The Reykjavik Assignment

by Adam LeBor

  8

  Yael put her wine glass down and walked back to the sideboard. Its surface was crowded with a clutter of framed images. A black and silver art deco mirror was mounted on the wall above the display of family holidays, birthday celebrations, weddings. She stared at a photograph of a young girl with auburn hair holding hands with her father by the lake in Central Park. The child was seven or eight, her father in his late thirties. It was a picture from the pre-digital age, slightly out of focus with faded colors. She blinked, looked away, then back to pick up the largest photograph, standing in a silver frame in the center of the display. A man, clearly in his early twenties, tall, well built and good-looking, with green eyes, stood in front of a white UN Jeep near a peacekeepers’ checkpoint.

  *

  She is sixteen years old, sitting in her room at the Belgrade Hyatt, when the phone rings. “Your brother has arrived,” the concierge tells her.

  She sprints down the corridor and takes the elevator downstairs to the glass-fronted lobby crowded with journalists, aid workers, and large, watchful men who sit there all day, chain-smoking and drinking coffee.

  A UN Jeep is parked by the entrance. The vehicle is covered in mud, apart from a double curve on the windshield cleared by the wipers.

  He emerges, holding a toddler in his arms.

  She slides her finger into a small hole in the door. There are two more over the wheel arch and another under the window, each with the metal puckered inward. Three more women emerge from the Jeep, followed by six children and two teenage boys.

  One catches Yael staring at him. He is tall, older than she first thought, perhaps eighteen or nineteen. He has high Slavic cheekbones and striking ice-blue eyes. He smiles, shyly.

  She smiles back, then turns to watch her brother as he organizes the refugees and their meager bags.

  *

  She wiped her eyes and put the photograph back down. Twenty years on, the yearning was as powerful as ever. Especially on days like these.

  Twelve years ago, after she graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in international relations, Yael had started at the UN as an administrative assistant in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. The position was more important than it sounded: she was responsible for ensuring that officials’ briefings and reports were written in clear and grammatically correct English—not always the case in a polyglot organization like the UN—and distributed on time to the relevant committees and to the Security Council. The Department of Political Affairs was the most powerful in the building, but the DPKO was responsible for putting boots on the ground in the world’s conflict zones. Peacekeepers fought, sometimes died, and feelings ran high in both the UN headquarters and the missions of those countries who contributed the soldiers. DPKO officials had to manage not just the complexities of multinational peace operations in war zones where fighters had no respect for the Geneva Conventions, but also balance the relentless demands of the Security Council members. Especially the P5, the permanent five: the United States, Britain, Russia, China, and France.

  A steady stream of position papers and analyses, some written by UN officials, others by diplomats and intelligence officers, flowed across Yael’s desk. She watched, fascinated, as some of the world’s most sensitive negotiations unfolded literally in front of her via back channels to Tehran, Beijing, Pyongyang. The UN was a slow, cumbersome bureaucracy, riddled with factions and infighting, but overall, she believed, it was a force for good. She worked hard and helped out her colleagues whenever she could. Young, smart, and attractive, she was soon caught up in the building’s social whirl: Friday night drinks in the Delegates Lounge, receptions at UN Missions, leaving parties, joining parties, and endless national days to be celebrated.

  Yael had enjoyed her new life, until her old one began to catch up with her. After a couple of years, the UN rumor mill suddenly went into overdrive about her past, so much so that she wondered if there had been a leak from Tel Aviv, perhaps even intentional. Her bosses in Israel had been furious when she resigned. But she stuck doggedly to the cover story they had agreed upon before she left. She had done her national service, yes, as a personal assistant to a general, but it had been two years of mostly boring administrative work. The most dangerous part had been fending off the advances of male officers. The legend was well back-stopped with the necessary documents and paperwork, even a report of a complaint she had made about sexual harassment. She soon realized that many of the invitations she received were either from middle-aged male UN officials or diplomats hoping to have an affair with her, or from operatives of the numerous intelligence services, stationed under diplomatic cover, who seemed to know something about her background and wanted to use her as an asset or even recruit her.

