A grave in Gaza oy-2 Page 17

  Omar Yussef never liked to argue with Maryam. Usually, her perspective was more simplistic than his, and he would grow angry when she failed to understand the subtleties that were evident to him. This time, he knew she was right, and just as surely he knew he had no choice but to defy her logic. “Maryam, I need you to be calm. I don’t want you to upset Dahoud any more than he already is, or Nadia and the other children. Now, go to Dahoud and tell him not to worry. And Maryam-”

  “What?”

  “If you don’t put on a convincing show, Nadia will see through you. So you’d better really persuade yourself that your poor husband will be all right.”

  “I can handle Nadia.”

  “She’s a lot more difficult to bamboozle than the gunmen of Gaza, my darling. So don’t take it lightly.”

  There was a knock at the door. “Maryam, room service is here with my dinner. You see, you were so flustered that you didn’t check if I was eating properly.”

  “I’m derelict in my duty as a wife,” Maryam said. “Come home where you’ll be safe-from dangerous men and bad hotel cooks.”

  Omar Yussef hung up with a few endearments.

  He picked at his grilled chicken and dabbed some flat bread into the plate of hummus. He wondered what Magnus was eating, in whichever filthy little room the Saladin Brigades had hidden him. His mind gravitated to the corpses in the morgue at Shifa Hospital, no matter how he tried to focus on his food. His stomach ached for nourishment, but it turned at the thought of the dead men laid out on the dissecting tables. His head was heavy; the bruise on his temple had come back to life and was pulsing and jabbing at his brain. He opened the minibar. There was a large bottle of mineral water, some rosewater colas and canned fruit juices. He smiled bleakly at the empty racks in the small refrigerator, designed for miniature whiskies and vodkas. Allah be thanked that the Islamists of Gaza put so little temptation in my way, he thought.

  He sat at the foot of his bed until the chicken was cold, slowly working through the plastic bottle of water. It halted the nausea and soothed the pumping sensation in his temple. He considered sleeping, but he couldn’t slow his thoughts. Instead, he listened to the wind, loud against the picture windows, and the pattering of the dust it blew against the panes.

  It was almost midnight when there was a knock at the door. Omar Yussef froze. A pause, then a second knock.

  “Abu Ramiz?”

  It was Sami’s voice. Omar Yussef opened the door. The young man stood confidently in the corridor, smoking. His black T-shirt was tight across his muscular torso and he had a thumb tucked casually into the belt of his jeans. He looked Omar Yussef up and down, evidently finding his raggedness amusing, and smiled. He put his hand on Omar Yussef’s arm. “How’re you feeling, Abu Ramiz?”

  “Rough, Sami. Where’s Abu Adel?”

  “He’s down the corridor gossiping with some of the other Revolutionary Council members in his room.”

  “The meeting is over?”

  “The Council? Yes, for now. Those bastards never really finish talking, though.”

  “Come in.”

  Sami sat at the desk and glanced at the chicken.

  “Be my guest,” Omar Yussef said.

  Sami picked up the chicken pieces in his fingers and ate them languidly. “Thank you, Abu Ramiz. It’s the best shish tawouk I’ve had in an age. I haven’t eaten very well since I was deported from Bethlehem.”

  “You miss your mother’s cooking?”

  “It’s the best.”

  “I know, I’ve tasted it.”

  “Of course you have. My father speaks highly of you, and naturally I know your reputation around town as a man of integrity.”

  “When will the Israelis let you come home, Sami?”

  The young man turned a cube of chicken in his fingers, regarding it meditatively, like a connoisseur with an expensive cigar. “When my home is burned to the ground and demolished by my neighbors.” He chewed the chicken and looked at Omar Yussef. “Not before then.”

  “Do you have any news of Magnus?”

  Sami shook his head. “I’m trying to find out who killed James. I believe that will lead us to Magnus.”

  “Remember you told me about the Husseini Manicure? That’s what had happened to Odwan before he died. I thought of telling you about it, when you were driving us back from the morgue, but I just couldn’t stand to speak of it.”

  Sami ate another piece of chicken. He licked his fingers and nodded with understanding at Omar Yussef.

