The Geneva Option

by Adam LeBor

  Sami and Jonathan looked at each other with an expression of weary familiarity. Beaufort then watched in exasperation as Schneidermann handed the microphone for the second time to his colleague Samantha, the contemporary-culture correspondent, who was sitting one row ahead of him. Samantha had started to ask Lucy Tremlett what her plans were for her next role. Jonathan stood up and walked over and took the microphone from her. She looked surprised but deferred to him, as the senior correspondent.

  Jonathan said, “Can the secretary-general confirm the presence of Efrat Global Solutions in and around the Goma region? Can he tell us what he knows about their activities, and can he outline to us what measures the Department of Peacekeeping Operations is taking to secure the area against illegal arms distribution?”

  Fareed Hussein looked puzzled and shrugged. Jonathan looked at the microphone and tapped it. Nothing. It had been switched off. Nobody had heard his question. He put the microphone down and repeated his question, cupping his hands and shouting as loudly as he could. The fashion and celebrity journalists looked at each other and began muttering angrily. The African journalists clapped.

  Sami stood up. “This is ridiculous,” he declared as loudly as he could.

  Jonathan shouted again. “Mr. Secretary-General, can you please answer the question,” he demanded as the door to the chamber opened. The room erupted as Hobo walked in.

  Thirty

  Yael closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could, summoning the memories with every one of her senses: the hotel’s crisp cotton bedsheets smooth against her back, the pillow firm under her bottom, the taste of the champagne chilling in the ice bucket, the sound of his voice whispering in her ear, the smell of his lemon cologne.

  The door opened and Mahesh Kapoor walked in. The storage room in the basement was small and empty. The walls and floor were bare gray concrete. One narrow, high window looked out onto the sidewalk. Yael sat in the middle, her ankles tied to a chair with nylon ropes, her hands bound behind her.

  Kapoor walked over to her and slowly stroked her head—a familiar heavy, black, old-fashioned cell phone in his hand. “Yael, Yael. What are we to do with you? And this?” he said, his voice full of regret, picking up a strand of her hair. “You know I always loved your long hair.”

  Yael said, “It will grow back.”

  Kapoor shook his head sadly. “I don’t think so. Not this time.”

  “Where is Jasna?”

  Kapoor smiled. “In a better place than you are.”

  Yael’s eyes opened wide in alarm. “You didn’t—”

  “Of course not,” Kapoor interrupted, frowning. She is being questioned by the UN police, after which she will be handed over to the Swiss authorities.”

  “And Olivia?” She looked straight at him. “Why did you kill her?”

  He stepped back, puzzled. “I didn’t kill her. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  Yael wriggled on the chair, moving her hands. She felt the rope around her right wrist slip slightly. “Olivia was my friend. She was so happy to have met someone. She was already half in love with you. And what a horrible way to die.”

  Kapoor looked genuinely confused. “I really don’t know what you mean. The preliminary findings of the UN investigation point toward suicide. She was lonely, she had no family, she knew that big changes were coming at the SG’s office, and she would probably not be part of them. It was true that we had met a couple of times for dinner. But that was for work. She built a fantasy around that. It was very sad.”

  He walked back to the chair and lifted Yael’s chin with the antenna of the cell phone. Yael flinched. “Don’t worry. It’s not switched on. Yet. But if there is a killer in this room, I don’t think it’s me.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Yael as she carefully slid her wrists back and forth. She could feel the rope slackening further. If she could bend her index finger and squeeze it under the knot she might be able to undo it.

  “Kandahar,” Kapoor said confidently. “And Sharif Iqbal, your translator.”

  Yael willed herself to be strong now. Her personal life and her past did not matter. Getting out of here with what she had learned did. Because Kapoor knew exactly what he was doing. They had discussed what happened in Kandahar for hours in the bedroom of the UN Millennium Hotel, over and over again. He knew every detail: that one night, cold, lonely, and frightened in a village controlled by the Taliban, Yael had climbed into Sharif’s tent and into his sleeping bag. Sharif had immediately fallen in love with her, announced their forthcoming wedding to his family, and had started making preparations until Yael had gently explained that she could not marry him.

