Honor Among Thieves Read online

  When he entered her, she sighed a different sigh, the sigh of morning love, calmer and more gentle than the demands of the night, but every bit as enjoyable.

  For Scott it had been a new experience. Although he had made love many more times than he cared to remember, it had never been with the same excitement.

  When they finished making love, she rested her head on his shoulder and he brushed a hair from her cheek, praying the next hour would go slowly. He hated the thought of her returning to the embassy that morning as he knew she eventually must. He didn’t want to share her with anybody.

  The room was now bathed in the morning sun, which only made him wonder when he’d next be allowed to spend a whole night with her.

  The Head of Interest Section had been called straight back to Geneva on urgent business, and had taken only one secretary with him, leaving Hannah in Paris on her own for the weekend. She only wished she could tell Simon what it was all about, so he could pass the information on to Kratz.

  She had double-locked her room and left the embassy compound by the fire escape. Hannah told him that she had felt like a schoolgirl creeping out of her dormitory to join a midnight feast.

  “Better than any feast I can remember,” were his last words before they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  The day had begun when they had gone shopping together in the boulevard Saint-Michel and bought clothes she couldn’t wear and a tie he would never have considered before he met her. They’d had lunch at a corner café and taken two hours to eat a salad and drink a bottle of wine. They had strolled down the Champs Élysées, hand in hand as lovers should, before joining the line to see the Clodion exhibition at the Louvre. A chance to teach her something he thought he knew about, only to find it was he who did the learning. He bought her a floppy tourist hat in the little shop at the base of the Eiffel Tower and was reminded that she always looked stunning whatever she wore.

  They had dinner at Maxim’s but only ate one course, as they both knew by then that all they really wanted to do was return to his little flat on the Left Bank.

  He remembered how he had stood there mesmerized as Hannah removed each garment until she became so embarrassed that she began to take off his clothes. It was almost as if he didn’t want to make love to her, because he hoped the anticipation might go on forever.

  Of all the women, including the occasional promiscuous student, with whom he had had one-night stands, casual affairs, even sometimes what he had imagined was love, he had never known anything like this. And afterwards, he discovered something else he had never experienced before: the sheer joy of just lying in her arms was every bit as exhilarating as making love.

  His finger ran down the nape of her neck. “What time do you have to be back?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

  “One minute before the Ambassador.”

  “And when’s he expected?”

  “His flight’s due in from Geneva at eleven-twenty. So I’d better be at my desk before twelve.”

  “Then we still have time to make love once more,” he said as he placed a finger on her lips.

  She bit the finger gently.

  “Ow,” he said mockingly.

  “Only once?” she replied.

  Debbie brought the Deputy Ambasador through to Cavalli’s office at twenty past twelve. Neither man commented on the fact that Al Obaydi was late. Cavalli indicated the chair on the other side of his desk, and waited for the visitor to be seated. For the first time, he felt strangely uneasy about the Arab.

  “As I mentioned yesterday,” Cavalli began, “we are now in possession of the document you require. We are therefore ready to exchange it for the sum agreed.”

  “Ah, yes, the ninety million dollars,” said the Iraqi, placing the tips of his fingers together just below his chin while he considered his next statement. “Cash on delivery, if I remember correctly.”

  “You do,” said Cavalli. “So now all we need to know is where and when.”

  “We require the document to be delivered to Geneva by twelve o’clock next Tuesday. The recipient will be a Monsieur Pierre Dummond of the bankers Dummond et cie.”

  “But that only gives me six days to find a safe route out of the country and—”

  “Your God created the world in that time, if I remember Genesis correctly. Such a fatuous story,” added Al Obaydi, “that I didn’t bother with Exodus.”

  “The Declaration will be in Geneva by Tuesday midday,” said Cavalli.

  “Good,” said Al Obaydi. “And if Monsieur Dummond is satisfied that the document is authentic, he has been given instructions to release the sum of ninety million dollars by wire transfer to any bank of your choice in the world. If, on the other hand, you fail to deliver, or the document proves to be a fake, we will have lost ten million dollars, with nothing to show for it but a three-minute film made by a world-famous director. In that eventuality, a package similar to this one will be posted to the Director of the FBI and the Commissioner of the IRS.”

  Al Obaydi removed a thick envelope from his inside pocket and tossed it across the table. Cavalli’s expression did not change as the Deputy Ambassador rose, bowed and walked out of the room without another word.

  Cavalli felt sure he was about to discover what “among other things” meant.

  He ripped open the bulky yellow envelope and allowed the contents to spill out onto his desk. Photographs, dozens of them, and documents with bank note serial numbers attached to them. He glanced at the photographs of himself in deep conversation with Al Calabrese on the sidewalk in front of the National Café, another of himself with Gino Sartori in the center of Freedom Plaza and yet another with the director sitting on the dolly as they talked to the former Deputy Chief of the D.C. Police Department. Al Obaydi had even taken a photograph of Rex Butterworth entering the Willard Hotel and of the actor, baldheaded, sitting in the third car, and later getting into the limo outside the Archives’ loading dock.

  Cavalli began drumming his fingers on the table. It was then that he remembered the nagging doubt at the back of his mind. It was Al Obaydi he had seen in the crowd the previous day. He had underestimated the Iraqi. Perhaps the time had come to call their man in Lebanon and inform him of the Swiss bank account he had opened in the Deputy Ambassador’s name.

  No. That would have to wait until after the ninety million had been paid in full.

  “What do I do, Simon, if he offers me the job?”

  Scott hesitated. He had no idea what Mossad would expect her to do. He knew exactly what he wanted her to do. It was no use putting the question to Dexter Hutchins in Virginia, because they wouldn’t have hesitated to tell him to continue using Hannah for their own purposes.

  Hannah turned towards what Scott laughingly described as the kitchen. “Perhaps you could ask Colonel Kratz what I should do,” she suggested when he didn’t reply. “Explain to him that the Ambassador wants me to take Muna’s place, but that another problem has arisen.”

  “What’s that?” asked Scott anxiously.

  “The Ambassador’s term of office comes to an end early next month. He may well be asked to stay in Paris, but the Chief Administrator is telling everyone that he’s going to be called back to Baghdad and promoted to Deputy Foreign Minister.”

  Scott still didn’t offer an opinion.

  “What’s the matter, Simon? Are you incapable of making a decision at this time in the morning?” Scott still said nothing. “You’re just as pathetic on your feet as you are in bed,” she teased.

  Scott decided the time had come to tell her everything. He wasn’t going to wait another minute. He walked out of the kitchen, took her in his arms and stroked her hair. “Hannah, I need to—” he began, when the phone rang. He broke away to answer it.

  He listened for a few moments before saying to Dexter Hutchins, “Yes, sure. I’ll call you back as soon as I’ve had time to think about it.” What was the man doing up in the middle of the night, wondered Scott as he replaced the receiver.