The Syndic operated as a sort of gigantic protective league in what had once been the states east of the Mississippi. Humanity had never had it so good; there was plenty of money, and people were expected to have fun with it. Moral inhibitions had gone the way of the horse: most girls were delightfully amenable, and polo was played in jeeps with 50-caliber machine guns. The hopelessly corrupt old North American Government had been driven literally into the sea but made occasional piratical forays onto the mainland from bases on the islands and coastal fringes of a ruined and savage Europe. West of the Mississippi lay Mob Territory, and in spite of treaties and frequent state visits, it was known that the Mobsters coveted the produtivity and complacency that marked life under The Syndic. Fat, happy, and hedonistic, The Syndic was unprepared to face the realities of impending warfare with the Government, and when a wave of assassinations broke out in New York, it was belatedly decided to take action. Young Charles Orsino, polo-playing scion of one of the ruling families, volunteered for a spying assignment. Here begins one of the most fantastic adventures ever to involve brain washing, witchcraft, and murder in a plot that ranges from Druidical rites to old-fashioned twenty-first-century romance.