Matt Rees - A grave in Gaza

“Someone in Jerusalem decided it was too dangerous.” He thought of James Cree’s burned corpse. “Because of your kidnapping.”

“So there’s no one here except you?”

“There’re some locals. But they’re keeping their heads down.”

Magnus relayed this to the other man. There was a rattling sound and the harsh voice barked down the line once more. “You, too, must leave Gaza immediately, if you want your friend to be safe.”

“I’d need a special permit from the Israelis to pass through the checkpoint on such short notice.”

The voice hesitated, but it came back with scornful finality. “That’s crap. You’re with the UN. Get a permit and get out of here.”

“Let me speak to Magnus again.”

The line went dead.

Omar Yussef cursed. Salwa entered with his coffee. She glanced at him with a stern, expectant face. The phone sounded again. Omar Yussef thrust his forefinger at the green button. “Magnus?”

“What?” Khamis Zeydan’s voice was surrounded by the murmur of conversation.

“The kidnappers just called me. I spoke to Magnus.”

“So he’s alive.”

Omar Yussef stared into the thick blackness of his coffee. “How did they get Sami’s number? How did they know I had this phone?”

He heard Khamis Zeydan growl with impatience.

“I’ve only had this phone since last night,” Omar Yussef said. “Did they call Sami’s other phone first?”

“You’re suspicious of the wrong man, my friend,” Khamis Zeydan said.

“Just because someone calls you my friend, doesn’t mean he is.”

Another growl. “Remember what the Prophet’s son-in-law said: He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,” Khamis Zeydan said. “You need Sami.”

“You’re leaving out the second part of Ali’s saying: And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.”

Omar Yussef heard a grating click and an inhalation, as Khamis Zeydan lit a cigarette. The police chief breathed out. “I’m on my way to our hotel. We need to talk.”

“I’m at Salwa Masharawi’s house.”

“I’ll pick you up there, then.”

Omar Yussef looked at Salwa’s eyes. They were red, but the tears were gone. He shook his head at the phone. “Not yet. I’m going to stay here a little longer.”

“No, you’re coming with me.” Khamis Zeydan was firm. “I’m taking you to a funeral.”

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.”