Honor Among Thieves Read online

  “What will it be, honey?” asked a waitress who wore a red uniform and a black apron and held a pad in her hand.

  “Just black coffee, please,” said T. Hamilton McKenzie.

  “Coming right up,” she said cheerfully.

  He was about to check the time when he was reminded once again that his watch was on the wrist of a young man who was now probably miles away. McKenzie looked up at the clock above the counter: 8:56. He began to check everyone as they came through the door.

  A tall, well-dressed man was the first to walk in, and as he scanned the room McKenzie became quite hopeful and willed him to look in his direction. But the man walked towards the counter and took a seat on a stool, with his back to the restaurant. The waitress returned and poured the nervous doctor a steaming black coffee.

  Next to enter the room was a young woman, carrying a shopping bag with a long rope handle. She was followed a moment later by another smartly dressed man who also searched the room with his eyes. Once again, T. Hamilton McKenzie’s hopes were raised, only to be dashed when a smile of recognition flickered across the man’s face. He too headed for the counter and took the stool next to the man who had come in a few minutes earlier.

  The girl with the shopping bag slipped into the place opposite him. “That seat’s taken,” said T. Hamilton McKenzie, his voice rising with every word.

  “I know, Dr. McKenzie,” said the girl. “It’s been taken by me.”

  T. Hamilton McKenzie began to perspire.

  “Coffee, honey?” asked the waitress who appeared by their side.

  “Yes, black,” was all she said, not glancing up.

  McKenzie looked at the young woman more carefully. She must have been around thirty—still at an age when she didn’t require his professional services. From her accent she was undoubtedly a native of New York, though with her dark hair, dark eyes and olive skin her family must surely have emigrated from southern Europe. She was slight, almost frail, and her neatly patterned Laura Ashley dress of autumn browns, which could have been purchased in any one of a thousand stores across the country, made certain she would be forgettable in any crowd. She didn’t touch the coffee that was placed in front of her.

  McKenzie decided to go on the attack. “I want to know how Sally is.”

  “She’s fine, just fine,” said the woman calmly. She reached down and with a gloved hand removed a single sheet of paper from her bag. She passed it over to him. He unfolded the anonymous-looking sheet:

  Dear Daddy

  They are treating me well but please agree to whatever they want.

  Love Sal.

  It was her writing, no question of that, but she would never have signed herself “Sal.” The coded message only made him more anxious.

  The woman leaned across and snatched the letter back.

  “You bastards. You won’t get away with it,” he said, staring across at her.

  “Calm down, Dr. McKenzie. No amount of threats or rhetoric is going to influence us. It’s not the first time we’ve carried out this sort of operation. So, if you hope to see your daughter again…”

  “What do you expect me to do?”

  The waitress returned to the table with a fresh pot of coffee, but when she saw that neither of them had taken a sip she said, “Coffee’s getting cold, folks,” and moved on.

  “I’ve only got about two hundred thousand dollars to my name. You must have made some mistake.”

  “It’s not your money we’re after, Dr. McKenzie.”

  “Then what do you want? I’ll do anything to get my daughter back safely.”

  “The company I represent specializes in gathering skills, and one of our clients is in need of your particular expertise.”

  “But you could have called and made an appointment like anyone else,” he said in disbelief.

  “Not for what we have in mind, I suspect. And, in any case, we have a time problem, and we felt Sally might help us get to the front of the line.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” said the woman. Twenty minutes later, when both cups of coffee were stone cold, T. Hamilton McKenzie understood exactly what was expected of him. He was silent for some time before he said, “I’m not sure if I can do it. To begin with, it’s professionally unethical. And do you realize how hard—”

  The woman leaned down and removed something else from her bag. She tossed a small gold earring over to his side of the table. “Perhaps this will make it a little easier for you.” T. Hamilton McKenzie picked up his daughter’s earring. “Tomorrow you get the other earring,” the woman continued. “On Friday the first ear. On Saturday the other ear. If you go on worrying about your ethics, Dr. McKenzie, there won’t be much of your daughter left by this time next week.”

  “You wouldn’t—”

  “Ask John Paul Getty III if we wouldn’t.”

  T. Hamilton McKenzie rose from the table and leaned across.

  “We can speed the whole process up if that’s the way you want it,” she added, displaying not the slightest sign of fear.

  McKenzie slumped back into his seat and tried to compose himself.

  “Good,” she said. “That’s better. At least we now seem to understand each other.”

  “So what happens next?” he asked.

  “We’ll be back in touch with you some time later today. So make sure you’re in. Because I feel confident that by then you’ll have come to terms with your professional ethics.”

  McKenzie was about to protest when the woman stood up, took a five-dollar bill out of her bag and placed it on the table.

  “Can’t have Columbus’s leading surgeon washing up the dishes, can we?” She turned to leave and had reached the door before it struck McKenzie that they even knew he had left the house without his wallet.

  T. Hamilton McKenzie began to consider her proposition, not certain if he had been left with any alternative.

  But he was sure of one thing. If he carried out their demands, then President Clinton was going to end up with an even bigger problem.

  Chapter Six

  Scott heard the phone ringing when he was at the foot of the stairs. His mind was still going over the morning lecture he had just given, but he leaped up the stairs three at a time, pushed open the door of his apartment and grabbed the phone, knocking his mother to the floor.

  “Scott Bradley,” he said as he picked up the photograph and replaced it on the sideboard.

  “I need you in Washington tomorrow. My office, nine o’clock sharp.”

  Scott was always impressed by the way Dexter Hutchins never introduced himself, and also assumed that the work he did for the CIA was more important than his commitment to Yale.

  It took Scott most of the afternoon to rearrange his teaching schedule with two understanding colleagues. He couldn’t use the excuse of not feeling well, as everyone on campus knew he hadn’t missed a day’s work through illness in nine years. So he fell back on “woman trouble,” which always elicited sympathy from the older professors, but didn’t lead them to ask too many questions.

  Dexter Hutchins never gave any details over the phone as to why he needed Scott, but as all the morning papers had carried pictures of Yitzhak Rabin arriving in Washington for his first meeting with President Clinton, he made the obvious assumption.

  Scott removed the file that was lodged between “Tax” and “Torts” and extracted everything he had about the new Israeli Prime Minister. His policy towards America didn’t seem to differ greatly from that of his predecessor. He was better educated than Shamir, more conciliatory and gentler in his approach, but Scott suspected that if it came to a knife fight in a downtown bar, Rabin was the one who would come out unmarked.

  He leaned back and began thinking about a blonde named Susan Anderson who had been present at the last briefing he had been asked to attend with the new Secretary of State. If she was at the meeting, the trip to Washington might prove worthwhile.

  A quiet man sat on