by Adam LeBor
Lacking what the invitation described as a “partner,” she had brought her mother. Yael lent Barbara one of her several black dresses, in which she looked annoyingly glamorous. Where was she? Yael scanned the crowd. Barbara was standing on the other side of the party, deep in conversation with Reinhardt Daintner. The KZX executive loomed over her like a tall, pale praying mantis. Barbara nodded thoughtfully as he spoke, apparently fascinated by everything he had to say. Yael stared in amazement at Daintner’s hand resting on her mother’s upper arm. Their proximity, and relaxed body language, indicated an easy familiarity. Until Caroline Masters strode over, when Daintner instantly dropped his hand and stepped back.
Bonnet ended his call and put his phone in his pocket. He followed Yael’s gaze. “Who is that talking to Reinhardt?”
“My mother,” said Yael, still taken aback.
“Of course. So they are still friendly,” said Bonnet, his voice amused.
“Still?”
Bonnet ignored her question. He gave Barbara a swift, Gallic appraisal. “She is very beautiful. Lucky you.” He turned and looked at Yael. “You have good genes. And you share her looks.” He sipped his champagne, tilting his head to the side before he spoke. “Ma chère Yael, I am not complaining, of course, about being in your company. There is no queue to replace you. But,” his voice hardened slightly as he continued, “I am wondering why, in a room of glamorous, successful New York movers and shakers, any one of whom would be glad of your company, you are here talking to me, a disgraced, burnt-out has-been. At least this time you have let me finish my drink. Speaking of which …” Bonnet raised his empty glass and looked around the marquee.
A waiter appeared almost instantly. Yael glanced at his face, then his name badge, and smiled; not too obviously, she hoped. The last time she saw “Miguel” had been last fall, when he and Joe-Don helped her escape from the Millennium Hotel after killing Jean-Pierre Hakizimani. Joe-Don had wanted to come with her tonight, of course, but Yael had insisted she would be safe. There was nowhere in New York more secure than the KZX reception. Still, it was a good feeling to know that Joe-Don had her back even when he was not around. Miguel filled Bonnet’s empty glass with champagne, then raised the bottle over Yael’s glass, which was still almost full. She shook her head. She needed to keep a clear head for what was coming next. Miguel winked at her and walked off.
Bonnet drank half his champagne in one go. The alcohol seemed to give him courage. “I may be vain. But I am not stupid. What do you want?”
“You saw Roger’s report on CNN last night?”
Bonnet nodded.
“He said there was some kind of deal, to do with the nine aid workers that were killed. You were on the Rwanda desk then. Was there?”
The Frenchman stiffened, almost imperceptibly. He looked at his champagne glass, raised it, then lowered it again without drinking. “Why are you interested in this? You were a teenager then.”
“I knew one of them.”
*
She is seven years old, sitting on her brother’s shoulders and giggling with delight as he strides across Central Park, pretending to be a giant, striding between the trees.
*
As far as Yael knew, only Fareed Hussein knew that David Weiss was her brother. David too became estranged from his father, wanting nothing to do with Aleph Research, and took his mother’s maiden name. The SG would likely have kept that information to himself. The last thing he’d want was any more discussion of Rwanda and his role during the genocide, especially in the office.
Yael watched Bonnet. There was no flash of recognition in his eyes, but he was suddenly wary. He looked around, stared at her for several seconds, made a decision. “Not here,” he said, and started to walk out.
She followed him through the crowd. Bonnet turned left and walked around the side of the library, through a manicured garden with low hedges. There he sat on a stone bench. A policeman walked by, his radio crackling. He glanced at Yael and Bonnet, nodded briefly in greeting, then walked on.
Bonnet waited until the policeman had gone. “It was a tragedy. We had hoped, planned, for a very different outcome.” He looked into the distance as he calmly rifled through his memories.
Yael asked, “It is true then, what Roger reported on CNN? That there was a deal?”
He sat back. “You have a cigarette, maybe?”
Yael reached inside her purse and took out a pack of Marlboro Lights. She handed him the box and her Zippo lighter. He extracted a cigarette and lit it, and closed his eyes for a few seconds, drawing deep. The tobacco crackled, the end of the cigarette glowing red as it trembled. The breeze was cooler now. Yael pulled her shawl around her. Her black minidress, the same one that she had worn for her canceled date with Sami, was designed for being inside a party. Her toes were chilled in her open sandals. She waited for Bonnet to speak.
He exhaled a long plume of smoke through his nose, then turned to her. “Fareed said it was his idea, but I don’t know if that’s true. You know how it works. A chance remark in a meeting, a proposal in a memo, then suddenly it’s policy, actually happening. Either way, it would have been a win for me, and for France, and a large deposit in Hussein’s favored bank from one of the P5.”
Yael nodded, her heart racing, but trying to seem curious but dispassionate. “How was it supposed to work?”
“The UN workers were to be taken hostage, then rescued by French peacekeepers.”
“But why? In exchange for what?”
“You will have to ask Fareed that. Or whoever was giving him orders.”
