Read Online Honour Among Thieves by Jeffrey Archer - Free Book Online

what do you want? I'll do anything to get my daughter back safely.' 'The company I represent specialises in gathering skills, and one of our clients is in need of your particular expertise.' 'But you could have called and made an appointment like anyone else,' he said in disbelief. 'Not for what we have in mind, I suspect. And, in any case, we have a time problem, and we felt Sally might help us get to the front of the queue.' 'I don't understand.' 'That's why I'm here,' said the woman. Twenty minutes later, when both cups of coffee were stone cold, T. Hamilton McKenzie understood exactly what was expected of him. He was silent for some time before he said, 'I'm not sure if I can do it. To begin with, it's professionally unethical. And do you realise just how hard -' The woman leaned down and removed something else from her bag. She tossed a small gold earring over to his side of the table. 'Perhaps this will make it a little easier for you.' T. Hamilton McKenzie picked up his daughter's earring. 'Tomorrow you get the other earring,' the woman continued. 'On Friday the first ear. On Saturday the other ear. If you keep on worrying about your ethics, Dr McKenzie, there won't be much of your daughter left by this time next week.' 'You wouldn't...' 'Ask John Paul Getty III if we wouldn't.' T. Hamilton McKenzie rose from the table and leaned across. 'We can speed the whole process up if that's the way you want it,' she added, displaying not the slightest sign of fear. McKenzie slumped back into his seat and tried to compose himself. 'Good,' she said. 'That's better. At least we now seem to understand each other.' 'So what happens next?' he asked. 'We'll be back in touch with you sometime later today. So make sure you're in. Because I feel confident that by then you'll have come to terms with your professional ethics.' McKenzie was about to protest when the woman stood up, took a five-dollar bill out of her bag and placed it on the table. 'Can't have Columbus's leading surgeon washing up the dishes, can we?' She turned to leave and had reached the door before it struck McKenzie that they even knew he had left the house without his wallet. T. Hamilton McKenzie began to consider her proposition, not certain if he had been left with any alternative. But he was certain of one thing. If he carried out their demands, then President Clinton was going to end up with an even bigger problem. A QUIET MAN sat on a stool at the end of the bar emptying the final drops in his glass. The glass had been almost empty of Guinness for some time, but the Irishman always hoped that the movement would arouse some sympathy in the barman, and he might just be kind enough to pour a drop more into the empty glass. But not this particular barman. 'Bastard,' he said under his breath. It was always the young ones who had no heart. The barman didn't know the customer's real name. For that matter, few people did except the FBI and the San Francisco Police Department. The file at the SFPD gave William Sean O'Reilly's age as fifty-two. A casual onlooker might have judged him to be nearer sixty-five, not just because of his well-worn clothes, but from the pronounced lines on his forehead, the wrinkled bags under his eyes and the extra inches around his waist. O'Reilly blamed it on three alimonies, four jail sentences and going too many rounds in his youth as an amateur boxer. He never blamed it on the Guinness. The problem had begun at school when O'Reilly discovered by sheer chance that he could copy his classmates' signatures when they signed chits to withdraw pocket money from the school bank. By the time he had completed his first year at Trinity College, Dublin, he could forge the signatures of the provost and the bursar so well that even they believed that they had awarded him a bursary. While at St Patrick's Institution for Offenders, Bill was introduced to the banknote by Liam the Counterfeiter. When they opened the gates to let him out, the young apprentice