Honour Among Thieves

who has spent several years in more than one of our state penitentiaries, and an actor who played the President so convincingly that both Mr Marshall and Mr Mendelssohn accepted it was him without question.' 'Surely we can discover who that was,' said Christopher. 'We already have. His name is Lloyd Adams. But we daren't bring him in.' 'How did you find him?' asked Leigh. 'After all, there are quite a few actors who can manage a passable resemblance to Clinton.' 'Agreed,' said the Deputy Director, 'but only one who's been operated on by America's leading plastic surgeon within the past few months. We have reason to believe that the ringleaders killed the surgeon and his daughter, which is why his wife reported everything she knew to the local Chief of Police. 'However, the whole operation would never have got off the ground without the inside help of Mr Rex Butterworth, who was last seen on the morning of May 25th and has since disappeared off the face of the earth. He booked a flight to Brazil, but he never showed. We have agents across the globe searching for him.' 'None of this is of any importance if we are no nearer to finding out where the original Declaration is at this moment, and who took it,' said Christopher. 'That's the bad news,' replied Dexter. 'Our agents spend hours on routine investigations that many American citizens consider a waste of taxpayers' money. But just now and then, it pays off.' 'We're all listening,' said Christopher. 'The CIA keeps under surveillance several foreign diplomats who work at the United Nations. Naturally, they would be outraged if any of them could prove what we were up to, and if we ever think they're onto us we back off immediately. In the case of Iraqis at the UN, we have people shadowing them round the clock. Our problem is that we can't operate within the UN complex itself, because if we were caught inside that building it would cause an international outcry. So, occasionally, their representatives are bound to slip our net. 'But we believe it was not a coincidence that Iraq's Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations, a Mr Hamid Al Obaydi, was in Washington on the day the Declaration was switched, and took several photographs of the bogus filming that was taking place. The agent who was tracking Al Obaydi at the time also reported that, at 10.37, after the Declaration had gone back on display in the National Archives, Al Obaydi joined the public queue, waiting over an hour to view the parchment. But here's the clincher. He studied the document once, and then he looked at it a second time, with glasses.' 'Perhaps he's near-sighted,' said Susan. 'Our agent reports that he's never before or since seen him wearing glasses of any kind,' replied Dexter Hutchins. 'Now for the really bad news,' he continued. 'That wasn't it?' said Christopher. 'No, sir. Al Obaydi flew on to Geneva a week later and was spotted by our local station officer leaving a bank.' Dexter referred to his notes. 'Franchard et cie. He was carrying a plastic cylinder, and I quote, "a little over two feet in length and about two inches in diameter".' 'Who's going to tell the President?' said Christopher, putting his hands over his eyes. 'He took this cylinder by car straight to the Palais des Nations, and it hasn't been seen since.' 'And Barazan Al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother, is the Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva,' said Susan. 'Don't remind me,' said Christopher. 'But what I want to know is, why the hell didn't your man jump Al Obaydi when it was obvious what he was carrying? I would have found a way of keeping the Swiss in line.' 'We would have done so if we'd known what he was carrying, but at that stage we weren't even aware the Declaration had been stolen, and our surveillance was just routine.' 'So what you're telling us, Mr Hutchins, is that the Declaration could well be in Baghdad by now,' said Leigh. 'Because if it was sent through the diplomatic pouch, the Swiss wouldn't have let us get anywhere near it.' No one spoke for several moments. 'Let's work on the worst-case scenario,' said the Secretary of State finally. 'The Declaration is already in Saddam's possession. So what's his next move likely to be? Scott, you're our man of logic. Can you second-guess what he might get up to?' 'No, sir, Saddam's not a man you can second-guess. Especially after his failed attempt to assassinate George Bush on his visit to Kuwait in April. Although the whole world accused him of being behind