"What's your point?"
"That North Africa cannot be united under the banner of Islam if she is going to progress rapidly. If it ever unites, it will be in spite of local religions—Islam and pagan as well; they hold up the wheels of progress."
Zetterberg stared at him. The truth of the matter was that he agreed with the American and they both knew it.
He said, "This matter of physically assaulting and then arresting the chieftain"—he looked down at a paper on his desk—"of the Ouled Touameur clan of the Chaambra confederation, Abd-el-Kader. From your report, the man was evidently attempting to unify the tribes."
Crawford was shaking his head impatiently. "No. He didn't have the ... dream. He was a raider, a racketeer, not a leader of purposeful men. Perhaps it's true that these people need a hero to act as a symbol for them, but he can't be such as Abd-el-Kader."
"I suppose you're right," the Swede said grudgingly. "See here, have you heard reports of a group of Cubans, in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to help with the new sugar refining there, being attacked?"
The eyes of both Crawford and Baker narrowed. There'd been talk about this at Timbuktu. "Only a few rumors," Crawford said.
The Swede drummed his desk with his nervous fingers. "The rumors are correct. The whole group was either killed or wounded." He said suddenly, "You had nothing to do with this, I suppose?"
Crawford held his palms up, in surprise, "My team has never been within a thousand miles of Khartoum."
Zetterberg said, "See here, we suspect the Cubans might have supported Soviet Complex viewpoints."