A grave in Gaza oy-2

by Matt Beynon Rees

  “He must have fit right in,” Omar Yussef said. He stared at Khamis Zeydan. The police chief met the stare, rolling the Scotch around in his glass.

  Cree poured another long glass of whisky. “Before the gunmen stopped our car, Magnus said to me, ‘Oh, look, it’s Abu Ramiz.’ There you were, hurrying toward us with your arms waving.” He drank slowly. “It was as though you knew what was about to happen.”

  “The gunmen stopped me a few minutes before on the street,” Omar Yussef said. “They said they were on a mission. When I saw your car heading toward them, I thought you might be in danger. I was trying to warn you.”

  Cree swilled the whisky around in his cheek and was silent, but he kept his gaze on Omar Yussef.

  “So you don’t trust me, now?” Omar Yussef raised his voice. “You think I tipped the gunmen off, pointed out your car, made sure they didn’t grab the wrong UN people? Of course, and then they bashed me on the head to make it look like it wasn’t a set-up.”

  Cree swallowed. “I suppose not.” His voice was low and dark.

  Omar Yussef cursed and slammed a hand down on the nightstand. The motion bounced him slightly on the bed and his glass of water spilled on the crotch of his pants.

  Cree seemed to take pity on him. He put a convivial hand on Khamis Zeydan’s back, pointed at Omar Yussef and lightened his tone. “My Arabic’s not so great, but I made out some of what Abu Ramiz said to the gunmen during the hold up. ‘I’m much more important to the UN than they are. I’m important to the whole UN operation in Palestine,’ he said. Look, here he is, the UN’s big fish, with his trousers underwater.” Cree and Zeydan laughed. Sami squeezed Omar Yussef’s knee, reassuringly.

  Khamis Zeydan clinked glasses with Cree to celebrate the joke. “You used to have a nice quiet life, Abu Ramiz,” he said. “These days you seem to attract trouble. Last year with the gunmen in Bethlehem, and now here with the Saladin Brigades and only Allah knows who else. What happened?”

  “I’m the same as I ever was,” Omar Yussef said. “There’s just more trouble to go around.”

  Chapter 12

  Khamis Zeydan woke Omar Yussef every two hours, in case he had a concussion. Each time he awoke, Omar Yussef stared in confusion and wondered why James Cree was drinking and humming a tune at the foot of his bed. At eight, the Brigadier roused him as Sami entered the room.

  “General Husseini will see us at nine-thirty,” Sami said. “He wants you to have breakfast with him at his home.”

  Omar Yussef breathed slowly. I recall who General Husseini is, but why does he want to have breakfast with me? It took him some seconds to remember. He rubbed his head. Clearly it had been a stronger blow than he had realized. He glanced at Khamis Zeydan. He saw from the tension in his friend’s tired eyes that his confusion had been noticed.

  “You need to have all your wits about you to handle a snake like Husseini,” Khamis Zeydan said. “You’re in no condition to go up against him.”

  “I’ll play the strong silent type and leave the talking to James,” Omar Yussef said. “He seems fine.”

  Cree was whistling “ Flowers of the Forest ”. He raised his glass. The whisky was down near the bottom of the label on the bottle. “I’m on top of my game, lads. Fresh as a daisy. You leave it to me.”

  Khamis Zeydan whispered to Omar Yussef. “That one phoned the UN people to alert them about Magnus while you were sleeping. He slurred his speech. He’s in no better shape than you.”

  “By Allah, I’m not afraid,” Omar Yussef said. He reached out, caught Khamis Zeydan’s elbow and pulled him close. “I just feel as though Gaza is too complicated for me to understand where I’m treading.”

  “I warned you.”

  Omar Yussef rubbed his eyes and growled. “Military Intelligence, Preventive Security, the Saladin Brigades of Gaza City and their rivals in the Saladin Brigades of Rafah. It’s as though I have to find room in my head for every square kilometer of Gaza and space for every soldier in all these different groups, to keep track of them.”

  “Do you want me to draw you a diagram?”

  “Magnus’s life depends on these people and I don’t know which of them to trust.” Omar Yussef could hear the desperation in his voice. Am I breaking down? he wondered. I mustn’t. Magnus needs me.