  Sharif had been devastated. His father was furious. Sharif had begged her to go through with the ceremony just for form’s sake, and then she could go back to Kabul or New York or wherever she wanted and they need never see each other again. She could still see him—his eyes as green as emeralds, glistening with tears—pleading with her to spare him and his family the humiliation. She only had to pretend for an evening.

  Just one evening, for the sake of his and the family’s honor. “Then, Miss Yael, you will be free,” she could still hear him saying. “Miss Yael, I am begging you, do not do this to us. You will be gone soon, but we have to live here.”

  That was six years ago, when she was full of certainty, self-righteousness, and politically correct ideas about women’s rights and the need to modernize Afghanistan. She refused to go through with the wedding, although she easily could have. Sharif disappeared and she and Joe-Don returned to Kandahar. There, several days later, one of her contacts in the Taliban told her that Sharif had gone through the martyrdom ceremony and had planned to target the bazaar just before Friday prayers, when the Old City would be the most crowded.

  Yael looked Kapoor in the eye. “I didn’t kill Sharif.”

  He held her gaze. “No, you did not. You didn’t have the courage to pull the trigger. But you arranged it.”

  “Yes, I did. I told the people who needed to know that he was wired with enough explosives to blow half the bazaar sky high. I told them where and when he would approach the city. There was no other way. I saved dozens of lives.”

  Kapoor walked nearer to her. “None of which would ever have been at risk if you had not seduced a naïve young man with no experience with women at all, let alone Western ones. Just because you were lonely and scared. You used your status and your power for your own selfish pleasure with no thought of how it would turn his life upside down.”

  Kapoor was completely correct. “I know. And there is not a day goes by that I don’t think about that and live with the consequences.”

  “And then you took a life, didn’t you? One growing inside you.”

  She forced herself to feel no emotions. “Yes, I did that as well. Sharif’s child.”

  Her right index finger was almost free. “But I have never pushed anyone off a balcony thirty-eight floors up.”

  “And neither have I.”

  “Heshi . . . can I ask you a personal question?” Yael held his gaze, her eyes wide with curiosity, her mouth slightly open. He nodded.

  “Did you . . . like Olivia?”

  He shrugged. “She was quite interesting company, but she was nothing much to look at. Even with all the money she spent on clothes.” He walked around to the back of the chair and yanked the ropes much tighter. “Sorry. A good try though.”

  Yael grabbed his fingers. “But you did like me, Heshi, when we were together. Didn’t you? It was not just an office thing? It meant something?” she said, rubbing her fingers up and down against his.

  He squeezed her hand, let it go, and stood at her side, gently stroking her neck. “Yael, what a question. Of course it did. I will always treasure our time together. It will be the most wonderful memorial of you—although, unfortunately, a private one.”


  His fingers were warm and dry on her neck as they slid up and down, caressing her skin behind her ear, where she loved to be touched. Yael closed her eyes and sighed, willing herself back into the double room at the Millennium Hotel, and her excited anticipation as she readied herself for him.

  She opened her eyes. Her breath was thick in her throat now, her nipples stiffening against her shirt. Mahesh was staring at the outlines of her breasts, straining against the soft fabric. “Look what you are doing to me. Heshi . . . please. Kiss me. Kiss me like you used to,” she pleaded, her voice thick and husky.

  Yael willed Kapoor closer, sensing his arousal. She opened her mouth wider, breathing faster, her tongue between her lips, feeling the wetness between her legs. She leaned toward him, her face raised in supplication. “Heshi, please, nobody made me come like you did . . .”

  Kapoor smiled as though the compliment was no less than his due and moved his head toward hers.

  The fashion and celebrity journalists jumped out of their seats and ran toward the front as Hobo walked in, wearing a long purple African robe and a matching turban. He shook hands with Fareed Hussein and Reinhardt Daintner and kissed Lucy Tremlett on both cheeks. Tremlett walked around the front desk and stood next to Hobo, and held his hand. The room erupted in a blaze of camera flashes as dozens of photographers and television camera crews surged forward, elbowing each other out of the way.

