“Abu Ramiz.” Sami tossed the shovel out of the grave. He lifted a plywood box onto its end. It was the length of a coffin, but it was bound with wire and the wood was bright and new.
Wallender helped Sami lift the box onto the grass. Sami sent Jouda back to his yard for wire clippers. He smiled at Omar Yussef, admiring and puzzled. When Jouda returned, Sami cut the wire and beat open the nailed lid of the box with the handle of the spade.
The missile was gray and surprisingly narrow-no wider than a toddler’s torso. A yellow stripe circled it near its pointed tip and another by the fins at its base. Three foam inserts held it in place and it was packed tight with plastic ballast bags.
“Suleiman, call the hospital and talk to Doctor Najjar, the pathologist. Tell him you’ve found where the missing bones belong,” Omar Yussef said. “Tell him I’ll call the morgue to explain, as soon as I can.”
The caretaker hurried toward his house.
Omar Yussef bent to close the lid of the missile crate.
“What’s this all about?” Wallender asked.
“This is the Saladin I,” Omar Yussef said. He knocked the lid into place with the heel of his hand.
Sami came close to Omar Yussef. “How are you intending to destroy this missile, Abu Ramiz?”
“Destroy it?” Omar Yussef laughed. “We’re going to sell it.”
Chapter 30
As the wind dropped, the dust cloud settled in a final gritty film over Emile Zola Street. Omar Yussef blinked at the sky. A deep blue came through the dirt for the first time in four days. The tricolor at the French Cultural Center, next door to Maki’s house, dangled from its pole as though it were wilting in the early morning heat. Sami idled the Jeep at the curb. He rapped his fist on the plywood missile crate, which rested over the folded rear-seats, and gave a thumbs-up. Omar Yussef nodded to him and pressed the buzzer at the professor’s gate.
The blue metal door swung open and Omar Yussef entered the garden of luxuriant bushes and tall palms. He calmed himself with a deep breath and noted that it was the first time in days he had inhaled without also swallowing a handful of sand. By the fountain, the plastic doe stretched her neck from behind a bush, and Omar Yussef let her snout nuzzle into the crust of blood and sweat on his bandaged palm.
The Sri Lankan maid awaited him at the wide mahogany door. She paid no attention to the dirt that covered his face and hair, or the blood smeared across the belly of his shirt where he had stanched the flow from his slashed palms. He wondered what strange people came through this entrance that the tiny woman could take in, with a polite smile, such a horrific apparition as he must surely have presented.
“Professor Adnan is not yet up,” she said. “But, if you’re in a hurry, I will tell him you’re here.”
“Please do. Thank you.”
The maid went to fetch Adnan Maki. Omar Yussef pulled one of the bentwood chairs from under the dining table, so as not to dirty the sofa and make work for her. His back ached and his head pounded. Magnus would be washing and shaving back at the Sands Hotel now, and he wondered how soon he would be able to do the same thing. He rubbed the stubble on his chin and it showered a dusting of dirt onto the shiny tabletop. He wiped the earth away with the edge of his hand. His bandage left a damp smear on the polished surface. He drew in his breath and shook his head.
The Sri Lankan returned. She smiled and suggested a coffee. Omar Yussef asked her to make it without sugar and she went to the kitchen. He was listening to the muted sounds of her preparations, when he noticed Maki watching him from beside the Chinese cloisonne screen that masked the hallway. Maki wore a red silk dressing gown and cream silk pajamas. His gray hair was tousled. Omar Yussef looked at his wristwatch. It was eight-thirty.
“Morning of light, Abu Nabil,” he said.
“Morning of joy,” Maki said. His voice was quiet. He stared at Omar Yussef, yawned and rubbed his hands across his face to wake himself up.
“I’m sorry to disturb you.”
Maki seemed to shake off his sleepiness in an instant. He was as loud and vivacious as ever. “Not at all, Abu Ramiz. I welcome you to breakfast with me. If good company is rare in Gaza at dinnertime, then at breakfast it’s something never to be experienced.” He leered.
Omar Yussef wondered what kind of company Maki kept at breakfast in his Paris apartment, away from the conservative watchers of Gaza. It probably wasn’t much more classy than Omar Yussef must have looked at the moment. “I apologize for my appearance.”
