Prologue: The Auction - Vista Del Desierto Ranch, February 22, 2000

At computer terminals in the Hotel Dar Al-Salam, on Sa'Adoun Street in Baghdad; the Jianguo Hotel, Jianguo Men Wai Da Jio, in Beijing; in Vienna's Altstadt Raddison and in Moscow's Aerostar; men with a great deal of money and political ambition were anxiously waiting for the show to begin in America. The hook-up was clean, and the video was fast, secretly running off America's new university Internet II system.

Arnold Pepper had the digital camera linked into Benjamin Rader's VR experience, so that the online bidders could watch the entire action take place before they spent any money. Victor Barborosa was online at another computer, eagerly anticipating the escalation of the numbers that would be keyed into the auction's interactive Java program. He was to receive half of the money for his presidential campaign.

"Okay, we'll start now," said Pepper, motioning for one of the robed ones to turn on the VR controls operating Benjamin's reality.

Benjamin was in the ring, sitting in the corner with his manager, a little man with a British accent and round glasses. His arms were drenched with sweat, and he was breathing heavily. The crowd was shouting all around him in the crammed arena, and he felt an inner excitement as he stared over at his opponent, a gigantic man wearing a scraggly beard and torn overalls. "Kill 'em, Benji! Rip his heart out," his manager told him, kneading his tired muscles with rubbing alcohol and toweling off his hairy chest.

Although Benjamin Rader was seeing himself as a huge, muscular warrior with a mammoth physique, the bidders online around the world were seeing a different picture. They were seeing the real Benjamin Rader, a rather short and slender businessman with a hairless chest and knobby knees. He was the same person they could match-up with the faxed copy next to their keyboard. They knew it had to be true. These Americans had kidnapped the media mogul of the West Coast, and he was on display like a clown. The fingerprints matched, the DNA sample matched. It was he. It was a sight to behold. They chuckled and watched the little man wrestle his opponent, drop-kicking, running against the ropes and springing back out like he was shot from a slingshot, jumping on his opposition's back from the top of the corner post, and they knew they wanted to contract with these people. They knew the story about the slain Israeli leader, and they had seen the secret tapes of his assassin's programming in action. It was no secret what this device could do. The bidding war began in earnest.

Chapter One : Alpha Stage - Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, June 4-5, 1968

There he is on the stage. The cheering is thunderous! His wife up there with him. Both standing and waving. Smiling and smiling. Don't they know what tomorrow is? It's the anniversary of the Jewish slaughter of 200,000 men, women and children! That's what should be shouted from the podium! Not the drivel of a millionaire Jew-lover!

Sirhan watched the commotion from the back row of the Embassy ballroom. It was after midnight. He wore a gray sweater and blue jeans, and his hair was unruly. He held a drink--a Tom Collins--in his right hand while his left hand was beating a steady rhythm against his leg to the drum beat of "Happy Days Are Here Again," being played over and over again on the loudspeaker system.

Finally, the music came to a halt. The people in the audience were relatively quiet as Senator Kennedy was going to speak. "Mayor Yorty has just sent me a message that we have been here too long already." The audience roared with laughter--except for Sirhan--knowing Yorty was a Republican. Bobby Kennedy lifted up his V-shaped fingers, and the crowd roared once more. "On to Chicago! Let's win there!" he shouted.

The crush of the crowd was so great that Kennedy and his entourage were quickly being diverted through the service pantry. Yes, Sirhan could see the maitre d' as he gripped Kennedy's right hand and led him through the gold curtain behind the stage and down into the pantry.

I guess I'll go home now, thought Sirhan, draining the last of his drink. He felt dizzy--it was his second drink and he was small. Not tough like his brother, Munir. Or his war veteran brothers. Just a lousy loser. A dropout loser who's not even an American.

"My, I'm feeling a bit woozy," said a voice beside him. Sirhan turned to face a pretty young brunette--about twenty--wearing a polka-dot cocktail dress. "Could you get me some coffee?" she asked, smiling at Sirhan.

Suddenly, Sirhan remembered he had left something important in his car. He ran over to a cocktail server and snatched a Styrofoam cup of coffee from the tray and brought it back to the girl. "Here, take this," he told her, "I have to go outside."

Sirhan was parked near the servant's entrance, and it took him less than a minute to reach his car. He opened the trunk and took out a small handgun. He tucked it inside his belt strap and covered it with his sweater. Then he ran back into the hotel and headed straight for the pantry where his friend worked. Maybe George is working tonight, thought Sirhan, forgetting the gun for the moment. The lights were having a kaleidoscopic effect on his perception. It was like an acid trip, but he felt a concentrating strength gathering from somewhere deep inside. Kennedy. I need to see Kennedy.

