Honour Among Thieves (16 page)

‘In
the strictest confidence. Of course.’

‘The
President felt sure he could rely on your discretion, Mr Marshall. So, I feel I
can let you know that we’re trying to clear some time during the last week of
this month for him to visit the Archives, but nothing, as yet, has been
scheduled.’

‘Nothing,
as yet, has been scheduled. Of course.’ ‘President Clinton has also requested
that it be a strictly private visit, which would not be open to the public or
the press.’

‘Not
be open to the press. Of course.’

‘After
the explosion at the World Trade Center, one can’t be too careful.’

‘Can’t
be too careful. Of course.’

‘And
I would be obliged if you did not discuss any aspect of the visit with your
staff, however senior, until we are able to confirm a definite date. These
things have a habit of getting out and then, for security reasons, the visit
might have to be cancelled.’

‘Have
to be cancelled. Of course. But if it’s to be a private visit,’ said the
Archivist, ‘is there anything the President particularly wants to see, or will
it just be the standard tour of the building?’

‘I’m
glad you asked that question,’ said Mr Butterworth, opening the file in front
of him. ‘The President has made one particular request, apart from which he
will be in your hands.’

‘In
my hands. Of course.’

‘He
wants to see the Declaration of Independence.’

‘The
Declaration of Independence. That’s easy enough.’

‘That
is not the request,’ said Butterworth.

‘Not
the request?’

‘No.
The President wishes to see the Declaration, but not as he saw it when he was a
freshman at Georgetown, under a thick pane of glass. He wishes the frame to be
removed so he can study the parchment itself. He hopes you will grant this
request, if only for a few moments.’

This
time the Archivist did not immediately say ‘Of course.’ Instead he said, ‘Most
unusual,’ and added, ‘Hopes I would grant him this request, if only for a few
moments.’ There was a long pause before he said, ‘I’m sure that will be
possible, of course.’

‘Thank
you,’ said Mr Butterworth, trying not to sound too relieved. ‘I know the
President will be most appreciative. And, if I could impress on you again, not
a word until we’ve been able to confirm the date.’

Butterworth
rose and glanced at the long-case clock at the far end of the room. The meeting
had taken twenty-two minutes. He would still be able to escape from the
conference’room before he was thrown out by the officious woman from
Scheduling.

The
Special Assistant to the President guided his guest towards the door.

‘The
President wondered if you would like to see the Oval Office while you’re
here?
’

‘The
Oval Office. Of course, of course.’

H
AMID AL OBAYDI
was left alone in the centre of the room. After two of the four guards had
stripped him naked, the other two had expertly checked every stitch of his clothing
for anything that might endanger the life of their President.

On
a nod from the man who appeared to be the chief guard, a side door opened and a
doctor entered the room, followed by an orderly who carried a chair in one hand
and a rubber glove in the other. The chair was placed behind Al Obaydi, and he
was invited to sit. He did so. The doctor first checked his nails and ears
before instructing him to open his mouth wide while he tapped every tooth with
a spatula. He then placed a clamp in his jaw so that it opened even wider,
which allowed him to look into every crevice. Satisfied, he removed the clamp.
He then asked Al Obaydi to stand up, turn round, place his legs straight and
wide while bending over until his hands touched the seat of the chair. Al
Obaydi heard the rubber glove being placed on the doctor’s hand and felt a
sudden burst of pain as two fingers were thrust up his rectum. He cried out and
the guards facing him began to laugh. The fingers were extracted just as
abruptly, repeating the jab of pain a second time.

‘Thank
you, Deputy Ambassador,’ said the doctor, as if he had just checked Al Obaydi’s
temperature for a mild dose of ‘flu. ‘You can get dressed now.’ Al Obaydi knelt
down and picked up his pants as the doctor and the orderly left the room.

As
he dressed, Al Obaydi couldn’t help wondering if each member of the Security
Council went through the same humiliation every time Saddam called a meeting of
the Revolutionary Command Council.

