by Adam LeBor
Joe-Don shook his head. “You are late. I have been sitting in your reception room for thirty-five minutes. I am not here for a social call. I need €100,000 in cash from my account. Now. Not more coffee.”
Bernard looked at Joe-Don with a pained expression on his face. It was hard to tell which offended him more: Joe-Don’s dated suit and rumpled necktie or his brusqueness. The banker opened the folder, drew out a sheet of paper, and slowly drew in air between his polished and whitened teeth. “We have a slight problem,” he said, his face radiating regret that anyone, or anything, could ever cause inconvenience to a client of BBF.
Joe-Don said nothing, allowing Bernard’s discomfort to build until he felt obliged to elaborate. The banker pursed his lips and slowly exhaled. “As you know, Monsieur . . . Smith,” he said, his voice openly doubtful, “since 9/11 we have been obliged to adhere to extremely strict new rules on international transfers and to thoroughly check the provenance of new deposits, especially those in cash. Your deposits,” he continued, briefly glancing down, “of €452,761 and twenty-six cents have all been in cash. We need to know how you came into possession of these funds.”
Joe-Don spoke calmly. “Technically you are obliged to do that, yes, but we both know that in reality you are not. And you don’t. Which is why so many governments and other agencies make such use of your services, and why Bank Bernard et Fils’ pretax profits last year were more than six hundred million Swiss francs.”
Bernard’s mask of amiability evaporated and his smile vanished. “I have no idea where you get that absurd, and, I might say, highly offensive allegation from. We are a registered financial institution and subject to international and Swiss banking regulations.”
Joe-Don looked at the banker with disdain. “I get that idea from the four-page secret protocol, a copy of which is in my possession, that you signed with the US Department of Justice, the European Commission, and Fareed Hussein’s office, guaranteeing Bank Bernard et Fils’ immunity in perpetuity against any legal, civil, or criminal measures by any UN member state, citizen, or instrument of any such state, for any transaction or financial arrangement entered into by the bank or any one of its subsidiaries or personnel.”
Bernard sat back in his chair, an ironic smile playing on his face. “If—if—such a document existed, it would still not help with your case. The board has decided it is unable to release your requested funds, indeed any of your funds deposited here, until you can prove to our satisfaction that these monies were legitimately earned, and indeed have been declared to the US tax authorities. Is that a problem, Monsieur . . . Smith?”
Joe-Don thought quickly. The monies themselves were not an issue. He was confident that the sleek banker was about to crumple like a cheese soufflé. But these sudden “difficulties” with his account showed that his moves had been anticipated. Which doubtless explained the delay. And which also meant that Bank Bernard had doubtless alerted the authorities to his presence. Time to speed things up.
“For me, no. But for you, yes.” Joe-Don reached into his bag and handed Bernard a ten-by-twelve color photograph.
The banker flushed, blinked rapidly, but soon recovered his composure. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Rough trade, I think our British friends call it. The photograph shows you having dinner in the bank’s private dining room with Vadim Todorov.”
Bernard shook his head. “I would expect something more sophisticated from you, Monsieur Smith or whatever your name is. Our bank is well known for its philanthropic activities. We sponsor a youth charity to help the young homeless. We provide them with accommodation, work, and the chance of a new life. I took an interest in Vadim’s case.”
“A great interest. As this photograph shows.”
Bernard sat back. “So? My private life is my own affair. I suggest you leave this office now, before I call the security department, ” he said, reaching for his telephone.
Joe-Don put his hand over Bernard’s. “I note your advice, Mr. Bernard. But before you do that perhaps you should take a look at these,” he said, handing him two more photographs.
The banker stared at the pictures and turned white.
“Vadim Todorov was fifteen years old. He was a runaway from an orphanage in Varna, Bulgaria. He lived in the train station and turned tricks to get money for glue or drugs. He had no friends or contacts here. He trusted you absolutely. You showed him a world he had no idea existed. And here he is, dead on a slab,” said Joe-Don, his voice cold and hard. “He died of a drug overdose. Cocaine. The postmortem showed he had also suffered severe internal injuries.”
Bernard began to shake. “You cannot connect this to me.”
Joe-Don looked at him with disgust. “Your DNA was found inside him. Your friend the minister of the interior had the pathologist’s report filed away and the police investigation stopped.”
He reached over to the humidor and selected a cigar. He tapped it on the table, took out a pocketknife, and sliced the end off before lighting it with a battered Zippo.
“Prove it,” said Bernard, his defiance rapidly evaporating.
Joe-Don puffed on the cigar until the tip glowed red, reached into his jacket pocket, and handed Bernard several folded sheets of paper. “Vadim Todorov’s autopsy results and the police report on his death. There are copies on my computer and numerous others. An e-mail containing these documents, and BBF’s four-page immunity memo, will be sent to Reuters, the Associated Press, and Bloomberg in thirty minutes if you don’t do as I ask. And don’t get any smart-ass ideas. I personally need to enter a code to stop the e-mails being sent,” he said, blowing a cloud of fragrant smoke over the banker.
Joe-Don shook his head regretfully as Bernard frantically scanned the papers. “Bank Bernard et Fils. A Geneva institution. Two hundred years of history, discretion, and tradition down the drain, just because you like slapping teenage boys around. And consider the bank’s clients. They really won’t appreciate the publicity.”
He examined the end of the cigar with interest. “This is very good. Cuban?”
Bernard put the sheets down, his eyes blazing with hatred. “What do you want?”
“I told you. My money. And for you to make a telephone call.”
“To whom?”
“To the minister of the interior. You will tell him to stand down the police officers in your reception area, the helicopter circling overhead, and the snipers on the roofs nearby. You will tell him that there has been a misunderstanding, that Monsieur Smith is carrying out an important and highly confidential mission for the United Nations that has been cleared by the Security Council at the highest level, that the standard protocols apply, and that you had been notified of this through the usual channels, but regretfully failed to inform the Swiss government. The fault is entirely yours. And FYI, be aware that if anything should happen to me or any of my close associates—ever—the police and autopsy reports and the bank’s immunity memo will be released to the news agencies.”
Bernard wiped his face with a monogrammed handkerchief. “Understood. But if the minister does not believe me?”
Joe-Don looked at his watch. “Twenty-eight minutes, and counting.”
Twenty
Yael sat in the half-lotus position on her rolled-out sleeping bag on the floor, watching the early evening news on the small television in the corner of the room. She had just come back from dumping two garbage bags in the municipal bins in a nearby park. The trash had been carefully sorted, packed into biodegradable sacks, and sealed. One contained paper sandwich wrappers, used napkins, and pizza boxes; the other carried plastic food containers, disposable cutlery, and cups. Yael had taken great care in sorting the trash, partly because she had nothing else to do, partly because of Geneva’s incredibly anal municipal regulations governing garbage disposal, but mainly because “Going Gray,” she had learned, meant eating a lot of junk and prepackaged food, u
sing throwaway utensils, and sleeping in a sleeping bag rather than using the hotel bed, so as not to leave any DNA traces on the sheets. It also meant drinking straight from the can, like the warm, flat Coca-Cola in her hand.
It had all seemed very over-the-top to her at first, like something from a Jason Bourne film. They were in Geneva, not undercover in Gaza. But these measures were absolutely necessary, Joe-Don had explained, his voice deadly serious. Yael had, whether wittingly or not, taken a man’s life, fled the country, crossed the border into Canada illegally, and traveled across the Atlantic on a dead woman’s passport. All sorts of people would want to talk to her now, and they would not be friendly conversations. There were no guarantees that they would not be tracked down, but their best protection was what he called a “layered defense,” taking every precaution possible, so that even if one of them slipped up, it would not spell disaster.
She finished the last of the Coca-Cola, put the can down on the bedside cupboard, and sat with her head in her hands, wondering how her life had come to this. Last month she had a fantastic career at the UN, brokering the behind-the-scenes deals that kept the wheels of diplomacy and business rolling. Ambassadors, government officials, even front organizations for the world’s terrorist groups would all take her calls. She lived in a beautiful apartment on the Upper West Side with picture windows over the Hudson River. There was even the prospect of romance with Sami. And now? Who knew how this was going to end?
Room 506 at the Hotel Imperial looked out on a concrete wall at the back of the main train station. The twin beds both sagged in the middle, the floor was scuffed beige linoleum, and the walls were covered in a dark-green flock wallpaper with several large grease stains. The television volume control was stuck at barely audible and a naked lightbulb swung from the ceiling. The en-suite bathroom did not seem to have been properly cleaned for months and emitted a dank, musty smell.
The rhythmic banging on the ceiling from the room upstairs had started again, increasing her gloomy mood. She was also worried about her conversation with Jasna Jovanovic. Yael had stuck doggedly to her story, insisting that she was Claudia Lopez. Just as she stood up to leave for the second time, the atmosphere suddenly changed. Jasna had told her to be at the main entrance to the Palais des Nations at 5:45 tomorrow morning. “We will see how you do,” she had said, smiling gnomically.
Despite the no-smoking sign, the room reeked of stale cigarettes. Yael grabbed her pack of Marlboro Lights and lit one. The tobacco tasted sour and dry in her mouth. She switched channels on the television, exhaling loudly in exasperation at what she saw on CNN. That woman was there again, outlining all the new security measures at the Goma camp. Yael reached sideways without looking and stubbed out the cigarette on the empty Coca-Cola can on the nightstand. The cigarette broke in half, and the can slipped sideways and rolled down the back of the nightstand. Yael switched channels to the BBC. No escape there, nor at Euronews, France 24, Russia Today, or even Al-Jazeera. She was everywhere. The last time Yael had looked, Roxana Voiculescu was Henrik Schneidermann’s deputy, and destined to always remain so. Schneidermann, Yael had heard, was determined that Roxana would never get anywhere near the media. But here she was, in Goma, briefing CNN. And quite well, Yael had to admit. Roxana certainly had more screen presence than the boring Belgian.
Yet bizarrely, there was no news, anywhere, of Hakizimani. It was as though the Rwandan warlord had never existed, and certainly had not been staying at suite 3017. But someone must have organized the cleanup operation at the Millennium Hotel—a person, or an agency, it now seemed, with enough clout to shut any inquiries down, presumably under the useful catchall of “national security.”
Her situation, she knew, was entirely of her own making. Joe-Don had warned her, repeatedly, and at great length, that her plan for Hakizimani was extremely risky, with potentially grave and life-changing consequences. And now she had to live with those consequences. She missed New York, she missed her apartment, she missed Zabar’s, she missed Bertrand and his scarves. She even realized, to her surprise, that she missed Fareed Hussein. She would far rather be sitting in his office listening to his sanctimonious nonsense than in this awful room.
Yael picked up yesterday’s International Herald Tribune, which had Sami’s story on the front page. She read it again, marveling at the quotes from the Rwandan ambassador. Yael had failed in her plan to tell Sami about the planned massacre of the five hundred people at the Goma camp. But it didn’t matter. Someone else had leaked it, prompting the street-corner press conference, which, she thought, was a masterstroke. But who? Yael tapped her finger thoughtfully on Sami’s byline. Perhaps she had been too tough with Sami. He was only doing his job. He was smart and funny, kind and fun, and she knew that he was attracted to her. Some decent clothes and a proper haircut and he would look quite handsome, she thought.
Yael watched a cockroach scamper up the side of the wall. She hit it with her shoe. The bug tumbled down to the floor and wandered in circles, its legs no longer working properly, white gunk oozing from its cracked carapace. An image of Jean-Pierre Hakizimani flashed into her mind, his arms and legs bound together, trying to squirm away across the carpet as she brought the handset near to his neck. The anguish on his face as she played the flame of the cigarette lighter over the slowly melting photograph of his daughters.
