Honour Among Thieves

method of torture. Now he would never know how he would have responded to his particular shaving technique. Hamil had already ordered a reluctant lieutenant and his platoon back to the basement of the Ba'ath head- quarters. The lieutenant had returned swiftly to report that the safe door was wide open and the truck had disappeared, as had the document that had been hanging on the wall. The General smiled. He remained confident that he was in possession of the original Declaration, but he extracted the parchment from the cylinder and laid it on his desk to double-check. When he came to the word 'British', he turned first white, and then, by several degrees, deeper and deeper shades of red. He immediately gave an order to cancel all military leave, and then commanded five divisions of the elite guard to mount a search for the terrorists. But he had no way of knowing how much start they had on him, how far they might have already travelled, and in which direction. However, he did know that they couldn't remain on the main roads in that truck for long, without being spotted. Once it was dark, they would probably retreat into the desert to rest overnight. But they would have to come out the following morning, when they must surely try to cross one of the six borders. The General had already given an order that if even one of the terrorists managed to cross any border, guards from every customs post would be arrested and jailed, whether they were on duty or not. The two soldiers who were supposed to have closed the safe door had already been shot for not carrying out his orders, and the Major detailed to supervise the moving of the safe had been immediately arrested. At least Major Saeed's decision to take his own life had saved Hamil the trouble of a court martial: within an hour the Major had been found hanging in his cell. Obviously leaving a coil of rope in the middle of the floor below a hook in the ceiling had proved to be a compelling enough hint. And as for the two young medical students who'd been responsible for the injections, and who had witnessed his conversation with Kratz, they were already on their way to the southern borders, to serve with a less than elite regiment. They were such nice-looking boys, the General thought; he gave them a week at the most. Hamil picked up the phone and dialled a private number that would connect him to the palace. He needed to be certain that he was the first person to explain to the President what had taken place that afternoon. SCOTT HAD always CONSIDERED his own countrymen to be an hospitable race, but he had never experienced such a welcome as Aziz's family gave to the three strangers. Khan Beni Saad, the village in which Aziz was born, had, he told them, just over 250 inhabitants at the last count, and barely survived on the income it derived from selling its small crop of oranges, tangerines and dates to the housewives of Kirkuk and Arbil. The chief of the tribe, who turned out to be one of Aziz's uncles, immediately opened his little stone home to them so that they could make use of the one bath in the village. The women of the house - there seemed to be a lot of them - kept boiling water until all of the visitors were pronounced clean. When Scott finally emerged from the chief's home, he found a table had been set up under a clump of citrus trees in the Huwaider fields. It was laden with strange fish, meat, fruit and vegetables. He feared they must have gathered something from every home in the village. Under a clear starlit night, they devoured the fresh food and drank mountain water that, if bottled, a Californian would happily have paid a fortune for. But Scott's thoughts kept returning to the fact that tomorrow they would have to leave these idyllic surroundings, and that he would somehow have to get them all across one of the six borders. After coffee had been served in various different-sized cups and mugs, the chief rose from his place at the head of the table to make a speech of welcome, which Aziz translated. Scott made a short reply which was applauded even before Aziz had been given the chance to interpret what he had said. 'That's one thing they have in common with us,' said Hannah, taking Scott's hand. 'They admire brevity.' The chief ended the evening with an offer for which Scott thanked him, but felt unable to accept. He wanted to order all of his family out of the little house so that his guests could sleep indoors. Scott continued to protest until