The Washington Stratagem

by Adam LeBor

  He sat back down, closed his eyes for a few moments, and slowed his breathing. “Nice work, Ms. Azoulay.”

  Yael watched him slide the end of the cigar into the cutter, suddenly the very picture of self-control.

  “Are you familiar with the word krysha?” he asked.

  “It’s Russian for roof.” The word was also mafia slang for protection, she knew.

  Clairborne pressed down on the edge of the cutter. The blade slid through the packed tobacco. The end tumbled off like the head of an aristocrat guillotined in revolutionary Paris.

  Yael watched the stub roll to the edge of the desk.

  “Tornado season is coming soon, Ms. Azoulay,” said Clairborne. He flicked the stub into the nearby trash can. “Check your krysha.”

  2

  Najwa al-Sameera carefully picked up a half-full cup of cold coffee from the edge of Sami Boustani’s desk and placed it on a nearby filing cabinet; cleared a space among the piles of yellowing press releases, reports, drafts of future reports, and reports about reports; shifted the glossy UN magazines extolling the virtues of sustainability and conservation and the pile of used notebooks aside; dropped the last third of a stale iced doughnut in the trash can; and finally perched herself on the desk’s edge.

  She considered the scene in front of her. The last time Najwa had seen the UN correspondent for the New York Times, he was dressed in his typical uniform of baggy jeans and untucked long-sleeved shirt worn over a T-shirt, his black curly hair was long and unkempt, and he needed a shave. As usual, he looked like a scruffy graduate student who had wandered into a seminar after a long night on the town. It was a successful guise; over the years Sami’s casual attire and apparently disorganized manner had deceived numerous UN officials and diplomats from around the world into giving away far more information than they had intended. But today he was wearing a pressed white shirt, a cream linen sports jacket, and blue chinos. His hair had been neatly styled and he was clean shaven.

  Najwa tilted her head to one side before she spoke. “He looks like Sami Boustani. He types like Sami Boustani. He is sitting in Sami Boustani’s desk,” she said, her voice puzzled. “But where is Sami Boustani and who is this male model…?”

  Sami muttered a greeting but did not turn away from his screen. “I’m busy, Najwa.”

  She flicked through a clutch of receipts lying by his keyboard. “Busy shopping. Armani AX. Banana Republic. Bloomingdale’s. Are you in love?”

  Sami smiled and carried on typing. “What can I do for you, Najwa?”

  “You could tell me what story you are working on, its news value, who your sources are, the basis on which they are talking to you, and their contact details. Then call them all up and tell them to talk to me as well,” she replied, her toned legs swinging back and forth in her trademark black patent-leather boots.

  Sami laughed. “I could, but I won’t. But I will give you a heads-up an hour before it goes online. Maybe even a copy, if you promise not to run it before me.”

  “Of course, habibi. As if I would ever do such a thing.” Najwa tried to make herself more comfortable in the small space she had managed to clear. “How do you survive in here? My offer is still open. And we have someone come in and clean our office every day,” she said as she looked around the room, shaking her head. She sniffed the air and crinkled her nose. “Is something burning in here?”

  “The new halogen lamp, I think,” said Sami.

  As if on cue, the bulb began to crackle and flicker. The United Nations bureau of the New York Times was barely ten feet by ten. The walls, recently repainted white, had already turned gray. The damp patch on the new white plastic ceiling tiles was larger than ever. The electric cable, which the maintenance team had repeatedly promised to secure, poked through the gap and was covered with condensation. A small window in the corner looked out on the building’s airshaft. The newspaper had a standing request in for a new office, but it was a point of pride for the UN’s building managers to give the major Western media, especially those that probed hardest for scandal and corruption, the smallest and most uncomfortable places possible. There was even talk that the Washington Post and the Financial Times might be forced to share an office. Newspapers and television stations from the developing world, such as Al Jazeera, were a different matter.

  Sami stood up and switched the ceiling light off. The room descended into gloom. He shook his head. “Thanks, Najwa, but I told you, my editors would never allow me to share space with another news organization.”

  “Even though we work together so nicely?”

