by Adam LeBor
*
Clarence Clairborne was not the only person watching Yael. A couple of blocks from the UN headquarters, Eli Harrari sat back in his windowless, soundproof office, a can of Diet Coke in his right hand. Lean, gray-eyed, with a shaven head, he was a good deal calmer than Clairborne.
Like Clairborne, Harrari was breaking the law by hacking into the NYPD network, but he was unconcerned. Diplomatic immunity, and the close relations between his home country and the United States, would ensure any fuss would soon evaporate in the unlikely event that the authorities discovered what his employers were doing. He smiled and took a long drink of the Diet Coke as he glanced at Yael’s taxi speeding southward on the Henry Hudson Parkway, somewhere in the mid-Thirties, heading toward Chelsea. He crushed the can and threw it in the trash, nodding approvingly. She was still the best.
3
Yael told Gurdeep to let her out by Tompkins Square Park, on the corner of Avenue A and East Eighth in the East Village. For a small green space in a gritty part of southern Manhattan, the park boasted an imposing entrance: Two rows of redbrick colonnades stood under a cream stone roof. Small enclosures of trees and shrubs, their branches dense with spring greenery, were boxed in behind black mesh fences.
She walked through the middle colonnade and down a tiled path of gray stone that opened onto manicured gardens. Step one: Let the adrenalin burn out. Step two: Center herself. Step three: Switch back to date mode. But before that, step 1a: Conduct anti-surveillance drills to check that she was clean. Following her instructions Gurdeep had taken a long and complicated route, cutting through the backstreets of Little Italy and Chinatown then up into the Lower East Side; doubling back, reversing, even driving the wrong way down a one-way street to flush out any tails. Yael had watched intently all the way but saw no sign of the black SUV; no repeat sightings of any other vehicles; no cars hanging back at a steady, regular distance; no telltale glances from other drivers before they spoke into their phones on speaker. She was confident she was clean. Nobody knew that she was coming here. But still, step 1a.
Yael continued down the path toward a large circular lawn surrounded by a low black metal railing. There the path split in two directions, each snaking around the lush grass. She stopped, hesitated for a moment as if she was lost, then opened her purse and took out a paper handkerchief. It fluttered to the ground. She dropped down to pick it up and glanced behind her, swiftly taking in the scene.
A homeless man shuffled by the washroom near the entrance, a ragged coat hanging off his thin frame, and over to his possessions bundled up in plastic bags along the fence. Three teenage boys laughed and joked as one tried to kick-flip a skateboard through 360 degrees while still riding it. He almost made it, then flew off and landed on his backside, triggering hoots of derision. The boys and the homeless man had all been there when she arrived.
Satisfied with what she saw, Yael walked right until she came to a long, curved row of benches and sat down in the end seat. Her vantage point gave her a commanding view of the open area in front of the benches, the playground to her right, and the paths on either side. But still, a voice in her head—ever louder—told her that she should call Joe-Don, her bodyguard, to explain what had happened and ask him to check her apartment was secure. Someone had been following her, and someone had been directing the SUV. She ignored it. If she called Joe-Don, he would demand that she immediately head somewhere safe. And when she didn’t, he would use the GPS in her mobile phone to come and find her.
Switching her phone off was not an option. Yael had promised to remain contactable twenty-four hours a day—especially after Geneva, and doubly especially after Istanbul. Just ten days ago the Turkish city had hosted the most ambitious diplomatic gathering in history. Driven in part by the rise of the Islamists, world leaders from around the globe, including Renee Freshwater, the American president, had gathered in an attempt to settle the Israel/Palestine conflict and the crises in Syria and Egypt. The summit had ended in chaos after an American diplomat at the country’s UN mission had poisoned Freshwater, who had almost died. She was only saved at the last moment, after Yael persuaded the diplomat, whom she had considered a friend, to give up the antidote.
Yael had been home from Istanbul for nine days, and she sensed she was being watched. Faces glimpsed twice on the streets near her apartment; a stranger glancing at her too often; a newspaper raised on the subway when she looked up and down the car, shielding its reader: the signs were subtle, but real. And to be expected after her recent confrontation with the man who sat at the apex of America’s military-industrial complex. Accusing the Prometheus Group chairman and CEO of funneling millions of dollars to a front company owned by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had consequences. Even if she presented the evidence to him personally, in private. Perhaps especially so.
Clarence Clairborne, she was sure, was somehow connected to the diplomat’s attempt to kill President Freshwater. Cui bono?—Who benefits?—was still the best, and most important question. The death of the US president would mean the end of her policy of rapprochement with Iran, and the pressure on the Israelis to make peace with the Palestinians. It would boost the hard-liners in both Tehran and Tel Aviv and destabilize the entire Middle East. But where the Prometheus Group was concerned, chaos was good for business.
The SUV was connected to everything that happened, of that she was sure. Yael took out her phone and pulled up the video she had made in the taxi. The frame shook from the vibration of the car and the sudden acceleration, but the black vehicle was clear enough. The front license plate was visible: EXW 2575.
