The Reykjavik Assignment

by Adam LeBor

  He flexed the tops of his fingers. “Getting better every day.”

  “It must have hurt.”

  “Not much. The bullet hit the pistol. A sprained wrist and bruised fingers, but no lasting damage.”

  Yael had escaped toward Istanbul’s bazaar, but Eli had then chased her along its roof. He was just a few yards away from her when a sniper had shot the pistol out of his hand, sending him toppling down the side of the building. Such a shot at a moving target on an irregular surface demanded an extraordinary level of skill, and the identity of the gunman was still a mystery to her.

  Now, as in Istanbul, Eli was sure to have company. Yael rapidly scanned the park as she spoke. At least three possible operatives had appeared: one sat ten yards away on the other side of the long curved bench, and two more idled nearby on each side of the open space. She recognized the type instantly. She had graduated from the same school. All three were male, tanned, and fit. At first glance, they appeared relaxed but Yael knew they were on high alert as they watched the open space and the paths that led to the bench.

  Yael turned to face him. “What do you want, Eli?”

  He spread his arms. His blue zip-up jacket opened, revealing a shoulder holster and the butt of a pistol under his left armpit. “It’s a lovely evening. Manhattan in the spring. I thought we could have a chat. Go for a walk, maybe a drink at Zone. I know you like that place. Maybe a quiet dinner somewhere.”

  “Thanks, but I’m busy tonight.”

  He looked at her appraisingly. “So I see. Who’s the lucky guy?”

  “Nobody you know.”

  Eli crossed one leg over the other. “I know all sorts of people.” His tone changed as he spoke. “And if I don’t know them, I know all about them. Especially Palestinians with terrorist connections and prominent jobs in the media.”

  Yael felt the anger ripple through her as she moved away from him. “Get out of my life, Eli. And stay the fuck out. And find some guys who blend in a little better.”

  “Meaning?”

  She pointed at Eli’s backup trio one by one, her finger resting for a couple of seconds on each. “One, two, three. This is the East Village. Not the Knesset.” As if on cue, two spiky-haired young women walked past arm in arm, both wearing cargo pants and tight halter tops that framed the intricate tattoos across their shoulders. Yael continued talking. “Let’s stop wasting each other’s time.”

  Eli turned and stared at her again. “Time spent with you is never wasted.”

  She felt his eyes roam up and down her body, taking in the swell of her breasts under her black minidress, her flat waist, and toned legs. She closed her eyes for a second, suddenly aware of her nakedness under her clothes, feeling her skin against her dress, her stockings, her black lingerie. Even as she willed it not to, something slid away inside her. Her anger started to morph into something far more dangerous. Yael swallowed and looked away. Score one point to Eli, and he knew it.

  They had been recruited together, trained together, lived together for five years in a crummy flat in south Tel Aviv. They were the agency’s golden couple, and she had thought she would probably marry him. Until that day on the Gaza crossing point. And still then, after what she saw, she had wanted him as much in their last hour together as in their first.

  Yael asked, “Why are you following me?”

  “I already told you. It’s time to come home.”

  “I am home. I live here now. And next time, ditch the black SUV with tinted windows. This isn’t an episode of Homeland.”

  Eli looked puzzled. “What are you talking about? We had your taxi on satellite. We were a good half mile behind you. In two family sedans.”

  She looked sideways at him. Yael always knew when Eli was lying to her. He was telling the truth.

  Despite everything that had happened between them—or because of it—Eli’s sensuality was still a dark magnet, drawing her in. Even now he was salvation. Self-immolation. Both.

  She cased the park again. The blond woman in jeans and a pink jacket was now sitting on a bench nearby. She looked vaguely familiar, but Yael could not immediately place her. The woman was apparently absorbed in texting on her smartphone but Yael saw her eyes flick across the path to the tattooed young women who were now standing twenty yards away, still holding hands. There were plenty of tattooed lesbians in Tel Aviv. And thirty-something blonds with mobile phones.

