by Adam LeBor
The two men met again in Kuwait City during the first Gulf War, in 1991, when the United States had liberated Kuwait from Saddam’s army. Massoud was in charge of VEVAK’s covert liaison with the CIA, and the Iranians had been happy to help the Americans and their Arab allies strike a blow against their greatest enemy. Since then Clairborne and Massoud had remained in contact, continuing to exchange information. A decade later, on September 12, 2001, Massoud reached out to Clairborne with an offer. Iran would help depose the Taliban in Afghanistan, in exchange for a resumption of diplomatic relations. Clairborne’s re-commendation, that Massoud’s offer be seriously considered, was ignored. The following month, weary of the bureaucratic infighting that had helped open his homeland to attack in the first place, Clairborne left the CIA and set up the Prometheus Group.
“Just three days to go, my old friend,” said Clairborne. Three days until Thursday, the start of the process that would lead to the rapture, a thought he did not articulate.
“Please update me as to where we are,” said Massoud.
“Pabst came to see me on Saturday morning. The plan worked perfectly, just as you said.”
Massoud smiled with pleasure. “What did he do?”
“Played on our shared history, then made a crude attempt at blackmail with a threat to go to the press with what he thinks he knows.”
“Which is?”
“Just what we loaded onto Jones’s mobile phone. Architectural details of the Osman Convention Center, the first and second wave of suicide bombers, timings, response protocols of the Turkish security forces—it’s all there, leading back to Prometheus. They had to work hard to get it, so they believe it.”
“So you are sure that he has no idea of the actual plan?”
Clairborne nodded. “Sure as a cat can climb up a tree.”
“However, he could still go public with what he has. Clarence, I know this man is an old comrade of yours, but—”
“Don’t worry, Salim. He won’t. Not yet. He and the girl will want more details, to find out what’s going on at the Turkish end, how it’s all been put together. They will keep digging for something that does not exist. Everything is under control.”
September 11, 2001, had been good for business. Clairborne had used his network of contacts across the US military and intelligence services to make the Prometheus Group the gateway to Kabul. Any American or foreign corporation wishing to supply services to the US government in Afghanistan, local governments, or even the legion of charities and nongovernmental organizations operating there, had to go through Prometheus. The firm’s clients included banks, corporations, oil and energy companies, and, of course, private military contractors. From Kabul to K Street, the equation was clear: the greater the chaos, the greater the profits. The Iraq War had brought the greatest rewards. When the Bush administration needed “evidence” of weapons of mass destruction to make the case for invading, Prometheus had helped provide—or manufacture—it. The hard part had been Clairborne’s years of work building up his network of contacts. Once in place, it was simple to use. A leak to a friendly European intelligence service that was soon rippling over the Atlantic; a quiet dinner in Georgetown with an influential journalist; a few carefully doctored intelligence reports; subtle nudges, nods, and winks at Langley and the Pentagon, and hey presto, shock and awe over Baghdad.
Prometheus’s turnover quickly reached seven figures a year, then eight and nine. The more Americans—and Iraqis and Afghans—that died, the more demand there was for the United States to prop up the shaky local bureaucracies, train their militaries and police forces, and supply the darker services needed to deal with the myriad of domestic militias and terrorist groups.
Within a few months, the Iraqi bonanza far outstripped that to be earned in Kabul. It was then that Clairborne crossed the line, one he had pledged to himself that he would never breach. Forewarned by Massoud of a terrorist attack on the UN complex in Baghdad—the same headquarters that Joe-Don demanded be properly secured, to no avail—Clairborne had kept quiet. Twenty-two UN staffers died.
The Prometheus Group’s takings soared even higher. Salim Massoud knew about the attack on the UN complex because he had helped organize it. By then Massoud was in charge of the Iranian military campaign in Iraq, providing arms, logistics, and training for the Shia fighters battling their Sunni enemies. After the Baghdad bombing it was a comparatively small step for Clairborne to suggest American and Western targets for Massoud’s militia. Each outrage brought more contracts for Prometheus’s clients and more profits for the firm. Massoud had encouraged taking this course of action to its logical conclusion. He had proposed that Prometheus set up a special black-operations unit to carry out joint attacks with Iranian Shia militants against US forces and installations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even Clairborne had balked at this—in part because it would give Massoud unwelcome leverage over him.
