The Washington Stratagem (13 page)

Fareed Hussein had been ambivalent about Masters and her paper. He still thought of himself as an old-school idealist who believed that money and the UN’s moral obligations should not mix. But he sensed that the mood was changing in Washington, DC, in favor of a greater role for corporations within the UN—and Washington paid 25 percent of the UN budget. He was also instinctively opposed to any new ideas from subordinates unless he could somehow claim credit for them, which in this case was not possible. However, Hussein had not risen to the thirty-eighth floor without a keen sense for the changing zeitgeist. As Masters’s paper was increasingly cited and quoted, especially in meetings with US officials, the SG began to shift his position. Yael and many others believed that Masters’s theories had provided the intellectual underpinning of the KZX–Bonnet Group plan for the Goma Development Zone. However, as a highly skilled political operator, Masters had managed to keep her name from being publicly associated with the scandal. Thus even though the Goma Development Zone had gone horribly wrong, Masters had emerged with her reputation more or less intact.

Those inside the UN who were less enthusiastic about big business had dubbed Masters’s proposals “aid wash,” a mechanism for companies to launder their reputations through the UN. Nonetheless, Masters’s paper had been enthusiastically received by the State Department. Masters had moved to New York two years ago, tasked with setting up the new Corporate Liaison Department of USAID, the American government development agency, working out of the US mission to the UN. After six months, once that was up and running, she joined the UN’s Department of Political Affairs as an assistant secretary-general. Didier had also moved to New York and they briefly reunited—until he obtained a fast-tracked green card and returned to his Danish girlfriend.

Masters shrugged. “Is this relevant?”

Yael smiled, ignoring the question. “Didier. He’s married now, to Renate. You remember her, the Danish woman? They have a child on the way. They are living in Red Hook. He seemed very happy. He said he had tried to call you but no luck so far. He gave me his number. Would you like it?”

It was a half truth. Yael had not seen Didier on the subway, but the rest was true. Nor did Yael have Didier’s telephone number, but she knew she would not need it.

“Sure. Thanks.” Masters’s face froze for several seconds before she tried to recover her composure. She reached for her coffee cup, her hand still unsteady. “Actually, no. I don’t want… need it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you knew. You aren’t in touch anymore?” asked Yael, her voice full of concern.

“No. We are not.” Masters’s eyes shone with anger and not just because of the news about Didier. She knew exactly what Yael was doing. She had fallen straight into the trap and humiliated herself.

Yael stopped smiling. “Is that what this is all about, Caroline?”

“All what?”

“Aid wash. KZX. Your love affair with big business. This is your revenge, isn’t it?”

Masters stared at Yael, her coffee cup in her hand. She placed the cup down carefully on the table, as though worried it might spontaneously shatter from the force of her emotions.

“You, Fareed, Braithwaite,” Masters almost hissed, her chest rising and falling, her eyes blazing, her voice tight. “You are all dinosaurs. Countries, borders, nation-states—it’s all over.
You don’t get it
. The only people who understand global governance are the corporations. KZX has a bigger turnover than the GDP of twenty-three countries.
That
is the future.” She closed her eyes for a few seconds and shivered.

Yael watched Masters with fascination. It had indeed been a useful lesson. “Maybe. But my future? Three options, you said.”

Masters opened her eyes, calm now. “The first is to follow the opinion of those in this house who feel that you should be sacked, immediately, stripped of your immunity, and handed over to the law enforcement agencies that wish to interview you.”

“Fareed has confirmed my UN status,” Yael replied. The anger was rising inside her again, but she would not show any emotion, especially not to Masters.

“In writing?”

“Of course not. But he gave me his word.”

“Fareed’s word may not be enough.”

“Meaning?”

“I told you. Fareed is on sick leave. He may not be well enough to confirm your conversation.”

Yael watched Masters carefully as she spoke. For a split second the deputy SG’s eyes had looked at the door.
Bingo
, thought Yael.
Subconsciously, she wants to escape. She is not comfortable with this. I can work with that
.

Masters continued talking. “And there is this.” Masters opened the folder on the corner table and took out two photographs. Underneath the pictures, Yael saw, was a pile of e-mails, addressed to Fareed Hussein. Amid the jumble of upside-down text, she saw the word “Prometheus.”

