8

THE PANDORA PROCESS

The converted Boeing 747 rotated off the Andrews runway just before sumet. President Fowler had had a bad day and a half of briefings and unbreakable appointments. He would have two more even worse; even presidents are subject to the vagaries of ordinary human existence, and in this case, the eight-hour flight to Rome was coupled with a six-hour time change. The jet lag would be a killer. Fowler was a seasoned-enough traveler to know that. To attenuate the worst of it, he’d fiddled with his sleep pattern yesterday and today so that he’d be sufficiently tired to sleep most of the way across, and the VC- 25A had lavish accommodations to make the flight as comfortable as Boeing and the United States Air Force could arrange. An easy-riding aircraft, the -25A had its presidential accommodations in the very tip of the nose. The bed—actually a convertible sofa—was of decent size, and the mattress had been selected for his personal taste. The aircraft was also large enough that a proper separation between the press and the administration people was possible—nearly two hundred feet, in fact; the press was in a closed-off section in the tail—and while his press secretary was dealing with the reporters aft, Fowler was discreetly joined by his National Security Advisor. Pete Connor and Helen D’Agustino shared a look that an outsider might take to be blank, but which spoke volumes within the close fraternity of the Secret Service. The Air Force Security Policeman assigned to the door just stared at the aft bulkhead, trying not to smile.

 

“So, Ibrahim, what of our visitor?” Qati asked.

“He is strong, fearless, and quite cunning, but I don’t know

what possible use we have for him,” Ibrahim Ghosn replied. He related the story of the Greek policeman.

“Broke his neck?” At least the man was not a plant ... that is, if the policeman had really died, and this was not an elaborate ruse of the Americans, Greeks, Israelis, or God only knew who.

“Like a twig.”

“His contacts in America?”

“They are few. He is hunted by their national police. His group, he says, killed three of them, and his brother was recently ambushed and murdered by them.”

“He is ambitious in his choice of enemies. His education?”

“Poor in formal terms, but he is clever.”

“Skills?”

“Few that are of use to us.”

“He is an American,” Qati pointed out. “How many of those have we had?”

Ghosn nodded. “That is true, Commander.”

“The chance that he could be an infiltrator?”

“I would say slim, but we must be careful.”

“In any case, I have something I need you to do.” Qati explained about the bomb.

“Another one?” Ghosn was an expert at this task, but he was not exactly excited about being stuck with it. “I know the farm—that foolish old man. I know, I know, his son fought against the Israelis, and you like the cripple.”

“That cripple saved the life of a comrade. Fazi would have bled to death had he not received shelter in that little shop. He didn’t have to do that. That was at a time when the Syrians were angry with us.”

“All right. I have nothing to do for the rest of the day. I need a truck and a few men.”

“This new friend is strong, you say. Take him with you.”

“As you say, Commander.”

“And be careful!”

“Insh’Allah. ” Ghosn was almost a graduate of the American University of Beirut—almost because one of his teachers had been kidnapped, and two others had used that as an excuse to leave the country. That had denied Ghosn the last nine credit hours needed for a degree in engineering. Not that he really needed it. He’d been at the top of his class, and learned well enough from the textbooks without having to listen to the explanations of instructors. He’d spent quite a bit of time in labs of his own making. Ghosn had never been a front-line soldier of the movement. Though he knew how to use small arms, his skills with explosives and electronic devices were too valuable to be risked. He was also youthful in appearance, handsome, and quite fair-skinned, as a result of which he traveled a lot. An advance man of sorts, he often surveyed sites for future operations, using his engineer’s eye and memory to sketch maps, determine equipment needs, and provide technical support for the actual operations people, who treated him with far more respect than an outsider might have expected. Of his courage there was no doubt. He’d proven his bravery more than once, defusing unexploded bombs and shells that the Israelis had left in Lebanon, then reworking the explosives recovered into bombs of his own. Ibrahim Ghosn would have been a welcome addition to any one of a dozen professional organizations anywhere in the world. A gifted, if largely self-taught engineer, he was also a Palestinian whose family had evacuated Israel at the time of the country’s founding, confidently expecting to return as soon as the Arab armies of the time erased the invaders quickly and easily. But that happy circumstance had not come about, and his childhood memories were of crowded, unsanitary camps where antipathy for Israel had been a creed as important as Islam. It could not have been otherwise. Disregarded by the Israelis as people who had voluntarily left their country, largely ignored by other Arab nations who might have made their lot easier but had not, Ghosn and those like him were mere pawns in a great game whose players had never agreed upon the rules. Hatred of Israel and its friends came as naturally as breathing, and finding ways to end the lives of such people was his task in life. It had never occurred to him to wonder why.

Ghosn got the keys for a Czech-built GAZ-66 truck. It wasn’t as reliable as a Mercedes, but a lot easier to obtain—in this case it had been funneled to his organization through the Syrians years before. On the back was a home-built A-frame. Ghosn loaded the American in the cab with himself and the driver. Two other men rode on the loadbed as the truck pulled out of the camp.

Marvin Russell examined the terrain with the interest of a hunter in a new territory. The heat was oppressive, but really no worse than the Badlands during a bad summer wind, and the vegetation—or lack of it—wasn’t all that different from the reservation of his youth. What appeared to others as bleak was just another dusty place to an American raised on one. Except here they didn’t have the towering thunderstorms—and the tornados they spawned—of the American Plains. The hills were also higher than the rolling Badlands. Russell had never seen mountains before. Here he saw them, high and dry and hot enough to make a climber gasp. Most climbers, Marvin Russell thought. He could hack it. He was in shape, better shape than these Arabs.

The Arabs, on the other hand, seemed to be believers in guns. So many guns, mostly Russian AK-47s at first, but soon he was seeing heavy antiaircraft guns and the odd battery of surface-to-air missiles, tanks, and self-propelled field guns belonging to the Syrian Army. Ghosn noted his guest’s interest and started explaining things.

“These are here to keep the Israelis out,” he said, casting his explanation in accordance with his own beliefs. “Your country arms the Israelis and the Russians arm us.” He didn’t add that this was becoming increasingly tenuous.

“Ibrahim, have you been attacked?”

“Many times, Marvin. They send their aircraft. They send commando teams. They have killed thousands of my people. They drove us from our land, you see. We are forced to live in camps that—”

“Yeah, man. They’re called reservations where I come from.” That was something Ghosn didn’t know about. “They came to our land, the land of our ancestors, killed off the buffalo, sent in their army, and massacred us. Mainly they attacked camps of women and children. We tried to fight back. We killed a whole regiment under General Custer at a place called the Little Big Horn—that’s the name of a river—under a leader named Crazy Horse. But they didn’t stop coming. Just too many of them, too many soldiers, too many guns, and they took the best of our land, and left us shit, man. They make us live like beggars. No, that’s not right. Like animals, like we’re not people, even, ‘cause we look different, speak different, got a different religion. They did all that ’cause we were in a place they wanted to have, and they just moved us out, like sweepin’ away the garbage.”

“I didn’t know about that,” Ghosn said, amazed that his were not the only people to be treated that way by the Americans and their Israeli vassals. “When did it happen?”

“Hundred years ago. Actually started around 1865. We fought, man, we did the best we could, but we didn’t have much of a chance. We didn’t have friends, see? Didn’t have friends like you got. Nobody gave us guns and tanks. So they killed off the bravest. Mainly they trapped the leaders and murdered them—Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull died like that. Then they squeezed us and starved us until we had to surrender. Left us dusty, shitty places to live, sent us enough food to keep us alive, but not enough to be strong. When some of us try to fight back, try to be men—well, I told you what they did to my brother. Shot him from ambush like he was an animal. Did it on television, even, so’s people would know what happened when an Indian got too big for his britches.”

The man was a comrade, Ghosn realized. This was no infiltrator, and his story was no different from the story of a Palestinian. Amazing.

“So why did you come here, Marvin?”

“I had to leave before they got me, man. I ain’t proud of it, but what else could I do—you want me to wait till they could ambush me?” Russell shrugged. “I figured I’d come someplace, find people like me, maybe learn a few things, learn how I could go back, maybe, teach my people how to fight back some.” Russell shook his head. “Hell, maybe it’s all hopeless, but I ain’t gonna give in—you understand that?”

“Yes, my friend, I understand. It has been so with my people since before I was born. But you, too, must understand: it is not hopeless. So long as you stand up and fight back, there is always hope. That is why they hunt you—because they fear you!”

“Hope you’re right, man.” Russell stared out the open window, and the dust stung his eyes, 7,000 miles from home. “So, what are we doing?”

