The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(40)

She watched a policeman standing by the broken traffic light on the corner of West Eightieth Street, stoic as he directed traffic, clear rivulets streaming from his cap and cape.

Had Mossad really placed her in the UN, manipulated her up to the thirty-eighth floor, into the SG’s office and his deepest confidence? Over the course of a decade? Could they do that? Maybe. Especially if they had something on Fareed Hussein, and Lord knew there was enough out there to compromise him. One sound file in particular, which Yael had in her possession, and which she had nicknamed “Doomsday,” would destroy the SG and his reputation for good.

Joe-Don, with his network of contacts through the UN and numerous US government agencies, could find out if Eli was telling the truth. But whatever the truth of his claim, she was not going back to work for her old employer. Ever. For a moment she was back at the crossing point between Gaza and Israel, a stifling hot day fourteen years ago when she made up her mind to leave Eli, and Israel, for good.

*

The man in the Jeep turns to the passenger in the back, an Arab woman.

She jumps out of the vehicle and runs forward, her head scarf flapping in the breeze. Yael lets go of the boy’s hand. The boy sprints toward her. They embrace, crying and sobbing.

The second man climbs out of the vehicle.

Yael smiles at him, happy the mission is over. He smiles back and raises his hand in greeting, but walks toward the boy and his mother.

He says something to the boy and takes his arm. The boy starts sobbing again, shaking, saying no, over and again, holding on to his mother. The mother keens.

*

Yael closed her eyes for a few seconds. She could still hear the sound of the woman’s cries as her son was taken away.

She looked out of the window. A harried-looking young mother pushed a double stroller in front of her, trying to negotiate a path through the rain. A hipster on a commuter bicycle with tiny wheels weaved in and out of the traffic on Broadway, barely missing a blue Toyota trying to squeeze into a parking space. The cyclist banged the roof of the car hard enough to leave a dent and the driver leaned out of the window, yelling abuse as the cyclist sped off. Manhattan was not happy in the rain.

The door opened and Joe-Don Pabst strode over to her table, rain dripping off his hooded green US Army–issue parka. He hung his coat on a nearby stand and sat down in front of her. Yael smiled at the sight of her bodyguard. She hated eating alone in public places. Joe-Don’s presence was as welcome as it was reassuring, especially after finding the paper tells on her coffee table. “Hey. I’m so glad you are here. What did personnel want?” she said, her hand moving inside her jacket toward the plastic envelope.

“I don’t know. I put them off until midday. I’m not worried about that right now.”

She looked at his face. She knew every one of his expressions. He was unsettled, even angry. She took her hand out of her jacket. The paper tells could wait. “So what are you worried about?”

Joe-Don opened his bag and looked around the room to check that no waiters were approaching. “This,” he said as he placed half a dozen photographs on the table.

*

McLaughlin’s was a ramshackle Irish bar on the corner of Second Avenue and Forty-Seventh. At eight thirty in the morning it was underlit and underheated, the damp air heavy with the smell of yeast. Smoking had been banned in Manhattan bars since 2003, but the top part of the walls and the ceiling were stained dark yellow with tobacco and nicotine. Last night’s glasses were piled up in the bar sink and on several tables. Van Morrison crooned softly in the background, a small concession to the morning after the night before. There were no waitstaff to be seen until a tall man in his early thirties walked out from a door behind the bar. He had scruffy black hair and wore a T-shirt that proclaimed No Fucking Way, Jose!

“Breakfast?” he asked.

Najwa nodded.

He ran his fingers through his hair. “There’s no menu. We have—”

“Eggs, oatmeal, corn-beef hash, I know,” said Najwa. “Oatmeal, please.” She looked at Sami.

“Same. With fruit, if you have any.”

The waiter looked doubtful. “I’ll try.”

“Coffee for both of us,” Najwa added.

They waited until the waiter had gone.

Sami stared at Najwa. “Are you OK? You look pale. Did you sleep last night?”

She smiled. “Not much. Big story.”

Najwa had returned home around two o’clock in the morning, and spent the hours until dawn trying to find out more about the Army of Forty. Her Farsi-language Internet search had proved fruitful once she started looking in the right places, among Iranian opposition websites and forums. She had found a mix of rumors and speculation but much of it pointed in one direction: Tehran. Getting anything on Frank Akerman had proved much more difficult. It was six hours ahead in Europe, so the London, Berlin, and Sarajevo Al-Jazeera bureaus all had reporters on the task as well, but so far they had garnered little, except a rehash of old rumors that Akerman worked, or had worked, for the Dutch military intelligence service, which was hardly surprising. The best potential lead seemed to reach to the Balkans. The Sarajevo correspondent was chasing down a tip that Akerman served in Bosnia during the war in the early 1990s, as a “military adviser” to the UN peacekeeping mission. They had agreed that Najwa would dig deeper at the New York end. There would be some kind of record of Akerman’s assignment in the archives.