‘That might change,’ Tallis said.
Clay, for once, appeared in agreement. ‘So what do they want?’
Tallis met Asim’s eye. ‘To destroy. Modern-day terrorists aren’t interested in the niceties of negotiation.’
‘Suits me,’ Clay said with relish. ‘Meet force with force.’
‘There are alternatives to sending in the guns, Mr Clay,’ Beckett countered with a thin smile.
‘I’ll remind you of that when we run out of options.’
Tallis found the prospect of dealing with female terrorists unusually disturbing. Something else: the most dangerous enemies were those fuelled by ideology rather than greed and lust for power. If they were right about the women, he was right about the motive: revenge.
‘Worth a trip to the Sudan?’ he said at last.
‘We don’t think that’s a good use of resources,’ Beckett said, sounding remarkably like a finance director. ‘We already have people on the ground there.’
‘Then until there’s another development I’m not sure we can do very much. Who else knows about this?’
‘Those who need to,’ Beckett replied, succinct. ‘This is as secret as it gets. No official minutes, no hard-copy assessments, no data files kept.’
Tallis eyed the thick wad of information in front of him. Beckett followed his gaze. ‘Both files will be destroyed after this meeting. We are treading in highly sensitive areas. With all due respect to Mr Clay here, we’ve requested patience and restraint in certain quarters.’
‘Horseshit,’ Clay erupted once again. ‘I take it my guys have given the get-go?’
‘If you mean a consensus -’ Beckett blinked witheringly ‘ - absolutely.’
All part of the new ‘essential’ relationship, Tallis registered with cynicism. As if picking up on his mood, Asim cast Tallis a reproving glance. ‘There will also be certain constraints on yourselves.’
Tallis raised an eyebrow. He didn’t do constraints.
‘We are dispensing with bristling technological backup on this one. No comms, no gadgets, no surveillance equipment, no gizmos. Basically it’s down to you two to keep it tight.’
‘A return to the tried and tested methods of espionage,’ Beckett chimed in with a triumphant smile.
‘Tried-and-tested as in circa 1950?’ Clay sneered.
Beckett ignored the remark. ‘Only for the early stages of the operation.’
Tallis wondered whose idea that was. It was the equivalent of sending them out with their hands tied behind their backs. He looked to Asim for guidance, but Asim’s eyes refused to meet his gaze. Only a slight tightening of his jaw suggested that he was not happy. Tallis didn’t get it. Asim should be in charge and yet Beckett appeared to be calling the shots.
Clay wasn’t finished. ‘Why?’ His face looked like a piece of chiselled stone that someone had knocked a lump out of.
‘Because this is a black operation.’
‘Since when did black mean retarded?’
‘Since the enemy got wise to our strategy,’ Beckett said.
The aQ factor, Tallis thought. The newest terrorist franchises had smartened up to Western technology. The only way to win that particular war of attrition was to put men on the ground, men who spoke the language, who were prepared to acquaint themselves with the culture of the enemy. He thought again of his own personal involvement, the Balkan connection, and its possible significance. Even so, he could appreciate why Clay was fairly staggered that they were abandoning the normal add-ons. Made him feel uneasy. No techno equalled no record, no trail, no accountability and no trust. What the hell were they getting into?
‘It’s essential that intelligence is not picked up by other agencies,’ Beckett said, as if to clarify the matter.
‘Weapons?’ Tallis said.
‘You will be armed, naturally.’
‘What with? A pea-shooter?’ Clay scowled.
Tallis suppressed a smile. Having spent weeks out in Russia with only his wits as technical support, he reckoned he was going to find the job a lot easier than Clay. He decided to change the mood music.
‘What about the UN?’
‘The secretary general is aware of our softly-softly approach,’ Asim said.
Tallis caught his eye. He thought back to their earlier discussion about the UN’s track record of appeasement. No doubt Isolde Chatelle, the secretary general, and the world’s most senior civil servant and diplomat, would find the strategy appealing. It was neither one thing nor the other.
