The Washington Stratagem (20 page)

Yael shook her head. “South Ferry to 168th is about a forty-minute subway ride on the one. I spent three hours getting here, including a lengthy ride up and down the escalators on every floor of Macy’s, half an hour crisscrossing the subways at Times Square, and a walk across Central Park. So, no, I don’t think I was followed.”

Beaker nodded. “I hope not. Take a look at this.”

Sami sat down with the two men, watching them carefully, fully alert now. He knew this was bullshit. The INS did not operate like this. They either called people in for an interview or raided premises where illegal immigrants were living. This was not an interview, nor was it a raid.

The photograph now lying on his coffee table erased any doubts. He could call the police. But that would not solve anything. These two, or others even worse, would soon be back. It was better to find out as much as he could about who they were and what they wanted, so he knew with whom he was dealing. Sami looked out the corner of his eye at his laptop, open in the corner of the room.

The man with the birthmark tapped the photograph. “What do you know about her?” he demanded.

Sami picked up the photograph and looked at it for several moments. He put it down, looked up at the ceiling, and thought for several moments before he replied. “She’s a good cook.”

Henrik Schneidermann strode down First Avenue, confident and full of vim, as he deftly weaved a path through the crowds of early-morning commuters. It was 7:45 a.m. on Thursday and the sun was bright in a turquoise sky dotted by white wisps of cloud, as though it had been washed clean by the squalls of the previous evening. The smell of coffee and cooking bacon drifted out from a diner on the corner of East Fifty-Fourth Street. He stopped to let an elderly lady dressed in a navy-blue designer jacket and matching skirt pass by. She was leading a tiny pug on a leash with one hand and holding a Starbucks cup with the other, and smiled as she thanked him. Taxis hooted; gusts of steam rose from the sidewalk grill. The air crackled with energy and opportunity. He would miss these Manhattan mornings.

His meeting with Fareed Hussein had dispelled any lingering doubts about his planned course of action. The SG had called him at 6:30 a.m. In normal times he and the SG often met early in the morning at his residence to talk through the day’s news agenda. From there they sometimes rode to the office together in the SG’s limousine, which still gave Schneidermann a childish thrill. But there had been no limousine rides since the SG had gone on sick leave, and Schneidermann doubted they would resume any time soon, especially after their conversation today.

Schneidermann had almost let Hussein’s call go to voice mail because he did not recognize the number. The SG, it seemed, was no longer using his UN-issued telephone, but he remained in the four-story townhouse and had invited him to come over for breakfast. Schneidermann had hesitated because of his breakfast date with Sami Boustani at 8:30 a.m. But he had accepted. He had not seen his boss since Caroline Masters had moved into Hussein’s office. It was clear to Schneidermann that Masters had indeed organized a coup, and he knew his days were numbered. Roxana Voiculescu now appeared in his office on unnecessary errands almost every hour, barely able to contain her excitement as she assessed the furniture and fittings, far less subtly than she supposed.

Schneidermann’s curiosity was piqued when the SG requested he use the rear tradesman’s entrance of the townhouse, rather than the front door where the NYPD maintained a twenty-four-hour watch. The SG had skated over Schneidermann’s questions about his health, stonewalling with claims of specialist appointments and waiting time for test results. Schneidermann had watched him carefully during their meeting. His hand did not shake when he poured the coffee or when he proffered a plate of pastries. His eyes were clear, his sentences lucid, his posture upright. They talked cordially about the plans for the Istanbul Summit during their brief breakfast and Hussein’s regret that he was no longer involved in its organization.

Both knew that the house was bugged by all of the P5’s intelligence services and probably several others. Hussein had suggested a walk in the garden. He was as fit and composed as ever as they walked back and forth across the manicured lawn. There Hussein gave Schneidermann a slim blue folder. He’d leafed through the contents and immediately understood the reason for his summons. As he slipped the folder into his briefcase, Hussein wished him an enjoyable breakfast with Sami Boustani. The message was clear. Schneidermann smiled as he imagined Sami’s reaction when he gave him the folder. Its contents were explosive—and further proof of what Schneidermann already knew.