“And you did what?”
Bonnet shrugged. “What I had to. What I was told to do. Like a good soldier. Or peacekeeper. We know when not to intervene. Which, then, was most of the time.” He took another drag and watched the smoke trail into the air. Yael stayed silent.
“I …” he swallowed, trying to get the words out. He closed his eyes, and exhaled hard. The words came in a torrent. “I liaised with the Tutsis. With Hakizimani. The UN staff’s captor.” He swallowed again, paused. “Their murderer.”
For a second Yael was back in the Millennium Hotel, listening to Hakizimani.
“You tell your SG this. If he starts altering the terms now, I will personally ensure that our communications in 1994 and subsequent years are leaked to the press.”
*
“So you handed them over to be killed,” she said, surprising herself at how calm she remained.
“Not intentionally. They were supposed to be hostages. They were to be held for a day or two, then released.”
“But why? What was the point? What were the terms?”
Bonnet shrugged. “I don’t know. Really. I’m telling you the truth. Ask Fareed. Or the P5. I was just the facilitator. There was always a danger, of course, we knew that. We took a gamble. We lost. They were casualties of war. What do the Americans say? Collateral damage. Nine deaths among hundreds of thousands. It was chaos, we had no means of stopping it. It was not my fault. So I tell myself. Sometimes I even believe it. Whose fault was it? Everybody’s. Nobody’s.” He paused, turned to face her. “But you, Yael, you know all about secret deals.”
Yael bristled. “I have never handed over anybody to be killed.”
Bonnet laughed, a brittle sound. “Please. We are having an adult conversation, are we not? How many killers have you let walk free on Fareed’s orders? Killers who later continued their slaughter. How many warlords have escaped justice because the P5 or the global corporations decided it would be inconvenient to call them to account? And then got you to do the dirty work.”
She did not reply. She looked at the ground. Bonnet’s questions were precisely the ones she had been asking herself lately. She did not like the answers.
He paused, and looked at his cigarette. “You said you knew one of them. Which one?”
“David. David Weiss.”
“How? You were what then, fifteen, sixteen years old? How does a teenage girl living in London know
an American aid worker in Kigali? I remember the boy. He was good-looking. Green eyes, like yours.” He stared at Yael. “Like yours …” A slow realization dawned across his face. “Of course. So that’s why you dig so hard. David Weiss was your …”
There was no point in lying. “Brother.”
Bonnet looked away, clearly shocked. “I had no idea. I am sorry.”
“So am I. You lost a gamble. They lost their lives.” Anger and regret curdled inside her. Had the man sitting next to her acted differently, shown some courage, not followed instructions, her brother might still be alive. But there was no point attacking him now. Especially when she needed more information. “I have another question.”
“Go ahead,” said Bonnet.
“What were you doing when you were seconded to the Prometheus Group from the DPKO?”
His weary cynicism evaporated. He suddenly looked alarmed. “How on earth did you …”
“An old version of the UN website. It must have been posted by mistake. It was taken down, but it’s still out there in cyberspace, if you know where to look.”
Bonnet dropped his cigarette on the ground. “I always admired you. Really, it’s not just a Frenchman’s flattery, although it would have been nice if that had worked.” He crushed the butt with his shoe. “But be warned. You are poking a hornet’s nest. Nobody has your back. Fareed will throw you overboard in a second.”
From here, Yael could see out over the campus’s gardens, the carefully trimmed hedges; the grand stairs to the library entrance with its row of columns; even right across Broadway, to the apartment blocks that overlooked the thoroughfare. For a moment she thought she saw something or someone moving on a roof, a glint of light, a reflection on glass. Night was falling but there was still plenty of illumination from the streetlights, shops, and apartment windows. She glanced back. Nothing. It must have been a shadow.
Yael had enjoyed her time at Columbia, worked hard for her master’s. But her real education had started at the Department of Peacekeeping. Would Fareed “throw her overboard”? He had done so once already. But now their lives were more entangled than ever. She was about to reply when a movement in the distance caught her eye. She looked out again across Broadway, to the roof of the apartment block. Not one, but two people. Her heart sped up. She knew exactly what was going to happen next.
Time slowed, almost stopped.
Yael glanced at Bonnet.
A red dot appeared on his chest.
Collateral damage.
She glanced again at the roof of the apartment building.
A photograph of Bonnet with his African wife and their son and daughter.
She shoved him sideways as hard as she could and dived to the ground.
PART TWO
REYKJAVIK
29
Yael watched Magnus Olafsson as he came to the end of his final security briefing. There were a dozen people in the Hotel Borg’s conference room and the air was thick with hostility. Olafsson sat at the head of the long, polished wooden table, his deputy Karin Bjornsdottir on his right. Four men sat on each side of the table. Those on the left all seemed in their forties or early fifties, were pale and clean-shaven. They wore navy two-piece suits, button-down shirts, and plain ties. Their counterparts opposite, mostly of a similar age, had darker complexions. They wore gray or black suits and white collarless shirts. Two had beards, including the obvious leader of the group, who was older and plumper, with silver hair. All eight had cold, wary eyes.
