Honor Among Thieves

“Once their license 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 five 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 center 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 judgment. 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 Matlack 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 several lines further down. Both of the corrections had been inserted with a ?.

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

Chapter Nine

Hannah landed at Beirut Airport the night before she was due to fly back to Paris. No one from Mossad accompanied the new agent, to avoid the risk of compromising her. Any Israeli found in 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 Lebanese. In between she managed to catch moments of restless sleep. She rose at 6:50 the following morning, ate a slab of chocolate she found in the tiny fridge, brushed 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 favored, 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 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 parking lot. 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 any of the Mossad agents in Paris were. If it ever became necessary, one of their agents would contact her.

“What do I do about clothes if Saib’s don’t fit?” she had asked Kratz. “We know I’m taller than she is.”

“You must carry enough in your overnight bag to last for the first few days,” he had told her, “and then purchase what you will need for six months in Paris.” Two thousand French francs had been supplied for this purpose.

“It must be some time since you’ve been shopping in Paris,” she had told him. “That’s just about enough for a pair o

f jeans and a couple of T-shirts.” Kratz had reluctantly handed over another five thousand francs.

At 9:27 the phone rang.

When Tony Cavalli and his father entered the boardroom, they took the remaining chairs at each end of the table, as the chairman and chief executive of any distinguished company might. Cavalli always used the oak-paneled room in the basement of his father’s house on 75th Street for such meetings, but no one present believed they were there to conduct a normal board meeting. They knew there would be no agenda and no minutes.

In front of each of the six places where the board members were seated was a notepad, pencil and a glass of water, as there would have been at a thousand such meetings across America that morning. But at this particular gathering, in front of every place were also two long envelopes, one thin and one bulky, neither giving any clue as to its contents.