The Geneva Option Read online

  She pulled that day’s New York Times out of her purse, glad that she’d grabbed it off her doorstep during her brief stop at home, and scanned three articles. The first story reported that leaks from members of the Congressional committee investigating President Renee Freshwater suggested she could be impeached for misuse of office and corruption. The second article detailed how the International Criminal Court had just found the president of Sudan not guilty of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Judges had declared a mistrial after UN investigators were found to have fabricated evidence. Spontaneous celebrations had erupted across the Arab world, while the Arab League and Organization of African States had demanded the court be disbanded immediately and had pledged to withdraw all cooperation from it, demands echoed by Republican politicians in the United States. Fareed Hussein had declared that the ICC had suffered a “serious blow to its credibility” and that the organization’s future would have to be “examined.” The third recounted how a high-level UN envoy in Congo had offered a secret deal to a notorious Rwandan warlord who was wanted for genocide, promising him a short prison sentence in exchange for signing a peace deal. The SG’s spokesman, Henrik Schneidermann, had denied any knowledge of the deal, calling it “malicious nonsense.”

  Suddenly, everything was clear. The story in the New York Times not only quoted at length from the memo Yael had sent to Hussein after her meeting with Hakizimani in Goma, but sourced it to her by name. It described her as a “senior UN official close to the secretary-general.” Yael, the report said, was a “glamorous” figure with a mysterious background, who was charged with negotiating behind-the-scenes deals for the SG in the most dangerous and unstable conflict zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Glamorous was nice, she thought—the level of detail not.

  The article outlined how Yael was nominally rotated through different UN departments, but always worked for and reported directly to the SG. It was completely accurate, and recounted her offer to Hakizimani almost word for word. Who had told him? She had sent the memo as an encrypted e-mail to the SG’s private address. How had Sami Boustani got hold of it?

  Yael dropped the newspaper on the floor and called Olivia: voice mail. She tried Mahesh Kapoor with the same result. She took a fountain pen from her bag, unscrewed the bottom half, and inserted the hidden 64-gigabyte memory stick into her UN laptop. She downloaded all the computer’s files and repeated the procedure with her mobile telephone, copying numbers and text messages. The process complete, she put the pen back in her bag and walked over to the window. A garbage scow chugged slowly along the gray waters, its cargo spilling over the side and leaving a trail of detritus in its wake. She tried to open the window for some air, but it was jammed closed.

  Her UN career was over. She felt angry and betrayed. Not just by whoever had leaked her memo and career history to Sami, but, to her surprise, she felt betrayed by Sami. She thought of him as one of the best reporters in the building: sharp, conscientious, and diligent. She enjoyed his company and recently had found herself looking forward to their meetings. What an idiot she had been. The only thing he’d wanted was the information she could provide.

  Yael reached into her pocket and took out a pack of Marlboro Lights. She lit a cigarette and inhaled. It tasted awful, and the tobacco made her dizzy. She sat down heavily, stubbing the cigarette out on her shoe and dropping the end on the table. Her mouth was dry, and she was exhausted and thirsty. And now she was being treated only slightly better than a criminal.

  She closed her eyes for a minute, gathering her thoughts. She stood abruptly and picked up her bag as she walked out into the corridor and toward Olivia’s door. Olivia was a serious smoker, with a taste for rough, unfiltered cigarettes from around the world. Yael always brought her back a carton of the local variety, and Kivu brand was about as rough as they came. Even if Olivia was not in, she could leave the cigarettes on her desk.

  Yael knocked twice and the door opened. “Yes?” asked Yvonne Dubois.

  “These are for Olivia,” said Yael, handing the carton of Kivu to her.

  Dubois stepped back, looked at the cigarettes, and then at Yael. She sniffed and wrinkled her face in distaste. “Smoking is forbidden in the building. As are gifts of more than a ten-dollar value.”

  “It’s a carton of cigarettes. It cost five dollars. I am not smoking them. I want to give them to Olivia.” Yael closed her eyes for several seconds, breathed slowly and evenly, and forced herself to damp down her rising irritation. “Could I have some tea, please?” she asked politely. “I am tired and very dehydrated. There are a kettle and teabags in my office.”