Schneidermann stopped at the corner of East Fifty-Second Street, waiting for the lights to change, his briefcase in his hand. He planned to walk the ten blocks or so to McLaughlin’s. He wanted to think through his breakfast with the SG. How did Fareed know that he was having breakfast with the
New York Times
correspondent? The same way that he knew so much about what was happening in the Secretariat Building. It was impossible to serve as secretary-general of the UN without having finely tuned political antennae, and Fareed had an uncanny ability to read the runes, calibrate and recalibrate policies as necessary, depending on the flow of power among the P5. Information was power and Hussein was a survivor. He had survived the KZX-Bonnet scandal, even though the UN had almost been hijacked under his leadership and his wife, Zeinab, had been exposed by Sami Boustani as a major shareholder in a Congolese firm that would have reaped enormous profits from the planned UN–corporate development zone. So the question was, why had the SG seemingly surrendered this time without a fight, and allowed this nonsense about blackouts, when he was clearly in perfect health?

Schneidermann had of course heard the whispers that Hussein had been compromised for decades. They led back to the darkest days of the UN: the Rwandan genocide in spring 1994 and the capture of Srebrenica the following summer, when Hussein had served as head of the Department of Peacekeeping and had forbidden the UN troops to intervene, claiming they had no mandate to do so. Most UN insiders believed a few battalions of peacekeepers could have stopped the Rwandan massacres within a few days had there been sufficient will to deploy them, either in the Secretariat or among the P5. Mbaye Diagne, a brave Senegalese peacekeeper, had saved hundreds of lives on his own by physically preventing the Hutu militiamen from killing their planned victims. A UN commission of inquiry had later found that Hussein had acted correctly in his interpretation. Schneidermann truly believed that the UN’s disastrous response—or lack of one—to the Rwandan genocide could not be blamed in large part on Hussein. It was the result of an outmoded and dysfunctional organization, one designed for another era, which had proved completely inadequate for the challenges of the postwar world.

The catastrophe at Srebrenica, however, remained a mystery. Schneidermann knew that Hussein was haunted by his actions, or lack of them, during the summer of 1995, a year on from the slaughter in Rwanda. A small city in eastern Bosnia, Srebrenica had been besieged by the Bosnian Serbs for three years but was supposedly protected by a battalion of Dutch UN troops. UN military observers had warned for days that the Bosnian Serbs were preparing to attack the enclave. When the onslaught came, the UN troops stood by. The promised air strikes never materialized.

There were rumors that the UN had done a deal with the Bosnian Serbs:
We will let you take Srebrenica in exchange for signing up for a peace deal to end the war
. If there had been such a deal, it had gone horribly wrong. The Bosnian Serbs marched in, and the peacekeepers watched as eight thousand Bosnian Muslim men and boys were led away and slaughtered. The Dutch troops even forced three hundred Muslims out of their compound, where the terrified civilians had taken refuge. A second UN commission of inquiry had again exonerated Hussein, arguing that the troop’s mandate did not provide for an armed response. But the whispers about Hussein’s culpability still swirled around the building. One claim in particular horrified Schneidermann. But that was in the past. The information in this folder was incendiary and a very dangerous power play by Hussein, for once it was released it could never be recalled. The blowback might see Hussein back in his office within days, or bring him down for good.

Deep in his thoughts, Schneidermann barely noticed when something bumped into his left side. He stopped and looked around. A man had slipped on the sidewalk, banging into Schneidermann as he went down. He looked Middle Eastern, with sallow skin and a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. He looked at Schneidermann, his hand outstretched as he scrabbled to get up.

Schneidermann instinctively reached down to help.

“I am sorry. Thank you so much,” said the man, grasping Schneidermann’s hand. “Excuse me for the inconvenience. It’s never a good idea to rush with new shoes and their slippery soles.”

Schneidermann nodded, wondering about the man’s accent, but barely registering the incident. “It’s no problem. You are welcome. Take care.”

The man thanked him again and walked off. Keeping a tight hold on his briefcase, Schneidermann watched him disappear into the crowd, wondering why the man was wearing black leather gloves on such a warm spring day.

