Honor Among Thieves Read online

  The General clicked his stopwatch.

  When the car came to a halt, Kratz reckoned that the distance they had traveled was under a mile. He heard the door open and felt a shove on his arm to indicate he should get out of the car. He was pushed up three stone steps before entering a building and walking into a long corridor. His footsteps echoed on the wooden floor. Then he was guided into a room on his left, where he was pushed down onto a chair, tied and gagged. His shoes and socks were removed. When he heard the door close, he sensed he was alone.

  It was a long time—he couldn’t be sure just how long—before the door opened again. The first voice he heard was General Hamil’s. “Remove the gag,” was all he said.

  Kratz could hear him pacing around the chair, but at first the General said nothing. Kratz began to concentrate. He knew the pill was good for two hours, no more, and he suspected it was already forty or fifty minutes since they had driven him away from Ba’ath headquarters.

  “Colonel Kratz, I have waited some time for the privilege of making your acquaintance. I’ve long admired your work. You are a perfectionist.”

  “Cut the crap,” said Kratz, “because I don’t admire you or your work.”

  He waited for the first slap of gloves across his face or for a fist to come crashing into his jaw, but the General simply continued to circle the chair.

  “You mustn’t be too disappointed,” said the General. “I feel sure, after all you’ve heard about us, that you must have expected at least some electric shocks by now, perhaps the Chinese water torture, even the rack, but I fear—unlike Mossad, Colonel—that when dealing with people of your seniority we long ago dispensed with such primitive methods. We have found them to be outmoded, a thing of the past. Worse, they just don’t get results. You Zionists are tough and well trained. Few of you talk, very few. So we’ve had to resort to more scientific methods to gain the information we need.”

  If it was still within the hour, thought Kratz, he’d judged it well.

  “A simple injection of PPX will ensure that we learn everything we want to know,” continued the General, “and once we have the information we require, we’ll simply kill you. So much more efficient than in the past, and with all the environmental complaints one gets nowadays, so much more tidy. Though, I must confess, I miss the old methods. So you’ll appreciate why I couldn’t resist locking Miss Kopec and Professor Bradley in their safe, especially since they hadn’t seen each other for so long.”

  Kratz’s hand was pressed back and held against the arm of the chair. He felt fingers searching for a vein, and when the needle went in, he flinched. He began counting: one, two, three, four, five, six…

  He was about to find out if one of Europe’s leading chemists had, as she claimed, found the antidote for the Iraqis’s latest truth drug. Mossad had tracked down the supplier in Austria. Strange how many think there are no Jews left in Austria.

  …thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine…

  The drug was still in its testing stage, and needed to be proved under non-laboratory conditions. If a person could remain fully in control of his senses while appearing to be under hypnosis, then they would know their antidote was a success.

  …one minute, one minute one, one minute two, one minute three…

  The test would come when they stuck the second needle in, and that might be anywhere. Then the trick was to show no reaction whatsoever, or the General would immediately realize that the original injection had failed to have the required effect. The training program for this particular “realistic experience” was not universally popular among agents, and although Kratz had experienced “the prick,” as it was affectionately known, once a month for the past nine months, you only had a single chance in “non-laboratory conditions” to discover if you could pass the test.

  …one minute thirty-seven, one minute thirty-eight, one minute thirty-nine…

  The injection was meant to take effect after two minutes, and every agent had been taught to expect the second needle at some time between two and three minutes, thus the counting.

  …one minute fifty-six, one minute fifty-seven…

  Relax, it must come at any moment. Relax.

  Suddenly the needle was jabbed in and out of the big toe on his left foot. Kratz stopped gritting his teeth; even his breathing remained regular. He had won the Israeli Pincushion Award, First Class. Mossad made jokes about everything.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “…And all that time I really thought you were dead.”

  “We had no way of letting you know,” said Scott.

  “Still, it’s no longer of any importance, Simon,” said Hannah. “Sorry. ‘Scott’ will take a bit of getting used to. I may not be able to manage it in the time we’ve got left.”

  “We may have more time left than you realize,” said Scott.

  “How can you say that?”

  “One of the contingency plans that Kratz and I worked on was that if any of us were caught and tortured while someone else was still free, we’d hold out for one hour before telling them the whopper.”

  Hannah knew exactly what Mossad meant by the whopper, even if on this occasion she didn’t know the details.

  “Although I have to admit this is one scenario we never considered,” said Scott. “In fact, the exact opposite. We thought that if we were able to convince them we had another purpose for bringing the safe to Baghdad, they’d immediately evacuate the building and clear the surrounding area.”

  “And what would that have achieved?”

  “We hoped that with the building empty, even if we’d been captured, the other agents who came over the border a day ahead of us might have a clear hour to get into the Council Chamber and remove the Declaration.”

  “But the Iraqis would have taken the document with them.”

  “Not necessarily. Our plan was that we would tell them what would happen to their beloved leader if the safe was closed by anyone other than me. We felt that would cause panic, and they’d probably leave everything behind.”

  “So Kratz drew the short straw.”

  “Yes,” said Scott quietly. “Not that his original plan is relevant any longer, after I was stupid enough to hand over the Declaration to Hamil. So we’ll now have to use the time to get out, not in.”

  “But you didn’t hand it over,” said Hannah. “The Declaration is still on the wall of the Chamber.”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Scott. “Hamil was right. I switched the copies after I set the alarm off. So I ended up giving Hamil back the original.”

  “No, you didn’t,” said Hannah. “It’s because you believed you switched the original that you fooled Hamil as well as yourself.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Scott.

  “I’m the one responsible,” said Hannah. “I found the cardboard tube in the safe and switched the two documents, thinking I could get out of the building and then pass on a message to let Kratz know what I’d done. The trouble was, you and General Hamil arrived just as I was about to leave. So, when you locked yourself in the Chamber, you put the original back on the wall, and then you handed over the copy to Hamil.”

  Scott took her in his arms again. “You’re a genius,” he said.

  “No I’m not,” said Hannah. “So you’d better let me in on the secret of what you’ve planned for this particular scenario. To start with, how do we get out of a locked safe?”

  “That’s the beauty of it,” said Scott. “It isn’t locked. It’s programmed so that it can only be opened and closed by me.”

  “Who dreamed that one up?”

  “A Swede who would happily take our place, but he’s stuck in Kalmar. The first thing I have to do is discover which wall is the door.”

  “That’s easy,” said Hannah. “It has to be exactly opposite me because I’m sitting below the picture of Saddam, remember?”

  Scott and Hannah began the short crawl on their hands and knees to the other side of the safe. “Now we go to t