The
order to return to Baghdad to give Sayedi an update on the latest position, as
the Ambassador to the UN had described the summons, filled Al Obaydi with
considerable apprehension, despite the fact that following his most recent
meeting with Cavalli he felt he had the answers to any questions the President
might put to him.

Once
Al Obaydi had reached Baghdad after a seemingly endless journey through Jordan
– direct flights having been suspended as part of the UN sanctions – he hadn’t
been allowed to rest or even given the chance to change his clothes. He’d been
driven direct to Ba’ath headquarters in a black Mercedes.

When
Al Obaydi had finished dressing, he checked himself in a small mirror on the
wall. His apparel was, on this occasion, modest compared with the outfits he’d
left in his apartment in New York: Saks Fifth Avenue suits, Valentino sweaters,
Church’s shoes and a solid gold Carrier watch. All this had been rejected in
favour of the one set of cheap Arab clothing he retained in the bottom drawer
of his wardrobe in Manhattan.

When
Al Obaydi turned away from the mirror, one of the guards beckoned him to follow
as the door at the end of the room opened for the first time. The contrast to
the bare, almost barrack-room surroundings of the examina-tion room took him by
surprise. A thickly carpeted, ornately painted corridor was well lit by
chandeliers that hung every few paces.

The
Deputy Ambassador followed the guard down the corridor, becoming more aware
with each step of the massive gold-painted door that loomed up ahead of him.
But when he was only a few paces away, the guard opened a side door and ushered
him into an ante-room that echoed the opulence of the corridor.

Al
Obaydi was left alone in the room, but no sooner had he taken a seat on the
large sofa than the door opened again. Al Obaydi jumped to his feet only to see
a girl enter carrying a tray, in the centre of which was a small cup of Turkish
coffee.

She
placed the coffee on a table beside the sofa, bowed and left as silently as she
had come. Al Obaydi toyed with the cup, aware that he had fallen into the
Western habit of preferring cappuccino. He drank the muddy black liquid simply
out of a nervous desire to be doing something.

An
hour passed slowly: he became increasingly nervous, with nothing in the room to
read and only a massive portrait of Saddam Hussein to stare at. Al Obaydi spent
the time going over every detail of what Cavalli had told him, wishing he could
refer to the file in his small attache case, which the guards had whisked away
long before he’d reached the examination room.

During
the second hour, his confidence began to drain away. During the third, he
started to wonder if he would ever get out of the building alive.

Then
suddenly the door swung open and Al Obaydi recognised the red-and-yellow flash
on the uniform of one of Saddam’s Presidential Guards: the Hemaya.

‘The
President will see you now,’ was all the young officer said, and Al Obaydi rose
and followed him quickly down the corridor towards the gold-painted door.

The
officer knocked, opened the massive door and stood on one side to allow the
Deputy Ambassador to join a full meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council.

Al
Obaydi stood and waited, like a prisoner in the dock hoping to be told by the
judge that he might at least be allowed to sit. He remained standing, well
aware that no one ever shook hands with the President unless invited to do so.
He stared round at the twelve-man council, noticing that only two, the Prime
Minister, Tariq Aziz, and the State Prosecutor, Nakir Farrar, were wearing
suits. The other ten members were dressed in full military uniform but did not
wear sidearms. The only hand gun, other than those worn by General Hamil, the
Commander of the Presidential Guard, and the two armed soldiers directly behind
Saddam, was on the table in front of the President, placed where other heads of
state would have had a memo pad.

Al
Obaydi became painfully aware that the President’s eyes had never left him from
the moment he had entered the room. Saddam waved his Cohiba cigar at the Deputy
Ambassador to indicate that he should take the vacant seat at the opposite end
of the table.

The
Foreign Minister looked towards the President, who nodded. He then turned his
attention to the man who sat nervously in the far chair.

