Pythias by Frederik Pohl

A condemned man begins his confession on the eve of execution, admitting that he killed Laurence Connaught—the old friend who once saved his life. As he retraces their reunion in Washington, a Senate guard's routine existence is shattered by a violent foreign-relations debate, a grenade attack, and Connaught's impossible survival, which convinces the narrator that his friend has discovered something beyond ordinary human limits. Pressed for the truth, Connaught reveals a startling secret: a link between mind and physical forces that can bend reality itself, making bullets veer away, objects disappear, and the impossible happen at will. When Connaught begins to demonstrate his power, the narrator strikes, steals his notes, and kills him as the police close in. In the end, he confesses the awful reason: the secret is only twenty-three words long, yet it could place unimaginable power in any hands. Fearing what the ambitious, the desperate, or the ruthless might do with it, he chose murder—and kept the secret for himself. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.