at eleven o’clock that morning. Cavalli was about to drop the card
into the waste-paper basket when he noticed some words scribbled on the bottom:

After
a light breakfast in his room, Cavalli packed his suitcase and hanging bag
before going downstairs. The doorman answered his questions in perfect English,
and confirmed the directions to Franchard et cie. In Switzerland hall porters
know the location of banks, just as their London counterparts can direct you to
theatres and football grounds.

As
Cavalli left the hotel and started the short walk to the bank, he couldn’t help
feeling something wasn’t quite right. And then he realised that the streets
were clean, the people he passed were well-dressed, sober and silent. A contrast
in every way to New York.

Once
he reached the front door of the bank, Cavalli pressed the discreet bell under
the equally discreet brass plate announcing ‘Franchard et cie’.