  “Let me make it simple for you.” Khamis Zeydan took both of Omar Yussef’s hands and looked hard at him. “Forget all of these groups. Trust none of them. Think only of the man who sits in front of you at any given time. Forget his name and his organization. Just remember that at that moment he’s first in line to eat you alive.”

  “It’s a long queue.”

  “Gaza is full of nasty gourmands.”

  Sami brought newspapers from the lobby. None of them mentioned Wallender’s kidnapping, but Husseini would know their reason for coming. Omar Yussef wondered why the general’s guards had disappeared in the moments before the ambush. What did Husseini know about the kidnapping?

  Omar Yussef pushed his legs off the side of the bed. He removed his bandage in front of the bathroom mirror. A lump rose from the end of his jaw to the tip of his eyebrow, black and red and purple. His upper neck was emerald green. He ruffled the white hair above his ear; the skin beneath was the color of pine needles. The wiry gray tufts inside his ear were sticky with drying blood. He stared at his pupils. One seemed bigger than the other-he thought that was a sign of concussion. Well, he was having enough difficulty thinking straight; what more proof did he need that he was concussed? He got into the shower and let the briny water run over his stiff back.

  At nine-thirty, Omar Yussef put on a clean, short-sleeved shirt and transferred the notepaper on which he’d written Nadia’s web address to the breast pocket, along with the Saladin Brigades leaflet and the black Mont Blanc fountain pen he usually kept in his jacket. He walked unsteadily down the hotel stairs with Cree and Sami. From behind her computer at the reception desk, Meisoun smiled flirtatiously at Sami, gave Omar Yussef a sympathetic look, and wished him health. He thought of asking her to call up Nadia’s website, but there was no time for that now. It worried him that he could consider such a trifle when Wallender’s life might be at stake. He touched the bruise on his head and wondered if it truly had affected his judgment. He thanked Meisoun for her good wishes.

  The moment he stepped into the dust cloud, thicker yet than it had been the day before, he knew this would not be the day of health the receptionist had wished for him. Sami crossed the beach road and clapped a big handshake on the officer in the guard hut outside General Husseini’s house. The other guards, their mouths wrapped with checkered keffiyehs against the dusty air, regarded Omar Yussef and Cree with narrow, suspicious eyes. Sami gestured for them to follow him.

  The officer led them into the building, still holding Sami’s hand.

  Husseini’s home was laid out like an apartment block. The lower floors were home to the General’s sons and their families. He kept his wife on the sixth floor and saw her as often as anyone would who had been married thirty years and had to climb six flights of stairs to get there. The third floor was where he entertained.

  When Omar Yussef caught up to the others at the door of Husseini’s reception room, Cree was staring out of the window, swaying, blowing air through pursed lips like an athlete building concentration before a race. The officer’s hand was poised to knock on the door. He smiled at Omar Yussef, who nodded for him to proceed. The schoolteacher inhaled as much air as he could, but the dust in the staircase was almost as thick as it had been outside. A guard opened the shiny rosewood door.

  “Enter, and may Allah grant you a safe entry into Paradise,” the tall officer said, before returning to his post downstairs.

  General Husseini’s reception room was the width of the building and occupied almost its whole length. It wasn’t the kind of place you could pick up on a police officer’s salary; this was the fruit of years of corruption. Four sets of lounge furniture each sectioned off a different area of the room i
n a neat square, so that a large party could divide into smaller conversational groups. The sofas and armchairs in each set were in different pastels, with gaudy whirling patterns like a cheap sweater. The far wall sparkled with crystal glasses and decanters in a glass cabinet. A long dinner table and a dozen bentwood chairs stood along the far side of the room. Above the table, there was a chandelier that looked like it had been made in the same workshop as the louche number in Professor Maki’s dining room. Omar Yussef noticed with an apprehensive stirring in his stomach that the table was, indeed, set for breakfast.

  The guard brought them to the table and resumed his place at the door. A youth in olive fatigues asked if they wanted coffee or tea. He was bony and, high on his cheeks, there was the kind of purple acne that works deep beneath the skin. His uniform was unmarked by any insignia of rank, even the lowest. He retreated with their order through a door that led to a short passage.

