The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(12)
Najwa and Bakri had been discussing the exorbitant price of rented flats within walking distance of the Secretariat Building, the relative merits of Gramercy versus Kips Bay or even the Lower East Side. Then, as they moved to the edge of the terrace, Bakri began pointedly comparing the recent death of Henrik Schneidermann, the UN secretary-general’s spokesman, to that of Abbas Velavi, a high-profile Iranian dissident who had died suddenly in Manhattan a year ago. Najwa knew about the death of Velavi, and had started asking questions soon afterward for one of many half-formed stories she intended to complete if and when the daily news deluge calmed.
Najwa raised her carefully sculpted eyebrows and leaned forward, a puzzled expression on her face. “Riyad, are you implying that …”
Bakri smiled and stepped back slightly as he spoke, almost as if distancing himself from his words. “The only thing I am implying, no—stating clearly—is that $5,000 a month for a small two-bedroom apartment is absurd. But more than that, surely it’s time you came to Saudi Arabia,” he said, his voice suddenly lively. “There is so much to report on. So many changes. A new generation is rising.”
Najwa smiled demurely, her mind completely focused as she made a mental note of what Bakri had just said. However smoothly he moved the conversation on, they both knew that he had brought it up for a reason.
Henrik Schneidermann, Fareed Hussein’s spokesman, had collapsed on the corner of East Fifty-Second Street, ten blocks from the UN, two weeks earlier shortly before eight o’clock in the morning. He had been on his way to meet Sami Boustani, the New York Times UN correspondent, for breakfast—although that was not public knowledge. Schneidermann’s death had been blamed on a massive heart attack, but he was only thirty-eight and Najwa knew he had no history of heart trouble. The tragedy had faded from the news amid the revelations of privately outsourced UN security operations and the collapse of the Istanbul Summit. Yet Schneidermann’s death nagged at Najwa, although she had not made the connection with that of Velavi. Now she had a “steer,” as her British colleagues would say. But what would Bakri want in return? He could see that his mention of Schneidermann had registered with Najwa, as he surely intended it to. But Najwa also understood his unspoken message: That was all he would say on the topic, at least for now.
“I would love to come to Saudi, Riyad. But first your government needs to let me in to the country.” Najwa was surprised at Riyad Bakri’s invitation. She had been banned from the kingdom for five years after her investigation into women’s rights—or the lack of them—in the country.
Bakri leaned closer, his eyes glancing at Najwa’s bust showcased in her tight black cashmere turtleneck sweater, then back at her face. “Najwa, you should know that you have many friends in Saudi, friends who applaud your work.”
Najwa fixed her doe-brown eyes on Bakri. He was intelligent and sophisticated and not without a certain charm. He had a master’s degree from Harvard in international relations and wore a Brioni suit rather than a white dishdasha. Clean-shaven, with dark brown eyes, his black hair tinged with gray, he also had a passing resemblance to George Clooney.
“Is that so, Riyad? Then why don’t I ever hear from them?”
Najwa’s follow-up program, exposing the horrendous conditions endured by domestic servants in the kingdom, had seen her ban extended to life. It had also triggered a deluge of death threats from Sunni extremists on Twitter and Facebook. Some had been reposted by accounts she knew were propaganda fronts for the Saudi foreign ministry.
Bakri sipped his drink. “We are here now, are we not, meeting, talking? Things are moving. A new generation is rising. A generation who understands our country’s place in the modern world. But slowly, and behind the scenes. This is Saudi Arabia.” Bakri’s intimation, that he was part of this new wave, was clear. “But as you know, Najwa, I am not here to represent my country’s government. I am attached to the Arab League’s mission, not that of Saudi Arabia.”
The Arab League had been founded in Cairo in 1945, the same year as the United Nations. But Arab unity remained as elusive as ever. The “Arab Spring” had turned into a dark winter of collapsing states, wars, militias, and even more brutal regimes. A series of UN Development Programme reports explained in detail how a culture that had once led the world in science and philosophy was now mired in illiteracy, corruption, and human rights abuses, ruled by sclerotic monarchies and dictatorships that held their citizens in contempt. The Islamists’ barbarity, freely available on the Internet, seemed to attract rather than repulse youthful idealists. The ever-more powerless liberal intelligentsia and secular Arabs had been abandoned by the West in favor of “strongmen” who could supposedly staunch the rising tide of Islamism—even though it was these regimes’ very corruption and repression that were the greatest recruiters for the Islamists.
And who else are you working for, Mr. Bakri? she thought, but did not ask. While the Arab League was widely derided as impotent, its UN mission was a useful listening post into the rest of the Arab world, and Najwa had heard from other contacts that he was connected to the Saudi Mukhabarat, its feared secret police.
As if he had read her mind, Bakri frowned and smiled, almost apologetically. “Forgive me, but there is one more thing I wanted to ask you about. Something, or rather someone, I am intrigued by.”
Najwa sipped her mineral water. “Who?”