The Washington Stratagem

by Adam LeBor

  “You know her?” asked Clairborne.

  “I know who she is,” said Stein carefully.

  Clairborne saw something briefly pass across Stein’s face, and then vanish. “So do I. Ms. Azoulay came to see me earlier this week, on behalf of Fareed Hussein. She was trying to blackmail me into closing our connection with Tehran.” He half-smiled at the memory.

  Stein turned to Clairborne, fully alert. “Hussein is finished. How much does she know?”

  “Enough to cause us a barrel load of trouble. They have copies of bank transfers from Omega, through Bank Bernard et Fils, to Nuristan Holdings.”

  Stein frowned. “First the New York Times story, now this. How the hell did she get them? You have a leak, Clarence.”

  Clairborne walked ahead, watching the sky and measuring the distance to a flock of ducks heading toward him. He rested his gun on his shoulder as he spoke. Thunder sounded in the distance and the clouds were turning dark and gray. “Menachem, I can guarantee you that if there is a leak, it’s not from here. The only person here that has a copy of that correspondence is me, and I ain’t telling. Maybe BBF is. What if Azoulay or someone else in the UN leaks the bank transfer to the press?”

  Stein loaded again. “Don’t worry about the media. We will stonewall. Claim it’s a forgery. Anyone can manufacture a fake bank statement. We’ll throw up a shitstorm about Fareed Hussein to distract attention. Our friends in Congress will launch a campaign to cut off America’s contribution to the UN.”

  Clairborne fired. The ducks scattered and flew on, unharmed. Stein swiveled and fired. This time a duck suddenly flew leftward, wheeling around in ever-smaller circles, then plunged to the ground. Clairborne looked around for Barack. The dog was trotting alongside Stein. The Israeli patted its haunch, and it finally ran off to fetch Stein’s duck.

  Stein continued. “The campaign will continue until the UN apologizes for disseminating a forged document. The real question is what she knows about Istanbul.”

  Clairborne shook his head and walked forward, together with Stein. “Nothing. How can she? No printed copies exist. I’m not even sure that I know what I should. I don’t like working like this. I like paper. Something I can read and hold in my hand.”

  “Like the BBF bank statement?” Stein snapped back.

  “Bank statements can be locked away. Or destroyed if need be. But at least they exist.”

  “The Washington Stratagem also exists. But in hundreds of tiny parts, each encrypted and uploaded to a network of servers across the Internet. The people who need to can put the pieces together. They do not include Yael Azoulay,” said Stein. The implication, that nor did they include Clarence Clairborne, was clear.

  “We tried to take care of her.”

  Stein stopped. “You—did—what?” His voice was cold as he turned to stare at Clairborne.

  Clairborne looked puzzled. “What’s the problem? She was in the way. I put Cyrus Jones on it. He was raring to go. But he fucked up.”

  Stein’s face darkened. “The terms are clear: any terminations have to be authorized by me. It’s bad enough that there is now a murder inquiry into the death of Colin Duncan.”

  A flock of ducks approached. Clairborne raised his gun again and sighted on the birds.

  Stein stood to the side, his hand resting on the barrel of Clairborne’s gun. “Wait. Kill Yael Azoulay and you will have the media crawling all over the case. Eventually they will make the connection. She came to see you in your office.” He pressed down on the barrel and slowly lowered Clairborne’s weapon until it pointed at the ground. “Someone will get hold of the bank transfer and put two and two together.”

  Clairborne was incredulous. Now he was really ready to do a Cheney. Stein had actually prevented him from taking a shot. With his own gun. On his own land. Who was this guy? The last Clairborne knew, Menachem Stein had barely escaped an Interpol warrant after the coltan scandal. The whole thing had been reported in the New York Times. Clairborne was amazed that Stein was still walking around a free man. Just under a year ago, two of Stein’s most senior lieutenants had been arrested in Congo for distributing arms to Hutu militants so they could launch a rerun of the 1994 genocide.

