“If you ask politely, why not?”
Omar Yussef was angry with his friend’s poor humor and the whisky scent in the room that made him wish for a forbidden drink. “His home is just across the street. Why don’t you stroll over and ask him? You’re buddies with all these bastards. Husseini’s on the Revolutionary Council, and so are you. Give him the secret handshake.”
Khamis Zeydan looked hard at his Scotch. “The secret handshake usually has ten thousand dollars in it, at least.”
“I could try to set up a meeting with General Husseini,” Sami said. He turned to Khamis Zeydan. “I don’t want you to risk involvement in this affair, Abu Adel. It would be dangerous for you. Politically.”
Khamis Zeydan slugged down his whisky. He tapped the empty glass against his prosthetic hand and shrugged.
“I know a few people close to Husseini,” Sami said. He put a hand on Omar Yussef’s leg. “I warn you, General Husseini is a really bad type. Obviously he’s a liar and a thief-that goes without saying. But Husseini is also a sadist. He personally tortures some of his prisoners, for his own entertainment. He likes to slice off the tips of a prisoner’s fingers and wrench out the fingernails. At the prison, they call it a Husseini Manicure.”
Omar Yussef linked his fingers and rested them on his belly. He pressed them tightly together so no one would see his hands shaking. This was no longer a matter of a misunderstanding at the university, or even a case of a vindictive, corrupt boss punishing a whistleblower. It had extended into kidnapping and murder. His friend’s life was in danger. He remembered his sense on the road into Gaza City, when the UN car passed the coffin of Fathi Salah, that death was pursuing him. He felt the dead man’s breath cold on his neck.
“The Husseini Manicure,” Khamis Zeydan said, refilling his tumbler with whisky. “He started that back in Beirut during the civil war. I knew the bastard well at that time. We both worked on the Old Man’s personal staff. Husseini was dirty, cruel and corrupt even then.”
“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.