  “The Saladin Brigades might murder Magnus in revenge for Odwan’s death,” Omar Yussef said. “Can we find him before they discover that their comrade has been killed?”

  Sami shook his head. “No chance. If they don’t already know Odwan’s dead, they’ll have found out before dawn. They have men inside the jail with hidden cellphones. They know everything that goes on in the Saraya and all the other prisons and military bases. But I don’t think they’ll kill Magnus.”

  “They have to show a response, to avenge Odwan.”

  “I don’t get the sense that they’re ready to escalate things as far as killing more foreigners. They’ll choose something else. Something domestic that will send a message to the top people in Gaza, but that won’t bring the entire outside world down on them.” Sami held the plate of hummus in his palm and ran his bread around the edge of the chickpea paste, brooding.

  “How did the Revolutionary Council meeting go?”

  “Abu Adel says it was tumultuous. And dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” Omar Yussef remembered what Khamis Zeydan had said about the growing confrontation between the security chiefs.

  “General Husseini accused Colonel al-Fara of corruption. He called for an official investigation of al-Fara.”

  “But General Husseini is corrupt, too, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, but these Councils are strange. If someone accuses you of something, you can’t just turn around and say, ‘By Allah, you’re as corrupt as me.’ It makes you look like a stupid kid whose only defense is to turn the charge back on the accuser and, more importantly, you’re admitting the truth of the accusation.”

  “So what did Colonel al-Fara do?”

  “Abu Adel says al-Fara was silent. But everyone else was in uproar.”

  If al-Fara was silent, Omar Yussef calculated it was a perilous sign. In that silence, the Colonel would have been plotting his revenge.

  Omar Yussef remembered the comical exuberance, the heavy paunch and the wet, pebble-gray eyes of General Husseini, the man who probably had asphyxiated Bassam Odwan. Across the table at the Council, he imagined the lank, black hair and mustache of Colonel al-Fara, the bony hand collecting sputum in a tissue and the cigarette smoke flaring from his nostrils. Al-Fara, the torturer of Eyad Masharawi. The meeting of the Council had set the two men up for a final confrontation. With what new evil would they move to their endgames?

  “Who will lose this battle between Husseini and al-Fara?”

  “The first one to show weakness,” Sami said. “You know the proverb: When the cow falls down, many knives come out. Each of them has enemies who’ll be eager to cut off a piece of the carcass, as soon as it’s vulnerable.”

  “Did anyone mention the bomb that killed James?”

  “At the Revolutionary Council? No, it didn’t come up. Everyone was focused on the fight between Husseini and al-Fara.”

  Omar Yussef took a strawberry-banana juice from the minibar and handed Sami a rosewater coke. He poured the thick, syrupy liquid into a glass for himself. It was the nearest thing to food he could keep down. He wanted to sleep, but there was still one thing he needed to talk about.

  “Sami, that story Odwan told us about the Qassam rockets. Is it correct?”

  “That they brought a single prototype to Gaza through the Rafah tunnels and manufactured masses of them here?”

  Omar Yussef nodded.

  “Yes, it was a North Korean missile transported through Iran,” Sami said. “Now everyo
ne’s trying to secure an even bigger weapon. The group that uses it successfully against Israel will gain a lot of prestige on the street and be able to impose its will on the president.”

  “The Saladin Brigades?”

  Sami shrugged. “The more trouble the Saladin Brigades make, the more the president needs to keep them on his side. If you want money from the president, step one is to make a lot of trouble in Gaza and to kill some Israelis from time to time. Ultimately, the president will pay you to keep a lid on it.”

  Omar Yussef put his forefinger to his chin and frowned. “We know the Saladin Brigades don’t have this new prototype missile, because it was stolen from them after they smuggled it into Rafah. So who does have it? That’s what we need to find out. Perhaps we can present the Brigades with the missile in return for Magnus’s freedom.”

  Sami looked serious as he finished the last of the hum-mus. “You’d better think that through, Abu Ramiz. Whoever has the missile won’t be handing it over to you, and the nastiest men in Gaza will be trying to find it and take it away from them, too.”