  Najwa turned, stifled a yawn, and stretched languorously like a cat in the sun, her skintight blue cashmere sweater highlighting the curve of her substantial chest. Najwa was a niece of the king of Morocco, spoke five languages fluently, had degrees from Oxford and Yale, and had caused a minor scandal across the Arab world by modeling swimwear for a Parisian designer. The United Nations correspondent for Al Jazeera had thick black hair, doe-like brown eyes, full lips, clear olive skin, and no compunction whatsoever about using her looks to get the contacts or information she needed.

  After a year as neighbors and occasional colleagues, Sami knew every one of Najwa’s weapons for disarming uncooperative males. Almost every male reporter among the two hundred or so correspondents accredited to the UN had invited her for lunch, together with a good number of females. Najwa usually said yes, then filleted her hosts of their insight, insider information, and usually a good number of contacts as well. Occasionally she progressed to a one-off dinner. But that was it.

  Sami and Najwa had settled into an easy camaraderie, with an undercurrent of rivalry, punctuated by sporadic moments of bickering and flirtation. They both knew that Najwa’s languorous sexuality had the ability to unsettle him. Sami made sure not to turn and watch the brief show, to keep focused on his computer screen.

  Najwa’s star was rising at Al Jazeera, the most popular independent television channel in the Arab and developing world. Her investigation of women’s rights—or the lack of them—in Saudi Arabia had got her banned for life from the kingdom, and a deluge of death threats on Facebook and Twitter from Sunni extremists. But it was her recent documentary, coscripted with Sami, that had firmly established her reputation as one of the most influential new media voices.

  “How is your girlfriend, Sami?” she asked.

  Sami blinked, a slight flush on his cheeks. “She is not my girlfriend.”

  “Whatever. How many dates have you had?”

  “Two,” said Sami, his voice terse as his typing sped up.

  Najwa smiled. “Two. That’s good. She must like you.”

  “I hope so. How is your fiancé?” asked Sami, brightly.

  “As handsome and successful as ever. He is due here later this month. I will introduce you when he arrives. I’m sure you will like him. We will all have dinner together,” Najwa replied, easily parrying Sami’s riposte.

  “That would be fun,” said Sami, doubtfully. Najwa’s fiancé was always about to arrive but so far had never been seen inside the building, or, as far as he knew, anywhere else in New York. “What was his name again?”

  Najwa ignored the question. “So when is your next date?”

  Sami smiled. “Tomorrow.”

  Najwa looked thoughtful. “Third date. The big one. Where are you going?”

  “To her place.”

  “No wonder you are looking so good.” Najwa shook her head, regretfully. “It’s not a good idea, habibi. I will introduce you to my cousin.”

  “So you keep saying. But I am fine, thanks.”

  Najwa stood up, trailing a cloud of Chanel No. 5. She rested her hand on Sami’s shoulder. “She is haram, forbidden, Sami.”

  Sami ran his hand through his hair. “Why?”

  “Where shall I start?” Najwa paused. “Firstly, because she is an… Israeli. And you are an Arab. A Palestinian. Haram for both of you.”

  Sami stiffened, his dark eyes glinting with annoyance
. “We are consenting adults and American citizens.”

  “Passports are not the point.”

  “So what is?”

  “She is a source. She works for the UN. Habibi, you cannot mix business and pleasure. What happens if you get a story about her? Will you warn her? Tone it down? Spike it?”

  “I didn’t spike the story about her and the coltan conspiracy. And we included her in our documentary,” said Sami defensively.

  Dying for Coltan: How the UN Was Almost Hijacked exposed an attempt by the KZX Corporation, a German multinational, and the Bonnet Group, a powerful French industrial firm, to take control of the world’s coltan supplies. The mineral, mined in Congo in near slave-labor conditions, often by children, was vital for the production of mobile telephones and computers. The film, based in part on Sami’s reporting in the New York Times, revealed how senior Bonnet and KZX officials had conspired in Africa together with rogue UN officials and executives of Efrat Global Solutions, an Israeli firm that ran one of the world’s largest private armies. KZX and the Bonnet Group had agreed to sponsor the UN’s first joint corporate development zone in Goma, a border city in eastern Congo. The pilot project had been hailed by Fareed Hussein, and many others, as the model for a new era of cooperation between the UN and the corporate world.

