“Nine feet in height, seven feet in width and eight feet in depth,” responded Scott immediately. “You could hold a private meeting in there if you wished to, General.”
“Is that so?” said Hamil. “But I am informed the safe can only be operated by one person. Is that true?”
“That is correct, General. We followed the exact specifications your government requested.”
“I am also told that the safe can withstand a nuclear attack. Is that the case?”
“Yes,” replied Scott. “The safe has a six-inch skin and would be unaffected by any explosion other than a direct hit. In any other circumstances, everything in the safe would be preserved, even if the building it was standing in was completely demolished.”
“Impressive,” said the General as the guards sprang to attention and he touched the rim of his beret with his swagger stick. He marched into the Chamber and Scott followed, annoyed to find there was a woman polishing the table. He certainly didn’t need her hanging around when he came back out. The General didn’t even look at Hannah as he strode through the Chamber.
Scott glanced across at the parchment before he followed the General out of the room.
“Ah,” Hannah heard the General say when he was still several yards from the end of the corridor. “Pure statistics don’t do your safe justice, Mr. Bernstrom.” The two soldiers remained rigidly at attention as the General studied the safe for some time, before stepping inside. When he saw the cardboard tube on the floor he bent down and picked it up.
“Just to protect the picture,” explained Scott, as he stepped in to join him. He pointed to the portrait of Saddam Hussein.
“You are a thorough man, Mr. Bernstrom,” said Hamil. “You would have made an excellent colonel in one of my regiments.” He laughed and passed the cardboard tube over to Scott.
Hannah listened intently to every word, and concluded that she must get out of the building as quickly as possible and alert Kratz to what she had done.
“Would you like me to show you how to program the safe?” she heard Scott ask as she reached the entrance of the Chamber.
“No, no, not me,” said General Hamil. “The President will be the only one who will be allowed to operate the safe.” Those were the last words Hannah heard as she walked out of the Chamber, past the guards and continued purposefully down the long corridor.
When she reached the doors that led to the staircase she turned back to see the General striding into the Chamber and, some way behind him, Scott following. He was holding the tube.
Hannah wanted to scream with delight.
Scott realized he would never be given a chance to carry out the switch once Saddam was in the building. When he reached the Chamber he allowed the General to get a few paces ahead of him. His eyes swept the room, and he was relieved to find the cleaner was no longer anywhere to be seen. The guards sprang to attention as the General strode out of the Council Chamber into the far corridor.
Scott stared at the alarm button on the wall ahead of him. “Don’t look around,” he begged under his breath as he kept his eyes on the retreating back of the General. With a yard to go before he reached the door, Scott lunged forward and jabbed his thumb on the red button. The doors immediately slammed closed and clamped with a deafening noise.
Hannah was just about to push open the door that led to the back stairs when the alarm gave out a piercing sound and all the exits were immediately bolted. She turned to discover she was alone in the corridor with General Hamil and four of his Republican Guards.
The General smiled at her. “Miss Kopec, I believe. I’m delighted to make your acquaintance. I fear it will be a couple of minutes before Professor Bradley is able to join us.”
The guards surrounded Hannah as the General looked up at a television screen above the door. He watched as Scott, inside the Chamber, pressed a button on the side of his watch. Scott then ran over to the wall, quickly extracted the copy of the document from the tube and checked it against the original. He felt he had done a fair job back in the cab of the truck, but he spat on Lewis Morris and John Witherspoon for good measure, then spent a few seconds rubbing the parchment on the stone floor before comparing it once again to the one on the wall. He looked at his watch: forty-five seconds. He began to pull the nails out of the wall, but was unable to get the top right-hand one to budge, so he eased the Declaration over its head. Sixty seconds.
Hannah stared up at the television screen in horror, watching Simon undo all her work, while the General made a phone call.
Once Scott had removed the document from the wall he placed it on the table. He then fastened the Declaration that he had taken out of the cardboard cylinder back on the wall, easing the parchment over the nail in the top right-hand corner, which still stubbornly refused to budge. Ninety seconds. He picked up Dollar Bill’s copy from the table, rolled it up and dropped it into the cylinder. One hundred and ten seconds. He walked over to the door that led to the elevators and stood inhaling deeply for a moment before the alarm stopped and the doors swung open.
Scott knew that it would take them a few minutes before the source of the alarm could be checked, so when he saw the General, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
Kratz sat on the front seat of the truck, keeping a wary eye on Major Saeed. There was a ringing sound: Saeed pressed a button and placed the phone to his ear. Suddenly, without warning, he turned, whipped out his pistol and looked anxiously towards the cab. He barked out an order, and within seconds every soldier in sight surrounded the truck, their rifles pointing directly at Kratz.
The Major rushed up. “Where are the other two?” he demanded. Kratz shrugged his shoulders. Saeed turned on his heels and ran into the building, shouting another order as he went.
Kratz placed his right hand over his left wrist and slowly began to unpeel the plaster, a second skin, secreted beneath his watch. He delicately removed the tiny green pill stuck to the plaster and transferred it to the palm of his hand. Sixty or seventy eyes were staring at him. He began coughing, and slowly put his hand up to his mouth, lowered his head and swallowed the pill.
Saeed came rushing back out of the building and began barking new orders. Within seconds, a car pulled up beside the truck.
“Out!” the Major screamed at Kratz, who stepped down onto the tarmac and allowed a dozen fixed bayonets to guide him toward the back door of the car. He was pushed onto the seat, and two men in dark suits took a place on either side of him. One quickly turned him and tied his hands behind his back, while the other blindfolded him.
Cohen and Aziz watched from the other side of the Square as the car sped away from them.
Chapter Thirty-One
The General returned Scott’s smile.
“I won’t introduce you to Miss Saib,” he said, “since I believe you’ve already met.”
Scott looked blank as he stared at the woman dressed in a black abaya and a pushi that covered her face. She was surrounded by four soldiers, their bayonets drawn.
“We have a lot to thank Miss Saib for, because of course it was she who led us to you in the first place, not to mention her postcard to Mrs. Rubin that helped you find the Declaration so quickly. We did try to make it as easy as possible for you.”
“I don’t know Miss Saib,” said Scott.
“Oh, come, Professor — or should I call you Agent Bradley? I admire your gallantry, but while you may claim not to know Miss Saib, you certainly know Hannah Kopec,” the General said as he ripped off Hannah’s pushi.
Scott stared at Hannah, but still said nothing.
“Ah, I see you do remember her. But then, it would be hard to forget someone who tried to kill you, wouldn’t it?”