The Washington Stratagem

by Adam LeBor

  The catastrophe at Srebrenica, however, remained a mystery. Schneidermann knew that Hussein was haunted by his actions, or lack of them, during the summer of 1995, a year on from the slaughter in Rwanda. A small city in eastern Bosnia, Srebrenica had been besieged by the Bosnian Serbs for three years but was supposedly protected by a battalion of Dutch UN troops. UN military observers had warned for days that the Bosnian Serbs were preparing to attack the enclave. When the onslaught came, the UN troops stood by. The promised air strikes never materialized.

  There were rumors that the UN had done a deal with the Bosnian Serbs: We will let you take Srebrenica in exchange for signing up for a peace deal to end the war. If there had been such a deal, it had gone horribly wrong. The Bosnian Serbs marched in, and the peacekeepers watched as eight thousand Bosnian Muslim men and boys were led away and slaughtered. The Dutch troops even forced three hundred Muslims out of their compound, where the terrified civilians had taken refuge. A second UN commission of inquiry had again exonerated Hussein, arguing that the troop’s mandate did not provide for an armed response. But the whispers about Hussein’s culpability still swirled around the building. One claim in particular horrified Schneidermann. But that was in the past. The information in this folder was incendiary and a very dangerous power play by Hussein, for once it was released it could never be recalled. The blowback might see Hussein back in his office within days, or bring him down for good.

  Deep in his thoughts, Schneidermann barely noticed when something bumped into his left side. He stopped and looked around. A man had slipped on the sidewalk, banging into Schneidermann as he went down. He looked Middle Eastern, with sallow skin and a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. He looked at Schneidermann, his hand outstretched as he scrabbled to get up.

  Schneidermann instinctively reached down to help.

  “I am sorry. Thank you so much,” said the man, grasping Schneidermann’s hand. “Excuse me for the inconvenience. It’s never a good idea to rush with new shoes and their slippery soles.”

  Schneidermann nodded, wondering about the man’s accent, but barely registering the incident. “It’s no problem. You are welcome. Take care.”

  The man thanked him again and walked off. Keeping a tight hold on his briefcase, Schneidermann watched him disappear into the crowd, wondering why the man was wearing black leather gloves on such a warm spring day.

  Sami Boustani put down that day’s edition of the New York Times and looked around the back room of McLaughlin’s. It was dark, musty, and smelled of stale beer. Last night’s dirty glasses were piled up on the long wooden bar. The dark brown walls were still stained with nicotine, even though smoking had been banned in Manhattan bars for more than a decade. This was his second visit to McLaughlin’s in the last twenty-four hours. It had a ramshackle charm for an early-evening drink but would not have been his ideal choice for a breakfast meeting. Sami was the only customer. There were no staff in sight. Did they even serve breakfast here? The place was open and Schneidermann had suggested it, so it must serve something. He checked his watch. It was now 8:50 a.m. Where was he? Schneidermann was usually punctual for their meetings. If he was going to be late, because of some developing crisis at the UN, he always called or sent a text message. He had promised to call or text if he could not make it. Sami checked his mobile once more: no messages. He called Schneidermann’s mobile for the third time, but it went straight to voice mail. Sami had already left two messages. There was no point leaving another.

  The waitress, a skinny woman in her early twenties with black spiky hair, appeared out of a side door near the bar.

  “Hi. Ready to order?” she asked.

  “Can I see a menu?”

  She stifled a yawn. “Eggs, oatmeal, or corned beef hash.”

  “Oatmeal. And juice and coffee please.”

  The waitress left and Sami returned to his newspaper, scanning a story out of Washington, DC. A right-wing Republican, known for his ties to the Pentagon, was demanding that the United States withdraw from the Istanbul Summit, saying it would only benefit America’s enemies. President Freshwater had condemned the call but the new secretary of defense, Harlen Delacroix, said he shared some of the Republican senator’s concerns. Delacroix was a Southern Democrat, appointed by Freshwater as a sop to her party’s right wing. He was best known for trying to pilot a bill through Congress that would have reduced the United States’ contribution to the UN budget by 90 percent. Delacroix had only been in office for two weeks, so it was early to be staking out his own position. Either Freshwater was weakening or Delacroix had powerful backers, or, most likely, both.

