A Matter of Honour

“
A
Matter of Honour
stands in the long and noble tradition of the British
Adventure Story”

The Mail on Sunday

“Jeffrey Archer is a storyteller... he gave
me entertainment, he gave me escape. This is the first

Archer I have read – it won’t be the last”

The London Standard

“The novel sizzles along at a pace that
would peel the paint off a spaceship”

The New York Times Book Review

“A shrewd and amiable thriller... Archer is a
master entertainer”

Time

“It has energy, pace, plot and wit... entertaining”

The Washington Post

“Scores full marks for pace”

Sunday Telegraph

Novels

Not a Penny
More, Not a Penny Less

Shall We Tell
The President?

Kane & Abel

The Prodigal
Daughter

First
Among
Equals

A Matter of
Honor

As the Crow
Flies

Honor
Among
Thieves

The Fourth
Estate

The Eleventh
Commandment

Sons of Fortune

Short Stories

A Quiver Full of
Arrows

A Twist in the
Tale

Twelve Red
Herrings

The Collected
Short Stories

To Cut a Long
Story Short

Plays

Beyond
Reasonable Doubt

Exclusive

The Accused

Prison Diaries

Volume One –
Belmarsh: Hell

Volume Two –
Wayland: Purgatory

Volume Three –
North Sea Camp: Heaven

Screenplay

Mallory: Walking
off the Map

Jeffrey Archer is a master storyteller, the
author of six novels which have all been worldwide bestsellers. NOT A PENNY
MORE, NOT A PENNY LESS was his first book which achieved instant success. Next
came the tense and terrifying thriller SHALL WE TELL THE PRESIDENT?
followed
by his triumphant bestseller KANE AND ABEL. His
first collection of short stories, A QUIVER FULL OF ARROWS, came next and then
THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER, the superb sequel to KANE AND ABEL. This was followed by
FIRST AMONG EQUALS, considered by
The
Scotsman
to be the finest novel about Parliament since Trollope, and more
recently by the gripping chase story, A MATTER OF HONOUR. His latest collection
of short stories is called A TWIST IN THE TALE.

He is the author of two stage plays: BEYOND
REASONABLE DOUBT which opened in London in September 1987 and played for two
years and, more recently, EXCLUSIVE.

Jeffrey Archer was born in 1940 and educated
at Wellington School, Somerset and Brasenose College, Oxford. He represented
Great Britain in the 100 metres in the early sixties, and became the youngest
member of the House of Commons when he won the by-election at Louth in 1969. He
wrote his first novel, NOT A PENNY MORE, NOT A PENNY LESS, in 1974. From
September 1985 to October 1986 he was Deputy Chairman of the Conservative
Party. Jeffrey Archer is married with two children and lives in London and
Cambridge.

A Matter of Honour

JEFFREY ARCHER

CORONET BOOKS

Hodder and Stoughton

Copyright© 1986 by Jeffrey Archer

First published in Great Britain in 1986 by
Hodder and Stoughton Ltd

Coronet edition 1987

Reprinted 1987 eight times

Reprinted 1988 twice

Reprinted 1989 twice

This impression February 1990

British Library C.I.P.

Archer, Jeffrey A matter of honour

I. Title 823’.914[
F[
PR6051.R285

ISBN 0340 40148 6

The characters and situations in this book
are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual
happening.

The right of Jeffrey Archer to be identified
as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or
retrieval system, without either the prior permission in writing from the
publisher or a licence, permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom
such licences are issued by the

Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-34

Alfred Place, London WC1B 3DP.

Printed and bound in Great Britain for

Hodder and Stoughton Paperbacks, a division
of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.,

Mill Road, Dunton Green, Sevenoaks,

Kent TN13 2YA.
(Editorial Office: 47 Bedford Square,

London WC1B 3DP)

by

Cox & Wyman Ltd., Reading, Berks.

To
Will

May 19
,1966

 
“It’s
a fake,” said the Russian leader, staring down at the small exquisite painting
he held in his hands.

“That isn’t possible,” replied his Politburo
colleague. “The Tsar’s icon of St George and the Dragon has been in the Winter
Palace at Leningrad under heavy guard for over fifty years.”

