The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(57)
The two men kept in touch over the years, meeting in Beirut, Geneva, or Paris. Still working for the CIA, Clairborne continued to supply intelligence about the Iraqi military and receive detailed information on the inner workings and power struggles of the Islamic regime in return. On September 12, 2001, he had received a message that could have changed the course of modern history: in exchange for the resumption of diplomatic relations, Tehran would help the United States depose the Taliban in Afghanistan. Clairborne recommended that the offer be seriously considered, but he was brushed aside. The next day he resigned and set up the Prometheus Group.
Despite their differences, the Christian American and the Shia Muslim from Iran shared a similar belief. Clairborne and Eugene Packard called it the Rapture or the End of Days, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ: a righteous fire that would cleanse the world and deliver salvation to the true believers. For Salim Massoud, it was the appearance of the Mahdi, the redeemer of Islam. Sunni Muslims believed the Mahdi was yet to come, but for Shia Muslims the Mahdi was already on Earth, hiding until the time came to join Jesus in saving humanity. But whatever the theological nuances, both Clairborne and Massoud agreed that it was their solemn duty to accelerate Armageddon. Now everything had been set in motion. There were only three more days to wait.
Clairborne pressed a series of buttons on his keyboard. A window opened, showing a thin young man with sallow skin lying on his back in a windowless gray concrete cell and staring at the ceiling. Clairborne damped down his guilt. He had arranged for the boy to be kidnapped to give him leverage over Massoud, to keep him vulnerable and off-balance. The Iranian had never suspected that Clairborne, the very man he asked for help to find his son, was holding him prisoner. Clairborne stared more closely at the computer monitor. The boy’s eyes were empty, almost dead. Once the war had started, he would release him. He certainly would.
*
Yael looked at the SG. It was never good news to be the subject of a conversation with the FBI, especially a section of the bureau so close to home. The Host Country Affairs Section at the US mission dealt with protocol, accreditation, and immunity for foreign diplomats posted to the UN. Like embassies, foreign missions to the UN enjoyed full diplomatic immunity under US law. Diplomats accredited to the UN, and their families, also had full diplomatic immunity. While most were law-abiding citizens, a small minority took advantage of their status to break the law with impunity; there had recently been several cases of diplomats from the developing world keeping domestic staff in conditions of near slavery. Governments could waive their diplomats’ immunity and allow them to be prosecuted, but that almost never happened. Usually, the offenders were given a couple of weeks to pack their bags and return home.
Until the previous month, Yael had rarely thought about her legal protection. Within the UN, the SG and four top officials, including her, had full diplomatic immunity, which meant they could not be arrested even if they committed a crime outside UN territory. But in her brief interlude as acting secretary-general, Caroline Masters had threatened to strip Yael of her immunity and extradite her to Switzerland, where authorities wanted to question her about the man she had had drowned in Lake Geneva. Yael’s defense, that she had taken the man’s life in self-defense after he’d kidnapped her and tried to murder her, would likely prove adequate, but she had no desire to test it in a Swiss court.
Fareed Hussein had never made such threats. For the moment she was back in favor, especially after saving President Freshwater’s life, but Yael knew all that could change in an instant, depending on the vagaries of international diplomacy—and the SG’s interests. Life in the upper reaches of the UN reminded her of the accounts she had read of the courts of Roman emperors or Ottoman sultans: danger increased with proximity to power. Olivia de Souza, the SG’s personal assistant, had been hurled off a balcony on the thirty-eighth floor. Yael did not fear for her life, but she had little doubt that despite their intense, shared history, the SG would, if necessary, throw her overboard to save himself. If the Doomsday sound file was genuine he was prepared to sacrifice the lives of five hundred people. If the text message was true Hussein was also implicated in the death of her brother. Even if it was not, if she was sacked from the UN she would never be able to find out how and why David had died.
Yael felt distinctly uneasy, but she made sure not to let it show. “Anything in particular about me, or just a general chat?”
“They have received an inquiry from the NYPD about your legal status.”
Yael’s discomfort grew. Masters had also threatened to hand Yael over to the NYPD so they could investigate her part in the death of Jean-Pierre Hakizimani in the Hotel Millennium, which was a much more alarming prospect because she wouldn’t have to be extradited anywhere. She lived in New York. And also because Yael had killed him by repeatedly shocking him with a stun gun. While he was tied up, so there was no defense of self-defense.
Yael remained impassive. “OK. What did you tell them?”
“That I would talk to the NYPD to get the facts of the matter firsthand.”
“Which are?”
“The NYPD wants to issue tickets to a taxi driver called Gurdeep Patel, and two of his cousins, for dangerous driving. You were Patel’s passenger. He says that you declared that his car, and those of his cousins, were part of your security detail and UN territory and were thus immune from traffic laws.”
Yael’s tension drained away. “So what if I did? I have full immunity. I was being followed. I needed to get away. To do that I needed to give them a guarantee. It seemed the simplest thing to do. Otherwise why would Gurdeep and his cousins risk it for me?”