  She glanced at Eli. He was looking at the woman in the pink jacket. His finger rose to his right ear, quickly scratched it, then dropped. The woman nodded, an almost imperceptible gesture. Yael’s senses, already on alert, went up a gear.

  Yael asked, “How did Isis Franklin get involved with you? Why did she bring me to you, Eli?”

  Eli laughed. “You turned down my dinner invitation in New York. I thought I would try again in Istanbul. But that didn’t work. So here I am again. With a new proposition.” His voice turned hard. “I suggest you accept it.”

  6

  Najwa focused before answering Bakri, glad now she had stuck to mineral water and not had the glass of wine she’d wanted.

  On one level, it was hardly surprising that a Saudi diplomat, whether or not he worked for the Mukhabarat, would want to know more about a high-profile Israeli UN official like Yael Azoulay. And his interest might be personal as well as professional. In Najwa’s experience, once they relaxed Israelis and Arabs were usually fascinated by each other, especially when they met on safe, neutral territory. The question was, how much would Najwa share? Especially about her own suspicions, fueled by a rumor she had recently picked up from a diplomat at the Palestinian mission to the UN.

  She glanced at Bakri. His body language had changed. The relaxed charm was replaced by a palpable intensity, his eyes almost eager, his posture alert. Anything she said would be instantly absorbed, processed, used to guide the next question, and filed away.

  “I know what everyone else knows. She does the secret deals behind the scenes for Fareed Hussein, and presumably, the P5. I’d love to interview her, of course, but she does not talk to the press.”

  Bakri nodded. She sensed his dissatisfaction.

  “How does an Israeli get such a sensitive position?” he asked.

  “She is also an American citizen. And Israel’s a UN member state. It was founded on a UN resolution to partition Palestine.”

  “You sound like you are defending the Zionists.”

  “I’m not defending anything. Just pointing out historical reality. I’ve reported from Israel several times. They let me into the country,” she continued, her voice pointed. “Government officials talk to us. It’s the only country in the Middle East where my crew and I weren’t arrested.”

  The mating dance between UN journalists and their sources, whether officials or accredited diplomats, was complex. Both sides had an agenda. One wanted stories, the other to put certain information in the public domain, often to their personal or political benefit. Sometimes a contact clearly detailed the material they wanted to share, even providing supporting documents. Others dropped a tantalizing hint into a conversation about something else entirely, seamlessly moving on like the words had never been uttered—as Riyad Bakri had just done.

  Najwa was meeting Bakri on “deep background.” Nobody ever wanted to be quoted on the record, not even UN departmental spokesmen and women. Information was the UN’s currency, to be spent and traded with care, sparingly and always with regard for the possible consequences. Alliances shifted, departmental empires evaporated, powerful potentates deposed, and all so quickly that it was thought best to avoid committing to anything, at least by name. There were no outright lies, for these would be swiftly discovered and the word soon spread throughout the two hundred or so journalists accredited at the U.N. that the originator was not to be believed or trusted. Journalists used three levels of attribution. Deep background, which meant the information could be used but not attributed to anybody; a UN or diplomatic “source,” which usually provided sufficient
cover as tens of thousands of people worked for the UN and hundreds of diplomats were accredited there; and Najwa’s favorite, “a person with knowledge of the issue,” which implied someone on the inside track but could also mean anyone who had read that day’s edition of the New York Times. But both reporters and sources knew there was one rule: if a UN official or diplomat asked to meet a reporter in private, it was for a reason. The rules said that she should give him something in return for the Velavi tip.

  Najwa thought for a moment.

  “She’s a good dancer.”

  Bakri raised his eyebrows. “Especially when she has such an eye-catching partner.”

  Najwa held his gaze. “What do you want to know, Riyad?”

  Bakri moved nearer and spoke quietly. “Who is she really working for?”

  A question that Najwa often asked herself. She had long wondered about Yael’s history, who she was and what drove her. Yet to Najwa’s surprise, she suddenly felt almost protective of Yael. Perhaps it was their dance at Zone, or the Amnesty International reports she had read about what happened in the basements of Saudi Mukhabarat headquarters. Either way, she would not share the tip-off she had recently received from a Palestinian diplomat.

