Yasser lifted his chin and sneered. “If Odwan is freed, I’ll kill him, anyway.”
“You don’t worry about angering the Saladin Brigades by killing him?”
“I’m not afraid to die. It’s my duty to avenge my brother. This is tribal justice and it’s what I believe in.”
Omar Yussef watched Yasser Salah closely. He had seen this certainty in the eyes of his students over the years, violent and absolute. He held convictions of his own with equal depth, but he hoped he hadn’t arrived at them through blind faith in tradition or at the expense of others.
Cree cleared his throat. “Abu Ramiz, we have to be heading to the checkpoint to pick up the hostage negotiators. They’re arriving at four-thirty.”
Omar Yussef nodded and stood.
“I warn you not to trust the Saladin Brigades,” Yasser Salah said. “They’re killers and criminals.” He picked up the coffee pot once more, remembered that it was empty and dropped it angrily beside the fire.
Omar Yussef struggled to the Suburban, his shoes filling with sand once more.
Cree started the engine. “It’s almost three o’clock. Why don’t I drop you back in Gaza City and head on to the checkpoint to pick up the negotiators? I’ll take them to the hotel afterward, so you can brief them. You can wait for me there and rest your aching head.”
Omar Yussef nodded. The Suburban labored slowly through the deep sand and past the side of the Salah house. He looked at the flimsy cinderblock garage at the back of the walled garden. It was wide and deep enough for four cars, two abreast. There ought to have been tire tracks leading through the sand from the garage to the road that ran parallel to the border, but there were none. Perhaps the dust storm filled them in, Omar Yussef thought. But even in a storm like this, that would take days. Maybe it’s not used for cars.
Chapter 16
The Saladin Road carried them back to Gaza City. Hunched in the passenger seat, Omar Yussef contemplated the events of the last twenty-four hours. He swung out of his reverie only when Cree swerved to avoid a pedestrian drifting heedlessly into the traffic. Cree cursed, and Omar Yussef smiled, patted the Scot’s long forearm and went back to his thoughts.
Saladin came along this road to liberate Palestine from the Crusaders. No liberators rode it now. Just brutal gunmen and corrupt policemen and government functionaries who cared only for their status as VIPs. No liberators, unless you counted Omar Yussef and James Cree.
A donkey cart laden with watermelons pulled out of a dirt road and Cree swerved once more. “For Christ’s sake,” he said, rubbing his forehead.
Omar Yussef traveled the same road as the great warrior Saladin. He would free Magnus Wallender and Eyad Masharawi. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the moment when he would shake their hands to celebrate their release.
He felt a sudden panic. The men’s hands were mutilated by the Husseini Manicure and their blood poured over him. He forced open his eyes. Both of them could be under torture at this very moment and he was sitting in a car, helpless. He groaned.
“You all right?” Cree asked.
Omar Yussef hadn’t realized that his groan was audible. “Just my head.”
“Still a bit of a bump, isn’t there?”
“I feel like I’ve been kicked by a donkey.” Omar Yussef thought about the British cemetery and the way Cree had talked to him there about his past. “James, your link to all these things happening in Gaza is your great-grandfather,” he said. “I, too, have a reason for taking this more personally than you might expect.”
Cree kept his eyes on the road, but lifted his chin. “Yeah?”
“Like Eyad Masharawi, I was once jailed for political reasons.”
Cree grinned. “You bad old boy. When was that?”
“It was when I was very young, during the 1960s.”
“The Israelis?”
“No, the Jordanians.” It was years since he had talked about that time and Omar Yussef was surprised that it brought a feeling of relief. “I used to be involved in Bethlehem politics, quite a radical in fact. Some of my opponents framed me.”
“Framed you for what?”
Omar Yussef hesitated. “Murder.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Very few people who’re still alive know this. I’ve never told anyone about it, except my wife. And now, you. After it happened, I went to Damascus University and took a leading part in student politics. But when I came back to Bethlehem, I admit I was scared. So I laid low. I taught at my school and lived quietly. Jail was so awful, I knew I couldn’t let them send me there again.” Omar Yussef dropped his voice. He seemed to be speaking to himself. “Just recently, though, my anger at the way our people are governed began to outweigh my fear. That’s why I won’t rest until Masharawi and Magnus are free.”
