The Fourth Assassin

Nizar walking on his hands along the high parapet of a ruined Crusader castle in the Galilee. Weeping with laughter at the farting cushion he hid on Omar Yussef’s chair in class and, when he was alone with his teacher, crying because he wished for a father above all other things. The kitten he gave to Omar Yussef’s favorite granddaughter Nadia when she was only a few years old, and how he had shown her the way to feed it milk from a doll’s bottle. His energetic grin at the door of Omar Yussef’s home, a taxi idling in Dehaisha Street behind him, as he waited for Ala to bring his bag, leaving for America. Had all the good times been mere delusions? Had Nizar’s life truly been as tragic as his uncle claimed?

“When did you speak to him last, Abu Khaled?” Omar Yussef asked.

“About a week ago. He was very happy. O my grief. He said soon he would tell me good news.”

Omar Yussef thought of the love letter. “What kind of good news?”

“He was very secretive about it. I hoped perhaps he would be coming home to be with us again here in Bethlehem. Perhaps he had found a wife. He mentioned a girl, but only very briefly.”

“Dear Abu Khaled, I will give your phone number to the police so that they can contact you-about the body, I mean. Will you want it returned to Bethlehem?”

“The body? I don’t know-I’ll have to think. . Thank you for alerting me to this sad news, Abu Ramiz.”

“May his lost years be added to your life,” Omar Yussef said.

“May you receive blessings from Allah.”

Omar Yussef hung up. He put his small suitcase on the bed and opened it. His pale blue pajamas were folded neatly on top of his other clothes. He took them out and placed them on the quilt. The scent of his wife’s lavender perfume rose from the case, and he closed his eyes for a moment. He laid his hand on a box six inches long that Maryam had given him. It was a gift for Ala, an expensive pen, a Mont Blanc like the one he himself carried. He had told Maryam it was a ridiculous gift for a computer programmer, but she had wanted to give her boy something special. He slipped the box into the pocket of his jacket-he would hand it to his son when next he saw him. What are you feeling now, my little Ala? he thought. He sat beside his suitcase on the bed and put his face in his hands. He wept hard until he fell asleep in his clothes.

Chapter 8

A sharp thumping like the fire of a heavy machine gun brought Omar Yussef awake with his heart racing. His glasses were cutting into the bridge of his nose. He righted them and looked around, blinking. His panic persisted a few seconds until he realized he was lying across the bed in his hotel room, his arm draped over his open suitcase, pulling it close as though the scent of lavender within could substitute for the comforting presence of his wife.

He pushed himself upright and rolled his neck with a groan. On the nightstand, the clock showed almost 7 A.M. The hammering started again. He heard a cough in the corridor and realized that someone was out there knocking. He tucked his shirt into his pants and opened the door.

“Do the windows in your room open?” Khamis Zeydan shoved past Omar Yussef.

The schoolteacher blinked at his old friend, the Bethlehem police chief. He felt dull and slow. “What’re you doing here?”

Khamis Zeydan reached behind the curtains, feeling for a catch on the window frame. “I told you half a dozen times I was coming. There’s no point explaining anything to you,” he said. “You only pay attention to Ottoman history and medieval Andalusian poetry. Our president’s visit? You remember? His speech at the UN and consultations with the Americans? I’m advising him on security issues.”

Omar Yussef shut the door and took a swig from the half-empty bottle of water on the bed. “I’m a little sleepy.”

“What’re you talking about? You’re already dressed.” The window slid back, and a strong gust of chilly air cut through the heavy warmth of the room. The cunning lines around Khamis Zeydan’s blue eyes deepened, and the ends of his nicotine-stained white mustache rose. “May Allah be praised. My windows won’t unlock. I’ve already set off the smoke alarm in my room twice this morning.” He took out a Rothmans and lit up with relish.

Omar Yussef looked around for an ashtray to give to his friend.

Khamis Zeydan shook his head. “They don’t allow it here, Abu Ramiz. In America, you have the right to carry a gun wherever you want, but you’re banned from flourishing something as lethal as a cigarette.”

Omar Yussef shivered. “Does the window have to be open quite so wide? It’s February, and this city is almost arctic. When did you arrive?”

“We landed in the middle of the night.” Khamis Zeydan shoved the window until it was open only a few inches and brushed some ash from the lapel of his navy-blue trench coat with annoyance. “Son of a whore,” he muttered.

“Why aren’t you with the president now?”

“He has meetings in his suite all morning and a lunch with some Arab diplomats. I told him that if I had to listen to all the shit they’ll talk, I might whack one of them. He sent me away to be a tourist.” Khamis Zeydan rattled phlegm in his throat, opened the window wider, and expectorated out of it. He watched the wind whip his spit along the street toward the turquoise glass of the UN building. “By Allah, we’re high up here, aren’t we?”

Omar Yussef was comforted by the arrival of his old friend. He went to the window and looked down. His head spun a little as he watched the yellow taxis threading past the double-parked black limos twenty floors down. He wondered if one of the tiny figures below was waiting for him, tracking him. He shivered. “I’m happy to see you, Abu Adel,” he said.

The habitual boldness of Khamis Zeydan’s voice receded as he reached for Omar Yussef’s hand. “Something’s wrong, my dear Abu Ramiz.”

The schoolteacher rested his forehead against the cold glass. “I found a dead man yesterday,” he murmured.

“Allah is most great,” Khamis Zeydan said. He slapped his knuckles into the gloved prosthesis he had worn since a grenade took off his left hand in the Lebanese civil war. “This is a violent city. Even so, what’re the odds that you should find yourself a bystander?”

“Not just a random body. It was Nizar Jado, one of Ala’s roommates. The police took Ala.”

“Took him? Why? Surely he’s not a suspect?”

“He refused to give an alibi. He may be in danger. He hinted that he knows about something that went on between Nizar and their other roommate, Rashid. I can’t believe Rashid is the killer; but if he were, he might try to get at Ala-to keep him from talking.”

“Nizar, eh?” Khamis Zeydan flicked his cigarette out of the window, and the wind carried it away in a brief flurry of orange sparks. He shut the window and shivered. “Where are they holding Ala?”

“At the police station, I think. I can check with the detective.” Omar Yussef took Hamza’s business card from his pocket. He sat by the phone a moment, until he remembered how to obtain an outside line, then dialed.

Immediately, Hamza picked up: “Abayat.”

“Greetings, Sergeant, this is Abu Ramiz speaking, the father of Ala Sirhan.”

“Morning of joy, ustaz.”

“Morning of light, my dear sir.”

“Did you pass a good night?”

“Fine, fine, may Allah be thanked.”

“May merciful Allah bless you.”

“Sergeant, I would like to talk to my son.”

“If Allah wills it, ustaz.”

“Yes, if Allah wills it. You told me it would be possible today.”

“If Allah wills it.”

Omar Yussef wasn’t sure if he had heard irritation or merely fatigue in the detective’s voice. “Where is he?”

“He’s at the Brooklyn Detention Complex.”

“He’s not at the police station?”

“It’s easier for us to keep them at the Detention Complex and bring them to the station for questioning when