The Samaritan's secret

“How did Ishaq come to have these files?”

“They were the Old Man’s files. After he died, I figured Ishaq would be able to get them for me. If he didn’t have them, they might be in the possession of his friend Kanaan, who’d do anything Ishaq asked. So I stole the Abisha and forced him to give me the files in return for his people’s holy scroll. It was a good deal.”

“You think so?” Omar Yussef stroked his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. “Ishaq also had the Old Man’s secret account details. I imagine he feared people like you would try to track down the money. So he offered you these dirt files to throw you off the scent.”

“This information is very valuable. I got a good deal.”

“Is it worth three hundred million dollars?”

Awwadi grunted, as though he’d taken a light punch in the stomach.

“That’s how much Ishaq had stashed away for the Old Man. He pulled the wool over your eyes and now someone else is going to get the money. Maybe someone from Fatah already has it. That sort of cash could buy enough weapons to wipe out Hamas.”

The younger man scratched his head angrily.

Omar Yussef narrowed his eyes. “Is there a file on Amin Kanaan? Or his wife Liana?”

“No, there isn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe they’re clean?” Awwadi sneered.

What would my file look like, if anyone ever bothered to compile it? Omar Yussef wondered. I did some jail time when I was young. I can explain it, of course, but on paper it would be stark and accusing and make me look like a criminal. There’d be a record of my drinking days, things that I can’t even remember doing during my drunken blackouts. Files like this can’t tell you the essence of a person. They can only smear someone with a surface of filth.

“Once a man has sinned, he ought to have the chance to redeem himself,” Omar Yussef said. “One of our Arab sages wrote that he who wishes to purify his soul can’t do it by a single day’s worship, nor can he prevent it by a single act of rebellion.”

“I’ve read Ghazali, too, ustaz, and you’re leaving some-thing out. He concluded that one day’s abstention from virtue leads to another and, thus, the soul degenerates little by little.” Awwadi lifted his index finger. “The file on Khamis Zeydan didn’t get to be as bulky as it is from only a single day’s sinfulness.”

“Stop it. He’s my friend.”

“Maybe you don’t know enough about him to judge whether you ought to be his friend. The real Khamis Zeydan is the one in his dirt file, not the man you think is your friend.”

“Where are the files?”

Awwadi lifted his chin and shook his head. He stepped past Omar Yussef to return to the wedding hall. The motion reminded Omar Yussef of the way Awwadi had blocked his view of the cellar behind the horse’s stable at the Touqan Palace. It isn’t weapons you’ve cached in that cellar, he thought. You’ve got the files in there, haven’t you?

Awwadi hesitated on the steps to the social club. “I’ll still see you tomorrow morning at the Turkish baths,” he called.

Omar Yussef saw that the young man regretted their confrontation. He nodded and waved. He waited for Awwadi to enter the hall, and went into the casbah.

Chapter 14

Omar Yussef retraced the route he had taken with Awwadi through the vaulted alleys, until he once more breathed the dense sewage stink of Yasmina. The people of the casbah had gravitated to the Hamas wedding and the passages seemed emptier than ever. Omar Yussef recognized the small spice shop of the Mareh family, where Awwadi had stared down the hostile young man in the blue overalls. Though its entrance was locked, the shuddering hum of the electric grinders rose from a basement window and the dim air was clouded with the gray dust of crushed cardamom pods. Omar Yussef stopped to savor the bouquet. As he inhaled, he recalled a thousand delicate coffees flavored with this spice that he had shared with his good friends. Then he remembered the same odor on the breath of the masked thug who had slapped him and he looked down the alley to the next corner, wondering if that man waited for him there.

He turned right and descended toward the Touqan Palace.

Ishaq was with the Old Man at the end, when he died in Europe, he thought. Perhaps Ishaq knew what really killed the president. Could the young man have been murdered by someone in Fatah because he passed that knowledge on to Hamas?

At the bottom of a sloping alley, he stopped. He was sure the Touqan Palace had been down here, but he had reached the end of the lane and hadn’t seen the tall gate of the old mansion. He retraced his steps and went right, assuming Awwadi’s home was on the next parallel street, but the alley led him diagonally up the hill. He cursed his sense of direction. He had to get to the Touqan Palace to examine that cellar before Awwadi left the wedding celebrations. That gave him little more than an hour. There might be many files to sort through, if he was right about Awwadi’s hiding place. Omar Yussef cared little about the leaders of Fatah and he could hardly destroy the entire set of files, even if he did manage to find them, without bringing down the wrath of Hamas. But he wanted to protect Khamis Zeydan, to find his file and dispose of it.

Here you are, running around like a rat in a maze, he thought, as he checked his watch. The clock’s ticking and you’re wasting time wandering these old alleys.

He felt sure the palace had been lower on the hillside, so he cut into a smaller alley and dropped down some steps. He sniffed. The drainage scent seemed less ripe here. Had he taken a wrong turn and left Yasmina altogether?

He came to the head of a flight of steps, which descended beneath a dingy vault, and noticed the capital of a Roman column built into the base of the wall. It was worn almost beyond recognition. Omar Yussef bent to touch its rough, knotty surface.

Something whipped through the air above him and struck the wall with a sudden hiss. His hand still on the ancient stone, he glanced behind him. That was a bullet, he thought. What have I walked into?

He stood, and another bullet cut away a chunk of the Roman capital, spraying dust onto his shoes. In the alley behind him, he heard feet approaching fast. Only one pair of boots, he thought. I haven’t stumbled into a gunfight. Someone’s after me.

A shot came out of the alley. Omar Yussef saw the muzzle flash orange in the shadows and threw himself to his right. He landed on the steps and rolled into the darkness, protecting his head with one hand and clasping his glasses with the other.

He held himself rigid, as he fell. He would have ugly bruises, but so long as he didn’t allow his body to bend nothing would break. He slammed to a halt against a box of rotting chicken bones and a startled cat fled the impact. He lay groaning, until he heard the shooter coming along the alley toward the steps. He pushed the box to the center of the passage, groped fast along the wall and turned a corner. He saw light through an arch ahead and he hobbled toward it.

When he emerged from the dark, he was in the empty souk. On any other day he would’ve been safe in the crowd, but everyone had shuttered their shops to attend the big wedding. Behind him, he heard someone tumble over the box of chicken remains and curse.

Across the souk, an iron fence caged some old tombs. A building had been erected behind and above the graves, but the wall beside the fence lay in a pile of smashed bricks. The Israelis must have entered on one of their night raids, blowing a gap to search for weapons hidden behind the tombs. Omar Yussef edged through the hole.

Stumbling on a loose brick, he grabbed for the nearest grave. The stone was smoothly dimpled like an orange. He scrambled behind it and squatted, pressing his face against a decorative rectangle of Koranic verse