Honor Among Thieves

Hannah briefed him on everything that was happening at the embassy, including “something big” taking place in Geneva that she didn’t yet know the details of. Scott told her in reply to her question that he had reported back to Kratz, and that it wouldn’t be long before she was taken out. She seemed pleased.

Once they began to talk of other things, Scott’s training warned him that he ought to insist she return to the embassy. But this time he left Hannah to make the decision as to when she should leave. She seemed to relax for the first time, and even laughed at Scott’s stories about the macho Parisians he met up with in the gym every evening.

As they strolled around the amusement park, Scott discovered it was Hannah who won the teddy bears at the shooting gallery and didn’t feel sick on the Big Dipper.

“Why are you buying cotton candy?” he asked.

“Because then no one will think we’re agents,” she replied. “They’ll assume we’re lovers.”

When they parted two hours later he kissed her on the cheek. Two professionals behaving like amateurs. He apologized. She laughed and disappeared.

Shortly after ten o’clock, Hamid Al Obaydi joined a small crowd that had formed on the sidewalk opposite a back entrance of the National Archives. He had to wait some twenty minutes before the door opened again and Cavalli came running up the ramp just as the motorcade reappeared on the corner of 7th Street. Cavalli gave a signal and they all came rushing out to the waiting cars. Al Obaydi couldn’t believe his eyes. The deception completely fooled the small crowd, who began waving and cheering.

As the first car disappeared around the corner, a man who had been there all the time explained that it was not the President but simply the rehearsal for a film.

Al Obaydi smiled at this double deception while the disappointed crowd drifted away. He crossed 7th Street and joined a long line of tourists, schoolchildren and the simply curious who had formed a line to see the Declaration of Independence.

The thirty-nine steps of the National Archives took as many minutes to ascend, and by the time the Deputy Ambassador entered the rotunda the river of people had thinned to a tributary which flowed on across the marble hall to a single line up a further nine steps, ending in a trickle under the gaze of Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock. Before him stood the massive brass frame that housed the Declaration of Independence.

Al Obaydi noted that when a person reached the parchment he was only able to spend a few moments gazing at the historic document. As his foot touched the first of the steps his heart started beating faster, but for a different reason from everyone else waiting in the line. He removed from his inside pocket a pair of spectacles whose glass could magnify the smallest writing by a degree of four.

The Deputy Ambassador walked across to the center of the top step and stared at the Declaration of Independence. His immediate reaction was one of horror. The document was so perfect it must surely be the original. Cavalli had fooled him. Worse, he had succeeded in stealing ten million dollars by a clever deception. Al Obaydi checked that the guards on each side of the encasement were showing no particular interest in him before putting on the spectacles.

He leaned over so that his nose was only an inch from the glass as he searched for the one word that had to be spelled correctly if they expected to be paid another cent.

His eyes widened in disbelief when he came to the sentence: “Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren.”

* * *

The Ambassador’s wife returned from Geneva with her husband the following Friday. Hannah and Scott had managed to steal a few hours together that morning.

It had been less than three weeks since he had first seen her in the public baths in the boulevard Lannes. Just over a week since that first hastily arranged meeting at the little café on the avenue Bugeaud. That was when the lies had begun; little ones to start with, that grew larger until they had spun themselves into an intricate web of deceit. Now Scott longed to tell her the truth, but as each day passed it became more and more impossible.

Langley had been delighted with the coded messages, and Dexter had congratulated him on doing such a first-class job. “As good a junior field officer as I can remember,” Dexter admitted. But Scott had discovered no code to let the Deputy Director know he was falling in love.

He had read Hannah’s file from cover to cover, but it gave no clue as to her real character. The way she laughed—a smile that could make you smile however sad or angry you were. A mind that was always fascinating and fascinated by what was happening around her. But most of all a warmth and gentleness that made their time apart seem like an eternity.

And whenever he was with her, he was suddenly no more mature than his students. Their clandestine meetings had rarely been for more than an hour, perhaps two, but it made each occasion all the more intense.

She continued to tell him everything about herself with a frankness and honesty that belied his deceit, while he told her nothing but a string of lies about being a Mossad agent whose front, while he was stationed in Paris, was writing a book, a travel book, which would never be published. That was the trouble with lies—each one created the next in a never-ending spiral. And that was the trouble with trust; she believed his every word.

When he returned home that evening, he made a decision he knew Langley would not approve of.

As the car edged its way into the left lane of the George Washington Memorial Parkway bound for the airport the driver checked the rearview mirror and confirmed no one was following them. Cavalli breathed a deep sigh of relief, though he had two alternative plans worked out if they were caught with the Declaration. He’d realized early on that it would be necessary to get as far away from the scene of the crime as quickly as possible. It had always been a crucial part of the plan that he would hand over the document to Nick Vicente within two hours of its leaving the National Archives.

“So let’s get on with it,” said Cavalli, turning his attention to Angelo, who was seated opposite him. Angelo unbuckled the s

word that hung from the belt around his waist. The two men then faced each other like Japanese sumo wrestlers, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Angelo placed the sword firmly between his legs, the handle pointing towards his boss. Cavalli leaned over and snapped the top back. Then, with the nail of his right thumb and forefinger, he extracted the thin black cylinder from its casing. Angelo pressed the handle back in place and hitched the sword onto his belt.

Cavalli held the twenty-six-inch-long slim plastic cylinder in his hands.

“It must be tempting to have a look,” said Angelo.

“There are more important things to do at the moment,” said Cavalli, placing the cylinder on the seat next to him. He picked up the carphone, pressed a single digit followed by “Send” and then waited for a response.

“Yes?” said a recognizable voice.

“I’m on my way, and I’ll have something to declare when I arrive.” There was a long silence, and Cavalli wondered if he had lost the connection.