Chapter VI
It was 9:00 in the morning, New York time.
At the airport a customs check was so meticulous that perhaps it was second only to certain prison inspections. They had even looked inside the tube of toothpaste and had taken samples from the bottle of aftershave that they would certainly have analyzed. To tell the truth, I had expected a thorough examination, though not like that. In fact, as our media had reported, two months earlier in some neighborhoods of New York the drinking water had come from the taps together with a strange substance, imperceptible to the taste, colorless and odorless, which some unknown person had poured into one of the aqueducts in proportionally minute quantities, but so potent that everyone who had drunk it for at least ten days had become hooked on it
