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Greek passports. No weapons, no drugs, no duplicate papers— there must be nothing in our baggage
     to arouse suspicion. Bring in whatever booze and cigarettes you are allowed, nothing more.”
    They knew all this but listened patiently to Naim. He would accept no excuses if either of them fouled up through carelessness
     or stupidity. He was going over things now so there could be no excuses. They had all heard stories of perfectly planned missions
     destroyed by one man’s stupid greed or inattentiveness to detail. Naim would be merciless if thwarted in this way. They understood
     that. He did not have to tell them.
    Naim Shabaan and Ali Khalef hurriedly packed a bag each and rode a taxi to the Gare du Nord. Naim took the 11:25 A.M . train for London, via Boulogne by Hovercraft to Dover, due at Charing Cross at 3:37. Ali took a train five minutes later,
     via Calais by ferry to Dover, due at Victoria at 5:31. Hasan Shawa would not leave Paris until he had received the all clear
     from Naim in London. All going well, he would travel overnight, taking the 10:36 from St. Lazare, via Dieppe by ferry toNewhaven, arriving at Victoria at 7:10 A.M . next day. All of them had previously stayed at the apartment on Redcliffe Square, just south of Earl’s Court. Naim knew
     where to pick up the keys and a wad of British bank notes.
    Naim looked out the train window at the mild green countryside north of Paris. Tree-lined ditches made orderly rectangles
     of green grass. Even the cows in the fields looked polite—they would never think of chasing anyone and driving their sharp
     horns into him. The French took so much for granted. Naim could not help comparing this landscape with the harsh, stony earth
     of Gaza, where he was raised. He knew that some of these fields he was passing through had seen some of the worst fighting
     of World War I and more battles in World War II. He wondered if Gaza would ever recover from its wounds and look peaceful
     again. Had it ever looked peaceful? Naim did not know. He was a child of war.
    In June 1967, Israeli troops drove the Egyptian Army from the Gaza Strip and went on to take the entire Sinai desert to the
     Suez Canal. The Israelis gave the Sinai back, but the Egyptians didn’t press too hard for the return of the Gaza. No one wanted
     the Strip, a twenty-nine-mile-long, five-mile-wide ribbon of desert along the sea. About 600,000 Palestinians were crowded
     in there, making it one of the most densely populated areas on earth.
    Naim was born and brought up in one of the eight refugee camps, housing 200,000 people, around thecity of Gaza. His camp was known as the Beach, a spread of cinder-block huts with rusty corrugated steel roofs, next to white
     sands and blue water. He remembered the last time he was there—the barefoot children lining up for food, donkeys and goats
     feeding on garbage, open sewers in the sandy streets. The cinderblock walls were covered with splotches of white paint, which
     Israeli troops placed on them to cover the antiIsraeli graffiti painted each night.
    The Gaza Strip functioned as a labor camp for Israel. Naim had worked in construction there for fifteen shekels a day, about
     ten dollars, leaving Gaza by bus at first light and returning after dark. He was the youngest in the family and his mother
     did not want him to follow his three older brothers into Israeli jails. They were all active in the PLO. She arranged for
     him to go to the American University in Beirut. His father was dead, but she and his sisters still at home could survive on
     the thirty Jordanian dinars a month, about ninety dollars, which the PLO sent her for each of her three sons in jail.
    Naim guessed now what had really been worrying his mother then was the way he hung out in pool rooms, drank beer, and smoked
     dope. This was dangerous to do because of the extremist Moslem Brotherhood. Life was short for anyone who became a marked
     man with the Brotherhood. Naim often wondered later