Sam Bourne: The Final Reckoning

‘Looks like you've already responded in quite a big way, Commissioner.’ Though German, Munchau spoke his eerily fluent English with a hint of Australian, both accent and idiom, the legacy, so UN legend had it, of his service in the UN mission in East Timor.

Riley shrugged. ‘We cannot enter the compound without your consent. And I'm assuming you don't have the resources to handle a terrorist incident.’

Henning tried to hide his relief. It meant the NYPD had not yet heard about the dead man. That would give him time.

‘You're quite right,’ Munchau said, struck by the strangeness of speaking through metal railings in the rain, like an outdoor prison visit. He envied the Commissioner his umbrella. ‘But I think we need to agree some terms.’

The policeman smiled wanly. ‘Go ahead.’

‘The NYPD come in but only at the request and at the discretion of the United Nations.’

‘No discretion. Once you let us in, it's our investigation. All or nothing.’

‘Fine, but none of this.’ He gestured towards the SWAT teams, their guns cocked. ‘This is not the UN way. This is not Kabul.’ Munchau saw Riley bristle, so he went further. ‘This is not Baghdad.’

‘OK, minimal show of force.’

‘I'm talking one or two armed men only, to accompany your detectives.’

‘Done.’

‘And your investigation to be shadowed at all times by a representative of the UN.’

‘A representative?’

‘A lawyer. From my team.’

‘A lawyer? For Christ's-’

‘Those are the conditions.’

Munchau saw the Commissioner weigh it up, knowing he could hardly refuse. A suspected terror attack in New York, the NYPD had to be involved. ‘The Commish’ couldn't go on television saying that the department was sitting this one out, whatever the explanation. Munchau knew that: Riley would want to be on the air within the hour, reassuring New Yorkers that he had it all under control.

Now a black limo pulled up, with a whole new battalion of lights and sirens. Behind it were two satellite TV trucks, clearly given special permission to come through. The Mayor had arrived.

‘OK,’ the Commissioner said, glancing over his shoulder. ‘I accept.’

Munchau offered his hand through the railings and the policeman took it hurriedly. Munchau nodded to the UN guard on the gate, who fumbled with the lock until it opened.

Watching the TV reporter heading his way, Munchau made a point of raising his voice to declare, ‘Mr Commissioner, welcome to the United Nations.’

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.’