“When you fought the Americans, how did your warriors get weapons?”

“Mainly we took what they left behind.”

“So it is with us, Marvin.”

 

Fowler woke up about halfway across the Atlantic. Well, that was a first, he told himself. He’d never managed to do it in an airplane before. He wondered if any U.S. president had, or done it on the way to see the Pope, or with his National Security Advisor. He looked out the windows. It was bright this far north—the aircraft was close to Greenland—and he wondered for a moment if it were morning or still night. That was almost a metaphysical question on an airplane, of course, which changed the time far faster than a watch could.

Also metaphysical was his mission. This would be remembered. Fowler knew his history. This was something unique. It had never happened before. Perhaps it was the beginning of the process, perhaps the end of it, but what he was up to was simply expressed. He would put an end to war. J. Robert Fowler’s name would be associated with this treaty. It was the initiative of his presidential administration. His speech at the U.N. had called the nations of the world to the Vatican. His subordinates had run the negotiations. His name would be the first on the treaty documents. His armed forces would guarantee the peace. He had truly earned his place in history. That was immortality, the kind that all men wanted but few earned. Was it any wonder that he was excited? he asked himself with dispassionate reflectivity.

A president’s greatest fear was gone now. He’d asked himself that question from the first moment, the first fleeting self-directed thought, while still a prosecutor chasing after the capo of the Cleveland family of the Cosa Nostra—if you’re the President, what if you have to push the button? Could he have done it? Could he have decided that the security of his country required the deaths of thousands—millions—of other human beings? Probably not, he judged. He was too good a man for that. His job was to protect people, to show them the way, to lead them along a beneficial path. They might not always understand that he was right and they wrong, that his vision was the correct one, the logical one. Fowler knew himself to be cold and aloof on such matters, but he was always right. Of that he was certain. He had to be certain, of himself and his motivations. Were he ever wrong, he knew, his conviction would be mere arrogance, and he’d faced that charge often enough. The one thing he was unsure about was his ability to face a nuclear war.

But that was no longer an issue, was it? Though he’d never admit it publicly, Reagan and Bush had ended that chance, forcing the Soviets to face their own contradictions, and facing them, to change their ways. And it had all happened in peace, because men really were more logical than beasts. There would continue to be hot spots, but so long as he did his job right they would not get out of hand—and the trip he was making now would end the most dangerous problem remaining in the world, the one with which no recent administration could cope. What Nixon and Kissinger had failed to do, what had defied the valiant efforts of Carter, the halfhearted attempts of Reagan, and the well-meaning gambits of Bush and his own predecessor, what all had failed to do, Bob Fowler would accomplish. It was a thought in which to bask. Not only would he find his place in the history books, but he would also make the rest of his presidency that much easier to manage. This would also put the seal on his second term, a forty-five-state majority, solid control of Congress, and the remainder of his sweeping social programs. With historic accomplishments like this one came international prestige and immense domestic clout. It was power of the best kind, earned in the best way, and the sort that he could put to the best possible use. With a stroke of a pen—actually several pens, for that was the custom—Fowler became great, a giant among the good, and a good man among the powerful. Not once in a generation did a single man have such a moment as this. Maybe not once in a century. And no one could take it away.

The aircraft was traveling at 43,000 feet, moving at a ground speed of 633 knots. The placement of his cabin allowed him to look forward, as a president should look, and down at a world whose affairs he was managing so well. The ride was silky smooth, and Bob Fowler was going to make history. He looked over to Elizabeth, lying on her back, her right hand up around her head and the covers down at her waist, exposing her lovely chest to his eyes. While most of the rest of the passengers fidgeted in their seats, trying to get some sleep, he looked. Fowler didn’t want to sleep right now. The President had never felt more like a man, a great man to be sure, but at this moment, just a man. His hand slid across her breasts. Elizabeth’s eyes opened wide and she smiled, as though in her dreams she had read his thoughts.

 

Just like home, Russell thought to himself. The house was made of stones instead of block, and the roof was flat instead of peaked, but the dust was the same, and the pathetic little garden was the same. And the man might as easily have been a Sioux, the tiredness in his eyes, the bent back, the old, gnarled hands of one defeated by others.

“This must be the place,” he said as the truck slowed.

“The old man’s son fought the Israelis and was badly wounded. Both have been friends to us.”

“You have to look out for your friends,” Marvin agreed. The truck stopped, and Russell had to hop out to allow Ghosn to step down.

“Come along, I will introduce you.”

It was all surprisingly formal to the American. He didn’t understand a word, of course, but he didn’t have to. The respect of his friend Ghosn for the old one was good to see. After a few more remarks the farmer looked at Russell and bowed his head, which embarrassed the American. Marvin took his hand gently and shook it in the manner of his people, muttering something that Ghosn translated. Then the farmer led them into his garden.

“Damn,” Russell observed when he saw it.

“American Mark 84 2,000-pound bomb, it would appear. ...” Ghosn said offhandedly, then knew he was wrong ... the nose wasn’t quite right ... of course, the nose was crushed and distorted ... but oddly so.... He thanked the farmer and waved him back to the truck. “First we must uncover it. Carefully, very carefully.”

“I can handle that,” Russell said. He went back to the truck and selected a folding shovel of a military design.

“We have people—”

The American cut Ghosn off. “Let me do it. I’ll be careful.”

“Do not touch it. Use the shovel to dig around it, but use your hands to remove the soil from the bomb itself. Marvin, I warn you, this is very dangerous.”

“Better step back, then.” Russell turned and grinned. He had to show this man that he was courageous. Killing the cop had been easy, no challenge at all. This was different.

“And leave my comrade in danger?” Ghosn asked rhetorically. He knew that this was the intelligent thing to do, what he would have done had his own people done the digging, because his skills were too valuable to be risked stupidly, but he could not show weakness in front of the American, could he? Besides, he could watch and see if the man was as courageous as he seemed.

Ghosn was not disappointed. Russell stripped to the waist and got on his knees to dig around the periphery of the bomb. He was even careful of the garden, far more so than Ghosn’s men would have been. It took an hour until he’d dug a shallow pit around the device, piling up the soil in four neat mounds. Already Ghosn knew that there was something odd here. It was not a Mark 84. It had roughly the same size, but the shape was wrong, and the bombcase was ... just wasn’t right. The Mark 84 had a sturdy case made of cast steel, so that when the explosive filler detonated, the case would be transformed into a million razor-sharp fragments, the better to tear men to bits. But not this one. In two visible places the case was broken, and it wasn’t quite thick enough for that kind of bomb. So what the hell was it?

Russell moved in closer and used his hands to pull the dirt off the surface of the bomb itself. He was careful and thorough. The American worked up a good sweat but didn’t slacken his efforts even once. The muscles in his arm rippled, and Ghosn admired him for that. The man had a physical power like none he had ever seen. Even Israeli paratroopers didn’t look so formidable. He’d excavated two or three tons of dirt, yet he barely showed the effort, his movements as steady and powerful as a machine.

“Stop for a minute,” Ghosn said. “I must get my tools.”

“Okay,” Russell replied, sitting back and staring at the bomb.

Ghosn returned with a rucksack and a canteen, which he handed to the American.

“Thanks, man. It is a little warm here.” Russell drank half a liter of water. “Now what?”

Ghosn took a paintbrush from the sack and began sweeping the last of the dirt from the weapon. “You should leave now,” he warned.

“That’s okay, Ibrahim. I’ll stay if you don’t mind.”

“This is the dangerous part.”

“You stayed by me, man,” Russell pointed out.

“As you wish. I am now looking for the fuse.”

“Not in the front?” Russell pointed to the nose of the bomb.

“Not there. There is usually one at the front—it appears to be missing; that’s just a screw-on cap—one in the middle and one at the back.”

“How come it don’t have no fins on it?” Russell asked. “Don’t bombs have fins on ’em, you know, like an arrow?”

“The fins were probably stripped off when it hit the ground. That’s often how we find such bombs, because the fins come off and lie on the surface.”

“Want me to uncover the back of the thing, then?”

“Very, very carefully, Marvin. Please.”

“Okay, man.” Russell moved around his friend and resumed pulling the dirt off the back end of the bombcase. Ghosn, he noted, was one cool son of a bitch. Marvin was as scared as he had ever been, this close to a shitload of explosives, but he could not and damned well would not show anything that looked like fear to this guy. Ibrahim might be a little pencil-necked geek, but the dude had real balls, dicking with a bomb like this. He noted that Ghosn was sweeping the dirt off like he was using the brush on a girl’s tits, and made his own efforts just as cautious. Ten minutes later, he had uncovered the back.

