Matt Rees - A grave in Gaza

“So what did Colonel al-Fara do?”

“Abu Adel says al-Fara was silent. But everyone else was in uproar.”

If al-Fara was silent, Omar Yussef calculated it was a perilous sign. In that silence, the Colonel would have been plotting his revenge.

Omar Yussef remembered the comical exuberance, the heavy paunch and the wet, pebble-gray eyes of General Husseini, the man who probably had asphyxiated Bassam Odwan. Across the table at the Council, he imagined the lank, black hair and mustache of Colonel al-Fara, the bony hand collecting sputum in a tissue and the cigarette smoke flaring from his nostrils. Al-Fara, the torturer of Eyad Masharawi. The meeting of the Council had set the two men up for a final confrontation. With what new evil would they move to their endgames?

“Who will lose this battle between Husseini and al-Fara?”

“The first one to show weakness,” Sami said. “You know the proverb: When the cow falls down, many knives come out. Each of them has enemies who’ll be eager to cut off a piece of the carcass, as soon as it’s vulnerable.”

“Did anyone mention the bomb that killed James?”

“At the Revolutionary Council? No, it didn’t come up. Everyone was focused on the fight between Husseini and al-Fara.”

Omar Yussef took a strawberry-banana juice from the minibar and handed Sami a rosewater coke. He poured the thick, syrupy liquid into a glass for himself. It was the nearest thing to food he could keep down. He wanted to sleep, but there was still one thing he needed to talk about.

“Sami, that story Odwan told us about the Qassam rockets. Is it correct?”

“That they brought a single prototype to Gaza through the Rafah tunnels and manufactured masses of them here?”

Omar Yussef nodded.

“Yes, it was a North Korean missile transported through Iran,” Sami said. “Now everyone’s trying to secure an even bigger weapon. The group that uses it successfully against Israel will gain a lot of prestige on the street and be able to impose its will on the president.”

“The Saladin Brigades?”

Sami shrugged. “The more trouble the Saladin Brigades make, the more the president needs to keep them on his side. If you want money from the president, step one is to make a lot of trouble in Gaza and to kill some Israelis from time to time. Ultimately, the president will pay you to keep a lid on it.”

Omar Yussef put his forefinger to his chin and frowned. “We know the Saladin Brigades don’t have this new prototype missile, because it was stolen from them after they smuggled it into Rafah. So who does have it? That’s what we need to find out. Perhaps we can present the Brigades with the missile in return for Magnus’s freedom.”

Sami looked serious as he finished the last of the hum-mus. “You’d better think that through, Abu Ramiz. Whoever has the missile won’t be handing it over to you, and the nastiest men in Gaza will be trying to find it and take it away from them, too.”

Omar Yussef realized that, even if he found the missile, he could never give it to the Saladin Brigades. No matter who possessed this missile, they would use it to kill, to draw down the Israeli army on the refugee camps, and to dominate the corrupt politics of Gaza. If he found it, he would have to destroy it. But then how was he going to bargain for Magnus’s life?

He groaned and put his hand to the bruise on his temple. “The UN negotiators aren’t coming. They turned back at the checkpoint. They think it’s too dangerous here. We’re alone, Sami.”

“We’re better off without them. Those people think they have all the answers, but they don’t know how to listen. They’re useless to us. They’re a shekel-worth of shit.”

Omar Yussef looked at the young man, surprised at his vehemence.

“I’ll try to arrange a meeting with the Saladin Brigades people here in Gaza, so you can ask them about what happened to James,” Sami said. He wiped his hands on a napkin, pulled a packet of cigarettes from his back pocket, and stood. He smiled apologetically. “I know you don’t like me to smoke in here, Abu Ramiz, so I’ll say goodnight. You need to sleep.”

Omar Yussef dreamed of death. He sweated through the explosion that killed James Cree, shaken by the shuddering blast and swathed in the flames, jarred by the twisted metal of the UN Suburban, broken by the stones the local boys hurled. He choked through the last breaths of Bassam Odwan’s life, even as the blood pumped from his severed fingertips. He recoiled as an antique rifle discharged its bullet into his rib, fragments of bone tearing his lungs. The shot came again and again, each time thrusting him into the mattress. Death wasn’t following him any more. It was sharing his bed, not like a wife, but like an illicit lover, jealous and angry, giving him no sleep.

The telephone rang. The rifle bullets ripped his ribcage and the phone rang on. He rolled to the nightstand and picked up the receiver. He couldn’t speak; he gasped into the phone.

“Abu Ramiz, is that you?”

Another gasp. The shots continued. He whimpered.

“Is everything okay? This is Doctor Najjar, from the morgue. Is that gunfire?”

Omar Yussef looked around. I’m in my hotel room, he thought, but it was a vague realization.

“What’s that noise, Abu Ramiz?” the doctor asked.

“I was being shot.”

“Abu Ramiz?” The doctor was alarmed.

Omar Yussef put the receiver on the pillow and wiped the sweat from his face with the end of the sheet. There was gunfire. He looked at the red light of the digital clock on the nightstand: 6:00 a.m. He picked up the phone again. “Yes, that’s gunfire outside. I don’t know anything about it. I was having a bad dream.”

“I’m sorry to call you so early, but I’ve been at work all night and I’m going home now. I wanted you to know what I discovered, as soon as possible.”

Omar Yussef cleared his throat and pushed himself up onto his elbow, trying hard to leave his nightmare behind. “Thank you.”

“This must remain between you and me, Abu Ramiz. As you know, the official cause of Bassam Odwan’s death is that he suffered a sudden heart attack in his jail cell. However, my initial suspicion that he died of asphyxia was correct. A blockage in his airway suffocated him.”

Omar Yussef sat upright on the edge of his bed. “Odwan choked on his food?”

“It wasn’t food. You remember that the inside of his mouth and the upper part of his throat were covered in tiny cuts? Further down in the trachea, blocking the air, I found some sort of glass.”

“Glass?”

“Actually, it’s something I’ve never seen in Gaza. But once, when I was in a hotel bar in Jordan, I saw something like it. I think it’s the stopper from one of those crystal bottles that people use to store alcohol.”

Omar Yussef thought of General Husseini’s collection of Bohemian crystal. “A decanter?”

“Is that what they’re called? It’s been carved into many tiny flat surfaces, so that it reflects the light like a precious stone. But between each of the surfaces it’s almost as hard and sharp as the cutting edge of a diamond. It was big and, as it was forced down his throat, it caused the lacerations. Then it choked him.” The doctor paused. “That shooting sounds very close, Abu Ramiz.”

Omar Yussef stood and moved toward the window to draw back the curtain. The phone cord wouldn’t stretch far enough. The gunfire outside was a deafening, bass volley with the light chimes of shattering glass laid over it. “I can’t see just now. The curtains are closed,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the gunbattle. “Was Odwan’s body brought to you directly from jail?”

“Military Intelligence brought him. He could’ve arrived from anywhere.”