Omar Yussef stroked his mustache. “Islamic Jihad is using references to the Assassins to send secret messages.”
“That’s right,” Nizar said. “All our messages were based around the Assassins.”
“When you killed Rashid, you left a veil where his head ought to have been-another element from the Assassins’ religious lore. What message were you sending to them?”
Nizar grimaced. “I wanted them to think that the operation had been betrayed-the Veiled Man was a traitor. I expected them to call it all off.”
Omar Yussef remembered the man in black who had fled Ala’s apartment. Because I was there, he never entered the bedroom, he thought. He didn’t see the reference to the Veiled Man. If he was from Islamic Jihad, then the group didn’t get Nizar’s signal, so they went ahead with the plan.
“Another hit man is in place.” Khamis Zeydan grabbed Nizar’s collar. “How do we find him?”
“I don’t know,” Nizar said.
“If this was the backup plan, you must know what to do.”
“I was supposed to wait. When I saw this ad, I’d know that the new assassin would come to me. He’d find me and let me know what he needed from me.”
“So this newspaper message is useless to us,” Hamza said.
“Not quite. We know that the danger to the president didn’t end with the death of Rashid, his intended killer.” Omar Yussef looked at Khamis Zeydan. “We have to call off the speech. The president can’t appear in public.”
Khamis Zeydan’s leg rocked nervously. “You care so much about his life? I thought you despised politicians.”
“I care about the civil war that would start between our worthless political factions if the president were attacked. I care about the family and friends who’d be caught up in it. So do you. You have to keep him out of harm’s way.”
The police chief muttered his assent.
“Speaking of harm’s way, I’m taking this bastard with me.” Hamza put his big hand on Nizar’s shoulder.
“You promised not to arrest him,” Omar Yussef said.
“Do you see any handcuffs? If he’s to get immunity, I have to discuss it with the lieutenant, and from her it’ll go higher. I’ll take him to the station.”
“So you’ll try?”
“That’s the best this son of a whore’ll get.”
Nizar’s shoulders fell and his chin dropped to his chest, as though he were already in chains.
“When this is all finished and the president is safe, you’ll be free,” Omar Yussef said.
Nizar’s eyebrows twitched. He spoke as though he were listening to his own words being played back to him. “What will I do then?”
“Return to Palestine. That’s Ala’s plan.”
“Ala’s going home?”
“When I’ve finished with my speech at the conference, he’ll fly back with me. You could join us.”
Nizar ran his tongue over his lips. “Rania can’t go there.”
She’s Lebanese, Omar Yussef thought. The Israelis wouldn’t let someone from an enemy state live in Bethlehem.
He reached for Nizar’s hand. “My boy, tell me one thing more. What happened to Ismail?”
Nizar registered a reluctant flicker of distaste, like a parched man who finds a fly in his water. “He left Palestine after we were released from the Israeli jail.”
Omar Yussef scratched his neck and wished he could find time to shave. “I’m sure I saw him the other day at the UN conference, with the Lebanese delegation.”
Nizar straightened, his features sharp and nervous.
To be an Assassin is no longer a game, a schoolroom entertainment, Omar Yussef thought. Nizar turned out to be a murderer.
What might Ismail be capable of?
Chapter 27
The bodyguard ran his hands down Omar Yussef’s slack torso and bony legs. He looked hard at the schoolteacher with brown eyes that had all the warmth of a mud brick and twitched his neck to signal that he could enter the president’s suite. Inside, the Palestinian delegation loitered about the long conference table and lounged in the armchairs by the window, watching the cherry-red taillights of the cars on the 59th Street Bridge disappear into the snow. Cigarette smoke choked the room.
From the sofa, the former schools inspector, Haitham Abdel Hadi, rose to fill his coffee cup from a silver thermos on the sideboard. He wore a cheap suit the vibrant burgundy of a baboon’s bottom. He turned a nasty yellow smile on Omar Yussef.
“You look tired, Abu Ramiz,” he said. “Have you been out on the town?” He rattled his cup in its saucer and covered his eyes, miming a hangover. The men in the armchairs-the justice minister and the chief peace negotiator-laughed. Abdel Hadi turned to them. “Our friend Abu Ramiz here is an old soak. He claims to have cleaned up.”
“That’s right,” Omar Yussef said. “No matter how worthless something may appear, I always believe in the possibility of reform-for individuals, as well as for corrupt governments.”
The ministers stroked their neckties over their fat bellies and glanced nervously at the surly chief of secret police, who was smoking a cigarette at the conference table. Colonel Yazid Khatib’s head was bald and bony, and at the moment it was lowered slightly, as though he were preparing to batter forward with it. His eyes were still and menacing beneath surprisingly pretty, long lashes. They had the attentive, restrained malevolence of a Canaan watchdog prowling an olive grove.
Khatib must be in the U.S. to meet his CIA contacts, Omar Yussef thought, the ones who train his goons in torture and assassination-the SWAT teams making the arrests that prompted Islamic Jihad to try to kill the president. Suddenly it was obvious to him that the president’s speech would be so much hot air. The real business on this visit would be carried out by Khatib. It would be dirty and do no good for the Palestinian people.
Khamis Zeydan took Omar Yussef’s elbow, drew him away from the other men, and whispered, “Stay quiet and show respect. Imagine you’re a student in your classroom. Whatever you do, don’t lose your temper.”
Omar Yussef threw off his friend’s hand. “I’m in control,” he said.
“Screw your mother. You don’t even recognize when you’re losing it,” Khamis Zeydan hissed.
“Let’s go.”
They went through a door off the lounge. The president sat on the edge of an armchair, reading a slim file and drinking tea from a white porcelain cup. A young aide with thinning black hair greeted Khamis Zeydan with a few muttered words and offered a clammy handshake to Omar Yussef.
Buttoning the jacket of his brown business suit as he came to his feet, the president shook hands and wished each man a quiet welcome. “Greetings,” he murmured to Omar Yussef, leading him to the dark red couch.
Omar Yussef had feared that he would be swept into the brisk, unforgivingly businesslike atmosphere that chiefs usually cultivated. But in his gold-rimmed spectacles and sober suit, the president seemed more like a bank manager than a politician. He unbuttoned his suit and settled into his armchair. The jacket rode up around his shoulders as he rested his chin on his fingers. His eyebrows were black, his short mustache gray. His cheeks were a pale olive color that suggested weak health, and the skin of his neck was loose over the white collar of his shirt.
“Greetings,” he repeated.
“Double greetings,” Omar Yussef whispered in response.
Khamis Zeydan lit a Rothmans. “Abu Raji, forgive me for speaking bluntly-”
“On which occasion? I don’t remember a time when you prevaricated.” The president laughed, and his aide slapped his hand on the file that rested over his knees.
“There’s a significant threat to your life, we believe,” Khamis Zeydan said.
The smile faded from the president’s face. His fingers slipped over his mouth and played in his mustache.
“We’ve broken an Islamic Jihad cell here in New York. Their hit man is still out there.”