  Sami put the newspaper down. He couldn’t really concentrate on Washington’s version of Kremlinology at the moment. He felt unsettled, perhaps, he admitted to himself, even scared. At first he had stonewalled his visitors, saying he knew no more about Yael than was public knowledge: she carried out sensitive assignments for the SG and was now sidelined, running the Trusteeship Council.

  The man with the birthmark had told him to try harder. When Sami continued stonewalling, he had produced another set of photographs. Now Sami reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out an envelope. He stared at the prints for the countless time that morning. There were six shots—of Sami, his mother and sister on their trip to Gaza the previous summer to see their relatives. The men had left, assuring Sami that they would be back in a day or two.

  He looked up as the door swung open. At last, he thought, until he saw who walked in. What was she doing here? It was barely nine o’clock and his day was going from bad to worse. Sami quickly gathered the photographs together, placed them back in the envelope, and slipped it back into his jacket pocket.

  Najwa sat down opposite Sami. He felt even more nervous now, nervous and guilty.

  The waitress walked over with Sami’s coffee and looked at Najwa. “I’ll have the corned beef hash and coffee,” Najwa said, ignoring Sami.

  Sami was about to speak when Najwa turned to him. “Don’t worry. He is not coming.”

  The offices of the Trusteeship Council were situated at the end of a long, poorly lit corridor on the third floor of a little-used annex of the General Assembly Building, near the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Library. The bemused security guards had spent twenty minutes looking for the keys to open the doors. There were two rooms: one around fifteen feet by twelve, with a small window, and a smaller windowless space. An old-fashioned metal desk stood in the center of each space, on top of which sat an electronic typewriter and a rotary telephone.

  Yael picked up the handset of the telephone in the larger room and held it to her ear. Silence. She checked her mobile telephone. There was no signal from any of the UN Wi-Fi networks. There was barely any mobile network signal. One bar of the network reception indicator showed on her phone, as did the telltale blue light.

  Yael had, in theory, a staff of two—Lucy Chen, her personal assistant, and Jindal Patel, her political adviser. She had never heard of either, let alone met them, and had googled their names the previous evening. Chen, the daughter of the Chinese deputy chief of mission, was moonlighting at a Chinese technology company, whose New York office was conveniently located on East Forty-Third Street. Patel, the daughter of the press attaché at the Indian mission, was an intern at Glamour magazine.

  The air in the room was musty. The single, narrow window was coated in grime so thick that the glass was almost opaque. A large green patch of mold reached from the floor halfway up the wall. The window resisted Yael’s first attempts to open it, but she finally yanked it loose. It looked out onto an inner courtyard, whose rough concrete walls were covered with wide aluminum pipes. The roar of air conditioners filled the office, and a small cloud of dust floated over Yael. She quickly closed the window, coughing, when there was a knock on the door. She opened it to see Quentin Braithwaite standing there.

  “Good morning,” he said wryly, raising his eyebrows.

  “Is it?” asked Yael, brushing the dust off
her clothes. “Come in, please. Welcome to the Trusteeship Council.”

  Braithwaite walked briskly inside, taking in his surroundings. “Congratulations.”

  “For what?”

  “For being still alive. And of course, on your promotion. I had no idea this part of the building even existed. You have two rooms. That’s a step up.” He looked out the window. “Don’t think much of the view, though.”

  Braithwaite’s smile faded and his voice was tight. “Yael, we need to talk…”

  Before he could finish his sentence Yael put her forefinger over her lips and traced a series of letters in the thick coating of dust on the desk—“NOT HERE—DHP IN 15”—before wiping the words away.

  The Englishman nodded in understanding and left.

  Before Yael met up with Braithwaite in a place where they could talk, she had something even more urgent on her agenda.

