Honour Among Thieves

the front entrance. He climbed up the well-worn steps and walked through the revolving door. He was met by two armed men who looked more like sumo wrestlers than bank clerks. The Deputy Ambassador was quickly guided to a waiting lift that closed the moment he stepped inside. The door slid open only when he reached the basement. As Al Obaydi stepped out he came face to face with another man, bigger, if anything, than the two who had originally greeted him. The giant nodded and led him towards a door at the end of a carpeted corridor. As he approached, the door swung open and Al Obaydi entered a room to find twelve men waiting expectantly round a large table. Although conservatively dressed and silent, none of them looked like bank tellers. The door closed behind him and he heard a lock turning. The man at the head of the table stood up and greeted him. 'Good morning, Mr Al Obaydi. I believe you have something to deposit for one of our customers.' The Deputy Ambassador nodded and handed over the golf bag without a word. The man showed no surprise. He had seen valuables transported in everything from a crocodile to a condom. He was, however, surprised by the weight of the bag as he humped it up onto the table, spilled out the contents and divided the spoils among the other eleven men. The tellers began counting furiously, making up neat piles of ten thousands. No one offered Al Obaydi a seat, so he remained standing for the next forty minutes, with nothing to do but watch them go about their task. When the counting had been completed, the chief teller double-checked the number of piles. One thousand exactly. He smiled, a smile that was not directed at Al Obaydi but at the money, then looked up in the direction of the Arab and gave him a curt nod, acknowledging that the man from Baghdad had made the down-payment. The golf bag was then handed back to the Deputy Ambassador, as it had not been part of the deal. Al Obaydi felt slightly stupid as he slung it over his shoulder. The chief teller touched a buzzer under the table and the door behind him was unlocked. One of the men who had first met Al Obaydi when he had entered the bank was standing waiting to escort him back to the ground floor. By the time the Deputy Ambassador stepped out onto the street, his guide had already disappeared. With an enormous sigh of relief, Al Obaydi began to stroll the two blocks back to his waiting car. He allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction at the professional way he had carried out the whole exercise. He felt sure the Ambassador would be pleased to learn that there had been no mishaps. He would undoubtedly take most of the praise when the message was relayed back to Baghdad that 'Operation Desert Calm' had begun. Al Obaydi collapsed on the sidewalk before he realised what had hit him: the golf bag had been wrenched from his shoulder before he could react. He looked up to see two youths moving swiftly down the street, one of them clutching their prize. The Deputy Ambassador had been wondering how he was going to dispose of it. Tony Cavalli joined his father for breakfast a few minutes after seven the following morning. He had moved back into their brownstone on 75th and Park soon after his divorce. Since his retirement, Tony's father spent most of his time pursuing his lifelong hobby of collecting rare books, manuscripts and historical documents. He had also spent many hours passing on to his son everything he'd learned as a lawyer, concentrating on how to avoid wasting too many years in one of the state's penitentiaries. Coffee and toast were served by the butler as the two men went about their business. 'Nine million dollars has been placed in forty-seven banks across the country,' Tony told his father. 'Another million has been deposited in a numbered account with Franchard et cie in Geneva, in the name of Hamid Al Obaydi,' he added, buttering a piece of toast. The father smiled at the thought of his son using an old ploy he had taught him so many years before. 'But what will you tell Al Obaydi when he asks how his ten million is being spent?' the unofficial chairman of Skills enquired. For the next hour, Tony took his father through Operation Desert Calm in great detail, interrupted only by the occasional question or suggestion from the older man. 'Can the actor be trusted?' he asked before taking another sip of coffee. 'Lloyd Adams still owes us a little over thirty thousand dollars,' Tony replied. 'He hasn't been offered many