“Let me remind you, sir,” said Dollar Bill, “that Ireland is the land of Yeats, Shaw, Wilde, O’Casey and Joyce.” He raised his glass in their memory.
“I’ve never heard of any of them. Drinking partners of yours, I suppose?” This time the young barman put his cloth down and began to pay closer attention.
“I never had that honor,” replied Dollar Bill, “but, my friend, the fact that you have not heard of them, let alone read their works, is your loss, not mine.”
“Are you accusing me of being ignorant?” said the intruder, placing a rough hand on Dollar Bill’s shoulder.
Dollar Bill turned to face him, but even at that close range he couldn’t focus clearly through the haze of alcohol he had consumed during the past two weeks. He did, however, observe that, although he appeared to be part of the same alcoholic haze, the intruder was somewhat larger than he. Such a consideration had never worried Dollar Bill in the past.
“No, sir, it was not necessary to accuse you of ignorance. For you have been condemned by your own utterances.”
“I won’t take that from anyone, you Irish drunk,” said the intruder. Keeping his hand on Dollar Bill’s shoulder, he swung at him and landed a blow on the side of his jaw. Dollar Bill staggered back off his high stool, falling to the floor in a heap.
The intruder waited some time for Bill to rise to his feet before he aimed a second blow to the stomach. Once again, Dollar Bill ended up on the floor.
The young man behind the bar had already begun dialing the number his boss had instructed he should call if ever such a situation arose. He only hoped they would come quickly as he watched the Irishman somehow get back on his feet. This time it was his turn to aim a punch at the intruder’s nose, a punch which ended up flying through the air over his assailant’s right shoulder. A further blow landed on the side of Dollar Bill’s throat. Down he went a third time, which in his days as an amateur boxer would have been considered a technical knockout; but as there seemed to be no referee present to officiate, he rose once again.
The young barman was relieved to hear a siren in the distance, and was praying they weren’t on their way to another call when suddenly four policemen came bursting through the swing doors.
The first one caught Dollar Bill just before he hit the ground for a fourth time, while two of the others grabbed the intruder, thrust his arms behind his back and forced a pair of handcuffs on him. Both men were bundled out of the bar and thrown into the back of a waiting police van. The siren continued its piercing sound as the two drunks were driven away.
The barman was grateful for the speed with which the San Francisco Police Department had come to his aid. It was only later that night that he remembered he hadn’t given them an address.
As Hannah sat alone at the back of the plane bound for Amman, she began to consider the task she had set herself.
Once the Ambassador’s party had left Paris, she had returned to the traditional role of an Arab woman. She was dressed from head to toe in a black yashmak, and apart from her eyes, her face was covered by a small mask. She spoke only when asked a question directly, and never posed a question herself. She felt her Jewish mother would not have survived such a regime for more than a few hours.
Hannah’s one break had come when the Ambassador’s wife had inquired where she intended to stay once they had returned to Baghdad. Hannah explained that she had made no immediate plans as her mother and aunt were living in Karbala, and she could not stay with them if she hoped to keep her job with the Ambassador.
Hannah had hardly finished the second sentence before the Ambassador’s wife insisted that she come and live with them. “Our house is far too large,” she explained, “even with a dozen servants.”
When the plane touched down at Queen Alia Airport, Hannah looked out of the tiny window to watch a large black limousine that would have looked more in place in New York than Amman driving towards them. It drew up by the side of the aircraft and a driver in a smart blue suit and dark glasses jumped out.
Hannah joined the Ambassador and his wife in the back of the car and they sped away from the airport in the direction of the border with Iraq.
When the car reached the customs barrier, they were waved straight through with bows and salutes, as if the border didn’t exist. They traveled a further mile and passed a second customs post on the Iraqi side, where they were treated in much the same manner as the first, before joining the six-lane highway to Baghdad.
On the long journey to the capital, the speedometer rarely fell below seventy miles per hour. Hannah soon became bored with the beating sun and the sight of miles and miles of flat sand that stretched to the horizon and beyond, with only the occasional cluster of palm trees to break the monotony. Her thoughts returned to Simon and what might have been…
Hannah dozed off as the air-conditioned limousine sped quietly along the highway. Her mind drifted from Simon to her mother, to Saddam, and then back to Simon.
She woke with a start to find they were entering the outskirts of Baghdad.
It had been many years since Dollar Bill had seen the inside of a jail, but not so long that he had forgotten how much he detested having to associate with drug peddlers, pimps and muggers.
Still, the last time he had been foolish enough to get himself involved in a barroom brawl, he had started it. But even then he only ended up with a fifty-dollar fine. Dollar Bill felt confident that the jails were far too overcrowded for any judge to consider the maximum thirty-day sentence for such cases.
In fact he had tried to slip one of the policemen in the van fifty dollars. They normally happily accepted the money, opened the back door of the van and kicked you out. He couldn’t imagine what the San Francisco police were coming to. Surely with all the muggers and drug addicts around they had more important things to deal with than mid-afternoon middle-aged barroom drunks.
