by Adam LeBor
Zone, a hipster bar, was just a block away, on the corner of East Seventh Street and Avenue A. Maybe she could pick up something there. Or they could lend her a bottle. Another grin flickered across her face. Just four weeks ago, she had been there dancing with Najwa al-Sameera, the UN correspondent for Al-Jazeera. Hair flying, bodies swaying in time to the music, the two women had turned every head in the room. Sami had stared at her, entranced.
Then Yael remembered who else had been sitting at the bar, watching, and her smile vanished.
*
Michael Ortega walked through Riverside Park with Mr. Smith, waiting for him to speak. Mr. Smith was his second contact. The first, who had called himself Cyrus Jones, had been found in a car on the Lower East Side just over three weeks ago, shot through the head. Ortega read about his death in the New York Times. Ortega had asked Smith about the newspaper report. Jones had committed suicide, he had been told.
Ortega’s unease grew. Taking surreptitious photographs was one thing, dead men in cars quite another, and he wanted no part of that. He was no psychiatrist, but Jones had seemed one of the least likely people he knew to commit suicide. The man was totally motivated by his mission, even obsessed with Yael Azoulay. He could see why. He thought he might be becoming a little obsessed himself. She was beautiful and intelligent, but more than that, she was thoughtful and generous. One morning, when he had still been living under the memorial, he had woken to see her placing several boxes of food by his sleeping bag, together with a bottle of water. There had even been a Post-it wishing him Bon appetit. A job had opened up in the building after one of the doormen had died suddenly of a heart attack. Smith had told him to apply; there had been a lot of discussion at the tenants’ meeting about whether they should give a job to a homeless person, but he knew Yael’s argument, that he was a military veteran and deserved a second chance, had swung it.
After Jones died, Ortega had done some research in the darker reaches of the Internet. Several conspiracy websites claimed that Jones had worked for the most secret black-ops department of the US government, called the “Department of Deniable,” which officially did not exist. Ortega had heard rumors about the organization while in Iraq and Afghanistan, had seen the Special Forces and their contractor friends loading blindfolded prisoners into the C-130s at Bagram airport. But whatever the truth about the DoD, Jones had existed. And a video of him being held by Islamists in Syria still did, easily available on the Internet. Ortega had thought about transferring all his funds from Geneva to his New York bank account, taking out the cash and running as far away as possible. But he knew he would not get very far. He was in something much bigger than he was, and for now at least, there seemed no way out.
He glanced at Smith. “I won’t keep this job if you keep turning up like this. I need to be on duty. Doormen work the doors.”
“You won’t keep anything unless you do what you are told.”
“Which is?”
“First of all, to listen to me. There is going to be a power outage. The building’s CCTV will go down.”
“Why?”
“Because you have a job to do.”
“Which is what?”
Smith stopped walking and reached inside his pocket. He took out a small black metal box and opened it.
Ortega looked down. Inside was a tiny metal globule, barely bigger than a pinhead. Six short prongs, each as thin as a hair, pointed from it. Ortega shook his head. “Her apartment is swept once a week. They’ll find it.”
“Not this. It’s undetectable. Guaranteed.”
“How do I get inside? The apartment has a new security system. It’s cable-linked to the NYPD and the UN control center.”
“That’s why there will be a power outage.”
“There’s a backup power system.”
Smith shrugged. “Systems fail. We will do our job. Make sure you do yours.”
“And if I say no?”
Smith closed the box and turned to look at him, his tiny blue eyes glittering amid folds of red flesh. “I don’t think that word is in your vocabulary anymore.”
Ortega watched a young girl, nine or ten years old, whizz by on a pink Hello Kitty scooter, blond hair streaming, her laughter spilling across the park as her mother ran after her. He felt a familiar longing for the childhood he never had. “And if I go to the NYPD, say I am being blackmailed?”
