The Final Reckoning

CHAPTER THREE

It took time for the Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to convene this meeting. Besides Munchau and his counterpart in Security, the UN's most senior officials, the rest of the elite quintet of USGs – Under-Secretaries-General – had been on their way to the building when the shooting happened. (The UN high command tended to work late, but did not start especially early.) Thanks to the shutdown of First Avenue, none reached UN Plaza much before ten a.m.

Now, at last, they were gathered in the Situation Center. The more cynical folk in the building always cracked a smile at that name. Built in the aftermath of 9/11, this heavily armoured, lavishly equipped and top secret meeting place was clearly modelled on the legendary Situation Room of the White House. But of course the UN could not be seen to be aping the Americans: the United States' many enemies in the UN would not tolerate that. Nor could the Americans be allowed to believe that the UN Secretary-General was getting ideas above his station, imagining himself a match for the President of the United States. So the UN would have no Sit Room, but a Sit Center, which made all the difference.

At its heart was a solid, polished table, each place around it equipped discreetly with the sockets and switches that made all forms of communication, including simultaneous translation, possible. Facing the table was a wall fitted with state-of-the-art video conferencing facilities: half a dozen wide plasma screens that could be hooked up rapidly by satellite, across secure links, to UN missions around the globe. The Secretary-General was never on the road for less than a third of the year, but the existence of the Sit Center meant that he did not always have to leave New York if he wanted face-to-face talks with his own people. Above all, it was there for when disaster struck.

There had been no need for video links this time: the danger was right here in New York. The Chef de Cabinet, Finnish like his boss, began by explaining that the building remained in partial lockdown, with authorized access and egress only. No one would be let in or out without the express permission of the Legal Counsel. That had been agreed with the New York Police Department who wished to interview every witness, even if that meant interviewing the entire UN workforce.

The Chef de Cabinet went on to confirm that the Secretary-General himself had not been inside UN Plaza at the time. He had been at a breakfast at the Four Seasons held in his honour and was now heading over through horrendous traffic. He had told his audience that he had made a deliberate decision to continue with his planned engagement, that to do otherwise would be ‘to hand a victory to those who seek to disrupt our way of life’. Apparently that had elicited an ovation, but it made Henning Munchau wince. Not only because it felt like a crude pander to New Yorkers, echoing their own post-9/11 rhetoric of defiance, and not only because he reckoned it would have been smarter politics for the new Secretary-General to have stood with his own people as they appeared to come under attack, but largely because the SG had now opened up a gap between public perception of the morning's incident – a terrorist outrage, bravely thwarted – and what Henning knew to be the reality.

The Chef de Cabinet explained that technicians were trying to connect the SG via speakerphone.

‘In the meantime, I suggest we establish what we know and work out some options that we can present to the Secretary-General. Can I start with you, Henri?’

The Under-Secretary responsible for the security of UN personnel across the globe glanced down at the note he had hastily written when being briefed by the Watch Commander, translating from his own handwritten French.

‘We understand that a man was shot at 8.51 a.m. today by a member of the UN's Security and Safety Force in front of the main visitors' entrance between 45th and 46th Streets. He had been monitored by a team from the NYPD Intelligence Division who had been in liaison with ourselves and they had cause to believe he posed an imminent danger to the United Nations. That information was passed to the Watch Commander and he passed it onto the guards on duty, including the officer who fired his weapon, believing the man to be a suicide bomber.’

‘And the man is dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what else do we know? Is the building in any danger?’

‘The lockdown procedure was followed perfectly. The building is now secure. We have no reason to believe this was the start of a series of attacks.’

‘And why is that?’

Henri Barr hesitated. He looked over at Henning, who gave a small nod. ‘Because we strongly suspect that the man killed does not match the profile put together by the NYPD.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’ It was the USG for humanitarian affairs, a white South African ex-communist who had made his name in the anti-apartheid movement. His bullshit detector was famously robust.

‘It means that the man who was shot was old.’

‘Old?’

‘Yes, he was a very old man.’ Barr lost oxygen at the end of the sentence and gulped. ‘But his clothes fitted the description and they seemed to be the clothes of a suicide bomber.’

‘Oh come on. He was dressed like a suicide bomber and that's why we killed him?’

The Chef de Cabinet stepped in. This was no time for grandstanding or arguments, though he could feel the adrenalin rising in the room. ‘When you say “old”, Henri, what do you mean?’

‘We estimate maybe seventy, perhaps more.’

‘Did he even look Muslim?’ It was the question that several of them had wanted to ask but had not dared. But Anjhut Banerjee, the Indian Under-Secretary for Peacekeeping, had none of their inhibitions.

‘No,’ said Barr, looking down at his notes. ‘It seems not.’

‘Good God,’ Banerjee said, falling back into her chair. ‘You do know what this means, don't you?’ she said, looking directly at the Chef de Cabinet. ‘I was in London when the police shot some Brazilian electrician on a train because they thought he looked like a suicide bomber. Completely innocent man.’ She exhaled sharply, shorthand for ‘You have no idea the shit that is coming our way’.

‘What is our vulnerability, Henning?’ The Chef de Cabinet looking towards the lawyer.

‘You mean our liability?’

‘Yes.’

‘We can look into that, but I don't think we should get too hung up on compensation claims and the like. That's not the nature of the problem.’ He paused, forcing the man at the head of the table to press him.

‘What is the nature of the problem, then?’ ‘Same as with most legal problems in this place. It's not legal. It's political.’

‘So what do you suggest we do about it?’

‘I think I know exactly what needs to be done. And, better still, I know just the man to do it.’