The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(76)
Najwa reached inside her purse and took out her black leather personal organizer. She had tucked Francine’s USB stick inside the back pocket. She flipped the cover open when a photograph fell out. It showed two young girls at a beach, both in their early teens, on a beach. Najwa stared at the photograph for several seconds, kissed the second girl in the picture, and put it down on her desk. She took out the USB stick and placed it next to the photograph. Whatever Francine had given her, it could wait for a little while.
Najwa turned to her computer and clicked on a JPEG file on her desktop, the JPEG sent by the unknown person communicating with her. The file opened to show a picture of a young Arab woman, a grown-up version of the second girl on the beach. As if on cue, a new window opened on her screen.
<Welcome home. Keep your crew at the KZX reception tonight until the end>
Najwa typed: <I wasn’t planning on taking one. No news usually at these events.>
<There will be>
The window closed. Najwa sat back and closed her eyes. Her heart was pounding, her stomach twisting. Having someone in her computer, someone who seemed to know her deepest family secret, was bad enough and it creeped her out. But more than that, she was now compromised. Again.
She reached for the packet of Marlboro Lights and Zippo lighter resting by her monitor and took out a cigarette. She sat still for a moment, her hand in the air. The cigarette tip was shaking. Then she lit up and took a deep drag, feeling the nicotine instantly kick in. Not a heavy smoker, Najwa usually only indulged at parties, after a good meal, or when she was stressed. Like now.
She watched the gray cloud float over the desk. Once again she had been forewarned. Forewarned digitally, in writing. The message window had instantly vanished, but she had no doubt that a record of the exchange lived on, somewhere in cyberspace or on a distant hard drive. She should alert the authorities so they could take the necessary precautions. But what could she tell them? That an unknown person had hacked her computer? That the last time he, or she, had been in communication, Najwa was told to head to the SG’s residence, arriving just as a gunman killed a senior UN official on the steps and left another bullet embedded in the front door frame? She would be questioned at length. Her life would be turned upside down and inside out. She would almost certainly be arrested. The Al-Jazeera connection and her Arab background would trigger a frenzy of terrorism accusations. She would be suspended from her job and likely lose her green card as well. Then what? She glanced again at the photograph of the two young girls on her desk. The guilt ebbed and faded, a slow tide inside her, but it never went away completely. Not that she wanted it to.
Or, she could keep quiet and hope for the best. The KZX reception was a grand-enough event that she could justify bringing Maria and Philippe along, especially as it might generate more leads on the coltan scandal and a follow-up to her and Sami’s documentary. But which did she value more? The life of an unknown potential victim? Or her career and comfortable existence?
A sharp pain shot through her fingertip. She was squeezing the USB stick so hard the metal corner was digging into her skin. Later, she told herself. She would decide later. First, she would see what was on Francine’s USB drive. She opened her air-gapped Toshiba laptop. Lines of code flew across the screen as it lumbered into life. She reached around the back and slid the USB drive into the port. A video file icon appeared. She clicked on it and a blurry image of Henrik Schneidermann filled the screen.
27
Renee Freshwater stood in front of the three tall, white-framed windows at the back of the Oval Office looking out over the Rose Garden. The rainbow palette of flowers glistened against lush greenery in the bright sunlight, still shiny after that morning’s spring shower. Twenty years ago, King Hussein of Jordan and Yitzhak Rabin had stood here and shaken hands, ending forty-six years of war. A full peace treaty had followed soon after. Although a comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seemed as distant as ever, the treaty had held.
The roses were in full bloom, a riot of pink with splashes of deep red, almost as dark as blood, next to the low manicured hedges. A breeze ruffled the white crabapple blossoms. Freshwater watched a flower tumble from a branch before the wind carried it off, dancing on the air currents. What would be her legacy? At first her nickname, Dead-in-theWater, had been confined to the Beltway crowd of politicians and lobbyists, journalists and government officials that lived and worked in the capital. But it had soon spread out to the talk show hosts, the crazies that sent death threats every day by the thousand, the Twitter furies and the website creators whose pages showed her dark, almond eyes, strong cheekbones, and glossy black hair superimposed on a target.
She knew, of course, that the United States’ first female president, one from the left wing of the Democratic Party who was proud of her Native American roots, would not be universally loved. But nothing could have prepared her for the depth of hatred, the tidal wave of venom. It had been easier when Eric was still alive. God, she missed him. Their girls still cried most nights for their father and so did she, silently and alone. She had never felt so isolated, so vulnerable. The wolves were closing in, she knew, the most vicious of all from her own party. They scented blood and the feeding frenzy would soon start. But she would go down fighting, and not before she finished what she set out to do.
She turned around to face her security chief. Dave Reardon was sitting on the edge of a plush, gold colored sofa, one of two matching pieces facing each other with a coffee table in between.