Read Honour Among Thieves Online
Authors: Jeffrey Archer
Tags: #English fiction, #General, #Espionage, #Fiction
Honour Among Thieves (56 page)
As
they drove slowly past the National Archives, Dexter looked away from the
impatient camera crew.
‘How
many of them?’ he asked.
‘About
six,’ said Scott. ‘And I think that must be Shaw with his back to us.’
‘Show
me exactly where you want the car to stop,’ said the Deputy Director, turning
to face Mendelssohn.
‘Another
fifty yards,’ came back the reply.
‘You
take the bag, Scott.’
‘But...’
began Mendelssohn. When he saw the expression on Dexter Hutchins’ face, he didn’t
bother with a second word.
The
car drew into the kerb and stopped. Scott grabbed the bag, jumped out, and held
the door open for Mendelssohn. Eight agents were walking up and down the
pavement trying to appear innocent. None of them was looking towards the steps
of the National Archives. The two unlikely looking companions quickly crossed
Constitution Avenue and began running up 7th Street.
When
they reached the delivery entrance, Scott came face to face with an anxious
Calder Marshall, who had been pacing back and forth at the bottom of the ramp.
‘Thank
God,’ was all the Archivist said when he saw Scott and the Conservator running
down the ramp. He led them silently into the open freight elevator. They
travelled up two floors and then ran along the corridor until they reached the
staircase that led down to the vault. Marshall turned to check that the two men
were still with him before he began running down the steps, something no member
of staff had ever seen him do before. Scott chased after the Archivist,
followed by Mendelssohn. None of them stopped until they reached a set of
massive steel doors.
Marshall
nodded, and a slightly breathless Conservator leaned forward and pressed a code
into a little box beside the door. The steel grid opened slowly to allow the
three of them to enter the vault. Once they were inside, the Conservator
pressed another button, and the door slid back into place.
They
paused in front of the great concrete block that had been built to house the
Declaration of Independence, just as a priest might in front of an altar. Scott
checked his watch. It was 9.51.
Mendelssohn
pressed the red button and the familiar clanking and whirling sound began as
the concrete blocks parted and the massive empty frame came slowly into sight.
He touched the button again when the glass casing had reached chest height.
The
Archivist and the Conservator walked forward while Scott unzipped the bag. The
Archivist took two keys from his jacket pocket and passed one over to his
colleague. They immediately set about unlocking the twelve bolts that were
evenly spaced around the thick brass rim. Once they had completed the task they
leaned over and heaved across the heavy frame until it came to rest like an
open book.
Scott
removed the container and passed it over to the Archivist. Marshall eased the
cap off the top of the cylinder, allowing Mendelssohn to carefully extract its
contents.
Scott
watched as the Archivist and the Conservator slowly unpeeled the Declaration of
Independence, inch by inch, onto the waiting glass, until the original
parchment was finally restored to its rightful place. Scott leaned over and
took one last look at the misspelt word before the two men heaved the brass
cover back into place.
‘My
God, the British still have a lot to answer for,’ was all the Archivist said.
Calder
Marshall and the Conservator quickly tightened up the twelve bolts surrounding
the frame and took a pace back from the Declaration.
They
paused for only a second while Scott checked his watch again. 9.57. He looked
up to find Marshall and Mendelssohn hugging each other and jumping up and down
like children who had been given an unexpected gift-Scott coughed. ‘It’s 9.58,
gentlemen.’ The two men immediately reverted to character.
The
Archivist walked back over to the concrete block. He paused for a moment and
then pressed the red button. The massive frame rose, continuing its slow
journey upwards to the gallery to be viewed by the waiting public.
Calder
Marshall turned to face Scott. A flicker of a smile showed his relief. He bowed
like a Japanese warrior to indicate that he felt honour had been satisfied. The
Conservator shook hands with Scott and then walked over to the door, punched a
code into the little box and watched the grid slide open.
Marshall
accompanied Scott out into the corridor, up the staircase and back down in the
freight elevator to the delivery entrance.
Thank
you, Professor,’ he said as they shook hands on the loading dock. Scott loped
up the ramp and turned to look back once he had reached the pavement. There was
no sign of the Archivist.
He
jogged across 7th Street and joined Dexter in the waiting car.
‘Any
problems, Professor?’ asked the Deputy Director.
‘No.
Not unless you count two decent men who look as if they’ve aged ten years in
the past two months.’
The
tenth chime struck on the Old Post Office Tower clock. The doors of the
National Archives swung open and a television crew charged in.
The
Deputy Director’s car moved out into the centre of Constitution Avenue, where
it got caught up between the floats for Tennessee and Texas. A police officer
ran across and ordered the driver to pull over into 7th Street.
When
the car came to a halt, Dexter wound down his window, smiled at the officer and
said, ‘I’m the Deputy Director of the CIA.’
‘Sure.
And I’m Uncle Sam,’ the officer replied as he began writing out a ticket.
T
HE DEPUTY
DIRECTOR of the CIA phoned the Director at home to tell him that it was
business as usual at the National Archives. He didn’t mention the traffic
ticket.
The
Conservator phoned his wife and tried to explain why he hadn’t come home the
previous night.
A
woman holding a carrier bag with a rope handle contacted the Iraqi Ambassador
to the UN on her mobile phone and let him know that she had killed two birds
with one stone. She gave the Ambassador an account number for a bank in the
Bahamas.
The
Director of the CIA rang the Secretary of State and assured him that the
document was in place. He avoided saying ‘back in place’.
Susan
Anderson rang Scott to congratulate him on the part he had played in restoring
the document to its rightful home. She also mentioned in passing the sad news
that she had decided to break off her engagement.
The
Iraqi Ambassador to the UN instructed Monsieur Franchard to transfer the sum of
nine hundred thousand dollars to the Royal Bank of Canada in the Bahamas and at
the same time to close the Al Obaydi account.
The
Secretary of State rang the President at the White House to inform him that the
press conference scheduled for eleven o’clock that morning had been cancelled.
A
reporter on the New York Daily News crime beat filed his first-edition copy
from a phone booth in an underground garage on 75th Street. The headline read
‘Mafia Slaying in Manhattan’.
Lloyd
Adams’ phone never stopped ringing, as he was continually being offered parts
in everything from endorsements to a feature film.
The
Archivist did not return a call from one of the President’s Special Assistants
at the White House, inviting him to lunch.
A
CNN producer called in to the news desk to let them know that it must all have
been a hoax. Yes, he had verified the spelling of ‘Brittish’, and only Dan
Quayle could have thought it had two ts.
Scott
phoned Hannah and told her how he wanted to spend Independence Day.
THE END
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