“True, Comrade Zaborski,” said the old man, “but
for fifty years we’ve been guarding a fake. The Tsar must have removed the
original some time before the Red Army entered St Petersburg and overran the
Winter Palace.”

The head of State Security moved restlessly
in his chair as the cat and mouse game continued. Zaborski knew, after years of
running the KGB, who had been cast as the mouse the moment his phone had rung
at four that morning to say that the General Secretary required him to report
to the Kremlin – immediately.

“How can you be so sure it’s a fake, Leonid
Ilyich?” the diminutive figure enquired.

“Because, my dear Zaborski, during the past
eighteen momhs, the age of all the
treasures in the Winter
Palace has
been tested by carbon-dating, the modern scientific process
that does not call for a second opinion,” said Brezhnev, displaying his
new-found knowledge. “And what we have always thought to be one of the nation’s
masterpieces,” he continued, “turns out to have been painted five hundred years
after Rublev’s original.”

“But by whom and for what purpose?” asked
the Chairman of State Security, incredulous.

“The experts tell me it was probably a court
painter,” replied the Russian leader, “who must have been commissioned to
execute the copy only months before the Revolution took place. It has always
worried the curator at the Winter Palace that the Tsar’s traditional silver
crown was not attached to the back of the frame, as it was to all his other
masterpieces,” added Brezhnev.

“But I always thought that the silver crown
had been removed by a souvenir hunter even before we had entered St Petersburg.”

“No,” said the General Secretary drily, his
bushy eyebrows rising every time he had completed a statement. “It wasn’t the
Tsar’s silver crown that had been removed, but the painting itself.”

“Then what can the Tsar have done with the
original?” the Chairman said, almost as if he were asking himself the question.

“That is exactly what I want to know,
Comrade,” said Brezhnev, resting his hands each side of the little painting
that remained in front of him. “And you are the one who has been chosen to come
up with the answer,” he added.

For the first time the Chairman of the KGB
looked unsure of himself.

“But do you have anything for me to go on?”

“Very little,” admitted the General
Secretary, flicking open a file that he removed from the top drawer of his
desk. He stared down at the closely typed notes headed ‘The Significance of the
Icon in Russian History’. Someone had been up all through the night preparing a
ten-page report that the leader had only found time to scan. Brezhnev’s real
interest began on page four. He quickly turned over the first three pages before
reading aloud: “
‘At
the time of the Revolution, Tsar
Nicholas II obviously saw Rublev’s masterpiece as his passport to freedom in
the West. He must have had a copy made which he then left on his study wall
where the original had previously hung.’” The Russian leader looked up. “Beyond
that we have little to go on.”

The head of the KGB looked perplexed. He
remained puzzled as to why Brezhnev should want State Security involved in the
theft of a minor masterpiece. “And how important is it that we find the
original?” he asked, trying to pick up a further clue.

Leonid Brezhnev stared down at his Kremlin
colleague.

“Nothing could be more important, Comrade,”
came back the unexpected reply. “And I shall grant you any resources you may
consider necessary in terms of people and finance to discover the whereabouts
of the Tsar’s icon.”

“But if I were to take you at your word,
Comrade General Secretary,” said the head of the KGB, trying to disguise his
disbelief, “I could so easily end up spending far more than the painting is
worth.”

“That would not be possible,” said Brezhnev,
pausing for effect, “because it’s not the icon itself that I’m after.” He
turned his back on the Chairman of State Security and stared out of the window.
He had always disliked not being able to see over the Kremlin wall and into Red
Square. He waited for some moments before he proclaimed, “The money the Tsar
might have raised from selling such a masterpiece would only have kept Nicholas
in his accustomed lifestyle for a matter of months, perhaps a year at the most.
No, it’s what we believe the Tsar had secreted
inside
the icon that would have guaranteed security for himself and
his family for the rest of their days.”

A little circle of condensation formed on
the window pane in front of the General Secretary.

“What could possibly be that valuable?”
asked the Chairman.

“Do you remember, Comrade, what the Tsar
promised Lenin in exchange for his life?”

“Yes, but it turned out to be a bluff
because no such document was hidden...” He stopped himself just before saying “in
the icon”.

Zaborski stood silently, unable to witness
Brezhnev’s triumphant smile.

“You have caught up with me at last,
Comrade. You see, the document was hidden in the icon all the time. We just had
the wrong icon.”