Retribution by Adrian Magson

next man on his list.
    Arne Broms. Another soldier.

NINE
    H igh in the United Nations headquarters building overlooking First Avenue in New York, UN Special Envoy Anton Kleeman rocked back on his heels and bit down on a growing feeling of irritation. He was facing a group of select, influential media reporters and beginning to wish he had listened to his advisors. The briefing had been his idea, timed to set the pace for a series of meetings with key people in the permanent member states of the UN Security Council. He had been biding his time for long enough; in this world, if you didn’t embrace opportunity when it presented itself, you were fated to be just another name on a wall, soon ignored amid the masses. And if there was something Kleeman found distasteful, it was the idea of being ignored.
    It was part of his plan to elevate his own position within the organization at a time when other envoys and special delegates were busy catching the eye of news channels and scoring points in the media and PR battle. His plan had been to brief on reports coming out of Africa about alleged atrocities by UN troops against women, and the older reports about brutalities in Kosovo which were currently making the news and growing day by day. Now he was beginning to wonder if this had been such a good idea. Kosovo’s grim past was still too vivid for many, especially with war crimes tribunals involving Serb and other warlords running their course. With any new allegations threatening to send the UN itself into a scandal-ridden spin, the occasion could have been better timed. And he’d forgotten how much of a squalid rabble these media wretches could be. Yet instinct told him there was no other way to hit the headlines.
    â€˜Is it true, Mr Kleeman,’ opened a man from the
Washington Post
, ‘that not all the Kosovar refugees who have returned to their homeland are satisfied with the peacekeeping force out there – with KFOR? Isn’t this causing the UN some PR problems?’
    Kleeman smiled to disguise his dismay, surprised that it had gone this way so soon. He’d expected to get a few of his own shots in first before things got to this stage. ‘I think you’ll find it’s called UNMIK now – the UN Mission in Kosovo,’ he said dismissively. ‘As you know, under UN mandate twelve forty-four, NATO-led forces entered Kosovo in June 1999 and—’
    â€˜But isn’t that the problem?’ the man interrupted Kleeman’s flow. ‘In the minds of the refugees in the region, the two are indivisibly linked. The personnel come from the same countries in most cases.’
    â€˜Well, that’s a difficult quest—’
    â€˜What about the stories we’re hearing?’ A shrill voice cut across his words, and he felt his blood pressure rising. The voice belonged to Dorrie Henson from
The Times
, a regular pain in the ass of the UN and a confirmed radical. ‘Stories about alleged brutalities by UN-attached military personnel in Kosovo, going back several years?’
    Kleeman felt a sudden tightness around his eyes as a buzz rose around the room, and glared at the woman. He had not been prepared for this. Henson smiled triumphantly back at him as her words unleashed a volley of questions on the subject, and he wondered if it were possible to get the damned woman banned from the building altogether. See how her editor liked those cookies. With luck she’d be out of a job within days and permanently out of his hair.
    He held up an imperious hand and was about to speak when Karen Walters, a long-time aide, standing in his line of vision at the back of the room, shot him a warning look. It said quite clearly,
don’t go there!
    He pretended not to have seen her and held up a hand. He’d suddenly seen a way out of this dilemma; a way that would enhance his own reputation and standing and lay the matter to rest – at least, for now. It came from his