  She opened the drafts folder on her smartphone, checked again that the connection was encrypted, selected an e-mail with several attachments, and scanned through them, carefully reading each PDF. She put the phone down, her face thoughtful as she considered her course of action. There would be no turning back, she knew. She ran her forefinger down the mold on the wall. It came away green.

  She reached for her phone again and pressed “send.”

  “Who is not coming?” asked Sami.

  “Your breakfast date.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A’raf. I know.” Najwa stared at Sami. “You seem distracted. What’s up?”

  Sami looked at her while he considered his response. What’s up, part of him wanted to say, is that some very nasty people, apparently attached to an arm of the US government, are demanding that I betray someone I still care about, very much, even though there is no chance of fixing that relationship. And if I don’t, my family and I might be taking a one-way trip back to Gaza. Where they had been following me on my last trip and taking photographs. And, they know about my teenage cousin who disappeared after being taken into Israeli custody. That’s what was up. Meanwhile, where was Schneidermann?

  “Najwa, why are you here?” he asked.

  “Why do you think? I am having breakfast.”

  The waitress arrived with their orders.

  “And here it is,” said Najwa, slipping her fork into the glistening pile of potatoes, pink with shreds of corned beef. “This is delicious. Really, the best in town. Would you like to try some?” she asked, sliding the plate across the table.

  “No thanks, I’m fine with the oatmeal.” The smell of food was making his appetite return. Sami raised his spoon and was about to dip in when Najwa’s hand snapped around his wrist.

  “I am not angry with you, Sami. Really, I am not. I am just…” She looked up at the grubby ceiling, as though searching for inspiration. “Disappointed. Yes, that is the word. I am disappointed.”

  “Why?” asked Sami, his voice innocent. “We were great together on the program.” When Sami had checked his Twitter feed this morning, he saw Najwa had been tweeting about the Tribeca film festival until 3:00 a.m. It didn’t show. She was perfectly turned out. She wore a black cashmere turtleneck sweater and skillfully applied light makeup that accentuated her full mouth and black eyes, eyes that were now staring at him, with none of their usual friendly flirtatiousness.

  Najwa stared at him. “Yes, we were. I was glad to invite you. But that was Tuesday night. Now it’s Thursday morning. I am not on your breakfast program, am I? It’s fine if you want to go your own way. Really. We don’t have to cooperate. But don’t sneak about behind my back.”

  Najwa’s grip tightened and her black eyes glittered. “Be a man, and tell me yourself. Because I won’t run after you, or anyone else, Sami. Ever.”

  Sami’s resolve melted away inside him. Ambassadors returned his calls, State Department officials met him for lunch, think tanks invited him to sit on panels to discuss important international policy issues. Only Najwa could make him feel like he was six years old, caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “By the way,” she continued, her voice lighter now, “I saw Jonathan Beaufort at the film festival. He invited me for dinner, again. I think I will say yes, this time.”

  Sami looked at her, alarmed. “Don’t do that. Please.”

  “Why not?” demanded Najwa, her grip on his wrist easing by a fraction.

  It was time to surrender, he knew.

  “I am sorry. I was going to tell you, really. But Schneidermann is really pissed at you because of that story you ran about him being eased out to make room for Roxana. There was no way he would have agreed to have breakfast with you. And where is he?”

  Najwa released his wrist. She put her fork down. Her voice was soft. “At Mount Sinai hospital, in the intensive care ward.”

  Sami was about to answer when his mobile phone beeped. He picked it up and read the header on the incoming e-mail: “A story for you.”

  Najwa looked at him, her eyes wide and querying. Sami turned the phone to face her. She quickly read the e-mail header. “Open it, habibi.”

