Honour Among Thieves (42 page)

‘Even
a vulture wouldn’t find us here,’ said Cohen as he turned off the engine.
‘Permission to have a smoke and a bit of shut-eye, Colonel?’

Kratz
nodded and watched Cohen jump out of the cab and offer Aziz a cigarette before
disappearing behind a palm tree. He checked the surrounding countryside
carefully, and decided Cohen was right. When he returned to the truck, he found
Aziz and the Sergeant were already asleep, while Scott was sitting on the ledge
watching the sun come up over Baghdad.

‘What
a peaceful sight,’ he said as Kratz sat down beside him, almost as though he
had been talking to someone else. ‘Only God could make a sunrise as beautiful
as that.’

‘Something
isn’t right,’ muttered Kratz under his breath.

S
ADDAM NODDED
TO THE PROSECUTOR.’Now we have dealt with the traitor, let us move on to the
terrorists. What is the latest position, General?’

General
Hamil, known as the Barber of Baghdad, opened the file in front of him – he
kept a file on everybody, including those sitting around the table. Hamil had
been educated at Sandhurst and returned to Iraq to receive the King’s
Commission, only to find there was no King to serve. So he switched his loyalty
to the new President, Abdul Karim Qasim. Then a young Captain changed sides in
the 1963 coup and the Ba’ath Party took power. Once again Hamil switched his
loyalty, and was rewarded with an appointment to the personal staff of the new
Vice-President, Saddam Hussein. Since that day he had risen rapidly through the
ranks. He was now Saddam’s favourite General, and Commander of the Presidential
Guard. He had the distinction of being the only man, with the exception of the
President’s bodyguards, allowed to wear a side-arm in Saddam’s presence. He was
Saddam’s executioner. His favourite hobby was to shave his victims’ heads
before they were hanged, with a blunt cut-throat razor that he never bothered
to sharpen. Some of them disappointed him by dying before he could get the rope
around their necks.

Hamil
studied his file for a few moments before offer ... ing an opinion. ‘The
terrorists,’ he began, ‘crossed the border at 21.26 last night. Four passports
were presented to the immigration officer for stamping. Three were of Swedish
origin, and one was from Iraq.’

‘I’ll
skin that one personally,’ said Saddam.

‘The
four men are travelling in a truck that appears to be quite old, but as we are
unable to risk taking too close a look, I cannot be sure if we are dealing with
a Trojan horse or not. The safe that you ordered, Mr President, is undoubtedly
on the back of the truck.

‘The
truck has driven non-stop through the night at a steady pace of around forty
miles per hour in the direction of Baghdad, but at 4.09 this morning it turned
off into the desert, and we ceased to monitor its movements, as that particular
path leads nowhere. We believe they have simply come off the road to rest
before travelling on to the capital later this morning.’

‘How
many miles are they from Baghdad at this moment?’ asked the Minister of the
Interior.

‘Forty,
perhaps fifty – an hour to an hour and a half at the most.’

‘So,
if we now have them trapped in the desert, General, why don’t we just send
troops in and cut them off?’

‘While
they are still bringing the safe to Baghdad?’ interrupted Saddam. ‘No. That way
lies our only danger.’

‘I’m
not sure I understand, Sayedi,’ said the Minister of the Interior, turning to
face his leader.

‘Then
I will explain, Minister,’ Saddam said, exaggerating the final word cruelly.
‘If we arrest them in the desert, who will believe us when we tell the world
they are terrorists? The Western press will even claim that we planted their
passports on them. No, I want them wrested right here in the Council Chamber,
when it will be impossible for Mossad to deny their involvement and, more
important, we will have exposed their plot and made fools of them in the eyes
of the Zionist people.’ ‘Now I understand your profound wisdom, Sayedi.’ Saddam
waved a hand and turned his attention to the Minister of Industry.

