Honor Among Thieves

“Good,” said the General, when Kratz didn’t react to the needle being jabbed into his big toe. “Now we can find out all we need to know. But to begin with, some simple questions. Your Mossad rank?”

“Colonel,” said Kratz. The secret was to tell them only facts you felt confident they already knew.

“Your initiation number?”

“Seven-eight-two-one-six,” he said. If in doubt, assume they know, otherwise you could be found out.

“And your official position?”

“Councillor for Cultural Affairs to the Court of St. James in London.” You are allowed three testing lies and one whopper, but no more.

“What are the names of your three colleagues who accompanied you on this mission?”

“Professor Scott Bradley, an expert on ancient manuscripts,”—the first testing lie—“Ben Cohen and Aziz Zeebari.” The truth.

“And the girl, Hannah Kopec, what is her rank in Mossad?”

“She is still a trainee.”

“How long has she been with Mossad?”

“Just over two years.”

“And her role?”

“To be placed in Baghdad to discover where the Declaration of Independence was located.” The second lie.

“You are doing well, Colonel,” said the General, looking at the long, thin cardboard tube he held in his right hand.

“And was this your overall responsibility as her commanding officer?”

“No. I was simply to accompany the safe from Kalmar.” The third lie.

“But surely that was nothing more than an excuse to locate the Declaration of Independence?”

Kratz hesitated. Experts had been able to show that even under the influence of a truth drug a highly trained agent would still hesitate when asked a secret he had never revealed in the past.

“What was the true purpose of your bringing the safe to Baghdad, Colonel?”

Kratz still remained silent.

“Colonel Kratz,” said the General, his voice rising with every word, “what was the real reason you brought the safe to Baghdad?”

Kratz counted to three before he spoke.

“To blow up the Ba’ath Party headquarters with a tiny nuclear device secreted in the safe, in the hope of killing the President along with all the members of the Revolutionary Command Council.” The whopper.

How Kratz wished he could see the General’s face. It was Hamil who was hesitating now.

“How was the bomb to be activated?”

Again Kratz did not reply.

“I will ask you once again, Colonel. How was the bomb to be activated?”

Still Kratz said nothing.

“When will it go off?” shouted the General.