She closed the video and scrolled through the home screens until she came to the HomeZone app. Numerous apps existed to allow homeowners to check in on their residence while they were somewhere else. But this was a version encrypted to NSA standards. Any unauthorized movement would automatically trigger an alarm on her handset, Joe-Don’s phone, and at the central control room of the United Nations Department of Safety and Security at the New York headquarters. She flicked through six CCTV feeds that filled her screen, checked the network of pressure pads inside the apartment. There were no intruders and no alert messages. However, she did not put all her faith in technology. Tiny scraps of scrunched-up brown paper, the same color as the parquet flooring, were jammed into the apartment’s front door and would fall if someone opened it. The edge of each was aligned against a mark on the door frame that was only visible under ultraviolet light, so even if an intruder noticed them it would be near-impossible for him to put them back in the same place.
She shut down the phone. She was not going to call Joe-Don. She was safe here. But the SUV still worried her. Why use such a high-profile vehicle for a mobile surveillance operation? It didn’t make sense. Unless whoever deployed the car wanted Yael to know she was under surveillance. Either way, Gurdeep and his cousins had come through, in an impressive display of coordinated driving that was well worth the extra $300: $100 for each of them.
The sun was slowly setting, the air slowly cooling. She sat back on the bench, enjoying the calm of the park. A brother and sister ran past, perhaps six or seven years old, playing tag, laughing out loud. A tall black man in jeans and a tuxedo jacket stood on the other side of the open area, blowing giant soap bubbles, Miles Davis playing on his boom box. The iridescent bubbles swelled larger and larger before floating off, carried away by the spring breeze.
Yael closed her eyes, breathed slowly through her nose. Her nervous energy slowly dissipated, only to be replaced by a different kind of jitteriness, a type she had not felt for a long time. Sami Boustani’s apartment, on East Ninth, was just a few minutes’ walk away. She had spent two hours getting ready, time that was not going to waste.
*
Clairborne wriggled in his seat, trying without success to get comfortable. His palm throbbed, the back of his chair rattled but would not recline. He was a big man, from his size twelve shoes to his bearlike shoulders, a remnant of his time on the University of Ala
bama football team. He had earned his nickname of “the Bull.” But appearances could be deceptive. His booming voice, southern accent, and good ol’ boy, steak-chewing, bourbon-guzzling persona were a useful cover for a keen, calculating intelligence that had caught more than one adversary by surprise.
The doors of the Pentagon, the CIA, the Treasury, the Department of Defense, every government department was open to Clairborne whenever he chose. There were just four photographs on the wall of his office, each the size of a sheet of printer paper and discreetly lit. Three showed him with former presidents of the United States. In each one he had his arm around the then leader of the free world. The fourth, mounted separately to the side, showed Clairborne shaking hands with Eugene Packard, America’s most popular television evangelist.
But Prometheus was more than just another lobbying firm. It was also a private equity company, specializing in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. It could rip open virgin rainforest, tear a new strip mine, bring down a recalcitrant government, and reap the benefits with no fear of consequences. Its new social media division could ignite revolutions to order, bringing thousands into the streets on one day to demand freedom and reform, call for a security crackdown on the next. Clients who worried about a vengeful population, or former business partners with a grudge, could rely on a division that provided corporate security and guaranteed anonymity. A seven-figure annual retainer to a New York PR company on Fifth Avenue had helped keep the firm out of both the news and business sections of the newspapers. Until now.
That girl.
They had planned for years, spent tens of millions of dollars, to save America and the free world by ridding the country of its most dangerous president in history, in the process making the Prometheus Group the most powerful corporation in the world. How could one woman, almost half his age, wreck everything?
It was a total clusterfuck. That squaw Renee Freshwater was still sitting in the White House. He had lost contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The New York Times had somehow got hold of his e-mails with Caroline Masters, the former UN deputy secretary-general. Masters was the hinge on which everything had turned, the driving force behind the UN policy of outsourcing to Prometheus—first security, and then peacekeeping operations. But no sooner had she got her feet behind Fareed Hussein’s desk than she had resigned in disgrace after the fiasco of the Istanbul Summit.
Everything had gone wrong because of Yael Azoulay. She was 230 miles away—and still fomenting chaos all around him. He couldn’t organize a proper tail on her car. The chair back rattled as he shifted in his seat. The red stain around the dressing on his palm was getting bigger. He couldn’t even smoke a cigar or drink his bourbon. And the visitor was coming in an hour.
The phone on his desk trilled. The number showed as *99. The last person he wanted to talk to, but he didn’t have a choice. He hesitated for a moment, closed his eyes, then lifted the handset.
“M—” he started to say.
“No names,” said a male voice.
“Sorry. Of course.” What was he thinking? The line was secure, an encrypted satellite phone, but even the rawest recruit knew that nobody used real names while talking on a phone.
The voice was clipped and angry. “One car. And highly visible. What were you thinking?”
Clairborne bristled. “I ordered three to be deployed. With a team of drivers.”
“Where were they? Starbucks?”
“I don’t know. I will find out.”
“Should I come to Manhattan and organize this myself?”
“I know, I’m sorry,” said Clairborne. “They will be disciplined.”