  But Yael had two powerful patrons: Quentin Braithwaite, a British army officer who was seconded to the DPKO, and the SG himself, Fareed Hussein. Braithwaite noticed that Yael’s uncanny ability to sense others’ moods allowed her to defuse departmental crises without offending prickly—usually male—egos. He soon moved Yael out of administration and into the operations room. One night, French peacekeepers in the Central African Republic became trapped in their base because a rebel militia was blocking the road, preventing the arrival of a UN convoy carrying supplies and troops to replace those at the end of their tour. The militia leader was demanding 500,000 euros in “customs duties.” Yael called the French ambassador to the UN, whom she had met at a Bastille Day reception, and made a suggestion; five minutes later, she was able to explain to the militia leader that, if he let the convoy pass, his family would be flown to Paris where they would be issued with residence permits. Or he could await the arrival of several attack helicopters carrying French special forces from their base in neighboring Chad. She then sent him a satellite photograph of his vehicle’s precise location. The convoy was allowed through.

  After that, Braithwaite started to send Yael out into the field. She was so successful that Fareed Hussein poached her and made her his “special adviser,” giving her an inside seat at some of the world’s most sensitive diplomatic negotiations and the opportunity to broker deals herself. In Kabul, she arranged for US troops to guard the Taliban’s poppy fields in exchange for the Afghan militants’ promise to not blow up a new gas pipeline. In Ramallah, she persuaded the Palestinians to refrain from declaring an independent state in exchange for observer status at the UN and relaxed controls at dozens of Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank. In Baghdad she had even managed to free Hussein’s nephew, a twenty-one-year-old college graduate with no experience who landed a senior job with the UN and had been promptly kidnapped by Shiite insurgents.

  All of her colleagues were intrigued and wanted to know more. A few were supportive, many jealous, but she couldn’t tell them what she was doing, or where she was sent, and she didn’t want to lie to them. So she stopped socializing. The invitations slowed, then eventually dried up. She missed the company, of course, but her job meant she was on the road much of the time anyway. The pace of life in New York was so frenetic, with people booking nights out weeks in advance, that it was almost impossible for her to arrange a social event. She rarely knew where she would be in two days’ time, let alone in two weeks.

  Yael glanced at the television. A photograph of the UN building covered most of the screen, with a smaller studio feed of Roger Richardson, CNN’s UN correspondent, in the top right-hand corner. A caption ran along the bottom: Senior UN official convicted of sexual assault “likely to be released soon” say law-enforcement sources. She sat up straight, her maudlin mood gone. Richardson, a tall New Yorker with a dry sense of humor, was a veteran of the UN press corps. Yael always enjoyed his company when they met at receptions. But he was as sharp as he was amiable. Who was he referring to? As soon as Yael asked herself the question she knew the answer. There was only one candidate.

  She returned to the sofa, sat down, and turned up the volume as the camera switched back to the studio.

&nb
sp; The anchor, a striking African woman in her early thirties, looked puzzled as she spoke. “But the evidence seemed rock solid, Roger. There is a sound recording, on the Internet. Charles Bonnet’s voice is clear, threatening Thanh Ly and her family unless she does as he asks. That clinched the case and got him a sentence of fifteen years for aggravated sexual assault.”

  Lately the network had been eclipsed by Al-Jazeera, which was pouring resources into both its Arabic and English-language services, but Yael still had an affection for the pioneer of continuous news coverage. After almost twenty years on the UN beat, Richardson also had excellent sources, Yael knew. She had occasionally leaked snippets of information to him herself.

  Richardson nodded, but looked puzzled. “Yes, Aisha. It’s definitely an unexpected turn of events. But my sources in law enforcement are saying Bonnet’s lawyers have been pushing hard to make a case that the sound file was faked and that Thanh Ly was lying. Of course there are also diplomatic implications here.”

  Now displayed on the screen was a photograph of a handsome man in his early fifties, with an erect bearing, hazel eyes, and a tanned face.

