“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, whatever 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