‘This,
Mr President, as you know, is Hamid Al Obaydi, our Deputy Ambassador at the
United Nations, whom you honoured with the responsibility of carrying out your
orders to steal the Declaration of Independence from the American infidels. On
your instructions, he has returned to Baghdad to inform you, in person, of what
progress he has made. I have not had an opportunity to speak to him, Mr
President, so you will forgive me if I appear, like yourself, to be a seeker
after information.’

Saddam
waved his cigar again to let the Foreign Minister know that he should get on
with it.

‘Perhaps
I could start, Deputy Ambassador’ – Al Obaydi was surprised by such a formal
address, as their two families had known each other for generations, but he
accepted that to show friendship of any kind in front of Saddam was tantamount
to an admission of conspiracy – ‘by asking you to bring us all up to date on
the President’s imaginative scheme.’

‘Thank
you, Foreign Minister,’ replied Al Obaydi, as if he had never met the man
before. He turned back to face Saddam, whose black eyes remained fixed on him.

‘May
I begin, Mr President, by saying what an honour it has been to be entrusted
with this task, especially remembering the idea had emanated from Your
Excellency personally.’ Every member of the Council was now concentrating his
attention on the Deputy Ambassador, but Al Obaydi noticed that from time to
time each of them would glance in Saddam’s direction to see how he was
reacting.

‘I
am happy to be able to report that the team led by Mr Antonio Cavalli. ..’

Saddam
raised a hand and looked towards the State Prosecutor, who opened a thick file
in front of him.

Nakir
Farrar, the State Prosecutor, was feared second only to Saddam in the Iraqi
regime. Everyone knew of his reputation. A first-class honours degree in
jurisprudence at Oxford, President of the Union, and a bencher at Lincoln’s
Inn. That was where Al Obaydi had first come across him. Not that Farrar had
ever acknowledged his existence. He had been tipped to be the first QC Iraq had
ever produced. But then came the invasion of the Nineteenth Province and the
British expelled the highflyer, despite several appeals from people in high
places. Farrar returned to a city he had deserted at the age of eleven, and
immediately offered his remarkable talent for Saddam Hussein’s personal use.
Within a year Saddam had appointed him State Prosecutor. A title, it was
rumoured, he had selected himself.

‘Cavalli
is a New York criminal, Mr President, who, because he has a law degree and
heads a private legal practice, creates a legitimate front for such an
operation.’ Saddam nodded and turned his attention back to Al Obaydi.

‘Mr
Cavalli has completed the preparation stage and his team is now ready to carry
out the President’s orders.’

‘Do
we have a date yet?’ asked Farrar.

‘Yes,
State Prosecutor. May 25th. Clinton has a full day’s schedule at the White
House, with his speechwrit-ers in the morning, and his wife’s health-policy
task unit in the afternoon, and he’ – the Iraqi Ambassador to the UN had warned
Al Obaydi never to refer to Clinton as ‘the President’ – ‘will therefore not be
involved in any public engagements that day, which would have made our task
impossible.’

‘And
tell me, Deputy Ambassador,’ said the State Prosecutor, ‘did Mr Cavalli’s
lawyer succeed in getting a permit to close down the road between the White
House and the National Archives during the time when Clinton will be involved
in these internal meetings?’

‘No,
State Prosecutor, he did not,’ came back Al Obaydi’s reply. ‘The Mayor’s Office
did, however, grant a permit for filming to take place on Pennsylvania Avenue
from 13 th Street east. But the road can only be closed for forty-five minutes.
It seems this Mayor was not as easy to convince as her predecessor.’

A
few members of the Council looked puzzled. ‘Not as easy to convince?’ asked the
Foreign Minister.

‘Perhaps
“persuade” would be a better word.’

‘And
what form did this persuasion take?’ asked General Hamil, who sat on the right
of the President and knew only one form of persuasion.

‘A
$250,000 contribution to her re-election fund.’