My lips formed a soundless prayer.

The new man had a box. He was chattering. It must be what they kept their electric cuffs in. I couldn't understand a word they were saying. He was opening it up. My hand felt hot and sticky on the gun butt in my pocket.

They had the box open. They were pointing at it. The first man waved the thousand-dollar bill. He pointed at the box again, chattering insanely all the while.

The word piraievs kept occurring in his speech. Suddenly, I knew the word. Piraievs was the entry port of Athens, its seaport.

My knees almost buckled with relief. He was telling me, evidently, that he did not have enough change and would give it to me in Piraievs.

I nodded weakly.

The first man pushed a ticket in my hand.

I tottered into a lounge bar and unpried my sticky hand from the gun butt in my pocket. I looked at my palm, thinking it had never been that sweaty before. It was not sweat. It was blood from broken blisters formed in packing that (bleeped) grip. So I wasn't as nervous as I had thought.

I got into a corner seat where I could keep the whole room under surveillance. One part of me dreaded the moment the ship would sail, the other part of me couldn't wait to get it away from the dock. Was I turning into a schizophrenic, torn asunder by a split personality?

I began to itch. The itching got worse. I began to itch in several places at once. Nervous hives. According to psychology, when one is under an enormous strain, he tends to itch. If psychology said so, it must be totally true. But I didn't think I was nervous to the point of a nervous breakdown. I wondered how the crew would cope with me if I did have a nervous breakdown. I was sure a ferry didn't carry a doctor.

The itching grew worse and worse. Yes, it must be true that I was coming apart with a nervous breakdown.

Then something small and black was moving on my hand. I looked at it. Bubonic plague? Was I breaking out with bubonic plague spots? Oh, I hoped not. They would put me in quarantine and hold me until the Turkish women could find enough stones!

But wait. Bubonic plague spots don't move. They also don't jump.

I looked closely at the speck, which had leaped to my knee.

A FLEA!

Oh, Gods, the old man was getting his ghostly revenge! Associating daily with those two (bleeped) dogs, his clothes were full of fleas!

The things I was having to suffer because of Heller!

Only the grim determination to get him at the end of this tortured trail kept me going.

The ship had moved away from the dock. It began to pitch.

My stomach decided the old man's biscuits were too much.

I was shortly at the rail.

And each time I threw up again, I repeated my sacred vow.

Heller was going to pay for this. He was going to pay for it all!

It was the only reason now that I cared to bear all this and live.

VENGEANCE!

HELLER WOULD PAY!

I repeated it in every lull between the times that I threw up.

At least I knew who was responsible for my woe. And I was on my way to do something about it!

It was all that got me through that dreadful voyage.

At Piraievs, where we arrived after an agonizing day and night, I found, with a shock, that I was out of bombs. I could not blow up the ship. It made me very nervous.

I would have to be more cunning and crafty than ever. Now that the ship was no longer moving, I had time to squeeze my brains for every scrap of Apparatus technique that I would need to get through this. At least I was out from under the Prophet in the clouds. The Greek Gods live at Mount Olympus and that was far to the north. So there was some hope they wouldn't notice me passing through.

Mingle with the crowd: that is an Apparatus must. The instant I started to do so and go down the gangplank I was accosted by someone rushing up.

He spotted me! I flinched. Due to the disembarking people I could not back up. I cringed as he reached out his hand.

He was holding a sack. He jabbered something as he shoved it into my hands. Expecting a bomb, I still thought it would look better if I glanced into the sack before I threw it in his face and ran.

I looked.

Drachmas! A huge paper sack full of drachmas, all in small bills. It was my change.

I rushed off the ship.

A bus carried me to Athens. But this was no time for cultural walks around the Parthenon. I had had quite enough history. What I needed was a change of clothes. It would help me to cover my trail.

A main street in Athens was very modern with shops. My purchases were very swift. A raincoat, a suit, socks, shirt, tie, hat. I paid for it all with drachmas. It hardly made a dent in the bulk of the money. They were not expensive clothes.

I did not dare go to a hotel. They take your passport number and name. I took a cab to the airport. I bought a one-way to New York. I used drachmas. It was a coach cut-rate fare. I still had plenty of drachmas left.

The airport building provided a washroom. I went into a toilet. I put my suitcase on the seat. I got out of the old man's clothes. I didn't have any way to destroy them. I put them in my suitcase.

I brushed a couple of fleas off my skin and got dressed in the new clothes. I took off the bandage and removed the very saturated wad of cotton from my jaw.

I put my guns in the suitcase. It was too full now to put any of the money in. I had ninety-eight thousand U. S. dollars, ninety-one thousand Turkish lira, all in small bills, and twenty-nine thousand drachmas left, also in small bills. What a wad! Enough to stuff a mattress.

My newly purchased clothes had been in a couple of large sacks. I stuffed the money in those. I would carry this money, my ticket and my diplomatic passport, and leave everything else in the grip. I strapped it up.

Back at the counter, I flashed my phony United Arab League passport and had them put diplomatic tags on the bag to check it straight through to New York.

I had an hour to wait for my flight. As I crept across the airport waiting room, trying to be inconspicuous, one of the tattered sacks the money was in broke. I hastily snatched at it before it could reach the floor. A narrow escape! Turkish lira could have spilled out all over the waiting room. I shuddered at how that would open my trail.

With some drachmas, I bought an oversized flight bag. I was cunning. It had Air Israel all over it. Nobody would expect anyone from the United Arab League to be travelling Air Israel. "Confuse the trail" is an Apparatus motto.

In a phone booth, I stuffed the money into the new flight bag. I crammed and crammed. It was awfully hard to get it in. When I finished, the zipper would only partly close. It was the best I could do.

With what relief did I hear my flight called!

And shortly I was aloft, leaving historic Asia, Troy, Athens and Olympus behind me. When you are in an airplane, you know who is overhead: Rockecenter. He owns most of the controlling stock in most of the world's airlines, and his bank, Grabbe-Manhattan, holds their mortgages, ready to foreclose if they even dare get out of line. As a Rockecenter family "spi," I was secure in my entrance to that Heaven.

But all told, it was a nerve-wracking trip. People on the plane around kept darting their hands this way and that, and for a bit I was sure they were reaching for guns.

Even the stewardess began to make these sudden moves.

I studied them carefully. They were scratching themselves.

THE FLEAS!

Oh, I was so relieved to find it was only that. Because it seemed to be the growing fashion, I was even able to scratch myself without embarrassment.

There was only one other incident of note on the plane. The man in the seat beside me, scratching away, began to look at me suspiciously. I felt naked without my guns and no more bombs.