Honour Among Thieves (26 page)

‘I’m
afraid not, Hannah. This time it’s all true,’ he said. ‘You must believe me. I
only ended up in Paris after years of demanding to be tested in the field,
because, with all my theoretical knowledge, I assumed I’d be a whizz if they
just gave me the chance to prove myself. Scott Bradley, Professor of
Constitutional Law. Infallible in the eyes of his adoring students at Yale and
the senior CIA operatives at Langley. There’ll be no standing ovation after
this performance, of that we can both be sure.’

Hannah
stood and stared down at him. ‘Tell me it’s not true, Simon,’ she said. ‘It
mustn’t be true. Why did you choose me? Why me?’

He
stood and took her in his arms. ‘I didn’t choose you, I fell in love with you.
They chose me. My people ... my people needed to find out why Mossad had put
you... put you in the Jordanian Embassy attached to the Iraqi Interest
Section.’ He was finding it difficult to remain coherent, and couldn’t
understand why he felt so sleepy.

‘But
why you?’ she asked, clinging on to him for the first time that evening. ‘Why
not a regular CIA agent?’

‘Because
. .. because they wanted to put someone in ... someone who wouldn’t be
recognised by any of the professionals.’

‘Oh,
my God, who am I meant to believe?’ she said, breaking away. She stared
helplessly at him.

‘You
can believe me, because I’ll prove... prove all I’ve said is true.’ Scott began
to move away from the table. He felt unsteady as he walked slowly over to the
sideboard, bent down to pull open the bottom drawer, and after some rummaging
around removed a small leather case with the initials S.B. printed in gold on
the top right-hand corner. He smiled a triumphant smile and turned back. He
attempted to steady himself by resting one hand on the sideboard. He looked
towards the blurred figure of the woman he loved, but could no longer see the
desperate look on her face. He tried to remember how much he had already told
her and how much she still needed to know.

‘Oh,
my darling, what have I done?’ she said, her eyes now pleading.

‘Nothing,
it’s all been my fault,’ said Scott. ‘But we’ll have the rest of our lives to
laugh about it. That, by the way, was a proposal. Feeble, I agree, but I
couldn’t love you any more than I do. You must surely realise that,’ he added
as he tried to take a pace towards her. She stood staring at him helplessly as
he lurched forward before attempting to take a second step. Then he tried
again, but this time he stumbled and collapsed across the table, finally
landing with a thud on the floor at her feet.

‘I
can’t blame you if you don’t feel the same way as ...’ were his final words, as
the leather case burst open, disgorging its contents all around a body that was
suddenly still.

Hannah
fell on her knees and took his head in her hands. She began to sob
uncontrollably. ‘I love you, of course I love you, Simon. But why didn’t you
trust me enough to tell me the truth?’

Her
eyes rested on a small photo lodged between his fingers. She snatched it from
his grasp. Written on the back were the words ‘Katherine Bradley – Summer ‘66’.
It must have been his mother. She grabbed the passport that lay by the side of
his head and quickly turned the pages, trying to read through her tears. Male.
Date of birth: 11.7.56. Profession: University Professor. She turned another
page and a photo from Paris Match fell out. She stared at herself modelling an
Ungaro suit from the spring collection of 1990.

‘No,
no. Don’t let it be true,’ Hannah said as she lifted him back into her arms. ‘Let
it be just more lies.’

And
then her eyes settled on the envelope simply addressed ‘Hannah’. She lowered
his body gently to the ground, picked up the envelope and ripped it open.

‘No!’
she screamed, ‘No!’ almost unable to read his words through her tears.

‘Please,
God, no,’ she wept as her head fell on his chest. ‘I love you, too, Simon. I
love you so much.’

‘No,
no, no...’ Hannah cried as she bent down to kiss him. She suddenly leaped up
and rushed over to the phone. She dialled 17 and screamed, ‘Please God, let one
pill not be enough. Answer, answer, answer!’ she shrieked at the phone as the
door of Scott’s apartment flew open. Hannah turned to see Kratz and another man
whom she didn’t recognise come bursting in.