Masters continued talking as she handed Yael the first photograph. “There are new developments, with serious implications. The NYPD and the police in Geneva have both launched murder investigations. The NYPD is investigating the death of Jean-Pierre Hakizimani, seen here, on the floor of room 3017 at the Millennium Hotel.”

Yael looked at the picture. The color balance was washed out, as though the printer had been running out of ink. But it was definitely Hakizimani, staring at her with lifeless eyes, his body barely covered by the hotel bathrobe he had been wearing when she had jabbed him for the second time with her stun gun, disguised as a mobile phone. She had not intended to kill him—or thought she had not—but there was no point in denying her actions.

Yael gave the photograph back to Masters, saying nothing. That was one of the first lessons her instructors had taught her: watch, listen, and don’t speak unless you have something to say. Let the other person fill in the silence, especially if they, like Masters, were unsure of themselves.

Masters passed Yael the second photograph. “The other investigation has been launched by the Swiss police.”

Yael looked at the image. It showed a bald man with pronounced ears floating facedown in Lake Geneva. Yael willed herself not to touch the small circle of scar tissue on her left shoulder. She smiled to herself at the irony of her situation. She had spent much of her career presenting photographs and other evidence to warlords, killers, and corrupt businessmen to get the result she wanted. Now she was on the receiving end.

“A murder investigation is a very serious matter, Yael,” said Masters. “Especially one in Geneva. It is crucial that we maintain good relations there.”

“The second option?” asked Yael, picking up her tea. She dipped her little finger into the drink. It was barely tepid now.

“You will depart gracefully, as you wish to explore new opportunities outside the UN. We would recognize your decade of loyal service with a year’s pay and a guarantee of lifetime legal immunity, subject of course to you signing a confidentiality agreement.”

Yael leaned forward as if to ask a question, and dropped her cup onto the table. It shattered, splashing tea all over Masters.

She apologized profusely. Masters’s face twisted in anger for a second, before resuming its professional mask. Yael grabbed some napkins and made to pat Masters’s leg dry. The deputy SG shook her head, got up, and walked over to the small kitchenette, her back to Yael. A puddle of brown liquid crept toward Masters’s folder.

The heat hits her like a wall as she walks into no-man’s-land
.

Even the wind is hot
—yellow with sand, heavy with the stench of sewage. Nothing moves, except the waves breaking gently on the beach nearby. She feels the watchers staring at her from both sides of the border, their eyes boring into her
.

The boy is standing on a patch of scrubland, wearing a blue windbreaker and jeans. His jacket bulges unnaturally. He is short, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, leaning forward as though weighed down. He looks strangely calm, almost serene
.

He smiles as she approaches
.

She greets the boy in Arabic. He returns her greeting
.

She crouches down next to him, so their heads are the same height. He tells her of the money that has been promised to his family, of the paradise that awaits. She nods, listening carefully, smiling at him, making careful eye contact. She sees that he is mentally handicapped. He speaks with the phrases, and articulates the thoughts of a much younger child
.

The boy’s face suddenly turns fearful as though only now does he realize what he is about to do. He tenses and turns pale, the fingers of his right hand tightening
.

She slips her hand around his, her voice soothing
.

Yael had a few seconds at most. Masters’s back was still turned. She opened the folder, grabbed the e-mail printouts, slipped them into her purse, and closed the folder.

Masters returned, her skirt still damp. “Let us continue,” she said, suspecting nothing.

Part of Yael wanted to jump at Masters’s offer. Twelve months’ salary, combined with her savings, would be enough to live on for several years. Especially because she owned her apartment. But she would decide her fate herself, not be disposed of at the convenience of career bureaucrats like Masters. And if she left, she would never find out the truth about David’s death. “I don’t want to resign. Why can’t I just have my job back?”

Masters looked at Yael. “I have already explained. There are two ongoing murder investigations into your activities. Returning to work in your former position is out of the question until they are resolved.”

“You know as well as I do that you can make all of this go away with a couple of telephone calls.”

Masters smiled. “You overestimate my influence. And in any case, the UN is committed to transparency in legal proceedings, Yael,
especially
where its staff members are concerned.”

