Honor Among Thieves

“And then?”

“Four more changes between there and the Big Apple. Fresh drivers and a different car each time. The patient should be with you around midnight tomorrow, though he may have to stop off at a rest room or two along the way.”

“No rest rooms,” said Cavalli. “Just take him off the highway and hide him behind a tree.”

Chapter Seven

Dollar Bill’s new home turned out to be the basement of a house in Georgetown, formerly an artist’s studio. The room where he worked was well lit without glare and, at his request, the temperature was kept at sixty-six degrees with a constant humidity.

Bill attempted several “dry runs” as he called them, but he couldn’t get started on the final document until he had all the materials he needed. “Nothing but perfection will do,” he kept reminding Angelo. He would not have his name associated with anything that might later be denounced as a forgery. After all, he had his reputation to consider.

For days they searched in vain for the right pen nibs. Dollar Bill rejected them all until he was shown a picture of some in a small museum in Virginia. He nodded his approval and they were in his hands the following afternoon.

The curator of the museum told a reporter from the Richmond Times Dispatch that she was puzzled by the theft. The pens were not of any historic importance or particularly valuable. There were far more irreplaceable objects in the next display case.

“Depends who needs them,” said Dollar Bill when he was shown the press clipping.

The ink was a little easier once Bill had found the right shade of black. When it was on the paper he knew exactly how to control the viscosity by temperature and evaporation to give the impression of old age. Several pots were tested until he had more than enough to carry out the job.

While others were searching for the materials he needed, Dollar Bill read several books from the Library of Congress and spent a few minutes every day in the National Archives until he discovered the one mistake he could afford to make.

But the toughest requirement proved to be the parchment itself, because Dollar Bill wouldn’t consider anything that was less than two hundred years old. He tried to explain to Angelo about carbon dating.

Samples were flown in from Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Montreal and Athens, but the forger rejected them all. It was only when a package arrived from Bremen with a selection dated 1781 that Dollar Bill gave a smile which only Guinness normally brought to his lips.

He touched, caressed and fondled the parchment as a young man might a new lover but, unlike a lover, he pressed, rolled and flattened the object of his attentions until he was confident it was ready to receive the baptism of ink. He then prepared ten sheets of exactly the same size, kno

wing that only one would eventually be used.

Bill studied the ten parchments for several hours. Two were dismissed within a moment, and four more by the end of the day. Using one of the four remaining sheets, the craftsman worked on a rough copy that Angelo, when he first saw it, considered perfect.

“Perfect to the amateur eye, possibly,” Bill said, “but a professional would spot the seventeen mistakes I’ve made within moments. Destroy it.”

During the next week three copies of the text were executed in Dollar Bill’s new home in Georgetown. No one was allowed to enter the room while he was working, and the door remained locked whenever he took a break. He worked in two-hour shifts and then rested for two hours. Light meals were brought to him twice a day and he drank nothing but water, even in the evening. At night, exhausted, he would often sleep for eight hours without stirring.

Once he had completed the three copies of the forty-six-line text, Dollar Bill declared himself satisfied with two of them. The third was destroyed.

Angelo reported back to Cavalli, who seemed pleased with Dollar Bill’s progress, although neither of them had been allowed to see the two final copies.

“Now comes the hard part,” Bill told Angelo. “Fifty-six signatures, every one requiring a different nib, a different pressure, a different shade of ink and every one a work of art in itself.”

Angelo accepted this analysis, but was less happy to learn that Dollar Bill insisted on a day off before he began to work on the names because he needed to get paralytically drunk.

Professor Bradley flew into Washington on Tuesday evening and booked himself into the Ritz Carlton—the one luxury the CIA allowed the schizophrenic agent/professor. After a light dinner in the Jockey Club, accompanied only by a book, Scott retired to his room on the fifth floor. He flicked channels from one bad movie to another before falling asleep thinking about Susan Anderson.

He woke at six-thirty the next morning, rose and read the Washington Post from cover to cover, concentrating on the articles dealing with Rabin’s visit. He got dressed watching a CNN report on the Israeli Prime Minister’s speech at a White House dinner that had taken place the previous evening. Rabin assured the new President he wanted the same warm relationship with America that his predecessor had enjoyed.

After a light breakfast, Scott strolled out of the hotel to find a company car waiting for him.

“Good morning, sir,” were the only words his driver spoke on the entire journey. It was a pleasant trip out of the city that Wednesday morning, but Scott smiled wryly as he watched commuters blocking all three lanes going in the opposite direction.

When he arrived at Dexter Hutchins’s office ten minutes before his appointment, Tess, the Deputy Director’s secretary, waved him straight through.

Dexter greeted Scott with a firm handshake and a cursory attempt at an apology.

“Sorry to pull you in at such short notice,” he said, removing the butt of a cigar from his mouth, “but the Secretary of State wants you to be present for his working meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister. They’re having one of the usual official lunches, rack of lamb and irrelevant small talk, and they expect to start the working session around three.”

“But why would Mr. Christopher want me there?” asked Scott.