“Ibrahim?”

“Yes, Marvin?” Ghosn said without looking.

“There ain’t nothing here. The back’s just a hole, man.”

Ghosn lifted the brush from the case and turned to look. That was odd. But he had other things to do. “Thank you. You can stop now. I still have not found a fuse.”

Russell backed off, sat on a mound of dirt, and proceeded to empty the rest of the canteen. On reflection he walked over to the truck. The three men there along with the farmer were just standing—the farmer watching in the open, the others observing more circumspectly behind the stone walls of the house. Russell tossed one man the empty canteen, and had a full one returned the same way. He gave a thumbs-up sign to all of them and walked back to the bomb.

“Back off for a minute and have a drink,” Marvin said on his return.

“Good idea,” Ghosn agreed, setting his brush down next to the bomb.

“Find anything?”

“A plug connection, nothing else.” That was odd, too, Ghosn thought, pulling the top off the canteen. There were no stenciled markings, just a silver-and-red label block near the nose. Color codes were common on bombs, but he’d never seen that one before. So, what was this damned thing? Maybe a FAE or some kind of submunition canister? Something old and obsolete that he’d never seen before. It had come down in 1973, after all. Maybe something that had long since gone out of service. That was very bad news. If it were something he’d never seen before, it might have a fusing system that he didn’t know. His manual for dealing with such things was Russian in origin, though printed in Arabic. Ghosn had long since committed it to memory, but there was no description for anything like this. And that was truly frightening. Ghosn took a long pull from the canteen and then poured a little across his face.

“Take it easy, man,” Russell said, noticing the man’s tension.

“This job is never easy, my friend, and it is always very frightening.”

“You look pretty cool, Ibrahim.” It wasn’t a lie. While brushing the dirt off, he looked like a doctor, almost, doing something real hard, Russell thought, but doing it. The little fucker had balls, Marvin told himself again.

Ghosn turned and grinned. “That is all a lie. I am quite terrified. I truly hate doing this.”

“You got a big pair, boy, and that’s no shit.”

“Thank you. Now I must return while I still can. You really should leave, you know.”

Russell spat into the dirt. “Fuck it.”

“That would be very difficult.” Ghosn grinned. “And if you got a reaction from ‘her,’ you might not like it.”

“I guess when these suckers come, the earth really does move!”

Ghosn knew enough of American idiom that he fell backwards and laughed uproariously. “Please, Marvin, do not say such things when I am working!” I like this man! Ghosn told himself. We are too humorless a lot. I like this American! He had to wait another few minutes before he calmed down enough to resume his work.

Another hour’s brushing showed nothing. There were seams in the bombcase, even some sort of hatch ... he’d never seen that before. But no fuse point. If there was one, it had to be underneath. Russell moved away some more dirt, allowing Ghosn to continue his search, but again, nothing. He decided to examine the back.

“There’s a flashlight in my sack....”

“Got it.” Russell handed the light over.

Ghosn lay down on the dirt and contorted himself to look into the hole. It was dark, of course, and he switched on the light.... He saw electrical wiring, and something else, some sort of metal framework—latticework would be more accurate. He judged he could see perhaps eighty centimeters ... and if this was a real bomb, there would not be so much empty space. So. So. Ghosn tossed the light to the American.

“We have just wasted five hours,” he announced.

“Huh?”

“I don’t know what this thing is, but it is not a bomb.” He sat up and had a brief attack of the shakes, but it didn’t last long.

“What is it, then?”

“Some kind of electronic sensing device, perhaps, a warning system. Maybe a camera pod—the lens assembly must be underneath. That doesn’t matter. What is important is that it is no bomb.”

“So now what?”

“We move it, take it back with us. It might be valuable. Perhaps something we can sell to the Russians or the Syrians.”

“So the old guy was worried about nothing?”

“Correct.” Ghosn rose and the two men walked back to the truck. “It is safe now,” he told the farmer. Might as well tell him what he wanted to know, and why confuse him with the facts of the matter? The farmer kissed Ghosn’s dirty hands, and those of the American, which further embarrassed Russell.

The driver pulled the truck around, and backed into the garden, careful to do as little damage to the rows of vegetables as possible. Russell watched as two men filled a half-dozen sandbags and hoisted them onto the truck. Next they put a sling around the bomb and began to crank it up with a winch. The bomb—or whatever it was—was heavier than expected, and Russell took over the hand winch, displaying his strength yet again as he cranked it up alone. The Arabs swung the A-frame forward, then he lowered the bomb into the nest made of sandbags. A few ropes secured it in place, and that was that.

The farmer would not let them leave. He brought out tea and bread, insisting on feeding the men before they left, and Ghosn accepted the man’s hospitality with appropriate humility. Four lambs were added to the truck’s load before they left.

“That was a good thing you did, man,” Russell observed as they pulled off.

“Perhaps,” Ghosn said tiredly. Stress was so much more tiring than actual labor, though the American seemed to handle both quite well. Two hours later they were back in the Bekaa Valley. The bomb—Ghosn didn’t know what else to call it—was dropped unceremoniously in front of his workshop, and the party of five went to feast on fresh lamb. To Ghosn’s surprise, the American had never had lamb before, and so was properly introduced to the traditional Arab delicacy.

 

“Got something interesting, Bill,” Murray announced as he came into the Director’s office.

“What’s that, Danny?” Shaw looked up from his appointments schedule.

“A cop got himself killed over in Athens, and they think it was an American who did it.” Murray filled Shaw in on the technical details.

“Broke his neck barehanded?” Bill asked.

“That’s right. The cop was a skinny little guy,” Murray said, “but ...”

“Jesus. Okay, let’s see.” Murray handed the photo over. “We know this guy, Dan? It’s not the best picture in the world.”

“Al Denton thinks it might be Marvin Russell. He’s playing computer games on the original slide. There were no prints or other forensic stuff. The car was registered to a third party who disappeared, probably never existed in the first place. The driver of the other vehicle is an unknown. Anyway, it fits Russell’s description, short and powerful, and the cheekbones and coloration make him look like an Indian. Clothing is definitely American. So’s the suitcase.”

“So you think he skipped the country after we got his brother ... smart move,” Shaw judged. “He was supposed to be the bright one, wasn’t he?”

“Smart enough to get teamed up with an Arab.”

“Think so?” Shaw examined the other face. “Could be Greek, or anything Mediterranean. Skin’s a little fair for an Arab, but it’s a pretty ordinary face, and you said it’s an unknown. Gut call, Dan?”

“Yep.” Murray nodded. “I checked the file. A confidential informant told us a few years ago that Marvin made a trip east a few years back and made contacts with the PFLP. Athens is a convenient place to renew the association. Neutral ground.”

“Also a good place to make connections for a drug deal,” Shaw suggested. “What current info do we have on Brother Marvin?”

“Not much. Our best CI out there is back in the joint—had a brawl with a couple of reservation cops and came off second-best.”

Shaw grunted. The problem with Confidential Informants, of course, was that most of them were criminals who did illegal things and regularly ended up in jail. That both established their bonafides and made them temporarily useless. Such were the rules of the game. “Okay,” the FBI Director said. “You want to do something. What is it?”

“With a little nudge, we can spring the CI on good-time rules and get him back into the Warrior Society. If this is a terrorist connection, we’d better start running some leads down. Ditto if it’s for drugs. Interpol has already come up blank on the driver. No record of his face for either terrorist or drug connections. The Greeks have come to a blank wall. Information on the car didn’t lead them anywhere. They have a dead sergeant, and all they got to go on is two faces with no names attached. Sending the photo to us was their last shot. They figured him for an American....”

“Hotel?” the Director asked, ever the investigator.

“Yeah, they identified that—that is, they know it’s one of two places side by side. There were ten people with American passports who checked out that day, but they’re both little places with lots of in-and-out, and they came up with nothing useful for identification purposes. The hotel staff is forgetful. That kind of a place. Who’s to say that our friend even stayed there? The Greeks want us to do follow-up on the names from the hotel register,” Murray concluded.

Bill Shaw handed the photo back. “That’s simple enough. Run with it.”

“Already being done.”

“Assuming we know that these two had anything to do with the killing. Well, you gotta go with your best guess. Okay: let the U.S. Attorney know that our CI has paid his debt to society. It’s about time we ran those ‘warriors’ down once and for all.” Shaw had won his spurs on counterterrorism, and that class of criminal was still his first hate.