“Would you like to clean up in the bathroom? What on earth has happened to you?”
The Sri Lankan brought the coffee. Maki told her to bring out a plate of croissants and toast.
“I’m really not hungry, Abu Nabil,” Omar Yussef said.
“No, no, I insist we enjoy an unhurried breakfast, the two of us.” Maki sat at the table. “I very much welcome your excellent company. The Revolutionary Council meetings are over. My cultured friends among the delegates are returning to the West Bank. All is once again deathly quiet in Gaza. Deathly, deathly, deathly.”
Omar Yussef detected a deeper layer of meaning in the repetition of Maki’s last word. Perhaps Maki had seen Omar Yussef’s notes on the back of the Saladin Brigades leaflet after all. But it didn’t matter now. Omar Yussef held the trump card.
“I didn’t come for cultured talk. I want to do business,” he said.
Maki tilted his head and opened his hand.
“I have something to offer, as a trade,” Omar Yussef said.
The Sri Lankan came with a plate of pastries. Maki pushed it across the table to Omar Yussef, smiling. “Is this another deal for the freedom of your friend Professor Masharawi?” he said.
“You know as well as I do that Masharawi’s dead,” Omar Yussef said.
The smile was gone from Maki’s face. He pulled the plate back across the table and bit into a chocolate croissant. As he chewed, the wet, black, tadpole eyes narrowed until they were hard and cunning. He wiped a few flakes of pastry from his wide upper lip. “I don’t know that quite as well as you do, but it’s true that I do know it.”
“I have the Saladin I.”
“The what?”
“The prototype missile that you and Yasser Salah stole from the Saladin Brigades.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Who is Yasser Salah?” Maki lowered his chin like a dog preparing to pounce.
Omar Yussef fought against his tiredness for concentration. “Yasser Salah was a Preventive Security officer in Rafah. You sold him his university degrees, so he could obtain promotion.”
“He was a Preventive Security officer, you said?”
“He’s dead now. Buried alive in his smuggling tunnel beneath the Egyptian border. I went to his house last night and found my kidnapped Swedish colleague there, thankfully still in good shape.”
“The Swede is safe? So everything is completed to your satisfaction.” Maki threw his arms wide, exposing the gray hairs on his chest at the neck of the pajamas.
“Not quite. I want to sell you the Saladin missile.”
Maki shook his head, as though deeply puzzled. “Why should I want it?”
“Because if you don’t buy it, I’ll sell it to Colonel al-Fara.”
“So?”
“He’ll want to know how this missile, which was smuggled into Gaza by the Saladin Brigades, ended up in the hands of a UN schoolteacher.”
“And what will you tell him?”
“That his ally on the Revolutionary Council, Professor Maki, wanted a piece of the arms trade. He arranged for degrees from al-Azhar University to be conferred on a nobody down in Rafah named Yasser Salah, so that the man could be promoted to a powerful position in the local Preventive Security branch.”
Maki laughed and clapped his hands. “Abu Ramiz, the dust storm has affected your brain, perhaps. This is all most fantastic.”
Omar Yussef ignored him. “With his status in the security forces to protect him from rival smugglers, Salah could smug
gle weapons and sell them readily. When he heard that the Saladin Brigades were bringing in a new missile, Salah figured it was an opportunity to snatch the prototype and sell it back to the gunmen.”
Maki stopped laughing. His jaw was tight.
“Salah used his brother, a Military Intelligence officer, to carry out the trade,” Omar Yussef said, “so the Saladin Brigades would blame Military Intelligence for the theft. His brother lost his nerve and blew the sale, so Salah killed him. He was preparing to sell the missile to Colonel al-Fara, I believe, when things started to go wrong.”
“I don’t know anything about this missile.”
“Yes, you do. Yasser Salah had two bogus university degrees, but he was no historian. The missile was hidden in a grave in the British War Cemetery. That was your touch, professor. You’re the history man.” Omar Yussef watched Maki closely. “Do I need to remind you of your lecture over dinner about the British in the First World War?”
The professor pulled a croissant into pieces. He laid the strips on his plate, side by side.