But Massoud’s proposal had planted a dark seed in Clairborne’s mind. Meanwhile, Clairborne’s payments to Massoud’s private account at Bank Bernard et Fils, and the one in the name of Nuristan Holdings, had made Massoud a very rich man.
“Kheili khoob, very good. Clarence…,” said Massoud, his voice suddenly hesitant. “Is there any news…?”
Clairborne shook his head. “I’m working on it, Salim, doing my best. I have lines out everywhere. But still nothing so far.”
Massoud’s face briefly twisted. “Clarence, isn’t there anything? Anything at all? With all your connections, there must be a way to find out.”
Clairborne looked somber. “I’m sorry, Salim. Since Snowden everything’s locked down tighter than a nun’s—” He quickly stopped himself. “There are new government agencies, so deep and so dark, even I have never heard of them. But I’m on the case, and once I hear anything, which should be soon, I will let you know.”
“And the girl?”
“The operation is under way, even as we speak.”
“Thank you, Clarence,” said Massoud.
Clairborne bade Massoud good-bye and closed the screen.
He pressed a series of keys. A new window opened on the monitor. It showed Farzad Massoud sitting on a bed in a gray-walled cell, staring blankly into space.
22
Yael blinked several times trying to open her sticky, gritty eyes. Her mouth tasted sour and metallic. Her throat was so dry it felt as if it had been vacuum cleaned.
She looked around, her head heavy, her movements slow. The light-green walls wobbled and shook, and a wave of nausea rose inside her. She breathed deeply until the room stilled and her stomach calmed. She was lying on a gray blanket, her right wrist handcuffed to a narrow metal bed. The room was about twelve feet square. The ceiling was a grubby off-white, and the floor was covered with cracked red linoleum. There were no windows, but an air conditioner hummed quietly in the background. The air smelled musty, but pleasant, of old books and paper. The door was closed.
Yael tried to sit up. The room began to spin again. Her limbs would not respond properly to her brain’s commands. She flopped back down again, more enraged at her weakness than at Yusuf’s betrayal.
She looked up when the door opened.
Yusuf walked over to her. He placed a brown paper bag at the end of the bed and took Yael’s arm to help her sit up.
Yael pushed his hand away and forced herself upright. The room shook. She closed her eyes before she spoke. “Don’t touch me, orospu çocuǧu, son of a bitch.” Her voice was raspy.
Yusuf looked shocked. “Where did you learn such bad words?”
Yael raised her left arm to punch Yusuf. He easily batted away her feeble blow.
“In another life,” said Yael. She glared at him, her eyes full of fury. “The one where I trusted you.”
“You can still trust me, Yael. I saved your life.”
“It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like you have kidnapped me. What’s next? A little trip over the Syrian border to your jihadi friends, like Cyrus Jones got?”
Yael did not reply. She rubbed her wrist where the handcuff had chafed the skin.
Yusuf continued speaking. “You are quite free to leave. But I don’t recommend it.”
Yael slowly moved her hands, her arms, her legs, and her feet. Everything still worked. Her left shoulder ached from the roundhouse punch she had taken. But her right shoulder was even more stiff and sore. She touched the skin where it met her neck. It felt tender, as if bruised deep under the skin.
“You shot me. Piç, bastard.”
Yusuf laughed. “Your Turkish is really improving.”
Yael took a deep breath, gathered her strength, and tried to hit Yusuf. He caught her right hand and placed it on the bed. He passed her a large green bottle of mineral water.
“Enough. Drink. You are weak and dehydrated from the knockout dart.”
Yael opened the bottle, smelled it, then took a tentative sip.
Yusuf smiled. “If I wanted to poison you, I would have.”
Yael drank the water in long, steady gulps. Once she had finished, she held the bottle in her hand. She glanced at the metal bed stand with its sharp edges, at the glass bottle, and then at Yusuf.
