Honour Among Thieves (23 page)

The
fifth turned left on 23 rd Street, crossing Memorial Bridge and following the signs
to Old Town, while the second car turned left at 14th Street and headed towards
the Jefferson Memorial and onto the George Washington Parkway.

Cavalli,
who was seated in the back of the second car, dialled the director. When Johnny
answered the phone, the only words he heard were, ‘It’s a wrap.’

S
COTT PRAYED
THAT the Ambassador’s wife would be unable to get away on Thursday, or might
still be in Geneva. He remembered Dexter Hutchins saying, ‘Patience is not a
virtue when you work for the CIA, it’s nine-tenths of the job.’

When
he stopped at the end of the pool Hannah told him that the Ambassador’s wife
hadn’t returned from Switzerland. They didn’t bother to swim another length,
but agreed to meet later at the amusement park in the bois de Vincennes.

The
moment he saw her walking across the road he wanted to touch her. There were no
instructions in any of the CIA handbooks on how to deal with such a situation,
and no agent had ever raised the problem with him during the past nine years.

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 apologised. She laughed and disappeared.

Shortly
after ten o’clock, Hamid Al Obaydi joined a small crowd that had formed on the
pavement opposite a side 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 queue 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, they were 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 queue. 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 centre 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 spelt 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.

Little
more than a fortnight since that first hastily arranged meeting at the cafe on
the avenue Bugeaud. That was when the lies had begun; small 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 outside lane of the George Washington Memorial
Parkway bound for the airport the driver checked the rear-view 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 realised 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 sword 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 plastic 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 earphone, pressed a single
digit followed by ‘Send’, and waited for a response.

‘Yes?’
said a recognisable voice.

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

‘You’ve
done well,’ came back the eventual reply. ‘But are you running to schedule?’

Cavalli
looked out of the window. The exit sign for Route 395 South flashed past. ‘I’d
say we’re about a couple of minutes from the airport. As long as we make our
allocated time slot, I still hope to be with you around one o’clock.’

‘Good,
then I’ll have Nick join us so that the contract can be picked up and sent on
to our client. We’ll expect you around one.’

Cavalli
replaced the phone and was amused to find Angelo was dressed only in a vest and
underpants. He smiled and was about to comment when the phone rang. Cavalli
picked it up.

‘Yes,’
he said.

‘It’s
Andy. I thought you’d like to know it’s back on display to the general public
and the queues are as long as ever. By the way, an Arab stood around in the
crowd the whole time you were in the building, and then joined the line to see
the Declaration.’

‘Well
done, Andy. Get yourself back to New York. You can fill me in on the details
tomorrow.’

Cavalli
put the phone down and considered Andy’s new piece of information as Angelo was
completing a Windsor knot on a tie no lieutenant would have been seen dead in.
He still didn’t have his trousers on.

The
smoked glass between the driver and the passengers slid down.

‘We’re
just coming up to the terminal, sir. No one has followed us at any point.’

‘Good,’
said Cavalli as Angelo hurriedly pulled on his trousers. ‘Once you’ve changed
your licence plates, drive back to New York.’

The
driver nodded as the limousine came to a halt outside Signature Flight Support.

Cavalli
grabbed the plastic tube, jumped out of the car, ran through the terminal and
out onto the tarmac. His eyes searched for the white Learjet. When he spotted
it, a door opened and the steps were lowered to the ground. Cavalli ran towards
them as Angelo followed, trying to pull on his jacket in the high wind.

The
Captain was waiting for them on the top step. ‘You’ve just made it in time for
us to keep our slot,’ he told them. Cavalli smiled, and once they had both
clicked on their seatbelts, the Captain pressed a button to allow the steps to
swing back into place.

The
plane lifted off seventeen minutes later, banking over the Kennedy Center, but
not before the steward had served them each a glass of champagne. Cavalli
rejected the offer of a second glass as he concentrated on what still needed to
be done before he could consider his role in the operation was finished. His
thoughts turned once again to Al Obaydi, and he began to wonder if he’d
underestimated him.

When
the Learjet landed at La Guardia fifty-seven minutes later, Cavalli’s driver
was waiting by his car, ready to whisk them into the city.

As
the driver continually switched lanes and changed direction on the highway that
would eventually take them west over the Triborough Bridge, Cavalli checked his
watch. They were now lost in a sea of traffic heading into Manhattan, only
eighty-seven minutes after leaving Calder Marshall outside the delivery
entrance of the National Archives. Roughly the time it would take a Wall Street
banker to have lunch, Cavalli thought.

Cavalli
was dropped outside his father’s 75th Street brownstone just before one,
leaving Angelo to go on to the Wall Street office and monitor the checking-in
calls as each member of the team filed his report.

The
butler held open the front door of No. 23 as Tony stepped out of the car.

‘Can
I take that for you, sir?’ he asked, eyeing the plastic tube.

‘No,
thank you, Martin,’ said Tony. ‘I’ll hold onto it for the moment. Where’s my
father?’

‘He’s
in the boardroom with Mr Vicente, who arrived a few minutes ago.’

Tony
jogged down the staircase that led to the basement and continued across the
corridor. He strode into the boardroom to find his father sitting at the head
of the table, deep in conversation with Nick Vicente. The chairman stood up to
greet his son, and Tony passed him the plastic tube.

‘Hail,
conquering hero,’ were his father’s first words. ‘If you’d pulled off the same
trick for George III, he would have made you a knight. “Arise, Sir Antonio.”
But as it is, you’ll have to be satisfied with a hundred million dollars’
compensation. Is it permissible for an old man to see the original before Nick
whisks it away?’

Cavalli
laughed and removed the cap from the top of the cylinder before slowly
extracting the parchment and placing it gently on the boardroom table. He then
unrolled two hundred years of history. The three men stared down at the
Declaration of Independence and quickly checked the spelling of ‘Brittish’.