A couple of hours later, Yael walked into the presidential suite of the Hilton Reykjavik Nordica. Roxana stood up as soon as she saw Yael and walked toward her, radiating enthusiasm.
“Yael, I’m so pleased to see you, it was amazing, incredible what you did today,” she exclaimed, air-kissing Yael on each cheek. “Well done.”
“Thanks,” said Yael, swiftly dodging an oncoming hug as she stepped away and scanned the room.
Roxana ignored Yael’s distancing, stepped closer and took her arm as she continued talking. “You saved Fareed’s life.”
“She did more than that,” said Hussein. He was seated at the end of the brown sofa at the far end of the suite. He smiled, stood up, and started to walk toward the two women.
“I know,” said Roxana. “We are all so proud of her. She is a hero.” Roxana lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Have you heard, there is a rumor that the White House wants to give a dinner in your honor? President Freshwater wants to say thanks. That’s twice you have saved her life.”
The SG’s press secretary was back on form, noted Yael. Her body language was confident and expansive, her hair sleek, her makeup lightly and skillfully applied, her Prada jacket and skirt pressed and spotless. Zest had gone, noted Yael, replaced by something much heavier and richer.
“No,” said Yael. “I hadn’t. But that’s not really my kind of thing. I don’t like being in the public eye.”
Roxana laid her hand on Yael’s arm as she spoke. Her blue-gray eyes were wide open, trusting, entreating—and hoping. “I completely understand.”
Yael smiled inside. Roxana was so predictable. First the empathy, then the attempt at manipulation. They both knew that after this afternoon Yael was untouchable, at least for the near future. Roxana would instantly be calculating the potential benefits for her career—which were considerable, if she played her cards right and could engineer, if not an alliance, at least a rapprochement with Yael. She and Yael worked for the same boss. All the good press and media coverage generated by Yael’s skill and heroism would boost the UN and the SG’s image, and so add to Roxana’s stature and prestige.
Roxana continued talking. “The last thing you want at the moment is to be the center of attention. But it would be such amazing publicity for the UN, and all the good work we do. At least think about it.”
“I will, when the invitation arrives. Meanwhile, I need to talk to Fareed.”
Roxana’s smile faded slightly as the SG stood in front of the two women. She looked puzzled for a moment. “Yael, I don’t remember, did we agree to meet here?”
“No,” said Yael. “We didn’t.”
Hussein said, “Roxana, leave Yael for now. She has just saved the world. The White House can wait. So can everyone else. We have things to talk about.”
Yael stepped back and looked at the SG. He was still paler than usual, but was no longer gray. He smiled at Yael, a genuine smile, full of warmth, as if to say, “I wondered when you would get here.”
Once she returned to the Hotel Borg Yael had taken a very long shower and ordered a large, medium-rare hamburger with a small bucket of french fries, which she ate with gusto. After that she had tried to rest for a while, but it was impossible. The questions that she had filed away for years—about Rwanda, about David, about why she continued to work at the UN—were spinning through her head, demanding answers. Tonight, she knew, she would get them. She got up, changed into clean jeans, a T-shirt, and a black turtleneck sweater and made her way to the Hilton.
Roxana watched warily, a half frown on her face, aware of the powerful emotional currents passing between Yael and the SG and wondering how to respond.
For a moment Yael was back on the thirty-eighth floor, the previous Friday morning. Was it really only three days ago that Roxana had, in effect, ordered her out of the SG’s offices and Fareed had acquiesced? Yes, it was, give or take a time zone or two. But they all knew that now Yael was the SG’s confidant, and Roxana the outsider.
Roxana, however, was not about to cede so easily. She gave Yael her best UN press officer smile, which showcased her white teeth and did not reach her eyes. “Yael, it’s fantastic to see you. But Fareed and I are in the middle of planning the press conference,” she glanced at her Patek Philippe watch, “in just over an hour, at ten o’clock tonight. How can I help?”
Yael glanced at Fareed. It was a clumsy gambit, and had no chance of success. The SG nodded, almost imperceptibly. She had not made any arrangement to see him but they both knew that their next conversation had been a very long while in the making. Roxana was right, Fareed owed Yael his life. The debt was about to be paid.
Yael said, “You can leave.”
Roxana looked confused, then indignant. She began to speak, her voice rising, “Yael, I don’t think you understand—”
“I understand perfectly. You asked how you can help. I just told you.”
Roxana looked at Hussein, expecting him to come to the rescue.
“Thank you Roxana,” said Hussein. “I will call you later.”
Roxana stepped back, her mouth open in amazement before she replied. “But Fareed, we have to—”
The SG smiled as he replied, but his voice was cold. “I said, later.”
Yael walked over to the floor to ceiling window that looked out over the harbor, feeling the weight of her iPhone in her jeans pocket. Reykjavik sparkled in the night, the apartment block windows a honeycomb of white and yellow, car headlights sweeping along the black tarmac roads, the harbor lights a rainbow of colors shimmering on the water. Mount Esja loomed in the darkness, a great brooding presence. She watched a fishing boat chug into port, its port and aft lights blinking.
