Counterfire

10

Omar Rahman sat behind his plain desk in the PLO headquarters building in Gaza City, staring out at the sea and rubbing his left knee. Where did the cartilage go? The X-ray showed almost none left between the bones in his left knee joint. Sometimes it hurt like a knife going deep into his thigh. He had felt knife wounds before. At those times he simply could not walk, couldn’t bend his knee. He sighed. Old age creeps up on a person. It certainly had on him. He was only sixty-two, and already he had the feeling his body was falling apart. He had been sturdy all his life, almost never sick, no broken bones, no heart problems, not even prostate difficulties as some of his friends had.

He looked out at the surf again past the gentle sloping sand. It was always a worry to him. They were naked here. Their leader, Yassir Arafat, was exposed and vulnerable. For a time they had planted mines in the inviting sand of the beach. Then two young girls ignored the warning signs and ran into the sand toward the inviting cool of the water just a few yards away. One of them died. The mines were taken out the next day.

Omar looked back at his desk. Why was there so much paperwork? He adjusted his store-bought magnifying glasses and read the letter again. More troubles on the West Bank. Didn’t they think the Leader had enough trouble here, and with his worldwide jaunts to promote Arab unity and the glory of Allah?

Darkness slipped up on Omar like an angry woman. He pushed his feet into his sandals and eased away from the desk. Standing was no problem as long as he had something to push up on with his hands. He did so now and tested the left knee. Easy, easy, now full weight. Yes, it was not painful right now, he could walk, he could check the guards. They were loyal to the cause and to Yassir, but still they needed reminding sometimes. There was always danger. The Jews could come creeping out of the water at any time. The guards were on one-hundred-percent alert all night, every night.

He worked around inside the complex of rooms to the four open sentry windows. The men with their automatic rifles sat well back in the rooms so they couldn’t be seen outside. The rooms were nearly dark. As light faded completely, the guards moved up to the windows where they had better firing lines. Nothing. Good.

Omar waved at the four, then went on to the rest of them. Ten guards every night. Only three times had they been needed, but they had saved several lives those nights.

After his rounds, Omar went to the former formal dining room. It had been changed into a mess hall where forty soldiers and workers could sit down at once. Tonight there would be visitors. More than twenty of the best of the leaders of the al Fatah and the Tanzim wing would be there for a conference, then an all-night planning session. They wouldn’t leave until at least three A.M. It would be an historic occasion. Yassir Arafat himself would chair the meeting until midnight. Then he had to take his armored car to the small airport where a plane was waiting for him.

Omar saw some of the early arrivals. He knew most of them. Shook hands, then picked up his evening meal from the line and ate at a table by himself. He knew the chef on duty tonight. Omar would send half a dozen rolls home to Hinda, his wife of forty years. He pushed stringy white hair back from his forehead. His beard was almost white now as well. If he trimmed it he would look elegant, but he preferred to let his wild hair have its own way, making him look unkempt and dirty. Dirty? Omar snorted. He took a bath every night.

Just before he left the compound, a messenger came with a letter for him. Omar opened it quickly. It was in writing, so it must be serious. He read it, then again. It was from Arafat, who said he would be late and might not get there at all. He asked Omar to stay for the meeting, and to help all he could until the session closed at three A.M.

Omar nodded to himself. A person loyal to the great Arafat did not even think of refusing a request from the great man. He would stay. Omar went back to the dining room, where the meal was almost over. He took another helping of the lamb stew. He would need the extra strength for the session tonight. Hinda would have to wait for her rolls. He put them in the white paper sack the cook had given him and took them back to his office. When he arrived home late the next morning, he would awaken Hinda and they would heat the rolls and eat them with strawberry jam. Hinda loved strawberry jam.

Back in the assembly room the meeting had begun. Nabil Oweida held the floor. He would fire up the members of the groups and urge them on to more and more action against Israel and the Americans. The young man hated the Americans almost as much as he did the Israelis.

