The Washington Stratagem

by Adam LeBor

  He watches the video clip, his face twisted in anger and revulsion, before handing the phone back to Yael. “Truly, they know no limits.”

  “None. None at all.”

  “He was my cousin. He knew nothing. He had a family.”

  The weight in Yael’s stomach becomes even heavier. “There is more,” she says, scrolling quickly through the menu and returning the smartphone to him.

  Gul looks down at the screen. His face is a stone mask. He watches for half a minute, then turns away. He places the phone on the table, its screen still glowing in the soft light of dusk. “Enough.”

  Gul stands up. One of the guards monitoring Gul’s every step instantly spins on his heel, his Uzi in his hand. Gul walks across to the garden wall and looks out to sea. The sky is streaked with gold and purple, the sea turning black and silver.

  “Is she alive?” Gul asks. His hand twists the fabric of his sleeve around and around.

  Yael follows him to the edge of the garden. The breeze has turned cold. She watches him shiver. “Yes. She has been drugged, but she has not been harmed.”

  “You know why they are doing this?”

  Yael shakes her head.

  Gul fixes his gaze on her, his eyes like green lasers. He steps away from the garden wall. “Imagine, a modern, enlightened Islam in Afghanistan, where children and women are educated and the people enjoy human rights. What do you think they will say in the Pentagon and in Langley when they learn that their budgets are to be slashed because peace and stability are coming to Afghanistan? They will not say, hurrah for Abdullah Gul, we do not need any more drone strikes or spies or satellites or safe houses or bombs or electric cattle prods or secret bases at Bagram air base to keep prisoners in dog kennels and send them across the border to Uzbekistan to be boiled alive. And even if the CIA and the Pentagon wanted peace in Afghanistan, their paymasters would never allow it.”

  “You are wrong,” says Yael. “American politicians want the troops to come home.”

  Gul laughs. “The politicians. The politicians are irrelevant. What matters are the corporations, who pay for the politicians. The corporations want a deal. A deal on drugs. It is common knowledge that the war on drugs is lost. It is only a matter of time before they are legalized. Look at Uruguay and Colorado. Many more US states will follow, and then other countries. You cannot imagine how much money these companies will make. The corporations have been planning for this for decades. There is a German conglomerate, called KZX. A giant firm, with branches all over the world. Have you heard of it?”

  Yael nods.

  Gul continues, “KZX has excellent contacts with the Taliban. KZX managers and Taliban leaders regularly meet in Dubai. They were here, in Istanbul, last week, at the conference with the Taliban, the one organized by the Americans. There was a tall man, thin, with white-blond hair; he always wore a gray suit. German, or Austrian. He was in charge. KZX is negotiating to buy the poppy harvest. For now the drugs will be processed and sold illegally on the streets. But in the future, once they are legalized, KZX will be in prime position. Not this year, or next, but soon. KZX doesn’t want our farmers growing wheat or apricots or forming cooperatives. Neither do Langley and the Pentagon. They want war. KZX wants heroin. Afghanistan can supply both, but not if I am there.”

  Yael processes what Gul has said. A tall, thin man with white-blond hair. German or Austrian. It all makes perfect sense. She says, “This is not over, Abdullah. Nothing is over as long as you are alive. But you know that even if the Turks let you go, the Americans will find you. She leans forward and searches Gul’s face. She sees sadness and regret, but also determination.

  “And Samira?” he asks. “Can you guarantee her safety?”

  “I cannot,” says Yael. “But this can,” she continues, holding her smartphone. “The footage of Samira and your cousin has been has been cut into hundreds of sections. Each section is backed up to a network of secure servers, with military-level encryption. Nobody can delete them. Not even Langley. I can splice the videos together and upload them to YouTube in a few seconds—with a commentary explaining exactly what happened.” She pauses. “The blowback will last longer. Kabul will explode. No US embassy in the Muslim world will be safe if that film is released. Langley knows that. Samira is safe.”

  Gul drops his cigarette underfoot and twists the butt into the ground. He steps forward as if to walk to his room and start packing immediately. “OK.”

  “Abdullah, please, wait,” says Yael. “There is something else.”