  Three men appeared in the passage. Omar Yussef could see only their silhouettes, but he guessed that the short one in the middle was General Husseini. He spoke into a cellular phone and walked with the slow, absent paces of a man who’d forgotten that he could talk just as well sitting down. Husseini reached the big room. The two men with him took up their posts on either side of the door. They were tall, but only one of them, a shaven-headed, heavy man who breathed through his mouth, watched the new arrivals like a bodyguard. The other folded his delicate hands over a clipboard and rested his chin on his chest. He was evidently Husseini’s aide de camp.

  Husseini waved to acknowledge that he would soon finish on the phone. He was doing more listening than talking and he stared intently into the dust storm, as though whatever the man on the other end of the line was telling him about might emerge from the cloud in front of the window. He was shorter than Omar Yussef, who was himself not quite five feet seven. He wore an olive battle shirt, which must have been specially tailored to accommodate his rotund belly, and pants that were tucked into tall, maroon parachutist’s boots. His fingers were stubby, thick and hairy and his skin was the color of a baked potato. He turned from the window, flipped the cellphone shut, stroked his trim gray mustache thoughtfully, then opened his arms wide in greeting. He had a broad, avaricious smile and eyes like pebbles in the rain.

  General Husseini kissed Sami five times, puckering his thick lips and closing his eyes with pleasure. In between each kiss, he uttered a greeting. Sami introduced Cree and Omar Yussef. Husseini shook Cree’s hand and pulled it low, so the Scotsman knew to bend for the kisses. When the kisses were over, Husseini kept Cree’s hand low. He chuckled and, with his free hand, brushed some dried blood from Cree’s ginger mustache. The Scot looked deeply embarrassed. Omar Yussef was glad he’d taken the opportunity to shower, instead of drinking through the night.

  “Don’t worry, I heard about your troubles from the brother Sami,” Husseini said. His reedy voice was quiet, cloying and cajoling, as though he were calming a nervous animal.

  Omar Yussef wondered how close the brother Sami was to this man. He thought of the Husseini Manicure as the general took his hand and delivered three kisses. Husseini’s lips left a wet dab on Omar Yussef’s right cheek. The general caressed his guest’s bruised temple, gently, moaning with his tenor of reassuring sweet-talk. He led Omar Yussef by the hand to the table and pulled out a chair for him. The coffee boy brought the drinks and Husseini nodded to him curtly, signaling it was time for the food.

  “The brother Sami tells me you’re a respected man in Bethlehem, Abu Ramiz.” Husseini smiled.

  Omar Yussef nodded, modestly.

  “Do you know my local commander there?” the general asked.

  “Major Qawasmeh?”

  “He’s a colonel. But, yes, Qawasmeh is his name.”

  “I haven’t met him.” Omar Yussef knew this was a warning, a reminder that Husseini’s power reached beyond Gaza to Bethlehem and that Omar Yussef’s family could be threatened there.

  “He’s a good man. A strong man.” Husseini sat forward in his chair and bounced a little in excitement. “I like strong men. They don’t drop any of the things I ask them to lift. Unless I tell them to do so.” The general laughed. The low wheedling voice surrendered to a high-pitched squawk, like a parrot disturbed from its perch. “And so long as they aren’t strong enough to lift me.” He slapped his fat stomach and reached out a hand for Sami to give him five.

  The coffee boy brought a platter big enough to hold a small child. It was loaded with hummus and ground lamb. With a rolling sensation in his stomach, Omar Yussef realized that the hummus and meat was mixed with tiny gobs of lamb fat that were almost invisible in the chickpea paste. Cree held his hand to his mouth; Omar Yussef could tell that the Scot had been treated to this particular dish at some previous breakfast and was now regretting the whisky.

  General Husseini stood next to the coffee boy and scooped copious portions of the meaty hummus onto his guests’ plates with a wide, flat spoon. As Omar Yussef ate, he fought to maintain an expression of pleasure on his face.

  “Mister Cree, I apologize on behalf of all Gazans for the scandalous assault against you and your colleagues,” Husseini said.

