by Adam LeBor
Roxana Voiculescu was Schneidermann’s ferociously ambitious Romanian deputy. “Are you sure? I can take the four o’clock if you like,” she replied, barely able to keep the hope out of her voice.
Schneidermann opened his eyes. “I said I am fine. I will call you if I need you,” he said, his voice stronger now. “Have you finished the press bio of Caroline Masters?”
“It’s on your desk.”
“Thanks. I will see you in a couple of minutes.”
Her footsteps faded away. He stood up and opened the cubicle door, for a moment feeling unsteady on his feet. He stepped outside to the sink, rinsed his mouth, rested his palms on the edge of the basin, and stared at himself in the mirror. A Belgian man of medium height, in his late thirties, stared back at him: pale, podgy with rounded shoulders and washed-out blue eyes. His shirt was crumpled, his straw-blond hair thinner than ever. He gently pushed his right index finger into the soft flesh under his chin. The jowls sagged around it. Unlike many male UN officials, the spokesman for the UN secretary-general was smart enough, and blessed with enough self-awareness, to know that he was quite resistible to women. Even Roxana had stopped flirting with him after her first week, after he had rebuffed every eager smile and flick of her silky black hair.
Schneidermann had started work as UN spokesman the previous year. The job of a journalist covering the UN he had then believed, was not to hunt for scandals, corruption, and mismanagement, but to spread the word about the UN’s achievements and good work so that it could enjoy more success and save even more lives. He had certainly taken this approach himself. Schneidermann had been part of the UN press corps, as a correspondent for an obscure news agency in Paris, which covered health and development issues. Most of his stories consisted of rewriting press releases from the World Health Organization and other allied UN agencies about their latest successes in combating gruesome parasitical diseases. His plan as spokesman had been to accentuate the positive. Sure, there were plenty of freeloaders and timeservers. But there was also a solid core of UN peacekeepers and aid workers who were daily risking their lives in conflict and disaster zones around the world. Just recently, tens of thousands of terrified civilians had taken refuge in the UN base in South Sudan, where they had been protected by UN troops. Schneidermann wanted to get these stories out, emphasize the human-interest angle, and try and change the way the press corps viewed the organization.
It didn’t work. Nothing had prepared him for the savagery of his first briefing as spokesman: the ceaseless, relentless questioning, the refusal to take anything he said at face value, the deep-rooted cynicism underpinned by a collective assumption that everyone in the building was there to either line their pockets, build their own empires, or preferably both. The correspondents treated him with a mix of disdain and mockery. Once he had got over the shock, he did not blame them. His job, he soon discovered, was not to provide information to the two hundred or so journalists accredited to the New York headquarters, but to stonewall, obfuscate, and divert their inquiries.
The pattern was set and simple: every weekday afternoon Schneidermann shared the news the senior management wanted to be made public at a briefing long dubbed the “four o’clock follies.” The journalists descended on his bland offerings like a pack of ravenous hyenas, ignoring the information he imparted and launching a barrage of questions about the latest corruption scandal or the UN’s inability to act when one of its members was slaughtering its own citizens. Schneidermann replied with expressions of regret about the massacres and promises of yet more inquiries into the fate of missing monies. And then a fresh wave of stories would appear in the international media, again portraying the UN as a secretive, unresponsive organization with something to hide. The bosses’ news-management strategy was a disaster, he soon realized.
Schneidermann had asked for a meeting with Caroline Masters, who as deputy SG was in charge of the Department of Public Information. He had been granted eight minutes, during which he explained his concerns and argued for a more open, responsive information policy. Masters had listened politely. The following week Schneidermann was sent on a three-day course on “maximizing interpersonal skills.” Roxana Voiculescu held the press briefings, deftly batting away the press corps’ questions with wit and verve. The resultant coverage was as critical as ever, but the whisper now was that Schneidermann had lost his fire. Roxana’s star was rising and his, he knew, was fading.
As his disillusionment grew, Schneidermann—who was privy to much high-level gossip—found himself idly wondering if he could set up a kind of information exchange, rather like the New York Stock Exchange, where facts, rumors, and predictions could be monetized and traded like any other commodity. He was certain that the problematic part would be the technicalities of running the operation, rather than a shortage of material.