  But the real plan, exposed by Sami, was for Efrat Global Solutions to start a regional war, by pitting Hutus against Tutsis in a rerun of the 1994 Rwanda genocide. UN peacekeepers would then be deployed across eastern Congo to stabilize and take control of the region. KZX and the Bonnet Group then would expand the Goma Development Zone under the flag of the United Nations, with the protection of UN peacekeepers, to everywhere that coltan was mined.

  UN peacekeepers, known as Blue Helmets, were operating in fifteen conflict zones around the world. They were deployed under resolutions passed by the Security Council, whose decisions have the force of international law. The UN could not stop countries going to war. But it could help keep the peace once the fighting was over, by monitoring the ceasefire line and helping to stabilize the situation. The Blue Helmets were more armed observers than a proper fighting force. Often that was all that was needed. Blue Helmets had been deployed on the Golan Heights, between Israel and Syria, for example, since the end of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The Golan Heights mission was counted as a success: until Syria collapsed into civil war, its border with Israel remained peaceful.

  But that peacekeeping model had been designed for the Cold War era, of stable nation-states and a rough equilibrium of power between the United States and the former Soviet Union. Its limitations were made clear in the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s and the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The federal state of Yugoslavia collapsed into its constituent parts: war erupted in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Peacekeepers were dispatched to ensure the safety and passage of aid convoys. But when paramilitaries blocked the road, or plundered the supplies, the Blue Helmets often stood by and did nothing. There was no mechanism for dealing with the rise of what academics called “non-state actors,” such as warlords, local militias, or quasi-statelets. The UN’s neutrality was judged more important than ensuring the arrival of the aid or even saving lives. This policy had a tragic human cost. In spring 1994, Canadian peacekeepers deployed in Rwanda were forbidden from raiding the weapons caches of the Hutu militia that was preparing for the genocide. Over the next few months, eight hundred thousand people were slaughtered. In July 1995, Srebrenica, a UN-declared “safe haven” in eastern Bosnia, was captured by the Bosnian Serb army. Dutch peacekeepers stood by as Bosnian Serb troops took away over eight thousand Muslim men and boys. The prisoners were all killed.

  The ghosts of Rwanda and Srebrenica, of families cut down by machetes, of rows of men and boys standing in a field in Bosnia with their hands tied behind their backs as the guns were reloaded, still haunted the organization. In response, peacekeeping had evolved. Peacekeepers in Africa were now equipped with proper weaponry and attack helicopters, and were provided with up-to-the-minute intelligence from Western spy agencies. They shot back. KZX and the Bonnet Group had planned to exploit the new, more muscular policy for their own ends to take control of swathes of territory where coltan was, or could be, mined. It was a brilliant attempt at what Sami and Najwa had dubbed “Resource Capture.” Dying for Coltan had premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, garnering great critical acclaim. It had been short-listed for several prizes. Several of the protagonists, named in the documentary, were now serving prison sentences, but many more remained free. Some had even been promoted. The role of Yael Azoulay in the affair remained unclear and a source of frustration for Najwa, who knew that there was much more to investigate.

  “Yes, we included Yael. In a bit part,” said Najwa. “We both know she should have been center stage. And she was still pissed with you that she was mentioned at all. Then you moped about for days until she made nice again. And what if she feeds you some disinformation? A well-placed article in the New York Times can serve all sorts of purposes. Had you thought of that?”

  Sami sighed. “Najwa, what do you want?”

  “Cancel your date.”

  Sami looked indignant. “Why? Because she is a source?”

  “Because you need to see what arrived in our post this morning.”

  They call her the “Magician,” their laughter tinged with envy. She slips easily past the sweating tourists, the housewives laden with fruit and vegetables from the Carmel Market, the bleary-eyed hipsters blinking in the white sunlight.

  This is her final exercise before she graduates. Her instructors have told her she is the best in the class, perhaps the best they have ever trained.

