The Washington Stratagem

by Adam LeBor

  A tall, languid Englishman, wearing creased jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, and a brown corduroy jacket immediately stood up.

  Schneidermann nodded in acknowledgment. “Yes, Jonathan,” he asked.

  Beaufort intentionally paused for several seconds, combing his blond hair back with his fingers as the tension rose in the room. He looked puzzled as he spoke. “Henrik, if the SG is sick, then why was he playing tennis this morning?”

  Schneidermann smiled, his voice confident and friendly. “I have no information on the SG’s sporting activity this morning, or any other morning. His daily routine, before he comes to work, is his own affair—”

  Beaufort interrupted, his voice indignant. “The SG is the world’s most important diplomat. His health is a matter of legitimate public interest. His health is everyone’s affair—”

  Schneidermann jumped in. “Jonathan, if you would please let me finish my sentence. Of course his health is a matter of public interest. And I have told you. He is now on sick leave. But the precise details of his medical condition are a matter for his doctors. I am sure you understand, Jonathan, that those details should remain confidential. Even though he is a public figure, as a human being he deserves the same privileges as any patient.”

  Beaufort looked puzzled. Where was the Schneidermann of old, brusque and irritable? When had he learned to bat back press inquiries so smoothly, making the questioner seem ill-mannered and intrusive? He switched topics. “Who decided that Caroline Masters should take over the SG’s role? What kind of consultation has there been on this, and how long do you expect her to fill the position?”

  Schneidermann had an almost overwhelming urge to reply, Caroline Masters’s appointment is a complete mystery to me. I don’t believe that Fareed is really sick, I am still trying to work out how she got the job, and I am sure that nothing good will come of this. Instead he said: “As Fareed’s deputy, Caroline was the obvious candidate. All the members of the Security Council were in agreement.”

  Beaufort looked doubtful. “Even the Iranians?”

  Iran had just started a two-year term as one of ten nonpermanent members of the Security Council. Schneidermann nodded. “As I said, all fifteen members of the Security Council were in agreement, both the P5 and the nonpermanent members. Thank you, Jonathan, and now, I am sure some of your colleagues have questions.”

  “Why has Yael Azoulay been demoted?” demanded Najwa. “Is it because of our report and the article in the New York Times today?”

  Schneidermann leaned forward, a pleasant smile on his lips. “Najwa, let me assure you and your colleagues that Ms. Azoulay has not been demoted. She has been promoted. She now holds the rank of assistant secretary-general, which as you all know, is only one level below that of department head. There is no mystery about this. It is all there, in print, on the briefing note you have been handed by Roxana.”

  Najwa looked down at the sheet of paper and snorted derisively. “Assistant secretary-general in charge of the Trusteeship Council, which has met precisely three times this century.”

  Every eye in the room was on Schneidermann’s duel with Najwa. He swallowed, then rallied. “Many of the problems the world faces nowadays, from Syria to Somalia, relate back to the dissolution of the former colonial empires. We think Yael’s unique skill set will prove immensely beneficial.”

  She snapped back, “Like posing as a hooker under a false name in the Millennium Hotel?”

  Schneidermann looked puzzled. “Meaning?”

  Najwa said, “I hope you watch Al Jazeera. You certainly read the New York Times. You saw Sami’s piece.”

  “I did. And I saw your report, Najwa.”

  “Great. So what is the UN’s response?”

  Schneidermann had been expecting this of course, either from Sami or Najwa. He had discussed with Caroline Masters how to respond to Najwa’s report and Sami’s article about Yael. Masters had instructed him to say that Yael’s private life was her own affair, meaning: hang her out to dry. When Schneidermann had argued strongly against this because it would be an unfair smear, Masters had looked him in the eye and reminded him that there was no evidence that Yael was on official UN business at the hotel, which was in fact true. Schneidermann had tried a different tack. Such an answer, he said, would trigger questions as to why, if there were such questions over Yael’s judgment and personal life, she had been promoted to assistant secretary-general. But Masters had dismissed his concerns, and he understood why. The press corps would sense that the UN was distancing itself from Yael, and so pursue her and the hotel story with even greater vigor. Eventually the pressure on Yael would become unbearable, her position untenable, and Masters could force her to resign. And by then, if Yael did go public with her knowledge of the UN’s secret deals and maneuvers, her revelations would be dismissed as the fantasies of an embittered ex-employee.

