Continued on page B4.
It would all happen tomorrow, and what happened would depend on how good their preparations were.
One foot in front of the other.
Janson—officially an outside security consultant hired by the Executive Office of the Secretary-General—had spent the last four hours wandering through the United Nations complex. What had they forgotten? Janson tried to think, but mists kept closing in on him; he had slept very little in the past few days, had been trying to sustain himself with black coffee and aspirin. One foot in front of the other. This was the civilian reconnaissance mission upon which everything would depend.
The U.N. complex, extending along the East River from Forty-second Street to Forty-eighth Street, was an island unto itself. The Secretariat Building loomed thirty-nine stories; in the skyline of the city, celebrated landmarks like the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building were skinny protuberances by comparison—trees beside a mountain. What distinguished the Secretariat wasn’t its height so much as its enormous breadth, greater than a city block. On either side of the building, the curtain wall of blue-green Thermopane glass and aluminum was identical, each floor demarcated by a black row of spandrels, its symmetry interrupted only by the irregularly spaced grilles of the mechanical floors. The two narrow ends were covered with Vermont marble—a concession, Janson recalled, to the former Vermont senator who had chaired the Headquarters Advisory Committee and served as America’s permanent representative to the U.N. In a more innocent era, Frank Lloyd Wright termed the Secretariat “a super-crate, to ship a fiasco to hell.” The words now seemed menacingly prescient.
The low General Assembly Building, which was situated just to the north of the Secretariat, was more adventurous in design. It was an oddly curvate rectangle, swooping down in the middle and flaring to either end. An incongruous dome—another concession to the senator—was placed on the center of its roof, looking like an oversize turbine vent. Now that the General Assembly Building was vacant, he paced through it several times, his eyes sweeping every surface as if for the first time. The south wall was pure glass, creating a light and airy delegates’ lounge, overlooked by sweeping white balconies in three tiers. In the center of the building, the Assembly Hall was a vast semicircular atrium, green leather seats arranged around the central dais, which was a vast altar of green marble atop black. Looming over it, mounted on a vast gilded wall, was the circular U.N. logo—the two wheatlike garlands beneath a stylized view of the globe. For some reason, the globe logo, with its circles and perpendicular lines, struck him as a view centered upon the crosshairs of a scope: target earth.
“Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs,” the Russian crooned tunelessly.
“Grigori?” Janson said into his cell phone. Of course it was Grigori. Janson glanced around the vast atrium, taking in the two huge mounted video screens on either side of the rostrum. “You doing OK?”
“Never better!” Grigori Berman said stoutly. “Back in own home. Private nurse named Ingrid! Second day, I keep dropping thermometer on floor just to watch her bend over. The haunches on this filly—Venus in white Keds! Ingrid, I say, how about you play nurse? ‘Meester Berman,’ she squeals, very shocked, ‘I am nurse.’”
“Listen, Grigori, I’ve got a request to make. If you’re not up to it, though, just let me know.” Janson spoke for a few minutes, providing a handful of necessary details; either Berman would work out the rest or he wouldn’t.
Berman was silent for a few moments when Janson finished talking. “Now it is Grigori Berman who is shocked. What you propose, sir, is unethical, immoral, illegal—is devious violation of standards and practices of international banking.” A beat. “I love it.”
“Thought so,” said Janson. “And you can pull it off?”
“I get by with a little help from my friends,” Berman crooned.
“You sure you’re up to doing this?”
“You ask Ingrid what Grigori Berman can do,” he answered, spluttering with indignation. “What Grigori up to doing? What Grigori not up to doing?”
Janson clicked off his Ericsson and kept pacing through the hall. He walked behind the green-marble lectern where speakers stood to address the assembled, and looked out at the banked tiers of seats where the delegates would be congregated. The chief national representatives would fill the first fifteen rows of chairs and tables. Placards were mounted on bars that ran along the curved tables, country names spelled out in white letters on black: along one side of an aisle, PERU, MEXICO, INDIA, EL SALVADOR, COLOMBIA, BOLIVIA, others he could not make out in the dim light. To the other side, PARAGUAY, LUXEMBOURG, ICELAND, EGYPT, CHINA, BELGIUM, YEMEN, UNITED KINGDOM, and more. The order seemed random, but the placards went on and on, signposts for an endlessly various, endlessly fractured world. At the long tables, there were buttons that delegates could press to signal their intention to speak, and audio plugs for headphones, supplying simultaneous translation in whatever language was required. Behind the official delegate tables were steeply raked tiers of seats for additional members of the diplomatic teams. Overhead, a recessed oculus was filled with dangling lights and surrounded by starlike spotlights. The curving walls were of louvered wood, interspersed with vast murals by Fernand Léger. A small clock was centered along a long marble balcony, visible only to those at the rostrum. Above the balcony were yet more rows of seats. And behind them, discreetly framed by curtains, was a series of glassed-in booths, where translators, technicians, and U.N. security staff were stationed.
