The Geneva Option by Adam LeBor Page A

at the London School of Economics and worked as an investment banker before moving to Frankfurt and New York. His appointment as finance director of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had surprised many. The fact that he had no experience with the UN or indeed any humanitarian, development, or public-policy organization caused considerable resentment. But one by one his opponents had retired or been put out to pasture, and Hussein had climbed steadily up the ladder, moving from finance to policymaking and an assistant-secretary-general position in the Department of Political Affairs. Even by UN standards he was notorious for being an arch-conciliator, whose main concern was keeping the P5 ambassadors happy. So as Yugoslavia collapsed into war, and Rwanda slid toward genocide in the early 1990s, the P5 judged Hussein to be the perfect candidate for chief of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, even though he had no military or peacekeeping expertise, and they ensured he got the post.
    â€œYael, what a pleasure to see you,” Hussein said, his voice brittle and terse. “Terribly sorry to keep you waiting so long. I’m rather overloaded at the moment. And you must be so very tired after your long journey. When did you get home?”
    She sat for a few seconds, trying to disentangle the emotions she could feel coming off Hussein in waves. A febrile indignation, even anger, but it somehow felt manufactured. There was no passion. And an undercurrent of something else, uncertainty, even foreboding.
    Yael said, “Fifty-five minutes ago. As you know. Your office called me. They said you urgently needed to see me.”
    Hussein nodded, steepling his hands as he spoke. “Indeed I do. I received your memo.”
    â€œGood. Because we really need to talk about Hakizimani.”
    Hussein looked down at his desk and slid the newspaper toward her. “We do. It seems the New York Times also received your memo.”
    Yael slid the newspaper back across Hussein’s desk. “I had nothing to do with the story in the New York Times . And you know that,” she said, keeping steady eye contact.
    The SG briefly held her gaze, flushed, and looked down. He picked up the newspaper, and held it in his hand. “I find that rather hard to believe. Allow me to read you an extract from the article: ‘General Jean-Pierre Hakizimani is one of the world’s most wanted men, a mass murderer of the first order, who has been indicted by the UN’s own tribunal for Rwanda. Yet we have cut a deal with this killer and are allowing him to escape justice for tawdry reasons of realpolitik and commercial interests.’ That is an accurate quote from your memo to me?”
    Yael nodded at Hussein’s question. “Yes, that is an accurate quote from my memo to you, but so what? That doesn’t mean I sent it,” she said, momentarily distracted by a large new photograph on the wall of Hussein and the willowy blond actress Lucy Tremlett surrounded by smiling, barefoot children in a refugee camp in Darfur. Tremlett’s recent Oscar win made her a hot property in Hollywood, and her law degree from Cambridge added a little gravitas to her celebrity. Hussein had just appointed her ambassador-at-large for UNICEF.
    Yael continued: “The question is how did the New York Times get the memo? It was encrypted and sent to you personally. Nobody else could have seen it. Nobody else could even open it.”
    She leaned back in her chair. “Maybe you leaked it yourself.”
    Hussein shook his head and spoke softly, his voice full of regret. “Yael, I can only say how disappointed I am that it has come to this, that after all our years together, you seek to resolve your differences with us, not in person but through the news media. ”
    Your differences with us . The words echoed in her brain. Any hope that she could salvage the situation died. Her UN career was now over, she