The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(7)
Nothing happened. Clairborne pressed the buttons on the right arm control panel. His hand came away wet and smelling of bourbon. He pressed the buttons again. The green light faded, then went out. He reached behind and pushed the chair back away from him, but it did not move. He pushed again, as hard as he could, and there was a loud popping sound. Pain lanced his gashed palm. The chair back came loose in its holding but remained standing straight. A crimson blob was slowly forming underneath the Band-Aid. He stood up, grabbed another handkerchief from his drawer, wrapped it around his palm, gritted his teeth, and punched the chair back as hard as he could.
*
Clarence Clairborne was not the only person watching Yael. A couple of blocks from the UN headquarters, Eli Harrari sat back in his windowless, soundproof office, a can of Diet Coke in his right hand. Lean, gray-eyed, with a shaven head, he was a good deal calmer than Clairborne.
Like Clairborne, Harrari was breaking the law by hacking into the NYPD network, but he was unconcerned. Diplomatic immunity, and the close relations between his home country and the United States, would ensure any fuss would soon evaporate in the unlikely event that the authorities discovered what his employers were doing. He smiled and took a long drink of the Diet Coke as he glanced at Yael’s taxi speeding southward on the Henry Hudson Parkway, somewhere in the mid-Thirties, heading toward Chelsea. He crushed the can and threw it in the trash, nodding approvingly. She was still the best.
3
Yael told Gurdeep to let her out by Tompkins Square Park, on the corner of Avenue A and East Eighth in the East Village. For a small green space in a gritty part of southern Manhattan, the park boasted an imposing entrance: Two rows of redbrick colonnades stood under a cream stone roof. Small enclosures of trees and shrubs, their branches dense with spring greenery, were boxed in behind black mesh fences.
She walked through the middle colonnade and down a tiled path of gray stone that opened onto manicured gardens. Step one: Let the adrenalin burn out. Step two: Center herself. Step three: Switch back to date mode. But before that, step 1a: Conduct anti-surveillance drills to check that she was clean. Following her instructions Gurdeep had taken a long and complicated route, cutting through the backstreets of Little Italy and Chinatown then up into the Lower East Side; doubling back, reversing, even driving the wrong way down a one-way street to flush out any tails. Yael had watched intently all the way but saw no sign of the black SUV; no repeat sightings of any other vehicles; no cars hanging back at a steady, regular distance; no telltale glances from other drivers before they spoke into their phones on speaker. She was confident she was clean. Nobody knew that she was coming here. But still, step 1a.
Yael continued down the path toward a large circular lawn surrounded by a low black metal railing. There the path split in two directions, each snaking around the lush grass. She stopped, hesitated for a moment as if she was lost, then opened her purse and took out a paper handkerchief. It fluttered to the ground. She dropped down to pick it up and glanced behind her, swiftly taking in the scene.
A homeless man shuffled by the washroom near the entrance, a ragged coat hanging off his thin frame, and over to his possessions bundled up in plastic bags along the fence. Three teenage boys laughed and joked as one tried to kick-flip a skateboard through 360 degrees while still riding it. He almost made it, then flew off and landed on his backside, triggering hoots of derision. The boys and the homeless man had all been there when she arrived.
Satisfied with what she saw, Yael walked right until she came to a long, curved row of benches and sat down in the end seat. Her vantage point gave her a commanding view of the open area in front of the benches, the playground to her right, and the paths on either side. But still, a voice in her head—ever louder—told her that she should call Joe-Don, her bodyguard, to explain what had happened and ask him to check her apartment was secure. Someone had been following her, and someone had been directing the SUV. She ignored it. If she called Joe-Don, he would demand that she immediately head somewhere safe. And when she didn’t, he would use the GPS in her mobile phone to come and find her.
Switching her phone off was not an option. Yael had promised to remain contactable twenty-four hours a day—especially after Geneva, and doubly especially after Istanbul. Just ten days ago the Turkish city had hosted the most ambitious diplomatic gathering in history. Driven in part by the rise of the Islamists, world leaders from around the globe, including Renee Freshwater, the American president, had gathered in an attempt to settle the Israel/Palestine conflict and the crises in Syria and Egypt. The summit had ended in chaos after an American diplomat at the country’s UN mission had poisoned Freshwater, who had almost died. She was only saved at the last moment, after Yael persuaded the diplomat, whom she had considered a friend, to give up the antidote.
Yael had been home from Istanbul for nine days, and she sensed she was being watched. Faces glimpsed twice on the streets near her apartment; a stranger glancing at her too often; a newspaper raised on the subway when she looked up and down the car, shielding its reader: the signs were subtle, but real. And to be expected after her recent confrontation with the man who sat at the apex of America’s military-industrial complex. Accusing the Prometheus Group chairman and CEO of funneling millions of dollars to a front company owned by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had consequences. Even if she presented the evidence to him personally, in private. Perhaps especially so.
Clarence Clairborne, she was sure, was somehow connected to the diplomat’s attempt to kill President Freshwater. Cui bono?—Who benefits?—was still the best, and most important question. The death of the US president would mean the end of her policy of rapprochement with Iran, and the pressure on the Israelis to make peace with the Palestinians. It would boost the hard-liners in both Tehran and Tel Aviv and destabilize the entire Middle East. But where the Prometheus Group was concerned, chaos was good for business.