State of Siege - Tom Clancy [53]
United States would ever become involved militarily in an action at the United Nations compound.
But if it were true, at least she would be here to watch it unfold. Maybe she could have a hand in organizing the attack plan. Under ordinary circumstances, it was energizing to be at the center of what the CIA euphemistically called "an event," especially when there was a "counterevent" in the offing. But these were not ordinary circumstances.
Ani looked at the computer monitor. There was a detailed blueprint of the United Nations along with icons representing the presence of all the bugs. She watched the progress of the bug following Chatterjee. It would catch up to her in less than a minute. She slipped the headphones back on. These were not ordinary circumstances because there was a group of people inside the United Nations-a group depending on her to monitor everything the secretary-general said and planned. A group that had nothing to do with the CIA. The group was led by a man she had met while she was looking for new recruits in Cambodia. A man who had been a CIA operative in Bulgaria and who, like her, had become disenchanted with the way the Company treated him. A man who had spent several years making international contacts of his own, though not to help him gather intelligence. A man who didn't care about a person's sex or nationality, only about his or her ability. That was why Ani had come to the office at seven o'clock. She had not come after the attack began, as she'd told Battat. She'd come here because she wanted to be in place before the attack. She would make sure that if Georgiev contacted her on his secure phone, she would be able to give him any intel he needed. She was also monitoring the account in Zurich. As soon as the money was there, she'd disburse it to a dozen other accounts internationally, then erase the trail. Investigators would never find it. Georgiev's success would be her success. And her success would be her parents' success. With her share of the two hundred and fifty million dollars, her parents would finally be able to realize the American Dream.
The irony was, Battat had actually been wrong on two counts. Ani Hampton was not a girl. But even if she were, she would not be what he had called her: a "good girl."
She was an exceptional one.
New York, New York Saturday, 10:29 p.m.
Mala Chatterjee stood just over five feet, two inches. She barely reached the chin of the silver-haired officer who walked slightly behind her. But the secretary-general's size was not a true measure of her stature. Her dark eyes were large and luminous, and her skin was swarthy and smooth. Her fine black hair was naturally streaked with white and reached to the middle of the shoulder of her sharply tailored black business suit. The only jewelry she wore was a watch and a pair of small pearl earrings.
There had been some very vocal dissidents back home when she was named to this post and opted not to wear a traditional sari. Even her father was upset. But as Chatterjee had just said in an interview with Newsweek, she was here as a representative of all people and of all faiths, not just her native land and her fellow Hindus. Fortunately, the disarmament pact with Pakistan put the sari issue to rest. It also allayed the very vocal complaints some member nations had had, that the world body had opted to appoint . a mediagenic secretary-general rather than an internationally renowned diplomat.
Chatterjee hadn't doubted her ability to handle this job. She had tiever encountered any problem that couldn't be resolved by making the first conciliatory move. So many conflicts were caused by the need to save face; remove that element, and the disputes often solved themselves.
Mala Chatterjee held tight to that belief as she and Colonel