It resembled a magnificent theater, and in many ways, it was.
Janson left the hall and made his way to the rooms that were immediately behind the rostrum: an office for the use of the secretary-general and a general “executive suite.” Given the placement of the security details, it would simply be impossible to launch an assault on those spaces. On his third walkabout, Janson found himself drawn to what seemed to be a little-used chapel, or as it had more recently come to be styled, meditation room. It was a small narrow space with a Chagall mural at one end, just down the corridor from the main entrance to the Assembly Hall.
Finally, Janson walked down the long ramp on the western side of the building, from which the delegates would be pouring in. The geometry of security was impressive : the looming bulk of the Secretariat itself functioned as a shield, offering protection from most angles. The adjacent streets would be blocked off to nonofficial traffic: only accredited journalists and members of the diplomatic delegations would be permitted in the vicinity.
Alan Demarest couldn’t have chosen a safer venue if he’d retreated to a bunker in Antarctica.
The more Janson explored the situation, the more he admired the tactical genius of his nemesis. Something truly extraordinary would have to happen to foil it—which meant that they were counting on something that could not be counted on.
What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness ?
Yet Janson saw the imperative for such a fellowship more clearly than anyone. Defeating this master of subterfuge would require something more than the bloodless, calculated moves and countermoves of the rational planners: it called for the unbridled, unslakable, irrational, and, yes, unbounded wrath of a true fanatic. About that there could be no dispute: their best chance to defeat Demarest was to resort to the one thing that could not be controlled.
To be sure, the planners imagined they could control it. But they never had, never could. They were all of them playing with fire.
They had to prepare to get burned.
Chapter Forty
The motorcades started arriving at the U.N. Plaza at seven o’clock the next morning, escorting humanity of every cultural and political coloration. Military heads of state in their full-dress uniforms strode up the ramp as if reviewing their troops, feeling protected and empowered by their self-bestowed ribbons and bars. They regarded the narrow-shouldered leaders of the so-called democracies
as nothing more than puffed-up central bankers: did not their dark suits and tightknotted ties signal allegiance to the mercantile classes rather than to the authentic glories of national power? The elected leaders of the liberal democracies, in turn, viewed such gaudy regalia as the generals sported with scorn and disapproval: what miserable social backwardness enabled these caudillos to grab power? Thin leaders looked at fat leaders and entertained fleeting thoughts about their lack of self-control: no wonder their countries had incurred staggering foreign debts. The stout leaders, for their part, regarded their attenuated Western counterparts as colorless and chilly Gradgrinds, sapless administrators rather than true leaders of men. Such were the thoughts that flickered beyond each toothy smile.
Like molecules, the clusters mingled and collided, formed and re-formed. Vacuous pleasantries stood in for long-winded complaints. A rotund president of a central African state embraced the lanky German foreign minister, and both knew precisely what the embrace signified: Can we move forward with debt restructuring? Why should I be stuck servicing loans taken by my predecessor—after all, I had him shot! A gaudily bedizened potentate from Central Asia greeted the prime minister of Great Britain with a dazzling smile and the tacit protest: The border dispute we have with our belligerent neighbor is not a matter of international concern. The president of a troubled NATO member state that was the rump of a once great empire sought out his opposite number from stable, prosperous Sweden and made small talk about his last visit to Stockholm. The unspoken message: Our actions against the Kurdish villages within our borders may disturb your pampered human-rights activists, but we have no choice but to defend ourselves from forces of sedition. Behind every handclasp, hug, and back clap was a grievance, for grievances were the cement of the international community.
Circulating among the delegations was a man wearing a kaffiyeh, a full beard, and sunglasses: typical attire among certain ruling-class Arabs. He looked, in short, like any of a hundred diplomatic representatives from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mansur, Oman, or the United Emirates. The man looked self-possessed and a little pleased: no doubt he was happy to be in New York, looking forward to making a side trip to Harry Winston, or simply to sampling the sexual bazaar of the great metropolis.
In fact, the ample beard did double duty: it not only helped alter Janson’s appearance but served to disguise a small filament microphone, activated by a switch in his front trouser pocket. He had, as a precaution, placed a microphone on the secretary-general as well; it was mounted within a small nodule on his gold collar bar, and was completely hidden behind his wide fourin-hand knot.
The long ramp led to a walkway immediately adjoining the General Assembly Building, where seven entrances were set back into the marble exterior of the curving, low-slung building. Janson kept moving among the incoming crowds, always looking as if he had just seen an old friend across the way. Now he consulted his watch; the fifty-eighth annual meeting of the General Assembly would come to order in just five minutes. Was Alan Demarest going to arrive? Had he ever intended to?
