The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(103)

Yael crouched down next to Massoud. “The code, Salim, tell me the code.”

“Farzad …”

“We will free him, I gave you my word, so did President Freshwater. Tell me the code.”

“Farzad….” Massoud grimaced. “My son’s …”

Yael gently shook Massoud. “The code. Please.”

“Birth …” said Massoud. He shuddered and went limp.

Yael wheeled around. The clock showed thirty-six seconds. Farzad’s birthday. But when was it? She knew, she realized. Her mind flashed back to her breakfast with Joe-Don in La Caridad.

*

“Every year his father gets a birthday card from him. Same as yours—August twenty-first,” said Joe-Don.

“How old is he?”

“Twenty-six. So he was born when?”

*

Born when? She had the day, the month, but what year? She couldn’t remember. She looked at the clock on the bomb. Thirty seconds.

Focus.

It was now May 2014. If someone was born in August and was twenty-six then they were born in … she punched in 2181986.

The countdown continued.

She inhaled hard, entered 218198 when her finger slipped.

The clock showed twenty-five seconds. She heard the sound of her own breathing, murmured prayers in English and Icelandic. Hussein was silent, sitting slumped.

Najwa looked at Ingilin, then at Yael crouched over the bomb, checking that they were getting the footage.

Yael wiped her right hand on her jeans, running the numbers through her head again. If he was twenty-six now, he was born in 1987. August 21, 1987. That was it. She tapped in 2181987. The clock continued ticking down.

Fareed Hussein closed his eyes.

The clock showed twenty seconds.

What was wrong? She had the math now, she was sure.

She tapped in 2181987 again, glanced at the clock.

Fifteen seconds.

Format.

Yael tapped in 1987218.

Ten seconds.

She entered 1987821.

Five seconds.

She tapped in 8211987.

The clock stopped.





36

Yael watched with amusement as Fareed Hussein brushed aside the attentions of the paramedic. The tremulous hostage with a bomb in his lap was gone, replaced by the world’s most important diplomat, one with a mission to accomplish. The SG briskly waved away an intravenous drip, his arm still tangled in the gray rubber tubes that led to the blood pressure monitor, sat up on the gurney, pulled out his phone, called Roxana, and started to dictate a statement for a press conference that evening.

The ambulance was making steady progress on Altnesvegur, heading back across the flatlands to downtown Reykjavik. The wide road was almost empty and they were still some way from the outskirts of the city. The sky darkened, layered with thick gray clouds, and rain spattered the windshield. There were five of them inside: Fareed, the paramedic, and the driver, while Yael and Joe-Don perched on passenger seats at the rear next to a gray steel oxygen tank. Yael glanced behind her: a police car followed ten yards or so behind, while another led the way in front.

She leaned against the rear door, feeling the engine’s vibration against her back. She had never felt so exhausted, as though every reserve of her energy had been burned through, then further stocks she had not known existed. Every few minutes she shivered from the aftershocks of the adrenalin as it slowly seeped from her system. All she wanted was to get back to her room at the Hotel Borg, lie in a long, hot bath, eat something, and sleep. She watched through the windshield as the gray blur in the distance slowly turned sharper. The outskirts of Reykjavik came into focus, a now familiar vista of a tangle of highways and low-rise apartment blocks.

The driver’s baseball cap was pulled so low over his head she was surprised he could see where they were going. The rain flurries were hitting harder now and the light was fading. There was no need for his wraparound mirrored sunglasses, but that was his business. Yael looked at the paramedic. He was dark for an Icelander, and strikingly good-looking, with black hair, ice-blue eyes, and high cheekbones. Something about his appearance seemed almost familiar, but she could not place him.

Hussein finished his call to Roxana and put his phone down. The paramedic untangled the blood pressure monitor cables, removed the sensor pad from Hussein’s arm.

“One hundred and thirty-five over eighty. Very good, considering what you have just been through,” he said, as he carefully packed away the monitor.

Hussein nodded his thanks, a curious look on his face as he came to the end of his conversation with Roxana. Yael looked again at the paramedic. He had an accent, and it was not Icelandic. He smiled at her. And then she remembered. The Belgrade Hyatt. Waiting for David.

*

Three more women emerge from the Jeep, followed by six children and two teenage boys. One catches Yael staring at him. He is tall, older than she first thought, perhaps eighteen or nineteen. He has high Slavic cheekbones and striking ice-blue eyes. He smiles, shyly.

*

He looked much older, wearier, but it was definitely him. What was he doing here posing as a paramedic?

The connections crackled in her mind. Suddenly she was back on the concrete bench at the KZX reception at Columbia University, pushing Bonnet aside, diving to the floor as the brick fragments exploded around her. She remembered his name, and its later appearance in reports from the UN and various intelligence agencies. The special, deadly skill set that he had developed.