  Schneidermann kept his face composed. “All I can say at this stage is that we are seeking further information.”

  Najwa stared at him, her voice indignant. “We are also seeking further information, Henrik. Who was inside the room? Was this official UN business? If so, can we have some details please? If not, then what was Yael Azoulay doing there? Why were there two security guards outside the door? Who were these security guards and who did they work for?”

  “We are seeking further information,” Schneidermann repeated beatifically. “You can quote me. That’s it on that subject.”

  Najwa rolled her eyes and sat down.

  “Any other questions? The Economic and Social Council meeting this afternoon looks like it could be especially interesting….” He looked around with a practiced air of faux expectation. The only UN council meeting that ever produced any news was the Security Council, which was not meeting today.

  Murat Yilmaz stood up and raised his hand. Yilmaz, the correspondent for Anadolu, the Turkish state news agency, was a gray-haired, portly man in his late fifties, with deep lines around his brown eyes. Courteous and friendly, a bon vivant who took full advantage of New York’s restaurants, Yilmaz had been posted to the UN for over a decade. Like his homeland, Yilmaz cultivated good relations with all sides, including the Americans, Saudis, Iranians, and Israelis. Schneidermann was certain that if he was not an actual spy, he was feeding information to the Milli I·stihbarat Teşkilatı, the Turkish intelligence service.

  “Thank you, Henrik. Regrettably, I must pass on your kind offer,” he said in his rich baritone, provoking gentle laughter, “but I would like to ask about the forthcoming Istanbul Summit. As you know, the UN, the P5, and of course Turkey itself have invested enormous time, effort, and resources. Fareed Hussein has said that a successful summit will be his legacy to the organization. How will this be affected by the appointment of Caroline Masters?”

  Schneidermann nodded. “As you can see from the biography which my colleague Roxana has distributed, Acting SG Masters has herself been closely involved with the planning for the summit. She has been fully briefed by SG Hussein. We do not anticipate any delays or difficulties.”

  “So everything is going ahead as planned? The summit will open in eight days, next Thursday? It will still deal with Israel-Palestine, Syria, and Egypt? President Freshwater will attend, together with the presidents of Russia, China, France, and the British prime minister?”

  “Yes, Murat, absolutely. And your own honored president as well. We should have more details for you in the next few days.”

  Yilmaz finished scribbling his notes and sat back down.

  Schneidermann allowed himself to relax a little. The SG’s health, Yael Azoulay, the summit, and Masters’s appointment were covered. A few more questions followed on Iran, Syria, and a new World Health Organization program to eliminate polio before the journalists began to file out of the room, volubly complaining that they had learned almost nothing about why Masters had been appointed or the latest developments in the Yael Azoulay saga.

  Schneidermann felt quite pleased with himself, especial
ly when he saw Roxana’s irritation at how well the press briefing had gone. Even she would have to report to Caroline Masters that it had been a bravura performance. He had deflected the difficult questions while being generous with information that was already in the public domain, thus confirming him in every UN correspondent’s mind as a typical functionary, which today at least had been his intention.

  As Sami walked out, he returned Schneidermann’s nod of greeting. The UN spokesman’s mobile rang. He looked at the screen and saw it was the acting SG’s office. He did not want to speak to Caroline Masters now. He ignored the call, took out an old, obsolete Nokia phone, and quickly tapped out a message. A second later Sami’s mobile telephone beeped that an SMS had arrived.

