Honour Among Thieves

voice, and suddenly struck the Major across the face with his swagger stick. He turned back to face Scott. 'It seems,' he said, 'that the reunion I had planned for you and your friends will have to wait a little longer, because although we have Colonel Kratz safely locked up, the Jew and the Kurdish traitor have escaped. But it can only be a matter of time before we catch them.' 'How long have you known?' asked Hannah quietly. 'You made the mistake so many of our enemies make, Miss Kopec, of underestimating our great President,' replied the General. 'He dominates the affairs of the Middle East to a far greater extent than Gorbachev did the Russians, Thatcher the British, or Bush the American people. I ask myself, how many citizens in the West any longer believe the Allies won the Gulf War? But then, you were also stupid enough to underrate his cousin, Abdul Kanuk, our newly appointed Ambassador to Paris. Perhaps he wasn't quite that stupid when he followed you all the way to your lover's flat and stood in a doorway the rest of the night before following you back to the embassy. It was he who informed our Ambassador in Geneva what "Miss Saib" was up to. 'Of course, we needed to be sure, not least because our Deputy Foreign Minister found it so hard to accept such a tale about one of his most loyal members of staff. Such a naive man. So, when you came to Baghdad, the Ambassador's wife invited Miss Saib's brother to dinner. But, sadly, he didn't recognise you. Your cover, as the more vulgar American papers would describe it, was blown. Those same papers keep asking pathetically, "Why doesn't Mossad assassinate President Saddam?" If only they knew how many times Mossad has tried and failed. What Colonel Kratz didn't tell you at your training school in Herzliyah, Miss Kopec, was that you are the seventeenth Mossad agent who has attempted to infiltrate our ranks during the past five years, and all of them have experienced the same tragic end as your Colonel is about to. And the real beauty of the whole exercise is that we don't have to admit we killed any of you in the first place. You see, the Jewish people are unwilling to accept, after Entebbe and Eichmann, that such a thing could possibly happen. I feel sure you will appreciate the logic of that, Professor.' 'I'll make a bargain with you,' said Scott. 'I'm touched, Professor, by your Western ethics, but I fear you have nothing to bargain with.' 'We'll trade Miss Saib if you release Hannah.' The General burst out laughing. 'Professor, you have a keen sense of the ridiculous, but I won't insult you by suggesting that you don't understand the Arab mind. Do allow me to explain. You will be killed, and no one will comment because, as I have already explained, the West is too proud to admit that you even exist. Whereas we in the East will throw our hands in the air and ask why Mossad has kidnapped a gentle, blameless secretary on her way to Paris, and is now holding her in Tel Aviv against her will. We even know the house where she is captive. We have already arranged for sentimental pictures of her to be released to every paper in the Western world, and a distraught mother and son have been coached for weeks by one of your own public relations companies to face the Western press. We'll even have Amnesty International protesting outside Israeli embassies across the world on her behalf.' Scott stared at the General. 'Poor Miss Saib will be released within days. Both of you, on the other hand, will die an unannounced, unheralded and unmourned death. To think that all you sacrificed your lives for was a scrap of paper. And while we are on that subject, Professor, I will relieve you of the Declaration.' The four soldiers stepped forward and thrust their bayonets at Scott's throat as the General snatched the cardboard tube from his grasp. 'You did well to switch the documents in two minutes, Professor,' said the General, glancing up at the television screen above him. 'But you can be assured that it remains our intention to burn the original very publicly on the fourth of July, and I feel confident that we will destroy President Clinton's flimsy reputation along with it.' The General laughed. 'You know, Professor, I have for many years enjoyed killing people, but I shall gain a particular pleasure from your deaths, because of the appropriate way you will be departing this world.' The soldiers surrounded Hannah and Scott and forced them back into the Chamber and on towards the