Smith laughed, a rich baritone sound, revealing two rows of crooked yellow teeth. “Then the Internal Revenue Service will take an interest in transfer B789016 from Bank Bernard et Fils to account 897655 at Bay Area Bank, Oakland. And the IRS will then alert the Department of Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence that they have found a possible channel for money-laundering. And you, my friend, will no longer be living on the Upper West Side.”
“It takes two parties to make a money transfer. I could go public.”
“With what, exactly?” asked Smith.
It was a good question. The money came from an account registered in the name of Universal Trading Ltd. Ortega had Googled the name. Universal Trading was the name of the fake company from whose offices James Bond operated. Someone had a sense of humor. “Why do you need me for this?”
“You’re part of the team now. Like D’Artagnan. Welcome aboard.”
“Who?”
Smith prodded Ortega in the chest. “You’ve seen the Four Musketeers. ‘All for one, and one for all.’” He pushed harder. “Meaning: if we go down, you come with us. Are you in?”
Ortega resisted the urge to smash Smith’s hand away and take him down. He had no choice. Not yet. He nodded.
“When?” asked the fat man.
Ortega looked at his watch. It was just after seven o’clock. His shift ended in two hours. That was more than enough time. “Now. As soon as I get back.”
Smith nodded. “Good.”
Ortega felt Smith’s hand quickly slide in and out of his jacket pocket, leaving the metal box inside. Smith’s pudgy fingers were surprisingly nimble. Then, as if from nowhere, he produced a silver tube barely larger than an AAA battery, and handed it to Ortega. “You’ll also need this to check the door,” he said, as he turned around and waddled off, rolls of fat spilling over the top of his trousers.
Ortega looked at the cylinder in his hand. It was a mini Maglite flashlight. He twisted the top. The tiny black light bulb glowed a soft purple.
*
Yael shivered as she pulled her jacket around her. The sky was dark gray now, shot through with crimson streaks, and the wind had turned colder, gusting through the wide open space of the park. She watched the bubble man trying to coax forward another creation. It swelled, shimmered in the wind, then popped. He tried again, with the same result. He shook his head, kneeled down, and pressed a button on his boom box. Miles Davis stopped midnote.
She wanted to look ahead to this evening, and push that night at Zone aside. But the memories were insistent, forcing their way into her consciousness.
*
He is sitting by the bar, calm, confident, swirling the ice cubes in his club soda. A man used to getting what he wants. And if not, to taking it by force.
“Yael, we go back such a long way. We don’t have to have this discussion now. How about dinner sometime? Tomorrow? Or we could leave now. There’s great Italian two blocks away.”
She steps back before she speaks. “How about if you write a letter to the family of the boy at the Gaza checkpoint, explaining what happened? He would be, what, in his late twenties now?”
*
Three days after her dance at Zone, Yael was in Istanbul. So was Eli, with his team, this time using different methods of persuasion.
Yael looked around the park again. The sound of childish laughter carried over from the playground. A squirrel scampered up a tree to sit on a wide branch. It chirped and seemed to look straight at her, its tiny eyes like beads of polished obsidian. Eli was safely back in Tel Aviv, on sick leave. Or so she had been told. So why w
as her sixth sense starting to howl? Yael watched a woman in her late thirties walk across the open space. She had thin lips, shoulder-length hair dyed the color of straw, and wore a pink jacket. She was chatting on her mobile phone, her shoulders hunched forward, her brown eyes staring resolutely ahead.
Thinking about that day in Istanbul made the voice in Yael’s head even more insistent. She knew she would eventually surrender and call Joe-Don. He lived on the Lower East Side, a few minutes’ drive away. Maybe he could head up here in his car and park outside Sami’s apartment, keep an eye on her. She took her phone from her purse. Joe-Don’s number was on speed dial. Yael’s finger was poised over the screen when someone sat down next to her.
5
Thirty blocks uptown at UN headquarters, Najwa al-Sameera sipped her sparkling water, thinking fast. Had the Saudi diplomat standing next to her really said that? Yes, she decided. He had.
They were standing, drinks in hand, on the giant terrace that looked out over the East River and the rose garden. Behind them was a wall of steel and glass, two stories high. A door in the middle opened into the Delegates Lounge. The sun was setting and a breeze blew in from the water, carrying the salty tang of the distant sea.
