Honor Among Thieves Read online

  Scott could now see the Kurdish checkpoint ahead of him as the helicopter swung even lower on its final attempt to stop them. A flurry of bullets hit the jeep’s hood, ricocheted off the bridge and into the windshield. As the helicopter swung away, Scott looked up and for a second stared into the eyes of General Hamil.

  Scott looked back down and punched a hole in the shattered windshield, only to discover he was faced with two rows of soldiers lined up in front of him, their rifles aiming straight at the jeep.

  Behind the row of soldiers were two small exits for those wishing to enter Kurdistan and two entrances on the other side of the road for those driving out of Kirkuk.

  The two exits to Kurdistan were blocked with stationary vehicles, while the two entrances had been left clear—although no one at that moment was showing any desire to enter Saddam’s Iraq.

  Aziz decided that he would have to swing across the road and risk driving the jeep at an acute angle through one of the small entrances, where he might be faced with an oncoming vehicle—in which case they would be trapped. He was still losing speed, and could feel that the rim of the front left-hand wheel was now touching the ground.

  Once they were within range, Cohen opened fire on the line of soldiers in front of him. Some fired back, but he managed to hit several before the rest scattered.

  With a hundred yards to go and still losing speed, Aziz suddenly swung the jeep across the road and tried to steer it towards the second entrance. The jeep hit the right-hand wall, careened into the short, dark tunnel and bounced onto the left-hand wall before lurching out into no-man’s-land, between the two customs posts.

  Suddenly there were dozens of soldiers pursuing them from the Iraqi side. “Keep going, keep going!” shouted Scott as they emerged from the little tunnel.

  Aziz was still losing speed as he steered the jeep back to the left and pointed it in the direction of the border with Kurdistan, a mere four hundred yards away. He pressed his foot flat down on the accelerator but the speedometer wouldn’t rise above two miles per hour. Another row of soldiers, this time from the Kurdish border, was facing them, their rifles pointing at the jeep. But none of them was firing.

  Cohen swung around as a stray bullet hit the back of the jeep and another flew past his shoulder. Once again he fired a volley towards the Iraqi border, and those who could quickly retreated behind their checkpoint. The jeep trundled on for a few more yards before it finally whimpered to a halt halfway between the two unofficial barriers that the UN refused to recognize.

  Scott looked towards the Kurdish border. A hundred Peshmergas were lined up, their rifles now firing—but not in the direction of the jeep. Scott turned back to see another line of soldiers tentatively advancing from the Iraqi side. He and Hannah began firing their pistols as Cohen let forth another burst which came to a sudden stop. The Iraqi soldiers had started to retreat again, but sensed immediately that their enemy had finally run out of ammunition.

  Cohen leaped down off the jeep and quickly took out his pistol. “Come on, Aziz!” he shouted as he rushed forward and crouched beside the driver’s door. “We’ll have to cover them so the professor can get his bloody Declaration across the border.”

  Aziz didn’t reply. His body was slumped lifelessly over the wheel, the horn sounding intermittently. The unanswered radio phone was still ringing.

  “The bastards have killed my Kurd!” shouted Cohen. Hannah grabbed the canvas bag as Scott lifted Aziz out of the front of the jeep. Together, they began to drag him the last few hundred yards towards the border with Kurdistan.

  Another line of Iraqi soldiers started to advance towards the jeep as Scott and Hannah carried the dead body of Aziz nearer and nearer to his Kurdish homeland.

  They heard more shots whistle past them, and turned to see Cohen running towards the Iraqis screaming, “You killed my Kurd, you bastards! You killed my Kurd!” One of the Iraqis fell, another fell, one retreated. Another fell, another retreated, as Cohen went on advancing towards them. Suddenly, he fell to his knees, but somehow he kept crawling forward, until a final volley rang out. The Sergeant collapsed in a pool of blood a few yards from the Iraqi border.

  While Scott and Hannah carried the dead Kurd into the land of his people, Saddam’s soldiers dragged the body of the Jew back into Iraq.

  “Why were my orders disobeyed?” Saddam shouted.

  For several moments no one around the table spoke. They knew the chances of all of them returning to their beds alive that night had to be marginal.

  General Hamil turned the cover of a thick file, and looked down at the handwritten note in front of him.

  “Major Saeed was to blame, Mr. President,” stated the General. “It was he who allowed the infidels to escape with the Declaration, and that is why his body is now hanging in Tohrir Square for your people to witness.”

  The General listened intently to the President’s next question.

  “Yes, Sayedi,” he assured his master. “Two of the terrorists were killed by guards from my own regiment. They were by far the most important members of the team. They were the two who managed to escape from Major Saeed’s custody before I arrived. The other two were an American professor and the girl.”

  The President asked another question.

  “No, Mr. President. Kratz was the commanding officer, and I personally arrested the infamous Zionist leader before questioning him at length. It was during that interrogation that I discovered that the original plan had been to assassinate you, Sayedi, and I made certain that he, like those who came before him, failed.”

  The General had no well-rehearsed answer to the President’s next question, and he was relieved when the State Prosecutor intervened.

  “Perhaps we can turn this whole episode to our advantage, Sayedi.”

  “How can that be possible,” shouted the President, “when two of them have escaped with the Declaration and left us with a useless copy that anyone who can spell ‘British’ will immediately realize is a fake? No, it is I who will be made the laughingstock of the world, not Clinton.”

  Everyone’s eyes were now fixed on the Prosecutor.

  “That may not necessarily be the case, Mr. President. I suspect that when the Americans see the state of their cherished treasure, they will not be in a hurry to put it back on display at the National Archives.”

  The President did not interrupt this time, so the Prosecutor continued.

  “We also know, Mr. President, that because of your genius, the parchment currently on display in Washington to an unsuspecting American public is, to quote you, ‘a useless copy that anyone who can spell “British” will immediately realize is a fake.’ ”

  The President’s expression was now one of concentration.

  “Perhaps the time has come, Sayedi, to inform the world’s press of your triumph.”

  “My triumph?” said the President in disbelief.

  “Why, yes, Sayedi. Your triumph, not to mention your magnanimity. After all, it was you who gave the order to hand over the battered Declaration to Professor Bradley after the gangster Cavalli had attempted to sell it to you.”

  The President’s expression turned to one of deep thought.

  “They have a saying in the West,” added the Prosecutor, “about killing two birds with one stone.”

  Another long silence followed, during which no one offered an opinion until the President smiled.

  Part III

  “…We Mutually Pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The official statement issued by the Iraqi government on July 2nd was that there was no truth in the report that there had been a shooting incident on the border posts at Kirkuk in which several Iraqi soldiers had been killed and more wounded.

  The Kurdish leaders were unable to offer any opinion on the subject, as the only two satellite phones in Iraqi Kurdistan had been permanently engaged with requests for assistance from the State Department in Washingto