‘So where do we go from here?’ Clay said. He was leaning back, his arms folded in front of him. ‘Can we get clearance to talk to Chatelle?’
‘Homesick already?’ Tallis smiled, thinking of the UN Headquarters in New York.
Clay ignored the crack, his eyes planted on Asim. ‘I’ll make the necessary arrangements,’ Asim said, glancing at his watch. ‘The secretary general happens to be in London. If she’s amenable, I’m sure I could request an audience at short notice.’
We were taken to Europe via Italy and France. There, we were split up. I will never forget the look of devastation on Sabina’s face, her expression a mirror image of my own. To say I was broken does not do justice to what I felt.
I was trafficked to England, Sabina to Germany. There was a rumour that she was taken to Berlin.
I spent three years in prostitution in London, three years being brutalised and beaten then in 2000 I escaped. Pretending to be ill, I said I had stomach pains. Bilal took me to the accident and emergency department of the nearest hospital himself. It was the first and only time I saw fear in his eyes. When I was shown to a cubicle, Bilal wanted to wait with me. He said he was my boyfriend. I do not think the nurses believed him. They would not permit it. Bilal began to shout and security was called. Left alone, it was easy enough for me to slip away.
I had no papers. I spoke only a little English. I feared authority in all its guises. Once, I would have tried to return home, but I had nothing to go back for. My one desire was to find Sabina. The war might have ended, but my own war had only just begun.
I slept out in the open. I begged. I sold my body for food. Eventually, I stowed on board a lorry bound for Germany. It took me three months to reach Berlin. There I discovered other displaced people, including Bosnians, but Sabina was not among them.
I cannot remember much of my early time in exile. Fear, like a howling wind, followed me. In despair, I was like a beaten dog waiting for the next blow to land.
Then I met Thomas.
I was begging outside a department store. It was raining. People hurried past. He did not walk on by. He did not search in his pocket for change. He asked me my name and told me I was beautiful. Nobody had ever said that before. I knew instantly that he would take care of me.
At his invitation I went home with him to a smart apartment in Charlottenburg. I had never seen anything like it in my life before. Everywhere was so clean, so light and ordered. And there were books, many of them leather-bound. He explained that he was a university lecturer at Humboldt. I was surprised that a lowly academic could afford such a luxurious dwelling and said so. He disclosed that he had bought it with money from an inheritance.
He made me something to eat - I forget what - and he offered me a glass of wine, which I declined, not because it was against my religion but because I wanted to remain clear-headed, to exist in the present, to extract everything from this wondrous moment in time. I listened and watched, suddenly and unexpectedly greedy for life.
In his late forties, Thomas had sandy-coloured hair and a neat blond moustache and beard. He had the most intense expression in his blue eyes, so that when he talked I felt as though I was the only person alive. He also had a fine, well-proportioned body. Yes, I noticed such things.
I was only going to stay the night. I ended up staying a week, sleeping alone between crisp, clean cotton sheets in the spare room, then another week and finally, after six months, we became lovers.
As time ticked by, Thomas applied
for and got me a student visa. I enrolled at the university where I discovered that Thomas had a radical streak. Pressed, he told me about Baader-Meinhof, also known as the Red Army Faction, a left-wing terrorist group active in the 1970s and 1980s. He taught me that the gang, led by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, waged a terrorist campaign against the repressive policies of the police and the government and state in Germany. He talked about them with passion, with fire in his voice. He believed they were heroes. Ulrike Meinhof was found dead in her cell in 1976, the verdict suicide. Many believed, according to Thomas, that she was murdered.
In spite of Thomas’s left-wing inclinations, he never stopped asking me to marry him, and I never stopped declining. How could I do such a thing when I kept such secrets within my soul, when Sabina was still out there alone and afraid? You see, now that I was safe and secure, I returned to my old self, the one bent out of shape by the horrors I had endured. And that’s why I never gave up looking for her. Although my life was immeasurably better in numerous ways, I still felt shock that the world continued to turn, that people wore a façade of reason and moderation. To me, it was simply a thin disguise for the deep malevolence within.
