Honour Among Thieves

dull it was, with only the panoramic view over the Tigris as compensation. The Foreign Minister did not bother to rise, but hastily motioned his subordinate into a chair on the opposite side of the desk, explaining that the President had requested a full report on the subject they had discussed at the Revolutionary Council the previous evening. He went on to explain that his own secretary had gone home for the weekend, so Miss Saib should take down a record of their meeting. Hannah could not believe the discussion that followed. Had she not been aware that she was listening to two Ministers who were loyal members of the Revolutionary Command Council, she would have dismissed their conversation as an outrageous piece of propaganda. The President's half-brother had apparently succeeded in stealing the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives in Washington, and the document was now nailed to a wall of the room in which the Council met. The discussion concentrated on how the news of this triumph should be released to an astonished world, and the date that had been selected to guarantee the greatest media coverage. Details were also discussed as to which square in the capital the President should deliver his speech from before he publicly burned the document, and whether Peter Arnett or Bernard Shaw of CNN should be granted special access to film the President standing next to the parchment the night before the burning ceremony took place. After two hours the meeting broke up and Hannah returned with the Deputy Minister to his office. Without so much as a glance in her direction, he ordered her to make a fair copy of the decisions that had been taken that morning. It took Hannah the rest of the morning to produce a first draft, which the Minister read through immediately. After making a few changes and emendations, he told her to produce a final copy to be delivered to the Foreign Minister with a recommendation that it should, if it met with his approval, be sent on to the President. As she walked home through the streets of Baghdad that evening, Hannah felt helpless. She wondered what she could possibly do to warn the Americans. Surely they were planning some counter-measures in order to try to recapture the Declaration, or would at least be preparing some form of retaliation once they knew the day that had been selected for the public burning. Did they even know where it was at that moment? Had Kratz been informed? Had Mossad been called in to advise the Americans on the operation they had themselves been planning for the past year? Were they now trying to get in touch with her? What would Simon have expected her to do? She stopped at a cigarette kiosk and purchased three postcards of Saddam Hussein addressing the Revolutionary Command Council. Later, in the safety of her bedroom, she wrote the same message to Ethel Rubin, David Kratz and the Professor of Arabic Studies at London University. She hoped one of them would work out the significance of the date in the top right-hand corner and the little biro'd square full of stars she had drawn on the wall by the side of Saddam's head. 'What time is the flight for Stockholm expected to depart?' he asked. 'It shouldn't be long now,' said the girl behind the SAS desk at Charles de Gaulle. 'I'm afraid it's only just landed on its inward journey, so it's difficult for me to be more precise.' Another opportunity to turn back, thought Al Obaydi. But following his meeting with the Head of State Security and, the next morning, with the Deputy Foreign Minister, he felt confident that they had both considered what he had told them no more than routine. Al Obaydi had dropped into the conversation the fact that he was due for some leave before taking up his new appointment in Paris. After Al Obaydi had collected his luggage from the carousel, he deposited all the large cases in storage, retaining only one bulky briefcase. He then took a seat in the corner of the departure lounge and thought about his actions during the past few days. The Head of State Security hadn't had a lot to offer. The truth - not that he was going to admit it - was that he had enough problems at home without worrying about what was going on abroad. He had supplied Al Obaydi with an out-of-date instruction book on what precautions any Iraqi citizen should take when in Europe, including not to shop at Marks and Spencers or to mix socially with foreigners, and an out-of-date collection of photographs