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The telegram was short and to the point:
Please report immediately to the American Embassy in Cairo. British authorities revoked your visa. Must leave country within seventy-two hours.



CHAPTER 5
    The coffee seller had assured Mickey that making the same Turkish coffee that was served in all the Cairo cafés was very simple: boil water, add sugar and a spoonful of coffee, stir well, and turn the heat off when the first bubbles appear. But with his head throbbing from a hangover, Mickey failed to remove the copper pot from the fire in time and it boiled over in a messy spill.
    He had barely slept the last four nights since returning from Cairo. The specter of having to leave the country was eating him alive. The British press office had refused to meet with him, and asking for help from the Egyptian authorities would surely be a waste of time. When he’d gone to the American Embassy, the ambassador was not available and had him meet with his secretary, who had confiscated his press badge. The English had caught him illegally crossing the border into a war zone, she’d explained, and they feared that he might have inadvertently given away the position of their tanks. She’d refused to listen to his account of how the Germans massacred the British with Panzer IVs and told him that America had to be supportive of their ally who was fighting a war on many fronts. The best she’d been able to do for him was to obtain a few days’ extension of his stay here, giving him a little breathing room to figure things out.
    Mickey was raging inside. He didn’t like to lose. He’d come here to make his mark as a reporter and he’d barely gotten started. His friend Hugh had enticed him to come, assuring him that there was a big story opportunity here in Egypt. Indeed, newspapers in the States weren’t paying attention to the war in North Africa, and the competition from American reporters would be light.
    He rinsed the pot and refilled it with water, switching this time to the simpler Nescafé. While waiting for it to boil, he started to plan a note to Hugh, thanking him for the posh apartment and the contacts he’d arranged. It was woefully bad timing that Hugh had been out of town on assignment since Mickey’s arrival in Cairo two months ago. Mickey couldn’t imagine his unruly friend in uniform. After graduation from the University of Michigan, Hugh had returned to his native England, but quickly growing bored with the mother country, he’d moved to Cairo, where he’d been happy as a clam teaching at the American University and living a life of debauchery. Then he’d been conscripted into the army.
    The phone rang.
    “Howdy, you little sneak,” a man’s voice said. It was Carl Nelson from UPI. “How come you missed the press conference yesterday? Damn thing pissed me off so bad I’m throwing in the towel.”
    “What’d I miss?”
    “New rules for the press. I quote. ‘All contentious stories that might be detrimental to morale are prohibited. No accounts of unfavorable occurrences involving Allied troops will be allowed. Reports of air raids may not be featured in headlines. The name of Rommel is to be avoided; words like “the Axis forces” or “German Command” are to be used instead. No references to the Muslim Brotherhood or the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem will be permitted,’” Nelson concluded. “How do you like that?”
    “That’s ridiculous. Tell the folks in Alexandria that there are noair raids! And why can’t we use the names of the Brotherhood or the Mufti?”
    “’Cause they’re siding with Hitler, you dolt!” Nelson answered. “You haven’t heard the capper yet. Every article we write has to be approved by three separate censorship officers. I’m heading to Iraq tomorrow. I heard Syria has allowed Axis planes to fly over its territory and use it as a base. From there the Krauts are sending troops to help the insurgency in Baghdad. It’s all about those Iraqi oil fields, I tell you. Want