The Reykjavik Assignment

by Adam LeBor

  Perhaps was her best answer. But she had to try. So far, the most powerful woman in the world could not even find out why her husband had died. The investigation into Eric’s death was stuck in a morass of interagency rivalry, but her personal sources and Reardon’s contacts seemed ever-more convinced that his bindings had been tampered with. And there was more. She picked up her BlackBerry and scrolled through the saved links until she came to a story on the Newsweek website. She handed the phone to Reardon. “Read this.”

  FLASH OF LIGHT PRECEDED DEATH OF PRESIDENT’S HUSBAND, CLAIMS WITNESS

  By CORDELIA ADDIS

  A blinding flash of light may have caused Eric Cortez, the late husband of President Freshwater, to crash into a tree while skiing off-piste at Aspen, a new witness has claimed. Cortez was killed in the accident last September, and a spokesman for the White House said the investigation into his death is still ongoing.

  “I could see Mr. Cortez on the mountain. He was a very stylish skier. I was on the nearby black diamond run when there was a tremendous flash of light. I was almost blinded,” said Eva Ferguson. “At first we thought it was lightning, but there was no thunder and the skies were clear. I heard a loud crash and the next thing I saw was him lying in the snow, next to a tree. His helmet was several feet away.”

  There have been repeated rumors about a flash of light preceding Cortez’s death, but Eva Ferguson is the first witness willing to go on the record. “It’s been nagging at me for a long time. I thought I should tell what I saw.”

  The following paragraphs recounted the desperate attempts to save Eric, and his flight by medevac helicopter to the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, where he was pronounced dead.

  Freshwater had heard about the claims, referenced in the article, that a flash of light had preceded the death of Princess Diana in a car crash in a tunnel in Paris. That had never been proven but had still triggered all sorts of conspiracy theories. She had no idea, however, that Western intelligence services reportedly considered using a similar technique to kill former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic while he was attending a peace conference in Geneva. Someone, it seemed, had been working on this technique. If Eric really had been killed at such close quarters, then the danger was very close to home. Perhaps Reardon was right. But she refused to cower in the White House.

  Reardon quickly read the article and handed the BlackBerry back to Freshwater.

  “Do you believe it?” she asked.

  “I believe it’s possible. I believe, I know, we have a problem. I don’t who we can trust. If it hadn’t been for Yael Azoulay, you might be dead. I let you down.”

  “No, you didn’t. I insisted on the shopping trip, against your advice. I should have listened to you. And we need to do something for Yael. A medal. Or a dinner. Or both.”

  “Sure, once you get back from Reykjavik. You will see her there. She’s replacing Akerman.”

  Freshwater poured them both coffee. She picked up her cup, was silent for several long seconds.

  Reardon sipped his coffee, then gave her a quizzical look. “What it is? I can hear the cogs turning.”

  Freshwater looked at him directly and smiled. “Dave, you agree we are threatened from the enemy within, as well as without?”

  Reardon nodded, warily.

  “Good. So you are not, repeat not, to take this as any kind of slight. I put my complete trust in you …”

  “Please, Renee, not a PMC.”

  Freshwater shook her head. “No, no private military contractors. Not in my White House. Of course not. But I do think we need some outside help. Which is why I wanted you to be here now.”

  He exhaled loudly. “Outside help from where, exactly?”

  “A place with the best security in the world.”

  “Yes, but …”

  “Dave, I’m just asking you to listen. It’s a preliminary talk, we just hear what our visitor has to say. And then we—we—decide whether to take his advice. But I am going to Reykjavik. For all the reasons that you know about. And I plan to come home in one piece. ”

  “OK …” Reardon sounded doubtful.

  The phone on the coffee table trilled. Freshwater flicked a button. “Your noon appointment is here, ma’am,” said a male voice.

  The door opened. A man in his late thirties walked in, a broad smile on his handsome face.

  “Madam President, what a pleasure to see you again,” said Eli Harrari.

  *

  Najwa pressed play. Schneidermann’s voice came out of the Toshiba’s lo-fi speaker. “Is that recording now?” he asked, before muttering, “Yes.”

  Najwa smiled as the image stabilized and Schneidermann’s familiar, pale features came into focus. She suddenly felt a powerful nostalgia, wishing herself back in the press briefing room, watching him duel with her pushy, demanding colleagues—and with herself as well. By the end he had become a bravura performer. He could be difficult, obstructive, and just plain bloody-minded. But he certainly had not deserved to be murdered.

  She sat with her chin in her cupped hands, staring intently at her computer monitor.

  “Well, you know us Belgians, we are not known for drama. Chocolate and bureaucrats. We are good at that. So please believe what I have to say. The best evidence of the truth is that you are watching this video file. If so, I am almost certainly dead.” Schneidermann looked down, blinked, then stared back at the camera. “That is not a very easy thing to say. But there you are. I have said it. And you know if it’s true or not. So who would want to kill me, and why? I am not exactly sure. But I think it’s connected to the death of Olivia de Souza. Poor Olivia, you will remember, was thrown off a balcony on the thirty-eighth floor by Mahesh Kapoor, the SG’s former chief of staff. Olivia had found out too much about the coltan plot, the details of which are now well known.”

  He coughed and reached for a glass of water. The picture suddenly swerved sideways and there was a loud banging noise as the camera toppled over. The film stopped for a few seconds before Schneidermann reappeared.

  “KZX’s response has been very clever: a deluge of money for scholarships, academic studies, and most of all the new school for development studies at Columbia University. But behind the scenes, the company remains as determined and voracious as ever. The coltan plot was just part of the plan. I have discovered that two senior UN officials, one in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and another in the Office on Drugs and Crime, recently met with a representative of KZX in Qatar to discuss the company’s future role in a global, legalized drug market.”

  Najwa clicked pause while she scribbled a note on her nearby pad: KZX/Qatar/UN official. She hit play again, and the video resumed.

  *

  Schneidermann ran his fingers through his sparse, light brown hair as he spoke. “Well, drugs are only part of the case. The main plan is connected to the Prometheus Group. Caroline Masters was the engine behind bringing in Prometheus to the UN. The idea was to outsource and privatize the UN security service first, then the whole peacekeeping operation. That plan took a hit with the collapse of the Istanbul Summit. But there is much more, and it has a certain logic. Before you have peacekeepers deployed, you need a war to stop.” He looked around, as though he was afraid of being overheard. “What I am going to say sounds crazy I know, but it makes perfect sense. I think Prometheus, KZX, and Iranian hard-liners are all planning a massive war in the Middle East. They hate each other, of course, but their interests coincide. The Iranian hard-liners want to get rid of Shireen Kermanzade. Prometheus and KZX want to get rid of President Freshwater. The last thing they want is a rapprochement between America and Iran. And wars are always good for business.” Schneidermann wiped his brow, picked up his glass of water, and took a deep drink. He stared at the camera and seemed about to speak again, then the screen went blank.

  Najwa drummed her fingers on the table, staring intently at the monitor. The video file returned, juddered, stopped again. She moved the cursor to the play but
ton and clicked several times on her mouse.

  Finally, the frame filled again with Schneidermann’s pale, worried face. He bit his lip, shook his head, and looked around before coming back to the camera.

  “Sorry about that. Someone just rang the doorbell. What was I saying? The SG sent Yael Azoulay to try and persuade Clarence Clairborne, the boss of the Prometheus Group, to stop trading with the Revolutionary Guard. That didn’t work. So now Fareed Hussein is working on something with Freshwater and Shireen Kermanzade. He has copies of e-mails and records of meetings between KZX, Prometheus, and the Iranians. I haven’t seen them, but I am pretty sure they are somewhere in his office. I’m going to look for them. I will meet Sami Boustani for breakfast later this week. I am going to tell him everything.”

  He looked from side to side once more. Just as the video file ended the entry phone rang. Najwa walked over to the door and pressed the speakerphone button.

  “Sami is here, Ms. al-Sameera,” said the doorman.

