The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(112)
Yael nodded, suddenly back in her parents’ office, when her family was whole.
Stein handed the nameplate to her. “It’s time to come home.”
39
Clarence Clairborne flipped between the news channels. A day after the terrorist attack, coverage from Reykjavik was still rolling 24/7. He switched to CNN. A male reporter in his forties stood against a familiar, bleak landscape ringed with guard posts and razor wire. His voice faded in and out as helicopters roared overhead, each with the letters FBI painted on the side. A SWAT team ran across open ground toward the perimeter fence.
Clairborne’s expression did not change. He poured himself a generous measure of bourbon, and took a long swallow, then opened the second drawer in his desk and took out a Colt .45 revolver. He checked the cylinder: six bullets in place. A commotion suddenly erupted in his office anteroom: raised voices, male and female. His office door started to splinter.
He picked up the gun, placed the photographs of his son and daughter in the center of his desk, and raised the barrel to his head.
*
Yael felt a soft touch on her shoulder, felt the change in the engines’ vibrations as the airplane slowly banked. She opened her eyes. The dream was still with her.
*
She is seven years old, sitting on her brother’s shoulders as he strides across Central Park, pretending to be a giant, walking between the trees. Her mother prepares the picnic, her father is play wrestling with Noa. Her little sister is shouting with delight. The sun is shining, the air is warm, and it smells of summer.
*
The voluptuous brunette flight attendant smiled kindly. “Please lift your seat back up, madame, we are preparing for landing.”
Yael nodded, pressed the button on the side of the seat, felt its back spring into place. She dropped her hands to her legs. She could still feel her brother’s shoulder muscles under her thighs as the familiar yearning swelled inside her.
She swallowed and wiped her eyes, reached inside her purse, and took out the brass nameplate that her father had given her.
Yael smiled as she ran her fingers over the indented letters: “Yael Azoulay: Office Manager.”
She turned the nameplate over in her hands. She had not seen it for more than twenty years. The metal had been polished to a golden shine. She would think about her future and her father’s offer. But not today, and probably not tomorrow.
She yawned softly, stretched her legs, looked out the window. The Bosporus shone in the summer sunshine, Istanbul spread along the coastline, beckoning.
THE END
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Author's Note
Acknowledgements
About Adam LeBor
About The Yael Azoulay Series
An Invitation from the Publisher
AUTHOR’S NOTE
My interest in the United Nations began in the early 1990s, when I covered the Yugoslav wars as a journalist. That experience led to my nonfiction book Complicity with Evil: The United Nations in the Age of Modern Genocide, which examines the UN’s failures in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur. I welcome feedback from readers and reply to every e-mail. Contact me at [email protected] or follow me on Facebook or Twitter: @adamlebor.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Like Yael, I was captivated by Iceland. I am especially grateful to Eliza Reid and Erica Jacobs Green, the cofounders of the Iceland Writers Retreat, for bringing me to Reykjavik in spring 2014. Paul and Marigrace O’Friel were warm and gracious hosts during my stay and took me on a memorable hike up the Búrfell volcano. Stefán Eiríksson, formerly of the Reykjavik Metropolitan Police, gave me an informative briefing about crime and law enforcement in Iceland. Lára Aealsteinsdóttir, Project Manager at Reykjavik UNESCO City of Literature, was an excellent ambassador for Iceland’s rich cultural and literary heritage.
As always, a big thank-you goes to my agents, Elizabeth Sheinkman, and Suzanne Gluck. Hannah Wood at HarperCollins in New York was, once again, an outstanding editor, seamlessly zooming out to fix structural problems and zooming in on telling details. Thanks also to Claire Wachtel for launching the Yael Azoulay series, Bill Warhop for his sharp-eyed copyediting, and Katherine Beitner and Amanda Ainsworth for their diligent publicity work.
In London my thanks go to the team at Head of Zeus, especially Anthony Cheetham and Madeleine O’Shea for her thoughtful editing and incisive suggestions. As always, “Z,” was a most useful guide to the dark world where American corporate interests meet power politics. Thanks also to my friends and hosts in New York: Peter Green, Bob Green, and Babette Audant, Josh Freeman, and Matt and Emmanuelle Welch. Otto Penzler at the excellent Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan kindly hosted launch events for both The Geneva Option and The Washington Stratagem. Thanks also to Jewish Book Week in London for inviting me to chair two events where I could talk about the Yael Azoulay series and to Dan Friedman at the Forward newspaper.
Special thanks to Lawrence Lever, of Citywire, who encouraged me to develop a course on storytelling, then made it available to his colleagues. Special Agent Anne C. Beagan of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Lt. Joseph Leal of the UN Department of Safety and Security provided valuable insight. I am grateful to several other UN officials who asked to remain anonymous and to Carne Ross, of Independent Diplomat.