  The sound file was not faked. Yael had given Thanh the digital microrecorder herself. But Bonnet had powerful friends, and she’d always known it was unlikely he would serve his full sentence.

  Richardson continued. “We know there have been several high-level meetings between French officials and the Department of Justice lately, supposedly about cooperation against money-laundering and terrorism. We know the US is especially concerned about Islamists in Mali and Algeria, two former French colonies. Perhaps another item was quietly slipped onto the agenda.”

  “It’s starting to look that way. What does Ms. Ly have to say?”

  “So far, nothing. She resigned from the UN and returned home to Paris.”

  “The plot thickens.” The anchor looked at the camera as she spoke. “Ms. Ly, if by any chance you are watching this and want to tell your side of the story, do be in touch. We would love to hear from you. Meanwhile, tell us more about Charles Bonnet and his background, Roger.”

  “The Bonnet Group, the family firm, is one of the largest and most influential companies in France. It has substantial holdings in Africa and excellent links to the political establishment. Charles Bonnet spent time in the French Foreign Legion, and worked at the Bonnet Group headquarters in Geneva before joining the UN just over twenty years ago. He had a successful career and was most recently a very senior UN official, the Special Representative for Africa. But that particular appointment caused uproar among human rights groups.”

  Richardson paused for a moment.

  “Why?” asked the anchor.

  “They claimed that the Bonnet Group had used child labor in its coltan mines in Congo. Coltan is the world’s most important mineral, vital for computers and mobile phones. The company strongly denied the allegations. Shortly afterwards, the Bonnet Group, together with the KZX Corporation, a German conglomerate, donated $5 million to UNICEF, the UN’s children’s charity. The controversy faded away. Bonnet kept his UN job.”

  “Tell us more about the man himself, Roger.”

  Richardson nodded. “Bonnet was also a desk officer at the Department of Peacekeeping during the genocide in Rwanda and as you know, Aisha, Rwanda was the greatest catastrophe in the UN’s history. Eight hundred thousand people were killed in the genocide, including nine UN aid workers in the capital Kigali, after headquarters in New York failed to respond to their calls for help. There have been many …”—he paused—“theories about why that particular massacre, of the UN staff, happened.”

  Yael looked at the photograph in the silver frame. David, her brother, had been one of those nine UN aid workers. She leaned forward, listening intently to every word.

  “Such as?” asked the anchor.

  Richardson frowned. “Some say it was to send a message to the UN not to intervene. Others that it was simple bloodlust. There was enough of that in Rwanda then. But Bonnet’s release has triggered a fresh rumor.”

  “Tell us more, Roger.”

  “That he was connected to some kind of deal behind the scenes, something to do with the nine UN workers who were taken hostage.”

  “Do we have any details?”

  Richardson had a look of fierce concentration. He paused for a couple of seconds before he spoke. “Nothing verifiable. Fareed Hussein, the current secretary-general, was head of the Department of Peacekeeping at the time. It’s highly likely that he would have known what was going on. But if there was a deal, it went horribly wrong.”

  Yael sat staring at her television, transfixed.

  *

  Armin Kapitanovic sat back on the wooden bench and flicked through the navy blue passport, stopping when he came to the photograph page that carried his picture. “Jovan Kovac. Translates as: John Smith. Very original.”

  “You don’t want original,” said Menachem Stein. “You want commonplace, unremarkable.”

  Kapitanovic stared at the embossed gold emblem on the cover. His fingers traced the words, the top line in English, the bottom in French. “Is it real?”

  “Real enough,” said Stein, his palm open.

  Kapitanovic handed him the passport. “I used to dream of Canada, in the war. At night, in Srebrenica, I would say the names of the cities to myself: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottowa. Oh-tow-wa. Like a mantra. If I kept saying the names, one day I would get there.”

  “Once we are done, its yours. You can go wherever you want.”

