Green Shirts and Red Fezzes
61
the New York Post for libel, and lost. ''The Jews have all the
power," he added. "It is the same in Egypt. When you see
Richardson tell him that he has a place in my heart, always."
Hussein's English was almost perfect.
He ordered demi-tasse, then leaned hack and studied me.
"May I see your passport?" he asked suddenly.
"Of course." I congratulated myself on having decided not
to assume an undercover name. Truth would be my best defense and confound my enemies. My only fear was that Hussein might discover that I was also Carlson—he could easily
ascertain this by writing to his New York friends—and learn
that I was not only opposed to anti-Semitism, but had also exposed some of the Arab propaganda flooding our country in
The Plotters. It would mean the end of my work—and perhaps even of me—for Hussein had powerful contacts in the
government and the police of Cairo, not to mention a dangerous gestapo of his own.
"Whom else do you know in New York?" he asked, continuing to hold my passport.
At this moment the door opened, and four police stalked in.
I nearly upset my coffee as I rose to my feet with Hussein.
Two of the troupe wore the black wool uniforms I had come
to detest; the others were in plain clothes, dressed as nattily as
our own FBI. Had they managed to trace me here? Had
Hussein already been warned by cables from Katibah or Freedman?
Hussein set me at ease. "An hour before you arrived a bomb
exploded in front of the building," he explained. "The police
have come to investigate."
He ordered another round of coffee: good, strong, jet-black,
bracing stuff, doubly welcome at that moment. The bomb, a
small one, had gone off in the street. Damage was light. Hussein suspected the Ikhwan el Muslimin, the Moslem Brotherhood, a powerful terrorist group whose headquarters were
only a block away. The police jotted down testimony, made a
pretense at looking about the building, and went away.