The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(85)
The view from the Tower Suite was captivating, bathed in afternoon sunlight of crystalline purity. Reykjavik was built on a long finger of land surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic Ocean. The sea was the color of sapphires, topped with white, foaming waves. Neat rows of nineteenth-century houses, their corrugated iron walls painted orange and blue, yellow and pink, radiated out from the city center. Tiny parks were scattered across downtown, splashes of green amid the steel and glass. The harbor was crowded with ocean liners and fishing trawlers, whalers and yachts. Lake Tj?rnin rippled gray and silver, its banks jammed with great flocks of seabirds and swans. Across the square stood the Althingi, the Parliament House, a two-story building of gray stone with curved white windows. Even the sidewalks were smart, their gray edges running along a center strip of red-brown stones.
“Yael, please close the curtains and step away from the window,” said Olafsson. “We don’t want you attracting any more bullets.”
She nodded and slowly began to close the drapes, still checking the area around the hotel and giving a quick, final glance up and down Pósthússtr?ti, which ran in front of the hotel. Just one detail marred the idyllic scene: The dumpy, middle-aged woman sitting on a bench fifty yards from the entrance. Her pink coat, and her companions, last seen with Eli Harrari in Tompkins Square Park, had gone, Yael saw. The woman now wore a heavy black parka. But her hair, the color of straw, poked out from under a brown cap.
Olafsson poured himself a cup of coffee. “Thanks, Yael, for your help. Soon they will all head to the airport, secretary-generals, presidents, and their security guards and normal life resumes.” He checked his watch. “In just over two hours.”
Yael finished closing the drapes and turned around. “Actually, Magnus, it might be a little longer than that.”
*
Najwa stepped inside the Kaldalón auditorium and quickly looked around for Sami. He was, as instructed, sitting in the front row with his messenger bag reserving an empty seat next to him. She briskly walked in front of the seats to her place. The closing press conference of the Sustainability Summit was coming to an end, and the SG sat in the center of a steel and glass table, talking about the valuable work that had been done in the last two days. He was flanked on one side by Olga Gunnarsdottir and her press attaché, a skinny brown-haired man in a tight navy suit who looked about twenty years old, and on the other by Roxana.
Until the events of last week, the Reykjavik Summit had garnered little interest among the UN press corps. Reykjavik, they predicted, would go the way of all other UN gatherings dealing with the big issues of the day: doom-laden warnings that Something Must Be Done; behind-the-scenes wrangling over quotas for reductions or increases, as required; followed by a solemn pledge from the attending nations to implement whatever had been agreed, which would be immediately ignored as soon the delegations returned home. Sensing the lack of excitement, the SG’s press office had not even offered a “travel facility.”
But by Friday morning, after Frank Akerman’s murder, the mood had changed. If someone was shooting at the SG, then perhaps it was worth following him to Reykjavik. Any doubts were swept away by the attempted killing of Charles Bonnet. The UN was hot. Which was why the Kaldalón auditorium was standing room only. Najwa counted at least two hundred reporters sitting in the chairs and dozens more standing at the sides in between the rows of camera crews.
The Kaldalón was the smallest of the four auditoriums in the Harpa concert center. Perched on the very edge of downtown Reykjavik, by the harbor, the Harpa complex was a hypermodern asymmetrical construct with sloping walls and windows that changed color according to the position of the sun. Like the rest of the Harpa center, Kaldalón looked like the star feature in an architecture magazine. The bare stone floor was a lighter shade of gray, matching the gray and gold fabric wall coverings. The dark gray cinema-style chairs, each with its own foldaway writing table and outlet, were laid out in stepped rows so the journalists were looking down at the table where the SG and President Gunnarsdottir were holding the press conference.
Fareed Hussein finished by recapping the “vital” international agreement that had been reached and thanking President Gunnarsdottir and Iceland for hosting the summit, before handing the microphone to Roxana. She did not look quite as poised as usual, Najwa noticed. Still wearing the black Prada jacket and skirt she’d had on last Friday at the New York press conference, her blue blouse was creased and she had rings around her eyes that a liberal application of makeup could not quite disguise.
“Thank you, secretary-general and President Gunnarsdottir,” said Roxana. “I am very pleased to see such a large turnout from the press for this vital international summit. I would ask you, as a courtesy to our hosts, to keep your questions related to sustainability and international development. Please state your name and the media outlet you represent.”
A sea of hands shot up. Roxana ignored all the members of the New York UN press corps and instead pointed to a thirtyish woman with cropped blond hair and rimless glasses sitting on the end of one of the middle rows.
“Thank you. Sabine Altheusser, from Environment International. How can the United Nations ensure that the countries here today will implement the quotas for the reduction of plastic bags, for example?”
Najwa glanced at Jonathan Beaufort, who rolled his eyes. She looked at her watch. It was ten minutes past three. The press conference had started at two fifty and was scheduled to end in five minutes. Both the SG and President Gunnarsdottir had been late and spoken for too long, cutting into the time allotted to the press for questions. Najwa had little interest in sustainability, but she was very interested indeed in the death—or murder, as it now appeared—of Henrik Schneidermann and Frank Akerman and the attempt on Charles Bonnet’s life. For the moment, she would keep what she had discovered about Schneidermann and the Iranian connection to herself. She had plenty of questions, but would not ask them at a press conference with dozens of other reporters present. Although, putting more pressure on now, she mused, might flush out more information.