President Dashiti stood by the window, watching Asiphar's limousine slow down while passing the sewer-diggers, then speed up as it neared the nation's only paved road, leading from the palace to the airport.

One should never trust generals, he thought. They think only about obtaining power. They never think of exercising power. How fortunate that we entrust to them only unimportant things like wars. He turned back toward his desk, to study and then to sign requests by his nation for more foreign aid.

Asiphar, at that moment, was thinking of the time, only a few days hence, when Scambia would no longer need aid from any nation. We will be the greatest power of all, he thought, and our flag will be respected and feared by every nation.

No power can stop me, he thought. No power; neither government nor man.

CHAPTER TWO

His name was Remo and he felt foolish wearing the coarse brown monk's robe. The knotted cord hung heavily around his waist and he considered for a moment that it might be a good tool to strangle someone with. Not that Remo used tools.

He stood now in front of the West Side Federal Penitentiary, waiting for the big metal door to open. The palms of his hands were sweaty. He wiped them on the brown robe and realized that he could not remember the last time he had perspired. It was the heavy robe, he told himself, then called himself a liar and admitted he was sweating because he was standing outside a penitentiary, waiting to go inside. He again jabbed the small button on the right side of the door, and through the thick glass window, he could see the guard looking up at him, an annoyed expression on his face.

Then the guard pushed a button on his desk, the door shuddered, and began to chug back slowly, an inch at a time, like a roller coaster reaching the top of a hill. It opened only about twenty inches and stopped, so Remo had to turn sideways to get his broad shoulders through the narrow opening. As he passed, he could see that the door was two inches thick, all metal. He was barely inside when he heard the door begin to bang shut behind him, closing finally with a dungeon-door-sound thump.