Yael turned around to see Hussein watching her. She could feel the emotions running through him: affection, comfort in her presence, guilt. He asked, “Would you like something to drink, to eat?”
“Tea, please.”
“Tea for two. Coming right up,” he replied as he walked the length of the suite to the kitchen area.
Yael strolled around, taking the measure of the place while Hussein made the drinks. Yael had stayed in hotels around the world, often in very comfortable conditions. But this was probably the largest and most luxurious hotel room she had ever stepped inside. It was certainly the whitest. She stepped inside the bathroom. A large Jacuzzi sat in the center. She quickly checked the shelves: one toothbrush, no women’s cosmetics on display.
She walked out, sat back on the sofa. Now, at last, it was just her and the SG. President Freshwater had gone straight to Keflavik airport and would be halfway to Washington, DC, by now. Kermanzade was on her way back to Tehran. Eli was under arrest. Michal was in the hospital under armed guard. After the death of Salim Massoud, the remaining Iranians had surrendered and were in custody. As for Sami and Najwa, well, yes, Sami and Najwa. An Icelandic journalist had already tweeted a photograph of the two journalists embracing and kissing in the Kaldi café, which had instantly gone viral. Yael felt a twinge of jealousy, sure, perhaps of both of them, to her slight surprise. But overall, she was pleased. Najwa was a better prospect for Sami than she ever would be, especially now that she was a journalistic superstar. And lately, someone else was much on Yael’s mind.
The SG reappeared with a tray. She watched him pour the drinks, glancing at her uncertainly. She took her tea, then handed him her iPhone. A text message was displayed on the screen.
He read the message, leaned back, exhaled loudly, closed his eyes for several seconds. “Who sent you this?”
“That doesn’t matter. Is it true? Did you let my brother die?”
Hussein looked at Yael, started to speak, stopped, looked away. He picked up his teacup and saucer. The white china rattled. A trickle of liquid slopped over the side. He put the cup and saucer back down, not just his hand but his whole body trembling slightly.
Yael sipped her drink and waited.
Hussein sat up. “I don’t know whose idea it was. Maybe it was Bonnet’s, maybe the French foreign ministry, maybe it was mine. It just seemed to appear out of the discussions, the telegrams and the confidential cables and then suddenly it was part of the consensus, the solution, the thing that we all needed to do. The … the … plan …”
“Which was what, exactly?” asked Yael. She put her drink down, pulled her legs up underneath her and leaned back on the sofa. She felt oddly calm and composed.
Hussein closed his eyes, swallowed and started talking. The words poured out.
“David”—he looked again at Yael, guilt and shame written on his face—“and the other eight were supposed to be taken hostage by the Tutsis. Then there would be a rescue mission by French troops. That was Bonnet’s responsibility. He was the liaison with the French Ministry of Defense.”
“I know that,” said Yael. “Bonnet told me. But what came next? What was the point of it?”
Hussein paused, looked at the ceiling for a moment, continued talking. “Once the French rescued the nine UN staff, they would have boots on the ground. There would be some fighting, enough to justify more French troops, a full-scale intervention to back the Hutus. The Hutus were Francophones, the Tutsis favored Britain. Britain had Uganda, so France got Rwanda. That was the deal. The P5 agreed. That’s why nobody intervened to save David and the others. They were only supposed to be held for a day or two, then released. But the Hutus had their own ideas. They killed them. They had always planned to. Rwanda turned into a bloodbath, just as they wanted. Then everyone backed away.”
Yael’s stomach turned to ice. For a second she could not breathe. “So my brother, and the other eight UN workers, died because you, or someone, had a bright idea to gamble with their lives, then another eight hundred thousand innocent people were killed because the P5 were carving up Africa like a turkey at Christmas?”
Hussein looked away, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Yes.”
Yael fought to bring her emotions under control. Hussein was telling the truth, that much she knew. But not yet the whole truth. Her voice was level as she continued speaking. “You said this plan appeared and then somehow became part of the consensus. But that’s not entirely true, is it? You knew all along why David died. All these years. Every time I asked you, you dodged the question, changed the subject. But you knew, all along. Because it was you. It was your idea.”
Hussein could not look at her. “I … it was …”
“Fareed, please. Tell me the truth. The truth.”
“Yes. Yes.” Hussein was almost shouting now. “It was my idea. I drafted the secret memos. I persuaded the P5 and the other Security Council members.” He put his hands on his face, let out a cry of anguish. “Yael, I am so, so sorry.”
Yael wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “So am I.”
Hussein swallowed before he answered. “If it had worked …”
Yael picked up the tea tray, stood up, and hurled it against the picture window as hard as she could. The crockery exploded, shattering into jagged white fragments as the hot liquid spattered across the glass.
A pounding sounded on the door. Hussein jumped up, suddenly nimble, and walked quickly across the room. He opened the door. “It’s fine, we’re OK, really, just an accident, we’ll clear it up,” Yael heard him say.