As though reading her mind, Yusuf reached over and took the bottle from her hand. He reached for the brown paper bag and took out a carton of ayran. He passed it to Yael. “Drink this too; it will settle your stomach. But slowly.”
Yael did as he said and felt her strength begin to return. Whether or not she was in danger, she still needed to eat and drink. For the moment at least, she was in no condition to try and overcome Yusuf and make a break for it. More import-antly, her sixth sense told her that despite appearances, she was in no danger. His body language was relaxed and confident; his concern for her seemed genuine.
“How long have I been here? And how did I get here?”
“I kidnapped you,” said Yusuf. “Or, better to say, I stopped you from being kidnapped. My boss ordered me to arrange your abduction, which was to be blamed on the Kurds. Everything that goes wrong in Turkey is the fault of the Kurds. Or the Jews. So I did as instructed—I didn’t know about the knife, by the way; that was a late addition, or I would have changed the plan. You did very well,” he said admiringly. Yusuf looked at his watch. “I should have handed you over about five hours ago.”
“To who?” demanded Yael.
“To my boss. And he would have handed you on.”
“Where? And what happened to the other guys?”
“I will explain. It’s five o’clock in the afternoon. Time for the news.”
Yusuf took his mobile telephone from his pocket, swiped through the menu, and pressed the screen. He handed it to Yael. It showed Al Jazeera’s New York studio. The anchor, a portly Pakistani man, was interviewing Najwa.
Najwa was standing on İstiklal Caddesi, outside the household-goods shop. Najwa was a fast worker, thought Yael, impressed. She must have gone straight to İstiklal after the UN airplane landed at Istanbul airport.
“Who are Yael Azoulay and Julia Albihari, Najwa? And what are they doing in Turkey?” asked the anchor.
“Riz, they are the same person. Yael Azoulay works for the United Nations, often undercover, as a covert negotiator. It seems she was traveling on a false passport. The Turkish authorities very much want to talk to her about that.”
Two photographs flashed up on the screen: one of Yael how she usually looked, and another of her with her dyed black hair, wearing her head scarf.
“Where is she now?”
“We don’t know. She was last seen around ten thirty this morning, fighting two men here, on Istanbul’s main shopping street. It seems they were attempting to kidnap her. Then she suddenly surrendered and got into an ambulance.”
“Who was trying to kidnap her?”
“Well, Riz, the Turkish authorities blame an organization called the Kurdish People’s Liberation Army. Turkish officials are saying that KPLA leaflets, claiming responsibility for the most recent bombings, were found here this morning. You can imagine how tight security is now for the upcoming Istanbul Summit. The whole city is going into lockdown mode. The merest hint of trouble, let alone any alleged terrorist activity, will bring down the wrath of the police and the security services.”
“What do the Kurds say?”
“What they have been saying for weeks, which is that they had nothing to do with the bombs in Sultanahmet, and now that they had nothing to do with the kidnapping of Yael Azoulay. In fact she may not even have been abducted. Some sources are saying that the whole thing was staged. The two men with whom she was seen fighting were found this afternoon. They had been shot with a knockout dart and dumped under the Galata Bridge. They are now recovering in the hospital and police are waiting to question them.”
Riz frowned. “It’s all very mysterious. If Yael Azoulay works for the UN, doesn’t she have immunity? She could just take the next plane home, and with her the truth about what happened today on İstiklal Caddesi.”
Najwa shook her head. “Not anymore. Interpol has just issued a warrant for her arrest on two charges of murder, for the death of Rwandan warlord Jean-Pierre Hakizimani and American Bradley DeWayne. Both men were killed last October. Hakizimani was found dead in New York, and DeWayne was drowned in Lake Geneva.”
Riz nodded slowly. “Tell us more, Najwa.”
“Jean-Pierre Hakizimani was wanted by the International Tribunal for his role in the Rwanda genocide. He had been on the run for almost twenty years but, rumor has it, came to New York to broker a peace deal in Congo with the know-ledge and blessing of the UN. And we have some intriguing footage of his last visitor, Riz.”
The screen showed the now-familiar CCTV footage of Yael dressed in the raincoat, showing a fake ID to the two security guards outside Hakizimani’s door.