Yael shrugged. “Sack me if you want. Hand me over to the NYPD. Send me to Switzerland to face trial. I won’t resign.” She paused. “But I might give some interviews.”

Yael knew that there was no chance of her either being arrested or extradited. She knew far too much about the UN’s inner workings, and too many of the P5’s innermost secrets, to be surrendered to an outside law enforcement agency. Masters couldn’t sack her because of the publicity that would follow. The whole organization would look guilty, as though it had something to hide. The UN press corps would have a feeding frenzy. So what next?

Yael sat back and sipped her tea. Masters’s offer was coming, she was sure.

“There may be a third option,” said Masters. “Although I doubt it will appeal.”

“Please let me be the judge of that. What is it?”

“The Trusteeship Council.”

Yael almost laughed out loud. It was a beautiful maneuver. Masters clearly wanted her out of the picture, but in a way that would not raise questions.

Sidelining her was, from Masters’s perspective, the best alternative. The Trusteeship Council would certainly do that. The council was the UN’s graveyard, a final stop for those whose careers had come to an end. It had been set up in 1945 to oversee the transition from colonial rule to independence for territories such as Italian Somaliland. It had suspended operations in 1994, but met very occasionally to read and consider reports on its former fiefdoms. If Yael accepted the Trusteeship Council position, she would still be tied to the UN, where they could keep an eye on her, but completely marginalized. Or so Masters clearly believed.

Her mobile telephone rings. The boy jumps at the sound. She gives him the phone
.

The boy listens to his mother’s voice and starts to cry. Something falls from his right hand, suspended by a wire. She catches it
.

The boy leans against her, choking and stuttering, her shoulder sodden with his snot and tears. She reaches into her back pocket
.

An army Jeep roars up, its blue-and-white flag fluttering in the wind, and stops fifty yards away
.

There are three passengers. A bomb-disposal expert emerges, lumbering toward her in full body armor and fishbowl helmet, like a khaki astronaut
.

She signals to him, a thumbs-up. The bomb-disposal expert lurches forward until he is standing in front of her. He holds his hand out
.

She drops the detonator in his palm
.

Yael looked out the window, over the East River. The sky was darkening, thick gray clouds gathering. A storm was brewing. And she had to be in a distant part of the city in less than two hours. Masters thought she had outmaneuvered her. Let her believe that, because for the moment at least, both of their interests coincided. Masters wanted her trapped inside the UN. And she had to stay, for David, for herself, and even, she thought to her surprise, for Fareed. This was the only option.

“The Trusteeship Council sounds great. I will take it.”

Henrik Schneidermann knelt forward and spat out the last morsels of his lunch. The shreds of beef and vegetables landed on the back of the toilet and slid down into the water, leaving a trail of slime on the cistern. He sat up, breathing hard, and wiped away the skein of saliva hanging from his mouth, counting how many times he had retched. This was the sixth bout, so hopefully he was done now. He had reached for the button to flush the toilet when his stomach convulsed again. He bent over as a gobbet of liquid shot out of his mouth; then he coughed, and groaned softly. But the vomit was clear now, just saliva and stomach juices.

Schneidermann waited, still on his knees, for a minute. The churning in his guts slowed, then stopped. He sat up, wiped the sheen of cold sweat from his forehead, closed the lid, and pressed the flush button. The built-in electric motor swiftly and silently sucked away the detritus. He was done. There was nothing left.

He turned sideways and leaned against the wall of the UN’s executive bathroom, his eyes closed, his shirt damp on his skin, his heart racing. The Italian tiles felt cool against his back. The room was peaceful, the only sound that of water flowing through the pipes and the distant hum of an air conditioner. Perhaps he could just stay here for the afternoon. He looked at his watch. It was 3:40 p.m. Another twenty minutes until his weekly mauling began. Today, after the Al Jazeera and the
New York Times
stories about Yael, it would be especially tough. Unless he revealed what he had recently learned, which would trigger a different kind of uproar. He smiled to himself. Maybe he would tell all. But not at the press conference, just to one select journalist, and carefully. Schneidermann had closed his eyes and begun to drift away when he heard a sharp knocking on the door.