“Sorry does not advance our objectives.” The man paused for several moments. Clairborne could hear static echoing down the line. “Still, that was a neat trick with the taxis.”
“Sure. Meanwhile, what do you want me to do with her?”
“Just watch. We are inside her apartment?”
“We will be.”
“When?”
Clairborne glanced at his Rolex Submariner. “In about ten minutes.”
“I can be sure of that?”
“Sure as a cat can climb a tree.”
The line went dead.
He pressed a button on his phone cradle, then jabbed the adjacent one. The voices squealed for several seconds until he lifted his finger.
“… a neat trick with the taxis,” the man’s voice said. And it had been, even Clairborne had to admit.
But in his words was something more than just one operative admiring another’s technical skills. There was an undercurrent there, almost of admiration. Clairborne played the recording again. It was greater than admiration. It was pride.
4
Yael took out a makeup compact from her bag and flipped open the mirror. She contemplated what she saw: auburn hair loose to her shoulders, light blush, red lipstick, and moderately thick mascara that emphasized her green eyes. A cropped leather motorcycle jacket. Her new dress—black, short enough—fitted perfectly. Red shoes to stir up the mix, and to match her lipstick. It was a vampier look than she usually adopted, but why not?
This would be her third date with Sami. They had been to an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and had dinner together at a Korean restaurant in midtown. He was witty and extremely intelligent company. Even his dress sense had lately improved from his habitual outfit of Gap shirt over a T-shirt and slouchy jeans. Yael suspected—no, she knew—that was partly because he was smartening himself up for her. As she had dressed up for him.
She snapped the compact closed and slipped it back into her purse. To be more accurate, this would be their second attempt at a third date. The first, a few days before the Istanbul summit, had ended in disaster. Yael had spent all day shopping, cooking dinner and tidying up her apartment. Sami was due over at 7:30 p.m. By eight o’clock he had still not turned up. Yael had switched on the television to see him on Al-Jazeera with Najwa al-Sameera, the network’s UN correspondent. The two journalists were discussing a video clip of Yael, dressed as an escort, at the Millennium Hotel, a few block from the UN. Sami had got his dinner the following morning—spread all over his office. After a while her anger abated and she rationalized Sami’s actions. He was a journalist, covering the UN. They were not together, had not even kissed. He had no choice but to stand her up. So Yael told herself and she forgave him, more or less. The remnants of her anger even added a little extra spice to their date tonight.
The sound of a piano followed by a long, poignant trumpet note floated over the park. The bubble man was still blowing giant, quivering creations to the sounds of Miles Davis. The sky was turning purple, the breeze picking up. Yael watched a pigeon land on a tree branch and start to coo. A second bird landed next to it, before both flew off together. She had even packed a toothbrush in her bag, just in case.
But part of her—a large part, if she was honest with herself—asked why she was pursuing this potential romance. The risk-to-reward ratio was tilted heavily toward the former. There were at least two large obstacles. The first was that she was a UN official and Sami was the UN correspondent for the New York Times. His job was to dig out and expose the UN’s scandals and secrets. Of those, Yael knew more than most. The suspicion nagged that Sami was only interested in her for the insider information she had. She could never let her guard down about her work or colleagues—the Al-Jazeera episode had taught her that.
But there was also the personal one, which was much more difficult to avoid. Sami was a Palestinian and she was an Israeli. And not just any Israeli. One with a past linked to his—a past that would, if discovered by Sami, blow any potential romance to pieces. For good.
So why was she drawn to him? Partly because she enjoyed his company and partly because she liked a challenge. But also, perhaps, because she knew it would never work, which meant she would never become too involved and therefore never deeply hurt. But that kind of dead-end masochism was too depressing to contemplate. She would just en
joy the evening. Perhaps it would lead somewhere, perhaps not. But either way, it was better than another night sitting in her apartment on her own. And if it didn’t work, well … she was still only thirty-six. She was determined not to become another UN widow, one of the attractive, intelligent women working at the Secretariat headquarters with nobody to go home to and nothing to spend their substantial salaries on except ever-larger wardrobes of designer clothes. How long since she had been invited to a guy’s apartment for dinner in New York? She could not remember. Although someone had bought her lunch not so long ago.
“Shalom, Ms. Azoulay. Welcome to Istanbul.”
She smiled. She had finally met someone who really was tall, dark, and handsome, whose black hair fell over brown eyes shining with intelligence and good humor. And who, if she knew anything about men, liked her. But Yusuf Celmiz was five thousand miles away, so she had to work with what she had.
Yael took out her phone and reread the messages. First, hers, at 6:34 p.m.:
On my way. Forgot the wine. This time let’s drink it ☺
Sami’s reply had come a couple of minutes later:
Great. Ice bucket or decanter? ☺
In all the excitement of evading the tail, Yael had not got around to replying. And what should she answer? She could not turn up empty-handed, especially after telling Sami that she had returned home for the bottle. Yael looked at her watch: 7:35 p.m. Sami had told her to come over at 7:30 p.m., which meant 7:45 p.m. Where could she find some wine?