One night, three years later, I glimpsed Sabina. I was sitting with Thomas in a club in the Friedrichshain area of town. She was with the man who had driven the car all those years ago. From his body language, I assumed he was now running Sabina as one of his girls. She wore beautiful clothes, a revealing red dress underneath a black coat with a fur collar. Her shoes, also black, had four-inch heels. She wore make-up. In the Balkan style, black pencil lined her lips. I was reminded of the tales she told me of Sarajevo, of the women there, with their pride and dignity and their stout refusal to crumble in the face of adversity. Physically she had not changed that much, a little thinner, the wholesomeness gone from her eyes replaced by world-weariness seen only in the expressions of old women who once were beautiful. Of all the places I could have found her, I thought, it was here among the stark reminders of a terrible past, the Berlin Wall and last remaining watchtower. It seemed fitting somehow, like an omen.
When Sabina left with her pimp I told Thomas to stay where he was.
‘Where are you going?’ Alarm was in his eyes. He was always afraid that I’d leave him.
‘I’ll explain later. I’ll tell you everything.’
‘Wait, Anna,’ he said, catching my sleeve.
‘It will be all right. Promise,’ I said, ducking down and kissing him.
I followed as they walked down Karl-Marx-Allee towards Strausberger Platz, the avenue wide and lined with historical buildings and huge residential tower blocks.
I shivered as I walked. I was not cold or even afraid. I was alive. It was as if I’d been asleep for a thousand years and had suddenly woken up. Strangely, even though I’d planned for this very moment, I did not know what I was going to do other than I could not lose the connection with Sabina. I must not.
Finally we came to a park, with a fountain illuminated so that the water looked like plumes of molten mercury. Behind it, an eight-storey apartment block rose into the sky like a symbol of old Communist Berlin.
Sabina and the man went inside the main foyer. I hovered as close as I dared, heard the man speak in German to a concierge and ask for a key to number 1,530. Salting the information away, I walked back to the club, met Thomas’s questioning gaze and announced with a laugh that I would marry him on one condition.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, beaming, joyous.
‘That you help me rescue my oldest, dearest friend.’
CHAPTER NINE
To obtain a meeting with the secretary general of the United Nations alone and in secrecy was no easy feat. Normally she travelled with a full entourage of staff and security. However, Asim, with Chatelle’s co-operation, had engineered a half-hour meeting in a suite of the Savoy Hotel at five-thirty that morning.
Introductions were brief and cordial. Condolences for the murder of the Ghanaian peacekeepers expressed and solemnly received. Chatelle, dressed in a pale blue linen trouser suit, moved with easy grace for a woman of above average height. Groomed, she had short dark hair, possibly dyed, Tallis thought, and wore enough make-up to make the most of her assets, her face handsome rather than beautiful. She had very expressive brown eyes. Tallis guessed that she was in her early to mid fifties.
Clay dropped down into the nearest easy chair. At Chatelle’s invitation, Tallis sat beside her on a tan leather sofa. He thought it a clever gesture on behalf of the secretary general, implying familiarity but on her terms.
Everyone was invited to help themselves to juice, coffee, fruit and croissants. Tallis stuck to coffee only. Chatelle offered him milk and sugar, everything about her displaying deference and courtesy, and yet he found he could intuit little from Isolde Chatelle’s serene expression. He could not tell whether she loathed breakfast meetings as he did, whether part of her was considering the forthcoming conference on climate change scheduled to take place in Paris later in the day, or whether her sole concern was security and the escalation of violence. The epitome of charm and diplomacy, she wore graciousness like a leopard its skin. It was easy to see exactly why she’d been chosen for the very difficult job of keeping the equivalent of a large dysfunctional family in order. Possessing empathy in spades, she was one of those people it was impossible to dislike. It had never occurred to him before, but he thought the fact that the secretary general was female was a distinct advantage. Successful men tended to compartmentalise, rationalise and retain less interest in relationships. Women were better skilled in those areas and yet he didn’t envy her. To remain impartial with hell breaking loose in all corners of the globe and your closest colleagues pursuing their own agendas must be the most frustrating and difficult job in the world. Put like that, Tallis smiled inwardly, he reckoned he and the secretary general shared certain things in common.