  The first mud bomb hit Henrik Schneidermann on the side of the head. He looked puzzled, shocked, then fearful to discover that he was drenched with thick yellow sludge. The second smacked into Fareed Hussein’s shoulder, and the third landed on the desk in front of Reinhardt Daintner, covering his gray silk suit with muck.

  Sami and Jonathan turned to look up at the balcony, from where the bombs were coming. The African journalists were not just journalists, it seemed. They lowered a long banner: “Stop the Coltan Plundering: African Resources for African People.”

  There were a dozen of them leaning over the balcony shouting and raining down projectiles. The camera crews and photographers turned simultaneously and directed their lenses toward the upper floor. Hussein and Daintner cowered under the table. Hobo and Lucy Tremlett rushed toward the door. As they opened it a mud bomb exploded over their heads, spattering them with the thick goo.

  Sami and Jonathan looked up toward the balcony. A pretty young Indian woman held a megaphone, shouting, “If you want coltan, then here it is. Dig it out like the miners do.”

  She took careful aim at Fareed Hussein and lobbed a mud bomb under the table. It hit a leg and burst over the secretary-general. UN police officers were now rushing into the Council Chamber and the balcony.

  Sami and Jonathan watched as two UN policemen grabbed the young woman and frog-marched her away.

  Sami turned to Jonathan. “Isn’t she . . .”

  Jonathan nodded. “She certainly is.”

  They both grinned and high-fived. “Story.”

  Thirty-One

  Yael jerked backed and slammed her forehead into the bridge of Kapoor’s nose. She felt the bone splinter with a loud crack. He collapsed on the floor, blood gushing from his nostrils, the black handset tumbling from his hands. He sat up, spat out a gout of blood, wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve, and scrabbled for the handset.

  Yael twisted herself sideways and flipped the chair over, landing on top of him. The chair sank into his stomach and knocked the breath out of him. His hand was under her face and she turned her head to the side, took the flesh in her mouth, and bit as hard as she could until her teeth pierced his skin.

  He screamed in agony and tried to push her away. She slid off his prone body and hit the floor, gasping in pain as the weight of her body forced the chair legs onto her limbs.

  Kapoor grabbed the handset and stood up, fumbling with the buttons. He walked toward her, swaying on his feet, blood running from his nose to his mouth to his shirt.

  He raised the handset like a dagger, the prong pointing at her face.

  The door opened.

  Yael heard a muffled pop.

  Kapoor flew back against the wall and slid to the floor.

  His face was contorted in pain, and there was more blood, this time streaming between his fingers, which were clamped to his leg. The handset fell to the floor.

  Yael felt the chair rising as she was righted.

  The gunman kneeled on the floor behind her and untied her hands and legs. He took her arm and led her toward the door.

  “Thanks. But what about . . .” she asked, turning toward Kapoor, who was now shivering and turning gray, his teeth chattering.

  The gunman smiled dismissively. “Low-caliber flesh wound. We have already called an ambulance.”

  “Please, just check him. We will be in a lot of trouble if he dies. And I need to get the blood back in my hands and feet before I can walk,” said Yael, wiggling her feet and rubbing her legs as the waves of pins and needles coursed through her limbs.

  She moved nearer the black handset, which was lying on the floor.

  The gunman sighed and walked over to Kapoor. He looked him up and down and rummaged in his pocket. He took out an army-issue field dressing, ripped the cover off, lifted Kapoor’s hand from his wound, placed the dressing against the bullet, and put Kapoor’s hand back on it. “Keep pressing. You’ll live. Lots of blood but no real danger. Like I said, help is already on its way.”

  He turned to Yael. “We really need to get out of here. Joe-Don is waiting.”

  He walked to the door, Yael following behind him. It was funny the things you noticed in these situations, she thought. The gunman was completely bald and she had never seen anyone whose ears stuck out as much as his.