  But Efrat Global Solutions was going from strength to strength. The firm was now the largest private military contractor in the world, with a fancy new headquarters in Washington, DC, five minutes’ walk from Capitol Hill. Despite the Israeli connection, it had just landed a huge contract to train the army and new paramilitary police force of the Gulf Emirates, who were all terrified of their neighbor Iran—even more so now the rapprochement between the United States and Iran was flourishing.

  Clairborne looked at Menachem Stein, about to tell him just what he thought of a guest who prevents his host from shooting his own ducks, when something in the man’s face stopped him. His eyes, one brown and one blue, were like marbles.

  “She did a great job for us in Istanbul. It was a textbook-perfect false-flag operation,” said Stein. “She had no idea she was working for us. We got everything we wanted. Gul is out of the way. The Taliban are happy. The peace deal with the Americans will hold. The country will be stable and the opium will be harvested. Which means KZX is happy. We need that, because your guys and mine will be guarding those opium fields. But Afghanistan is a sideshow now. We need a new field of operations.” Stein looked at his watch. “Which we will have, in less than a fortnight.”

  Stein’s mood changed. He lifted his hand from the gun and slapped Clairborne on the back. “How about some of that Southern cooking you keep telling me about? I’m hungry.”

  Clairborne checked the time. It was five after noon. The barrel of his gun was spattered with raindrops and the sky was turning darker. It would take them twenty minutes to get back to the house. “Sure. We have a real feast waiting for us. But first we have some decisions to make. Cyrus Jones and Ms. Azoulay.”

  “Leave Jones to me,” said Stein.

  Clairborne gestured to Samantha. She unfurled the umbrella she was carrying and began to walk over to the two men. “And the girl?” he asked.

  Something flickered in Stein’s eyes for a moment before he answered. “Let her run. Watch her. Let’s see where she leads us.”

  There had been three men in Yael’s life who could trigger an emotional reaction strong enough to show on her face. The first, her brother David, was dead. The second was her father. The third was standing next to her by the bar in Zone, being introduced by Isis Franklin as the new chief of staff at the Israeli mission to the UN.

  Yael could not disguise her shock. Her heart sped up. Her stomach flipped over. Her palms turned sweaty. She was sixteen years old again.

  “Yael,” said Eli Harrari, his arms wide open as if to hug her.

  She froze. Eli, completely unfazed, moved forward instead to kiss her on her cheek. “Motek. You look as lovely as ever.”

  Isis watched, transfixed. “Wow, so you guys already know each other?” she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling at the promise of romantic intrigue.

  Yael shut down the emotions surging through her. She fixed her brightest, warmest smile on her face and hugged Eli. He responded instantly, his arms around her. His back felt hard, toned, his hands on her warm and familiar.

  Yael looked over Eli’s shoulder at Joe-Don, three stools away at the end of the bar, suddenly alert, his vision locked on her and Eli. Joe-Don had not been happy about her coming out tonight. But they had agreed that he would accompany her, that she would ration herself to one glass of wine and be home by midnight. Yael caught his eye and mouthed Eli’s name. Joe-Don relaxed, slowly inclined his craggy head, and sipped his Diet Coke.

  Yael leaned back and glanced at Eli as they separated. The score so far: one–nil to Eli. Despite her quick recovery, he knew that he still provoked an emotional reaction in her. What on earth was he doing here? She had no idea that he was even in New York, let alone assigned to the Israeli mission to the UN. He had certainly aged well. Eli was tall for an Israeli
, just under six feet, slim hipped, broad shouldered, wiry rather than beefy. His head was shaved, so closely it almost shone under the bar lights. He had large gray eyes, a wide mouth that was almost decadent, and a thin nose that had been broken and skillfully set. They had not seen each other for fifteen years, but Yael had followed his career progress: political attaché in Manila, more important than it sounded because of the vast Muslim populations across Southeast Asia; deputy chief of mission in São Paulo; posts in London, Paris, and Berlin; and a brief spell attached to the clandestine Israeli trade mission in the United Arab Emirates until it was closed down.

  The diplomatic posts were fronts, providing Eli with a visa and diplomatic accreditation. His real work, Yael knew, was carried out in the shadows—where they had both been trained to operate. Behind the warmth of his greeting, and his charm, Eli had changed. His toughness, once the affect of a youth trying to impress his peers and elders, was now innate. This Eli, she sensed—no, knew—was capable of extreme and sudden violence. Yael had heard rumors that he had been recruited to the agency’s most secret division of all. His eyes seemed to confirm the whispers: she could see them continually processing the bar and the people around, searching for any potential threat.