“I know you won’t.” Cree put his big hand on Omar Yussef’s shoulder and smiled.
The Scotsman dropped Omar Yussef at the Sands Hotel and pulled away, north toward the crossing with Israel. It was almost four o’clock. Before the UN team arrived, Omar Yussef would have time to drink a cup of tea and clean away the muck that had laid itself over him in the Salah family’s mourning tent.
Omar Yussef closed the smoked glass door of the hotel behind him. He rubbed his eyes and coughed. The coughing took hold and he bent forward.
From the reception desk, the pretty clerk beckoned. “ Ustaz, come here and drink some water,” she said.
He emptied the glass. “Thank you, Miss Meisoun.”
“Were you out stealing a camel to bring to my father?”
Omar Yussef thought it was good of her to flirt with him when he was covered in dust, bruised all over one side of his head, and purple in the face from coughing. “I plan to liberate all Gaza, like the Emir Saladin, and I shall make you my Emira to sit beside me at great banquets,” he said.
She pretended to pout. “If you were an emir, you wouldn’t need a small woman like me. You could pay the dowry for a wife with big hips who would bring you many children.”
“Perhaps I would have the traditional four wives: three with big hips, and you to be my favorite.” Omar Yussef laughed in his guttural way. He coughed again and, as he did so, he tapped his hand against his chest. He felt the papers in his shirt’s breast pocket and pulled out the notepaper on which he had written the address of the website Nadia had made for him. “Meisoun, is it possible for you to type these letters into your computer, please?”
“Of course, ustaz.” Meisoun turned the computer monitor at a right-angle to the desk, so Omar Yussef could see it. She typed www.pa4d.ps. The screen went momentarily white, then a dark blue. Design elements popped up one by one across the screen until Omar Yussef was staring at his website.
Across the top of the screen, in yellow letters, ran the title: Palestine Agency for Detection. Below it, a quotation: “Wherever there is injustice and bother, I am your man”-Agent O. On the left side of the screen, framed by a soft, oval border, was a photograph of a man’s face: he was in his mid-fifties, balding and white-haired, with a white mustache and gold-rimmed glasses and a cheerful smile for the camera because it was held by his favorite grandchild.
“Isn’t that you, ustaz?” Meisoun asked.
“It seems to be.”
At the center of the screen, yellow text was laid over a red background: I am Agent O, Palestine’s secret bringer of justice on behalf of the Palestine Agency for Detection. I am well dressed and sober and keenly understand the almost unfathomable workings of the Palestinian mind. I solved the case of the Collaborator of Bethlehem, even though the solution eluded our security forces. From my clandestine base in Dehaisha camp, I confront all wickedness with a good humor and a high sense of decency and honor. If you need help against the forces of darkness, contact me at agento@pa4d. ps.
“You’re very famous, perhaps?” Meisoun said.
“Infamous, I think,” he said. “Meisoun, please don’t show anyone that computer-I mean, the thing that’s on it now, you know, whatev
er it’s called.”
“Certainly, Agent O. Your dark secret is safe with me.”
Omar Yussef forced a smile and went into the quiet breakfast room. He ordered tea and sat by the window. The waves broke heavily against the beach in the dusty wind.
He imagined Nadia writing the text for the site and smiled. She saw him as a hero, even a liberator, like Saladin. He wanted to leave Gaza and go to her now. He would tell her detective stories. It would be more pleasant than being an actual detective, and less risky.
He was sipping his mint tea with a smile, when Khamis Zeydan rushed into the breakfast room. His face was dark and tight. He leaned on Omar Yussef’s table and brought his face close to whisper in his friend’s ear.
“Your friend Cree has been attacked. A roadside bomb, a massive one, near the Israeli checkpoint.”
Omar Yussef spilled his tea on the white table cloth. “Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. Sami got the call a few moments ago from one of his security guys.”
Omar Yussef stood. “I have to get to James.”
