Flanking the Mall to the right and left, Pennsylvania, Constitution, and Independence avenues were thick with traffic, all heading this way.

And all around him a steady stream of men and women, mostly men, dressed in suits and carrying briefcases or attache cases, scurrying up the steps. They obviously were not tourists, no Bermuda shorts, cameras, and "I't Washington" caps, and he knew they weren't senators or representatives or staffers. The people who worked here, who belonged here, moved back and forth between the Senate and House office buildings on underground shuttles. These were lobbyists, armed with checkbooks loaded with the grease that keeps the wheels of Congress turning.

The kakistocracy was in session.

Duncan sighed as he watched their hurried, purposeful climb toward the House and Senate chambers. God, there were an awful lot of them.

The Congress of the United States, he thought with a grim smile. The best government money can buy.

Far below, at the bottom of the steps, the soundman nodded as the reporter checked his mike. Good. They were ready. All set up and waiting for U. S. representative Kenneth Allard. Duncan was waiting for him too.

And then he saw him. Allard stepped out on the House side flanked by three of his aides. Pushing sixty, medium height, and on the glabrous protuberance that passed for his head, a thatch of dark brown hair that had once belonged to someone else. He had a paunch but a small one.

It had been much larger before Duncan had gone to work on it with the liposuction tube. What had been protuberant and tremulose was now flattened and firm.