The Washington Stratagem (11 page)

Yael nodded. “You can help me,” she said, slicing off a chunk of the tortilla and offering it to Joe-Don.

He shook his head. “It’s all yours.”

They were sitting in La Caridad on the corner of Broadway and West Seventy-Eighth Street, a few blocks from Yael’s apartment. Apart from an elderly Cuban man in one corner, nursing a cup of coffee and reading that day’s edition of
El Diario la Prensa
, a Spanish-language daily newspaper, the restaurant was almost deserted. The early-morning crowd had gone home and it was too early for lunch. One of the last Chinese Cuban diners in New York, and still a mainstay of the Upper West Side, La Caridad was Yael’s regular breakfast spot.

Yael sprinkled chili sauce over the beans and tortilla, speared a forkful of beans, and raised it to her mouth. “Sure you don’t want some?” she asked. Clean, showered, dressed in fresh clothes, she was suddenly ravenous. A run, her sparring with Joe-Don, then half an hour of yoga while Joe-Don went for a walk in Riverside Park had triggered a ferocious appetite. The food revived her quickly. She smiled, half-laughed at a memory from last night—at least, she thought, she had gone down fighting.

“What’s so funny?’ asked Joe-Don.

“I called Al Jazeera after the story went out. I asked for Sami, said I had some new information for him. He was still in the studio. They put me through. I said, ‘Hello, this is Sharon Mantello. I hear you have some footage of me.’”

Joe-Don laughed. “And he said?”

“Nothing. I changed my accent but he knew it was me. I could sense it. I asked him if he burned all his sources. Then I hung up.”

She looked out the window. An old man was slowly making his way across Broadway with the aid of a Zimmer frame. A young mother was pushing a twin baby carriage around the corner, down Seventy-Eighth Street. A policeman with an impressive paunch was chatting with the owner of a stall, half a block long, selling secondhand books. An everyday spring morning on the Upper West Side. If she thought hard enough, she could still see her father, mother, sister, Noa, and brother, David, all walking through the door here for their Saturday-morning brunch treat.

Yael’s mobile telephone suddenly trilled and vibrated. She checked the incoming number: a 510 area code—Berkeley, California. She looked at the telephone for a couple of seconds as it gently shook.

Joe-Don glanced at the screen. “It’s your mom. Take it.”

Yael chewed her lip, unable to decide. After her parents divorced, Barbara had gone to live in San Francisco. David’s death, and the brutal manner of his slaying, triggered a nervous breakdown. Barbara eventually recovered, and in the process discovered, or realized, that she preferred women to men. She had moved in with her former therapist, and they now lived in Berkeley, where they owned an antiques shop. Yael was not estranged from her mother, but relations had been cool at best, usually confined to a telephone call every couple of months. Yael still felt that Barbara had abandoned her for David and Noa and that she unfairly blamed Yael for getting divorced. In return, Barbara had never forgiven her daughter for going to live with her father. It was a poor choice, thought Yael, for she had ended up with neither parent in her life. Recently, though, her mother had been in touch more often. They had started to e-mail each other more frequently. A couple of weeks earlier, on the twentieth anniversary of David’s death, Barbara had called Yael. She knew Yael would be thinking about her brother that day, she said, as Yael had been. Barbara said that she was planning a trip to New York soon. Yael had invited her to come and stay with her. Yael watched the phone trill, then let the call go to voice mail.

Yael turned back to Joe-Don. “I will call her later.”

“Will you?” he asked, his voice disbelieving. “You should make up. It’s been long enough.”

“I will. I promise. Now let’s get back to work. Who filmed me, and how did Najwa and Sami get hold of the footage?” she asked, her voice rising in annoyance.

Joe-Don frowned. “I don’t get it. Our hacker friend disabled the hotel’s CCTV system. The security manager agreed to an outage of twenty minutes. I called in a lot of favors to set that up. The hotel system was definitely down. And we timed everything to the minute.”

“Someone hacked into the hotel’s CCTV system and set up their own feed. That’s a quite elaborate operation. And now my cover is blown for good,” Yael said, stabbing at her tortilla with her fork.

