Honour Among Thieves (30 page)

‘If
it is possible,’ continued Christopher, ‘for a public servant to make the
President and the Secretary of State feel morally inferior, Mr Marshall
achieved it with considerable dignity. However, that does not change the fact
that if we don’t get the original parchment back before its theft becomes
public knowledge, the media are going to roast the President and myself slowly
over a spit. One thing’s also for sure: the Republicans, led by Dole, will
happily wash their collective hands in public. Carry on, Dexter.’

‘Under
the Secretary of State’s instructions, we immediately formed a small task force
at Langley to profile every aspect of the problem we are facing. But we quickly
discovered that we were working under some severe restrictions. To begin with,
because of the sensitivity of the subject and the people involved, we could not
do what we automatically would have done in normal circumstances, namely
consult the FBI and liaise with the DC Police Department. That, we felt, would
have guaranteed us the front page of the Washington Post, and probably the
following morning. We mustn’t forget that the FBI is still smarting over the
Waco siege, and they’d like nothing better than for the CIA to replace them on
the front pages.

‘The
next problem we faced was having to tiptoe round people we’d usually bring in
for questioning, for fear that they too might discover our real purpose.
However, we have been able to come up with several leads without talking to any
members of the public. Following a routine check of permit records at the DCPD,
we discovered that a movie was being made in Washington on the same day as the
document was stolen. The director of that movie was Johnny Scasiatore, who is
currently on bail facing an indecency charge. Three others involved in the enterprise
turn out to have criminal records. And some of those people fit the
descriptions Mr Marshall and Mr Mendelssohn have given us of the group who
arrived at the National Archives posing as the Presidential party. They include
a certain Bill O’Reilly, a well-known forger who has spent several years in
more than one of our state penitentiaries, and an actor who played the
President so convincingly that both Mr Marshall and Mr Mendelssohn accepted it
was him without question.’

‘Surely
we can discover who that was,’ said Christopher.

‘We
already have. His name is Lloyd Adams. But we daren’t bring him in.’

‘How
did you find him?’ asked Leigh. ‘After all, there are quite a few actors who
can manage a passable resemblance to Clinton.’

‘Agreed,’
said the Deputy Director, ‘but only one who’s been operated on by America’s
leading plastic surgeon within the past few months. We have reason to believe
that the ringleaders killed the surgeon and his daughter, which is why his wife
reported everything she knew to the local Chief of Police.

‘However,
the whole operation would never have got off the ground without the inside help
of Mr Rex Butterworth, who was last seen on the morning of May 25th and has
since disappeared off the face of the earth. He booked a flight to Brazil, but
he never showed. We have agents across the globe searching for him.’

‘None
of this is of any importance if we are no nearer to finding out where the
original Declaration is at this moment, and who took it,’ said Christopher.

‘That’s
the bad news,’ replied Dexter. ‘Our agents spend hours on routine
investigations that many American citizens consider a waste of taxpayers’
money. But just now and then, it pays off.’

‘We’re
all listening,’ said Christopher.

‘The
CIA keeps under surveillance several foreign diplomats who work at the United
Nations. Naturally, they would be outraged if any of them could prove what we
were up to, and if we ever think they’re onto us we back off immediately. In
the case of Iraqis at the UN, we have people shadowing them round the clock.
Our problem is that we can’t operate within the UN complex itself, because if
we were caught inside that building it would cause an international outcry. So,
occasionally, their representatives are bound to slip our net.

‘But
we believe it was not a coincidence that Iraq’s Deputy Ambassador to the United
Nations, a Mr Hamid Al Obaydi, was in Washington on the day the Declaration was
switched, and took several photographs of the bogus filming that was taking
place. The agent who was tracking Al Obaydi at the time also reported that, at
10.37, after the Declaration had gone back on display in the National Archives,
Al Obaydi joined the public queue, waiting over an hour to view the parchment.
But here’s the clincher. He studied the document once, and then he looked at it
a second time, with glasses.’

