Sami was silent, smoking, staring through the dusty air to the street below. Omar Yussef watched him. He was a good boy, a hard man, and he was all that stood between Omar Yussef and a lonely death in Gaza. Back in Bethlehem, Omar Yussef’s clan was big, with ties to all the different security forces and militias. The gunmen would hesitate before killing him there. In Gaza, he was an alien and yet not a foreigner, so he could be made to disappear with fewer problems than Wallender or Cree, and no one with the power to do anything about it would care that he had vanished.
The waiter brought a small plate of olives and pickled slices of radish that had been dyed purple with beetroot juice. Omar Yussef looked at his watch. They had waited twenty minutes. He realized he was hungrier than he had thought. “Where’s our food?”
“It’s coming,” the waiter mumbled.
It was another ten minutes before a plate of cold falafel and mediocre hummus arrived at the table. Omar Yussef asked for a bottle of water and stared at the disappointing food. Sami picked up a falafel, rolled it in the hummus and took a bite. He put the second half back on his plate and lit another cigarette.
Omar Yussef ripped a corner of flat bread and tasted the hummus with it. The nausea of the previous day returned. Every tiny chip of chickpea in the puree seemed to cut into the roof of his mouth and the back of his throat like the crystal that had choked Odwan. He swigged a glass of water and rinsed it about his mouth until the nutty taste was gone. He covered his lips with his hand, so that Sami wouldn’t see the quivering tension that tightened his lower face.
They had been at their post by the window an hour. Downstairs the noise of customers in the restaurant grew louder, but no one ascended to the dining room. The owner of the restaurant stamped up the stairs just before one o’clock. He was a sad-looking man with a drooping mustache and a spare frame that suggested he thought little more of his establishment’s food than Omar Yussef did. He nodded to Sami, who snapped upright in his chair. The owner lifted a catch on a metal door in the back of the dining room. He took a step up the unlit staircase of bare concrete outside and whispered.
Two men came down the steps and into the restaurant. The first was tall, gaunt and mournful, with graying hair and a slouching curve to his back and neck. He looked around the room quickly, grimacing and touching his uneven front teeth with his tongue as though they pained him. Behind him came a smaller man in a blue baseball cap with skin almost as light as a European. He wore a rounded black beard and a black vest. Both carried M-16s across their chests, their right hands on the triggers, left hands low on the barrel ready to lift and fire. They came toward Sami and Omar Yussef, their heavy military boots resounding on the thin floor.
The restaurant owner went down the stairs.
Sami rose to greet the men. Omar Yussef held his hands tight to his sides, fighting the temptation to step forward and strike these murderers in their faces. Both men offered him their hands. He looked at the floor and gave them quick, light handshakes. The tall gunman’s shake was weak, but the smaller man’s hand was thick and hard against Omar Yussef’s palm. The tall man pulled out two chairs at the table where Omar Yussef and Sami were sitting and placed them far enough away to be out of reach.
Sami introduced Omar Yussef as the colleague of the UN official who had been killed. The shorter gunman flicked his eyes toward Omar Yussef. The irises were dark brown, surrounded by malevolent sclera the color of milky coffee.
The tall gunman cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, ustaz, for the death of your colleague. We acted upon instructions, but we were misled.” He coughed again. “I’m Walid Bahloul from here in the camp. This is the brother Khaled al-Banna, who’s also from the Saladin Brigades in Gaza City.”
The second man’s eyes twitched, as though his name shouldn’t have been disclosed.
“Why did you carry out this act against the UN?” Omar Yussef said. He concentrated on the taller gunman, Walid. His wet, gray eyes were less disconcerting and he seemed ready to talk.
“We really are sorry about the foreigner, ustaz,” Walid said. “We thought there would just be a driver or some local staff in the car.”
“Local staff? A Palestinian? Someone like me?” Reme mber what Sami said: cool it, Omar Yussef thought.
“It wasn’t an operation against the UN, in truth, ustaz,” Walid said. “It was a signal to the security forces to release our departed brother Bassam Odwan, may Allah be merciful to him.”
“But you already kidnapped Magnus Wallender and were holding him in return for Odwan’s freedom.”
“Who?”
“The Swede, also from the UN.”
“Him? That wasn’t us, ustaz.”
“Who was it?”
Walid looked nervously at Khaled, whose eyes were firmly on Omar Yussef.
“The Swede was taken by someone from Rafah,” Walid said.
“The Saladin Brigades from Rafah?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“But you aren’t sure?”
“Communication is difficult.” Walid’s smile was as weak as his handshake and he lifted his shoulders apologetically. “We took action against the UN car and killed your colleague, because we thought it would be a gesture to the Saladin Brigades in Rafah. To show that we were willing to perform drastic acts in support of their man Bassam Odwan.”
“You saw the leaflet that the Saladin Brigades put out after the Swede’s kidnapping? Demanding Odwan’s release in return for the Swede?”
“Yes.”
Omar Yussef was angry with these men for killing James, but now they were lying to him, as well. He raised his finger and pointed at the tall man. “You were just trying to show that if Rafah people invaded your turf in Gaza City to kidnap a foreigner, you could do a more spectacular job?”
Walid turned fully to Khaled. The second man didn’t look at him, but he licked his thick lips in the midst of his black beard and sniffed. “There’s no need for excuses,” Khaled said. “Walid is trying to make this sound nice, like we had fine motives. I don’t care what you think of me, I only want to be sure that I don’t end up carrying the can for this. So let’s cut the bullshit. We were paid to blow up the UN car.”
“By whom? Someone in Gaza City?” Omar Yussef was thinking of the Revolutionary Council people at the funeral and the order to kill him.
“No, he’s not from here. He’s a real bastard.”
“You don’t have real bastards in Gaza City?”
“We have people here with hard hearts and we have others here with shit for brains,” Khaled said. “But this guy’s the other way around. His head is hard and a dirty piece of shit throbs where his heart ought to be.”
Omar Yussef thought he might have liked Khaled, if the man hadn’t also been Cree’s killer. “Who is he?”
Khaled breathed deeply and wrinkled his nose. “Yasser Salah.”
“Yasser Salah paid you to kill the UN man?”
“He paid us to blow up the UN car.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Whoever was in the UN car was supposed to die.”
“Meaning me, too?”
Khaled shrugged. “He called us early yesterday afternoon. He said a UN car was on the way to the checkpoint. He told us he’d pay us to blow it up. He didn’t give us the passenger list.”
“That was a short deadline.”
Walid smiled, proudly. “We have the northern areas of the Saladin Road rigged with explosives permanently, in case the Israelis use it to invade Gaza again.”
Khaled hissed and raised his eyes briefly toward the ceiling. “So now you know what you need to know. We’re clear with you and you’ll square it with the UN?”
“You think I’m a decision-maker at the UN?” Omar Yussef said.
“Don’t fuck me about,” Khaled leaned forward. “They won’t know anything unless you want them to know it. We’re not big fish, either; we’ve been exploited in all this. You figure out how to keep us in the clear, or you’ll go the same way your colleague did.”