IN certain places and among certain people, the Seawitch was a very bad name indeed. But, overwhelmingly, their venom was reserved for a certain Lord Worth, a multi—some said bulti— millionaire, chairman and sole owner of North Hudson Oil Company and, incidentally, owner of the Seawitch. When his name was mentioned by any of the ten men present at that shoreside house on Lake Tahoe, it was in tones of less than hushed reverence.

Their meeting was announced in neither the national nor local press. This was due to two factors. The delegates arrived and departed either singly or in couples, and among the heterogeneous summer population of Lake Tahoe such comings and goings went unremarked or were ignored. More importantly, the delegates to the meeting were understandably reluctant that their assembly become common knowledge. The day was Friday the thirteenth, a date that boded no good for someone.

There were nine delegates present, plus their host. Four of them mattered, but only two seriously—Corral, who represented the oil and mineral leases in the Florida area, and Benson, who represented the rigs off Southern California.

Of the other six, only two mattered. One was Patinos of Venezuela; the other, known as Borosoff, of Russia, whose interest in American oil supplies could only be regarded as minimal. It was widely assumed among the others that his only interest in attending the meeting was to stir up as much trouble as possible, an assumption that was probably correct.