  A dozen blocks north of the Secretariat Building, just off East Fifty-Fourth Street, Fareed Hussein sat at his desk in his home office, his coffee cooling in front of him. Number 3 Sutton Place, the official residence of the secretary-general, was a five-story, fourteen-thousand-square-foot house built in 1921 for Anne Morgan, the daughter of J. P. Morgan, and later donated to the United Nations. Its centerpiece was a heavy dark wooden staircase that curved around the spine of the house, as though the mansion had been transplanted from the countryside to the Upper East Side. Hussein’s office on the third floor was decorated in a similar style to the other rooms: tasteful but bland, with the faux elegance of a five-star hotel. The walls were pale yellow, the floor polished hardwood. A small painting hung in the center of each wall: two of thoroughbred racehorses, two of New England in the autumn. The window looked over a small playground and the East River.

  Hussein picked up the book on the top of the pile. As usual, the cracked spine fell open at page 162.

  That day, August 15, 1947, is seared forever onto my memory. We left home early, around seven o’clock in the morning, nervous and excited, our bags packed and stowed in the trunk. Our parents told us it was just for a couple of weeks, until the situation calmed down again. Perhaps they even believed that. But we would never return to live in newly independent India.

  The drive to the train station from our house usually took about fifteen minutes, but my parents had allowed for an hour. I was sitting on the backseat of our Morris Oxford with Omar and my mother. My father was in the front, next to Anwar, our driver.

  We had gone about a mile or so when we heard the shouting. Anwar told us all to close the windows and check that the doors were locked. The mob surrounded us a few moments later. Anwar tried to reverse, but the crush of people was too thick. They were banging on the roof, screaming and howling like banshees, rocking the car back and forth. The rear windscreen cracked. They ripped the mirrors off.

  Anwar said he would go out and try and calm them. My father protested, said we should wait, that the crowd would disperse and help would come.

  Anwar smiled and opened the door. He stepped onto the road, his hands in the air to show he was not carrying a weapon. He began to speak. I can still see his lips moving through the car window. For a moment there was calm. Then the mob surged forward, as one. They punched, kicked, spat upon Anwar. He stumbled and fell. I could see dozens of legs, all swinging back and forth.

  I pulled Omar toward me and covered his eyes. The seat turned warm and wet underneath us. My father was praying; my mother was crying. Anwar lay there, unmoving, a pool of crimson forming around his head.

  The mob swirled around our car again. I remember how blue the sky was, a pale, light color, dotted with clouds of purest white. As blue as the flag, with the white emblem in the center, that fluttered from the hood of the car that was slowly driving toward us.

  Hussein stopped reading and flicked through to the front of his memoir. He looked at the dedication: “In Memory of Anwar Hindi, 1915–1947,” and put the book down.

  Hussein walked over to the window. The sky was overcast and the breeze was cold, blowing in from the East River. He watched a garbage scow chug upriver, toward Spanish Harlem and the Bronx, looked southward, toward the UN complex, then glanced at his watch: just after four o’clock. Schneidermann would be giving his press briefing. He would miss their chats. The Belgian was finding his feet, and had some increasingly good ideas about policies and how to better the UN’s press coverage. He had been thinking of promoting him, making Schneidermann a special adviser. But that was not going to happen, at least not for a while. What was the phrase that had been so popular in the 1960s? “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Today was Wednesday. It was hard to believe that just two days ago he had been sitting in his office with Yael and Braithwaite, discussing the Istanbul Summit and the Prometheus Group.

  He was not suffering from blackouts. He had been getting ill, but from stress, his nerves stretched like violin strings, waiting for the next hint from Caroline Masters that he should miss a meeting, suddenly be unavailable. The threat was never spelled out, but then it didn’t need to be. A brief e-mail to Masters from a new hire in the UN’s archives, cc’d to Hussein, was enough. A file from the Department of Peacekeeping records, about eastern Bosnia in early July 1995, believed to have gone missing soon after the Srebrenica massacre, had just been relocated. Hussein knew it had gone missing because he had personally removed it from the archives. It was locked in his office safe, on the other side of the room. As far as he knew, there were no copies. So where had this one come from? Those papers, he knew, could destroy not just his career but also his reputation. There would be no charitable foundation once he retired, no library, no invitation to join the “Elders,” the team of gray-haired former statesmen, diplomats, and businessmen that jetted around the world, trying to do good. And all because he had followed his instructions. Just as he had always done, even as a child.

