Honour Among Thieves

scripts lately - a few commercials..." 'Good,' said Cavalli's father. 'But what about Rex Butterworth?' 'Sitting in the White House waiting for his instructions.' His father nodded. 'But why Columbus, Ohio?' he asked. 'The surgical facilities there are exactly what we require, and the Dean of the Medical School has the ideal qualifications. We've had his office and home bugged from top to bottom.' 'And his daughter?' 'We've got her under twenty-four-hour surveillance.' The chairman licked his lips. 'So when do you press the button?' 'Next Tuesday, when the Dean is due to make a keynote speech at his daughter's school.' The butler entered the room and began to clear the table. 'And how about Dollar Bill?' asked Cavalli's father. 'Angelo is on his way to San Francisco to try and convince him. If we're going to pull this off we'll need Dollar Bili. He's the best. In fact no one else comes close,' added Cavalli. 'As long as he's sober,' was all the chairman said. THE tall, athletic MAN stepped off the plane into the US Air terminal at Washington National Airport. He carried only hand luggage, so he didn't have to wait at the baggage carousel where someone might recognise him. He needed just one person to recognise him - the driver who was picking him up. At six foot one, his fair hair tousled and with almost chiselled fine features, and dressed in light blue jeans, cream shirt and a dark blue blazer, he made many women rather hope that he would recognise them. The back door of an anonymous black Ford was opened as soon as he came through the automatic doors into the bright morning sunlight. He climbed into the back of the car without a word and made no conversation during the twenty-five-minute journey that took him in the opposite direction to the capital. The forty-minute flight always gave him a chance to compose his thoughts and prepare his new persona. Twelve times a year he made the same journey. It had all begun when Scott was a child back in his home town of Denver, and he had discovered his father was not a respectable lawyer but a criminal in a Brooks Brothers suit, a man who, if the price was right, could always find a way round the law. His mother had spent years protecting her only child from the truth, but when her husband was arrested, indicted and finally sentenced to seven years, the old excuse 'there must have been some misunderstanding' no longer carried any conviction. His father survived three years in prison before dying of what was described in the coroner's report as a heart attack, without any explanation being given for the marks around his throat. A few weeks later, his mother did die of a heart attack, while he was coming to the end of his third year at Georgetown studying law. Once the body had been lowered into the grave and the sods of earth hurled on top of the coffin, he left the cemetery and never spoke of his family again. When the final rankings were announced, Scott Bradley was placed first in the graduating class, and several universities and leading law firms contacted him to ask about his plans for the future. To the surprise of his contemporaries, Scott applied for an obscure professorship at Beirut University. He didn't explain to anyone why he needed a clean break with the past. Appalled by the low standard of the students at the university and bored by the social life, Scott began to fill his hours by attending courses on everything from the Islamic religions to the history of the Middle East. When three years later the university offered him the Chair of American Law, he knew it was time to return to the United States. A letter from the Dean of the Law Faculty at Georgetown suggested he should apply for a vacant professorship at Yale. He wrote the following day and packed his bags when he received their reply. Once he had taken up his new post, whenever he was asked the casual question, 'What do your parents do?' he would simply reply, 'They're both dead and I'm an only child.' There was a certain type of girl who delighted in this knowledge - they assumed he would need mothering. Several of them entered his bed, but none of them became part of his life. But he hid nothing from the people he was summoned to see twelve times a year. They couldn't tolerate deception of any kind, and were highly suspicious of his real motives when they learned of his father's criminal record. He told them simply that he wished to make amends for his father's disgrace, and refused to discuss the