The UN headquarters in New York covered eighteen acres of prime real estate between First Avenue and the East River, from East Forty-Second Street to East Forty-Seventh Street. The centerpiece was the Secretariat Building, a thirty-eight-story modernist skyscraper with commanding views over the city and the East River. The complex also included the General Assembly building, where all 193 member states met once a year; a conference building; the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, named for the second UN secretary-general; and numerous cafés, restaurants, and bars, the most popular of which was the Delegates Lounge.
The lounge was the see-and-be-seen place in the General Assembly Building, and Najwa had suggested that they meet there. Its front windows looked out over First Avenue, but for most of the patrons the hotbed of gossip and intrigue inside the building was far more interesting than the street outside. Bakri had agreed, but once there quickly suggested that they move out onto the terrace and she had readily assented. Although the terrace was not secluded, it would be impossible to eavesdrop there without being noticed. The view was captivating. A mile upriver, the lights along the Queensboro Bridge had just been switched on, a long string of white lamps glowing against the darkening sky. Najwa watched a UN security officer in his forties step out of the lounge and amble across the terrace. He had a heavy paunch and a thick mustache. He glanced at Najwa and her companion, then returned inside.
Najwa and Bakri had been discussing the exorbitant price of rented flats within walking distance of the Secretariat Building, the relative merits of Gramercy versus Kips Bay or even the Lower East Side. Then, as they moved to the edge of the terrace, Bakri began pointedly comparing the recent death of Henrik Schneidermann, the UN secretary-general’s spokesman, to that of Abbas Velavi, a high-profile Iranian dissident who had died suddenly in Manhattan a year ago. Najwa knew about the death of Velavi, and had started asking questions soon afterward for one of many half-formed stories she intended to complete if and when the daily news deluge calmed.
Najwa raised her carefully sculpted eyebrows and leaned forward, a puzzled expression on her face. “Riyad, are you implying that …”
Bakri smiled and stepped back slightly as he spoke, almost as if distancing himself from his words. “The only thing I am implying, no—stating clearly—is that $5,000 a month for a small two-bedroom apartment is absurd. But more than that, surely it’s time you came to Saudi Arabia,” he said, his voice suddenly lively. “There is so much to report on. So many changes. A new generation is rising.”
Najwa smiled demurely, her mind completely focused as she made a mental note of what Bakri had just said. However smoothly he moved the conversation on, they both knew that he had brought it up for a reason.
Henrik Schneidermann, Fareed Hussein’s spokesman, had collapsed on the corner of East Fifty-Second Street, ten blocks from the UN, two weeks earlier shortly before eight o’clock in the morning. He had been on his way to meet Sami Boustani, the New York Times UN correspondent, for breakfast—although that was not public knowledge. Schneidermann’s death had been blamed on a massive heart attack, but he was only thirty-eight and Najwa knew he had no history of heart trouble. The tragedy had faded from the news amid the revelations of privately outsourced UN security operations and the collapse of the Istanbul Summit. Yet Schneidermann’s death nagged at Najwa, although she had not made the connection with that of Velavi. Now she had a “steer,” as her British colleagues would say. But what would Bakri want in return? He could see that his mention of Schneidermann had registered with Najwa, as he surely intended it to. But Najwa also understood his unspoken message: That was all he would say on the topic, at least for now.
“I would love to come to Saudi, Riyad. But first your government needs to let me in to the country.” Najwa was surprised at Riyad Bakri’s invitation. She had been banned from the kingdom for five years after her investigation into women’s rights—or the lack of them—in the country.
Bakri leaned closer, his eyes glancing at Najwa’s bust showcased in her tight black cashmere turtleneck sweater, then back at her face. “Najwa, you should know that you have many friends in Saudi, friends who applaud your work.”