  She turns to look at Yusuf. He is slowly tapping his feet to the sound of the chanting floating through the garden. He catches her eye and inclines his head, almost imperceptibly.

  Yael speaks quietly to Gul. He smiles, for the first time that day.

  Braithwaite looked at Yael and nodded, as if seeing her for the first time. “Impressive. And the next thing we know is that Cyrus Jones is being held by the Syrian People’s Armed Revolutionary Faction in Ayn al-Arab, just across from the Turkish border. All thanks to you and the mysterious Yusuf. I almost feel sorry for the fellow. He thought he was going on a dinner date and ends up getting kidnapped by jihadis.”

  “Actually he was kidnapped by some of Yusuf’s friends. They handed him over to the Syrians. Only for a month.”

  Braithwaite stopped smiling. “You are very clever. You are also in grave danger, Yael. Eventually they will decide that Jones is a liability. They will throw him overboard. And then they will come for you. Again.”

  Yael stared ahead as Braithwaite spoke. They were almost at the end of the plaza. Second Avenue was fifty yards away, a familiar midmorning scene of honking taxis and bustling pedestrians. A cycle messenger flew past, his bright yellow jersey bobbing in and out of the traffic. Yael envied him his freedom and the fluid grace with which he maneuvered around obstacles. It was a bright spring Manhattan morning, the kind she usually enjoyed. But Yael knew Braithwaite was right. Her trick with Cyrus Jones had seemed just and smart at the time. It was both. But it came at a price, which was still to be paid. The video she had shot of Jones on the ferry would hold them off, but only for a while, while they considered their next move. In fact, she was not sure how to get out of this situation. She glanced behind her. At least Joe-Don was ten yards away, a reassuring presence.

  “Baku?” Yael asked, although with no news of the courier, she already knew the answer.

  “Your trip is off,” said Braithwaite. He reached inside his coat pocket, took out a sheet of folded paper, and handed it to Yael.

  She opened the paper to see a photocopy of a page of an Iranian passport, with the personal details and photograph of the holder. “Ramzan Hilawi. Is that the name he was using?”

  Braithwaite nodded.

  “And?”

  “He was found dead yesterday morning on the road to Baku, twenty miles from Astara.”

  “What did he die of?”

  “A heart attack, supposedly.”

  “Fuck,” said Yael, closing her eyes and exhaling hard.

  Braithwaite put his hand on Yael’s arm. “He was very brave. He contacted us first. He knew the risks. We have to continue. Or he died for nothing.”

  Yael breathed deeply before she spoke. “The phone?”

  “Gone. He had been stripped clean.”

  “Do we have any idea what was on the SIM card?”

  Braithwaite shook his head. “Only that it was enough to get him killed. And there is more.” Braithwaite took out his mobile telephone and swiped through the menus until he found the photograph he wanted. He showed the phone to Yael. “Does he look familiar?”

  The screen showed an elegantly dressed man at South Ferry terminal. He was bald with a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. He wore a gray suit jacket and a crisp, spotless white collarless shirt.

  Yael nodded. “Salim Massoud. The man in your folder. He’s here? How?”

  “He shouldn’t be, but he is,” said Braithwaite as they reached the end of the plaza. He gest
ured at a bench and they sat down. Joe-Don stopped walking and sat across from them. Braithwaite continued, “Massoud was seen at the Iranian-Azerbaijani border the day Ramzan crossed. He is on a watch list. It seems he is traveling on a Turkish diplomatic passport, which is especially worrying. We checked the CCTV for the subway at East Fifty-First Street where Schneidermann collapsed. Massoud was walking down the stairs and onto the 4, heading downtown. The cameras picked him up later at South Ferry. By then we had a team on him. He took a boat to Staten Island, and then a taxi to the botanical gardens on the island. Where he met—”

  “Cyrus Jones?” interrupted Yael.

  “Bingo,” said Braithwaite.

  “And then?”

  Braithwaite looked annoyed. “He took an earlier boat back than Jones. They lost him at South Ferry.”