“Is that Yael Azoulay?” asked Riz.
“Yes, it is. She is posing as an escort in the name of Sharon Mantello. The next thing we know Jean-Pierre Hakizimani is found dead on the floor, dressed only in a white hotel bathrobe, and Ms. Azoulay—or Mantello—has vanished.”
“Intriguing stuff. Tell us about Bradley DeWayne, Najwa.”
“DeWayne may not be his real name. All we know is that he was American. It seems he tried to kill Yael, but she ended up drowning him in Lake Geneva, just a few days after the death of Hakizimani. Caroline Masters, the acting secretary-general, has said through her spokeswoman that all of Yael Azoulay’s immunities and privileges have been revoked. The UN leadership urges her to turn herself in to the Turkish authorities.”
Yael laughed and put the phone down on the bed. She held her hands up to Yusuf. “Here I am. I surrender to the Turkish authorities.”
“I accept. Come,” he said, offering Yael his arm.
This time she took it. They walked through into the next room. Yael looked around. It was double the size of the other space. Three walls were lined from floor to ceiling with books, their dark leather bindings split and torn, the letters on their spines faded. Six old-fashioned wooden filing cabinets stood in front of the fourth wall, each secured by a heavy brass lock.
A single wooden desk stood in the center, its varnish chipped and worn. Every square inch of the desktop was covered with more books, towering unsteadily, many coated with dust. Yael picked up a book from the top of the tallest pile.
She turned to Yusuf. “May I?”
He nodded.
Yael carefully opened the thick black cover. The frontispiece, she saw, recorded that the book had been printed in Salonika, now Thessaloniki, in Greece, in 1898. The paper was thin, turned yellow with age. She suddenly felt a powerful presence in the room, of generations of the books’ owners, watching her to make sure she took care of their legacy.
The book seemed to be a Jewish liturgy, written in Hebrew. Yael began to read, puzzled at first, as the letters did not form words
that made sense. And then she realized that she was reading Judeo-Spanish; the words were medieval Spanish, transcribed in Hebrew script. The language was also known as Ladino. The language of her ancestors who boarded the boat from Grenada and sailed to the Ottoman Empire. The language still spoken today by the scattered descendants of Sephardic Jewry.
The hair stood up on her arms.
Yael stared at Yusuf, her eyes wide open. “Where are we?”
“Good evening, Mr. Utley. President Freshwater is expecting me,” said Isis Franklin as she walked toward the Air Force One conference room.
Aldrich Utley, the presidential chief of staff, stepped out in front of her, his pale blue eyes instantly assessing her like the maître d’ of a Michelin-starred restaurant judging a questionably dressed diner. “The president is busy preparing for the Istanbul Summit. And she is likely to be for some time.” His Boston Brahmin accent was so dry he sounded almost English. Utley gestured down the airplane cabin. “We have a full kitchen service, Ms. Franklin. They can make you whatever you would like. I recommend the rib of beef. Why don’t you get some dinner, have a glass of wine? I will speak to the president and see if she might have a few minutes for you later.”
President Freshwater’s chief of staff did not hide his unease at Isis Franklin’s presence on the presidential airplane. Franklin was neither a White House official nor an elected officeholder, which meant he could not control her, and control was very important to Aldrich Utley.
A tall man in his early sixties, Utley wore a cream-colored linen-cotton blend suit and handmade British shoes. He had thick, swept-back silver hair of which he was immensely proud and an imperial manner that had been hardwired into him by centuries of good breeding passed down by ancestors who had landed in North America a hundred years before the United States came into existence.
His predecessor, a former State Department colleague of President Freshwater’s, had been sacked three months earlier after failing to prevent a series of bipartisan filibusters wrecking Freshwater’s attempts to rein in private security contractors in the military and intelligence services. Utley was nominally a Democrat, but one so far on the right of the party many believed him to be a Republican mole. His appointment had caused consternation across Freshwater’s administration. But so far, Utley had lived up to his reputation as Washington, DC’s best-dressed political bruiser. Restless senators and House representatives were steadily being brought back into line, and he was steadily building support for Freshwater’s next campaign on the issue.