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their—er—affiliation. They presented themselves as nothing more than extra banquet waiters."
    Matt felt an ominous foreboding. "But they weren't really waiters?"
    Luke shook his head. "They were the WINDS crackpots who decided that the fund-raiser—featuring you, a native son of their target area—was their big chance to get their ideas across to the party leadership. By hook or by crook."
    "What exactly did they do?" Matt asked hoarsely.
    Luke shook his head disgustedly. "As waiters and bartenders those crazies had access to all the food and drink in the ballroom. They took advantage of that access to spike everything with a hundred-and-twelve-proof vodka. I mean everything. Matt, even the water. Apparently they thought that legislators under the, uh, influence would be more amenable to their windmill scheme. Hey, you'd have to be either drunk or crazy, maybe both, to take them seriously."

    ''Drunk!" Matt gasped. ''I was drunk?" Oh, he should have known! He recognized all the signs and symptoms now. But how could he have suspected he was drunk when he'd drunk so little? Or so he'd thought. He swallowed hard. ''Then Kristina was drunk, too?"
    "Everybody was," Luke intoned gloomily. "The only thing to be thankful for is that one of those WINDS creeps saw how blitzed everybody was and panicked at the thought of all those people getting into cars and driving home. He confessed to the hotel night manager who immediately ordered that all the guests be given rooms for the night here at the hotel, free of charge, of course. Luckily this place is enormous. Nobody from the fund-raiser was permitted to leave the premises and everybody was personally escorted to the rooms to, well, sleep it off."
    Thinking hard, Matt vaguely remembered following a young bellhop through the corridors last night—to this room! He marveled now that neither he nor Kristina had bothered to question the escort or the room. It had ail seemed perfectly logical at the time; one didn't question magic in a dream or a fairy tale. And last night had contained elements of both.
    "Thank God nobody suffered anything worse than what you're suffering now—a massive hangover," Luke continued. "Damage control is already beginning. The entire incident is hideously embarrassing and everybody there last night just wants to forget it ever happened."
    "Forget it?" Matt echoed numbly. He felt his temper flare. "No way! We're going to go after those demented maniacs, we're going to make an example of them that will scare—"
    "Matt, believe me, this is no time to be thinking of revenge and retribution," Luke cut in. "Everything about WINDS, from their harebrained windmill scheme to their sabotage of the fund-raiser last night is almost too idiotic to be believed. Nobody—not the politicians or the lobbyists or

    even the members of the press who were there—want the story to get out because it makes them look like idiots, too."
    * ^Dammit, Luke, we can't let WINDS off scot-free. What if they try something like this again and—"
    *'They won't. I've already threatened them with an enormous personal injury suit on behalf of everybody at the fund-raiser," Luke stated, his demeanor as cool as Matt's was heated. *'I tossed around threats like bringing in the FBI and FDA, too. If WINDS agrees to quietly leave the state immediately and abandon any plans for future spiking incidents, we won't prosecute. They're already planning to go. They know they've done wrong and are scared to death."
    Matt began to pace the room, agitated, sweating and swearing. ''It's not right, Luke. Tliey should have to pay for what they've done."
    ''What about this woman, the lobbyist, that you spent last night with?" Luke asked shrewdly. "Do you think she'd like this—uh—incident to become public knowledge? Which is exactly what will happen if you attempt to go after WINDS."
    Matt grimaced. Kristina's flight had made it clear that she didn't care to be linked with him privately, let alone publicly.