  Yael turned toward Braithwaite. “So the number two in the Revolutionary Guard, the money man who also carries out the occasional assassination on the side, despite being on all kinds of watch lists, manages to sneak into the United States, possibly murder the UN spokesman in broad daylight on East Fifty-First Street, take a ferry ride to meet an operative from the US government’s secret black-ops department, and we don’t know where he is?”

  “That’s about the sum of it. He is very good.”

  “Evidently. I have Jones’s telephone. It was encrypted, but a friend of mine managed to get in.”

  “And?”

  Yael moved closer to Braithwaite and spoke in a low whisper for some time. By the time she had finished, the Englishman’s face was no longer ruddy. He had turned pale.

  15

  Two hundred and fifty miles to the south, in a field in West Virginia, Clarence Clairborne stood to one side and watched Menachem Stein raise his shotgun to his shoulder. He pointed it to the sky, swiveled on the ball of his right foot, and swiftly pulled the trigger twice. The shots thundered across the field and the duck flew sideways. It tried in vain to correct itself, hung suspended in midair for a second, then nose-dived.

  Stein cracked back the barrel as the vizsla sprinted across the field to his kill. The two empty shells popped out and fell to the ground. Stein strode forward, loaded, lifted his gun again, and fired. This time the duck spun around and plummeted straight down. The vizsla was beside itself with excitement, running back and forth between the two dead birds.

  Clairborne whistled. “Nice shooting, Menachem,” he said, pronouncing the last syllable with a “ch,” as in “chew.”

  The vizsla, sleek muscles rippling under its luminous brown coat, raced back with the first duck hanging from its mouth. The dog dropped it at Stein’s feet, bolted for the second duck, sprinted back, placed it next to the first one, sat still, and stared at Stein adoringly.

  Stein crouched down on his knees, patting the dog. Clairborne watched, feeling absurdly jealous. The vizsla, a pedigree that he had imported from Hungary, had cost him $3,000. Highly intelligent and loyal, vizslas were bred to serve generations of the now almost-vanished Magyar aristocracy. Clairborne had owned the dog for six months. It had shown no interest in him, was willful, disobedient, and would only eat T-bone steaks from Clairborne’s own supply.

  “Thank you, Clarence. Actually, it’s Mena-chem, with a ‘ch’ like ‘Loch,’” said Stein. Clairborne flushed red. He knew that; he knew almost everything he needed to know about Menachem Stein. Samantha had prepared an extensive dossier, which even included the correct pronunciation of his name. And he still got it wrong.

  “Here, Barack, come here, boy,” Clairborne called. Stein bent down and patted the vizsla on his side.

  The vizsla ignored Clairborne, rolled on the ground, and let Stein scratch its stomach. Clairborne damped down his rising sense of irritation. The two men were shooting on Clairborne’s private estate, five hundred acres of prime farmland and forest, with a twelve-room hunting lodge at the north end. This was his land, as far as he could see, rich loamy fields that stretched almost to the horizon. The air was fresh and clean, the ground firm underfoot, although the sky was overcast. So why was he nervous? The contract was signed. The plan was worked out to the finest detail. All the pieces were in place.

  But there were two large hogs snorting their way across his lawn. The first was the article in that day’s New York Times. He had read it so many times he had memorized the crucial first paragraphs.

  UNITED NATIONS TO USE PRIVATE SECURITY FIRM AT ISTANBUL SUMMIT

  * * *

  Decision Sets Precedent, Seen as Blow to President Freshwater

  * * *

  By SAMI BOUSTANI

  UNITED NATIONS—The United Nations has signed a $250 million contract with the Prometheus Group, a controversial lobbying firm, to provide security for an upcoming summit in Istanbul, according to an internal UN e-mail.

  The rewarding of the Prometheus contract is a setback for President Renee Freshwater, who is a strong opponent of outsourcing military and intelligence duties to the private sector. Although she retains public support on this issue, her attempts to rein in private contractors have been sabotaged by rare bipartisan efforts in Congress. The Prometheus Group will have no role in protecting President Freshwater while she is in Istanbul, said a White House spokesman.