As Dollar Bill began to sober up, the stench got to him, and he hoped that he’d be among the first to be put up in front of the night court. But as the hours passed, and he became more sober and the stench became greater, he began to wonder if they might end up keeping him overnight.
“William O’Reilly,” shouted the Police Sergeant as he looked down the list of names on his clipboard.
“That’s me,” said Bill, raising his hand.
“Follow me, O’Reilly,” the policeman barked as the cell door clanked open and the Irishman was gripped firmly by the elbow.
He was marched along a corridor that led into the back of a courtroom. He watched the little line of derelicts and petty criminals who were waiting for their moment in front of the judge. He didn’t notice a woman a few paces away from him, tightly gripping the rope handle of a bag.
“Guilty. Fifty dollars.”
“Can’t pay.”
“Three days in jail. Next.”
After three or four cases were dispensed with in this cursory manner within as many minutes, Dollar Bill watched the man who had shown no respect for the canon of Irish literature take his place in front of the judge.
“Drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace. How do you plead?”
“Guilty, Your Honor.”
“Any previous known record?”
“None,” said the Sergeant.
“Fifty dollars,” said the judge.
It interested Dollar Bill that his adversary had no previous convictions, and also was able to pay his fine immediately.
When it came to Dollar Bill’s own turn to plead, he couldn’t help thinking, when he looked up at the judge, that he appeared to be awfully young for the job. Perhaps he really was now an “old-timer.”
“William O’Reilly, Your Honor,” said the Sergeant, looking down at the list of charges. “Drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace.”
“How do you plead?”
“Guilty, Your Honor,” said Dollar Bill, fingering a small wad of bills in his pocket as he tried to remember the location of the nearest bar that served Guinness.
> “Thirty days,” said the judge, without raising his head. “Next.”
Two people in the courtroom were stunned by the judge’s decision. One of them reluctantly loosened her grip on the rope handle of her bag while the other stammered out, “Bail, Your Honor?”
“Denied.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The two men remained silent until David Kratz had come to the end of his outline plan.
Dexter was the first to speak. “I must admit, Colonel, I’m impressed. It just might work.”
Scott nodded his agreement, and then turned to the Mossad man who only a few weeks before had given Hannah the order that he should be killed. Some of the guilt had been lifted since they had been working so closely with each other, but the lines on the forehead and the prematurely gray hair of the Israeli leader remained a perpetual reminder of what he had been through. During their time together Scott had come to admire the sheer professional skill of the man who had been put in charge of the operation.
“I still need some queries answered,” said Scott, “and a few other things explained.”
The Israeli Councillor for Cultural Affairs to the Court of St. James nodded.
“Are you certain that they plan to put the safe in the Ba’ath Party headquarters?”
“Certain, no. Confident, yes,” said Kratz. “A Dutch company completed some building work in the basement of the headquarters nearly three years ago, and among their final drawings was a brick construction, the dimensions of which would house the safe perfectly.”
“And is this safe still in Kalmar?”
“It was three weeks ago,” replied Kratz, “when one of my agents carried out a routine check.”
“And does it belong to the Iraqi Government?” asked Dexter Hutchins.
“Yes, it has been fully paid for, and is now legally the property of the Iraqis.”
“Legally that may be the position, but since the Gulf War the UN has imposed a new category of sanctions,” Scott reminded him.
“How can a safe be considered a piece of military equipment?” asked Dexter.
“Exactly the Iraqis’ argument,” replied Kratz. “But, unfortunately for them, when they placed the original order with the Swedes, among the explicit specifications was the requirement that the safe, ‘must be able to withstand a nuclear attack.’ The word ‘nuclear’ was all that was needed to start the bells ringing at the UN.”
“So how do you plan to get around that problem?” asked Scott.
“Whenever the Iraqi Government submits a new list of items that they consider do not break UN Security Council Resolution 661, the safe is always included. If the Americans, the British and the French didn’t raise any objection, it could slip through.”
“And the Israeli Government?”
“We would protest vociferously in front of the Iraqi delegation, but not behind closed doors to our friends.”
“So let us imagine for one moment that we’re in possession of a giant safe that can withstand a nuclear attack. What good does that do us?” asked Scott.
“Someone has to be responsible for getting that safe from Sweden to Baghdad. Someone has to install it when they get there, and someone has to explain to Saddam’s people how to operate it,” said Kratz.
“And you have someone who is six feet tall, a karate expert and speaks fluent Arabic?”
“We did have, but she was only five foot ten.” The two men stared at each other. Scott remained silent.
“And how were you proposing to assassinate Saddam?” asked Dexter quickly. “Lock him up in the safe and hope he would suffocate?”
Kratz realized the comment had been made to take Scott’s mind off Hannah, so he responded in kind. “No, we discovered that was the CIA’s plan, and dismissed it. We had something more subtle in mind.”
“Namely?” asked Scott.
“A tiny nuclear device was to be planted inside the safe.”
“And the safe would be in the passage next to where the Revolutionary Command Council meets. Not bad,” said Dexter.
“And the device was to be set off by a five-foot-ten, dark-haired girl?” asked Scott.
Kratz nodded.