  13

  Yael sat on a bench at the entrance to Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, waiting for Braithwaite. The plaza, named for the second UN secretary-general, covered a whole block of East Forty-Seventh Street, between First and Second Avenues. It was a tranquil oasis in one of the busiest sections of town. Rows of trees ran down either side, lush and newly green, their long branches reaching toward each other as though trying to make a canopy over the gray stone pavement. Hanging baskets filled with flowers were fixed under the art nouveau streetlights. In front of the trees were lines of park benches. A café in a greenhouse stood on the corner of First Avenue; half a dozen tables and chairs set outside in the chilly spring sunshine for hardy customers. The café was a popular spot for diplomats and UN officials to meet contacts without having them go through the hassle of security to get into the UN building.

  Yael leaned back for a moment. Her shoulder pulsed, her back throbbed, and a headache was starting at the base of her neck. She closed her eyes and there he was again, lying on the floor of the restroom on the Staten Island Ferry, blood seeping from his nose, her foot raised above his head as the brown mist floated in front of her eyes. A downward strike, a twist of her hips to put her body weight into the blow, and he would never bother her, or anyone else, again. Yesterday, she had stopped herself in time. But barely. Something was slipping inside her, she knew. On top of that she felt guilty about going to Beaker’s last night. She had carried out extensive anti-surveillance drills and was as sure as she could be that she had not been followed, or that if she had been, she had shaken them off. But it was impossible to be 100 percent certain. Merely knowing what was on the BlackBerry spyware put Beaker—and Lysette—in danger. On the other hand, she knew nobody else with Beaker’s skill set. And he could have said no. Except, she knew, he could not have, not when she was asking. Plus, there were Jones’s gun and silencer. Hidden safely away, she hoped.

  Yael breathed deeply to stop her thoughts racing, and looked at the monument to Raoul Wallenberg on the island in the middle of First Avenue. Five black columns pointed to the sky, their edges ragged and twisted. At the base of one lay a briefcase, symbolizing unfinished business. When Yael was plagued with doubts about the deals she negotiated behind the scenes, she liked to come here and sit by the monument. It was stark, almost bleak, a reminder of the darkness and evil in which Wallenberg had worked. But it was also strangely calming, perhaps because without Wallenberg she would not be alive.

  Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat posted to Budapest during the Second World War. Like Yael, he had dealt with the devil, in his case the thugs and murderers of the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian Nazis whose bloodlust exceeded even that of the SS. Wallenberg had saved tens of thousands of Jews, including Yael’s grandmother, Eva Weiss, whom he had plucked out of a line of Jews waiting to be deported or lined up on the banks of the Danube and shot, their bodies falling into the freezing waters.
Wallenberg’s reward for his courage was to be taken away by the Soviets in January 1945 and disappear into the maw of the gulag. Mystery still surrounded his fate—and that of his fellow Swede Dag Hammarskjöld, for whom the plaza was named.

  Hammarskjöld had died in a plane crash in 1961, while mediating between the government of Congo and the secessionists in the province of Katanga. There had been three official inquiries into his death, but none had finally determined the chain of events. It was widely believed across Africa, and much of the UN, that Hammarskjöld had been murdered to prevent Congo’s newly independent government from taking control of its rich resources, including coltan. The battle still raged, Yael thought, leaving a fresh trail of death and destruction. Coltan had made her into a killer, had almost triggered a new round of genocide in Africa, and should have brought down Fareed Hussein. A picture of Caroline Masters, sitting in the SG’s chair, flashed through her mind. Maybe it had.

  Yael glanced at the bronze briefcase. She too had her share of unfinished business. Sometimes whole weeks went by, especially when she was on mission, when she didn’t think about him. And now he was back, embedded in her mind, as his genes were embedded in her body. The breakfast with Joe-Don yesterday at La Caridad had triggered the memories. Years had passed, but the anger, the sense of disillusionment, seemed as raw as ever. How could you do those things? she wanted to ask. You raised us to be decent people, to have a moral compass, to do what was right. How?

  But beyond her anger was another voice, quieter but no less insistent.

  Look, Aba.

  She braces herself, leans back, and kicks the driver in the back of the head. The car spins out of control, hits a BMW, whirls around, and crashes into a low wall by the sidewalk. She smashes the window and clambers out, dazed, bloody, and sprints toward Lake Geneva.