  In a building—and a city—that ran on coffee, Yael was regarded as an eccentric for preferring tea, a habit she had picked up while living in London with her father. She favored a high-caffeine blend she called her “builder’s brew”: a mix of Kenyan and Assam, steeped until thick and black, topped with milk, and sweetened with plentiful amounts of sugar.

  Dubois looked at Yael as though she had asked her to strip naked and sing the “Marseillaise.” “Your office is closed. There is a problem with the lock.” She turned on her heel and stepped back into her office. “I told you, I will call you when the secretary-general is ready,” she said over her shoulder, and closed her door behind her.

  Yael walked back to the dingy room and threw the cigarettes against the wall. She sat on the sofa, a sour cocktail of anger and anxiety curdling inside her. And where was Olivia?

  Still, Yael thought, she was an autonomous human being. She was not a prisoner. She could leave. The SG’s 9:00 a.m. staff meeting was set in stone; there was no point in trying to start a meaningful discussion with him now at 8:35. She had once seen Olivia ask President Freshwater to please call back in an hour when the White House telephoned during the staff meeting, even though a Russian nuclear submarine was stranded in US waters and leaking fuel. But walking out, she knew, would change nothing, merely delay the verdict.

  She began to doze off when Dubois walked in and beckoned her forward to the SG’s suite. “The secretary-general can see you now. You have twelve minutes.”

  Four

  Reinhardt Daintner sat back comfortably in the black leather seat, sipped his mineral water—Apollinaris, he noticed appreciatively—and stared out of the window as the stretch limousine crossed the George Washington Bridge at West 178th Street, drove down the Henry Hudson Parkway, and turned onto Riverside Drive. The Hudson River sparkled in the morning sunshine, and even the once-grand apartment buildings of Washington Heights seemed to glow anew with promise. The driver pulled up at a stoplight, and Daintner watched a group of Dominican men in their twenties, muscles straining against tight T-shirts despite the autumn cool, smoking and staring enviously at the car before he sped away.

  Daintner knocked on the chauffeur’s window and asked him to take Broadway. It would be slower, but he wanted to see the city. Compared to the sprawl of Berlin, his hometown, Manhattan was tiny. But Daintner still felt a frisson of anticipation as the vehicle sped downtown. For what Manhattan lacked in geographical size it more than made up for in opportunity. Nowhere more than at Daintner’s destination, the thirty-eight-floor skyscraper and neighboring complex at First Avenue between 42nd and 47th Streets.

  The communications director of the KZX Corporation picked up the folder of papers resting on his knees. Despite the nine-hour flight from Geneva, he felt rested and awake. After a dinner of filet mignon, accompanied by a superb claret, he had slept most of the way across the Atlantic in a full-length bed in a private cabin on KZX’s corporate jet, a Bombardier Global Express. Everything had gone smoothly at Teterboro, a small airport across the river in New Jersey favored by corporate travelers. He had been whisked through the VIP channel and straight to the limousine.

  Daintner was tall and rake thin, with a slight stoop at his shoulders. Dressed in his customary handmade gray silk suit, white shirt, and slim, black knitted tie, he wa
s almost feline in his elegance. He was a near-albino, with white-blond hair in a widow’s peak, matching eyebrows, pale lips, and a penetrating gaze. Confronted with unwelcome news or events, he had the unsettling habit of licking his lips with a long tongue, like a lizard contemplating an especially juicy insect. But when the occasion demanded, he made whomever he was talking to feel like the most important person in the world. Daintner flicked through the papers and contemplated his schedule. Three days solid of meetings, meetings, and more meetings, with the one television appearance he had agreed to.

  A lot of reporters wanted to talk to KZX, one of the world’s largest media and communications conglomerates. The German company had recently moved its headquarters from Berlin to Geneva. After the collapse of communism in eastern Europe, KZX had branched out from its core business of pharmaceuticals into media, and its growth in the last twenty years was unprecedented. It now owned almost every newspaper and television station from the Baltic coast to the Balkans and was making rapid inroads in Russia, China, and Brazil. Daintner sat on the company board, where he was charged with overseeing KZX’s image and rebranding, especially after some recent unpleasantness with the Romany people in eastern Europe.