“Thirty days? What did I do to deserve thirty days, that’s what I want to know.” But no one was listening as Dollar Bill was hustled out of the courtroom, along the corridor and then out through a door at the rear of the building, before being pushed into the back seat of an unmarked car. Three men with military-style haircuts, Ray-Bans and small earplugs connected to wires running down the backs of their collars accompanied him.
“Why wasn’t I given bail? And what about my appeal? I have the right to a lawyer, damn it. And by the way, where are you taking me?” However many questions he asked, Dollar Bill received no answers.
Although he was unable to see anything out of the smoked-glass side windows, Dollar Bill could tell by looking over the driver’s shoulder when they reached the Golden Gate Bridge. As they proceeded along Route 101, the speedometer touched fifty-five for the first time, but the driver never once exceeded the speed limit.
When twenty minutes later the car swung off the highway at the Belvedere exit, Dollar Bill had no idea where he was. The driver continued up a small, winding road, until the car slowed down as a massive set of wrought-iron gates loomed up in front of them.
The driver flashed his lights twice and the gates swung open to allow the car to continue its journey down a long, straight gravel drive. It was another three or four minutes before they came to a halt in front of a large country house which reminded Dollar Bill of his youth in County Kerry, when his mother had been a scullery maid up at the manor house.
One of Dollar Bill’s escorts leaped out of the car and opened the door for him. Another ran ahead of them up the steps and pressed a bell, as the car sped away across the gravel.
The massive oak door opened to reveal a butler in a long black coat and a white bow tie.
“Good evening, Mr. O’Reilly,” he declared in a pronounced English accent even before Dollar Bill had reached the top step. “My name is Charles. Your room is already prepared. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to accompany me, sir.” Dollar Bill followed him into the house and up the wide staircase without uttering a word. He would have tried some of his questions on Charles, but since he was English, Dollar Bill knew he couldn’t expect an honest reply. The butler guided him into a small, well-furnished bedroom on the first floor.
“I do hope you will find that the clothes are the correct size, sir,” said Charles, “and that everything else is to your liking. Dinner will be served in half an hour.”
Dollar Bill bowed and spent the next few minutes looking around the suite. He checked the bathroom. French soap, safety razors and fluffy white towels; even a toothbrush and his favorite toothpaste. He returned to the bedroom and tested the double bed. He couldn’t remember when he had last slept on anything so comfortable. He then checked the wardrobe and found three pairs of trousers and three jackets, not unlike the ones he had purchased a few days after returning from Washington. How did they know?
He looked in the drawers: six shirts, six pairs of underpants and six pairs of socks. They had thought of everything, even if he didn’t care that much for their choice of ties.
Dollar Bill decided to join in the game. He took a bath, shaved and changed into the clothes provided. They were, as Charles had promised, the correct size.
He heard a gong sound downstairs, which he took as a clear signal that he had been summoned. He opened the door, stepped into the corridor and proceeded down the wide staircase to find the butler standing in the hall.
“Mr. Hutchins is expecting you. You’ll find him in the drawing room, sir.”
“Yes, of course I will,” said Dollar Bill, and followed Charles into a large room where a tall, burly man was standing by the fireplace, the stub of a cigar in the corner of his mouth.
“Good evening, Mr. O’Reilly,” he said. “My name is Dexter Hutchins. We’ve never
met before, but I’ve long been an admirer of your work.”
“That’s kind of you, Mr. Hutchins, but I don’t have the same advantage of knowing what you do to pass the unrelenting hour.”
“I do apologize. I am the Deputy Director of the CIA.”
“After all these years, I get to have dinner in a large country house with the Deputy Director of the CIA simply because I was involved in a barroom brawl. I’m tempted to ask, what do you lay on for mass murderers?”
“I must confess, Mr. O’Reilly, that it was one of my men who threw the first punch. But before we go any further, what would you like to drink?”
“I don’t think Charles will have my favorite brew,” said Dollar Bill, turning to face the butler.
“I fear the Guinness is canned and not on tap, sir. If I had been given a little more notice…” Dollar Bill bowed again and the butler disappeared.
“Don’t you think I’m entitled to know what this is all about, Mr. Hutchins? After all…”
“You are indeed, Mr. O’Reilly. The truth is, the government is in need of your services, not to mention your expertise.”
“I didn’t realize that Clintonomics had resorted to forgery to help balance the budget deficit,” said Dollar Bill as the butler returned with a large glass of Guinness.
“Not quite as drastic as that, but every bit as demanding,” said Hutchins. “But perhaps we should have a little dinner before I go into any details. I fear it’s been a long day for you.” Dollar Bill nodded and followed the Deputy Director to a small dining room, where the table had been set for two. The butler held a chair back for Dollar Bill, and when he was comfortably seated asked, “How do you like your steak done, sir?”
“Is it sirloin or entrecôte?” asked Dollar Bill.
“Sirloin.”
“If the meat is good enough, tell the chef to put a candle under it—but only for a few moments.”
“Excellent, sir. Yours, Mr. Hutchins, will I presume be well done?”
Honor Among Thieves Page 23