  Cree’s mouth was full of hummus. It looked like it might take some time for him to swallow, so he just nodded gravely.

  “We also have seen the outrageous accusations of the Saladin Brigades against my Military Intelligence in this leaflet they released after the kidnapping.” Husseini scowled and waved his hands dismissively. “I want to assure you, we shall not rest until we have freed your friend, our friend-”

  “Magnus Wallender,” Sami whispered.

  “Our friend Wallender.”

  Omar Yussef swallowed a bite of the breakfast. He thought he’d better talk, to get his mind off the food and his stomach. “Mister Cree would very much like to talk to Bassam Odwan.”

  “A deadly criminal. I cannot allow it.”

  “The United Nations wishes to aid your investigation in any way that it can.”

  “Odwan didn’t kidnap your UN man.”

  “But his friends did.”

  “So you should talk to his friends, not to him.”

  “Perhaps he can help us reach his friends.”

  “Do you think we haven’t asked him the same questions?” Husseini smiled broadly around the table.

  “He may find Mister Cree a more neutral figure.”

  “How can anyone be neutral in a question of murder? This Odwan fellow killed one of my best officers in cold blood.”

  Cree cleared his throat. “There’s a team arriving later this afternoon from the United Nations office in Jerusalem. They’ll negotiate for the hostage, of course, at a very high level. But they consider it important that no time is wasted while they’re en route to Gaza. They asked me to secure a meeting with Odwan.”

  Omar Yussef hadn’t heard about the negotiators. It must have been decided during Cree’s phone call, while Omar Yussef slept. It was another card for him to play with Husseini. “The UN negotiators know that you’re the most trusted of Palestinian security chiefs among the foreign diplomats stationed in Tel Aviv,” Omar Yussef said.

  Husseini looked interested.

  “This is a great opportunity for you to boost that position still further,” Omar Yussef said.

  Cree managed to get some more hummus down. “We’re coordinating the response to the hostage situation with the American ambassador, because the Americans have the best contacts on the ground with your security forces. Their ambassador’s most interested to hear your ideas,” he said.

  Husseini closed his gray eyes and nodded slowly. “I am a good friend of the ambassador.” The pleasure on his face suggested that the general was visualizing a convivial supper with the ambassador at his residence overlooking the beach in Herzliya Pituach. Omar Yussef wondered if Husseini coveted that connection for the kickbacks it would bring or for the power of the ambassador’s favorite to brutalize and kill his enemies with impunity.

  �
��The ambassador values you as a friend and wishes you to have all the aid you need to conduct your operations,” Cree said.

  All the aid, Omar Yussef thought. In a suitcase or wired to a Swiss bank.

  Husseini bowed. “I shall call to let him know the progress of our investigation into this important case.”

  “He’ll be waiting for your call, eagerly.”

  “And the Swedes?”

  Omar Yussef almost smiled. Husseini had the Americans and the UN promising him backhanders and the prestige of their connections, but he didn’t hesitate to squeeze a little more.

  “The Swedish ambassador has communicated to my superiors that he, too, wants your assistance very much,” Cree said. “He’s prepared to cover the costs of any operation you undertake to secure the release of Mister Wallender.”

  Husseini took a pickle from a sideplate and crunched it. “Odwan is held at the Saraya, our central jail. It’s an easy matter for you to see him. I only request that you should not be taken in by this man. You are intelligent fellows, but you are not police officers. It takes years of police work to face a deadly criminal and not to fall for his tricks. Don’t believe anything he says.”

  “We can meet him? Thank you,” Cree said.

  “What’s your understanding of the events that led to Lieutenant Fathi Salah’s death?” Omar Yussef asked.

  Husseini cleaned his plate with a wedge of pita and gave a pensive belch. “Lieutenant Salah went to arrest this Odwan for his smuggling activities. We can’t allow weapons to come under the Egyptian border unchecked, as has sometimes been the situation in Rafah. When Lieutenant Salah confronted Odwan, the criminal resisted and killed Salah.”

  “How was Odwan eventually arrested?”

  “He gave himself up, when my men went to his family home an hour after the incident.”