The Samaritan's secret

money.”

“Kanaan might not be the only one tracking the bank accounts,” Omar Yussef said. “I could be getting in the way of other powerful people who want those riches for themselves.”

“Sami, the schoolteacher has finally come around to our way of thinking,” Khamis Zeydan called toward the kitchen. “At last, he agrees that this is too big and dangerous for him.”

“I just mean that there could be a lot of people who might have sent Mareh to kill me.”

“But Kanaan was the only one who created a minicivil war in the casbah with Mareh as his commander on the ground.”

“These Fatah people disgust me,” Zuheir exclaimed. Ramiz gestured for his brother to lower his voice and swept his eyes toward the door of the bedroom where the women slept. Zuheir gave an exasperated growl.

“What’s your problem with Fatah, anyway? Hamas started this,” Ramiz said, “by saying the president died of that disease.”

“Who cares if they say he was the bastard offspring of the Israeli prime minister and a lame donkey?” Zuheir slapped his thigh angrily. “They can say what they want. It’s just words. Why does it always have to end in gunfire and death?”

Sami spoke from the kitchen door. “Would you say that, if it was one of the famous Hamas martyrs who had been slandered?”

“You think I’m Hamas? Just because I have a beard and I pray five times a day? I sometimes wonder if we Palestinians are real people with our own individual identities or just caricatures.”

Khamis Zeydan poured a slug of Johnnie Walker. Zuheir tutted, but the police chief ignored the young man’s disapproval of the alcohol.

Omar Yussef shuffled into the bathroom to urinate. He felt feverish as he strained against his recalcitrant bladder. When he came back into the living room, he was conscious of the heavy smoke of the cigarettes and the water pipe. He needed air. He wrenched at the window, but it wouldn’t budge.

Sami leaned over his shoulder, clicked a catch and slid the window open easily. He handed a cup to Omar Yussef. “Here’s some coffee for you, Abu Ramiz.”

“May Allah bless your hands.” Omar Yussef put his head out of the window and inhaled deeply. The night was cool and moonless, and the domed rooftops of the casbah were black and indistinct. As he breathed the clean air, he felt the nightmares recede.

He pulled his head back into the room. “Kanaan says he didn’t kill Ishaq,” he said.

He turned to face Khamis Zeydan. The police chief’s eyes were fixed on Omar Yussef.

“I believe him,” Omar Yussef said. “He seemed truly shocked when I told him Ishaq had been tortured. He said he loved Ishaq, but he denied that he was Ishaq’s lover.”

“Ishaq’s lover?” Khamis Zeydan hawked up some phlegm and worked his jaw. “Where did you get that idea?”

“Nouri Awwadi said Ishaq was homosexual, and Ishaq’s wife suspected that Kanaan was her rival for her husband’s love.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before I questioned her?” Khamis Zeydan grunted and slapped his thigh just above the knee. “Bastard leg.”

Sami folded a cheap tartan blanket around Khamis Zeydan’s legs and feet. “Before you lecture me, yes, I know it’s the diabetes,” the police chief said to Omar Yussef. He put his hand on Sami’s head, as the young man tucked the blanket into the armchair. “You’re going to have to delay the wedding if this gunfight continues for a few days, Sami. The guests won’t be able to move about safely.”

Sami shoved his good hand into his pocket.

“My permit expires one day after the scheduled date of the wedding,” Omar Yussef said. “The same for Maryam and Nadia, Zuheir and Ramiz, too. If the wedding is delayed, we’ll have to return to Bethlehem and miss the big party. The Israelis will never give us an extension.”

“Why don’t you get your pal Kanaan to intervene?” Khamis Zeydan spat into a tissue.

A disjointed volley of gunfire sounded, close and loud. Omar Yussef moved away from the window and sat on the end of the couch. “When the fighting dies down, perhaps we should go and confront Kanaan, tell him he’s exacted enough revenge on Hamas, and ask him to stop.”

Khamis Zeydan stared. “Are you serious, schoolteacher? Screw your sister, you’re insane.”

“So you’ll come with me?”

“If it’s the only way to stop this fighting and to make sure Sami’s wedding goes ahead, of course I’ll come with you.”

Omar Yussef smiled with one corner of his mouth. “Ramiz, give me your cell phone, please.”

His son handed him a silver Nokia. A photo of Ramiz with his wife and children lit up the screen when Omar Yussef touched the keypad. He took Jamie King’s business card from his pocket and clumsily plugged her mobile number into the phone. “How do I make it dial?”

Ramiz sighed. “Press the button with the little green telephone on it, Dad.”

Omar Yussef brought the phone level with his ear. “There’s something wrong with it. Nothing’s happening.”

Just as Ramiz reached for the phone, a voice came from the handset.

“Jamie?” Omar Yussef said. He held the phone a few inches from his head and looked sideways at it.

“Speaking.” Jamie King’s voice sounded clearly.

“This is Omar Yussef Sirhan. The grandfather of Nadia, your partner in crime.”

“Since you came to Kanaan’s place with me, I guess you’re now my coconspirator, too. How’re you, ustaz?”

“Fine, thanks be to Allah.”

Khamis Zeydan and Ramiz, who knew Omar Yussef’s suspicions about the health hazards of cellular phones and his ineptitude with technology, sniggered at the mistrust with which he eyed the phone in his hand.

“Get off the line quickly, before it gives you radiation sickness,” Ramiz said.

Omar Yussef scowled and turned to the window. “I’m sorry to call you so late at night.”

Jamie King laughed. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not easy to sleep in this town, anyhow,” she said. Another shot reverberated in the dark outside.

“You’re quite right.” Omar Yussef lowered his voice. “I wondered if your fax from Geneva contained anything useful.”

“It took a long time for me to receive the whole thing,” King said. “The fax at the hotel isn’t very reliable.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“My investigators in Switzerland managed to turn up a couple of small accounts. Nothing like as big as we’re looking for.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“My staff happened to be the first to inform the people at one of the banks that Ishaq was dead. It turns out he left instructions with this particular bank that, in the event of his death, they’re to transfer a half million bucks to a Nablus account in the name of Suleiman al-Teef.”

“Who’s he?”

“No idea. The manager of the bank where the account is held refuses to tell me anything about it without permission from his boss in Amman. That won’t come through until at least next week, which is too late to stop the funding boycott. In any case, that’s only half a million bucks. It leaves us still more than two hundred and ninety- nine million short of our target.”

Omar Yussef nodded at the phone, until King spoke into the silence to ask if he was still on the line. “Yes, I’m here. So the World Bank really is going to cut funding?”

“Friday afternoon the board turns off the cash.”

“What time is it now?” He looked at his wrist watch. Before he could read the time, he noticed that it was scratched. That must have happened when I stumbled in the casbah, before Mareh tried to kill me, he thought. He clicked his tongue and rubbed his thumb across the face. Such a beautiful watch.

“It’s three a.m. It’s already Thursday,” King said.