  Her mobile phone trilled three times inside her purse. That sound meant an urgent text message had arrived from her editor at the main New York bureau a few blocks away on West Forty-Fifth, which oversaw her UN operation. She looked down, then up at Bakri. “Don’t think me rude, but I do need to check that.”

  “Please, go ahead,” said Bakri, as he reached for his BlackBerry and began to check his screen.

  Najwa took out her iPhone and quickly read the text message on the top half of the screen. Sensing movement to her right, she quickly scanned the entrance to the Delegates Lounge. The overweight UN security officer was back, walking out onto the terrace.

  Legally, the UN was a curious anomaly. The complex was physically in the United States, but the area behind the gates was international territory and so enjoyed the same diplomatic privileges as embassies. The NYPD, FBI, and other agencies handled security around the site, but once past the gates, they had no jurisdiction. Instead, the UN relied on its own security service. However, the UN Department of Safety and Security had no authority to detain anyone suspected of breaking the law on UN territory. Crime was rare, but if one was committed, the UNDSS could only lock up the perpetrator until the NYPD took over and they entered the American judicial system.

  Najwa watched the security officer stroll back and forth for a minute or so. Was he watching her and Bakri in particular, or just checking in general? Najwa was friendly with many of the security staff, who often shared gossip or had useful inside information, but she had never seen this man before. She stared hard at him, memorizing his features: middle-aged, dark-complexioned, mustache, stomach flowing over his belt. The security officer saw her, looked away, and returned back inside the lounge.

  Bakri sensed her distraction, but had not noticed the security officer. “What is it?”

  Najwa thought quickly. Was she being paranoid? The whole UN building had been on a heightened security alert for at least a month after the capture of several UN aid workers by Islamists in Syria. The extra checks, bag searches, and body scans were an irritant but, she assumed, a necessary one. She was about to ask Bakri what he thought, but then decided that would sound ridiculous. Still, there was something about this security officer that made her uneasy. She frowned slightly, then slipped the phone back inside her bag.

  “Bad news?” asked Bakri. “Do you have to rush off?”

  Najwa shook her head. “No, not quite yet.” She paused for a moment, watching a police launch bounce along the water, then made her decision. The information would be public in a few minutes and this was too good an opportunity to miss. “There’s been a claim of responsibility for the DC car bomb.”

  “Who?” asked Bakri.

  Najwa handed him her iPhone, watching him intently as he peered at the screen.

  “Jaesh al-Arbaeen. The Army of Forty. Who are they? I have never heard of them.” Bakri’s puzzlement seemed genuine, as he handed Najwa her phone back.

  Najwa smiled. “Thanks for the drink. Neither have I. Which is why I have to go back to work.”

  *

  Yael sat back on the park bench, watched a magpie jump across the open space. The park was deserted now, the temperature dropping rapidly. She checked her watch. It was seven fifty. She was late and getting later. Even if she stood up now and walked off she would not be at Sami’s apartment for another ten minutes. She had no interest in Eli’s latest proposition, whatever it was. But she was very interested in the connection between Isis Franklin and the Israelis. Sami would have to wait, which was anyway a kind of poetic justice. And if she walked fast enough, maybe she could be there in five minutes.

  Yael thought quickly. She assumed that Isis had done some kind of trade with Eli, helping him to capture her in exchange for something. But what could Eli offer Isis? What was their shared interest? And then she understood. The attack ads, the op-eds accusing President Freshwater of abandoning Israel, the Twitter storms, the whispering campaigns, the Capitol Hill filibusters, the high-profile resignations of senior staffers—none of it had worked. The president’s message to Jerusalem remained unaltered: Stop building settlements, withdraw from the West Bank, and reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians and the wider Arab world, or US aid would be cut in half. Jerusalem wanted Freshwater out of office and, it seemed, at any price. Isis wanted Freshwater dead in revenge for authorizing indiscriminate drone strikes, one of which had killed the little boy she was about to adopt—a death that had undone her. Tormented with grief, Isis would betray Yael and do Jerusalem’s dirty work.