  Hussein closed his eyes for a moment and rested his head against the window, overwhelmed by the memories.

  The car is an American army surplus Jeep. A large blue and white UN emblem is painted on each door; two small UN flags flutter above the headlights. The crowd falls silent as the car draws nearer, wary of officialdom, worried now about what they have just done.

  A short, wiry Indian man steps out of the car. He carries no weapons and wears civilian clothes. He checks Anwar’s body, shakes his head, and walks over to the Hussein family car.

  One of the leaders of the mob stands in front of him, a bloody stave in his hand. “Muslim or Hindu?” he demands.

  The man looks up at him. “I work for the United Nations. We are neutral.”

  The mob leader looks at the Jeep, then back at the UN official, frowning in puzzlement. “Muslim or Hindu?” he asks again.

  “Neutral,” says the UN official, calmly. “The UN does not take sides. It is neutral.”

  The mob leader stands aside. The UN official walks over to the Hussein family’s car and quickly ushers them into his Jeep.

  Hussein lifted his head, turned, and looked at the photographs on his desk. His wife, Zeinab, looking glamorous at a reception for President Freshwater. Zeinab had been away for months. She said she was ashamed to show her face after the New York Times had reported that she had shares in a firm linked to the coltan scandal. Hussein had not tried very hard to persuade her to return. They had grown apart years before but stayed together for the sake of Hussein’s career. His daughter, Rina, in her graduation dress. Rina would not speak to him, kept denouncing him on Twitter to her 11,678 followers. He walked over and picked up the half postcard of the Taj Mahal. If he thought hard enough, he could still feel Omar’s tiny fingers entwined with his, hear his cry of fear as his hand was pulled away and he vanished into the chaos at Delhi Station. The guilt still gnawed at him, was especially bad on days like these. Why had they gotten on the train? He should have stayed, stayed to search for Omar. He could still see his father shouting, his mother almost hysterical. Hussein stared down at his fingers, the fingers that had failed to hold on to his little brother. He clenched his hand, digging his nails into his palms until his knuckles turned white.

  There was a new photo
graph on his desk. This one he usually kept in his drawer at his UN office but at home there were no constraints. The picture had been taken earlier that year. It showed Hussein and Yael at a refugee camp in Jordan, after he had inaugurated a new UN education program. She wore combat trousers and a long-sleeved T-shirt, her hair covered under a head scarf as she crouched down, talking to a Syrian boy from Aleppo. She was one of the bravest and most talented people he had ever worked with. Despite their tangled, difficult history, in some ways they were a perfect match. Yael did not talk to her father. He did not talk to his daughter. They both filled part of the void in each other’s lives, he liked to think. Yael had only failed on one mission. He had asked her to make contact with Rina and try and fix his broken relationship with his daughter. The two women had met several times and enjoyed each other’s company. Until Yael had mentioned Rina’s father. Rina had walked out of the restaurant and never spoke to Yael again.

  And Yael was right about Prometheus. The material Braithwaite had shown them yesterday, detailing the full extent of the links between the Prometheus Group and Iranian intelligence, was explosive. Up on the thirty-eighth floor, he had hesitated. There were subtle calculations to be made about such a move and its consequences. The view from Sutton Place, on sick leave for a nonexistent illness, however, was much clearer. Once the full Prometheus-Iran connection was public knowledge, Masters’s UN career would be over. So would all this nonsense about a role for corporations. He might even be able to persuade the Justice Department to look into criminal charges.