“You knew that would happen sooner or later. I’m amazed it lasted this long, in the digital age. And you made a lot of enemies over the coltan scandal. It would help if we could get hold of a copy of the video. Then we could try and trace it back to the source,” said Joe-Don. He looked at Yael, a hopeful smile playing on his craggy face.

Her body stiffened, the tines of her fork scraping across the plate. “
No
. No, no, and no. I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to see him, hear about him, or be in the same building as him.”

“Who said you have to talk to him? Just get the DVD.”

“What if they e-mailed it? Or used Dropbox?”

“They didn’t. My guy in the UN mailroom told me. It was a DVD. He saw Najwa open the envelope.”

Yael put her fork down. “I’ll think about it.”

Joe-Don put his hand on hers, his callous fingers rough against the skin of her hand. “I’m sorry. I let you down.”

Yael squeezed his palm. “Never.”

Joe-Don Pabst, a twenty-year veteran of the UN’s Department of Safety and Security, was Yael’s bodyguard. A taciturn US Special Forces veteran in his late fifties, Pabst had sloping shoulders and the physique of a boxer who, despite an outer layer that had softened with age, was still hard muscle at the core. Born in Minnesota, he had thick steel-gray hair that was cut close, and a pink, fleshy face. His almost simian build belied a subtle, nuanced intelligence and a sense for danger that had made him a legend at the UN. He had served in almost every war and crisis zone where the UN had a presence. His small blue eyes exuded the steady wariness of those who had seen combat and its human cost, as they continually scanned their surrounds, seeking and processing information about potential threats.

Joe-Don passed her that day’s
New York Times
, with Sami’s story on the front page.

“I’ve read it and watched the film. Several times. The video shows me walking down the corridor, then through the door of the room, then it stops. I guess that’s all they have. There’s nothing about Hakizimani or what actually happened.”

“For now. It could still be coming.”

Yael scowled. “Really?”

“Absolutely. There shouldn’t be any sound or video from inside the room. We swept it cleaner than the Oval Office. But even if there isn’t, we may still have a problem. They have footage of you going in, so they presumably have footage of you leaving. And also of Hakizimani being wheeled out in a body bag.”

Yael nodded. “Plus, they will have filmed you and Miguel rushing down the corridor to save me. How is Miguel, by the way?”

“Miguel sends his regards. He is fine.”

“
Mmmm
, isn’t he?”

“I thought you were heartbroken about your dinner date.”

“That was this morning.”

Joe-Don looked at his watch. “It’s ten twenty-two.”

“Don’t worry. He’s too young for me.”

Joe-Don and Yael had worked together since she had been chosen by Fareed Hussein for her special role. He had saved her life when insurgents tried to kidnap her in Baghdad and Kandahar. He still walked with a slight limp from the bullet he had taken in his right leg when they were caught in a Gaza gunfight between Hamas and Fatah militants. Joe-Don was utterly uninterested in office politics. His blunt manner had made him numerous enemies, including Fareed Hussein. Back in 2003, Joe-Don had written a long memo to Hussein, then undersecretary-general of the Department for Political Affairs, outlining the security flaws at the UN headquarters in Baghdad. The report detailed how the building, which was extremely exposed, needed zigzagged approach roads with properly manned checkpoints, blast walls, and shatterproof glass. Hussein had never replied to the memo. A year later a suicide bomber had driven a truck laden with high explosives into the building, killing twenty-three people. Joe-Don had been fired for “dereliction of duty.” Soon afterward, his memo was published in the
New York Times
. A discreet reminder from the US ambassador to the UN that the United States paid 25 percent of the UN budget saw him reinstated. Joe-Don had unfettered access to every UN mission and office around the world and a network of other contacts that could get him into almost any building he wanted.

“There’s more,” said Joe-Don. “Read page twenty-seven.”

Yael turned to the business news section.

GERMAN PROSECUTORS DROP CHARGES AGAINST KZX EXECUTIVES

Decision Opens Path for NYSE Flotation

By SIMON DAVIDSON

BERLIN—German authorities have closed down a criminal investigation into the chief executive officer, finance director, and chairman of the KZX Corporation, the world’s largest media conglomerate, in relation to the company’s activities in eastern Congo. Although a planned merger with the Bonnet Group, a French industrial conglomerate, is on hold for now, a company official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists, said the path was clear for KZX’s flotation on the New York Stock Exchange.