Hussein turned around and returned to the sofa. He sat down and reached for her hand. She knocked it way, and sat at the other end of the sofa, tears coursing down her face. She picked up a napkin, blew her nose, sat for a few moments breathing deeply and slowly.
Hussein waited for several moments. “I’m so sorry. We gambled with their lives. And we all lost.”
Yael blew her nose before she replied. “Why didn’t you do something, shout and scream at the P5 to rescue them?”
“I did. I made call after call. I held emergency meetings with diplomats from every one of the countries on the Security Council. They all promised to contact their capitals, push for action, do everything they could.”
“Which was?”
“In the end, nothing.”
He stared at the window, a faraway look in his eyes as the tea slowly slid down the glass and dripped onto the floor. “After that, and Srebrenica, I realized that I couldn’t do these kind of deals. I don’t have the skills, or the stomach for it. But someone has to do this work.”
Hussein looked at Yael, paused for several seconds, continued speaking. “It took awhile, a decade or so, but eventually, I found someone. Who could operate behind the scenes. Who was much better at dealing with warlords and killers than I ever could be. Someone who could be trained, someone with enough steel to do the cold mathematics, the cost-benefit analyses: justice or peace? Arrest the killers or appoint them to run a government? And someone who reminded me, every day, of the human cost of the mistakes that I had made.”
Yael closed her eyes for a moment before she spoke, tried to put her emotions aside and think logically. She had come with a mission: to find out the truth about David’s death. So what had she learned? Of course the Rwanda plan for the UN staff had been Hussein’s idea. Nobody else would have the contacts and inside information to try and construct such an arrangement. She sensed from the first day she went to work for him that he was involved. Did she believe his claim, that he had met with all the Security Council ambassadors to try and rescue David and the other eight UN workers? There was no way of knowing. In the end there were no blacks or whites, just a sliding palette of shades of gray, of compromise and ambiguity.
And she knew all about that. When Hussein had chosen her to do the P5’s most secret work, the behind-the-scenes deals that kept superpower diplomacy rolling and the global corporations in business, she had readily accepted. She had loved it, relished every moment. Warlords were transformed into statesmen. The inconvenient were sacrificed, victims went unavenged, all for the greater good. Because in the end, she could, she told herself, rationalize what she did. But some things could never be rationalized. She picked up her iPhone, called up a sound file, and pressed the play button.
FRENCH MAN: We need at least five hundred. That will have maximum impact.
HUSSEIN: No, no, that is unnecessary. It’s far too much. A couple of hundred at most would be sufficient for our purposes. Less would suffice. Even a few dozen.
She expected him to look shocked, or angry. Instead Hussein shrugged, recovering some of his confidence. “My dear Yael, talk is cheap. Did the war happen?”
“No.”
“Who stopped it?”
“Me, I guess.”
“Who do you think sent you the sound file?”
Hussein placed his palm on her hand. Yael looked down. One part of her wanted to slap his hand away, walk out of the room, and never see Fareed Hussein or anyone from the UN again. Another part wanted his reassurance.
“You did?”
Hussein nodded. “Yes, I did.”
“But you sacked me.”
“Only for a while. I had to let you run, on your own. And you did very well. You stopped a war. But that is all in the past now. I am resigning. Quentin Braithwaite will take over as acting SG until the P5 and the General Assembly agree on my successor. I will announce this at the press conference tonight. That is, if Roxana is still organizing it for me. Maybe she will resign as well.”
Yael smiled, despite herself. “Roxana? She isn’t going anywhere.”
“No. I think not. Your job will remain, no matter who replaces me. You will be promoted to undersecretary-general. You can continue in your present role or carve out a new one. You can do whatever you want. If you stay.”
“I’m thinking about that. Meanwhile, I would like you to do something for me. Something very much in your interest.”
“Which is?”
“You release the Rwanda and Srebrenica documents.”
The SG sat back. “How is that in my interest? They will destroy my reputation and any chance of a legacy.”
“I don’t think so. It was twenty years ago. Another world. You were just a civil servant, implementing policy, not making it.” Her voice was barbed. “You can blame the P5. Again.”
Hussein blushed, looked away.
Yael said, “Roxana can spin it for you—you will be a pioneer of transparency, facing up to the UN’s greatest failures.”
Hussein half-frowned, pondering this idea. “And I get?”
“Something you want more than anything.”
A pang of guilt shot through Yael. How well the SG had taught her. She watched, first comprehension, then the emotional hunger on his face.
Hussein asked, “Something or someone?”
“Someone. Do we have a deal?”
The SG nodded.
Yael said nothing, looked down at her iPhone, and pressed a button.
A few seconds later the suite’s phone rang. Hussein picked up the handset, listened for a few seconds.
“Reception,” he mouthed at Yael. “Thank you, but I am not receiving any visitors now. Please direct them to Grace Olewanda, my secretary, or Roxana Voiculescu if they are media interview requests. No, no visitors at all.”
He frowned, stopped speaking for a moment, blinked several times in surprise. “She says she is my what?” Hussein stared at the phone for several seconds, as if it was the first time he had seen such a device, a look of wonder spreading across his face. “OK. Tell the security detail and send her up.”