“Yeah, I’ll play up the drug connection on that. We ought to have him sprung in two weeks or so.”

“Fair enough, Dan.”

“When’s the President get into Rome?” Murray asked.

“Pretty soon. Really something, isn’t it?”

“Bet your ass, man. Kenny’d better find himself another line of work soon. Peace is breaking out.”

Shaw grinned. “Who woulda thunk it? We can always get him a badge and a gun so’s he can earn an honest living.”

 

Presidential security was completed with a discreetly located flight of four Navy Tomcat fighters that had followed the VC-25A at a distance of five miles while a radar-surveillance aircraft made sure that nothing was approaching Air Force One. Normal commercial traffic was set aside, and the environs of the military airfield being used for the arrival had not so much been combed as strained. Already waiting on the pavement was the President’s armored limousine, which had been flown in a few hours earlier by an Air Force C-141B, and enough Italian soldiers and police to discourage a regiment of terrorists. President Fowler emerged from his private washroom shaved and scrubbed pink, his tie exquisitely knotted, and smiling as brightly as Pete and Daga had ever seen. As well he might, Connor thought. The agent did not moralize as deeply as D‘Agustino did. The President was a man, and as most presidents were, a lonely man—doubly so with the loss of his wife. Elliot might be an arrogant bitch, but she was undeniably attractive, and if that’s what it took to allay the stress and pressure of the job, then that’s what it took. The President had to relax, else the job would burn him up—as it had burned others up—and that was bad for the country. So long as HAWK didn’t break any major laws, Connor and D’Agustino would protect both his privacy and his pleasures. Pete understood. Daga merely wished that he had better taste. E.E. had left the quarters a little earlier, and was dressed in something especially nice. She joined the President in the dining area just before landing for coffee and donuts. There was no denying that she was attractive, especially this morning. Maybe, Special Agent Helen D’Agustino thought, she was a good lay. Certainly she and the President were the best-rested people on the flight. The media pukes—the Secret Service has an institutional dislike for reporters—had squirmed and fidgeted in their seats throughout the flight, and looked rumpled despite their upbeat expressions. The most harried of all was the President’s speechwriter, who’d worked through the night without pause except for coffee and head-calls and finally delivered the speech to Arnie van Damm a bare twenty minutes before touchdown. Fowler had run through it over breakfast and loved it.

“Callie, this is just wonderful!” The President beamed at the weary staff member, who had the literary elegance of a poet. Fowler amazed everyone in sight by giving the young lady—she was still on the sunny side of thirty—a hug that left tears in Callie Weston’s eyes. “Get yourself some rest and enjoy Rome.”

“A pleasure, Mr. President.”

The aircraft came to a stop at the appointed place. The mobile stairs came immediately into place. A section of red carpet was rolled in place to lead from the stairs to the longer carpet that led in turn to the podium. The President and Prime Minister of Italy moved to their appointed places, along with the U.S. Ambassador and the usual hangers-on, including some exhausted protocol officers who’d had to plan this ceremony literally on the fly. The door of the aircraft was opened by an Air Force sergeant. Secret Service agents looked outside suspiciously for any sign of trouble, and caught glances from other agents of the advance team. When the President appeared, the Italian Air Force band played its arrival fanfare, different from the traditional American “Ruffles and Flourishes.”

The President made his way down the steps alone, walking from reality to immortality, he reflected. Reporters noticed that his stride was bouncy and relaxed, and envied him the comfortable quarters where he could sleep in regal solitude. Sleep was the only sure cure for jet lag, and clearly the President had enjoyed a restful flight. The Brooks Brothers suit was newly pressed—Air Force One has all manner of amenities—his shoes positively sparkled, and his grooming was perfection itself. Fowler made his way to the U.S. Ambassador and his wife, who conducted him to the Italian President. The band struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Next came the traditional review of the assembled troops, and a brief arrival speech that only hinted at the eloquence that would soon follow. In all, it took twenty minutes before Fowler got into his car, along with the Ambassador, Dr. Elliot, and his personal bodyguards.

“First one of those I’ve ever enjoyed,” was Fowler’s evaluation of the ceremony. There was general agreement that the Italians had handled it with elegance.

“Elizabeth, I want you to stay close. There are a few aspects to the agreement that we need to go over. I need to see Brent, too. How’s he doing?” Fowler asked the Ambassador.

“Tired but pretty happy with himself,” Ambassador Coates replied. “The last negotiation session lasted over twenty hours.”

“What’s the local press saying?” E.E. asked.

“They’re euphoric. They all are. This is a great day for the whole world.” It’s happening on my turf, and I’ll be there to see it! Jed Coates said to himself. Not often you get to see history made.

 

“Well, that was nice.”

The National Military Command Center—NMCC—is located in the D-Ring of the Pentagon near the River Entrance. One of the few such installations in government which actually looks like its Hollywood renditions, it is an arena roughly the size and proportions of a basketball court and two stories in height. NMCC is in essence the central telephone switchboard for the United States military. It is not the only one—the nearest alternate is at Fort Ritchie in the Maryland hills—since it is far too easy to destroy, but it is the most conveniently located of its type. It’s a regular stop for VIPs who want to see the sexier parts of the Pentagon, much to the annoyance of the staff, for whom it’s merely the place where they work.

Adjoining the NMCC is a smaller room in which one can see a set of IBM PC/AT personal computers—old ones with 5.25-inch floppy drives—that constitute the Hot Line, the direct communications link between the American and Soviet presidents. The NMCC “node” for the link was not the only one, but it was the primary downlink. That fact was not widely known in America, but it had been purposefully made known to the Soviets. Some form of direct communications between the two countries would be necessary even during an ongoing nuclear war, and letting the Soviets know that the only readily usable downlink was here might serve, some “experts” had judged three decades earlier, as a life-insurance policy for the area.

That, Captain James Rosselli, USN, thought, was just so much theoretician-generated horseshit. That no one had ever seriously questioned it was another example of all the horseshit that lay and stank within Washington in general and the Pentagon in particular. With all the nonsense that took place within the confines of Interstate 495, the Washington Beltway, it was just one more bit of data accepted as gospel, despite the fact that it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. To “Rosey” Rosselli, Washington, D.C., was about 300 square miles surrounded by reality. He wondered if the laws of physics even applied inside the Beltway. He’d long since given up on the laws of logic.

Joint duty, Rosey grunted to himself. The most recent effort of Congress to reform the military—something it was singularly unable to do for itself, he groused—had prescribed that uniformed officers who aspired to flag rank—and which of them didn’t?—had to spend some of their time in close association with peers from the other uniformed services. Rosselli had never been told how hanging around with a field-artillery man might make him a better submarine driver, but then no one else had evidently wondered about that. It was simply accepted as an article of faith that cross-pollination was good for something, and so the best and brightest officers were taken away from their professional specialties and dropped into things which they knew not the first thing about. Not that they’d ever learn how to do their new jobs, of course, but they might learn just enough to be dangerous, plus losing currency in what they were supposed to do. That was Congress’s idea of military reform.

“Coffee, Cap’n?” an Army corporal asked. “Better make it decaf,” Rosey replied. If my disposition gets any worse, I might start hurting people.

Work here was career-enhancing. Rosselli knew that, and he also knew that being here was partly his fault. He’d majored in sub and minored in spook throughout his career. He’d already had a tour at the Navy’s intelligence headquarters at Suitland, Maryland, near Andrews Air Force Base. At least this was a better commute—he’d gotten official housing at Bolling Air Force Base, and the trip to the Pentagon was a relatively simple hop across 1-295/395 to his reserved parking place, another perk that came with duty in the NMCC, and one worth shedding blood for.

Once duty here had been relatively exciting. He remembered when the Soviets had splashed the Korean Airlines 747 and other incidents, and it must have been wonderfully chaotic during the Iraq War—that is, when the senior watch officer wasn’t answering endless calls of “what’s happening?” to anyone who’d managed to get the direct-line number. But now?

Now, as he had just watched on his desk TV, the President was about to defuse the world’s biggest remaining diplomatic bomb, and soon Rosselli’s work would mostly involve taking calls about collisions at sea, or crashed airplanes, or some dumbass soldier who’d gotten himself run over by a tank. Such things were serious, but not matters of great professional interest. So here he was. His paperwork was finished. That was something Jim Rosselli was good at—he’d learned how to shuffle papers in the Navy, and here he had a superb staff to help him with it—and the rest of the day was mainly involved with sitting and waiting for something to happen. The problem was that Rosselli was a do-er, not a wait-er, and who wanted a disaster to happen anyway?