On a time limit and past the pleasantries, Clay described the mounting evidence of terrorist activity against the UN, in particular the recent incident in the Sudan and the discovery of female remains. Chatelle’s face briefly clouded.
‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘Based on a witness statement from a survivor, we believe the peacekeepers made the first aggressive move, that they opened fire first,’ Tallis explained.
Chatelle looked shocked. ‘No, they would only do so if they came under attack, and even then there are strict rules of engagement.’
‘Only if they were legitimate peacekeepers,’ Tallis said. ‘We believe the Ghanaians were killed prior to the incident. The people who took part in the firefight were not UN soldiers.’
Chatelle’s face registered concern. She wore it lightly, as if her features were accustomed to such an expression.
‘They were women,’ Clay said, slugging home the point.
‘That’s impossible,’ Chatelle said, startled.
For a moment Tallis feared that Clay might openly agree, but the American continued to explain that they were following the possibility of a female led organisation driven by ideology and revenge for the perceived failures of the 1990s. He alleged that while the UN seemed to be the main target, America was also on the hit list, either directly or indirectly.
Chatelle, now pale, listened politely and said nothing.
‘Originally we believed that Sudan was significant. There are several vested interests in the country,’ Tallis said, choosing his words with care. Chatelle did business with the Russians and Chinese on a weekly basis. He didn’t want to stoke up a storm. What she said next surprised him.
‘You may be right. The civilian population has never forgiven the West for its failure to act on Darfur.’
‘Excuse me, ma’am, but ethnic rivalry and lack of resources isn’t the West’s problem,’ Clay said.
‘But inhumanity is,’ Chatelle said, passion briefly flickering in her eyes. ‘The UN has always maintained a presence in the region, but when the situation deteriorated there wer
e too many who failed to take personal responsibility. It is not enough to write a report and pass it on to someone higher up the food chain.’
Surprised, Tallis found her candour refreshing. ‘So you think we’re on the right track?’
Chatelle slow-blinked. ‘That we are authors of our own downfall?’
‘I didn’t say…’ Tallis began.
Chatelle gracefully raised a hand, her smile weary. ‘The United Nations is a force for good in the world, vital in responding to human tragedy. We are mandated to help the uprooted and stateless, to lead and protect those who are most vulnerable, but I am also aware of our shortcomings as an organisation, Mr Tallis, in the past, in the present and, no doubt, in the future.’
She sipped her coffee, altered her position, every action controlled. ‘It’s my belief that terrorists don’t seek reasons for violence,’ she continued smoothly. ‘The roots of terrorism lie in poverty, lack of education and injustice, something that the UN seeks to redress wherever possible.’
Clay exchanged a dark glance with Tallis. He obviously didn’t buy into the secretary general’s assessment. To some extent Tallis shared his views. For all its funding and resources, much of it donated by America, the UN time and time again failed to be anything other than a passive force. He regarded it as the equivalent of the CCTV camera: good at watching the crime but hopeless at preventing it. That the UN was up to the job Tallis had no doubt. The fault lay in it’s not having an adequate mandate. From the unlovely twist to Clay’s mouth, Tallis feared that the former CIA agent might erupt. Fortunately, Chatelle saved him by speaking first.
‘I’d like to ask you a question.’ She inclined her head towards Tallis.
‘Go ahead,’ he said, absurdly flattered that she seemed to favour him over Clay.
‘What is the most astounding fact about the UN charter?’
‘I’m not that famil…’
‘There is absolutely no mention of the word peacekeeping.’ Chatelle flashed a smile at his astonishment. ‘You see, the UN was created at a time when our remit was to prevent war among nations. We were never designed for the explosion of internal conflicts that typified the 1990s. Did we fail? We did, but we did our best with what we had in place.’
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