The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(109)

Yael smiled, despite herself. “Roxana? She isn’t going anywhere.”

“No. I think not. Your job will remain, no matter who replaces me. You will be promoted to undersecretary-general. You can continue in your present role or carve out a new one. You can do whatever you want. If you stay.”

“I’m thinking about that. Meanwhile, I would like you to do something for me. Something very much in your interest.”

“Which is?”

“You release the Rwanda and Srebrenica documents.”

The SG sat back. “How is that in my interest? They will destroy my reputation and any chance of a legacy.”

“I don’t think so. It was twenty years ago. Another world. You were just a civil servant, implementing policy, not making it.” Her voice was barbed. “You can blame the P5. Again.”

Hussein blushed, looked away.

Yael said, “Roxana can spin it for you—you will be a pioneer of transparency, facing up to the UN’s greatest failures.”

Hussein half-frowned, pondering this idea. “And I get?”

“Something you want more than anything.”

A pang of guilt shot through Yael. How well the SG had taught her. She watched, first comprehension, then the emotional hunger on his face.

Hussein asked, “Something or someone?”

“Someone. Do we have a deal?”

The SG nodded.

Yael said nothing, looked down at her iPhone, and pressed a button.

A few seconds later the suite’s phone rang. Hussein picked up the handset, listened for a few seconds.

“Reception,” he mouthed at Yael. “Thank you, but I am not receiving any visitors now. Please direct them to Grace Olewanda, my secretary, or Roxana Voiculescu if they are media interview requests. No, no visitors at all.”

He frowned, stopped speaking for a moment, blinked several times in surprise. “She says she is my what?” Hussein stared at the phone for several seconds, as if it was the first time he had seen such a device, a look of wonder spreading across his face. “OK. Tell the security detail and send her up.”





38

Yael lay back in the thermal lake and closed her eyes, breathing in the sulfurous tang of the mineral-rich water. The night air was cool but the Blue Lagoon was the temperature of a warm bath. She could feel her muscles relaxing, the tension draining away. She checked the clock mounted on the outside wall of the lake’s glass-walled café: it was well after ten. He would be here any minute. She waved at Joe-Don, who was sitting by the door, nursing a Diet Coke and watching her carefully.

Yael and her bodyguard had gone straight to the Blue Lagoon from the Hilton. The thirty-mile journey usually took around forty minutes by road. The helicopter that brought them both, and her security escorts, had made it in less than half that time. Two members of the Viking Squad stood on the wooden walkway that ran around the lake, one on Yael’s right and the other on her left, machine pistols across their chest. A third stood on an arched bridge, ten yards away, that connected the wooden jetties jutting out into the lagoon. The crackle of their radios drifted through the night.

The water was a milky indigo and thick wisps of white steam floated above the surface. The lamps around the edge were a soft golden color in the dark. Islands of black, jagged lava jutted out from the water, their bases ringed by white mineral deposits. Shadowed mountains soared in the distance.

Yael had the place to herself. The Blue Lagoon had been cleared for her arrival. She closed her eyes for a few moments, rerunning her conversation with the SG in her head. She too had played a game with someone’s life, exploiting and manipulating a lonely young woman. But nobody had died, and a father and a daughter were now talking to each other again. And Rina Hussein was not the only daughter seeking a reckoning with her father.

Yael felt his presence nearby before she saw him, naked apart from a pair of swimming trunks, walking along the wooden bridge towards the Viking Squad policeman. The policeman held his arm out for a second, looked at the new arrival, then stepped aside.

Yael watched Menachem Stein walk to the end of the bridge, onto to the nearby jetty. He placed a small black bag on the wooden walkway and made his way down the steps. She felt her body stiffen as he slid into the water.

“Hello, Yael,” he said.

She stared ahead, did not reply.

“Mazel Tov, congratulations. That was good work today.”

“You’re late,” she replied, sliding away.

“Slichah, sorry. You only had to wait a few minutes.”

“Much more than that,” she said, half to herself.

She looked up at the sky. A passenger jet slowly descended to Keflavik airport, its wing lights blinking in the dark. “Still, I suppose I should thank you.”

“For what?”

“Istanbul. Shooting Eli’s gun out of his hand, when he was chasing me across the roof.”

“It was a tricky shot. I didn’t want to kill him.”

“Maybe you should have. It would have saved me a lot of time and trouble.”

Stein leaned back and stretched in the water. A seagull flew low, cawing loudly, wheeled sharply to the right, then soared away.

He cupped some water, let it drain over his head. “I like this place. It reminds me of the Dead Sea. But I never liked Eli. Even less when I saw him threaten you.”