She
dropped the phone on the floor and ran towards them, throwing herself at Kratz
and knocking him to the ground.

‘You
bastard, you bastard!’ she screamed. ‘You made me kill the only person I ever
really loved! I hope you rot in hell!’ she said as her fists pumped down into
his face.

The
unknown man moved quickly across and threw Hannah to one side, before the two
of them picked up Scott’s limp body and carried him out of the room.

Hannah
lay in the corner, weeping.

An
hour passed, maybe two, before she crawled slowly back to the table, opened her
bag and removed the second pill.

‘white
house.’

‘Mr
Butterworth, please.’

There
was a long silence. ‘I don’t show anyone by that name, sir. Just a moment and
I’ll put you through to Personnel.’

The
Archivist waited patiently, made aware as each second passed that the new
telephone system ordered by the Clinton administration was clearly overdue.

‘Personnel
office,’ said a female voice. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I’m
trying to locate Mr Rex Butterworth, Special Assistant to the President.’

‘Who’s
calling?’

‘Marshall,
Calder Marshall, Archivist.’

‘Of-?’

‘Of
the United States of America.’

There
was another long silence.

‘The
name Butterworth rings no bells with me, sir, but I’m sure you realise there
are more than forty Special and Deputy Assistants to the President.’

‘No,
I didn’t realise,’ admitted Marshall. There followed another long silence.

‘According
to our records,’ said the female voice, ‘he seems to have returned to the
Department of Commerce. He was a Schedule A – just here on temporary
assignment.’

‘Would
you have a number where I might reach him?’

‘No,
I don’t. But if you call the department locator at the Commerce Department, I’m
sure they will find him for you.’

‘Thank
you for your help.’

‘Glad
to have been of assistance, sir.’

Hannah
could never recall how long she had lain huddled up in the corner of Simon’s
room. She couldn’t think of him as Scott, she would always think of him as
Simon. An hour, possibly two. Time no longer had any relevance for her. She
could remember crawling back to the centre of the room, avoiding overturned
chairs and tables that would have looked more appropriate in a nightclub that
had just experienced a drunken brawl.

She
removed the pill from her bag and flushed it down the lavatory, the automatic
action of any well-drilled agent. She then began to search among the debris for
any photographs she could find and, of course, the letter addressed simply to
‘Hannah’. She stuffed these few mementoes into her bag and tried, with the help
of a fallen chair, to get back on her feet.

Later
that night she lay in her bed at the embassy, staring up at the blank white
ceiling, unable to recall her journey back, the route she had taken or even if
she had climbed the fire escape or entered by the front door. She wondered how
many nights it would be before she managed to sleep for more than a few minutes
at a time. How much time would have to pass before he wasn’t her every other
thought?

She
knew Mossad would want to take her out, hide her, protect her – as they saw it
– until the French police had completed their investigation. Governments would
have their diplomatic arms twisted up their diplomatic backs. The Americans
would expect a lot in return for killing one of their agents, but eventually a
bargain would be struck. Hannah Kopec, Simon Rosenthal and Professor Scott
Bradley would become closed files. For all three of them were numbers:
interchangeable, dispensable and, of course, replaceable.

She
wondered what they would do with his body, the body of the man she loved. An
honourable but anonymous grave, she suspected. They would argue that it must be
in the interest of the greater good. Wherever they buried him, she knew they
would never allow her to find his grave.

She
wouldn’t have dropped the pill in the coffee in the first place if Kratz hadn’t
talked again and again of the thirty-nine Scuds that had landed on the people
of Israel, and in particular of the one which had killed her mother, her
brother and her sister.

She
might even have drawn back at the last moment if they hadn’t threatened to
carry out the job themselves, should she refuse. They promised her that if that
was the case, it would be a far more unpleasant death.