  Isis must have felt the charged atmosphere. “Looks like you both have a lot of catching up to do. I’ll see you later,” she said, and walked over to a group of her colleagues.

  “Thanks, Isis, we’ll see you soon. Can I buy you a drink, motek?” asked Eli, his hand resting on Yael’s arm.

  She reached inside her purse, looking for nothing in particular, but causing his hand to fall away.

  “No thanks, I have one,” she said, picking up her glass of sauvignon blanc. “But there is something you can do for me.”

  “Anything.”

  Yael gave Eli her best smile. “Eli, it’s really wonderful to see you. I want to hear all your news. But I’m not your sweetie. Please stop calling me motek.”

  The man in black stood on the dining table and swiftly extracted the tiny video camera from the lamp hanging over it. He wore latex gloves and a black nylon balaclava so he would not leave any hairs or DNA traces behind. He knew that the apartment was swept once a month for bugs and cameras. The last harvest had been extracted a week ago.

  The camera, hidden in the ceiling lamp four days ago, had not yet been found and now it never would be. He slipped it into his pocket, stepped down, wiped the table surface clean, and double-checked the footage on his phone. The video showed her pulling up a loose plank of parquet flooring under the sofa, on the right-hand side. He knelt down and ran his hand over the wood until a piece moved. He took a coin from his pocket and levered up the slat.

  16

  Eli blinked in surprise and stepped back. “Of course. Can I still call you Yael? Or do we have to be more formal?” He sipped his club soda.

  “Yael is fine. How long have you been in town? Tell me about your new job.”

  “You heard our friend Isis. I’m chief of staff to the ambassador. I arrived two days ago. It’s a mix, some policy advice and some boring admin and personnel stuff.”

  “Chief of staff? To the permanent representative?” asked Yael, amused.

  “Why are you shaking your head?” Eli’s face creased as he smiled.

  “Let me count the ways,” said Yael.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Harrari.”

  “So does yours, Ms. Azoulay.”

  Yael inclined her glass toward him. “Touché. But yours, while less well known, is much more interesting.”

  “Meaning?” asked Eli, his smile fading.

  She looked around before she continued. Nobody could overhear them. Yael moved closer and spoke softly. “Political attaché in Manila when Abu Yahya, the chief bomb maker for Islamic Jihad, in town to liaise with al-Qaeda’s technical director, falls out of a window, forty stories up. Economic counselor in Paris when Khaled Aslan, director of Hamas’s international bureau, slips under the Metro at the Gare du Nord; cultural attaché in London when Abas Fahani, number two in the Al-Quds brigade, is found floating face down in the boating lake on the Serpentine. The Foreign Office was very angry about that one. You took a long holiday in Tel Aviv afterward. Shall I continue?”

  Eli stepped away and shook his head. “You have a very active imagination, mo—Yael. A series of coincidences, no more. But I am flattered you are keeping such a close eye on me.” He peered at her face. “You are wearing makeup now? Why? You never used to.”

  Because I am thirty-six years old and the lines are showing and I would like to meet someone while I can still turn a few heads and have a child and maybe he will be here tonight, and because I was fighting for my life two days ago, Yael wanted to say. Instead she answered, “I scratched my face. I slipped in the bathroom. Really.” She smiled to herself—her reply was technically true. It was clear from Eli’s face that he did not believe her, but he did not press the point.

  Yael let the conversation move on to safer ground. They exchanged gossip about mutual friends from their youth. Eli tried, not without success, to flirt with her. He was as charismatic as ever, and he knew it. His undercurrent of menace, an almost cruel sensuality, did not repel Yael. Quite the opposite—it was a dark magnet, pulling her closer to him, just as it always had. Which made him even more dangerous. The best thing to do, she decided, for this evening at least, was to put the past aside and concentrate on the here and now, which was really quite enjoyable. It was a treat for her to be out at night, somewhere buzzy, in male company. Yael rarely socialized and when she did, it was mostly near her apartment on the Upper West Side, a comfortable but not exactly cutting-edge part of Manhattan.