  He watched the Upper West Side glide by. The car stopped at a traffic light at West 72nd Street. Daintner smiled as an elegant, silver-haired matron watched her dog, a tiny terrier, lay a stool on the pavement. She pulled on rubber gloves to wrap the dog mess in newspaper, added them both to another bag, and placed the whole lot in a dedicated garbage can before wiping her hands with antiseptic tissues. Nowadays everyone had a conscience, he thought.

  But conscience was apparently ephemeral. The media had forgotten about KZX’s development of drugs used to sterilize Romany women. A series of all-expenses-paid press trips for reporters from every continent to celebrate the launch of KZX’s publishing company, which would pay unheard-of advances to academics and journalists specializing in aid and development, had shifted the news cycle. The buzz about KZX now was its “corporate citizenship.” In just over a year, under Daintner’s direction, KZX had endowed chairs in business ethics at the London School of Economics and Nairobi and Delhi Universities; launched a global trainee program for underprivileged urban youth at company headquarters in Berlin, London, and New York; and hosted a series of all-expenses-paid seminars on poverty and development at UN headquarters in New York, Geneva, Bangkok, and Nairobi.

  Daintner was proudest of the new UN-KZX Innovation in Development Prize, worth $500,000 for the winner and $100,000 for the five runners-up. Total cost of KZX’s “Department for Corporate Social Responsibility”: 0.34 percent of the company’s annual turnover. Estimated value of good PR: incalculable. And now, his most ambitious project yet was coming to fruition.

  Yael watched Charles Bonnet stride out of the SG’s office. The newly appointed UN Special Representative for Africa’s Great Lakes region was the scion of a powerful family of French industrialists with extensive business interests across the continent. After a short stint in the French Foreign Legion and a decade working at the Bonnet Group’s headquarters in Geneva, he had joined the Department of Peacekeeping Operations as a desk officer during the Rwandan genocide and had risen to assistant secretary-general, in charge of African operations.

  Bonnet was immaculately dressed in a navy pinstriped Savile Row suit, a white shirt, and a French regimental tie, an ensemble tastefully offset by a Patek Philippe watch and plain gold cuff links. At first glance he appeared strikingly handsome, in his early fifties, with dark wavy hair streaked with gray, hazel eyes, a mahogany perma-tan, and a military bearing. But his face and neck were dusted with face powder to cover large pores and the deep scars of childhood acne. The makeup seemed especially thick today, Yael thought. She watched him scratch his neck.

  The Frenchman was, as usual, charm itself. “Yael, what a pleasure to see you,” he gushed, air-kissing her on both cheeks and smiling broadly. His face turned serious, as though suddenly remembering the New York Times stories. He looked down at the floor and shook his head. “It is a disgrace. An absolute disgrace. Shocking and outrageous that your private correspondence with the SG was leaked. We will thoroughly investigate this.”

  Yael smiled, despite herself. Even by Bonnet’s standards this was a bravura performance. At first, when Yael started work at the DPKO, Bonnet had patronized her. When he realized that her star was rising, he became almost sycophantic. He had asked her out to dinner at least six times. Each time she refused he declared he would never take no for an answer, his eyes glinting with annoyance. He dropped frequent, obvious hints that he could help her career. As the SG’s special representative Bonnet was enormously influential, the most senior UN official in his African region, able to both make and implement policy. His appointment had triggered numerous protests from human-rights groups concerned about rumors of child labor in the Bonnet Group’s mineral mines in Congo. The SG himself had reassured the press corps that there was no conflict of interest. Bonnet, he said, had resigned all his positions with the Bonnet Group and sold his shares.

  Before Yael could answer, Dubois stepped closer. “Nine minutes. And counting,” she said, gesturing at her to enter the SG’s office.

