Krishna
Jeffrey Archer is one of those authors whose books you can buy (almost blindly, without even reading the blurb) knowing two things – a) it will entertain and b) it would be an easy read without taxing your brain too much – ideal for those plane rides where you want to be entertained but without too much education!
This one will reward you for those beliefs. It falls neatly into that pattern. Let us look at the story.
Antonio Cavalli meets Hamid Al Obaydi, a deputy ambassador from the Middle East. The latter promises to pay 10 million by next day for a 100 million job. Scott Bradley is a lecturer. He gets a special mission. Hannah, a model like beauty joins Mossad because her whole family was killed by Scud missiles.
Al Obaydi delivers the advance in a secret meeting.
A small girl who is the daughter of a famed plastic surgeon is kidnapped and used as a pawn for him to perform a surgery on someone to look exactly like someone else. However, after the surgery, the daughter is killed.
Bill, known as Dollar Bill, is a master forger and is commissioned to make a fake of something mysterious, and is given everything he is asked for.
The President’s duplicate successfully passes muster in a public show and in the meanwhile Hannah is asked to go undercover as an Arab secretary in Paris.
Meanwhile Saddam reveals the plan to steal the Declaration of Independence, and burn it publicly on a July 4. The movie shot plan to hoodwink the duplicate into the museum is proceeding, not without some glitches. (A drunk counterfeiter, traffic jams etc). At this point you know who Al Obaydi is working for and who the plastic surgeon is blackmailed to work on.
They manage to extract the document after feigning the fake President’s heart attack.
Al Obaydi in the meanwhile traps Cavelli with pictures, insuring against a betrayal or failure since he has already paid a million dollars out of the hundred million. Meanwhile Hannah falls in love with Simon Rosenthal as the professor calls himself. Then she poisons him suspecting him to be a spy for Iraq and is devastated to learn the truth just before he collapses. She now has only one purpose: to assassinate Saddam by herself, as a revenge for her lover being killed.
The White House discovers the theft by the late vigilance of the Archivist who was duped by the duplicate President. Meanwhile, Al Obaydi realizes that for all the work he did, all the credit went to Saddam’s brother and he has been totally ignored. In addition, the CIA has got hold of the safe and takes it to Iraq as if they are the installers, Scott among them.
Hannah finally gets to meet Al Obaydi, the first step towards meeting and killing Saddam. The forger is now recruited by the American government to create yet another perfect replica of the Declaration of Independence.
Cavelli and his father grow suspicious when Dollar Bill disappears before they can get to him to fix him for good. Al Obaydi is arrested upon his triumphant return and charged with treason. When the Americans reach Baghdad, their treachery has already been discovered and they seem to walk straight into a trap, totally unsuspicious.
The cat and mouse games of ‘real’ and ‘fake’ declarations going in and out is a nice sequence of twists. Of course, if you put the reality filter the whole thing is quite absurd but you do not view books like this from that perspective. You go along for the ride. Remember our first discussion above?
They manage to get out with the death of everyone but Scott and Hannah and finally figure out that the ‘original ‘ declaration that they saved is also a fake!
The ending is cute with snippets of what happens. Nice book. Unbelievable story as all the stories from Jeffrey Archer are, but enjoyable.
7/10
– – Krishna (Nov 2018)