Honor Among Thieves

by Jeffrey Archer

  But now they’d come to an area in which she excelled.

  Hannah had always, from a young age, taken for granted that she could speak several languages. She had been born in Leningrad in 1968, and when her father died, fourteen years later, her mother immediately applied for an emigration permit to Israel. The new liberal wind that was blowing across the Baltics made it possible for her request to be granted.

  Hannah’s family did not remain on a kibbutz for long: her mother, still an attractive, sparkling woman, received several proposals of marriage, one of which came from a wealthy widower. She accepted.

  When Hannah, her sister Ruth and brother David took up their new residence in the fashionable district of Haifa, their whole world changed. Their new stepfather doted on Hannah’s mother and lavished gifts on the family he had never had.

  After Hannah had completed her schooling she applied to universities in America and England to study languages. Mama didn’t approve and had often suggested that with such a figure, glorious long black hair and looks that turned the heads of men from seventeen to seventy, she should consider a career in modeling. Hannah laughed and explained that she had better things to do with her life.

  A few weeks later, after Hannah returned from an interview at Vassar, she joined her family in Paris for their summer vacation. She also planned to visit Rome and London, but she received so many invitations from attentive Parisians that when the three weeks were over she found she hadn’t once left the French capital. It was on the last Thursday of their vacation that the Mode Rivoli Agency offered her a contract that no amount of university degrees could have obtained for her. She handed her return ticket to Tel Aviv back to her mother and remained in Paris for her first job. While she settled down in Paris her sister Ruth was sent to finishing school in Zurich, and her brother David enrolled at the London School of Economics.

  In January 1991, the children all returned to Israel to celebrate their mother’s fiftieth birthday. Ruth was now a student at the Slade School of Art; David was completing his studies for a Ph.D.; and Hannah was appearing once again on the cover of Elle.

  At the same time, the Americans were massing on the Kuwaiti border, and many Israelis were becoming anxious about a war, but Hannah’s stepfather assured them that Israel would not become involved. In any case, their home was on the north side of the city and therefore immune to any attack.

  A week later, on the night of their mother’s fiftieth birthday, they all ate and drank a little too much, and then slept a little too soundly. When Hannah eventually woke, she found herself strapped down in a hospital bed. It was to be days before they told her that her mother, brother and sister had been killed instantly by a stray Scud, and only her stepfather had survived.

  For weeks Hannah lay in that hospital bed planning her revenge. When she was eventually discharged her stepfather told her that he hoped she would return to modeling, but that he would support her in whatever she wanted to do. Hannah informed him that she was going to join Mossad.

  It was ironic that she now found herself on a plane to London that, under different circumstances, her brother might have been taking to complete his studies at the LSE. She was one of eight trainee agents being dispatched to the British capital for an advanced course in Arabic. Hannah had already completed a year of night classes in Tel Aviv. Another six months and the Iraqis would believe she’d been born in Baghdad. She could now think in Arabic, even if she didn’t always think like an Arab.

  Once the 757 had broken through the clouds, Hannah stared down at the winding River Thames through the little porthole window. When she had lived in Paris she had often flown over to spend her mornings working in Bond Street or Chelsea, her afternoons at Ascot or Wimbledon, her evenings at Covent Garden or the Barbican. But on this occasion she felt no joy at returning to a city she had come to know so well.

  Now, she was only interested in an obscure sub-faculty of London University and a terraced house in a place called Chalk Farm.

  Chapter Two

  On the journey back to his office on Wall Street, Antonio Cavalli began to think more seriously about Al Obaydi and how they had come to meet. The file on his new client supplied by their London office, and updated by his secretary, Debbie, revealed that although the Deputy Ambassador had been born in Baghdad, he had been educated in England.

  When Cavalli leaned back, closed his eyes and recalled the clipped accent and staccato delivery, he felt he might have been in the presence of a British Army officer. The explanation could be found in Al Obaydi’s file under “Education”: The King’s School, Wimbledon, followed by three years at London University studying law. Al Obaydi had also eaten his dinners at Lincoln’s Inn, whatever that meant.

  On returning to Baghdad, Al Obaydi had been recruited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had risen rapidly, despite the self-appointment of Saddam Hussein as President and the regular placement of Ba’ath Party apparatchiks in posts they were patently unqualified to fill.

  As Cavalli turned another page of the file, it became obvious that Al Obaydi was a man well capable of adapting himself to unusual circumstances. To be fair, that was something Cavalli also prided himself on. Like Al Obaydi he had studied law, but in his case at Columbia University in New York. When that time of the year came around for graduates to fill out their applications to join leading law firms, Cavalli was always shortlisted when the partners saw his grades, but once they realized who his father was, he was never interviewed.

  After working fourteen hours a day for five years in one of Manhattan’s less prestigious legal establishments, the young Cavalli began to realize that it would be at least another ten years before he could hope to see his name embossed on the firm’s masthead, despite having married one of the senior partners’ daughters. Tony Cavalli didn’t have ten years to waste, so he decided to set up his own law practice and divorce his wife.