  The watchers have her in a box. The paunchy middle-aged man in denim shorts and a blue T-shirt in front of her, pretending to window shop; the young woman wearing a tank top and jeans behind her, drinking a can of Coca-Cola; and across the road the gray-haired man holding a newspaper and walking toward the bus stop.

  She senses their eyes upon her, feels them observing her. They all are smart, brave, and quick-witted, which is why they have been chosen to serve their country. But what she has is something extra: a sixth sense. She can see inside people’s heads, read their body language like an open book, predict what their next move will be.

  Yael waited until her New York–bound train was a few minutes outside Baltimore, the first stop after Washington, DC. There were two of them. A tall man, almost bald apart from a few strands of greasy gray hair, was sitting nearby, pretending to read the sports section of the Washington Post. His colleague, shorter with broad shoulders, was hiding behind a copy of Bloomberg Businessweek at the other end of the carriage. They had both exits covered. She watched them watching her. Perhaps she should have brought Joe-Don with her. An extra pair of hands, especially those large, calloused ones belonging to her bodyguard, could prove extremely useful in situations like this. But she wanted to prove to Joe-Don—and herself—that she could spot, and deal with, surveillance on her own. Especially after Geneva.

  The carriage was barely half-full and the seat next to the bald man was empty. Yael walked over and sat down next to him. He carried on reading his newspaper, his scalp shining under the carriage lights.

  “Baltimore’s a great town,” she said. The city’s outer suburbs rushed by, a jumble of warehouses, housing projects, and freeways.

  He ignored her, shifting in his seat as though trying to get more comfortable.

  “Have you ever been there?” Yael asked.

  The bald man did not answer. He continued reading.

  “I asked you something,” she said, her voice curious.

  “No. I have not been to Baltimore,” he said, irritated. This was not how his script was supposed to play out.

  “I really think you would like it,” said Yael, enjoying his unease.

  “Please leave me in peace, miss, to read my newspaper.”

  The air smells of the city: the salt tang of the sea, Turkish coffe
e scented with cardamom, the falafels frying at the stand on the corner.

  A siren howls as a police car roars down the middle of the road. Heads turn.

  She makes her move.

  She watches the team from her sanctuary: their disbelief, their anger that they have lost her.

  She smiles to herself. She is the best in her class.

  She is invincible.

  Yael reached inside her pocket and took out her smartphone. She held the phone in one hand and gently pulled the page of the newspaper down. The bald man’s mouth twisted with anger until he saw the screen. It showed his face, pin sharp. Yael swiped her finger across the image. A second photograph appeared, of him lurking on the concourse at Union Station.

  “I have some nice shots of your friend over there as well,” said Yael, gesturing at the other end of the carriage. “Would you like to see them?”

  The bald man scowled and said nothing.

  The conductor’s voice sounded through the carriage, “Next stop, Baltimore, next stop, Baltimore.”

  “Your stop,” said Yael.

  “And what if I don’t want to go to Baltimore,” the tall man asked, his breath sour with stale coffee.

  Yael tapped her mobile phone. “The UN Twitter feed has two million followers.”

  He stood up. The train lurched and Yael fell against him for several seconds.

  “Sorry,” she said, not sounding very sorry at all, as she righted herself and stepped away.

  The train slowed as it pulled into Baltimore Station. The man reached for his bag and raincoat.

  “Don’t forget your friend,” said Yael, brightly.

  “Fuck you,” said the tall man as he walked over to his companion, and they exited. Yael waved at the two men as they stood on the platform at Baltimore, watching as the train pulled out of the station.

  Buoyed by her victory, she walked through the carriage to the adjoining restaurant car, bought a hot tea and a bar of dark chocolate, and returned to her seat. Yael placed the tea in the cupholder in the fold-down tray in front of her and emptied two creams and a packet of sugar into the drink. She looked down at the left cuff of her jacket and picked out the loose thread still hanging where the button had been. That was so embarrassing. And how could Samantha afford Dior and Manolo Blahniks on a PA’s salary? Clearly, it was time to ask Fareed for a wardrobe allowance. She took a long drink of the tea. Surely the world’s superpowers would want her to be properly power dressed?