Twenty-eight Months Earlier:
  Saturday, April 12, 1975
   
  THE HELICOPTER-A PLUSH, luxuriously appointed Bell JetRanger TI-chopped up the dry 
Nevada air and flung it down at the Las Vegas Strip. The pilot gingerly approached the 
landing pad on the roof of the Fortunata Hotel, hovered over the red target circle for a 
moment, then put down with consummate skill.
  As the rotors stopped churning overhead, Ogden Salsbury slid open his door and stepped 
out onto the hotel roof. For a few seconds he was disoriented. The cabin of the JetRanger 
had been air-conditioned. Out here, the air was like a parching gust from a furnace. A 
Frank Sinatra album was playing on a stereo, blasting forth from speakers mounted on 
six-foot-high poles. Sunlight reflected from the rippling water in the roof-top pool, and 
Salsbury was partially blinded in spite of his sunglasses. Somehow, he had expected the 
roof to bobble and sway under him as the helicopter had done; and when it did not, he 
staggered slightly.
  The swimming pool and the glass-walled recreation room beside it were adjuncts of the 
enormous thirtieth-floor presidential suite of the Fortunata Hotel. This afternoon there 
were only two people using it: a pair of voluptuous young women in skimpy white string 
bikinis. They were sitting on the edge of the pool, near the deep end, dangling their 
legs in the water.
  A squat, powerfully built man in gray slacks and a short-sleeved white silk shirt: was 
hunkered down beside them, talking to them. All three had the perfect nonchalance that, 
Ogden thought, came only with power or money. They appeared not even to have noticed the 
arrival of the helicopter.
  Salsbury crossed the roof to them. "General Klinger?"
  The squat man looked up at him.
  The girls didn't seem to know that he existed. The blonde had begun to lather the 
brunette with tanning lotion. Her hands lingered on the other girl's calves and knees, 
then inched lovingly along her taut brown thighs. Obviously, they were more than just 
good friends.
  "My name's Salsbury."
  Klinger stood up. He didn't offer to shake hands. "I've got one suitcase. Be with you 
in a minute." He walked back toward the glass-walled recreation room.
  Salsbury stared at the girls. They had the longest, loveliest legs he had ever seen. He 
cleared his throat and said, "I'll bet you're in show business."
  Neither of them looked at him. The blonde squeezed lotion into her left hand and 
massaged the swelling tops of the brunette's large breasts. Her fingers trailed under the 
bikini bra, flicked across the hidden nipples.
  Salsbury felt like a fool-as he always had around beautiful women. He was certain that 
they were making fun of him. You stinking bitches! he thought viciously. Some day I'll 
have any of you I want. Some day I'll tell you what I want, and you'll do it, and you'll 
love it because I'll tell you to love it.
  Klinger returned, carrying one large suitcase. He had put on a two-hundred-dollar, 
blue-and-gray-plaid sport coat.
  Looks like a gorilla dressed up for a circus act, Salsbury thought.
  In the passengers' compartment of the helicopter, as they lifted away from the roof, 
Klinger pressed his face to the window and watched the girls dwindle into sexless specks. 
Then he sighed and sat back and said, "Your boss knows how to arrange a man's vacation."
  Salsbury blinked in confusion. "My boss?"
  Glancing at him, Klinger said, "Dawson." He took a packet of cheroots from an inside 
coat pocket. He fished one out and lit it for himself without offering one to Salsbury. 
"What did you think of Crystal and Daisy?"
  Salsbury took off his sunglasses. "What?"
  "Crystal and Daisy. The girls at the pool."
  "Nice. Very nice."
  Pausing for a long drag of his cheroot, Klinger blew out smoke and said, "You wouldn't 
believe what those girls can do."
  "I thought they were dancers," Salsbury said.
  Klinger looked at him disbelievingly, and then threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, 
they are! They dance their little asses off every night in the Fortunata's main showroom. 
But they've also been performing in the penthouse suite. And let me tell you, dancing is 
the least of their talents."
  Salsbury was perspiring even though the cabin of the Jet-Ranger was cool. Women . . . 
He feared them-and wanted them desperately. To Dawson, mind control meant unlimited 
wealth, a financial stranglehold on the entire world. To Klinger it might mean 
unrestricted power, the satisfaction of unquestioned command. But to Salsbury, it meant 
having sex as often as he wanted it, in as many ways as he wanted it, with any woman he 
desired.
  Blowing smoke at the cabin ceiling, Klinger said, "I'll bet you'd like having those two 
in your bed, shoving it in them, one after the other. Would you like that?"
  "Who wouldn't?"
  "They're hard on a man," Klinger said, chuckling. "Takes a man with real stamina to 
keep them happy. You think you could handle both Crystal and Daisy?"
  "I could give it a good try."
  Klinger laughed loudly.
  Salsbury hated him for that.
  This crude bastard was nothing more than an influence peddler, Ogden thought. He could 
be bought-and his price was cheap. In one way or another, he helped Futurex International
  in its competitive bidding for Pentagon contracts. In return, he took free vacations in 
Las Vegas, and some sort of stipend was paid into a Swiss bank account. There was only 
one element of this arrangement that Salsbury was unable to reconcile with Leonard 
Dawson's personal philosophy. He said to Klinger:
  "Does Leonard pay for the girls too?"
  "Well, I don't. I've never had to pay for it." He stared hard at Salsbury, until he was 
convinced that the scientist believed him. "The hotel picks up the tab. That's one of 
Futurex's subsidiaries. But both Leonard and I pretend he doesn't know about the girls. 
Whenever he asks me how I enjoyed a vacation, he acts as if all I've done is sit around 
the pool, by myself, reading the latest books." He was amused. He sucked on his cheroot. 
"Leonard is a Puritan, but he knows better than to let his personal feelings interfere 
with business." He shook his head. "Your boss is some man."
  "He's not my boss," Salsbury said.
  Klinger didn't seem to have heard him.
  "Leonard and I are partners," Salsbury said. Klinger looked him up and down. 
"Partners." "That's right."
  Their eyes met.
  Reluctantly, after a few seconds, Salsbury looked away.
  "Partners," Klinger said. He didn't believe it.
  We are partners, Salsbury thought. Dawson may own this helicopter, the Fortunata Hotel, 
Crystal, Daisy, and you. But he doesn't own me, and he never will. Never.
  At the Las Vegas airport, the helicopter put down thirty yards from a dazzling, white