  Omar Yussef realized that, even if he found the missile, he could never give it to the Saladin Brigades. No matter who possessed this missile, they would use it to kill, to draw down the Israeli army on the refugee camps, and to dominate the corrupt politics of Gaza. If he found it, he would have to destroy it. But then how was he going to bargain for Magnus’s life?

  He groaned and put his hand to the bruise on his temple. “The UN negotiators aren’t coming. They turned back at the checkpoint. They think it’s too dangerous here. We’re alone, Sami.”

  “We’re better off without them. Those people think they have all the answers, but they don’t know how to listen. They’re useless to us. They’re a shekel-worth of shit.”

  Omar Yussef looked at the young man, surprised at his vehemence.

  “I’ll try to arrange a meeting with the Saladin Brigades people here in Gaza, so you can ask them about what happened to James,” Sami said. He wiped his hands on a napkin, pulled a packet of cigarettes from his back pocket, and stood. He smiled apologetically. “I know you don’t like me to smoke in here, Abu Ramiz, so I’ll say goodnight. You need to sleep.”

  Chapter 20

  Omar Yussef dreamed of death. He sweated through the explosion that killed James Cree, shaken by the shuddering blast and swathed in the flames, jarred by the twisted metal of the UN Suburban, broken by the stones the local boys hurled. He choked through the last breaths of Bassam Odwan’s life, even as the blood pumped from his severed fingertips. He recoiled as an antique rifle discharged its bullet into his rib, fragments of bone tearing his lungs. The shot came again and again, each time thrusting him into the mattress. Death wasn’t following him any more. It was sharing his bed, not like a wife, but like an illicit lover, jealous and angry, giving him no sleep.

  The telephone rang. The rifle bullets ripped his ribcage and the phone rang on. He rolled to the nightstand and picked up the receiver. He couldn’t speak; he gasped into the phone.

  “Abu Ramiz, is that you?”

  Another gasp. The shots continued. He whimpered.

  “Is everything okay? This is Doctor Najjar, from the morgue. Is that gunfire?”

  Omar Yussef looked around. I’m in my hotel room, he thought, but it was a vague realization.

  “What’s that noise, Abu Ramiz?” the doctor asked.

  “I was being shot.”

  “Abu Ramiz?” The doctor was alarmed.

  Omar Yussef put the receiver on the pillow and wiped the sweat from his face with the end of the sheet. There was gunfire. He looked at the red light of the digital clock on the nightstand: 6:00 a.m. He picked up the phone again. “Yes, that’s gunfire outside. I don’t know anything about it. I was having a bad dream.”

  “I’m sorry to call you so early, but I’ve been at work all night and I’m going home now. I wanted you to know what I discovered, as soon as possible.”

  Omar Yussef cleared his throat and pushed himself up onto his elbow, trying hard to leave his nightmare behind. “Thank you.”

  “This must remain between you and me, Abu Ramiz. As you know, the official cause of Bassam Odwan’s death is that he suffered a sudden heart attack in his jail cell. However, my initial suspicion that he died of asphyxia was correct. A blockage in his airway suffocated him.”

  Omar Yussef sat upright on the edge of his bed. “Odwan choked on his food?”

  “It wasn’t food. You remember that the inside of his mouth and the upper part of his throat were covered in tiny cuts? Further down in the trachea, blocking the air, I found some sort of glass.”

  “Glass?”

  “Actually, it’s something I’ve never seen in Gaza. But once, when I was in a hotel bar in Jordan, I saw something like it. I think it’s the stopper from one of those crystal bottles that people use to store alcohol.”

  Omar Yussef thought of General Husseini’s collection of Bohemian crystal. “A decanter?”

  “Is that what they’re called? It’s been carved into many tiny flat surfaces, so that it reflects the light like a precious stone. But between each of the surfaces it’s almost as hard and sharp as the cutting edge of a diamond. It was big and, as it was forced down his throat, it caused the lacerations. Then it choked him.” The doctor paused. “That shooting sounds very close, Abu Ramiz.”

  Omar Yussef stood and moved toward the window to draw back the curtain. The phone cord wouldn’t stretch far enough. The gunfire outside was a deafening, bass volley with the light chimes of shattering glass laid over it. “I can’t see just now. The curtains are closed,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the gunbattle. “Was Odwan’s body brought to you directly from jail?”