  Yael said, “Why Isis Franklin?”

  Eli shrugged. “You know the rules. Plausible deniability. She wasn’t an Israeli. She wasn’t Jewish. She had never even been to Israel.”

  “What was in it for her?”

  “A new life, a new name, and a baby to adopt. More, if she wanted. All she had to do was walk away. We could have got her out of Istanbul. But she went crazy, demanding that the White House release the black files on all the drone strikes.”

  “Why didn’t you finish the job? When Freshwater was in the hospital? Send someone in disguised as a doctor? What happened to your friends in Kidon?”

  Hebrew for spear, Kidon was the agency’s secretive elite division, tasked with eliminating the most dangerous enemies of the State of Israel. Kidon operated as an autonomous unit with Mossad, and the very mention invoked fear across the Middle East. Kidon’s members ventured deep into enemy territory to place bombs in terrorists’ mobile phones or the headrests of their car seats; shot Syrian generals lazing on their beachside terraces from tiny boats a mile out to sea; stuck miniature mines on the side of cars carrying Iranian nuclear scientists before vanishing into the Tehran traffic on motorbikes.

  Eli turned to Yael and placed his finger on her lips. “Mo … Yael, sshhhh. We don’t say that word. Especially in public places.”

  She opened her mouth wider. The tip of her tongue flicked against the tip of his finger. He slid his finger farther inside her mouth and closed his eyes for a second. Yael bit down, feeling bone under the soft skin.

  Eli gasped in pain and yanked his hand away. In a single, swift move, he reached inside his jacket, took out a Beretta .22, and jammed the muzzle into Yael’s right side, his hand still covered by the blue fabric.

  She looked around the park. Eli’s team had all moved nearer. A male operative stood on both ends of the long, curved bench, the third positioned in front, ten yards or so away. The two tattooed women sat on the opposite side of the open space. The middle-aged woman in the pink jacket was still walking around with her phone clamped to her ear.

  Yael laughed. “Put it away, Eli. You aren’t going to shoot me.”

  “How do you know?”

  Yael dropped her hand onto his thigh. “Because you
can’t. And because I’m no use to you dead.” She leaned closer. She had an instinctive sixth sense that told her what other people were thinking, feeling, hoping, fearing. She knew every microsign indicating whether someone was lying or telling the truth: the subtle alterations in their breathing, the pitch of their voice, their pulse. When they were lying or dissimulating, everyone had a tell. Eli had been trained to cover his, of course. But she knew him better than anyone else, and under pressure he still looked his interlocutor in the eye for a fraction of a second too long, as if to prove he had nothing to hide. It was time to take control of this conversation. To use what she had now understood.

  The three male operatives started walking quickly toward the bench. Eli held his left hand up. They stopped, but watched intently.

  She continued talking, her hand still resting on Eli’s thigh, feeling the charge of his desire run through him. “So now that Freshwater is still alive, how are you going to start this war?”

  Eli closed his eyes for a second before he spoke. Yael felt the pressure of the gun ease by a fraction. “What war?” he asked.

  “Plan A, poisoning Freshwater, did not work. Plan B is war between America and Iran, which will wreck the peace process for good. The war that will keep the hard-liners in Israel and their Iranian opposites in power for a generation. They may hate each, but they share a common interest.”

  He slid the gun barrel down Yael’s side, tracing the line of her rib cage. “Where do you get these fantasies from?”

  “These are not fantasies. They are facts.” A memory flashed into her mind, of the news ticker on the taxi television. “My God. That was you, and your Iranian friends, wasn’t it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The car bomb in DC. That’s the start of plan B.” She turned to look at him.

  He stared at her, unblinking, for a fraction of a second too long. “Let’s go. We can discuss this back in Tel Aviv.”