Today’s press conference would likely be his last, he believed. Masters had briefed him about the topics about an hour and a half ago, in Fareed’s office. He turned on the cold tap and cupped his hands under the cool water, splashing his face and neck. The water revived him and gave him courage as he thought of his instructions for the briefing. There were four main topics: Fareed Hussein’s medical condition, Caroline Masters, Yael Azoulay, and the Istanbul Summit. Schneidermann did not for a moment believe that there was anything wrong with the SG’s health. Nor did he believe that Yael Azoulay had willingly chosen to give up her position as the SG’s secret envoy to run the Trusteeship Council. Masters had sidelined her because she was an ally of Fareed. The housecleaning had started and he knew his turn was coming soon. Masters had already dropped several hints about the need for a new head of communications for the Universal Postal Union, one of the most obscure UN agencies, which was headquartered in Bern, Switzerland. At least there he might be able to keep his lunch down, he thought, although he had no intention of taking the job.
A few months ago he had, as instructed, tried to destroy Yael’s reputation. He had believed Masters when she told him that Yael was implicated in the murder of Olivia de Souza, Fareed Hussein’s secretary, and was connected to the KZX-Bonnet scandal.
Schneidermann knew better now. It was thanks to Yael that Olivia’s killer had been caught—and that the UN had not provided the cover for another genocide in Africa. He stood up straight. He patted down his unruly hair, fixed his tie, and smoothed his jacket. Despite Masters’s explicit instructions to trash Yael, he would not make the same mistake today.
The last time Yael had seen the man known as Cyrus Jones in person was little more than a month ago in Istanbul. Now, just as her anonymous correspondent had promised, Jones was back, standing inside the front cabin of the four o’clock ferry from Staten Island, one of many passengers watching the Manhattan skyline as the ship headed toward Battery Park.
Yael was sitting behind him, about twenty yards away to the right. She was breaking all the rules by following him. Jones was a killer, one with a very personal grudge against her. She was alone, with no backup. No matter how skillful her tradecraft, she could not change her face, which Jones knew. Joe-Don, Fareed Hussein, Quentin Braithwaite, all thought she was ensconced in her new office in the UN building, mastering the intricacies of the Trusteeship Council. She had disabled the GPS in her mobile phone so she could not be tracked. But she was not scared, or even nervous.
Instead, she was locked on, totally focused as the adrenaline coursed through her. Feel the space, its borders, its atmosphere and feel the target, his movements, his behavior, his thought patterns, her instructors had told her. Use your instincts and trust them. So far, they had served her well. Her senses had gone into a familiar turbo-drive. The air was thick, charged with electricity. She could hear a conversation on the other side of the cabin, taste the Atlantic on the wind. She felt coiled, energized, as though the whole side of her body facing Jones was a giant sensor, picking up his slightest movements, thoughts, intentions.
But Jones too was a trained operative. If she could sense him, perhaps he could sense her.
Yael had her hair tucked under a black woolen hat, which was covered in turn by the fake fur hood of her gray-green anorak. She wore a pair of tinted glasses, and held a pen in her hand as she pretended to do the crossword in that day’s New York Times, which was resting on her right knee. From the side, it was almost impossible to see her face. Yael knew that Jones might still recognize her if he saw her up close, but she had no intention of allowing that to happen.
The weather had changed for the worse since her morning run. The Manhattan shoreline was wreathed in a gray mist under a sky the color of lead. The ferry was half-empty, apart from a few intrepid tourists and Staten Islanders heading into town. Rain dripped from their coats and rolled-up umbrellas, forming puddles of grimy water on the floor. The boat’s central cabin was flanked by two wide, enclosed corridors on either side. Rows of hard green plastic chairs ran parallel with the corridor’s large windows. Yael sat on the end of a row against the back wall. Here she could look in three directions at once and nobody could approach her from behind. Two young women near Yael were discussing the merits of the new economic adviser at the mayor’s office, where they worked. She was eavesdropping, enjoying the innocent gossip, when her mobile quietly vibrated inside her coat pocket.