  “Military Intelligence brought him. He could’ve arrived from anywhere.”

  Omar Yussef listened to the shooting. It seemed to be concentrated on General Husseini’s house across the street. From anywhere. Even from there, he thought. He thanked the doctor and hung up.

  He crept along the wall and lifted the curtain. A dozen jeeps were drawn up on the street outside the hotel, a mixture of camouflage and flat, dun paintwork. The men taking cover behind the jeeps were dressed like the Saladin Brigades squad that had kidnapped Wallender: stocking caps pulled down to disguise their features, camouflage jackets and black T-shirts, military pants and heavy work-boots. They fired Kalashnikovs and M-16s at Husseini’s home.

  The windows on every floor of General Husseini’s building were shot out. Omar Yussef squinted into the dusty dawn light. Muzzle flashes from the third floor of the Husseini home jolted through the dirty, gray air.

  There was a knock at the door. Omar Yussef pulled on his trousers and answered it. Khamis Zeydan pushed past him, his shirt open over the gray hair on his chest, the white fringes on his bald head sticking up still from the pillow.

  “What the hell is this?” Khamis Zeydan said. He coughed and it was as though he had sprayed an atomizer filled with Scotch around the room.

  Omar Yussef’s nostrils flared at the whisky on his friend’s breath and he thought that perhaps he wasn’t the only one whose nightmares had been disturbed by the shooting. “Did you come straight from dawn prayers?”

  Khamis Zeydan rubbed his face. “May Allah forgive you, it’s too early for sarcasm.”

  “Something’s happening at Husseini’s place,” Omar Yussef said.

  “Son of a whore. I can’t see it from my side of the hotel.”

  “The management gave the Revolutionary Council people the nice sea view.”

  “But you get the view of the fireworks.” Khamis Zeydan lifted the end of the curtain. “Fuck your mother,” he said, with a tone of wonder.

  Omar Yussef peered outside from the other end of the curtain. “What’s going on?”

  “It looks like the Revolutionary Council convened for a special session.”

  “You think this is something between Husseini and al-Fara?”

  “Maybe. Or perhaps th
e Saladin Brigades decided to show Husseini that they know who killed Bassam Odwan.” Khamis Zeydan grinned. “Could be a joint maneuver: the Saladin Brigades and Colonel al-Fara’s men.”

  From behind one of the jeeps, a camouflaged gunman brought out a shoulder-launched missile. “By Allah,” Khamis Zeydan said, his eyes wide.

  “What’s that?”

  “A LAW anti-tank missile.”

  The missile took off from the man’s shoulder with a sound like a demon’s inhalation and smashed into the third floor, where Omar Yussef had breakfasted the previous day with General Husseini.

  The firing from within Husseini’s building halted. Even the gunmen on the street stopped to marvel at the destruction. Some of them stood up, their assault rifles held in one hand, pointed to the ground. Omar Yussef saw them laughing at one of their colleagues who had covered his ears against the blast. Another gave a high-five to the missile man. When they resumed their volley, it was cover for a squad of six who ran low across the street and into the entrance. They stepped over a body in military fatigues and a red beret and they went up the stairs. Omar Yussef hadn’t noticed that anyone had been hit. He stared at the body and willed it to move. He wondered if he ought to call Doctor Najjar and tell him not to go home just yet; he would be needed soon at the morgue.

  The smoke cleared around the third floor, where the missile had hit. Only a small hole, the size of a man’s head, showed in the wall, but there were flames inside. Omar Yussef figured the sofas and armchairs must have ignited. Movement was visible in the room. Some shots sounded, and men came down the stairs quickly.

  General Moussa Husseini appeared at the foot of the stairs. He was naked except for a pair of baggy white underpants. His big stomach was covered with thick white hair and his legs looked too skinny to support his fat torso. His bald, dark forehead was laced with streams of blood. One of the gunmen shoved him from behind. He slipped on the pool of gore seeping from his dead guard and tripped over the corpse’s legs, tumbling down the steps. The gunmen followed, kicking him. He scrambled on his knees into the street.