Najwa fixed her doe-brown eyes on Bakri. He was intelligent and sophisticated and not without a certain charm. He had a master’s degree from Harvard in international relations and wore a Brioni suit rather than a white dishdasha. Clean-shaven, with dark brown eyes, his black hair tinged with gray, he also had a passing resemblance to George Clooney.
“Is that so, Riyad? Then why don’t I ever hear from them?”
Najwa’s follow-up program, exposing the horrendous conditions endured by domestic servants in the kingdom, had seen her ban extended to life. It had also triggered a deluge of death threats from Sunni extremists on Twitter and Facebook. Some had been reposted by accounts she knew were propaganda fronts for the Saudi foreign ministry.
Bakri sipped his drink. “We are here now, are we not, meeting, talking? Things are moving. A new generation is rising. A generation who understands our country’s place in the modern world. But slowly, and behind the scenes. This is Saudi Arabia.” Bakri’s intimation, that he was part of this new wave, was clear. “But as you know, Najwa, I am not here to represent my country’s government. I am attached to the Arab League’s mission, not that of Saudi Arabia.”
The Arab League had been founded in Cairo in 1945, the same year as the United Nations. But Arab unity remained as elusive as ever. The “Arab Spring” had turned into a dark winter of collapsing states, wars, militias, and even more brutal regimes. A series of UN Development Programme reports explained in detail how a culture that had once led the world in science and philosophy was now mired in illiteracy, corruption, and human rights abuses, ruled by sclerotic monarchies and dictatorships that held their citizens in contempt. The Islamists’ barbarity, freely available on the Internet, seemed to attract rather than repulse youthful idealists. The ever-more powerless liberal intelligentsia and secular Arabs had been abandoned by the West in favor of “strongmen” who could supposedly staunch the rising tide of Islamism—even though it was these regimes’ very corruption and repression that were the greatest recruiters for the Islamists.
And who else are you working for, Mr. Bakri? she thought, but did not ask. While the Arab League was widely derided as impotent, its UN mission was a useful listening post into the rest of the Arab world, and Najwa had heard from other contacts that he was connected to the Saudi Mukhabarat, its feared secret police.
As if he had read her mind, Bakri frowned and smiled, almost apologetically. “Forgive me, but there is one more thing I wanted to ask you about. Something, or rather someone, I am intrigued by.”
Najwa sipped her mineral water. “Who?”
His voice was still casual, but had
an eager edge he could not quite disguise. “Yael Azoulay.”
*
Yael did not need to turn her head to know who had sat next to her. As soon as he spoke—“Hello, Motek”—her stomach flipped over.
Only three men in her life had ever had such a powerful effect on her. Her brother, David, was dead. The second was her father. The third was now sitting too close, his thigh resting lightly against hers.
“Try again, Eli,” Yael said brightly, as though they had only last seen each other that morning. She shifted away, staring ahead as she spoke. “I already told you. I’m not your sweetie anymore.”
Eli Harrari leaned back and stretched his legs out before replying. “My apologies. Yael, what a pleasure to see you again. How are you?”
Fine until you arrived, she wanted to say. She turned to look at him. The bruising on Eli’s face had faded in the nine days since their encounter in Istanbul, but his skin was still discolored.
*
The door of the van opens. There are two more men inside, both in their twenties, dark and tough looking. “Shalom, Yael,” says one. “Time to come home.”
Eli steps back, easing the pressure of the gun barrel a fraction. It is all she needs.
She moves forward, drops her head, slams the back of her skull into Eli’s face, and throws the weight in her hand into the van.
The stun grenade explodes with a deafening roar. The two men inside pitch forward, facedown and unconscious.
*
The first of Isis Franklin’s betrayals had been to lure Yael to Eli’s parked van in Istanbul on the pretense of sharing some new information about David’s death. The second had been to poison the president.
Yael replied, “Tov me-od. Very good. How’s your nose?”
“Sore. But luckily, you didn’t break it.”
“Next time.”
“You did burst those boys’ eardrums.”
Yael shrugged. “Too bad. They should learn to take no for an answer. So should you.” She glanced at Eli’s wrist and right hand, encased in a support bandage.