Keeping one eye on Jones, she took out the phone. Yael smiled as she read the SMS message:
Hey—no word from U saw Sami on AJ—guess dinner was canceled How about that lunch? X Isis.
The idea of some girl time suddenly seemed immensely appealing. Yael’s thumb hovered for a second over the tiny keyboard before she slipped the mobile back inside her coat pocket. Instead, she pretended to do the crossword and continued watching Jones.
He was standing quite still, as though in a kind of trance. Jones was slim, of medium height, dressed in jeans and a black single-breasted raincoat. At first glance he looked the same as he had on the Istanbul waterfront: the broad, pale face dotted with freckles, thin lips, short dark-blond hair, the red and purple birthmark that ran down the left side of his neck from his ear to his collar. But his soul patch was gone—his face thinner now, his features sharper—as were his Oakley wraparound sunglasses, unneeded in the fading winter light.
Yael took out her phone and angled it toward Jones. The phone had been specially modified; its zoom lens had been increased by a factor of six, with diamond-sharp resolution, and the high-definition video shot ninety frames a second of near-broadcast quality, certainly good enough to withstand close examination on a full-sized computer monitor. The phone had also been fitted with extra software that allowed her to surreptitiously download content from other phones up to fifteen yards away via an encrypted Bluetooth connection. She pressed a button on the right-hand side, and Jones’s sideways profile filled the screen. A small menu at the top showed the mobile telephones within range of her Bluetooth connection. One phone showed among the list as having high-level encryption. This one, she guessed, was his. She tried to connect and download his data. The telephone did not yield. Yael shut down the connection, wary of alerting him that she was trying to break in.
In the summer, tourists would be surrounding Jones, snapping pictures of the Manhattan shoreline. But today the seats, not the panorama, were coveted. The light was fading and the wind growing stronger. Waves slapped at the vessel’s side, sending tremors through the hull. Yael resisted the temptation to take out the hand-delivered letter she had received yesterday, now folded in half in an envelope in her jacket pocket, and read it again. The typewritten missive had proved accurate. Jones was here, on the ferry, just as promised. She had come prepared. She tucked her legs under the seat, feeling the reassuring weight against her right ankle.
The only problem was that after five cups of strong tea that day, she urgently needed to pee. That would mean leaving Jones, but the pressure was building. Perhaps she should have brought Joe-Don after all, to cover for her during trips to the washroom. A cabin window was open and Yael shivered as a gust of cold, damp air hit her. The bumpy ride, as the ship rose up and down with the waves, was not helping. She squirmed on her seat. It didn’t work. She had to use the restroom. The waves were higher now and water was splashing onto the corridor. A loose door swung back and forth in the wind, banging against a heavy, rusty chain. One of the young women sitting near Yael stood up, walked over to the window, and closed it. The boat lurched and she slipped on the wet floor, but managed to right herself in time.
Jones, however, seemed completely unperturbed as he rode the rise and fall of the waves. Then he suddenly turned around, scanning the passenger deck. Yael instantly dropped her head, absorbed in the New York Times crossword. She could see, out of the corner of her eyes, that he was walking toward the stairs to the lower deck. She was about to stand up and follow him when a plump woman in her early thirties sat down next to her.
“One day,” her instructor tells her, “you will be on a mission, maybe in a foreign country. You will meet someone you know—by pure chance, in a hotel, an elevator, or an airport. The world is much smaller than we think. They will say your name. You may be far from home, in danger, so happy to see a friendly face.”
“And what do I do?” she asks.
“You learn to lie. Or you die.”
They had harvested her life and given her a list of people, places, and times. College friends gathering in a café, former army comrades having a reunion, even her childhood sweetheart on his way home from work.
She had appeared as instructed, made sure she was seen at each place. None of her friends knew she was coming; all were pleased to see her—at first.
She passed every test: shrugged off their greetings, stayed stone-faced at their protestations, walked away from their pleas. Most were puzzled; a couple became angry. Several believed her, and apologized for their mistake, for bothering her. The power of it thrilled and terrified her.