“Gonna be a quiet day.” This was Rosselli’s XO, an Air Force F-15 pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Barnes.

“I think you’re right, Rocky.” Just what I wanted to hear! Rosselli checked his watch. It was a twelve-hour shift, with five hours left to go. “Hell, it’s getting to be a pretty quiet world.”

“Ain’t it the truth.” Barnes turned back to the display screen. Well, I got my two MiGs over the Persian Gulf At least it hasn’t been a complete waste of time.

Rosselli stood and decided to walk around. The duty watch officers thought this was to look at what they were doing, to make sure they were doing something. One senior civilian ostentatiously continued doing the Post crossword. It was his “lunch” break and he preferred eating here to the mostly empty cafeterias. Here he could watch TV. Rosselli next wandered over to the left into the Hot Line room, and he was lucky for a change. A message was announced by the dinging of a little bell. The actual message received looked like random garbage, but the encryption machine changed that into clear-text Russian which a Marine translated:

 

“So you think you know the real meaning of fear? Yeah, you think you do know, but I doubt it. When you sit in a shelter with bombs falling all over. And the houses around you are burning like torches. I agree that you experience horror and fright For such moments are dreadful, for as long as they last, But the all-clear sounds-then it’s okay-

You take a deep breath, the stress has passed by. But real fear is a stone deep down in your chest. You hear me? A stone. That’s what it is, no more.

 

“Ilya Selvinskiy,” the Marine Lieutenant said.

“Hmph?”

“Ilya Selvinskiy, Russian poet, did some famous work during the Second World War. I know this one, Sprakh, the title is, ‘Fear.’ It’s very good.” The young officer grinned. “My opposite number is pretty literate. So ...” TRANSMISSION RECEIVED. THE REST OF THE POEM IS EVEN BETTER, ALEKSEY, the Lieutenant typed, STAND BY FOR REPLY.

“What do you send back?” Rosselli asked.

“Today ... maybe a little Emily Dickinson. She was a morbid bitch, always talking about death and stuff. No, better yet—Edgar Allan Poe. They really like him over there. Hmmm, which one ... ?” The Lieutenant opened a desk drawer and pulled out a volume.

“Don’t you do it in advance?” Rosselli asked.

The Marine grinned up at his boss. “No, sir, that’s cheating. We used to do it that way, but we changed things about two years ago, when things lightened up. Now it’s sort of a game. He picks a poem, and I have to respond with a corresponding passage from an American poet. It helps pass the time, Cap’n. Good for language skills on both sides. Translating poetry is a bitch—good exercise.” The Soviet side transmitted its messages in Russian, and the Americans in English, necessitating skilled translators at both ends.

“Much real business on the line?”

“Captain, I’ve never seen much more than test messages. Oh, when we have the SecState flying over, sometimes we check weather data. We even chatted a little about hockey when their national team came over to play with the NHL guys last August, but mainly it’s duller than dirt, and that’s why we trade poetry passages. Weren’t for that, we’d all go nuts. Shame we can’t talk like on CB or something, but the rules are the rules.”

“Guess so. They say anything about the treaty stuff in Rome?”

“Not a word. We don’t do that, sir.”

“I see.” Rosselli watched the Lieutenant pick a stanza from “Annabel Lee.” He was surprised. Rosey had expected something from “The Raven.” Nevermore ...

 

The arrival day was one of rest and ceremony—and mystery. The treaty terms had still not been leaked, and news agencies, knowing that something “historic” had happened, were frantic to discover exactly what it was. To no avail. The chiefs of state of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, the Soviet Union, the United States of America, and their host, Italy, arrayed themselves around a massive 15th-century table, punctuated with their chief diplomats and representatives of the Vatican and the Eastern Orthodox Church. In deference to the Saudis, toasts were offered in water or orange juice, which was the only discordant note of the evening. Soviet President Andrey Il’ych Narmonov was particularly effusive. His country’s participation in the treaty was a matter of great importance, and the inclusion of the Russian Orthodox Church on the Commission for Christian Shrines would have major political import in Moscow. The dinner lasted three hours, after which the guests departed in view of the cameras on the far side of the avenue, and once more the newsies were thunderstruck by the fellowship. A jovial Fowler and Narmonov traveled together to the former’s hotel and availed themselves for only the second time of the opportunity to discuss matters of bilateral interest.

“You have fallen behind in your deactivation of your missile forces,” Fowler observed after pleasantries were dispensed with. He eased the blow by handing over a glass of wine.

“Thank you, Mr. President. As we told your people last week, our disposal facility has proven inadequate. We can’t dismantle the damned things fast enough, and our nature-lovers in parliament are objecting to our method of neutralizing the propellant stocks.”

Fowler smiled in sympathy. “I know the problem, Mr. President.” The environmental movement had taken off in the Soviet Union the previous spring, with the Russian parliament passing a new set of laws modeled on—but much tougher than—American statutes. The amazing part was that the central Soviet government was abiding by the laws, but Fowler couldn’t say that. The environmental nightmare inflicted on that country by more than seventy years of Marxism would take a generation of tough laws to fix. “Will this affect the deadline for fulfilling the treaty requirements?”

“You have my word, Robert,” Narmonov said solemnly. “The missiles will be destroyed by 1st March even if I must blow them up myself.”

“That is good enough for me, Andrey.”

The reduction treaty, a carryover from the previous administration, mandated a fifty-percent reduction in intercontinental launchers by the coming spring. All of America’s Minuteman-II missiles had been tagged for destruction, and the U.S. side of the treaty obligations was fully on track. As had been done under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the surplus missiles were dismantled to their component stages, which were either crushed or otherwise destroyed before witnesses. The news had covered the first few destructions, then grown tired of it. The missile silos, also under inspection, were stripped of their electronic equipment and, in the case of American structures, fifteen had already been declared surplus and sold—in four cases, farmers had purchased them and converted them to real silos. A Japanese conglomerate that had large holdings in North Dakota had further purchased a command bunker and made it into a wine cellar for the hunting lodge its executives used each fall.

American inspectors on the Soviet side reported that the Russians were trying mightily, but that the plant built for dismantlement of the Russian missiles had been poorly designed, as a result of which the Soviets were thirty percent behind schedule. Fully a hundred missiles were sitting on trailers outside the plant, the silos they’d left already destroyed by explosives. Though the Soviets had in each case removed and burned the guidance package in front of American inspectors, there were lingering intelligence evaluations that it was all a sham—the erector trailers, some argued, could elevate and fire the missiles. Suspicion of the Soviets was too hard a habit to break for some in the U.S. intelligence community, as was doubtless true of the Russians as well, Fowler thought.

“This treaty is a major step forward, Robert,” Narmonov said after a sip from his wineglass—now that they were alone they could relax like gentlemen, the Russian thought with a sly grin. “You and your people are to be congratulated.”

“Your help was crucial to its success, Andrey,” Fowler replied graciously. It was a lie, but a politic one which both men understood. In fact it was not a lie, but neither man knew that.

“One less trouble spot for us to worry about. How blind we were!”

“That is true, my friend, but it is behind us. How are your people dealing with Germany?”

“The Army is not happy, as you might imagine—”

“Neither is mine.” Fowler interrupted gently with his pronouncement. “Soldiers are like dogs. Useful, of course, but they must know who the master is. Like dogs, they can be forgetful and must be reminded from time to time.”

Narmonov nodded thoughtfully as the translation came across. It was amazing how arrogant this man was. Just what his intelligence briefings had told him, the Soviet President noted. And patronizing, too. Well, the American had the luxury of a firm political system, Andrey Il’ych told himself. It allowed Fowler to be so sure of himself while he, Narmonov, had to struggle every day with a system not yet set in stone. Or even wood, the Russian thought bleakly. What a luxury indeed to be able to look on soldiers as dogs to be cowed. Didn’t he know that dogs also had teeth? So strange the Americans were. Throughout communist rule in the Soviet Union, they had fretted about the political muscle of the Red Army—when in fact it had had none at all after Stalin’s elimination of Tukhachevskiy. But now they discounted all such stories while the dissolution of the iron hand of Marxism-Leninism was allowing soldiers to think in ways that would have ended in execution only a few years earlier. Well, this was no time to disabuse the American of his illusions, was it?

“Tell me, Robert, this treaty idea—where exactly did it come from?” Narmonov asked. He knew the truth and wanted to see Fowler’s abilities as a liar.