“The degrees you sold to Preventive Security men like Salah gave you a strong network all over Gaza. These men owed their promotions and power to you. You used them to sell the weapons Salah smuggled under the border.” Omar Yussef raised his finger and looked hard at Maki. “But if Colonel al-Fara found out you were using the sale of degrees for more than just a little extra cash, he’d squash you. He wouldn’t want his people to owe even partial allegiance to anyone else.”
“I sold a degree to al-Fara, too.” Maki smiled. “So stop behaving as though you have the upper hand here.”
“I have the missile, remember,” Omar Yussef said.
Maki waved his hand dismissively. “All missiles look the same to me. Salah handled that end of things.”
“You’ve gone too far, Abu Nabil,” Omar Yussef said. “When Professor Masharawi made his accusations about corruption at the university, you had your network in Preventive Security frame him as a spy. In the end, you kidnapped the Swede, blew up James Cree and had Masharawi killed, because you saw that we were getting too close to the truth.”
“I didn’t order the UN fellow to be blown up,” Maki said. “That was Salah’s stupidity. In any case, he thought you’d be in the car, rather than the foreigner.”
“But you did want me killed?”
Maki lifted his chin arrogantly, then he dropped it and it was as though the fight had gone out of him. “I found a Saladin Brigades leaflet in my office after you left, with notes about the Salah brothers on the back. I knew then why you were in my office with my secretary. There was a phone number on the leaflet, too, so I had Salah call it. When you answered, he put the Swede on the line, to scare you off. It didn’t work, so I issued the order to have you killed.” He shrugged. “But your friend the Scotsman was already dead. At the time he died, I assure you I didn’t wish you killed. That roadside bomb was too much.”
Omar Yussef felt his shoulder twinge where the stone had hit him by Cree’s burning vehicle. It was one bruise among many, but he sensed it deep in his muscle now. “It was too much for me,” he said. “For you, it was only part of Gaza’s long, fatal history.”
“I’m not a monster, Abu Ramiz. I’m a politician.” Maki placed both hands over his heart and frowned. “How do you think politics is conducted in Gaza? With reasoned debate between men who call each other ‘the honorable gentleman’? I hoped you’d see that you were involved in something more than a trivial argument between a part-time professor and the head of the university. Masharawi’s torture should’ve shown you it was much bigger than that.” Maki shook his head slowly. “If you had been smarter, your friend the UN man would still be alive. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t understand the way Gaza works. But you’re a Palestinian-I told you to guide the foreigners away from the Masharawi case. Still you went ahead with your stupid investigation. If anyone killed the Scotsman, it was you.”
Omar Yussef’s jaw quivered and his hands shook with rage. “You admitted that you were prepared to go even further,” he said, as calmly as he could. “You put out an order for me to be killed.”
“That was a lesser thing than the murder of the Scotsman. Do you think anyone at the United Nations would worry about your death?” Maki said. He smiled, seeming to gain energy from Omar Yussef’s evident anger. “Even so, the Scotsman’s killing will come to nothing. If the UN found out that I was involved in his death-which they couldn’t prove, believe me-their diplomats would hush it up.”
“One of their colleagues is dead.”
“Oh, yes, you might expect them to want justice for their departed comrade. But they’d be far more concerned about the peace negotiations. They aren’t about to blame a senior member of the Revolutionary Council for the murder.” Maki gestured around the room, as though its luxury were proof that he was above justice and law. “The UN will close its eyes to this, agree that it was the result of some internal battle between criminal gunmen, and pay a pension to the poor man’s family, if he has one.”
Omar Yussef recalled bitterly how swift the UN negotiating team had been to turn back to Jerusalem, after the bomb killed James Cree. “Perhaps you’re right. They’ll allow the incident to be buried,” he said. “Why should it only be Palestinians who’re corrupted by Gaza?”