  The sight of Najwa al-Sameera slowed Sami’s heart a fraction. The UN correspondent for Al-Jazeera, the most popular independent Arab television channel in the world, was a niece of the King of Morocco. Schooled in Switzerland, educated at Oxford and Yale, she spoke five languages and had recently caused a minor scandal across the Arab world by modeling a line of evening wear for one of New York’s more avant-garde designers.

  Najwa moved aside a pile of papers and sat on the edge of Sami’s desk, her long legs swinging slowly back and forth, encased in a pair of black patent-leather boots. “How is the star of the UN press corps this morning?” she asked, fixing him with her large brown eyes.

  “Fine,” he replied, watching her warily. “Seen this?” he asked, holding the press release about the Office of Outer Space Affairs. “A Saudi physicist is going to run outer space for the UN. That’s a great story for you.”

  “Shukran, thanks, habibi. We also get UN press releases.”

  “So, Najwa, what can I do for you today?” Sami asked brightly.

  “I wanted to congratulate you, Sami. Elf mabrouk, a thousand congratulations!” she replied, smiling broadly, her full lips opening over two rows of perfect white teeth.

  He nodded. “Shukran. Can I help you with anything else?” It was highly unlikely Najwa dropped by just to pass on well wishes to a major competitor. Sami waited expectantly.

  Najwa paused, considering her next move. “Yes, Sami. You can. Your front-page lead today. My editors are very excited about it. The SG’s secret envoy doing deals with genocidal African warlords. And she is an Israeli. How perfect is that?”

  “She is also an American citizen. Her father was born in Iraq. So she’s almost an Arab,” he replied, intentionally keeping his sentences short. Najwa made even the most self-possessed men babble, and her skin-tight blue cashmere sweater did not help his concentration.

  “Clever Sami. I knew you would have all the details. That’s even better. So are you going to share her memo with me?” she asked, smiling sweetly.

  “My editor says I cannot. So, no. Sorry,” he said, not sounding very sorry at all.

  Najwa slid closer across the desk. “Are you sure this is just work between you and Yael, Sami? Perhaps you have some personal feelings that are clouding your judgment. She is very attractive. She certainly charmed the owner of Byblos.”

  Sami found himself blushing. How did Najwa know about that? “No. I don’t. You could ask your editor-in-chief to ask mine. Maybe he would authorize it.”

  Najwa laughed. “Authorize. You are funny. Do you always obey the rules, Sami?” she asked, slowly smoothing her thick, shoulder-length jet-black hair away from her face. “We could help each other. I could find spa
ce for you in our office. We have a huge corner suite. We even have a spare room. You could use it.”

  She looked around Sami’s tiny office with distaste. “The world’s most important newspaper deserves better than this. And we could see each other every day.”

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Najwa. And the Times would never share space with another news organization.”

  Najwa tilted her head to one side. “No? What a shame. Maybe we could have dinner one evening. My fiancé is away for a while. I don’t even know when he is coming back,” she said demurely. She picked up the half-eaten sandwich, held it between two manicured fingers, and shook her head. “Haram, Sami. You shouldn’t be eating bacon.”

  “Why not? I’m a Christian.”

  Najwa looked down, embarrassed. “Of course, I forgot. I apologize.”

  Sami watched a flush spread under her olive skin. It was surprisingly satisfying to be in control of any situation involving Najwa, no matter how briefly. The Boustanis were Christian Palestinians originally from Gaza and had arrived in America twenty years ago. He had repeatedly suggested to Najwa that Al-Jazeera cover the worsening situation of the rapidly shrinking Arab-Christian minorities and their persecution by radical Islamists, especially in Gaza. He had even given her some names of friends and relatives there who were ready to talk about life under Hamas’s rule, but nothing had come of it.

  “There is nothing to apologize for. Speaking of Christians, how’s Al-Jazeera’s investigation into life in Gaza going?” he asked innocently.

  Najwa sat up and stood next to Sami, enveloping him in a cloud of perfume. “We are planning a twenty-five-minute special on how one of the oldest religious communities in the world is being driven from their ancient homeland by a new generation of Islamist fanatics.”

  “Planning is good,” Sami said, toying with his keyboard. “Broadcasting is better.”