He was attending a social gathering held at a fashionable Upper East Side townhouse, when a distinguished man approached him and said, “Mr. Beaulieu, I am Tauriq Haddad. I know of you and the claim that has been put upon your life by the lord Shiva.

“When unusual opportunities come your way, recognize the source. The followers of Shiva are active all over the world. They will help you. But now, your opportunity has come. I have been asked to inform you that there is to be an open seat in the United States Congress. You are to run for it. Don’t worry, you will not be opposed.”

“I don’t understand—” Mark began.

“Not now, my good friend. We will talk again.” As suddenly as he had appeared, Tauriq was gone.

Indeed, in February, the incumbent congressman representing a so-called silk-stocking congressional district in Manhattan announced his plan to retire. Mark Beaulieu filed for the nomination of a major party for the open seat. To everyone’s surprise, all other potential candidates for the nomination failed to file a declaration of candidacy.

Mark knew nothing about running a political campaign and, ac cording to pollsters, was trailing by thirty points three weeks before the general election. Two weeks out, the steering mechanism on his opponent’s car failed while he was crossing the George Washington Bridge on his way home from a fund-raiser in North Jersey. The vehicle had been traveling very fast, hit the guardrail, and crashed into a concrete barrier. Mark’s opponent was hospitalized in a coma. Eventually his name had to be withdrawn from the race.

Consequently, Mark Beaulieu won by default and was sworn into office.

EVEN BEFORE HE CAME to Washington, Mark Beaulieu had assembled a staff that was acknowledged to be the most astute, most politically savvy ever to be working on Capitol Hill. From the start he drew committee assignments that were undreamed of for a first-term congressman—among them, a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee and another on the highly sought-after House Appropriations Committee.

His floor speeches were brilliant. His analysis of complex problems was flawless. His positions on the major issues were so unassailably centrist that he drew kudos from both sides of the political spectrum. His previous radicalism was quickly dismissed as youthful exuberance.

In short order, because of his previous foreign experience, he was chosen as a member of important United States delegations to foreign nations. Everywhere he went, he managed to develop warm friendships with the key officials who were at the heart of their nation’s foreign and domestic policy apparatus.