“Many places, as with all such ideas,” the President replied lightly. “The moving force was Charles Alden—poor bastard. When the Israelis had that terrible incident, he activated his plan immediately and—well, it worked, didn’t it?”

The Russian nodded again, and made his mental notes. Fowler lied with skill, evading the substance of the question to give a truthful but evasive answer. Khrushchev was right, as he’d already known. Politicians all the world over are not terribly different. It was something to remember about Fowler. He didn’t like sharing credit, and was not above lying in the face of a peer, even over something so small as this. Narmonov was vaguely disappointed. Not that he’d expected anything else, but Fowler could have shown grace and humanity. He’d stood to lose nothing by it, after all. Instead he was as petty as any local Party apparatchik. Tell me, Robert, Narmonov asked behind a poker face that would have stood him well in Las Vegas, what sort of man are you?

“It is late, my friend,” Narmonov observed. “Tomorrow afternoon, then?”

Fowler stood. “Tomorrow afternoon, Andrey.”

Bob Fowler escorted the Russian to the door and saw him off, then returned to his suite of rooms. Once there he pulled the handwritten checklist out of his pocket to make sure he’d asked all the questions.

“Well?”

“Well, the missile problem, he says, is exactly what our inspectors said it is. That ought to satisfy the guys at DIA.” A grimace; it wouldn’t. “I think he’s worried about his military.”

Dr. Elliot sat down. “Anything else?”

The President poured her a glass of wine, then sat beside his National Security Advisor. “The normal pleasantries. He’s a very busy, very worried man. Well, we knew that, didn’t we?”

Liz swirled the wine around the glass and sniffed at it. She didn’t like Italian wines, but this one wasn’t bad. “I’ve been thinking, Robert ...”

“Yes, Elizabeth?”

“What happened to Charlie ... we need to do something. It isn’t fair that he should have disappeared like that. He’s the guy who put this treaty on track, isn’t he?”

“Well, yes,” Fowler agreed, sipping at his own replenished glass. “You’re right, Elizabeth. It really was his effort.”

“I think we should let that out—quietly, of course. At the very least—”

“Yes, he should be remembered for something other than a pregnant grad student. That’s very gracious of you, Elizabeth.” Fowler tapped his glass against hers. “You handle the media people. You’re releasing the treaty details tomorrow before lunch?”

“That’s right, about nine, I think.”

“Then after you’re finished, take a few of the journalists aside and give it to them on background. Maybe Charlie will rest a little easier.”

“No problem, Mr. President,” Liz agreed. Exorcizing that particular demon came easily enough, didn’t it? Was there anything she could not talk him into?

“Big day tomorrow.”

“The biggest, Bob, the biggest.” Elliot leaned back and loosened the scarf from her throat. “I never thought I’d ever have a moment like this.”

“I did,” Fowler observed with a twinkle in his eye. There came a momentary pang of conscience. He’d expected to have it with someone else, but that was fate, wasn’t it? Fate. The world was so strange. But he had no control over that, did he? And fate had decreed that he would be here at the moment in question, with Elizabeth. It wasn’t his doing, was it? Therefore, he decided, there was no guilt, was there? How could there be guilt? He was making the world into a better, safer, more peaceful place. How could guilt attach to that?

Elliot closed her eyes as the President’s hand caressed her offered neck. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected a moment like this.

The entire floor of the hotel was reserved for the President’s party, and the two floors under it. Italian and American guards stood at all the entrances, and at various places in the buildings along the street. But the corridor outside the President’s suite of rooms was the exclusive domain of the Presidential Protective Detail. Connor and D’Agustino made their own final check before retiring for the evening. A full squad of ten agents were in view, and another ten were behind various closed doors. Three of the visible agents had FAG-bags, black satchels across their chests. Officially called fast-action-gun bags, each contained an Uzi submachine gun which could be extracted and fired in about a second and a half. Anyone who got this far would find a warm reception.

“I see HAWK and HARPY are discussing affairs of state,” Daga observed quietly.

“Helen, I didn’t think you were so much of a prude,” Pete Connor replied with a sly grin.

“None of my business, but in the old days people outside the door had to be eunuchs or something.”

“Keep talking like that and Santa will drop coal in your stocking.”

“I’d settle for that new automatic the FBI adopted,” Daga said with a chuckle. “They’re like teenagers. It’s unseemly.”

“Daga ...”

“I know, he’s the Boss, and he’s a big boy, and we have to look the other way. Relax, Pete, you think I’m going to blab to a reporter?” She opened the door to the fire stairs and saw three agents, two of whom had their FAG-bags at the ready.

“And I was about to offer you a drink, too....” Connor said deadpan. It was a joke. He and Daga were nondrinkers while on duty, and they were nearly always on duty. It wasn’t that he had never thought about getting into her pants. He was divorced, as was she, but it would never have worked, and that was that. She knew it, too, and grinned at him.

“I could use one—the stuff they have here is what I was raised on. What a crummy job this is!” A final look down the corridor. “Everybody’s in place, Pete. I think we can call it a night.”

“You really like the ten-millimeter?”

“Fired one last week up at Greenbelt. Got a possible with my first string. It doesn’t get much better than that, lover.”

Connor stopped dead in his tracks and laughed. “Christ, Daga!”

“People might notice?” D’Agustino batted her eyes at him. “See what I mean, Pete?”

“God, who ever heard of a Guinea puritan?”

Helen D’Agustino elbowed the senior agent in the ribs and made her way to the elevator. Pete was right. She was turning into a damned prude, and she’d never ever been like that. A passionate woman whose single attempt at marriage had collapsed because one household wasn’t large enough for two assertive egos—at least not two Italian ones—she knew she was allowing her prejudices to color her judgment. That was not a healthy thing, even over something both trivial and divorced from her job. What HAWK did on his own time was his business, but the look in his eyes.... He was infatuated with the bitch. Daga wondered if any president had allowed that to happen. Probably, she admitted. They were only men, after all, and all men sometimes thought from the testicles instead of the brain. That the President should become a lackey of such a shallow woman as this—that was what offended her. But that, she admitted to herself, was both odd and inconsistent. After all, women didn’t come much more liberated than she was. So why, she asked herself, was it bothering her? It had been too long a day for that. She needed sleep, and knew that she’d only get five or six hours before she was on duty again. Damn these overseas trips....

 

“So what is it?” Qati asked just after dawn. He’d been away the previous day, meeting some other guerrilla leaders, and also for a trip to the doctor, Ghosn knew, though he could not ask about that.

“Not sure,” the engineer replied. “I’d guess a jamming pod, something like that.”

“That’s useful,” the Commander said at once. Despite the rapprochement, or whatever the key phrase was, between East and West, business was still business. The Russians still had a military, and that military still had weapons. Countermeasures against those weapons were items of interest. Israeli equipment was particularly prized, since the Americans copied it. Even old equipment showed how the Israeli engineers thought through problems, and could provide useful clues to newer systems.

“Yes, we should be able to sell it to our Russian friends.”

“How did the American work out?” Qati asked next.

“Quite well. I do like him, Ismael. I understand him better now.” The engineer explained why. Qati nodded.

“What should we do with him, then?”

Ghosn shrugged. “Weapons training, perhaps? Let’s see if he fits in with the men.”

“Very well. I’ll send him out this morning to see how well he knows combat skills. And you, how soon will you pick the thing apart?”

“I planned to do it today.”

“Excellent. Do not let me stop you.”

“How are you feeling, Commander?”

Qati frowned. He felt terrible, but he was telling himself that part of that was the possibility of some sort of treaty with the Israelis. Could it be real? Could it be possible? History said no, but there had been so many changes.... Some sort of agreement between the Zionists and the Saudis ... well, after the Iraq business, what could he expect? The Americans had played their role, and now they were presenting some kind of bill. Disappointing, but hardly unexpected, and whatever the Americans were up to would divert attention away from the latest Israeli atrocity. That people calling themselves Arabs had been so womanly as to meekly accept fire and death.... Qati shook his head. You didn’t fight that way. So the Americans would do something or other to neutralize the political impact of the Israeli massacre, and the Saudis were playing along like the lapdogs they were. Whatever was in the offing, it could hardly affect the Palestinian struggle. He should soon be feeling better, Qati told himself.

“It is of no account. Let me know when you’ve determined exactly what it is.”

Ghosn took his dismissal and left. He was worried about his commander. The man was ill—he knew that much from his brother-in-law, but exactly how sick he didn’t know. In any case, he had work to do.

