The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(62)
She sat staring at the footage for thirteen minutes. It showed the bustle of early morning commuters on a busy Manhattan thoroughfare. Every other person mouthed silently into the cell phone clamped to their ear. Most were carrying large cups of coffee as they weaved a path through the crowd. An elderly lady walked a tiny dog on a leash. A tall black man in a green vest handed out copies of Metro, a free daily newspaper. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
When the footage reached its last ninety seconds, Najwa straightened, suddenly alert. Henrik Schneidermann appeared, his briefcase in his hand. He looked curiously cheerful and purposeful, quite different from the morose Belgian she was used to dealing with at the UN press office. She felt a sudden pang at the thought of never seeing him again except in this video clip, forever striding forward, full of energy. She watched, transfixed, as a man bumped into Schneidermann’s left side and fell onto the sidewalk. He was bald with a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. Schneidermann reached down to help the man get up. Najwa could see their mouths move as they spoke.
The man held his hand out as he scrabbled to right himself.
Najwa pressed pause.
The screen froze, revealing the man’s fingers, in black leather gloves, grasping Schneidermann’s hand as he rose from the pavement.
22
Yael stepped out of the lift on the seventeenth floor of 800 Second Avenue and walked into the entrance foyer of the Israeli UN mission. Two CCTV cameras were mounted on the top corners of the heavy steel door. Two more CCTV cameras pointed down from the ceiling. The room was a small, windowless space, around twenty feet by twenty, with light blue walls and a gray floor. On one wall, a poster of smiling, attractive young people in a nightclub advertised Tel Aviv, “the 24 hour city.” Part of another wall was made of tinted glass, an inch thick. A single door opened onto a corridor of more offices.
Yael walked up to the glass wall. Behind it sat a plump young woman with short black hair and thick, black-framed glasses. She stared at Yael. “Can I help you?” Her voice was tinny, coming out of a hidden speaker.
“I hope so. I’m here to see Eli Harrari.”
“Who?”
“Eli Harrari. The chief of staff to the ambassador.”
The young woman stared at Yael. “Mr. Harrari has left New York. He has returned to Tel Aviv.”
“Really? Then how did I see him walk into the building five minutes ago?”
“You didn’t.”
“Actually, I did. At 3:57 p.m. Check the log.”
Even with the wall of glass between them, Yael sensed the young woman’s mind spinning. “I don’t know what you are talking about. Please leave or I will call security,” she said, as she picked up the phone.
“Sure. Do it. Have me thrown out. See what Eli says then. And see how long you will still be working in New York.”
The young woman looked at Yael again, less sure of herself. “Who are you?”
“Motek.”
“Your name, I mean.”
“That’s what he calls me.”
Her eyes opened wider as she placed the phone handset back in its cradle. “Pass your ID, wallet, and cell phone under the glass.”
“I don’t have any of those with me.”
“How did you get into the building without ID?”
Yael had shown her driver’s license to the police outside and to the security guard at the reception, but she was not going to hand it over. She would never see it again.
Yael leaned forward, switched to rapid Hebrew. “Are you really as dumb as you look? How many times do I have to tell you? Eli is waiting for me.”
The young woman flinched, switched off the microphone, picked up the phone receiver again, and spoke rapidly. She stopped talking, listened for several seconds, then looked at Yael. She turned the speaker back on. “Wait here.”
*
Joe-Don looked at his watch, the knot in his stomach twisting tighter by the moment. The battered Rolex Oyster showed five minutes past five. He returned to staring at the entrance of number 800. The door opened. Two young women walked out. Neither was Yael.
“If I’m not out in an hour, come and get me.”
She had been joking. But this was not funny. No matter how smart or how brave she was, she was on Eli’s territory now. The instant she stepped inside the mission, US law no longer applied. Not that laws were really the issue here if something went wrong. He would have to get past the cops at the building entrance, force his way into one of the most secure diplomatic buildings in the United States, find her, take down whoever was holding her, and then get both of them out. While he was unarmed. The odds were, to put it mildly, against him.
He scanned the contact numbers in his phone. There was someone he could call, an old friend from his Special Forces Group days in Central America who could be here in twenty minutes with a weapon, maybe sooner. But it might be easier for him to get one of the cops’ guns. It would certainly be faster. He looked over the road to the UN Plaza Pharmacy. A can of hair spray, a polite request for directions, a sudden face-full of L’Oreal, a haymaker. He could grab the officer’s gun and use it to take down his partner. And probably spend the rest of his life in prison.
Joe-Don shook his head. It would never work. Especially not on his own. There would be backup systems for a building like this. And the Israeli mission would certainly have a CCTV feed onto the street. They would see what was happening, go into lockdown mode, sound the alarm. The NYPD, FBI, Secret Service, and who knew what else would be here instantly.