The Fourth Assassin

within Ala when he had lost Rania. Don’t look for a woman who lights you on fire, he thought. She may just as easily douse your flames, and then she has only consumed you.

Outside his window, the blue glass of the UN building glimmered in the dull morning light. Omar Yussef slouched to the bathroom, showered, shaved, and fussed with the tendrils of white hair that he combed across his bald scalp. The mirror steamed up. It wouldn’t stay clear even after he rubbed cold water across its surface. He felt as though he had been hit in the head as hard as Hamza: no matter where he looked, his vision was obscured.

Chapter 29

The morning session at the conference was an emotional parade of pledges to finance schools and clinics in the refugee camps of Palestine, which convinced few among the UN staff that the money would ever be forthcoming. From his seat beside Magnus Wallander in the observers’ section, Omar Yussef stared across the hall of the Economic and Social Council toward the Lebanese delegation. Ismail’s place remained empty until shortly before the lunch break, when the boy entered through the double doors. He joined his colleagues at their long desk, whispered a few words to the man beside him, who covered a snigger with his hands, then set to taking notes on the speeches.

Omar Yussef tapped Magnus Wallander on the arm. “Back soon,” he whispered.

He padded across the thin green carpet in the gallery at the back of the conference hall and waited in an empty seat a few rows behind the Lebanese delegates. When the Egyptian chairman wearily mumbled that the proceedings would recommence after a two-hour break for lunch and slapped down his gavel, Omar Yussef stepped toward the boy who had once been his pupil.

He found Ismail in conversation with the tall Iranian representative whose round collar and trim beard he remembered from the opening reception. They spoke in a language Omar Yussef didn’t understand, and he realized that Ismail must have learned Farsi. You don’t just pick that up in Lebanon, he thought. He’s been with Iranians, maybe the Revolutionary Guards that Rania said were stationed in the Bekaa Valley. Ismail’s companion gave him an affectionate stroke on the cheek and slipped away.

“Greetings, O Ismail,” Omar Yussef said.

In their dark, pouched sockets, Ismail’s chestnut-brown eyes were wan and surrendering. He looked like the note-taking civil servant he was supposed to be. When he smiled, it was with the feeble helplessness of one admitting a silly mistake. “Double greetings, dear ustaz Abu Ramiz.”

“We have to talk.”

“Wasn’t this morning’s conference enough talk for you?”

“That would be my sentiment if it weren’t for the fact that the alternative to talk may be disaster.” Omar Yussef held Ismail’s arm as the room cleared. He felt a strong bicep beneath the well-cut fabric of the boy’s dark blue chalk-stripe suit.

“Nizar has confessed everything,” he said.

Ismail twitched his head, confused.

Omar Yussef recalled the deal the Israelis had forced on the boy, selling out a sheikh to earn freedom for his friends. He wanted Ismail to feel forgiveness, to extract him from the destructive embrace into which he had fallen. “I know you feel you betrayed the other Assassins in the Israeli jail-”

Ismail put a finger over his old teacher’s lips and watched the last delegates heading for the door.

“They told me you were ashamed, and clearly you remain so,” Omar Yussef whispered. He took the boy’s finger from over his mouth and held it in his hand. “But they’ve forgiven you. You don’t have to live in exile to make up for what happened in the jail.”

“Ala may have forgiven me, ustaz, but Nizar never will.” Ismail’s voice was dour and rough.

“And Rashid? Will he forgive you?”

“In Paradise, when I join him as a martyr.”

“So you know he’s dead. But how will you be martyred? By a severe paper cut at one of these conference sessions?”

“They say ‘the sword brings more accurate news than books,’” Ismail said.

“You’re an intelligent boy. Don’t take that path.”

Ismail pulled his hand away. “Who said I had done so?” He turned and Omar Yussef saw pity and regret on his face. “Will you walk with me a little while, ustaz? It’d be good to hear the news from Bethlehem.”

“Then why not return to your hometown?”

Ismail pressed his notepad to his chest. “How do you think the Israelis would welcome a member of the Lebanese UN delegation? I can never come closer to Bethlehem than holding your hand now as we walk.”

In the public gallery, the school groups left gray blotches on the carpet where snow melted from their shoes. Omar Yussef led Ismail to the tall windows.

“There’s an assassin here in New York,” Omar Yussef said. “The police know he’s going to try to kill the president during his speech tomorrow. For that assassin, whoever he is, it would be a suicidal mission.”

“So?”

“Consider this a warning.”

“Ustaz, do I look like a trained killer?”

“I’ve met men with blood on their hands. I’ve even shaken those hands in some cases. But I still don’t know how to recognize them by their faces. I always imagine they must give themselves away with some trace of horror and disgust, but they can just as easily look amiable and kind.”

Ismail watched another group of schoolchildren ramble along the gallery. “What do you see in the faces of these American students visiting the UN today? They’re just as guilty of murder as the American soldiers shooting tank shells at crowds of Iraqi civilians.”

Omar Yussef’s fingers felt cold in the boy’s grip. “When I was young, I, too, blamed America for all the problems of the Arab people. But as I matured, I saw that our biggest trouble is our determination to accuse others-to play the victim.”

“This is an unholy place.” Ismail threw his arm toward the yellow taxis jamming the avenue and the buildings vanishing into the descending snow. “Who among the believers would lament if it were destroyed today?”

“Perhaps the believers who live in Little Palestine.”

“What’s that?”

“Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You were there. I saw you when I came out of the basement mosque.”

“Little Palestine?” Ismail grinned. “As if Palestine itself wasn’t already little enough.”

Omar Yussef felt separated from Ismail by the angry cynicism of the zealot. He struggled to find a language the boy might comprehend. “You think Allah is known only in the places where everyone already submits to his will? Allah is here. Allah lives in New York.”

“That’s blasphemous. Allah lives in Mecca.”

Omar Yussef laughed. “I’m surprised at you. You think like a peasant. Allah exists where he’s needed.”

“But you’re not even a believer, ustaz.”

“I believe that Allah is a mystery. Do you really think he sits on top of the Kaba in Mecca? Doesn’t he feel compassion for the people of New York, even though they’re physically far away from him?”

They came to the empty General Assembly and passed into the visitors’ area at the back. A map of the world, spreading out from the North Pole, shone in gold leaf above the dais.

As he stared down the long aisles toward the futuristic podium, Ismail seemed transformed to Omar Yussef. Gone was the delicate, wounded clerk, and in his place stood a killer, ready to put his faith in truths so simple that nothing could be easier than to die for them, because they made of death something facile too. He had ceased to be one of Omar Yussef’s little group of Assassins. He had become simply an assassin.

“If you carry out your plan, then this is where Allah dies,” Omar Yussef said. “Wherever he has lived-Mecca, New York-he dies here.”