The workshop was a disreputable-looking structure of plain wood walls and a roof of corrugated steel. Had it looked more sturdy, some Israeli F-16 pilot might have destroyed it years before.

The bomb—he still thought of it by that name—lay on the dirt floor. An A-frame like that used for auto or truck service stood over it, with a chain for moving the bomb if necessary, but yesterday two men had set it up in accordance with his instructions. Ghosn turned on the lights—he liked a brightly lit work area—and contemplated the ... bomb.

Why do I keep calling it that? he asked himself. Ghosn shook his head. The obvious place to begin was the access door. It would not be easy. Impact with the ground had telescoped the bombcase, doubtless damaging the internal hinges ... but he had all the time he wanted.

Ghosn selected a screwdriver from his toolbox and went to work.

 

President Fowler slept late. He was still fatigued from the flight, and ... he almost laughed at himself in the mirror. Good Lord, three times in less than twenty-four hours ... wasn’t it? He tried to do the arithmetic in his head, but the effort defeated him before his morning coffee. In any case, three times in relatively short succession. He hadn’t done that in quite a long time! But he’d also gotten his rest. His body was composed and relaxed after the morning shower, and the razor plowed through the cream on his face, revealing a man with younger, leaner features that matched the twinkle in his eyes. Three minutes later he selected a striped tie to go with the white shirt and gray suit. Not somber, but serious was the prescription for the day. He’d let the churchmen dazzle the cameras with their red silk. His speech would be all the more impressive if delivered by a well-turned-out businessman/politician, which was his political image, despite the fact that he’d never in his life run a private business of any sort. A serious man, Bob Fowler—with a common touch to be sure, but a serious man whom one could trust to do The Right Thing.

Well, I will sure as hell prove that today, the President of the United States told himself in yet another mirror as he checked his tie. His head turned at the knock on the door. “Come in.”

“Good morning, Mr. President,” said Special Agent Connor.

“How are you today, Pete?” Fowler asked, turning back to the mirror ... the knot wasn’t quite right, and he started afresh.

“Fine, thank you, sir. It’s a mighty nice day outside.”

“You people never get enough rest. Never get to see the sights, either. That’s my fault, isn’t it?” There, Fowler thought, that’s perfect.

“It’s okay, Mr. President. We’re all volunteers. What do you want for breakfast, sir?”

“Good morning, Mr. President!” Dr. Elliot came in behind Connor. “This is the day!”

Bob Fowler turned with a smile. “It sure as hell is! Join me for breakfast, Elizabeth?”

“Love to. I have the morning brief-it’s a nice short one for a change.”

“Pete, breakfast for two ... a big one. I’m hungry.”

“Just coffee for me,” Liz said to the servant. Connor caught the tone of her voice; but did not react beyond nodding before he left. “Bob, you look wonderful.”

“So do you, Elizabeth.” And so she did, in her most expensive suit, which was also serious-looking but just feminine enough. She took her seat and did the briefing.

“CIA says the Japanese are up to something,” she said as she concluded.

“What?”

“They caught a whiff, Ryan says, of something in the next round of trade negotiations. The Prime Minister is quoted as saying something unkind.”

“What exactly?”

“‘This is the last time we’ll be cut out of our proper role on the world stage, and I’ll make them pay for this,’ ” Dr. Elliot quoted. “Ryan thinks it’s important.”

“What do you think?”

“I think Ryan’s being paranoid again. He’s been cut out of this end of the treaty works, and he’s trying to remind us how important he is. Marcus agrees with my assessment, but forwarded the report out of a fit of objectivity,” Liz concluded with heavy irony.

“Cabot is something of a disappointment, isn’t he?” Fowler observed as he looked over the briefing notes.

“He doesn’t seem very effective at telling his people who the boss is. He’s being captured by the bureaucracy over there, especially Ryan.”

“You really don’t like him, do you?” the President noted.

“He’s arrogant. He’s—”

“Elizabeth, he has a very impressive record. I don’t much care for him either as a person, but as an intelligence officer he has done a lot of things very, very well.”

“He’s a throwback. He’s James Bond—or thinks he is. Fine,” Elliot admitted, “he’s done some important things, but that sort of thing is history. We need someone now with a broader view.”

“Congress won’t go for it,” the President said as breakfast was wheeled in. The food had been scanned for radioactives, checked for electronic devices, and sniffed for explosives—which, the President thought, put one hell of a strain on the dogs, who probably liked sausage as well as he did. “We’ll serve ourselves, thanks,” the President dismissed the Navy steward before going on. “They love him there, Congress loves the guy.” He didn’t have to add the fact that Ryan, as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, was not merely a presidential appointee. He’d also been through a confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate. Such people were not easily dismissed. There had to be a reason.

“I never have figured that out. Especially Trent. Of all the people to sign off on Ryan, why him?”

“Ask him,” Fowler suggested as he buttered his pancakes.

“I have. He danced around the issue like the prima ballerina at the New York Ballet.” The President laughed uproariously at that.

“Christ, woman, don’t ever let anybody hear you say that!”

“Robert, we both support the estimable Mr. Trent’s choice of sexual preference, but he is a prissy son of a bitch and we both know it.”

“True,” Fowler had to agree. “So what are you telling me, Elizabeth?”

“It’s time for Cabot to put Ryan in his place.”

“How much of this is envy for Ryan’s part in the treaty, Elizabeth?”

Elliot’s eyes flared, but the President was looking at his plate. She took a deep breath before speaking and tried to decide if it were a goad or not. Probably not, but the President wasn’t the sort to be impressed by emotions in matters like this. “Bob, we’ve been through that. Ryan connected a few ideas that other people had already come up with. He’s an intelligence officer, for God’s sake! All they do is report what other people do.”

“He’s done more than that.” Fowler saw where this was going, but it was fun to play games with her.

“Fine, he’s killed people! Is that what’s special about him? James goddamned Bond! You even let them execute the ones who—”

“Elizabeth, those terrorists also killed seven Secret Service agents. My life depends on those people, and it would have been damned ungracious and just plain idiotic of me to commute the sentences of people who killed their colleagues.” The President almost frowned at that—So much for strongly held principle, eh, Bob? a voice asked him—but managed to control himself.

“And now you can’t do it at all, or people will say that you failed to do it once out of personal self-interest. You allowed yourself to be trapped and outmaneuvered,” she pointed out. She had been goaded after all, Liz decided, and answered in kind, but Fowler wasn’t buying.

“Elizabeth, I may be the only former prosecutor in America who doesn’t believe in capital punishment, but ... we do live in a democracy, and the people support the idea.” He looked up from his meal. “Those people were terrorists. I can’t say I’m happy that I allowed them to be executed, but if anyone deserved it, they did. The time wasn’t right to make a statement on that issue. Maybe in my second term. We have to wait for the right case. Politics is the art of the possible. That means one thing at a time, Elizabeth. You know that as well as I do.”

“If you don’t do something, you’ll wake up and find that Ryan is running CIA for you. He’s able, I admit, but he’s something from the past. He’s the wrong person for the times we live in.”

God, you’re an envious woman, Fowler thought. But we all have our weaknesses. It was time to stop playing with her, though. It wouldn’t do to offend her too deeply.

“What do you have in mind?”

“We can ease him out.”

“I’ll think about it—Elizabeth, let’s not spoil the day with a discussion like this one, okay? How do you plan to break the news of the treaty terms?”

Elliot leaned back and sipped at her coffee. She reproached herself for moving too soon and too passionately on this. She disliked Ryan greatly, but Bob was right. It wasn’t the time, wasn’t the place. She had all the time in the world to make her play, and she knew that she had to do it with skill.

“A copy of the treaty, I think.”

“Can they read that fast?” Fowler laughed. The media was full of such illiterates.

“You should see the speculation. The lead Times piece was faxed in this morning. They’re frantic. They’ll eat it up. Besides, I ginned up some Cliff Notes for them.”

“However you want to do it,” the President said as he finished off his sausage. He checked his watch. Timing was everything. There was a six-hour time difference between Rome and Washington. That meant the treaty could not be signed until two in the afternoon at the earliest, so as to catch the morning news shows. But the American people had to be prepped for the news, and that meant that the TV crews had to have the details of the treaty by three, Eastern Daylight Time, in order to absorb everything fully. Liz would break the news at nine, twenty minutes from now, he noted. “And you’ll be playing up Charlie’s part in it?”

“Right. It’s only fair that he should get most of the credit.”