‘Have
my orders been carried out?’ ‘To the letter, Excellency. When the terrorists
arrive at the Ministry, they will be made to wait, and will be treated curtly,
until they produce the documentation that claims to come from your office.’

‘They
presented such a letter at the border,’ interrupted General Hamil, still
looking down at his file.

‘The
moment such a letter is presented to my office,’ continued the Minister for
Industry, ‘a crane will be supplied so that the safe can be transferred into
this building. I fear that we will have to remove the doors on the front of the
building, but only...’

‘I
am not interested in the doors,’ said Saddam. ‘When do you anticipate that the
safe will arrive outside the building?’

‘Around
midday,’ said General Hamil. ‘I shall personally take over the entire operation
once the safe is inside the building, Mr President.’

‘Good.
And make sure the terrorists see the Declaration before they are arrested.’

‘What
if they were to try to destroy the document, Excellency?’ asked the Interior
Minister, attempting to recover some lost ground.

‘Never,’
said Saddam. ‘They have come to Baghdad to steal the document, not to destroy
their pathetic piece of history.’ Two or three people round the table nodded
their agreement. ‘None of you except General Hamil and his immediate staff will
come anywhere near this building for the next twenty-four hours. The fewer
people who know what’s really happening, the better. Don’t even brief the officer
of the day. I want the security to appear lax. That way they will fall right
into our trap.’

General
Hamil nodded.

‘Prosecutor,’
said Saddam, turning his attention to the other end of the table, ‘what will
the international community say when they learn I have arrested the Zionist
pigs?’

‘They
are terrorists, Excellency, and for terrorists, there can be only one sentence.
Especially after the Americans launched their missiles on innocent
civilians
only days ago.’

Saddam
nodded. ‘Any other questions?’

‘Just
one, Your Excellency,’ said the Deputy Foreign Minister. ‘What do you want to
do about the girl?’

‘Ah,
yes,’ said Saddam, smiling for the first time. ‘Now that she has served her
purpose, I must think of a suitable way to end her life. Where is she at the
moment?’

As
the truck began its slow journey back along the tiny desert path, with Aziz
taking his turn behind the wheel and Cohen in the back with Madame Bertha,
Scott felt the atmosphere inside the cab had changed. When they pulled off the
highway to rest, he still believed they were in no real danger. But the grim
silence of morning made him suddenly aware of the task they had set themselves.

They
had Kratz to thank for the original idea, and mixed with his particular
cocktail of imagination, discipline, courage, and the assumption that no one
knew what they were up to, Scott felt they had a better than even chance of
getting away with it, especially now they knew exactly where the Declaration
was situated.

When
they reached the main road, Aziz jokingly asked, ‘Right or left?’

Scott
said ‘Left,’ but Aziz turned dutifully right.

As
they travelled along the highway towards Baghdad the sun shone from a cloudless
sky that would have delighted any tourist board, although the burned-out tanks
and the craters in the road might not have been considered obvious attractions.
No one spoke as the miles sped by: there was no need for them to go over the
plans another time. That would be like an Olympian training on the morning of a
race – either too late, or no longer of any value.

For
the last ten miles, they joined an expressway that was equal to anything they
might have found in Germany. As they crossed a newly reconstructed bridge over
the Euphrates, Scott began to wonder how close he was to Hannah, and whether he
could get himself into the Foreign Ministry without alerting Kratz, let alone
the Iraqis.

When
they reached the outskirts of Baghdad, with its glistening skyscrapers and
modern buildings, they could have been entering any major city in the world –
until they saw the people. There were lines of cars at petrol pumps in a land
where the main asset was oil, but their length was dwarfed only by the queues
for food. All four of them could see that sanctions were biting, however much
Saddam denied it.

They
drove nearer to the city centre, along the road that passed under the Al-Naser,
the massive archway of two crossed swords gripped by casts of Saddam’s hand.
There was no need to direct Aziz to the Ministry of Industry. He wished he
still lived in Baghdad, but he hadn’t entered the city since his father had
been executed for his part in the failed coup of 1987. Looking out of the
window at his countrymen, he could still smell their fear in his nostrils.