Sami drove fast along Omar al-Mukhtar Street in a shiny, black Jeep Cherokee. Khamis Zeydan rode in the front while Omar Yussef sat in the back with his palms flat on either side of him, braced against the swerving trajectory of the vehicle. His mind raced. He could feel his heart speeding faster than the wheels of the jeep. The bruise on his temple sent electrifying pain into his eyes and around the back of his brain. Perhaps it wasn’t a bomb, only a car crash, he thought. James was very tired and woozy, not really up to driving. He may have simply gone off the road. The jeep swung onto the Saladin Road, overtaking cement trucks and donkey carts, sounding a long blast on the horn whenever a child stepped off the curb to cross.
Beyond the warehouses and rough refugee apartment blocks at the northern edge of Gaza City, they passed into scabrous flats of dusty olive trees. Omar Yussef wondered if there had been a mistake. They were almost at the checkpoint. Perhaps Cree had made it there after all.
A crowd blocked the road ahead. Sami slowed. Even with the windows closed against the dust, Omar Yussef heard the rushing clamor of angry voices. Shots came hollow and popping, and the crowd retreated. Sami pulled over. Khamis Zeydan opened the glove compartment and pulled out a pistol. He got out of the car and shoved the weapon inside his belt. Omar Yussef followed him.
The thick dust raked his eyes. There was a bitter scent of burning fuel on the air. He squinted at the crowd of youths, charging and drawing back with each volley of shots. A clipped patter punctuated their rushes, the sound of stones against metal. Beyond the youths, a handful of Military Intelligence men went back and forth, shoving some of the boys away and shooting in the air. Beyond their red berets, Omar Yussef could see flames.
He followed Khamis Zeydan toward an officer who stood aside from the crowd with a walkie-talkie.
“What happened here?” the police chief asked.
“Who’re you?”
“Brigadier Khamis Zeydan of the National Police, also of the Revolutionary Council.”
“Greetings, sir. It was a roadside bomb. The UN vehicle was blown from that side of the road, where you see the big crater, to this bank on the other side. You can see it there, past the crowd of youths, where the flames are.”
The officer continued to talk, but Omar Yussef didn’t hear. He walked toward the wreckage. He felt Khamis Zeydan’s good hand against his shoulder, but he shook it away. He sensed something darkening in his mind, something that he knew was hate.
He pushed through the youths. They jostled him and he struggled to keep his balance, grabbing their arms so that he wouldn’t fall. He saw them smiling, exulting before the burning wreckage.
The UN Suburban was upside down. Black smoke and flames billowed from the engine, and the passenger cab was crushed almost flat. James is in there, he thought. I have to get him out. Omar Yussef pushed to the front of the group of youths. A boy of about fourteen wound up to hurl a stone at the car. Omar Yussef grabbed the boy’s arm, pulled the stone from his hand and threw it to the ground. He wrenched the boy around and leaned close to him.
“Shame on you,” he growled.
The boy’s expression was ecstatic, but his frenzy disappeared as Omar Yussef looked at him. His jaw dropped and he tried to back away.
“Shame on you, you son of a whore,” Omar Yussef said, squeezing the boy’s wrist, feeling his muscles shake all the way up his own arm with the effort of holding the kid and from the adrenaline deep within.
The boy pulled away from Omar Yussef and ducked into the crowd. The Military Intelligence men fired another volley into the air and the youths dropped back. It gave Omar Yussef a brief break in the stones and he scuttled toward the UN car. One of the policemen shouted to him, but he didn’t hear the words above the terrible roar of the fire. He held his hand to his eyes against the heat of the flames. The wind shifted and sent the oil-smoke all around him. He dropped to his knees and stared under the black cloud at the driver’s seat. He couldn’t see James.
He crawled toward the car, only a few yards away now. The black oil-smoke closed around him again. There was sweat in his eyes and his throat burned. He sensed sudden quiet all around and he felt his eyes narrow until they were ebony slits and every line on his face was filled with the shadow of hatred.
He stood and took a pace toward the car. He felt someone grab him and pull him away. He resisted. An arm came around his chest, but he put his weight against it. Stones were in the air once more. One of them hit his shoulder and broke the silence inside his head. He heard the snorting flames of the burning car now and the cheering of the youths beyond the smoke and the voice of Khamis Zeydan. “James isn’t in there. May Allah be thanked, he’s at the hospital. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Omar Yussef didn’t move. “Give me your gun.” He pulled Khamis Zeydan close, by the lapel of his jacket. “I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all.”
