As Omar Yussef came along the passage, the flies left the flooded toilets to examine him. The filth in the latrines soon lured most of them back, but a small, droning escort orbited him as he sweated toward Gaza.

The passage was wide and empty, haunted by the thousands who shoved through there twice a day. Its whitewashed walls were soiled gray to the height of a man’s shoulder, marked by the touch of laborers jostling at dawn to their construction jobs in Israel. The mid-morning sun slopped under the raised tin roof, sickly and urinous. The air was pale and stinking and every surface was repugnant.

Omar Yussef struggled along the uneven concrete, scuffing his mauve loafers and bracing his overnight case against his knee with each step. He touched the back of his hand to his nose, fighting the toilet stench with a hint of his French cologne.

Magnus Wallender came alongside him. At forty, the Swede was sixteen years younger than Omar Yussef and three inches taller, not quite five feet ten. His wavy hair was a blondish gray and his light beard was trimmed very short. He wore khaki slacks, a well-pressed blue shirt and tasteful glasses, horn-rimmed and rectangular. “Oh dear,” he said, raising a pale eyebrow at the putrid puddle in front of the toilets.

“The scent of Gaza,” Omar Yussef said.

Wallender smiled and turned to Omar Yussef. “Would you like me to help you with your bag?”

The Swede was trying to be kind, but Omar Yussef hated to think it was obvious that the weight of the bag was a discomfort to him in the heat. Had it been anyone else, he would have snapped, but Wallender was his boss. Kiss the hand that can’t be bitten, he thought. “Thank you, Magnus. I can manage,” he said.

A Palestinian officer sat behind a battered desk in the shade of the grubby passage wall, beyond a squeaking turnstile and a tall roll of barbed wire. When he saw Omar Yussef approaching with a foreigner, he straightened, preparing to process important guests. He reached for the green plastic wallet that held Omar Yussef’s ID card and for Wallender’s dark red passport. The officer examined the photo page of the passport. “Mister Magnus?” he said.