The closure of the German probe will be also welcomed by charities and educational institutions enriched by KZX’s philanthropy. All three senior KZX executives are expected to attend the gala opening of the new Columbia University School for International Development in New York, endowed by the company, later this month, said Reinhardt Daintner, the company’s chief of public affairs. “KZX is entering a new era of social responsibility. We are looking forward to proving our commitment to forging a new partnership between the corporate world and its partners in sustainable development.”

Mr. Daintner refused to comment on recent rumors that KZX is engaged in discussions with the Prometheus Group, a powerful lobbying and asset management firm based in Washington, DC.

Yael put the newspaper down. “They got away with it.”

“Did you expect any different?”

“Of course not. But it would be nice to be proved wrong once,” said Yael as she carved herself another chunk of tortilla.

“At least you managed to stop them going through with their plan. You can be proud of that for your whole life. You helped to save thousands of lives.”

“
We
did…. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Joe-Don smiled, a barely noticeable widening of his mouth. “Whatever.”

“And now KZX is in bed with Prometheus.”

Joe-Don nodded and sipped his coffee. “Daintner flies into DC tonight. He is having dinner with Clairborne in the private dining room at the Prometheus headquarters. Speaking of which…”

Yael did not bother asking Joe-Don how he knew about Daintner. His network of contacts was unrivalled, from beat cops and spies to congressmen and ambassadors. She thought for several seconds before she answered. “Clairborne got the message. He was pretty pissed. Then he threw me out of his office.”

“Did the lapel mike work?”

Yael took out her mobile phone. “Perfectly. And the microbattery.”

She handed the mobile telephone to Joe-Don. The waitress appeared to fill up his coffee cup. He waited until she had left, then held the phone to his ear and played the sound clip.

“The president can go fuck herself. Which nowadays is her only option. We…” he recited. Joe-Don played the clip for a second time, through to the end. “We what? And who is we, apart from Clairborne?”

“I don’t know. He stopped himself from finishing the sentence. He was very angry.”

“I would be angry too if someone turned up in my office and ordered me to stop doing business with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He will be wondering what else you know, how you are getting this information, and how to stop it.”

“He can’t go to war with the CIA and MI6.”

“No. But he has plenty of powerful friends, in DC and in London. And he can go to war with you. We are outnumbered. Why don’t you take a vacation for a week, or a month or three?”

“I could, I guess. Or maybe I should get a job somewhere else.” Yael looked thoughtful, remembering her grandmother’s instructions. “I have a useful skill set. That might not be so bad. I could have a normal life.”

“Yes,” said Joe-Don, giving her a sharp look, “if you really wanted one. Meanwhile, you are famous and not just on Al Jazeera. Your Twitter hashtag is trending.”

“What Twitter hashtag?”

“YaelUNagent.”

Yael smiled. “How many mentions?”

“As of nine thirty-five this morning, six thousand seven hundred and seventy-five.”

“It will pass. In thirty-six hours nobody will care. So now what? How am I going to handle the other reporters?”

“Stonewall. Get Henrik Schneidermann to deal with the questions. He is the SG’s spokesman. And what does the SG have to say about all this? Is he going to burn you again, like the last time Sami wrote about you?”

“I don’t think so. Fareed called me early this morning.”

“And?”

“He seemed quite amused. Said the UN had never looked so exciting and glamorous. He must have seen the UN’s Twitter feed. We are meeting in a couple of hours.”

“Watch yourself. Fareed Hussein has one overriding interest.”

“I know. Fareed Hussein.”

Yael reached into her pocket. “Here. I brought you something else.” She handed a BlackBerry to Joe-Don, together with the battery. “I scanned it. There are no more mikes or power supplies, and the GPS is disabled.”

“Whose phone is it?” he asked, turning the phone over in his hands.

“One of the guys that followed me on the train. I lifted it just before he got off at Baltimore. I told you that you didn’t need to come. It was a good exercise for me. I spotted the cars and picked up the foot team,” she said, feeling pleased with herself.

“Are you sure you made everyone?”

Yael drank some more of her tea. The caffeine and sugar buzz gave her added confidence. “Absolutely. Two cars while I was in the taxi and a single team of two in the station.”