“The Economic and Social Council, as the name implies, serves as a forum for the discussion of international economic and social issues,” the young woman went on. “The council also promotes human rights and basic freedoms. The Trusteeship Council, which suspended operations in 1994, helped territories around the world attain self-government or independence, either as sovereign states or as part of other nations.”
For just a moment, Hood thought it would be fascinating to run this place. Keeping the peace inside, among the delegates, had to be as challenging as keeping the peace outside. As though sensing his thoughts, Sharon slipped her fingers between his and squeezed tightly. He let the idea go.
The group passed a large, ground-floor window that looked out onto the main plaza. Outside was the Shinto-style shrine that housed the Japanese Peace Bell. It was cast from coins and metal donated by people from sixty nations. Just past the window, the lobby fed into a wide corridor. Straight ahead were elevators used by UN delegates and their staff. To the right was a series of display cases. The guide led them over. The cases contained relics of the atom bomb blast that razed Hiroshima: fused cans, charred school clothes and roof tiles, melted bottles, and a pocked stone statue of Saint Agnes. The Japanese guide described the destructive force and intensity of the blast.
The exhibit wasn’t moving Hood or Barbara’s father Hal Mathis, whose father had died on Okinawa. Hood wished that Bob Herbert and Mike Rodgers were here. Rodgers would have asked the guide to show them the Pearl Harbor exhibit next. The one about the attack that happened when the two nations weren’t at war. At twenty-two or twenty-three years old, Hood wondered if the young woman would have understood the context of the question. Herbert would have raised a stink even before they got this far. The intelligence chief had lost his wife and the use of his legs in the terrorist bombing of the United States embassy in Beirut in 1983. He had gotten on with his life, but he did not forgive easily. In this case, Hood wouldn’t have blamed him. One of the UN publications Hood had browsed through at the gift shop described Pearl Harbor as “the Hirohito attack,” tacitly absolving the Japanese people of guilt in the crime. Even the more politically correct Hood found the revisionist history disturbing.
After finishing at the Hiroshima exhibit, the group went up two flights of escalators to the upstairs lobby. To their left were the three auditoriums with the Security Council chambers located on the far end. The parents were led to the old press bull pen across the hall. There was a guard outside, a member of the United Nations Security Forces. The African-American man was dressed in a powder blue short-sleeve shirt, blue gray trousers with a black stripe down each leg, and a navy blue cap. His name tag read Dillon. When they arrived, Mr. Dillon unlocked the bull pen door and let them in.
Today, reporters generally work in the high-tech television press rooms situated in long, glass booths on either side of the Security Council auditorium. These booths are accessible by a common corridor between the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council. But in the 1940s, this spacious, windowless L-shaped room was the heart of the United Nations’s media center. The first part of the room was lined with old desks, telephones, a few banged-up computer terminals, and hand-me-down fax machines. In the larger second half of the room — the base of the L — were vinyl couches, a rest room, a supply closet, and four TV monitors mounted on the wall. Ordinarily, the monitors displayed whatever discussion was going on in the Security Council or Economic and Social Council. By putting on head-sets and switching channels, observers could listen in whatever language they wished. Tonight they’d be watching Ms. Chatterjee’s speech followed by the recital. A pair of card tables at the end of the room held sandwiches and a coffeemaker. There were soft drinks in a small refrigerator.
After thanking the parents for their cooperation, Kako very politely reminded them what they’d been told by letter and by the United Nations representative who had met them at the hotel the night before. For security reasons, they must remain in this room for the duration of the event. She said she would be returning with their children at eight-thirty. Hood wondered if the guard had been posted to keep tourists out of the press room or to keep them in.
Hood and Sharon walked over to the sandwich table.
One of the men pointed to the plastic plates and utensils. “See what happens when the U.S. doesn’t pay its dues?” he cracked.
The veteran Washington police officer was referring to the nation’s billion-dollar debt, a result of the Senate’s unhappiness with what it characterized as chronic waste, fraud, and financial abuses at the United Nations. Key among these charges was that money allocated for UN peacekeeping forces was being used to bolster the military resources of participating nations.
Hood smiled politely. He didn’t want to think about big budgets and big government and greenback diplomacy. He and his wife had had a good day today. After their tense first night in New York, Sharon tried to relax. She savored the pleasant fall sunshine at Liberty Island and didn’t let the crowds get to her. She enjoyed Alexander’s excitement at learning all the technical facts about the statue and at being left alone with his video games and less-than-nutritious takeout from a salad bar on Seventh Avenue. Hood wasn’t going to let imprisonment or America-bashing or cheap utensils ruin that.
Harleigh may have been the catalyst for all these good feelings, but neither their daughter nor Alexander was the glue.
There’s something here, Hood told himself as they filled their plates and then sat on one of the old vinyl couches to await their daughter’s New York City debut. He wanted to hold onto that feeling in the same way that he had held Sharon’s hand.
Tightly.
SEVEN
Traffic in Times Square is extremely dense after seven P.M. on Saturday night as theatergoers arrive from out of town. Limousines clog the side streets, garages have cars lined up waiting to get in, and cabs and buses inch through the center of the theater district.
Georgiev had allowed for the delay when he planned this part of the operation. When he finally turned east on Forty-second Street and rolled toward Bryant Park, he was relaxed and confident. So were the other members of the team. But then, if he hadn’t served with them, seen that they were cool under pressure, he never would have recruited them for this mission.
Apart from Reynold Downer, the forty-eight-year-old former colonel of the Bulgarian People’s Army was the only truly mercenary man on the team. Barone wanted money to help his people back home. Sazanka and Vandal had issues of honor dating back to World War II. Issues that money would clear away. Georgiev had a different problem. He’d spent nearly ten years as part of the CIA-financed underground in Bulgaria. He’d fought the Communists for so long that he couldn’t adapt to an era that had no enemy. He had no trade apart from soldiering, the army was not paying its people with regularity, and he was much poorer now than he’d been taking American dollars and living under the shadow of the Soviet empire. He wanted to open a new business: financing petroleum and natural gas exploitation. He would do that with his share of the take from today’s mission.
Because of Georgiev’s familiarity with CIA tactics and his fluency in American English, the others had no trouble with him leading this half of the operation. Besides, as he’d proven when he organized the prostitution ring in Cambodia, he was a natural leader.