  Yael sat back in the battered Peugeot sedan as it cruised along the Avenue de France down to the Quai Wilson. They had left the Palais des Nations by an obscure delivery entrance that she had not known existed, but other than that, everything looked normal. The Iranian and African demonstrators were still gathered under the broken chair, the fountains on the Place des Nations were spraying merrily, the sky was gray and overcast, and it had started to rain. So much had happened that it was hard to believe that it was still only noon.

  There were three of them in the car: the driver and the bald man in the front, Yael in the back. They would take her down to the Jetée des Pâquis, the bald man explained. The Jetée stretched out into the lake from the Quai Wilson, not far from the Place Jean-Marteau. Yael watched the thin drizzle run down the car windows. The Place Jean-Marteau where someone had shot the man sitting next to Joe-Don with a sniper rifle, she thought, her unease growing. The bald man turned around as he talked to her, all smiles and reassurance. A boat would be waiting for her at the end of the jetée, by the lighthouse, he explained. It would pick her up and take her to a safe house on the other side of the lake, where Joe-Don was waiting. His breath smelled sour, of coffee and stale tobacco.

  It was not exactly the plan she had agreed to with Joe-Don. He said he would be waiting somewhere on the Place des Nations and that she should call him as soon as she was out of the building. They were supposed to go to the Jetée des Pâquis together, where he would have a boat ready. He was supposed to take her to the safe house, not meet her there. But the best-laid plans never worked out precisely as they should. Neither of them had factored in Charles Bonnet or Mahesh Kapoor.

  She looked through the car window at the lake as they turned onto the Quai Wilson. The right side of the road was lined with grandiose apartment blocks and shops. A wide cycle and pedestrian path reached from the left edge of the road to the lakeside, which was protected by a low wall. A thick mist rose above the water, spilling out onto the road. The gray art nouveau streetlights that were spread along the shore suddenly lit up. Many of the cars now had their headlights on as well. A motorcyclist on a red Yamaha trail bike drove in the middle of the road, a hundred yards behind th
em, keeping pace with the flow of traffic. The rain was falling harder now but everything looked normal.

  But who was this bald guy? He had rescued her, certainly, and he knew the rendezvous point. Yet Joe-Don had not mentioned him at all, and they had spent hours going over the plan and its permutations. And where was Joe-Don? Yael slid nearer the door, rubbing her wrists and ankles, feigning exhaustion.

  She could see the Jetée des Pâquis in the distance, a long and thin spit curving out into the water. Down the middle ran a concrete path to the white tower at the tip overlooking the lake. The mist was quite thick now, and the car kept a steady pace with the traffic. Yael slowly pulled on the door handle. It was locked. Could mean something, could mean nothing. It was quite an old car, old enough not to have childproof locks. She watched the windshield wipers swish back and forth. The skies suddenly opened, unleashing a torrent of water, sloshing over the sidewalk, the road, and across the windshield.

  “Where is Joe-Don?” she asked the bald man.

  “I told you, he is waiting for us in the safe house. On the other side of the lake,” he replied, turning around again. He smiled as he spoke but his deep-set gray eyes were expressionless.

  She took out her mobile telephone. The bald man shook his head.

  “No mobile calls, please. For your own security,” he said, turning around and holding out his hand for her handset, his shoulder holster hanging from his left armpit.

  Yael suddenly knew she was in extreme danger. Her left hand curled around the stun-gun handset in her coat pocket. She pressed the button on the side to set the charge.

  She sat back, braced herself against the car seat, and kicked the driver in the back of his head as hard as she could.

  He flew forward, and his face smashed into the steering wheel. The Peugeot skidded across the center of the road into the oncoming traffic, its tires screeching in protest. It smashed into an oncoming BMW, sent it flying across the road, and spun around 360 degrees, triggering a cacophony of outraged honking. The force of the impact threw Yael backward hard against the seat. The Peugeot’s windows shattered, raining glass shards down on her.