“Yes,” she replied.
“I thought I couldn’t see the Ambassador’s wife. She usually displaces a great deal of water without much forward motion. By the way, I’m Simon Rosenthal. Colonel Kratz instructed me to make contact. I have a message for you.”
Hannah felt stupid shaking hands with the man while they were both clinging to the edge of the pool.
“Do you know the avenue Bugeaud?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Good. See you at the Bar de la Porte Dauphine in fifteen minutes.”
He pulled himself out of the pool in one movement and disappeared in the direction of the men’s changing room before she had a chance to reply.
A little over fifteen minutes later Hannah walked into the Bar de la Porte Dauphine. She searched around the room and almost missed him perched behind one of the high-backed wooden chairs directly below a large, colorful mural.
He rose to greet her and then ordered another coffee. He warned her that they must spend only a few minutes together, because she ought to return to the embassy without delay. As she sipped the first real coffee she had tasted in weeks, Hannah took a closer look at him, and began to recall what it was like just to enjoy a drink with someone interesting. His next sentence snapped her back into the real world.
“Kratz plans to pull you out of Paris in the near future.”
“Any particular reason?” she asked.
“The date of the Baghdad operation has been settled.”
“Thank God,” said Hannah.
“Why do you say that?” asked Scott, risking his first question.
“The Ambassador is expecting to be called back to Baghdad to take up a new post. He intends to ask me to go with him,” replied Hannah. “Or that’s what the Chief Administrator is telling everyone, except Muna Ahmed.”
“I’ll warn Kratz.”
“By the way, Simon, I’ve picked up two or three scraps of information that Kratz might find useful.”
He nodded and listened as Hannah began to give him details of the internal organization of the embassy, and of the comings and goings of diplomats and businessmen who publicly spoke out against Saddam while at the same time trying to close deals with him. After a few minutes he stopped her and said, “You’d better leave now. They might begin to miss you. I’ll try and arrange another meeting whenever it’s possible,” he found himself adding.
She smiled, rose from the table and left, without looking back.
Later that evening, Scott sent a coded message to Dexter Hutchins in Virginia to let him know that he had made contact with Hannah Kopec.
A fax came back an hour later with only one instruction.
Chapter Thirteen
On May 25, 1993, the sun rose over the Capitol a few minutes after five. Its rays crept along the White House lawn and minutes later seeped unnoticed into the Oval Office. A few hundred yards away, Cavalli was slapping his hands behind his back.
Cavalli had spent the previous day in Washington, checking the finer details for what felt like the hundredth time. He had to assume that something must go wrong and, whatever it turned out to be, it would automatically become his responsibility.
Johnny Scasiatore walked over and handed Cavalli a steaming mug of coffee.
“I had no idea it could be this cold in Washington,” Cavalli said to Johnny, who was wearing a sheepskin jacket.
“It’s cold at this time of the morning almost everywhere in the world,” replied Johnny. “Ask any film director.”
“And do you really need six hours to get ready for three minutes of filming?” Cavalli asked incredulously.
“Two hours’ preparation for a minute’s work is the standard rule. And don’t forget, we’ll have to run through this particular scene twice, in somewhat unusual circumstances.”
Cavalli stood on the corner of 13th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and eyed the fifty or so people who came under Johnny’s direction. Some were preparing a track along the sidewalk that would allow a camera to follow the six cars as they traveled slowly down Pennsylvania Avenue. Others were fixing up massive IK arc lights along the seven hundred yards that would eventually be powered by a 200-kilowatt generator which had been transported into the heart of the capital at four o’clock that morning. Sound equipment was being tested to make sure that it would pick up every kind of noise — feet walking on a sidewalk, car doors slamming, the rumble of the subway, even the chimes of the clock on the Post Office tower.
“Is all this expense really necessary?” asked Cavalli.
“If you want everyone except us to believe they’re taking part in a motion picture, you can’t afford to risk any shortcuts. I’m going to shoot a film that anybody watching us, professional or amateur, could expect to see one day in a movie theater. I’m even paying full Equity rates for all of the extras.”
“Thank God none of my people have a union,” commented Cavalli. The sun was now full on his face, twenty-one minutes after the President would have enjoyed its warmth over breakfast in the White House.
Cavalli looked down at the checklist on his clipboard. Al Calabrese already had all his twelve vehicles in place on the curbside, and the drivers were standing around in a huddle drinking coffee, sheltered from the wind by one of the walls of Freedom Plaza. The six limousines glistened in the morning sun as passersby, cleaners and janitors leaving offices and early-morning commuters coming up from the Federal Triangle Metro slowed to admire the spectacle. A painter was just touching up the Presidential Seal on the third car while a girl was unfurling a flag on the right-hand fender.
Cavalli turned to see a police truck, tailgate down, parked in front of the District Building. Barriers were being lifted off and carried onto the sidewalk to make sure innocent passersby did not stray onto the set during those crucial three minutes when the filming would be taking place.
Lloyd Adams had spent the previous day going over his lines one last time and dipping into yet another book on the history of the Declaration of Independence. That night he had sat in bed replaying again and again a video of Bill Clinton on his Georgia Avenue walk, noting the tilt of the head, the Razorback accent, the way he subconsciously bit his lower lip. The Monday before, Adams had purchased a suit that was identical to the one the President had worn to welcome the British Prime Minister in February — straight off the rack from Dillard’s Department Store. He chose a red, white and blue tie, a rip-off of the one Clinton wore on the cover of the March issue of Vanity Fair. A Timex Ironman had been the final addition to his wardrobe. During the past week a second wig had been made, this time a little grayer, which Adams felt more comfortable with. The director and Cavalli had taken him through a dress rehearsal the previous evening: word perfect — though Johnny had commented that his collapse at the end of the scene was a bad case of overacting. Cavalli felt the Archivist would be far too overwhelmed to notice.
Cavalli walked over to Al Calabrese and asked him to go over the breakdown of his staff yet again. Al tried not to sound exasperated, as he had gone over it in great detail during their last three board meetings: “Twelve drivers, six outriders,” he rattled off. “Four of them are ex-cops or military police and all of them have worked with me before. But as none of them are going into the National Archives, they’ve simply been told they’re involved in a movie. Only those working directly under Gino Sartori know what we’re really up to.”
“But are they fully briefed on what’s expected of them once they reach the Archives?”