Khamis Zeydan’s eyes were hard with recognition of the hatred that overwhelmed Omar Yussef. He dragged his friend forcefully, but with tenderness and understanding, away from the wreckage. The stones fell about them and they left the UN car and the crowd of youths.
“There’s no ambulance here, you see?” Khamis Zeydan said. “It already came and took him to Shifa, to the hospital. I’ll take you there to find him.”
Omar Yussef stumbled toward the Jeep, leaning on Khamis Zeydan’s shoulder, wheezing and retching. Sami watched him, blankly. He climbed into the car. He thought of James Cree, squatting before the grave of his great-grandfather in the British War Cemetery, and he loathed the cruel history of Gaza. He smelled the smoke from the wrecked UN car on his clothes and skin. He saw his face in the rearview mirror. The shadows were deep.
Chapter 17
The hot, evening wind rattled the palm fronds in Shifa Hospital’s broad quadrangle as Omar Yussef stepped out of the Jeep. Khamis Zeydan hurried through the main entrance, where the fluorescent tubes were lit early against the heavy, dust-storm twilight. Omar Yussef came through the door and inhaled a deep lungful of air. It was without dust or oil smoke, but still unsatisfying; it bore an undertone of body odor and corrupt bowels cloaked by antiseptic floorwash. He rubbed his eyes, flicked the gritty gum from the tear ducts, and cleaned the lenses of his glasses with his handkerchief.
Khamis Zeydan returned from the front desk, lighting a cigarette.
“Is he in the Intensive Care Unit?” Omar Yussef asked. He replaced his uneven glasses and saw the heaviness in Khamis Zeydan’s expression.
“He’s at the morgue,” his friend said.
Omar Yussef’s knees shook. He stumbled against the wall. His shoulder took his weight on the tender spot where it had been hit by the stone as he struggled to get to Cree’s burning vehicle, and he gasped in pain. He felt feeble, and growing weaker.
“The nurse asked if you would identify the body.”
He searched for the hardness and strength he had felt at the wreckage of the UN
car. “Let’s go to the morgue,” he said.
Khamis Zeydan led him into the dusty air and across the grass of the quadrangle, burnt yellow by the sun. The morgue was in the southeastern corner of the square, a single-story, sandstone block with its entrance up a small flight of steps. A nurse directed them to the pathologist’s office. “Abu Fawzi will be with you shortly,” she said.
The office was large, piled with files and painted the same soapy green color as surgical scrubs. Omar Yussef read the labels on the tall, black binders on the bookshelf: Firearm Injury, Explosive, Head Injury, Strangulation/Hanging, Sexual Offense, Poisoning. All the files were thick with cases. He tapped the Explosive binder with his forefinger and let his hand rest against it, thinking of James Cree, whose case would soon be filed within it.
He remembered confessing to Cree about being jailed as a youth and the way the Scotsman had smiled and laid his hand on his shoulder. It seemed almost as though the mention of the word murder had been enough to bring it about. When it comes from my mouth, at least, he thought. “Those kids,” he said. “It’s inhuman for them to stone the wreckage of the car.”
Khamis Zeydan sat in a rickety chair in front of the pathologist’s desk. He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray that balanced on a pile of manila folders, measured the stability of his chair by its creaking as he leaned back, and lit another Rothman’s. “Everything that represents authority is an object of hate for them,” he said. “They don’t think about the poor bastard inside the car. To them, it’s a blow at everything that keeps their lives shitty.”
Omar Yussef touched his grimy fingers to his mustache. They smelled of the smoke from Cree’s car. When you’re a victim, there’s no room in your life for other people’s suffering, he thought.
He recalled the shocked face of the boy by the burning car, when he had grabbed him and taken away the stone he was about to throw. He would have liked to slap that face. It’s the people who did this to James for whom I must reserve my anger, not that stupid kid, he told himself. And for the people who still hold Magnus. He felt sorry for what he had said to Khamis Zeydan about wanting to kill them all.
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