The Geneva Option Read Free Page A

kicked in as she scoped the room. The door was several yards away and Hakizimani’s men were standing guard outside. His rage was surging and the window was too high to escape from.
    Hakizimani had insisted that Yael’s bodyguard, Joe-Don Pabst, a US Special Forces veteran, remained in the hotel reception area. Pabst agreed, on the condition that he could check the room for hidden weapons and frisk Hakizimani. Both were clean and Yael knew how to defend herself. But if the situation turned really nasty, even with Pabst on her side, there were just two of them against several SUV-loads of Hakizimani’s heavily armed militiamen. There was an escape protocol, of course, but even if Pabst radioed for help the UN helicopter would take several minutes to get there.
    Hakizimani stood up, his face twisted in anger. He lifted his hand and swept the ashtray off the table, together with the spilled whisky, ash, and cigarette ends. Yael flinched as the ashtray slammed into the wall and shattered, sending charred scraps of paper all over the floor. She visualized her possible moves as she eyed the ceramic fragments. They were thick and jagged and in easy reach. And she still had the pencil.
    Hakizimani sat back again and picked up his drink. “So put your UN on trial. Not me.”
    Yael felt his rage begin to dissipate. This was theater, all part of his negotiation.
    He gulped his drink, almost emptying the glass. “Explain to me what is so special about those UN workers? Hundreds of thousands of Africans are slaughtered here and the world does nothing. Renee Freshwater sent some memos. But when six Europeans get caught up in something they can never understand, then, then , we must have justice.” His voice was heavy with sarcasm.
    â€œNine. Not six. Nine,” she said, calmly. She leaned down and picked up a shard of the broken ashtray.
    He laughed out loud. “Nine people. Blood flows here like a river and now the UN wants justice for nine people. Who is going to arrest me? You? The Congolese police? You think they don’t know I am here?”
    According to his indictment from the UN’s Rwanda tribunal, Hakizimani had organized competitions among his militiamen to see who could kill the most Tutsi prisoners with their machetes, while he and his commanders drank beer and placed bets on the outcome. Or they made their prisoners kill each other for sport. Fathers were forced to fight their own sons, brothers made to murder one another.
    But the Hutu kingdom of death was short-lived. By the summer of 1994 the Tutsis had invaded from Uganda and recaptured the country. The Hutu Genocidaires fled over the border to Congo’s refugee camps and jungles. Fed, housed, and protected by the UN and other aid agencies—who studiously ignored Rwanda’s protests—the Genocidaires regrouped, re-armed, and formed the Rwandan Liberation Front and carried on hunting and killing Tutsis.
    The fighting had continued ever since, as each side launched raids and reprisals back and forth across the border. The slaughter had reached new heights that month. More than two hundred Tutsis had been found dead, many floating in Lake Kivu, hacked to death. Then the word had come down from the superpowers on the UN Security Council to Fareed Hussein, the UN secretary-general: make this stop. Which was why Yael was sitting here negotiating with one of the world’s worst mass murderers.
    Hakizimani stood up and beckoned her to the window. She rose and walked over to him. He moved closer to her. Yael smelled the sharp tang of his sweat, the whisky, and cigarettes. Eau de Warlord, she thought, the same the world over.
    Hakizimani gestured at the view. “Look. Even the UN cannot change geography.”
    The room looked out over Lake Kivu. The water shone azure under the morning sun, its surface ruffled by the autumn breeze. Two Scandinavian aid workers in bikinis sunbathed on the beach, looking up as a Jet Ski