  She liked this place, she decided. Zone was a microbrewery situated in a former sweatshop, on the corner of Avenue A and East Seventh Street. Most of the other customers were boho hipsters, with tattoos and multiple piercings. Much of the furniture, including the long zinc bar, had been salvaged from a former brothel in Paris. An enormous mirror hung on the wall behind it with a bullet hole in the middle, supposedly fired by a furious customer when he realized that the company he had booked for the evening was his wife.

  A corner table was filled with the staff of Sister, a lesbian magazine, celebrating the editor’s birthday. Isis and her UN crowd were overdressed but nobody seemed to care. The walls were rough brick, the furniture secondhand and refinished, the lighting soft, and African and Arabic music played softly in the background. There would be live music later, Isis had promised. Eli aside, Yael found herself actually relaxing. In any case, there was no need to stress too much about Eli—she was leaving for Istanbul tomorrow.

  Eli went to the restroom and Yael walked over to Joe-Don, still perched on his stool, nursing his third Diet Coke. She could feel him almost aching for a bourbon to throw into it. Joe-Don knew all about Eli. He and Yael had spent many nights holed up in uncomfortable, often dangerous places, where sleep was out of the question so there was nothing to do except talk.

  “Steer clear. He’s dangerous,” said Joe-Don.

  “Not to me.”

  “Especially to you. He’s not the boy you lived with all those years ago.”

  “Who is he, then?”

  Joe-Don raised his glass and gave her a piercing look. “You know the answer to that.”

  Yael hugged Joe-Don, once, quickly, and went back to her spot at the bar. Eli returned and they talked some more about mutual friends and acquaintances. Israelis married young, and some were already divorced and on their second families. The atmosphere began to ease. Yael saw a spot of lint on Eli’s shirt. She raised her right hand to brush it away. Eli instantly swerved left, as if to avoid a blow.

  Yael sat back, amused. “Always on guard, I see.” She pointed at the lint on his shirt. “That’s all. I was going to take it off.”

  Eli blushed and looked down. “Thanks,” he said as he picked off the scrap of fabric. “And you,” asked Eli. “Don�
�t you want to have a family?”

  “It will happen. When I meet the right guy.”

  Eli’s gray eyes bored into hers. “You have met the right guy. You already lived with him. In the right town, in the right country.”

  She held his gaze and shook her head. “No, Eli. I did not.”

  The talk of children produced the familiar pang in Yael and she changed the subject, asking Eli where he lived. He hedged his answer, claiming that a bureaucratic mix-up meant he was still apartment hunting. She knew that was a lie. Israeli diplomats, especially those with a resume like Eli’s, had their accommodation arranged far in advance of their arrival because of the security issues.

  Eli paused for a moment, swirling the ice cubes in his glass with a gray plastic cocktail stirrer. “Yael, I want to be straight with you. I am very happy to see you again. But I am not only here tonight for social reasons. We have a proposition for you.”

  “We? Who is we?” she replied, suddenly totally focused. Now she understood what he was doing at Zone.

  “I think you know the answer to that. Your former employers.”

  Yael raised her glass and sipped her wine. “Keyword: former.”

  “Yael, it doesn’t work like that.”

  “How does it work? Please explain to me.”

  Eli leaned closer to her. “You signed up for life. We invested a lot of time, money, and resources in you. You were the best, by far, for many years. We have let you run for quite a while. You have had your adventures. Gained some useful experience. But now it’s time to come home.”

  She could smell his cologne. After all these years, Eli still wore Issey Miyake. She had bought him his first bottle for his twenty-fourth birthday. She liked the smell so much she sometimes wore it herself. For an instant she was back in their apartment in Tel Aviv, frying eggs on a Sunday morning, Eli still asleep on their futon, the white sunlight streaming in through the windows. There were good memories as well as bad. But they were memories, of a time and a part of her life that had passed. Yael looked around the bar, enjoying the crowd, the hum of conversation, the Malian music playing in the background. “I am at home. I live here, in New York.”