Jeffrey Archer - Honour Among Thieves

Hannah pushed the door open, and after quickly checking to confirm she was alone, chose the end cubicle, locked the door and flicked open the catch of the battered suitcase. She began the slow process of changing identity.

Two sets of footsteps entered and left while she was undressing. During that time, Hannah sat hunched up on the toilet seat, continuing only when she was confident she was alone.

The exercise took her nearly twenty minutes. When she emerged, she checked herself in the mirror and made a few minor adjustments.

And then she prayed, but not to their God.

Hannah left the ladies’ room and made her way slowly up the stairs and back into the lobby of the hotel. She handed over her little case to the hall porter, telling him she’d collect it again in a couple of hours. She pushed a pound coin across the counter, and in return she received a little red ticket. She followed a tour party through the revolving doors and seconds later was back on the pavement.

She knew exactly where she was going and how long it would take her to reach the front door, since she’d carried out a dry run the previous day. She only hoped her Mossad instructor was right about the internal layout of the building. After all, no other agent had ever been inside before.

Hannah walked slowly along the sidewalk towards Brompton Road.

She knew she couldn’t afford to hesitate once she reached the front door. With twenty yards to go, she nearly decided to walk straight past the building. But once she reached the steps she found herself climbing up them and then boldly knocking on the door. A few moments later, the door was opened by a bull of a man who towered a full six inches over her. Hannah marched in, and to her relief the guard stepped to one side, looked up and down the road and then slammed the door closed.

She walked down the corridor towards the dimly lit staircase without ever looking back. Once she reached the end of the fading carpet, she slowly climbed the wooden staircase. They’d assured her that it was the second door on the left on the second floor, and when she reached the landing she saw a door to the left of her, with peeling brown paint and a brass handle that looked as if it hadn’t been polished for months. She turned the handle slowly and pushed the door open. As she entered, she was greeted by a babble of noise that suddenly ceased. The occupants of the room all turned to stare at her.

How could they know that Hannah had never been there before, when all they could see were her eyes?

Then one of them began talking again, and Hannah quietly took a seat in the circle. She listened carefully, and found that even when three or four of them were speaking at once she could understand almost every word. But the tougher test came when she decided to join in the conversation herself. She volunteered that her name was Sheka and that her husband had just arrived in London, but had only been allowed to bring one wife. They nodded their understanding and expressed their disbelief at British Immigration’s inability to accept polygamy.

For the next hour, she listened to and discussed with them their problems. How dirty the English were, how decadent, all dying of AIDS. They couldn’t wait to go home and eat proper food, drink proper water. And would it ever stop raining? Without warning, one of the black-clad women rose and bade her friends farewell. When a second got up to join her, Hannah realized this was her chance to leave. She followed the two women silently down the stairs, remaining a few paces behind. The massive man who guarded the entrance opened the door to let the three of them out. Two of them climbed into the back of a large black Mercedes and were whisked away, while Hannah turned west and began to retrace her steps to the Norfolk Hotel.

T. Hamilton McKenzie spent most of the night trying to work out what the man with the quiet voice could possibly want. He had checked his bank statements. He only had about $230,000 in cash and securities, and the house was probably worth another quarter of a million once the mortgage had been paid off — and this certainly wasn’t a sellers’ market, so that might take months to realize. All together, he could just about scrape up half a million. He doubted if the bank would advance him another cent beyond that.

Why had they selected him? There were countless fathers at Columbus School who were worth ten or twenty times what he was — Joe Ruggiero, who never stopped reminding everybody that he owned the biggest liquor chain in Columbus, must have been a millionaire several times over. For a moment, McKenzie wondered if he was dealing with a gang that had simply picked the wrong man, amateurs even. But he dismissed that idea when he considered the way they’d carried out the kidnap and the follow-up. No, he had to accept that he was dealing with professionals who knew exactly what they wanted.

He slipped out of bed at a few minutes past six and, staring out of the window, discovered there was no sign of the morning sun. He tried to be as quiet as he could, although he knew that his motionless wife must surely be awake — she probably hadn’t slept a wink all night. He took a warm shower, shaved, and for reasons he couldn’t explain to himself, put on a brand-new shirt, the suit he only wore when he went to church and a flowered Liberty of London tie Sally had given him two Christmases before and that he had never had the courage to wear.

He then went down to the kitchen and made coffee for his wife for the first time in fifteen years. He took the tray back to the bedroom where he found Joni sitting upright in her pink nightgown, rubbing her tired eyes.

McKenzie sat on the end of the bed and they drank black coffee together in silence. During the previous eleven hours they had exhausted everything there was to say.

He cleared the tray away and returned downstairs, taking as long as he could to wash and tidy up in the kitchen. The next sound he heard was the thud of the paper landing on the porch outside the front door.

He dropped the dishcloth, rushed out to get his copy of the Dispatch and quickly checked the front page, wondering if the press could have somehow got hold of the story. Clinton dominated the headlines, with trouble in Iraq flaring up again. The President was promising to send in more troops to guard the Kuwaiti border if it proved necessary.

“They should have finished off the job in the first place,” McKenzie muttered as he closed the front door. “Saddam is not a man who works by the book.”

He tried to take in the details of the story but couldn’t concentrate on the words. He gathered from the editorial that the Dispatch thought Clinton was facing his first real crisis. The President doesn’t begin to know what a crisis is, thought T. Hamilton McKenzie. After all, his daughter had slept safely in the White House the previous night.

He almost cheered when the clock in the hall eventually struck eight. Joni appeared at the bottom of the stairs, fully dressed. She checked his collar and brushed some dandruff off his shoulder, as if he were about to leave for a normal day’s work at the university. She didn’t comment on his choice of tie.

“Come straight home,” she added, as she always did.

“Of course I will,” he said, kissing his wife on the cheek and leaving without another word.

As soon as the garage door swung up, he saw the flickering headlights and swore out loud. He must have forgotten to turn them off the previous night when he had been so cross with his daughter. This time he directed his anger at himself, and swore again.

He climbed in behind the wheel, put the key in the ignition and prayed. He switched the lights off and, after a short pause, turned the key. First quickly, then slowly, he tried to coax the engine into action, but it barely clicked as he pumped the accelerator pedal up and down.