Sami Boustani put down that day’s edition of the
New York Times
and looked around the back room of McLaughlin’s. It was dark, musty, and smelled of stale beer. Last night’s dirty glasses were piled up on the long wooden bar. The dark brown walls were still stained with nicotine, even though smoking had been banned in Manhattan bars for more than a decade. This was his second visit to McLaughlin’s in the last twenty-four hours. It had a ramshackle charm for an early-evening drink but would not have been his ideal choice for a breakfast meeting. Sami was the only customer. There were no staff in sight. Did they even serve breakfast here? The place was open and Schneidermann had suggested it, so it must serve something. He checked his watch. It was now 8:50 a.m. Where was he? Schneidermann was usually punctual for their meetings. If he was going to be late, because of some developing crisis at the UN, he always called or sent a text message. He had promised to call or text if he could not make it. Sami checked his mobile once more: no messages. He called Schneidermann’s mobile for the third time, but it went straight to voice mail. Sami had already left two messages. There was no point leaving another.

The waitress, a skinny woman in her early twenties with black spiky hair, appeared out of a side door near the bar.

“Hi. Ready to order?” she asked.

“Can I see a menu?”

She stifled a yawn. “Eggs, oatmeal, or corned beef hash.”

“Oatmeal. And juice and coffee please.”

The waitress left and Sami returned to his newspaper, scanning a story out of Washington, DC. A right-wing Republican, known for his ties to the Pentagon, was demanding that the United States withdraw from the Istanbul Summit, saying it would only benefit America’s enemies. President Freshwater had condemned the call but the new secretary of defense, Harlen Delacroix, said he shared some of the Republican senator’s concerns. Delacroix was a Southern Democrat, appointed by Freshwater as a sop to her party’s right wing. He was best known for trying to pilot a bill through Congress that would have reduced the United States’ contribution to the UN budget by 90 percent. Delacroix had only been in office for two weeks, so it was early to be staking out his own position. Either Freshwater was weakening or Delacroix had powerful backers, or, most likely, both.

Sami put the newspaper down. He couldn’t really concentrate on Washington’s version of Kremlinology at the moment. He felt unsettled, perhaps, he admitted to himself, even scared. At first he had stonewalled his visitors, saying he knew no more about Yael than was public knowledge: she carried out sensitive assignments for the SG and was now sidelined, running the Trusteeship Council.

The man with the birthmark had told him to try harder. When Sami continued stonewalling, he had produced another set of photographs. Now Sami reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out an envelope. He stared at the prints for the countless time that morning. There were six shots—of Sami, his mother and sister on their trip to Gaza the previous summer to see their relatives. The men had left, assuring Sami that they would be back in a day or two.

He looked up as the door swung open. At last, he thought, until he saw who walked in. What was she doing here? It was barely nine o’clock and his day was going from bad to worse. Sami quickly gathered the photographs together, placed them back in the envelope, and slipped it back into his jacket pocket.

Najwa sat down opposite Sami. He felt even more nervous now, nervous and guilty.

The waitress walked over with Sami’s coffee and looked at Najwa. “I’ll have the corned beef hash and coffee,” Najwa said, ignoring Sami.

Sami was about to speak when Najwa turned to him. “Don’t worry. He is not coming.”

The offices of the Trusteeship Council were situated at the end of a long, poorly lit corridor on the third floor of a little-used annex of the General Assembly Building, near the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Library. The bemused security guards had spent twenty minutes looking for the keys to open the doors. There were two rooms: one around fifteen feet by twelve, with a small window, and a smaller windowless space. An old-fashioned metal desk stood in the center of each space, on top of which sat an electronic typewriter and a rotary telephone.

Yael picked up the handset of the telephone in the larger room and held it to her ear. Silence. She checked her mobile telephone. There was no signal from any of the UN Wi-Fi networks. There was barely any mobile network signal. One bar of the network reception indicator showed on her phone, as did the telltale blue light.

Yael had, in theory, a staff of two—Lucy Chen, her personal assistant, and Jindal Patel, her political adviser. She had never heard of either, let alone met them, and had googled their names the previous evening. Chen, the daughter of the Chinese deputy chief of mission, was moonlighting at a Chinese technology company, whose New York office was conveniently located on East Forty-Third Street. Patel, the daughter of the press attaché at the Indian mission, was an intern at
Glamour
magazine.