  In January 1982 Cavalli and Co. was incorporated, and ten years later, on April 15, 1992, the company had declared a profit of $157,000, paying its tax demand in full. What the company books did not reveal was that a subsidiary had also been formed in 1982, but not incorporated. A firm that showed no tax returns, and despite its profits mounting each year, could not be checked up on by phoning Dun and Bradstreet and requesting a complete VIP business report. This subsidiary was known to a small group of insiders as “Skills”—a company that specialized in solving problems that could not be taken care of by thumbing through the Yellow Pages.

  With his father’s contacts, and Cavalli’s driving ambition, the unlisted company soon made a reputation for handling problems that their unnamed clients had previously considered insoluble. Among Cavalli’s latest assignments had been the recovery of taped conversations between a famous singer and a former first lady that were due to be published in Rolling Stone and the theft of a Vermeer from Ireland for an eccentric South American collector. These coups were discreetly referred to in the company of potential clients.

  The clients themselves were vetted as carefully as if they were applying to be members of the New York Yacht Club because, as Tony’s father had often pointed out, it would only take one mistake to ensure that he would spend the rest of his life in less pleasing surroundings than 23 East 75th Street, or their villa in Lyford Cay.

  Over the past decade, Tony had built up a small network of representatives across the globe who supplied him with clients requiring a little help with more “imaginative” propositions. It was his Lebanese contact who had been responsible for introducing the man from Baghdad, whose proposal unquestionably fell into this category.

  When Tony’s father was first briefed on the outline of Operation “Desert Calm” he recommended that his son demand a fee of one hundred million dollars to compensate for the fact that the whole of Washington would be at liberty to observe him going about his business.

  “One mistake,” the old man warned him, licking his lips, “and you’ll make more front pages than the second coming of Elvi
s.”

  Once he had left the lecture theater, Scott Bradley hurried across Grove Street Cemetery, hoping that he might reach his apartment on St. Ronan Street before being accosted by a pursuing student. He loved them all—well, almost all—and he was sure that in time he would allow the more serious among them to stroll back to his rooms in the evenings to have a drink and to talk long into the night. But not until they were well into their second year.

  Scott managed to reach the staircase before a single would-be lawyer had caught up with him. But then, few of them knew that he had once covered four hundred meters in 48.1 seconds when he’d anchored the Georgetown varsity relay team. Confident he had escaped, Scott leaped up the staircase, not stopping until he reached his apartment on the third floor.

  He pushed open the unlocked door. It was always unlocked. There was nothing in his apartment worth stealing—even the television didn’t work. The one file that would have revealed that the law was not the only field in which he was an expert had been carefully secreted on his bookshelf between “Tax” and “Torts.” He failed to notice the books that were piled up everywhere or the fact that he could have written his name in the dust on the sideboard.

  Scott closed the door behind him and glanced, as he always did, at the picture of his mother on the sideboard. He dumped the pile of notes he was carrying by her side and retrieved the mail poking out from under the door. Scott walked across the room and sank into an old leather chair, wondering how many of those bright, attentive faces would still be attending his lectures in two years’ time. Forty percent would be good—thirty percent more likely. Those would be the ones for whom fourteen hours’ work a day became the norm, and not just for the last month before exams. And of them, how many would live up to the standards of the late Dean Thomas W. Swan? Five percent, if he was lucky.

  The professor of constitutional law turned his attention to the bundle of mail he held in his lap. One from American Express—a bill with the inevitable hundred free offers which would cost him even more money if he took any of them up—an invitation from Brown to give the Charles Evans Hughes Lecture on the Constitution; a letter from Carol reminding him she hadn’t seen him for some time; a circular from a firm of stockbrokers who didn’t promise to double his money but… and finally a plain buff envelope postmarked Virginia, with a typeface he recognized immediately.

  He tore open the buff envelope and extracted the single sheet of paper which gave him his latest instructions.

  Al Obaydi strolled onto the floor of the General Assembly and slipped into a chair directly behind his Head of Mission. The Ambassador had his earphones on and was pretending to be deeply interested in a speech being delivered by the Head of the Brazilian Mission. Al Obaydi’s boss always preferred to have confidential talks on the floor of the General Assembly: he suspected it was the only room in the United Nations building that wasn’t bugged by the CIA.

  Al Obaydi waited patiently until the older man flicked one of the earpieces aside and leaned slightly back.

  “They’ve agreed to our terms,” murmured Al Obaydi, as if it was he who had suggested the figure. The Ambassador’s upper lip protruded over his lower lip, the recognized sign among his colleagues that he required more details.

  “One hundred million,” Al Obaydi whispered. Ten million to be paid immediately. The final ninety on delivery.”

  “Immediately?” said the Ambassador. “What does ‘immediately’ mean?”

  “By midday tomorrow,” whispered Al Obaydi.

  “At least Sayedi anticipated that eventuality,” said the Ambassador thoughtfully.

  Al Obaydi admired the way his superior could always make the term “my master” sound both deferential and insolent at the same time.

  “I must send a message to Baghdad to acquaint the Foreign Minister with the details of your triumph,” added the Ambassador with a smile.