Had she really wanted to kill Hakizimani? The truth was, she didn’t know. She certainly wanted to confront him, to show him the human face of one of his victims. One part of her wanted revenge—swift, brutal, and biblical. Another was horrified at the idea. She had planned for both outcomes, and events had taken their course. She took the singed picture of Hakizimani’s daughters from her wallet and smoothed it down. Three happy, smiling young faces stared back at her. She suddenly felt near to tears.
The familiar feeling of self-disgust rose within her. What did she think she was doing? Did she really think she could stop whatever horror was planned in central Africa? How could she when she didn’t fully know what it was? She looked at the floor plans of the Palais des Nations, spread out over the bed. The UN-KZX Institute for International Development was located in the old part of the building, near the offices that decades ago housed the League of Nations. It was a diabolically brilliant idea: the world’s biggest humanitarian organization giving a moral imprimatur to the world’s largest corporation. She had to get in, find the proof of what was planned, get out, and then blow it open—all to prevent a war which, according to Hakizimani, would make the 1994 genocide look like a trial run and would result in a “blue flag over every coltan mine.”
This was no time for self-pity. Yael closed her eyes and transported herself to Jaffa beach. She came back calm and determined. The cockroach was still staggering around on the floor. She raised her shoe again and brought it down hard.
The KZX boardroom took up most of the 6th floor of a carefully restored eighteenth-century building on the corner of Rue des Alpes and the Quai du Mont-Blanc. Four large windows faced Lake Geneva, where one of several KZX corporate yachts was moored nearby. One wall of the room was covered with six flat-screen television monitors, another with posters for KZX’s new and numerous development initiatives and a large, autographed photograph of Fareed Hussein. The centerpiece of the room was a newly restored Biedermeier table, the lacquer so shiny that the room’s chandelier shimmered on its surface. A large bowl of fresh fruit sat in the center of the table, together with a tray of canapés from the kitchen of the nearby Beau Rivage hotel, crystal decanters of water, and silver jugs of tea and coffee, which sat on a heated plate. Three people sat at the table, but the refreshments were untouched.
They were waiting for the tall man standing at the window with his back to them. He watched the clouds over Mont Blanc on the other side of the lake, lost in thought for several seconds, tapping the newspaper against the window. He turned around and addressed Charles Bonnet.
“We have a problem, Mons
ieur Bonnet,” he said. “A large problem, and one, I fear, entirely of your making,” he continued as he handed the Frenchman the newspaper. Reinhardt Daintner sounded calm and relaxed, his studied mid-Atlantic accent now replaced by the singsong lilt and long vowels of his home city, Vienna.
“I— I—” Bonnet stuttered. He looked down at the paper and back at Daintner.
Daintner gestured at the newspaper. “Monsieur Bonnet, please, kindly share with us the results of your handiwork.”
Bonnet reached for the decanter to pour himself a glass of water, but Daintner moved his hand aside. “I asked you to read, not to drink.”
Bonnet scratched violently at his neck, sending a small puff of face powder onto his jacket shoulders. He looked around the table for support. Erin Rembaugh stared right through him as though he were not there, then glanced downward, taking a sudden interest in her nails, which were raw and bitten. The second man at the table picked up a file of papers in front of him and began to leaf through them.
The Frenchman picked up the news section of the New York Times. The front-page lead headline proclaimed: “Times Photographer Found Severely Injured in New Jersey: Foul Play Suspected.”
Bonnet swallowed nervously and began to read: “Mitchell Gardiner, a freelance photographer, was found unconscious last night on Redneck Avenue in New Jersey, suffering from severe head injuries and a broken leg. Mr. Gardiner, 28, was on his first assignment for the New York Times when his motorcycle appears to have hit an oil slick, and he lost control of it. The crash is likely connected to a theft, as Mr. Gardiner’s cameras could not be found at the crash site. Police officers said that the injuries were inflicted by a blow from a blunt instrument that almost split his helmet in two. Mr. Mitchell is now in a coma at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City. New Jersey police say they have launched an investigation into attempted murder.”