“I tell you again, my fellow warriors for the glory of Allah. We must strike first, we must strike hard, we must strike every day of the year. We must kill the Americans, we must push the infidel Jews out of our holy lands.” Nabil Oweida paused and took a sip of water. He was young in Omar’s eyes. Young and idealistic, with that firebrand fervor that Omar had once projected himself. Oweida wasn’t tall of stature, probably no more than five feet six inches, but when he spoke, when he warmed to his subject, he came across to the faithful as twenty feet tall.

“Tonight we will make plans to coordinate our efforts. We will strike the Jews wherever we find them. We will not allow peaceful coexistence. The very term shall be banned from further use. We will push the evil Jews into the sea and let their god rescue them.

“Do you remember Article One of the Palestinian National Covenant? Palestine is the homeland of the Arab—” He stopped and stared hard at the thirty leaders who sat in straight rows in front of him. “All of you who remember it, recite it with me. You all had to memorize it. Don’t let me down this early. Let’s try it again. Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.”

By the time they were halfway through, almost all of the men in the room were barking out the words. When they ended, there were shouts and screams of vengeance from every man there.

“This is our mandate, our responsibility, to drive the hated Jews out of Palestine where they have no business being in the first place. The United Nations made a great and horrendous blunder in 1948 when they divided Our Great Land into two sections, Israeli and Palestinian. Half of our homeland is now in enemy hands. We will continue to fight to regain it.

“Article Two, you must remember it: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

Again a great cheer went up from the thirty-two Arab throats, and Omar felt his blood surging, felt the old hatreds surface, knew that he could go out tonight and, damn his knee, attack a Jewish settlement, fire a machine gun, plant a bomb in a Jewish market. Omar wiped sweat from his face, and realized that his whole body had responded and he was sweating like a he-goat chasing a female in season.

Nabil continued. “Perhaps you didn’t memorize Article Three, but you know what it says: The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.”

The cheering this time didn’t last as long, but it gave Omar chills up his back. His hands flexed, and he could only imagine how strongly the leaders of the al Fatah and Tanzim were reacting. Tomorrow would see the launching of many new headaches and deaths for the Israelis and as much trouble for the Americans as possible.

Oweida stopped reciting the Palestinian Covenant, and swung into his special skills: organization and carrying out battles and campaigns against their enemies. He quickly divided the group into four parts, each with a specific set of targets. Their job was to devise ways that would not be defensed by the enemy, or even thought of. Oweida moved from one group to the next, listening, making suggestions, helping them refine and pinpoint targets that would have the most lasting effects against all of their enemies.

Omar slipped out and talked with the head cook. There was a new shift of cooks on hand to make a midnight supper for the planners. They would eat and then continue their discussions at thirty minutes into the new day. Omar was satisfied that the meal was progressing, and went back to the assembly room.

Omar looked with pride at the fourth man in the first row. He was one of the top three leaders in the al Fatah movement. He was also Omar’s second son. His firstborn had been killed while delivering a bomb into the heart of Jerusalem in the Jewish quarter. The bomb had gone off prematurely, but it had killed over fifty Israelis including ten soldiers. As soon as they knew that Esam had died, Jamil, his second son, had quit his job as a banker in Gaza City and charged into the al Fatah with a zest and ambition and talent that Omar had not been aware he possessed.

Now Jamil was third in line for the top al Fatah leadership spot. Even Yassir Arafat himself had commented on the talent of the young man, much to Omar’s pleasure. Jamil would be coming home with him after the meeting before he went back to his post in Jerusalem, where he was in deep cover and working hard with new ways to frustrate and injure the Israelis. Currently Jamil had the toughest and most dangerous job of any in the PLO.

Omar stood slowly, tested his left knee, nodded, and left his chair at the back of the assembly hall and checked on the guards. He had put on four extra tonight. This was no time to let down, not with the finest leaders in their entire organization here for the planning session. Nothing was going to disturb them, absolutely nothing. Omar dropped back in his seat near the back of the big room. It was going well. They would break at eleven-thirty for their supper, then start again an hour later for the last part of the work session.

Omar bent and rubbed his knee. The doctor had told him to take pain pills to deaden the hurt. When that didn’t kill the pain and the cartilage wore down even more, they would have to use cortisone shots. After that the doctor wouldn’t tell him what they would do.

Omar frowned, then rubbed his knee. It seemed to help. Tomorrow he would get some of the pain pills.