The Fourth Assassin

Chapter 26

Nizar leafed through to the classifieds at the back of the Metro Muslim. Hamza stood over him, his lips peeled back from his teeth and his tired eyes dry and hostile.

“I don’t like this,” the detective said. “I ought to take him in now.”

Nizar kept his eyes on the newspaper. “How far had you progressed in your crack investigation of the headless corpse? You’d never have found me. You didn’t even match fingerprints on the dead body.”

Hamza turned a glance of hurt and betrayal on Omar Yussef.

“If I hadn’t come forward, you’d still be hunting for poor old Rashid,” Nizar said.

“May Allah be merciful upon him,” Hamza said, “and may you beg the pardon of Allah for what you’ve done.”

Nizar murmured, “‘He whose hand is in the water isn’t the same as he whose hand is in the fire.’”

That’s true, Omar Yussef thought. You can’t condemn someone’s behavior until you’ve experienced their situation. He took Hamza’s hand and held it close to his chest like a man imploring a lover. “I know you see Nizar as a murderer, but you have to work with him now to save the president.”

Hamza frowned at Khamis Zeydan. “How severe is the danger to the president?”

The police chief rolled his tongue behind his mustache. “I wouldn’t let my dear old auntie sit next to him at dinner in case of a ricochet.”

“You’re canceling his speech?”

Khamis Zeydan bit at the ends of his mustache. “Not just yet. But I’m thinking about it.”

Omar Yussef remembered the Jerusalem girl he had met on the subway during his first day in New York. He recalled wishing that Palestinians back home could live as she did, driven neither by politics and ideology, nor by murder and greed. If the president died here, Omar Yussef’s granddaughter would never experience the security that girl knew. The children at Omar Yussef’s poor little school for refugees would be engulfed once more in civil war and the viciousness of thugs and killers.

“O Hamza, you need to be a little less of a New York cop and a little more of a Palestinian,” he said. “You’re from Bethlehem. You have a duty to the Palestinian people, as well as to New York. Bend the rules. If you don’t, the president may be killed here in New York. The Palestinians will have a dead leader and perhaps a civil war.”

Hamza cursed quietly.

“It’s here,” Nizar said, his voice exuberant and uneasy.

Khamis Zeydan drained his glass and leaned over the young man’s shoulder.

Nizar’s fingers rustled the margins of the Metro Muslim, an expression of bewilderment on his face. He looked like a newspaper subscriber whose breakfast had been upset by an unexpected obituary for a friend. His hopeless gaze brought Omar Yussef to his feet. “What is it?” he said.

He came to Nizar’s side and scanned the page of ads. Feidy’s Halal Butcher and Grocery. Muhammad Hammad, Esq., Attorney at Law. Experienced Muslim Babysitter Available. “Which one is it?”

Nizar’s finger hovered until it came down on an ad at the bottom of the page.

Omar Yussef read aloud: “The Hassan-i Sabbagh School. Recruiting for teachers. Qualifications: Good Islamic character. Sound knowledge of Islam. Legal U.S. status with valid Social Security number. Proficiency in English. One year experience preferable. Apply: Alamut Mosque.” An address in Bay Ridge followed.

“That address-it’s your apartment.” Hamza shoved Nizar’s shoulder. “The place you shared with Rashid and Ala.”

“What the hell does that tell us?” Khamis Zeydan slapped the page.

“It tells us our friend Nizar isn’t misleading us,” Omar Yussef said.

“How do you know?”

“Hassan-i Sabbagh was the Old Man of the Mountain,” Omar Yussef said, “the greatest, most feared leader of the medieval Assassins. We’ve come across references to them at every turn, and here they are again.”

“The Alamut Mosque too,” Hamza mumbled.

“A mosque which doesn’t exist at an address that matches Nizar’s,” Omar Yussef said. “What’s the message, Nizar? Is it in code?”

Nizar seemed to have drifted into a dream. It took him a moment to come back. He shook his head, and his long black hair slipped over his eyes. “You missed the logo,” he said, his raw voice catching in his throat.

Above the text, a small graphic showed a man in traditional Arab dress walking with an axe held above his head. Behind him came a horse bearing a turbaned rider, dignified and upright.

“Do I have to remind you of the lessons you gave us, ustaz?” Nizar said.

“What does he mean?” Khamis Zeydan asked.

Omar Yussef rubbed the white stubble on his chin. “When the leader of the Assassins rode out of his castle, he was always preceded by a man bearing an axe who would shout, ‘Turn out of the way of him who bears in his hands the death of kings.’”

Khamis Zeydan dragged Nizar’s face toward him with the back of his hand. “Well?” he said.

Nizar murmured, “There’s another assassin here to kill the president.”

“You know that from the logo?”

“The man who called out about the death of kings-that’s the signal. Another hit man is in town. Maybe he’s been here all along, as a backup. If the graphic showed just the man on his horse, it would mean we were to proceed as planned. But this is different.”

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?