  Najwa lived in a duplex loft overlooking Gramercy Park, twenty blocks south of the UN. The lower floor had white walls, large windows, a dark wood parquet floor and a kitchen with an island. One corner of the apartment was devoted to Najwa’s office, with an outsized computer monitor on a desk and a fifty-two-inch LED television mounted on the wall. The facing corner was a lounge area, with a sofa and two armchairs. Several lush, towering house plants, along with Turkish kilims on the floor, added splashes of color. The upstairs area was reached by a spiral staircase. The rare visitors to her home never failed to be impressed.

  Najwa opened the door and welcomed Sami inside. He was unshaven and looked preoccupied. “Coffee?” she asked. “Beer? Whiskey?”

  “I feel like a whiskey,” Sami replied. “But coffee is fine.”

  She walked over to the kitchen and popped a capsule into the Nespresso machine. Completely undomesticated, she could not cook. Maria or Philippe took care of the steam-oozing monster in the Al-Jazeera office. Sami wandered over to her desk as she rummaged in her cupboards for something to serve with the coffee.

  He picked up the photograph of the girls on the beach. “Lovely picture. This is you and … ?”

  Najwa thought about her answer for several seconds. The truth, she decided. “Fatima. My twin sister.”

  Sami smiled and put the photograph down. “Gosh. There’s two of you? Where is she? I’d love to meet her.”

  “She’s in Jeddah. In a compound, with two other wives. So I don’t think that’s going to happen, habibi.”

  Najwa walked in with a tray holding coffee, cups, cookies, and dried fruit. She sat down on the sofa, beckoned Sami over and handed him his coffee.

  He looked puzzled as he sat down next to her. “Can I ask a personal question?”

  “Sure.”

  “You get to go to school in Geneva, graduate from Oxford and Yale, live in a loft in Manhattan and work as a journalist, but your sister is in purdah?”

  Najwa paused before she answered. “I’ll take the fifth on that. Sugar?”

  “Two. So how was your day so far?”

  She told him.

  28

  The last time Yael saw Charles Bonnet, she had kicked a cup of coffee out of his hand, punched him in the side of his neck, slammed his head against the edge of a desk to knock him unconscious, and trussed him up. That was nine months ago, when she encountered him in an obscure wing of the UN headquarters in Geneva. Arriving at eight o’clock in the morning, she’d pretended to be a cleaning lady to gain entry.

  *

  She rummages through the contents of his desk: leaflets advertising Michelin-starred restaurants and a spa hotel, a leasing agreement for a Mercedes V8 convertible, a photograph of Bonnet with his African wife and their son and daughter.

  *

  Her mission was to find the plan giving KZX and the Bonnet Group control over Congo’s coltan supplies. Bonnet was not known for his work ethic, and she didn’t expect to find him in the offices that early.

  Now the sight of the Frenchman, recently released from prison where he had been serving time for a crime she knew he had committed, triggered in her a powerful urge to repeat her actions. Instead, she greeted him with a nod and wary half smile. Tonight she needed information.

  Bonnet raised his champagne glass in response. “Bon soir, Yael. Let’s celebrate my freedom. And the independence of the American judicial system.”

  Yael did not reply.

  “You will let me finish my drink this time?” He tilted his glass forward as if to clink it against hers.

  She stepped back, holding her drink close to her chest. “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Your behavior. And level of contrition.”

  “Contrition.” Bonnet gave a thin smile. “I am, what do you Americans say, ‘processing’ recent events. My lawyer advised me that I could sue, both my accuser Thanh Ly and the authorities. What do you think?”

  “I think you don’t want to know what I think.”

  He nodded. “No, I probably do not.” He sipped his drink, was silent for several seconds before he continued. “May I speak frankly?”

  “Please do.”

  “Yes, strings were pulled. And yes, my behavior was appalling. But I have paid a high price. Deserved, of course. But still …” He glanced upward as the overhead roar of a helicopter drowned out his voice, waited until it faded. “My wife has left me. I am a sex offender. I cannot see my children. There is a restraining order against me. I have lost my job. I am informed, through unofficial channels, that I have a fortnight to sort out my affairs, and then I must leave the United States. My UN career is over. So is my social life. I have been here an hour. You are the first person to talk to me.”

