I was.â
âWilson thought it was you.â
âWho?â
âWilson. The guy in the room next to mine. How come you didnât stay?â
â ⦠You were busy with baseball.â
âA lousy practice? I could have left.â
âI didnât want to disturb you, and I couldnât wait. Listen, Iâve got to go away. Business.â
âHow long will you be gone?â
âItâs open-ended. As long as it takes.â
âWill you be back in two weeks?â
âI donât know. Why?â
âThatâs when school ends.â Jeff hesitated. âI donât want to go to camp. Mom said maybe you could put me to work.â
âThatâs a terrific idea,â Harry said carefully. âBut if we get bogged down in negotiations, the trip could use a good hunk of my summer.â
âWhere are you going, anyway?â
âIsrael.â
âCould I come over there when school lets out?â
âNo,â Harry said firmly.
âYou treat me like a baby.â His sonâs voice cracked with rage. âI canât hunt, I have to go to summer camp. That camp sucks.â
âThis will be your last year there. I promise you.â
Jeff said nothing.
âIâll visit you when I get back. We can talk some more about a job. Okay?â
â ⦠Yeah.â
âGoodbye, Jeff.â
âBye.â
He called him right back.
âLook. When school lets out, suppose you work for Saul Netscher? Youâll learn something at his place. When I get back, youâll work with me. Deal?â
âAll right!â
âIâll fix it with Saul. Heâll be glad to get you but heâll work your ass off. Errands, sweeping, oiling machinery. Anything.â
âThatâs really great, Dad! Can I learn to be a cutter?â
âThat takes years, you know that. And itâs very hard.â
âIf you did it, so can I.â
He laughed. âOkay, then. Take care. I love you, kid.â
âI love you, too,â his son said dutifully.
Harry sighed.
Three days before he left, a plain white envelope came to him in the morning mail. There was no clue as to the sender, though he could guess. It was a dossier on the man he was going to Israel to meet.
Hamid Bardissi, also known as Yosef Mehdi. Born Nov. 27, 1919, in Sigiul, Egypt, to Salye (Mehdi) and Abou Yosef Bardissi Pasha. His father was Egyptian ambassador to Great Britain for three years (1932â1935) and military governor of Assoiut Province for four years (1924â1928). From young manhood, Abou Yosef Bardissi Pasha was friend and advisor to Ahmed Fuad Pasha, who in 1922 became the first king of Egypt when Great Britain withdrew its protectorate
.
Hamid Bardissi was born ten months earlier than Farouk, the son of King Fuad. Almost from the first, he was the princeâs assigned and constant playmate. They were tutored together. At the age of 16 he accompanied Farouk to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, England. After only one term there, they were recalled to Egypt by Fuadâs death
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When Bardissi Pasha died in 1939, Hamid Bardissi came into 7,500 feddans of cotton land (equivalent to 3,150 hectares, or 7,780 acres). He married twice, as allowed by Moslem law, but stopped living with his first wife in 1941. His second wife, whom he married in 1942, died the following year while delivering a stillborn child
.
Although he never held an official job, Bardissi was widely hated and feared as Faroukâs man. He destroyed political opponents without hesitation and was credited with corrupting the Wafd Party, which was transformed from a virulent antiroyalist movement to become Faroukâs political front. Reportedly, both the king and he were slated for assassination by the Moslem Brotherhood. If so, this probably was prevented by the coup dâetat which drove Farouk from his throne in 1952
.
On July 26, 1952, when Farouk was
The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia