Ali looked at me intently, with a savage glint in his eyes which made me uncomfortable. We were along; he was armed, and I knew that I was no match for a man whom I felt instinctively was a killer...Ali opened up gradually, first by confessing that as a boy he had beaten a playmate to death because he caught him stealing. Growing up in a Cairo slum -- with no schooling or formal training -- Ali had developed a fanatic sense of right and wrong. All wrong was to be punished by death in order to end the progeny of wrongdoers and eliminate evil from the world.

"Who will determine what is right and wrong?" I asked.

"I make the judgment," Ali said. He had been jailed. "It was my own fault. I was careless," he explained, then told me this story. He had been delegated to do away with an Egyptian official in Cairo. Planning the attack carefully, Ali had made a sketch of the official's itinerary and marked with an X the spot from which he was to fire his revolver. In his excitement Ali had lost the diagram.

"I didn't need the paper. I remembered everything," he said. "I was at the place an hour early. I had the gun in my coat pocket, with my hand always on the trigger. I was afraid I would shoot myself, so I went into a doorway to change the position of my gun. Four men followed me. They beat me on the head, and took me to the karakol. They had found my diagram on the street. In my house the police found another sketch. They beat me again, and once again in the karakol. I confessed because I did not want to be beaten any more. I was in jail two years." Ali's appetite had been merely whetted. "I want revenge. I failed in my duty once. I must clear myself before Allah. I must kill Jews, many Jews. I must kill till my arm is tired. I must not stop killing Jews till the bodies are this high..." The wild Arab brought one hand to his chin. "I must do one more thing...For this I need your help Artour."

"Your wish is my command, Ali."

"I want you to come with me the next time we fight the Yahood. When I catch a Jew alive I want you to be with me -- with your camera."

"Why do you want me with my camera?" I asked curiously.

"I want you to take one picture of me holding the living Jew by the throat. I want you to take another picture while I stab the Jew in the neck. Then I want pictures as I stab him again and again in the neck, in the face, in the heart, in his belly...with this knife!" Ali whipped out a vicious blade. "After I have killed the Jew I want you to photograph me drinking his blood."

"While it is still warm, I suppose."

"Yes, while it is running warm from his body," Ali affirmed.

"Okay, I'll take the pictures!"

What else could I say?