  She looked around. Bonnet was right. The reception was packed but there was nobody within ten feet of the Frenchman. Yael looked him up and down. The mahogany permatan had been replaced by a prison pallor. Bonnet’s mane of dark, wavy hair was now a short crop, shot through with gray. His blue pin-striped suit, handmade on Savile Row, sagged on him and his shirt collar was loose around his neck. Its edge was covered with a light dusting of the face powder he used to disguise the scars of childhood acne. But even after spending most of a year inside the American penal system, much of it in isolation, his posture remained that of a former Foreign Legionnaire.

  She did not believe for a moment that the sexual assault case against Bonnet had genuinely collapsed. He might appear repentant, but he was still a sexual predator. Nevertheless, she needed to talk to him. And talking to bad men was what she was good at. Especially when one held the key—or part of it—to her brother’s death.

  Yael lowered her glass and stepped slightly closer. “I am sorry, Charles, that things turned out like this,” she said sympathetically.

  Bonnet looked back warily at her, his expression one part relief because someone was talking to him and another part a rapid calibration of why. A phone ringing cut through the buzz of the party. He reached into his pocket, and saw his screen was flashing. “Please excuse me for a second.”

  She nodded, and looked around her as he stepped away. The giant marquee covered most of the large open space in front of the steps ascending to the university library. Its light blue walls, the color of both the university and the UN, were subtly emblazoned with the UN symbol, Columbia’s emblem of a crown, and the letters KZX. Outside the air had turned chilly, but every few yards a standing space heater radiated warmth. The air smelled lightly of food and perfume. Waiters circulated with silver trays of drinks and bottles of champagne. White-jacketed chefs wheeled out steel trays of appetizers and enormous bowls of salad to add to the buffet being set up against the far wall, their barked instructions cutting through the buzz of conversation and background music. Fustat, a six piece Arab-African band, played in the corner of the marquee. Yael caught the eye of the vocalist, a plump twenty-something with wild black curly hair, and they exchanged smiles. Exactly two weeks ago she had watched Fustat
play at Zone and danced with Najwa. But Yael did not think she would be dancing tonight.

  The invitation had specified a starting time of seven o’clock, but it was now 8 p.m. and guests were still lined up three-deep on the red-tiled pathway leading from the university’s entrance on Broadway to the marquee. Security was intense. Invitees had to pass through two metal detectors, one at the entrance to the campus on Broadway and the second in front of the marquee, before they were hand-frisked. The thoroughfare had been sealed off to traffic ten blocks north, and also south, of the subway station at West 110th Street. Snipers had set up nests on the roofs of the library and every building nearby. Police checkpoints ringed the campus. Helicopters swooped and banked above. Every side street was packed with police cars and vans.

  Despite the queues, body frisks, and scans—or perhaps because of them—the atmosphere crackled with anticipation. This Saturday night in Manhattan, the KZX-UN reception was the event. There was nothing the city loved more than money and glamour, and here there was plenty of both. Yael saw Fareed Hussein deep in conversation with Lucy Tremlett, the British actress and UN ambassador. Tremlett had brought along several A-list Hollywood friends, each of whom was trailed by several paparazzi. In one corner the editors of Vogue and Newsweek huddled together conspiratorially. In another stood several regal-looking elderly ladies, the queens of New York philanthropy, wearing either Chanel or Balenciaga.

  A few yards away, Jonathan Beaufort was making what looked like a play for Collette Moreau, summoning the waiter for more champagne. Roxana was standing too close to the mayor, who was trying not to be distracted by the amount of cleavage her deep scoop-necked blue silk dress displayed as they talked. Roger Richardson was bringing a glass of champagne for Grace Olewanda, the SG’s secretary, resplendent in her green and gold traditional African outfit. Philippe, the Al-Jazeera cameraman, was filming Najwa as she interviewed the governor of New York. Yael felt a flicker of jealousy at seeing Sami Boustani, looking sharp in his black linen suit, ensconced with the blond correspondent for Russia Today, who was nodding enthusiastically at whatever he had to say. Yael caught Sami’s eye and mouthed the word later. He nodded, not very enthusiastically, then turned back to his companion. But what did she expect, after standing him up two nights ago—and Eli’s e-mail?