  The two men were sitting on a bench at the end of a short cul-de-sac on the corner of Sutton Place South and East Fifty-Seventh, looking out over the East River. A garbage scow slowly headed upriver on the black, glistening water, a yellow light blinking on the stern. Queens beckoned on the opposite shore, the apartment buildings glowing brightly. Nighttime traffic flowed along the Queensboro Bridge, headlights shining.

  Kapitanovic’s gaze moved to the left, to an elegant, detached townhouse that took up a good part of a block. Four stories high, it stretched from the corner of East Fifty-Seventh to the wide pavement that marked the end of the cul-de-sac. The house was built in a late Georgian style, with flat fronts and large white sash windows. A short staircase, flanked by black iron railings, led to the side door. A gray metal NYPD box with tinted windows stood on the corner, but the front entrance opened directly onto the street and was completely exposed.

  “Seen enough?” asked Stein.

  Kapitanovic nodded. “More than.”

  9

  Sami scribbled “Bonnet/Than Ly—chk with Richardson—Deal?” and put down his notebook. That was good work for CNN by Roger. Sami had also heard rumors that the case against Bonnet was looking shaky, but had not dug further. Perhaps he should have, especially because of the coltan connection. And as for the rumor about the dead UN aid workers in Kigali, Sami too had heard whispers, but nothing spelled out in that level of detail. It was definitely time for a lunch in the Delegates Dining Room with the CNN correspondent—assuming that Jonathan Beaufort did not get there first.

  For now, Bonnet could wait. What he really wanted to know was why a Middle Eastern feast was going cold on his kitchen table. He picked up his iPhone and pulled up the number of Roxana Voiculescu, the SG’s spokeswoman. Roxana had been Schneidermann’s deputy. Romanian born, attractive, and extremely ambitious even by UN standards, she had somehow bypassed the usual recruitment procedures and immediately been appointed spokeswoman after Schneidermann’s death. Roxana knew all of Fareed Hussein’s movements, meetings, and appointments—firsthand, 24/7, snickered some. She would certainly know if Yael was meeting the SG now, but he couldn’t ask Roxana outright. Sami had heard from multiple sources that Roxana couldn’t stand Yael, was jealous of her access to the SG and trying to work out how to marginalize her. Roxana would brush him off, saying such details were confidential, and then she would probe him, trying to find out why he wanted to know. He needed a plan.

  He thought f
or a moment, and an idea began to form in his mind.

  Roxana picked up on the second ring. They chatted for a minute, exchanging pleasantries, promised to meet for drinks soon. Sami still blushed at the memory of his last social encounter with Roxana. She had been nagging him for weeks to take her out. Eventually he had succumbed and spent part of the evening buying expensive cocktails at a hipster bar while Roxana flirted heavily, until she promptly abandoned him when her boyfriend appeared. Meanwhile, Sami had stolen confidential UN documents from her purse while she was in the restroom.

  “Hey, Roxana, it’s lovely to catch up, but I just wanted to check something,” said Sami.

  “How can I help?” asked Roxana, her voice bright but wary. “Is this about Roger’s report? Because we don’t comment on unsubstantiated rumors.”

  Sami stared straight ahead for a moment. The damp patch on the wall was definitely growing. Thank you, Roxana, he wanted to say, for answering a question I was not going to ask and thereby confirming that Roger was onto something.

  Instead he replied, “No, nothing to do with that. I’m writing a soft piece about Yael and the SG, how she does so much important work behind the scenes and how well they work together. It’s planned for the Week In Review and the editors have asked me to fact-check something. You’ll love it. I need to speak to her, just quickly on the phone. Could you give me her number?”

  Roxana paused. Would the gambit work? Sami had Yael’s number, but Roxana didn’t know that. He could sense Roxana calibrate whether his inquiry would benefit her interest. Control of information was all, especially when dealing with unknowns.

  Her reply was just as he had anticipated. “Why don’t you tell me what you need, Sami, and I will ask her for you?”

  “Thanks so much, but I’m right up against my deadline. I hate to interrupt her and the SG, especially when she is having an emergency meeting with him about Syria, but it’s really important.”