The two sides stared at each other, as though convinced that the other was planning to assassinate their head of state, if not start shooting there and then. A coffee pot, bottles of mineral water, and a teapot sat atop one of the tables together with white china cups and saucers, fruit, cookies, and muffins. None had been touched.
Olafsson, the commander of Iceland’s elite counterterrorist unit, the Vikingasveitin, or Viking Squad, had short blond hair, dark blue eyes, a sharp, almost pointed chin, and a long day’s worth of stubble. He spoke thoughtfully, weighing his words, a sea captain staying unruffled as the waves pound the deck. “Gentlemen. We have been through the plan several times. You have a detailed, minute-by-minute timetable in the folders on the table in front of you. Because there will be overlap between your presidents’ visits to our president at the Bessastadir residence, we need to coordinate and work together.”
A visit from the UN secretary-general, not to mention any president, always entailed extensive cooperation between the accompanying security details and the host country’s police, military, and intelligence services. But Iceland, perched in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic, was different from other countries. Just 332,000 people lived on the volcanic island of 40,000 square miles, about the size of Kentucky, most in and around the capital, Reykjavik. Vast swathes of the landscape were icebound, barren tundra, or lava fields where nothing could grow. Not only did Iceland lack any kind of standing military force, despite being a NATO member, its police were unarmed and guns were rare. It also lacked an intelligence service, but it did have the Vikingasveitin to ensure the security of visiting foreign dignitaries.
Olafsson gestured at Yael and Joe-Don, sitting in two leather armchairs a few feet away. “Yael Azoulay and Joe-Don Pabst are here to coordinate the UN’s involvement and to ensure the safety of Fareed Hussein. So, gentlemen, can I have your assurances that we can all work together?”
“No,” said the American sitting directly to the left of Olafsson.
Every eye in the room turned to stare. Kent Maxwell, a heavyset older man with thinning gray hair and a red face lined with veins, was the US Secret Service’s liaison officer with the Viking Squad.
“Pardon?” said Olafsson.
“No. I said no,” replied Maxwell. “The United States of America does not ‘work together’ with state sponsors of terrorism.”
The Iranians remained impassive. Each looked at the older man. He nodded almost imperceptibly. All four began to gather their folders and made ready to stand up.
Olafsson raised his hands in supplication. “Gentlemen, I understand the difficult history of your countries and the agencies which you represent. But, with respect, that is not my concern here today. In the last few days a senior UN official has been murdered, another shot at. My concern is to ensure a safe and secure environment for your heads of state, especially when they meet our president. And for that to happen, you need to put aside your differences.”
“We will put aside ‘our differences’ when the Iranian government puts aside its suicide bombers and truck bombs,” Maxwell said.
The man with silver hair looked disdainfully at Maxwell. “And when you put aside your drones and torture chambers and summary executions.” He paused and looked at Olafsson. “However, we appreciate that we are guests here. If you apologize, we will overlook your insult.”
“Sure,” said Maxwell. “When you apologize for holding my countrymen hostage for 444 days in our own embassy.”
Olafsson raised his hands, palm out, and glanced at his deputy. “OK. OK. If that’s the way you want it. I hereby announce that the government of Iceland withdraws all security cooperation. We can no longer guarantee the safety of either president and we will make an announcement immediately to that effect. From this moment on, you are on your own. Good luck.” He started to slide his chair back.
“Wait,” said Yael, as she stood up and walked over to the table. “Everyone stay where you are.” She looked at the Americans, then the Iranians. “The United Nations, on whose security council both of your countries sit, requests a couple of minutes for a time out.”
The Americans glanced at Maxwell, the Iranians at the silver-haired man. Both Maxwell and the silver-haired man nodded.
Yael continued talking. “We all know that both of your teams could manage Bessastadir, on your own, without coordinating with your opposite numbers. But there is one thing you all need and that is Magnus, Karin, and the Viking Squad. How do you think your presidents
will react when they learn their visit to the presidential residence has been canceled because of their security details’ macho posturing? I doubt very much that any of you will have a job when you return home.” Yael paused to let her words settle. “We need to fix this, and quickly. Please, reach across the table and shake the hand of the person sitting opposite you.”
All eight men looked at their colleagues with varying degrees of alarm, murmuring in English and Farsi.
“An excellent idea,” said Olafsson. “Both of your technicians have swept this room. Nobody is watching, listening or recording. A little trust goes a long way. Especially when you are all so far from home, on a lump of rock and lava in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”
Yael watched the four Iranians as Olafsson spoke. The older man seemed familiar; nothing specific, but something about his appearance nagged at her. She frowned, trying to remember if and where she had seen him before.
Maxwell shrugged, glanced around the room as if to check no camera crews had sneaked in, and tentatively reached across the table. The Iranian facing him had hooded eyes. He looked to the silver-haired man sitting next to him, as if to seek his permission. A subtle nod, and the American’s hand was grasped. Within a few seconds, all eight men were shaking hands.