The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(69)

Hussein rarely spoke of Omar. His memoir was the only time he had discussed his brother and his disappearance. But people were speaking—he sensed, he knew—about his other secrets. Justifiable at the time, every decision taken left a dark residue that over the years turned into a brittle carapace of guilt and shame. One that could—would, he thought—eventually crack and shatter, taking his reputation along with it. He stared at the indents in the skin of his hand, the same hand that had briefly grasped Yael’s brother’s arm when he departed for Kigali.

Hussein sat down by his desk, glanced at the photograph in the silver frame, a copy of the one in his office. It was almost too painful to look at. He had one arm around Zeinab’s shoulder and the other around Rina’s, on the day of her graduation. All three were smiling happily. Now his wife was gone. His daughter would not communicate with him, other than to denounce him on social media. All he had left was his name and his future legacy. And the means of their destruction. That, at least, was secure, securely stored in the steel filing cabinet built into the left-hand side of his desk, protected by a biometric lock.

He picked up the red and black USB stick. He was about to call Roxana to ask if it was hers when older, more cautious habits kicked in.

Who else had access to his bedroom? The room was kept locked when he was not there. Only the housekeeper, Evangelina, a Filipina in her fifties, had a key. She had worked in the residence for more than twenty years, was the very soul of discretion, and was approaching retirement. And as far as he knew Evangelina’s computer skills did not extend much beyond e-mail.

He turned the USB stick over in his hand. It was tiny, barely larger than his thumbnail. He still found it difficult to believe how much data could be stored on such a miniscule object. But how had it got here? Unknown objects should not be appearing on his private desk at his home. He trusted Evangelina completely, but somebody could have forced her to leave the memory stick on his desk. Or maybe someone had broken into the house. In theory, that was impossible. But complete security was never possible. Random strangers still managed to wander into the private areas of the White House, supposedly one of the world’s most secure buildings.

There was one way to find out what this was about. And even if the memory stick was Roxana’s, it would do no harm to find out what she was up to. He slid it into the port on his laptop. A folder containing two icons appeared on the desktop, one labeled “Rwanda” and the other “Srebrenica.”

His finger trembled as it hovered over the track pad. He waited a second, slid the cursor onto the first icon, exhaled hard, and clicked.

A PDF of a scanned UN internal report opened up:

ULTRA CONFIDENTIAL: REPORT INTO THE DEATHS OF NINE UN WORKERS IN KIGALI ON APRIL 10 1994.

He already knew what was in the second file without having to open it. He clicked on the icon anyway. A second PDF opened up:

ULTRA CONFIDENTIAL: AN ACCOUNT OF A MEETING WITH THE BOSNIAN SERB LEADERSHIP ON MARCH 25 1995.

For several seconds he could not breathe. He forced himself to inhale, exhale, take control. He placed his elbows on his desk and sat with his head in his hands for several minutes, waiting until the thoughts whirling through his brain began to calm. In a way, he felt a kind of relief. He had feared—known—for a long time that this day was coming. All trace of the two documents had supposedly been removed from the UN archives in New York, Geneva, and Nairobi. The company that Hussein hired, at great personal expense, assured him it had recovered the originals and all extant copies. Efrat Global Solution’s corporate security division had a rock-solid reputation for accomplishing sensitive, illegal operations. But Hussein knew that while the past could be rewritten, spun, reconfigured, it could never be completely wiped. Every cover-up left traces, hints that led to a trail.

He would have to contact EGS. The situation was manageable, he told himself. He had been through worse. Perhaps Yael would help. Then he glanced again at the Rwanda document, remembered what it contained. Yael would not help this time.

*

Najwa looked around Francine’s living room, seeking a hiding place, but saw none. The voices were louder now, one male and one female. Both sounded familiar, the female voice especially so. Their speech was clipped as they moved around the kitchen—the woman was giving orders—and Najwa sensed their tense aggression. They were looking for something; opening drawers and cupboards, swiftly rifling through the contents then closing them, careful not to leave a sign that they had been there. She had no doubt that she was in danger.

Under the bed? That would be the best option. The only one, in fact. Until they looked there. But she would deal with that if and when it happened. Najwa quickly pulled her sports shoes off and cat-stepped into the bedroom, praying that the parquet would not give her away. It was a small room, and painted a faint shade of pink. A faded kilim took up most of the floor. A large window, diagonally bisected by a rusty fire escape, looked out onto the back of the neighboring apartment blocks. She could see a middle-aged man chopping vegetables in his kitchen. He turned and saw her, his knife raised in midair. Then she glanced at the bed. It was a twin. With two drawers underneath.

A large stand-alone antique closet stood in the corner of the room. The two voices sounded nearer so Najwa stepped inside it, pressing herself against the soft rows of dresses and jackets. She slowly pulled the door closed, her hand on its edge, hoping it would slide into place and stay shut. It swung open. Najwa closed it again. It opened again. There was no handle on the inside, and the voices were getting closer. There was a large crack across the door panel, so she hooked a fingernail inside the gap and managed to draw the door shut. Part of the room was visible through the crack.