The Foreign Hand Tie is a Science Fiction Action and Adventure Book. Just because you can "see" something doesn't mean you understand it and that can mean that even perfect telepathy isn't perfect communication. From Istanbul, in Turkish Thrace, to Moscow, U. S. S. R. , is only a couple of hours outing for a round trip in a fast jet plane a shade less than eleven hundred miles in a beeline. Unfortunately, Mr. Raphael Poe had no way of chartering a bee. The United States Navy cruiser Woonsocket, having made its placid way across the Mediterranean, up the Aegean Sea, and through the Dardanelles to the Bosporous, stopped overnight at Istanbul and then turned around and went back. On the way in, it had stopped at Gibraltar, Barcelona, Marseilles, Genoa, Naples, and Athens the main friendly ports on the northern side of the Mediterranean. On the way back, it performed the same ritual on the African side of the sea. Its most famous passengers were the American Secretary of State, two senators, and three representatives. Its most important passenger was Mr. Raphael Poe. During the voyage in, Mr. Raphael Poe remained locked in a stateroom, all by himself, twiddling his thumbs restlessly and playing endless games of solitaire, making bets with himself on how long it would be before the ship hit the next big wave and wondering how long it would take a man to go nuts in isolation. On the voyage back, he was not aboard the Woonsocket at all, and no one missed him because only the captain and two other Navy men had known he was aboard, and they knew that he had been dropped overboard at Istanbul.
