The hour of the counterfeiters

The Hour of the Counterfeiters (Originally Honor Among Thieves ) is a 1993 novel by Jeffrey Archer .

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The action takes place in 1993, after the Gulf War . Saddam Hussein wants to take revenge on the USA and thereby humiliate it by having the original of the Declaration of Independence kept in the national archives replaced by an almost perfect copy to be burned in public on July 4th, the American national holiday.

The Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations, Hamid al Obaydi, contacted the attorney Antonio Cavalli, a leading member of the New York Mafia, and offered him $ 100 million for the exchange and theft of this document.

At the same time, the young Israeli Hannah Kopec, a young Mossad agent, takes part in a conspiracy for personal reasons with the aim of murdering Saddam.

First, the exchange of the declaration of independence works. However, the US government can expose the fraud. The law professor at Yale University, Scott Bradley, who has previously worked with Hannah Kopec, is commissioned by the CIA to get the certificate back, which he finally succeeds after a lengthy chase.