The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(79)
*
Schneidermann ran his fingers through his sparse, light brown hair as he spoke. “Well, drugs are only part of the case. The main plan is connected to the Prometheus Group. Caroline Masters was the engine behind bringing in Prometheus to the UN. The idea was to outsource and privatize the UN security service first, then the whole peacekeeping operation. That plan took a hit with the collapse of the Istanbul Summit. But there is much more, and it has a certain logic. Before you have peacekeepers deployed, you need a war to stop.” He looked around, as though he was afraid of being overheard. “What I am going to say sounds crazy I know, but it makes perfect sense. I think Prometheus, KZX, and Iranian hard-liners are all planning a massive war in the Middle East. They hate each other, of course, but their interests coincide. The Iranian hard-liners want to get rid of Shireen Kermanzade. Prometheus and KZX want to get rid of President Freshwater. The last thing they want is a rapprochement between America and Iran. And wars are always good for business.” Schneidermann wiped his brow, picked up his glass of water, and took a deep drink. He stared at the camera and seemed about to speak again, then the screen went blank.
Najwa drummed her fingers on the table, staring intently at the monitor. The video file returned, juddered, stopped again. She moved the cursor to the play button and clicked several times on her mouse.
Finally, the frame filled again with Schneidermann’s pale, worried face. He bit his lip, shook his head, and looked around before coming back to the camera.
“Sorry about that. Someone just rang the doorbell. What was I saying? The SG sent Yael Azoulay to try and persuade Clarence Clairborne, the boss of the Prometheus Group, to stop trading with the Revolutionary Guard. That didn’t work. So now Fareed Hussein is working on something with Freshwater and Shireen Kermanzade. He has copies of e-mails and records of meetings between KZX, Prometheus, and the Iranians. I haven’t seen them, but I am pretty sure they are somewhere in his office. I’m going to look for them. I will meet Sami Boustani for breakfast later this week. I am going to tell him everything.”
He looked from side to side once more. Just as the video file ended the entry phone rang. Najwa walked over to the door and pressed the speakerphone button.
“Sami is here, Ms. al-Sameera,” said the doorman.
Najwa lived in a duplex loft overlooking Gramercy Park, twenty blocks south of the UN. The lower floor had white walls, large windows, a dark wood parquet floor and a kitchen with an island. One corner of the apartment was devoted to Najwa’s office, with an outsized computer monitor on a desk and a fifty-two-inch LED television mounted on the wall. The facing corner was a lounge area, with a sofa and two armchairs. Several lush, towering house plants, along with Turkish kilims on the floor, added splashes of color. The upstairs area was reached by a spiral staircase. The rare visitors to her home never failed to be impressed.
Najwa opened the door and welcomed Sami inside. He was unshaven and looked preoccupied. “Coffee?” she asked. “Beer? Whiskey?”
“I feel like a whiskey,” Sami replied. “But coffee is fine.”
She walked over to the kitchen and popped a capsule into the Nespresso machine. Completely undomesticated, she could not cook. Maria or Philippe took care of the steam-oozing monster in the Al-Jazeera office. Sami wandered over to her desk as she rummaged in her cupboards for something to serve with the coffee.
He picked up the photograph of the girls on the beach. “Lovely picture. This is you and … ?”
Najwa thought about her answer for several seconds. The truth, she decided. “Fatima. My twin sister.”
Sami smiled and put the photograph down. “Gosh. There’s two of you? Where is she? I’d love to meet her.”
“She’s in Jeddah. In a compound, with two other wives. So I don’t think that’s going to happen, habibi.”
Najwa walked in with a tray holding coffee, cups, cookies, and dried fruit. She sat down on the sofa, beckoned Sami over and handed him his coffee.
He looked puzzled as he sat down next to her. “Can I ask a personal question?”
“Sure.”
“You get to go to school in Geneva, graduate from Oxford and Yale, live in a loft in Manhattan and work as a journalist, but your sister is in purdah?”
Najwa paused before she answered. “I’ll take the fifth on that. Sugar?”
“Two. So how was your day so far?”
She told him.
28
The last time Yael saw Charles Bonnet, she had kicked a cup of coffee out of his hand, punched him in the side of his neck, slammed his head against the edge of a desk to knock him unconscious, and trussed him up. That was nine months ago, when she encountered him in an obscure wing of the UN headquarters in Geneva. Arriving at eight o’clock in the morning, she’d pretended to be a cleaning lady to gain entry.
*
She rummages through the contents of his desk: leaflets advertising Michelin-starred restaurants and a spa hotel, a leasing agreement for a Mercedes V8 convertible, a photograph of Bonnet with his African wife and their son and daughter.
*
Her mission was to find the plan giving KZX and the Bonnet Group control over Congo’s coltan supplies. Bonnet was not known for his work ethic, and she didn’t expect to find him in the offices that early.
Now the sight of the Frenchman, recently released from prison where he had been serving time for a crime she knew he had committed, triggered in her a powerful urge to repeat her actions. Instead, she greeted him with a nod and wary half smile. Tonight she needed information.