“Did you come here to listen to me confess? You think three thousand years of death in Gaza will be ended if you take me in to the police? I gave you a lesson in Gaza’s history when we had dinner the other night. But you didn’t pay attention.” Maki leaned over the table and wagged his finger at Omar Yussef. There was a smear of melted chocolate on the knuckle. Maki sucked it away. He smiled and smacked his lips. “Yasser Salah and Eyad Masharawi and your UN man, these are all small issues. These three men all benefited from the violence and corruption here-Salah ran guns, Masharawi was the principled defender of justice, and your UN man got a tax-free salary and the warm feeling that he was helping the poor, dark natives.”
“It cost them their lives.”
“That was the risk they took. While they lived, they thrived on the same system that killed them.”
Omar Yussef waved his bandaged hand. “Let’s forget that we’re both history teachers. I don’t care about ending Gaza’s violent story. When you invited me to your house for dinner, you said you could offer me incentives to bury the Masharawi case. I know what you meant by that, and I’m prepared to let you buy my silence now.”
Maki was still. He smiled tentatively, then he raised his eyebrows and laughed. He slapped the tabletop with both hands and laughed harder. “Abu Ramiz, I liked you from the moment I met you.” He pointed a finger at Omar Yussef. “You’re a very, very bad man, my friend. My dear, darling friend. A very bad man.”
Maki called to the Sri Lankan for a whisky. She brought it before he’d finished laughing and he paused in his laughter only long enough to slug it down. He held out his glass. “One for you, Abu Ramiz?”
Omar Yussef shook his head. “I want twenty thousand dollars,” he said.
“That much?”
“That’s the price at which you offered the missile to the Saladin Brigades.”
“Well, I’m sure I can manage that.”
“In cash. Now.”
Maki stopped laughing and sighed. He smiled. “How do I know that you have the missile?”
“Open the door of your garage. My assistant will bring our car inside and leave the missile there for you.”
Maki took Omar Yussef through the kitchen to the side entrance of the garage. He rolled up the street door and pulled his Mercedes out into the sunlight to make room. Omar Yussef beckoned to Sami, who reversed into the garage. With Sami, he maneuvered the plywood missile crate out of the rear of the Jeep and onto the oil-stained floor. Maki came back in and pulled down the door. Sami pried open the lid of the crate.
Maki looked inside and smiled. He ran his hand along the missile, breathlessly, as though it were a naked woman. “The Saladin I. C
lose it up, Abu Ramiz. I’ll get you the money.”
In Maki’s living room, Omar Yussef paced the shiny marble floor. The professor returned with a black leather briefcase. He laid it on the dining table and opened it. Inside were twenty bundles of U.S. dollars. Omar Yussef riffled the end of one wad of bills. “No need to count it, Abu Ramiz,” Maki laughed. “I consider this a fine price and an excellent deal.”
“What’ll you do with the missile?”
“I’m sure that Colonel al-Fara will consider this an excellent deal, also.”
“You’ll give it to him?”
“Give it? Abu Ramiz, you and I are both engaged in the arms trade now, so let’s not be coy. Colonel al-Fara knew about the Saladin Brigades’ attempt to smuggle in a new prototype. He was concerned, because it would have given them an important weapon with which to threaten the Israelis.”
“And, therefore, a tool with which to blackmail money from the party and the government,” Omar Yussef said.
“If they weren’t paid off, they would’ve bombarded Israel with Saladin I missiles, and then the Israelis would’ve invaded Gaza.” Maki laughed.
“That would’ve embarrassed Colonel al-Fara.”
“If al-Fara lost control of security in Gaza, soon it would be all over for him.” Maki punched a fist into his hand. “I had intended for Yasser Salah to do the deal, keeping me out of it. But it will work just as well if I use my personal relationship with al-Fara to make the trade. As soon as you leave, I will call the colonel and tell him that an intermediary has offered to sell him the Saladin I.”
“At a small profit to you.”
Maki bowed, with a smile. “He won’t mind a little premium, a consulting fee, if you like. The colonel shall be quite pleased with his week’s work. First, a Military Intelligence man is killed and the Saladin Brigades are blamed for it. As a result, a Brigades man, this Bassam Odwan, is murdered by Military Intelligence and in revenge the Brigades execute General Husseini, Colonel al-Fara’s biggest rival. Now the colonel is able to purchase the missile over which everyone else was fighting. A very satisfactory outcome for him, wouldn’t you agree?”
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