It was a barrage of camera flashes that first signaled the legend’s arrival. The TV crews, which had dutifully recorded the arrival of the great and the good, potentates and plenipotentiaries, now focused their videocameras, boom mikes, and key lights upon the elusive benefactor. He was difficult to pick out from the tightly huddled group in which he walked. There, indeed, was New York’s mayor, with a hand around the humanitarian’s shoulder, whispering something that seemed to amuse the plutocrat. To the man’s other side, the senior senator of New York State, who served also as the deputy chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, kept in step. A small entourage of senior aides and civic luminaries followed close behind. Secret Service agents were stationed at strategic intervals, no doubt ensuring that the area was free of snipers and other potential malefactors.
As the man known to the world as Peter Novak entered the West Lobby, he was swiftly hustled by his entourage into the executive suite behind the Assembly Hall. Outside it, the soles and heels of hundreds of expensive shoes clattered against the terrazzo flooring as the lobby began to empty and the hall began to fill.
This was Janson’s cue to retreat to the central security booth, located behind the main balcony of the Assembly Hall. An array of small square monitors surrounded a large monitor; they displayed multiple camera angles on the hall itself. At his request, hidden cameras had also been placed in the suites tucked away behind the dais. The secretary-general’s security consultant wanted to be able to keep an eye on all the principals.
Adjusting the control panel, he shifted among camera angles, zooming in, looking for the table where the delegation from the Islamic Republic of Mansur would be seated. It did not take long.
There, seated at the aisle, was a handsome man in flowing robes that matched those of the other men in the Mansur delegation. Janson pressed several buttons on the console and the image appeared on the large central monitor, supplanting the wide-angle overhead view of the assembly. Now he enlarged the image further, digitally reduced the shadows, and watched, mesmerized, as the large flat-screen monitor filled with the unmistakable visage.
Ahmad Tabari. The man they called the Caliph.
Rage coursed through Janson like electricity as he studied the planes of his ebony face, his aquiline nose and strong, chiseled jaw. The Caliph was charismatic even in repose.
Janson pressed several buttons, and the central screen feed switched to the hidden camera in the executive suite.
A different face, a different kind of merciless charisma: the charisma of a man who did not aspire, a man who had. The full head of hair, still more black than gray, the high cheekbones, the elegant three-button suit: Peter Novak. Yes, Peter Novak: it was who the man had become, and it was the way Janson had to think of him. He sat at one end of a blond-wood table, near a telephone that was directly connected to a intercommunication system at the high marble dais in the Assembly Hall as well as to the technicians’ stations. A corner-mounted closed-circuit television allowed the VIPs in the executive suite to keep abreast of developments within the hall.
Now the door to the suite opened: two members of the Secret Service with curled wires descending from their earpieces made a visual inspection of the room.
Janson pressed another button, switching camera angles.
Peter Novak stood up. Smiled at his visitor.
The president of the United States.
A man normally brimming with self-confidence was looking ashen. There was no audio feed, but it was clear that the president was asking the Secret Service detail to leave the two of them alone.
Wordlessly, the president withdrew a sealed envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to Peter Novak. His hands trembled.
In profile, the two were a study in contrasts: one, the leader of the free world, seeming defeated and slightly stooped; the other, broad-shouldered and triumphant.
The president nodded and looked, for a moment, as if he wanted to say something, then thought the better of it.
He walked out.
Camera angle no. two. Novak slipping the envelope into his own breast pocket. That envelope, Janson knew, could change the course of world history.
And it was only the first installment.
The Caliph glanced at his watch. Timing would be everything. The metal detectors made it impossible for even delegation members to carry in firearms; this was as he expected. Yet securing such a weapon would be an elementary task. There were hundreds of them in the building, the property of the United Nations security guards and other such protectors. He had little respect for them or their skill: the Caliph had faced down some of the deadliest warriors in the world. It had been his personal valor that earned him the undying respect of his ragged and uneducated followers. Mastery of ideology or Koran verses by itself would not have sufficed. They were a people who needed to know that their leaders had physical courage, intestinal as well as intellectual fortitude.
The aura of invincibility he had lost that dreadful night at the Steenpaleis he would regain, redoubled, even, once he had completed this, his most daring act. He would do the deed, and in the ensuing uproar, he would be able to make his escape in the speedboat docked at the East River, just a hundred feet east of the building. The world would learn that their righteous cause could not be ignored.
Yes, getting his hands on a high-powered gun would be almost as easy as taking it off a warehouse shelf. Prudence, however, had required that he wait until the last moment to acquire it. The more time that elapsed afterward, the greater the chance of exposure. Securing the weapon, after all, meant deactivating its possessor.
According to the schedule of events that had been shared with Mansur’s U.N. ambassador, Peter Novak would commence his address within five minutes. This member of the Mansur security detail would have to take a quick trip to the bathroom. He pushed out the latch-lever door that led out of the hall, and made his way toward the chapel.
The Caliph walked very fast, his sandals echoing on the terrazzo, until he caught the attention of a squarejawed, crew-cut American Secret Service agent. This was even better than an ordinary U.N. security officer: his weaponry would be of particularly high quality.
The Jason Directive Page 62