Her instructors are pleased. She has done very well, and the exercise is over. She is free for the rest of the day. She calls her favorite cousin, Sarah, and arranges to meet at a café on Dizengoff Street.
“Yael?” the woman sitting down next to her asked.
Yael said nothing.
The woman peered around and stared into Yael’s face. “I thought it was you,” she said delightedly, her Bronx accent cutting through the rumble of the boat’s motors. “What are you doing here?”
9
The buzz of conversation in the pressroom faded away as Henrik Schneidermann walked in, flanked by Roxana Voiculescu holding the printouts of the day’s briefing notes. Many of the UN press corps were genuine journalists, but their numbers were leavened with a good number of spies whose reports were much appreciated by their bosses but certainly never published. Several correspondents, Schneidermann knew, reported both for their declared media and to their national intelligence service. Some “correspondents” had never written a news story, nor would they know how to, because they were not journalists but relatives of diplomats at the various missions to the UN who wanted an easy way to get a US visa.
Usually, a few dozen journalists at most turned up for Schneidermann’s weekly briefings. A good turnout was around one hundred. Today, there were more than double that. It seemed to Schneidermann that every accredited reporter was here, rows of them, staring at him as though he were about to announce the second coming. The UN rumor mill had been working overtime during the last couple of days: Yael Azoulay was about to be stripped of her legal immunity and arrested in connection with the death of Jean-Pierre Hakizimani; the Swiss authorities had demanded her extradition because she’d drowned someone, possibly an American, in Lake Geneva; Fareed Hussein was in the hospital after suffering a heart attack; the Istanbul Summit was about to be canceled; Caroline Masters had organized a coup.
The back of the room and the sides were filled with television crews: Schneidermann counted familiar faces from the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Reuters, Russia Today, and Associated Press, as well as teams from Japan, Brazil, Pakistan, India, and South Africa. A platoon of microp
hones, their thick tangle of black cables trailing onto the floor, stood on the long wooden desk in front of his lectern. The camera operators fussed over their headphones, checked their sound readings, and peered through their viewfinders, while their correspondents subtly jostled each other, trying to ensure that they had a better position than the competition. Najwa al-Sameera and her crew were in pole position, at the front of the room on the right-hand side.
Sami Boustani, Schneidermann saw, was in his customary place, leaning on the wall toward the back of the room, looking strangely preoccupied. Sami rarely asked questions at the press briefing. He had no taste for grandstanding, and also did not want to reveal even a hint of his interests for fear of alerting the competition to a potential story. Instead he usually arranged to see Schneidermann privately.
The UN spokesman stood at his lectern, its beige wood emblazoned with the UN emblem, against a backdrop of dark blue fabric. His slim, angular microphone pointed upward on a metal rod. Roxana walked down the rows of chairs, handing out that day’s printed briefing: a one-page biography of Caroline Masters and the usual summaries of resolutions passed by the UN’s numerous committees.
Schneidermann leaned forward. He felt calm and in control. Even his stomach had stopped growling. He tapped the microphone and the last murmurs faded away. Dozens of expectant faces looked back at him as he began to speak.
“As many of you know, the secretary-general has not been well lately. The SG is now on sick leave. Some of his responsibilities will be divided up between the undersecretaries-general, the department heads. But the main burden of his workload will be assumed by Caroline Masters, the deputy secretary-general. The regrettable cause of Ms. Masters’s promotion notwithstanding, the UN management board is pleased to confirm her appointment as acting secretary-general.”
The journalists looked at each other, nodding. It had been worth turning up today. Caroline Masters was a major story. The print reporters started scribbling, the radio journalists checked their sound levels, peering at the readings on the dials. Some of the television correspondents anxiously looked at their cameramen, fearful that their crews might be missing Schneidermann’s announcement. Najwa had no such worries. She leaned against the wall, holding her mobile telephone. The instant Schneidermann had finished his sentence she pressed the “tweet this” button on her phone screen. Najwa had already written the short message announcing Masters’s appointment and had just needed Schneidermann’s confirmation.