‘Perhaps
he’s near-sighted,’ said Susan.

‘Our
agent reports that he’s never before or since seen him wearing glasses of any
kind,’ replied Dexter Hutchins. ‘Now for the really bad news,’ he continued.

‘That
wasn’t it?’ said Christopher.

‘No,
sir. Al Obaydi flew on to Geneva a week later and was spotted by our local
station officer leaving a bank.’ Dexter referred to his notes. ‘Franchard et
cie. He was carrying a plastic cylinder, and I quote, “a little over two feet
in length and about two inches in diameter”.’

‘Who’s
going to tell the President?’ said Christopher, putting his hands over his
eyes.

‘He
took this cylinder by car straight to the Palais des Nations, and it hasn’t
been seen since.’

‘And
Barazan Al-Tikriti, Saddam’s half-brother, is the Iraqi Ambassador to the
United Nations in Geneva,’ said Susan.

‘Don’t
remind me,’ said Christopher. ‘But what I want to know is, why the hell didn’t
your man jump Al Obaydi when it was obvious what he was carrying? I would have
found a way of keeping the Swiss in line.’

‘We
would have done so if we’d known what he was carrying, but at that stage we
weren’t even aware the Declaration had been stolen, and our surveillance was
just routine.’

‘So
what you’re telling us, Mr Hutchins, is that the Declaration could well be in
Baghdad by now,’ said Leigh. ‘Because if it was sent through the diplomatic
pouch, the Swiss wouldn’t have let us get anywhere near it.’

No
one spoke for several moments.

‘Let’s
work on the worst-case scenario,’ said the Secretary of State finally. ‘The
Declaration is already in Saddam’s possession. So what’s his next move likely
to be? Scott, you’re our man of logic. Can you second-guess what he might get
up to?’

‘No,
sir, Saddam’s not a man you can second-guess. Especially after his failed
attempt to assassinate George Bush on his visit to Kuwait in April. Although
the whole world accused him of being behind the plot, how did he react? Not
with the usual bellicose shouting and screaming about the lies of the American
imperialists, but with a reasoned, coherent statement from his Ambassador at
the UN denying any personal involvement. Why? The press tells us it’s because
Saddam is hoping Clinton will be more reasonable in the long term than Bush. I
don’t believe it. I suspect Saddam realises that Clinton’s position doesn’t
differ greatly from that of his predecessor. I don’t think that’s his reasoning
at all. No, I suspect he believes that with the Declaration in his possession,
he has a weapon so powerful that he can humiliate the United States, and in
particular the new President, as and when he pleases.’

‘When
and how, Scott? If we knew that...’

‘I
have two theories on that, sir,’ replied Scott.

‘Let’s
hear them both.’

‘Neither
is going to make you feel any happier, Mr Secretary.’

‘Nevertheless...’

‘First
he sets up a press conference, inviting the world’s media to attend. He selects
some public place in Baghdad where he is safely surrounded by his own people,
and then he tears up, burns, destroys, does whatever he likes to the
Declaration. I have a feeling it would make prime-time television.’

‘But
we’d bomb Baghdad to the ground if he tried that,’ said Dexter Hutchins.

‘I
doubt it,’ said Scott. ‘How would our allies, the British, the French, not to
mention the other friendly Arab nations, react to our bombing innocent
civilians because Saddam had stolen the Declaration of Independence from right
under our eyes?’

‘You’re
right, Scott,’ said Warren Christopher. ‘The President would be vilified as a
barbarian if he retaliated by bombing innocent Iraqis after what a lot of the
world would consider nothing more than a public relations coup, though I must
tell you, in the strictest confidence, that we do have plans to bomb Baghdad if
Saddam continues to undermine the UN inspection teams’ attempts to examine
Iraqi nuclear installations.’

‘Has
a date been decided on?’ asked Scott.

