Marshall hesitated only because the request had taken him by surprise.

'Of course, sir. What time would suit you?'

'Shall we say ten o'clock?'

'Yes, sir. Where would you like me to come?'

'The North Entrance of the White House.'

'The North Entrance, of course.'

'Jack Leigh, my executive a.s.sistant, will meet you in the West Wing reception area and accompany you to the Oval Office.'

'The Oval Office.'

'And Calder...'

'Yes, Mr Secretary?'

'Please do not mention your resignation to anyone until you've seen the President.'

'Until I've seen the President. Of course.'

'Thank you, Calder.'

'Glad to have been of a.s.sistance, sir.'

'I'd LIKE TO begin by thanking you all for attending this meeting at such short notice,' said the Secretary of State.

'And, in particular, Scott Bradley, who has only recently recovered from ...' Christopher hesitated for a moment, '.

. . a near-tragic accident. I know we are all delighted by the speed of his recovery. I should also like to welcome Colonel Kratz, who is representing the Israeli Government, and Dexter Hutchins, the Deputy Director of the CIA.

'Only two of my staff are with me today: Jack Leigh, myexecutive a.s.sistant, and Susan Anderson, one of my senior Middle East advisers. The reason for numbers being limited on this occasion will become all too obvious to you. The issue we are about to discuss is so sensitive that the fewer people who are aware of it, the better. To suggest in this instance that silence is golden would be to underestimate the value of gold.

'Perhaps, at this juncture, I could ask the Deputy Director of the CIA to bring us up to date on the latest situation. Dexter.'

Dexter Hutchins unlocked his briefcase and removed a file marked 'For the Director's Eyes Only'. He placed the file on the table in front of him and turned its cover.

'Two days ago, Mr Marshall, the Archivist of the United States, reported to the Secretary of State that the Declaration of Independence had been stolen from the National Archives; or, to be more accurate, had been switched for a quite brilliant copy that had not only pa.s.sed the scrutiny of Mr Marshall, but also that of the Senior Conservator, Mr Mendelssohn.

'It was only when Mr Marshall attempted to re-contact a Mr Rex b.u.t.terworth, who had been temporarily a.s.signed to the White House as a Special a.s.sistant to the President, that he became worried.'

'If I could just interject, Mr Hutchins,' said Jack Leigh, 'and point out that though Mr b.u.t.terworth was a former employee of the Commerce Department, should the press ever get hold of this you can be certain they would only refer to him as a "Special a.s.sistant to the President".' Warren Christopher nodded his agreement.

'When Calder Marshall discovered that b.u.t.terworth hadn't returned after his vacation,' continued Dexter Hutchins, 'and that he had also left without giving a forwarding address, he naturally became suspicious. Under the circ.u.mstances, he considered it prudent to ask Mr Mendelssohn to check and see if the Declaration had in any way been tampered with. After putting the parchment through several preliminary tests - a separate memorandum has been sent to all of you on this - he came to the conclusion that they were still in possession of the original doc.u.ment.

'But Mr Marshall, a cautious man, remained sceptical, and contacted the President's scheduler, Miss Patty Watson - details also enclosed. Following that conversation, he asked the Conservator to carry out a more rigorous scrutiny.'Mr Mendelssohn spent several hours alone that evening going over the parchment word by word with a magnifying gla.s.s. It was when he came to the sentence, "Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren", that the Conservator realised that the word "British" had been spelt correctly, and not with two ts as in the original Declaration executed by Timothy Matlock. When this piece of news was imparted to Mr Marshall, he immediately offered his resignation to the Secretary of State, a copy of which you all have.'

'If I could come in here, Dexter,' said Secretary Christopher. 'Just for the record, the President and I saw Mr Marshall in the Oval Office yesterday. He could not have been more co-operative. He a.s.sured us that he and his colleague, Mr Mendelssohn, will say and do nothing in the immediate future. He did add, however, his feeling of disgust at continuing to display a counterfeit copy of the Declaration to the general public. He made us both, that is to say the President and myself, agree that should we fail to recover the original doc.u.ment before its disappearance becomes common knowledge, we would confirm that his resignation had been dated May 25th 1993 and accepted by myself as custodian of the Declaration. He wished it to be confirmed in writing that he had in no way connived to deceive his staff or the nation he served. "I am not in the habit of being deceitful," were his final words before leaving the Oval Office.

'If it is possible,' continued Christopher, 'for a public servant to make the President and the Secretary of State feel morally inferior, Mr Marshall achieved it with considerable dignity. However, that does not change the fact that if we don't get the original parchment back before its theft becomes public knowledge, the media are going to roast the President and myself slowly over a spit. One thing's also for sure: the Republicans, led by Dole, will happily wash their collective hands in public. Carry on, Dexter.'