  Prometheus, one of the most powerful lobbying and asset-management firms in Washington, DC, has extensive ties to the military and intelligence services and has recently set up a new corporate security division. Under the terms of the agreement, outlined in an e-mail obtained by the New York Times, Prometheus will provide high-level security at the summit next week, for all UN officials and several national leaders, in conjunction with the Turkish security services. The negotiations for the contract, which took place over four months, were carried out by Caroline Masters, the deputy secretary-general. Ms. Masters, an American diplomat who was formerly stationed in Berlin, was appointed acting secretary-general on Wednesday after Secretary-General Fareed Hussein went on sick leave. UN officials say he is suffering from fainting attacks.

  The Prometheus Group contract will likely prove highly controversial, said Keir Rogerson, a former British diplomat who now runs Diplomacy Unbound, a research organization based in New York, and who is known for his wide range of contacts. “Masters is really pushing her own agenda here. President Freshwater is opposed, but her administration is being outmaneuvered by vested interests in DC. She is increasingly seen as a one-term wonder. The State Department and the Pentagon are going their own way. They want this deal with Prometheus and they are using Masters to force this through.”

  Caroline Masters, the deputy secretary-general, is known to be an enthusiastic advocate of expanding the role of the private sector in UN operations. Ms. Masters authored an influential memo calling for greater cooperation with industry while posted in Berlin, where she also served a three-month placement at the headquarters of the KZX Corporation, which is one of Germany’s largest firms.

  The rest of the article went over the plans for the summit, its agenda, and its historical significance. Clairborne did not care about that. But he did care that he had no idea how the hell Sami Boustani had obtained his e-mail correspondence with Caroline Masters. Ms.—as she insisted on calling herself—Masters had called to apologize that morning, promising a thorough investigation into the breach of confidentiality.

  The other problem, and a much bigger one, was the girl. Jones had fucked up. Yet part of him was almost pleased. She was a feisty one, sitting in his office, those green eyes staring at him as she explained what he would be doing next. She reminded him of his wife, before the, the… accident. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had told him what to do, not since the army, apart from Menachem Stein. She was attractive too. Kind of skinny for his taste. But nothing that couldn’t be fixed with some good home cooking. What am I thinking? he suddenly asked himself. Must be last night’s bourbon. He had drunk more than half a bottle. Clairborne breathed deeply to try and clear his head. He watched the vizsla follow Stein across the field. Fuck the stupi
d mutt. He would have it put down as soon as Stein was gone. He might even do the job himself. The Israeli was his guest. It was time he took control.

  Clairborne strode toward Stein, his shotgun cradled in his hand, a cartridge ready in each barrel. He quickly looked around as he moved forward. Stein had come alone. There was no one else here. Do a Cheney, said a voice in his head. You are on home territory. The cops are in your pocket. This is how you take control. Just do it. The former vice president’s shooting of his companion had been an accident. Clairborne could easily claim the same. All he needed to do was pretend to trip or stumble, and in the process pull the trigger. Even if he didn’t kill the Israeli, he might take him down a peg or two. And he doubted very much that Mena-chem Stein would want to bring the attention of the authorities to any kind of incident, especially one involving guns.

  Stein turned around to face him, holding his gun with his finger on the trigger, as if reading Clairborne’s mind. The Israeli smiled, and Clairborne was amazed to see that this time the smile actually reached his eyes.

  Stein bent down. “Go, Barack, go to your master.”

  The dog trotted off to Clairborne and stood in front of him, ready to receive instructions. Clairborne felt ridiculously pleased at the dog’s obedience. Until he affectionately rubbed the dog’s back. The vizsla stared at him with a cool curiosity, but otherwise did not respond.

  Just as Stein was about to walk off in pursuit of more ducks, Clairborne called him back. “Mena-chem!” he shouted, rasping the last syllable so hard it sounded like he was coughing. “There is one more thing.”

  “What?”

  Clairborne handed a sheet of paper to Stein. It showed a photograph, taken from an angle, of another photograph lying on a table. Clairborne watched Stein carefully as he looked at the printout. Beneath his bluff exterior, Clairborne was also an astute people watcher. His good ol’ boy act was a useful camouflage for a subtle intelligence and instinct that had more than once saved his life.