The Sultan felt he could speak frankly. "I must congratulate you," he said to Yabril. "Your timing has been perfect, and I must say lucky.

Allah watches over you, without a doubt." Here he smiled affectionately at Yabril. Then he went on. "I have received advance notice that the United States will meet any demands you make. Be content. You have humiliated the greatest country in the world. You have killed the world's greatest religious leader. You will achieve the release of your killer of the Pope and that will be like pissing in their faces. But go no further. Give thought to what happens afterwards. You will be the most hunted man in the history of this century."

Yabril knew what was coming, the probing for more information on how he would handle the negotiations. For a moment he wondered if the Sultan would try to take over the operation. "I will be safe here in Sherhaben," Yabril said. "As always."

The Sultan shook his head. "You know as well as I do that they will concentrate on Sherhaben after this is over. You will have to find ' another refuge."

Yabril laughed. "I will be a beggar in Jerusalem. But you should worry about yourself. They will know you have been a part of it. "

"Not probable," the Sultan said. "And I sit on the greatest and cheapest ocean of oil in the world. Also, the Americans have fifty billion dollars invested here, the cost of the oil city of Dak and even more. No, I think I will be forgiven much more quickly than you and your Romeo. Now, Yabril, my friend, I know you well, you have gone far enough this time, really a magnificent performance. Please, do not ruin everything with one of your little flourishes at the end of the game." He paused for a moment. "When do I present your demands?"

Yabril said softly, "Romeo is in place. Give the ultimatum this afternoon.

They must agree by eleven Tuesday morning, Washington time. I will not negotiate."

The Sultan said, "Be very careful, Yabril. Give them more time."

They embraced before Yabril was taken back to the plane, which was now held by the three men of his cadre and four other men who had come aboard in Sherhaben. The hostages were all in the tourist section of the plane, including the crew. The plane was sitting isolated in midfield, the crowds of spectators, along with the TV people from all over the world, with their camera equipment and vehicles, pushed back five hundred yards from the aircraft where the Sultan's army had established a cordon.

Yabril was smuggled back onto the plane as a member of the crew of a provisioning truck that was bringing food supplies and water for the hostages.

In Washington, D.C., it was very early Monday morning. The last thing that Yabril had said to the Sultan of Sherhaben was "Now we will see what this Kennedy is made of."

IT IS OFTEN dangerous to all concerned when a man rejects the pleasures of this world and devotes his life to helping his fellowman. The President of the United States, Francis Xavier Kennedy, was such a man.

Before he entered politics Kennedy had achieved spectacular success and wealth before he was thirty years of age. He then addressed the problem of what it is worthwhile to do in life. Because he was religious, because he had a strict moral sense, because of the tragedy of losing his uncles when he was a child, he believed he could do nothing better than to improve the world he lived in. In essence to better Fate itself.

When be was elected to the presidency, he said that his administration would declare war on all human misery. He would represent the millions of people who could not afford lobbyists and other pressure groups.

All this in ordinary circumstances would have been far too radical for the voting populace of America had it not been for Kennedy's magical presence on the TV screen. He was handsomer than his two famous "uncles" and a far better actor. He also had a better brain than his two uncles and was far superior in education, a true scholar. He could back up his rhetoric with an array of statistics. He could present the skeleton of plans that had been prepared by eminent men in different fields with dazzling eloquence.

And a somewhat caustic wit.

"With a good education," Francis Kennedy said, "any burglar, stickup man, any mugger, will know enough to steal without hurting anyone. They'll know how to steal like the people on Wall Street, learn how to evade their taxes like respectable people in our society. We may create more whitecollar crime, but at least nobody will get hurt."

But there was another side to Kennedy. "I'm a reactionary to the left and a terror to the right," Kennedy had said to Klee on the day he gave him a new FBI charter with wide discretionary powers. "When a man commits what is called a criminal act, I feel it is a sin. Law enforcement is my theology.

A man who commits a criminal act exercises the power of God over another human being. Then it becomes the decision of the victim whether to accept this other god in his life. When the victim and society accept the criminal act in any way, we destroy our society's will to survive. Society and even the individual have no right to forgive or to dilute punishment. Why impose the tyranny of the criminal over a law-abiding populace that adheres to the social contract? In terrible cases of murder and armed robbery and rapes, the criminal proclaims his godhead."

Christian said, smiling, "Put them all in jail?"

Kennedy said grimly, "We haven't got enough jails."

Christian had given him the latest computerized statistical report on crime in America. Kennedy studied it for a few minutes. And he began to rage.

"If only people knew the statistics on crime," he said. "If only people knew the crimes that never get into statistics. Burglars, even those with prior records, rarely go to prison. That home which the government shall not invade, that precious freedom, that sacred social contract, that sacred home, is invaded routinely by armed fellow citizens intent on theft, murder and rape."

Kennedy recited that beloved bit of English common law: "The rain may enter, the wind may enter, but the king may not enter," and said, "What a piece of bullshit that is." He went on: "California alone had six times as many murders as the whole of England in a year. In America murderers do less than five years in prison. Provided that by some miracle you can convict them."

"The people of America are terrorized by a few million lunatics," Kennedy said. "They are afraid to walk the streets at night. They guard their homes with private security that costs thirty billion dollars a year."

Kennedy especially hated one aspect. He said, "Do you know that ninety-eight percent of the crimes go unpunished? Nietzsche called it a long time ago: 'A society when it becomes soft and tender takes sides with those who harm it.' The religious outfits with all their mercy shit forgive criminals. They have no right to forgive criminals, those bastards. The worst thing I ever saw was this mother on TV whose daughter was raped and killed in an awful way, saying 'I forgive them.' What fucking right did she have to forgive them?"

And then to Christian's slightly snobbish surprise, Kennedy attacked literature. "Orwell had it all wrong in 1984, " he said.

"The individual is the beast, and Huxley, in Brave New World, he made it out as a bad thing. But I wouldn't mind living in a Brave New World, it's better than this. It's the individual who is the tyrant, not the government."

Christian said earnestly and a little ingenuously, "I am really astonished by the figures in the statistical report I showed you. The population of this country is being terrorized. "

"Congress must pass the legislation we need. The newspapers and other media scream bloody murder about the Bill of Rights, the sacred Constitution." Kennedy paused to weigh his friend's reaction. Klee looked somewhat shocked. Kennedy smiled and went on.