Chapter 23
Sami rolled his Jeep toward the mahogany porch at the front of the presidential building. Military Intelligence men linked arms to restrain the crowd in the courtyard of the president’s compound. The mob chanted “Allah is most great” and jostled the soldiers, dislodging their red berets and shoving some of them against the car with low, hollow thuds that made Omar Yussef jump. A steady crackle of guns firing into the air penetrated the insulated calm of Sami’s expensive car.
“There must be thousands of people here,” Omar Yussef said. “I thought Husseini was unpopular.”
“He was a bastard,” said Khamis Zeydan. The police chief looked out at the crowd over his cigarette.
“Then what’re these people so upset about?”
“You know what it’s like when an Arab leader dies. No one liked him, but nonetheless he represented something good to them-stability, a pay check, support for the people of their village against another village. That’s all this is.”
“They’re angry. There could be a riot, after the funeral.”
“The funeral is already a riot. After the funeral? Someone’ll have to die.”
Sami pulled up to the porch. An officer opened the door and saluted. Khamis Zeydan headed for the entrance. Omar Yussef squinted into the hot, dusty wind, over the mass of heads. It seemed as though the chanting, shouting crowd was pressing toward him alone, thrusting fists in the air and demanding vengeance. He was unsurprised that, at the last moment, the president had elected to stay in Ramallah and give the funeral a miss.
From along the beach road, a deep thump rumbled like the resonating soundwaves of a bomb in the seconds after detonation. It came again, a regular beat. A band joined it and Omar Yussef realized it was a bass drum, struck with a full swing of the shoulders. The band played Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slav and the big drum sounded every second bar. They were bringing the body from Husseini’s house. The crowd swelled behind the military cordon. Omar Yussef followed Khamis Zeydan into the presidential building.
At the top of a whitewashed staircase adorned with a few potted plants, Omar Yussef entered a conference room filled with smoke and mumbling clutches of well-dressed men. At the head of the long table, large portrait photos of the president and his predecessor hung on the wall. On either side of the photographs, the Palestinian flag was draped from poles the height of a short man. A Military Intelligence officer in a neat, plain uniform and without his beret poured a small cup of bitter coffee for Omar Yussef from a plastic flask that was shaped to look like a traditional copper pot.
Khamis Zeydan beckoned from the window. He spoke quietly to Omar Yussef as he inhaled on his cigarette. His lips barely moved. “Where did you go this morning?”
“What do you mean?”
“I only brought you to this funeral because I want to keep an eye on you. You can’t be trusted to stay out of trouble.” His eyes flicked about the room. “So tell me, after I went to the Revolutionary Council meeting and left you at breakfast, where did you go?”
“Why didn’t you ask me this in the car on the way here?”
“This is not for Sami’s ears. You were supposed to be going for a walk on the beach.”
“I neglected to bring my swimsuit to Gaza.”
Khamis Zeydan hissed cigarette smoke over Omar Yussef. “You’ll have to find one. They’re shooting a calendar, like the American ones that have supermodels frolicking in the waves. This one’s called Assassination Victims on the Gaza Shore. You’re Miss August.”
“My favorite time of year. Anyway, I’m not scared of ruffling feathers. I want to free Magnus, even if no one else seems to remember him.”
“Haven’t you heard? He’s Miss September.”
“I’m not prepared to let that happen.” Omar Yussef drew his shoulders back and raised his chin. He felt his jaw shivering with anger. “And I was doing my best to prevent his death this morning.”
“I don’t think so.” Khamis Zeydan’s jaw tightened with every word. “I think you were making a mistake this morning.”
“You know where I went?”
“I have a good idea. Look, Maki can’t help you. You’ll only get into deeper trouble if you pester him.”
“I have no other leads.”
“It’s not a lead. It’s a dead end, a brick wall that you’re charging into, just because Magnus was kidnapped right after you had dinner with Maki.”
“That’s not what I meant by a lead.”
“What other big conspiracies have you uncovered, then?” Khamis Zeydan blew smoke furiously, as though it might cloak him and Omar Yussef from the other party men.
“On the wall of Lieutenant Fathi Salah’s family home, there are degree certificates from al-Azhar. For him and his brother Yasser, a Preventive Security officer.”
Khamis Zeydan shrugged. “So what?”
“This morning I looked at their academic files in Maki’s office,” Omar Yussef said.
“You did what? How?”
Omar Yussef waved his hand impatiently. “Fathi’s record was clean, a regular student who evidently worked hard to make all his tuition payments. But Yasser’s was faked, and his father had told me he was recently promoted. It’s just what Eyad Masharawi alleged: al-Fara’s officers buy bogus degrees from Maki so they can get a promotion.”
“That’s only a minor scandal.”
“Then why did they torture Masharawi for exposing it?”
“Because torture is a minor punishment in Gaza.”
“I think there’s a link between the torture of Masharawi for exposing the fake degrees, and the stolen Saladin I missile.” Omar Yussef laced his fingers together and held them close to Khamis Zeydan’s face. The two men were almost touching. “If so, Magnus’s kidnapping and James’s murder are connected, too.”
“You said Lieutenant Fathi Salah’s degree wasn’t faked. But he’s the one who was trading the missile and is now dead, not his brother Yasser. So you’ve got a guy with a degree who was selling a missile and another guy with a bogus degree who wasn’t. How does that give you a connection? And what does it have to do with the killing of James Cree?”
“If I knew all that, I wouldn’t be arguing about it with you. I’m still trying to figure it out, but I’m certain there’s a connection.” Omar Yussef looked out of the smoked-glass window at the crowd below. He imagined them surging up the stairs to lynch him. He turned to his friend. “What do you know about websites?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“If someone made a website for me, would just anyone be able to get inside the computer and look at it?”
Khamis Zeydan coughed out a short, scoffing laugh. “ Get inside the computer? My brother, you’re behind the times. Are you still cleaning your teeth with the bristly end of a miswak twig?”
The delegates jockeyed for position near the door. Professor Adnan Maki entered, his arm hooked through the well-tailored sleeve of Colonel Mahmoud al-Fara. Khamis Zeydan took a deep drag on his cigarette and crushed the butt under his shoe on the carpet. “The undertaker has arrived,” he said.
Omar Yussef strained to see through the tobacco smoke. The crowd drew faintly toward Colonel al-Fara, like nervous children approaching a big dog. Al-Fara acknowledged the men he passed with a vicious, superior smile. He wore a light gray suit, a white shirt whose cuffs came an inch beyond the sleeves of the jacket to expose gold cufflinks, and a somber silk tie. His lank, black hair fell over his forehead and his mustache was gleaming and moist. He slouched through the room dispensing mirthless grins. He brought a tissue from his pocket and expectorated. The coffee boy put out a hand and al-Fara gave him the crumpled tissue without looking at him.
Maki caught sight of Omar Yussef. His smile wavered, then he lifted his hand and wiggled his fingers in greeting. Omar Yussef searched for a sign that Maki had noticed the Saladin Brigades leaflet and his handwritten notes on the floor of his office. The professor’s sybaritic lips twitched as though blowing a kiss. He went with al-Fara out of the back of the conference room to a wide balcony. The other men followed.