  Al Obaydi would also have smiled, but he realized the Ambassador would not admit to any personal involvement with the project while it was still in its formative stage. As long as he distanced himself from his younger colleague for the time being, the Ambassador could continue his undisturbed existence in New York until his retirement fell due in three years’ time. By following such a course he had survived almost fourteen years of Saddam Hussein’s reign while many of his colleagues had conspicuously failed to become eligible for their state pension. To his knowledge one had been shot in front of his family, two hanged and several others posted as “missing,” whatever that meant.

  The Iraqi Ambassador smiled as his British counterpart walked past him, but he received no response for his trouble.

  “Stuck-up snob,” the Arab muttered under his breath.

  The Ambassador pulled his earpiece back over his ear to indicate that he had heard quite enough from his number two. He continued to listen to the problems of trying to preserve the rain forests of Brazil, coupled with a request for a further grant from the UN of a hundred million dollars.

  Not something he felt Sayedi would be interested in.

  Hannah would have knocked on the front door of the little terraced house, but it was opened even before she had closed the broken gate at the end of the pathway. A dark-haired, slightly overweight lady, heavily made-up and with a beaming smile, came bustling out to greet her. Hannah supposed she was about the same age as her mother would have been, had Mama still been alive.

  “Welcome to England, my dear. I’m Ethel Rubin,” she announced in gushing tones. “I’m only sorry my husband’s not here to meet you, but I don’t expect him back from his chambers for another hour.” Hannah was about to speak when Ethel added, “But first let me show you your room, and then you can tell me all your plans.” She picked up one of Hannah’s bags and led her inside. “It must be such fun seeing London for the first time,” she said as they climbed the stairs, “and there will be so many exciting things for you to do during the next six months.”

  As each sentence poured out Hannah became aware that Ethel Rubin had no idea why she was in London.

  After she had unpacked and taken a shower Hannah joined her hostess in the sitting room. Mrs. Rubin chatted on, barely listening to Hannah’s intermittent replies.

  “Do you know where the nearest gym is?” Hannah had asked.

  “My husband should be back at any moment,” Mrs. Rubin replied. But before she could get the next sentence out the front door swung open and a man of about five foot three with dark, wiry hair and even darker eyes almost ran into the room. Once Peter Rubin had introduced himself and asked how her flight had been he didn’t waste any words suggesting that Hannah might have come to London to enjoy the social life of the metropolis. Hannah quickly learned that Peter Rubin didn’t ask any questions he realized she couldn’t answer truthfully. Although Hannah felt sure Mr. Rubin knew no details of her mission, he was obviously aware that she hadn’t come to London on a package vacation.

  Mrs. Rubin, however, didn’t allow Hannah to get to bed until well after midnight, by which time she was exhausted. Once her head had touched the pillow she slept soundly, unaware of Peter Rubin explaining to his wife in the kitchen that in the future their guest must be left in peace.

  Chapter Three

  The Deputy Ambassador’s chauffeur slipped out of the UN’s private garage and headed west through the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson in the direction of New Jersey. Neither Al Obaydi nor he spoke for several minutes while the driver continually checked his rearview mirror. Once they were on the New Jersey Turnpike he confirmed that no one was following them.

  “Good,” was all Al Obaydi offered. He began to relax for the first time that day, and started to fantasize about what he might do if the ten million dollars were suddenly his. When they had passed a branch of the Midlantic National Bank earlier, he had asked himself for the thousandth time why he didn’t just stop the car and deposit the money in a false name. He could be halfway across the globe by the following morning. That would certainly make his Ambassador sweat
. And, with an ounce of luck, Saddam would be dead long before they caught up with him. And then who would care?

  After all, Al Obaydi didn’t believe, not even for one moment, that the great leader’s outrageous plan was feasible. He had been hoping to report back to Baghdad after a reasonable period of time that no one reliable or efficient enough could be found to carry out such a bold coup. And then the Lebanese gentleman had flown into New York.

  There were two reasons why Al Obaydi knew he could not touch one dollar of the money stuffed into the golf bag that rested on the seat beside him. First, there were his mother and younger sister, who resided in Baghdad in relative comfort and who, if the money suddenly disappeared, would be arrested, raped, tortured and hanged—the only explanation being that they had collaborated with a traitor. Not that Saddam ever needed an excuse to kill anyone, especially someone he suspected might have betrayed him.

  Secondly, Al Obaydi—who fell on his knees five times daily, faced east and prayed that Saddam would eventually die a traitor’s death—could not help observing that Gorbachev, Thatcher and Bush had found it considerably more difficult than the great Sayedi to cling to power.

  Al Obaydi had accepted from the moment he had been handed this assignment by the Ambassador that Saddam would undoubtedly die peacefully in his bed while his own chances of survival—the Ambassador’s favorite word—were slim. And once the money had been paid over, if Antonio Cavalli failed to carry out his side of the bargain, it would be Al Obaydi who was called back to Baghdad on some diplomatic pretext, arrested, summarily tried and found guilty. Then all those fine words his law professor at London University had uttered would turn out to be so much sand in the desert.