Bobby was walking slowly down the pantry gangway, shaking hands and smiling at everyone along the way. Former football great Rosy Grier walked just to the left of him, and hotel maitre d' Karl Uecker walked to his right.

Sirhan was standing beside the large stainless steel serving carts, about twenty feet away from the senator, when he suddenly reached inside his belt and pulled out the Iver Johnson .22 caliber. Illuminati. Hero of my people! RFK must die! "Kennedy, you son of a bitch!" shouted Sirhan, and he fired two rapid shots. Bobby reeled backwards, flinging his right arm in front of his face for protection. Eight more shots rang out in rapid succession, and several people grabbed for Sirhan, but he was infused with inhuman power. DeSalvo. Illuminati hero. Kill Kennedy! Bobby grabbed the clip-on necktie of a security guard as he fell backwards to the concrete floor. His arms and legs were splayed out in a Christ-like pose, as blood began to form in a crimson halo around his blond head.

Ethel Kennedy came rushing up to her husband. "Get out of my way," she shouted, as she pushed her way through the crowd.

"Oh God, help me!" a voice screamed beside her.

Ethel pushed him away. "Shut your mouth. Can't you see my husband has been shot?"

"I've been hit too," said the voice.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" said Mrs. Kennedy. Then she turned her attention back to her husband, who was being offered a rosary by a young bus boy. Bobby clung to the rosary in his clenched fist. Ethel bent down to hear something from his lips.

"Am I going to die?" asked Bobby.

"No, my darling! We'll get you some help right away," his wife sobbed into his suit lapel.

Three men were attacking Sirhan, trying to wrestle the gun from his hand. "Watch out!" shouted Rosy Grier, "he's got his finger on the trigger!"

Finally, George Plimpton got Sirhan's right arm and began to smash it--with all his strength--against the solid steel-serving tray, as Karl Uecker held Sirhan down. Only after several moments did the gun finally fall from Sirhan's fingers. "Shit! He's got super-strength!" Plimpton yelled.

In a daze, Sirhan was led away by five men. Sirhan's head was forced down into a police car because his hands were handcuffed tightly behind his back.

"Where am I?" Sirhan asked. The officers of the Los Angeles Police Department stared straight ahead, ignoring the young man behind them.

* * *

Stanford University, August 12, 1971. The students and one psychologist were standing around a young woman who was begging the others to let her get out of the experiment. They were grad students in psychology in performance as "prison psychologists" to students who were participating in an experiment that was later called a "ground-breaking study in the causes of mental cruelty." It offered the world a videotaped demonstration of how ordinary people--middle-class college students--could do things they would have never believed they were capable of doing. It seemed to say, as Hannah Arendt said of Adolf Eichmann, that normal people could take ghastly actions.

Moments before, several young men--dressed in khaki uniforms and wearing reflector sunglasses that hid their eyes--were herding a larger group of men down a hallway. The latter were dressed in shapeless smocks that exposed their pale legs and the chains that bound one ankle of each man to another. Paper bag blindfolds covered their heads.

Abigail Soloman's stomach reacted first. She felt queasy and instinctively turned her head away. Her peers, other academic psychologists, noticed her flinch. "What's the matter?" they teased.

"I think I've been held prisoner against my will," she said, holding her hands to her mouth. "These men don't deserve to go through all this! I can't stand this!" The young graduate student and honors researcher began to lunge at the psychology Professor, Philip Zimbardo, who was in charge of the experiment. "You can't do this to them! I'll see that you lose your license!"

Two of the pretend guards grabbed Ms. Soloman by the arms and dragged her out of the hallway and outside the building. One of her fellow graduate students, Melissa Proctor, followed her outside. The boys seated her on a bench near the stairs to the classrooms. "Are you okay now?" the taller boy asked, handing Soloman his handkerchief.

Melissa sat down beside her roommate of two years. "Abby? Where were you for those two weeks when you said you were visiting your parents? Your mother called me and told me your father was dead. She said she hadn't seen you once. Where were you?"

Sobbing, Abby Soloman shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I have no memory of where I was. Am I going mad, Issa?"

A young man walked up to them and held his hands down to Abby. She took them and stood up. "Drake, what are you doing here?"

"I knew you'd come to your senses. When are you going to give up on saving the world, Abby Soloman?" Drake Winston, the 21-year-old law student asked.