Christopher
hesitated. ‘Sunday June 27th,’ he said.

‘The
timing might well turn out to be unfortunate for us,’ said Scott.

‘Why?
When do you think Saddam is likely to move?’ asked Christopher.

‘That’s
not so easy to answer, sir,’ replied Scott, ‘because you have to think the way
he thinks. What makes that almost impossible is that he’s capable of changing
his mind from hour to hour. But if he thinks the problem through logically, my
guess is he’ll be considering two alternatives. Either on some symbolic date,
maybe an anniversary associated with the Gulf War, or.. .’

‘Or
...
?’ said Christopher.

‘Or
he intends to hold on to it as a bargaining chip to allow him to retake the
oilfields in Kuwait. After all, he’s always claimed he had an agreement with us
on that in the first place.’

‘Either
scenario is too horrific to contemplate,’ said the Secretary of State. Turning
to the Deputy Director, he asked, ‘Have you begun to form any plan for getting
the document back?’

‘Not
at the moment, sir,’ replied Dexter Hutchins, ‘as I suspect the parchment will
be every bit as well protected as Saddam himself, and frankly we only learned
of its likely destination last night.’

‘Colonel
Kratz,’ said Christopher, turning his attention to the Mossad man, who had not
uttered a word. ‘Your Prime Minister informed us a few weeks ago that he was
considering a plan to take out Saddam at some time in the near future.’

‘Yes,
sir, but he recognises your present dilemma, and all our activities have been
shelved until the problem over the Declaration has been resolved, one way or
the other.’

‘I
have already informed Mr Rabin how much I appreciate his support, especially as
he can’t even tell his own cabinet the true reason for his change of heart.’

‘But
we have our own problem, sir,’ said the Israeli.

‘Make
my day, Colonel.’

The
burst of laughter that followed helped to ease the tension for a moment – but
only for a moment.

‘We
have been training an agent who was going to be part of the team for the final
operation to eliminate Saddam, a Hannah Kopec’

‘The
girl who...’ said Christopher, half-glancing towards Scott.

‘Yes,
sir. She was totally blameless. But that is not the problem. After she returned
to the Iraqi Embassy that evening, we were unable to get anywhere near Miss
Kopec to let her know what had happened, because during the next few days she
never once left the building, night or day. She and the Iraqi Ambassador have
since returned to Baghdad under heavy guard. However, Agent Kopec remains under
the misapprehension that she has killed Scott Bradley, and we suspect her only
interest now is to eliminate Saddam.’

‘She’ll
never get anywhere near him,’ said Leigh.

‘I
wish I believed that,’ said Scott quietly.

‘She
is a bold, imaginative and resourceful young woman,’ said Kratz. ‘And, worse,
she has the assassin’s greatest weapon.’

‘Namely?’
said Christopher.

‘She
no longer cares about her own survival.’

‘Can
this get any worse?’ asked Christopher.

‘Yes,
sir. She knows nothing about the disappearance of the Declaration, and we have
no way of contacting her to let her know.’

The
Secretary of State paused for a moment, as if he was coming to a decision.
‘Colonel Kratz, I want to put something to you which is likely to stretch your
personal loyalty.’

‘Yes,
Mr Secretary,’ said Kratz.

‘This
plan to assassinate Saddam. How long have you been working on it?’

‘Nine
months to a year,’ replied Kratz.

‘And
it obviously entailed you getting a person or persons into Saddam’s palace or
bunker?’

Kratz
hesitated.

‘Yes
or no will suffice,’ said Christopher.

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘My
question is extremely simple, Colonel. May we therefore take advantage of the
year’s preparation you’ve already carried out and – dare I suggest – steal your
plan?’

‘I
would have to take advice from my government before I could consider. ..’

Christopher
took an envelope from his pocket. ‘I will be happy to let you see Mr Rabin’s
letter to me on this subject, but first allow me to read it to you.’