As
they passed the bombed-out remains of the Mukhbarat headquarters, Scott noticed
an unmanned ambulance parked outside the Iraqi intelligence centre. It was
strategically placed for the CNN television cameras rather than for any
practical purpose, he suspected, When Aziz saw the Ministry of Industry
building looming up ahead of him, he pointed it out to Scott, who remembered
the facade from the mass of photographs supplied by Kratz. But Scott’s eyes had
moved up to the gun turrets on top of the Foreign Ministry, a mere stone’s
throw away.

Aziz
brought the lorry to a halt a hundred yards beyond the entrance to the
Ministry. Scott said, ‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ as he jumped out of the cab
and headed back towards the building.

As
he climbed the steps to the Ministry, he did not see a man in a window of the
building opposite who was speaking on the telephone to General Hamil.

‘The
truck has stopped about a hundred metres beyond the Ministry. A tall,
fair-haired man who was in the front of the vehicle is now entering the building,
but the other three, including Kratz, have remained with the safe.’

Scott
pushed through the swing doors and strolled past two guards who looked as if
they didn’t move more than a few feet every day. He walked over to the
information desk and joined the shortest of three queues. The one-handed clock
above the desk indicated that it was approximately 9.30.

It
took another fifteen minutes before Scott reached the counter. He explained to
the girl that his name was Bernstrom and that he needed to see Mr Kajami. ‘Do
you have an appointment?’ she asked. ‘No,’ said Scott. ‘We called from Jordan
to warn him that a safe the government had ordered was on its way to Baghdad.
He asked us to inform him the moment it armed.’

‘I
will see if he’s in,’ said the receptionist. Scott waited, staring up at a
massive portrait of Saddam Hussein in uniform holding a Kalashnikov. It
dominated the otherwise blank grey walls of the reception area.

The
girl listened carefully to whoever it was on the other end of the line before
saying, ‘Someone will be down to see you in a few minutes.’ She turned her
attention to the next person in the queue.

Scott
hung around for another thirty minutes before a tall, thin man wearing a smart
Western suit stepped out of the lift and walked over to him.

‘Mr
Bernstrom?’

‘Yes?’
said Scott, as he swung round to face the man.

‘Good
morning,’ he said confidently in English. ‘I am Mr Ibrahim, Mr Kajami’s
personal assistant. How can I help you?’

‘I
have brought a safe from Sweden,’ said Scott. ‘It was ordered by the Ministry
some years ago, but, due to the UN sanctions, could not be delivered any
earlier. We were told that when we reached Baghdad we should report to Mr
Kajami.’

‘Do
you have any papers to verify your claim?’

Scott
removed a file from his bag and showed Mr Ibrahim its contents.

The
man read through each document slowly until he came to the letter signed by the
President. He read no further. Looking up, he asked, ‘May I see this safe, Mr
Bernstrom?’

‘Certainly,’
said Scott. ‘Please follow me.’ He led the official out onto the street and
took him over to the truck.

Cohen
stared down at them. When Kratz gave the order, he whipped the tarpaulin off
the safe so that the civil servant could inspect Madame Bertha for himself.

Scott
was fascinated by the fact that those passing in the street didn’t give the
safe a second look. If anything, they quickened their pace. Fear manifested
itself among these people by their lack of curiosity.

‘Please
come with me, Mr Bernstrom,’ said Ibrahim. Scott accompanied him back to the
reception area, where he returned upstairs without another word.

Scott
was left waiting for another thirty minutes before Ibraham came back.

‘You
are to take the safe to Victory Square, where you will see a barrier with a
tank in front of a large white building. They are expecting you.’

Scott
was about to ask where Victory Square was when Ibrahim turned and walked away.
He went back to the truck, and joined Kratz and Aziz in the front before
passing on the news. Aziz didn’t need to be told the way.