'Under the Secretary of State's instructions, we immediately formed a small task force at Langley to profile every aspect of the problem we are facing. But we quickly discovered that we were working under some severe restrictions. To begin with, because of the sensitivity of the subject and the people involved, we could not do what we automatically would have done in normal circ.u.mstances, namely consult the FBI and liaise with the DC Police Department.

That, we felt, would have guaranteed us the front page of theWashington Post, and probably the following morning. We mustn't forget that the FBI is still smarting over the Waco siege, and they'd like nothing better than for the CIA to replace them on the front pages.

'The next problem we faced was having to tiptoe round people we'd usually bring in for questioning, for fear that they too might discover our real purpose. However, we have been able to come up with several leads without talking to any members of the public. Following a routine check of permit records at the DCPD, we discovered that a movie was being made in Washington on the same day as the doc.u.ment was stolen. The director of that movie was Johnny Scasiatore, who is currently on bail facing an indecency charge. Three others involved in the enterprise turn out to have criminal records.

And some of those people fit the descriptions Mr Marshall and Mr Mendelssohn have given us of the group who arrived at the National Archives posing as the Presidential party. They include a certain Bill O'Reilly, a well-known forger who has spent several years in more than one of our state penitentiaries, and an actor who played the President so convincingly that both Mr Marshall and Mr Mendelssohn accepted it was him without question.'

'Surely we can discover who that was,' said Christopher.

'We already have. His name is Lloyd Adams. But we daren't bring him in.'

'How did you find him?' asked Leigh. 'After all, there are quite a few actors who can manage a pa.s.sable resemblance to Clinton.'

'Agreed,' said the Deputy Director, 'but only one who's been operated on by America's leading plastic surgeon within the past few months. We have reason to believe that the ringleaders killed the surgeon and his daughter, which is why his wife reported everything she knew to the local Chief of Police.

'However, the whole operation would never have got off the ground without the inside help of Mr Rex b.u.t.terworth, who was last seen on the morning of May 25th and has since disappeared off the face of the earth. He booked a flight to Brazil, but he never showed. We have agents across the globe searching for him.'

'None of this is of any importance if we are no nearer to finding out where the original Declaration is at this moment, and who took it,' said Christopher.

'That's the bad news,' replied Dexter. 'Our agents spendhours on routine investigations that many American citizens consider a waste of taxpayers' money. But just now and then, it pays off.'

'We're all listening,' said Christopher.

'The CIA keeps under surveillance several foreign diplomats who work at the United Nations. Naturally, they would be outraged if any of them could prove what we were up to, and if we ever think they're onto us we back off immediately. In the case of Iraqis at the UN, we have people shadowing them round the clock. Our problem is that we can't operate within the UN complex itself, because if we were caught inside that building it would cause an international outcry. So, occasionally, their representatives are bound to slip our net.

'But we believe it was not a coincidence that Iraq's Deputy Amba.s.sador to the United Nations, a Mr Hamid Al Obaydi, was in Washington on the day the Declaration was switched, and took several photographs of the bogus filming that was taking place. The agent who was tracking Al Obaydi at the time also reported that, at 10.37, after the Declaration had gone back on display in the National Archives, Al Obaydi joined the public queue, waiting over an hour to view the parchment. But here's the clincher. He studied the doc.u.ment once, and then he looked at it a second time, with gla.s.ses.'

'Perhaps he's near-sighted,' said Susan.

'Our agent reports that he's never before or since seen him wearing gla.s.ses of any kind,' replied Dexter Hutchins.

'Now for the really bad news,' he continued.

'That wasn't it?' said Christopher.

'No, sir. Al Obaydi flew on to Geneva a week later and was spotted by our local station officer leaving a bank.' Dexter referred to his notes. 'Franchard et cie. He was carrying a plastic cylinder, and I quote, "a little over two feet in length and about two inches in diameter".'

'Who's going to tell the President?' said Christopher, putting his hands over his eyes.

'He took this cylinder by car straight to the Palais des Nations, and it hasn't been seen since.'

'And Barazan Al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother, is the Iraqi Amba.s.sador to the United Nations in Geneva,' said Susan.

'Don't remind me,' said Christopher. 'But what I want to know is, why the h.e.l.l didn't your man jump Al Obaydi when itwas obvious what he was carrying? I would have found a way of keeping the Swiss in line.'

'We would have done so if we'd known what he was carrying, but at that stage we weren't even aware the Declaration had been stolen, and our surveillance was just routine.'

'So what you're telling us, Mr Hutchins, is that the Declaration could well be in Baghdad by now,' said Leigh.

'Because if it was sent through the diplomatic pouch, the Swiss wouldn't have let us get anywhere near it.'

No one spoke for several moments.

'Let's work on the worst-case scenario,' said the Secretary of State finally. 'The Declaration is already in Saddam's possession. So what's his next move likely to be?

Scott, you're our man of logic. Can you second-guess what he might get up to?'

'No, sir, Saddam's not a man you can second-guess.

Especially after his failed attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate George Bush on his visit to Kuwait in April. Although the whole world accused him of being behind the plot, how did he react?

