Jeffrey Archer - Honour Among Thieves

Over the past nine years, Scott had learned as much from them as they had from him, but he still enjoyed helping them put his knowledge to practical use. Scott had often felt he too would like to be tested in the field, and not simply in the lecture theater.

When the session was over, Scott joined them in the gym for another workout. He climbed ropes, pumped iron and practiced karate exercises, and they never once treated him as anything other than a full member of the team. Anyone who patronized the visiting professor from Yale often ended up with more than his ego bruised.

Over dinner that night — no alcohol, just Quibel — Scott asked the Deputy Director if he was ever going to be allowed to gain some field experience.

“It’s not a vacation job, you know,” came back Dexter Hutchins’s reply as he lit up a cigar. “Give up Yale and join us full-time and then perhaps we’ll consider the merits of allowing you out of the classroom.”

“I’m due for a sabbatical next year,” Bradley reminded his superior.

“Then take that trip to Italy you’ve always been promising yourself. After dining with you for the last seven years, I think I know as much about Bellini as ballistics.”

“I’m not going to give up trying for a field job — you realize that, Dexter, don’t you?”

“You’ll have to when you’re fifty, because that’s when we’ll retire you.”

“But I’m only thirty-six...”

“You rise too easily to make a good field officer,” said the Deputy Director, puffing away at his cigar.

When T. Hamilton McKenzie opened the front door of his house, he ignored the ringing phone as he shouted, “Sally? Sally?” at the top of his voice but he received no response.

He finally snatched the phone, assuming it would be his daughter. “Sally?” he repeated.

“Dr. McKenzie?” asked a calmer voice.

“Yes, it is,” he said.

“If you’re wondering where your daughter is, I can assure you that she’s safe and well.”

“Who is this?” demanded McKenzie.

“I’ll call later this evening, Dr. McKenzie, when you’ve had time to calm down,” said the quiet voice. “Meanwhile, do not, under any circumstances, contact the police or any private agency. If you do, we’ll know immediately, and we’ll be left with no choice but to return your lovely daughter—” he paused “—in a coffin.” The phone went dead.

T. Hamilton McKenzie turned white, and in seconds was covered in sweat.

“What’s the matter, honey?” asked Joni, as she watched her husband collapse onto the sofa.

“Sally’s been kidnapped,” he said, aghast. “They said not to contact the police. They’re going to call again later this evening.” He stared at the phone.

“Sally’s been kidnapped?” repeated Joni, in disbelief.

“Yes,” snapped her husband.

“Then we ought to tell the police right away,” Joni said, jumping up. “After all, honey, that’s what they’re paid for.”

“No, we mustn’t. They said they’d know immediately if we did, and would send her back in a coffin.”

“A coffin? Are you sure that’s what they said?” Joni asked quietly.

“Damn it, of course I’m sure, but they told me she’ll be just fine as long as we don’t talk to the police. I don’t understand it. I’m not a rich man.”

“I still think we ought to call the police. After all, Chief Dixon’s a personal friend.”

“No, no!” shouted McKenzie. “Don’t you understand? If we do that they’ll kill her.”

“All I understand,” replied his wife, “is that you’re out of our depth and your daughter is in great danger.” She paused. “You should call Chief Dixon right now.”

“No!” repeated her husband at the top of his voice. “You just don’t begin to understand.”

“I understand only too well,” said Joni, her voice remarkably calm. “You intend to play Chief of Police for Columbus as well as Dean of the Medical School, despite the fact that you’re quite unqualified to do so. How would you react if a state trooper marched into your operating room, leaned over one of your patients and demanded a scalpel?”

T. Hamilton McKenzie stared coldly at his wife, and assumed it was the strain that had caused her to react so irrationally.

The two men listening to the conversation on the other side of town glanced at each other. The man with earphones said, “I’m glad it’s him and not her we’re going to have to deal with.”

When the phone rang again an hour later both T. Hamilton McKenzie and his wife jumped as if they had been touched by an electric wire.

McKenzie waited for several rings as he tried to compose himself. Then he picked up the phone. “McKenzie,” he said.

“Listen to me carefully,” said the quiet voice, “and don’t interrupt. Answer only when instructed to do so. Understood?”

“Yes,” said McKenzie.

“You did well not to contact the police as your wife suggested,” continued the quiet voice. “Your judgment is better than hers.”

“I want to talk to my daughter,” interjected McKenzie.

“You’ve been watching too many late-night movies, Dr. McKenzie. There are no heroines in real life — or heroes, for that matter. So get that into your head. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” said T. Hamilton McKenzie.

“You’ve wasted too much of my time already,” said the quiet voice. The line went dead.

It was over an hour before the phone rang again, during which time Joni tried once more to convince her husband that they should contact the police. This time T. Hamilton McKenzie picked up the receiver without waiting. “Hello? Hello?”

“Calm down, Dr. McKenzie,” said the quiet voice, “and this time, listen. Tomorrow morning at eight-thirty you’ll leave home and drive to the hospital as usual. On the way you’ll stop at the Olentangy Inn and take any table in the corner of the coffee shop that is not already occupied. Make sure it can only seat two. Once we’re confident that no one has followed you, you’ll be joined by one of my colleagues and given your instructions. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“One false move, Doctor, and you will never see your daughter again. Try to remember, it’s you who is in the business of extending life. We’re in the business of ending it.”

The phone went dead.

Hannah was sure that she could carry it off. After all, if she couldn’t deceive them in London, what hope was there that she could do so in Baghdad?

She chose a Tuesday morning for the experiment, having spent several hours reconnoitering the area the previous day. She decided not to discuss her plan with anyone, fearing that one of the Mossad team might become suspicious if she were to ask one question too many.

She checked herself in the hall mirror. A clean white T-shirt and baggy sweater, well-worn jeans, sneakers, tennis socks and her hair looking just a little untidy.

She packed her small, battered suitcase — the one family possession they’d allowed her to keep — and left the little terraced house a few minutes after ten o’clock. Mrs. Rubin had gone earlier to do what she called her “big shop,” an attempt to stock up at Sainsbury’s for the next couple of weeks.

Hannah walked slowly down the road, knowing that if she were caught they’d put her on the next flight home. She disappeared into the tube station, showed her travel-card to the ticket collector, went down in the elevator and walked to the far end of the brightly lit platform as the train rumbled into the station.

At Leicester Square she changed to the Piccadilly line, and when the train pulled into South Kensington, Hannah was among the first to reach the escalator. She didn’t run up the steps, which would have been her natural inclination, because running attracted attention. She stood quietly on the escalator, studying the advertisements on the wall so that no one could see her face. The new fuel-injected Rover 200, Johnnie Walker whisky, a warning against AIDS and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard at the Adelphi glared back at her. Once she’d emerged into the sunlight, Hannah quickly checked left and right before she crossed Harrington Road and walked towards the Norfolk Hotel, an inconspicuous medium-sized hostelry that she had carefully selected. She had checked it out the day before, and could walk straight to the ladies’ rest room without having to ask for directions.