Just
as Hannah was about to take the first pill out of her bag, she had asked Simon
for some sugar, one last lifeline. Why hadn’t he grabbed at it? Why didn’t he
question her, tease her about her weight, do anything that would have made her
have second thoughts? But then why, why had he waited so long to tell her the
truth?

If
he had only realised that she had things to tell him, too. The Ambassador had
been called back to Iraq – a promotion, he explained. He was, as Kanuk had been
telling everyone, to become Deputy Foreign Minister, which meant that in the
absence of Muhammad Saeed A!-Zahiaf, he would be working directly with Saddam
Hussein.

His
place at the embassy was to be taken by a Hamid Al Obaydi, the number two at the
United Nations, who had recently rendered some great service for Iraq, of which
she would eventually learn. The Ambassador had offered her the choice of
remaining in Paris to serve under Al Obaydi, or returning to Iraq and
continuing to work with him. Only days before, Mossad would have considered
such an offer an irresistible opportunity.

Hannah
so wanted to tell Simon that she no longer cared about Saddam, that he had made
it possible for her to overcome her hatred of the Scuds, even made the death of
her family a wound that might in time be healed. She knew that she was no
longer capable of killing anyone, as long as she had someone to live for.

But
now that Simon was dead, her desire for revenge was even stronger than before.

‘Department
of Commerce.’

‘Rex
Butterworth, please.’

‘What
agency?’

‘I’m
not sure I understand,’ said the Archivist.

‘What
agency is Mr Butterworth with?’ asked the operator, pronouncing each word
slowly, as if she were addressing a four-year-old.

‘I
have no idea,’ admitted the Archivist.

‘We
don’t show anyone by that name.’

‘But
the White House told me...’

‘I
don’t care what the White House told you. If you don’t know which agency...’

‘May
I have the Personnel Office?’

‘Just
a minute.’ It turned out to be far longer than a minute.

‘Office
of Personnel.’

‘This
is Calder Marshall, Archivist of the United States. May I speak to the
director?’

‘I’m
sorry, but he’s not available. Would you like to speak to his executive
assistant, Alex Wagner?’ ‘Yes. That would be just fine,’ said Marshall. ‘She’s
not in today. Could you call again tomorrow?’ ‘Yes,’ said Marshall with a sigh.
‘Glad to have been of assistance, sir.’

When
Kratz’s car screeched to a halt outside the Centre Cardio-vasculaire on bois
Gilbert there were three doctors, two orderlies and a nurse waiting for them on
the hospital steps. The embassy must have pulled out every stop.

The
two orderlies ran forward and lifted the body gently but firmly out of the back
seat of the car, carrying Scott quickly up the steps before placing him on a
waiting trolley.

Even
as the trolley was being wheeled down the corridor the three doctors and the
nurse surrounded the body and began their examination. The nurse quickly
removed Scott’s shirt and trousers while the first doctor opened his mouth to
check his breathing. The second, a consultant, lowered his ear onto Scott’s
chest and tried to listen for a heartbeat, while the third checked his blood
pressure; none of them looked hopeful.

The
consultant turned to the Mossad leader and said firmly, ‘Don’t waste any time
with lies. How did it happen?’

‘We
poisoned him, but he turned out not to be...’

‘I’m
not interested,’ he said. ‘What poison did you administer?’

‘Ergot
alkaloid,’ said Kratz.

The
consultant switched his attention to one of his assistants. ‘Ring the Hospital
Widal and get me details of its action and the correct antidote, fast,’ he said
as the orderlies crashed through the rubber doors and into a private operating
theatre.

The
first doctor had managed to keep Scott’s mouth open during the short journey
and create an airway. He had already pressed down the tongue to leave a clear
passageway to the larynx. Once the trolley had come to a stop in the theatre he
inserted a clear angled plastic tube of about five inches in length to ensure the
tongue could not be swallowed.