Not with the usual bellicose shouting and screaming about the lies of the American imperialists, but with a reasoned, coherent statement from his Amba.s.sador at the UN denying any personal involvement. Why? The press tells us it's because Saddam is hoping Clinton will be more reasonable in the long term than Bush. I don't believe it. I suspect Saddam realises that Clinton's position doesn't differ greatly from that of his predecessor. I don't think that's his reasoning at all.

No, I suspect he believes that with the Declaration in his possession, he has a weapon so powerful that he can humiliate the United States, and in particular the new President, as and when he pleases.'

'When and how, Scott? If we knew that...'

'I have two theories on that, sir,' replied Scott.

'Let's hear them both.'

'Neither is going to make you feel any happier, Mr Secretary.'

'Nevertheless...'

'First he sets up a press conference, inviting the world's media to attend. He selects some public place in Baghdad where he is safely surrounded by his own people, and then he tears up, burns, destroys, does whatever he likes to the Declaration. I have a feeling it would make prime-time television.'

'But we'd bomb Baghdad to the ground if he tried that,'said Dexter Hutchins.

'I doubt it,' said Scott. 'How would our allies, the British, the French, not to mention the other friendly Arab nations, react to our bombing innocent civilians because Saddam had stolen the Declaration of Independence from right under our eyes?'

'You're right, Scott,' said Warren Christopher. 'The President would be vilified as a barbarian if he retaliated by bombing innocent Iraqis after what a lot of the world would consider nothing more than a public relations coup, though I must tell you, in the strictest confidence, that we do have plans to bomb Baghdad if Saddam continues to undermine the UN inspection teams' attempts to examine Iraqi nuclear installations.'

'Has a date been decided on?' asked Scott.

Christopher hesitated. 'Sunday June 27th,' he said.

'The timing might well turn out to be unfortunate for us,'

said Scott.

'Why? When do you think Saddam is likely to move?' asked Christopher.

'That's not so easy to answer, sir,' replied Scott, 'because you have to think the way he thinks. What makes that almost impossible is that he's capable of changing his mind from hour to hour. But if he thinks the problem through logically, my guess is he'll be considering two alternatives.

Either on some symbolic date, maybe an anniversary a.s.sociated with the Gulf War, or.. .'

'Or .. .?' said Christopher.

'Or he intends to hold on to it as a bargaining chip to allow him to retake the oilfields in Kuwait. After all, he's always claimed he had an agreement with us on that in the first place.'

'Either scenario is too horrific to contemplate,' said the Secretary of State. Turning to the Deputy Director, he asked, 'Have you begun to form any plan for getting the doc.u.ment back?'

'Not at the moment, sir,' replied Dexter Hutchins, 'as I suspect the parchment will be every bit as well protected as Saddam himself, and frankly we only learned of its likely destination last night.'

'Colonel Kratz,' said Christopher, turning his attention to the Mossad man, who had not uttered a word. 'Your Prime Minister informed us a few weeks ago that he was considering a plan to take out Saddam at some time in the near future.''Yes, sir, but he recognises your present dilemma, and all our activities have been shelved until the problem over the Declaration has been resolved, one way or the other.'

'I have already informed Mr Rabin how much I appreciate his support, especially as he can't even tell his own cabinet the true reason for his change of heart.'

'But we have our own problem, sir,' said the Israeli.

'Make my day, Colonel.'

The burst of laughter that followed helped to ease the tension for a moment - but only for a moment.

'We have been training an agent who was going to be part of the team for the final operation to eliminate Saddam, a Hannah Kopec'

'The girl who...' said Christopher, half-glancing towards Scott.

'Yes, sir. She was totally blameless. But that is not the problem. After she returned to the Iraqi Emba.s.sy that evening, we were unable to get anywhere near Miss Kopec to let her know what had happened, because during the next few days she never once left the building, night or day. She and the Iraqi Amba.s.sador have since returned to Baghdad under heavy guard. However, Agent Kopec remains under the misapprehension that she has killed Scott Bradley, and we suspect her only interest now is to eliminate Saddam.'

'She'll never get anywhere near him,' said Leigh.

'I wish I believed that,' said Scott quietly.

'She is a bold, imaginative and resourceful young woman,'

said Kratz. 'And, worse, she has the a.s.sa.s.sin's greatest weapon.'

'Namely?' said Christopher.

'She no longer cares about her own survival.'

'Can this get any worse?' asked Christopher.

'Yes, sir. She knows nothing about the disappearance of the Declaration, and we have no way of contacting her to let her know.'

The Secretary of State paused for a moment, as if he was coming to a decision. 'Colonel Kratz, I want to put something to you which is likely to stretch your personal loyalty.'

'Yes, Mr Secretary,' said Kratz.

'This plan to a.s.sa.s.sinate Saddam. How long have you been working on it?'

'Nine months to a year,' replied Kratz.