And so much for Ryan’s part in the process, Bob Fowler noted without comment. Well, Charlie was the guy who really got it moving, wasn’t he? Fowler felt vaguely sorry for Ryan. Though he also thought the DDCI something from the past, he’d learned all that the man had done, and was impressed. Arnie van Damm thought a lot of Ryan also, and Arnie was the best judge of character in the administration. But Elizabeth was his National Security Advisor, and he could not have her and the DDCI at each other’s throats, could he? No, he couldn’t. It was that simple.

“Dazzle them, Elizabeth.”

“Won’t be hard.” She smiled at him and left.

 

The task proved much harder than he’d expected. Ghosn thought about asking for help, but decided against it. Part of his aura in the organization was that he worked alone with these things except for the donkeywork, for which he would occasionally require a few strong backs.

The bomb/device/pod turned out to be of sturdier construction than he’d expected. Under the strong worklights, he took the time to wash it off with water and found a number of unexplained items. There were screw-in points which were plugged shut with slot-bolts. On removing one, he found yet another electrical lead. More surprising, the bombcase was thicker than he’d expected. He’d dismantled an Israeli jamming pod before, but though it had mostly been of aluminum construction, there had been several places where the case had been of fiberglass or plastic, which was transparent to electronic radiation.

He’d started on the access hatch, but found it nearly impossible to pry open and tried to find something easier. But there wasn’t anything easier. Now he returned to the hatch, frustrated that several hours of work had led nowhere.

Ghosn sat back and lit a cigarette. What are you? he asked the object.

It was so much like a bomb, he realized. The heavy case—why hadn’t he realized that it was so damned heavy, too heavy for a jamming pod ... but it couldn’t be a bomb, could it? No fuses, no detonator, what he had seen of the inside was electrical wiring and connectors. It had to be some kind of electronic device. He stubbed the cigarette out in the dirt and walked over to his workbench.

Ghosn had a wide variety of tools, one of which was a gasoline-powered rotary saw, useful for cutting steel. It was really a two-man tool, but he decided to use it alone, and to use it on the hatch, which had to be less sturdy than the case itself. He set the cutting depth to nine millimeters and started the tool, manhandling it onto the hatch. The sound of the saw was dreadful, more so as the diamond-edge of the blade bit into the steel, but the weight of the saw was sufficient to keep it from jerking off the bomb, and he slowly worked it down along the edge of the access hatch. It took twenty minutes for him to make the first cut. He stopped the saw and set it aside, then probed the cut with a bit of thin wire.

Finally! he told himself. He was through. He’d guessed right. The rest of the bombcase seemed to be ... four centimeters or so, but the hatch was only a quarter of that. Ghosn was too happy to have accomplished something to ask himself why a jamming pod needed a full centimeter of hardened steel around it. Before starting again, he donned ear protection. His ears were ringing from the abuse of the first cut, and he didn’t want a headache to make the job worse than it already was.

 

The “Special Report” graphics appeared on all the TV networks within seconds of one another. The network anchors who’d risen early—by the standards of their stint in Rome, that is—to receive their brief from Dr. Elliot raced to their booths literally breathless, and handed over their notes to their respective producers and researchers.

“I knew it,” Angela Miriles said. “Rick, I told you!”

“Angie, I owe you lunch, dinner, and maybe breakfast in any restaurant you can name.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” The chief researcher chuckled. The bastard could afford it.

“How do we do this?” the producer asked.

“I’m going to wing it. Give me two minutes and we’re flying.”

“Shit,” Angie observed quietly to herself. Rick didn’t like winging it. He did, however, like scooping the print reporters, and the timing of the event made that a gimme. Take that, New York Times! He sat still only long enough for makeup, then faced the cameras as the network’s expert—some expert! Miriles thought to herself—joined Rick in the anchor booth.

“Five!” the assistant director said. “Four, three, two, one!” His hand jerked at the anchor.

“It’s real,” Rick announced. “In four hours, the President of the United States, along with the President of the Soviet Union, the King of Saudi Arabia, and the Prime Ministers of Israel and Switzerland, plus the chiefs of two major religious groups will sign a treaty that offers the hope for a complete settlement of the disputed areas of the Middle East. The details of the treaty are stunning.” He went on for three uninterrupted minutes, speaking rapidly as though to race with his counterparts on the other networks.

“There has been nothing like this in living memory, yet another miracle—no, yet another milestone on the road to world peace. Dick?” The anchor turned to his expert commentator, a former ambassador to Israel.

“Rick, I’ve been reading this for half an hour now, and I still don’t believe it. Maybe this is a miracle. We sure picked the right place for it. The concessions made by the Israeli government are stunning, but so are the guarantees that America is making to secure the peace. The secrecy of the negotiations is even more impressive. Had these details broken as recently as two days ago, the whole thing might have come apart before our eyes, but here and now, Rick, here and now, I believe it. It’s real. You said it right. It’s real. It’s really happening, and in a few hours we’ll see the world change once more.

“This would never have happened but for the unprecedented cooperation of the Soviet Union, and clearly we owe a vast debt of thanks to the embattled Soviet President, Andrey Narmonov.”

“What do you make of the concession made by all the religious groups?”

“Just incredible. Rick, there have been religious wars in this region for virtually all of recorded history. But we should put in here that the architect of the treaty was the late Dr. Charles Alden. A senior administration official was generous in praise to the man who died only weeks ago, and died in disgrace. What a cruel irony it is that the man who really identified the basic problem in the region as the artificial incompatibility of the religions, all of which began in this one troubled region, that that man is not here to see his vision become reality. Alden was apparently the driving force behind this agreement, and one can only hope that history will remember that, despite the timing and circumstances of his death, it was Dr. Charles Alden of Yale who helped to make this miracle happen.” The former Ambassador was also a Yalie, and a classmate of Charlie Alden.

“What of the others?” the anchor asked.

“Rick, when something of this magnitude happens—and it’s darned rare when it does—there are always a lot of people who play their individual roles, and all of those roles are important. The Vatican Treaty was also the work of Secretary Brent Talbot, ably supported by Undersecretary Scott Adler, who is, by the way, a brilliant diplomatic technician and Talbot’s right-hand man. At the same time, it was President Fowler who approved this initiative, who used muscle when that was needed, and who took Charlie’s vision forward after his death. No president has ever had the political courage and dazzling vision to stake his political reputation on so wild a gambit. Had we failed on this, one can scarcely imagine the political fallout, but Fowler pulled it off. This is a great day for American diplomacy, a great day for East-West understanding, and perhaps the greatest moment for world peace in all of human history.”

“I couldn’t have said it better, Dick. What about the Senate, which has to approve the Vatican Treaty, and also the U.S.-Israeli Bilateral Defense Treaty?”

The commentator grinned and shook his head in overt amusement. “This will go through the United States Senate so fast that the President might smear the printer’s ink on the bill. The only thing that can slow this up is the rhetoric you’ll hear in the committee room and on the Senate floor.”

“But the cost of stationing American troops—”

“Rick, we have a military for the purpose of preserving the peace. That’s their job, and to do that job in this place, America will pay whatever it costs. This isn’t a sacrifice for the American taxpayer. It’s a privilege, an historic honor to place the seal of American strength on the peace of the world. Rick, this is what America is all about. Of course we’ll do it.”

“And that’s it for now,” Rick said, turning back to Camera One. “We’ll be back in two and a half hours for live coverage of the signing of the Vatican Treaty. We now return you to New York. This is Rick Cousins reporting to you from the Vatican.”

 

“Son of a bitch!” Ryan breathed. This time, unfortunately, the TV had awakened his wife, who was watching the events on the tube with interest.

“Jack, how much did you—” Cathy stood and went off to make the morning coffee. “I mean, you went over there, and you—”

“Honey, I was involved. I can’t say how much.” Jack knew he ought to have been angry at how credit for the first proposal had been assigned to Alden, but Charlie had been a good guy, even if he had displayed his share of human weaknesses, and Alden had pushed it along when it had needed a push. Besides, he told himself, history will find out a little, as it usually did. The real players knew. He knew. He was used to being in the background, to doing things that others didn’t and couldn’t know about. He turned to his wife and smiled.

And Cathy knew. She’d heard him speculating aloud a few months earlier. Jack didn’t know that he murmured to himself when he shaved, and thought he didn’t wake her up when he arose so early, but she’d never yet failed to see him off, even if she didn’t open her eyes. Cathy liked the way he kissed her, thinking her asleep, and didn’t want to spoil it. He was having trouble enough. Jack was hers, and the goodness of the man was no mystery to his wife.

It’s not fair, the other Dr. Ryan told herself. It was Jack’s idea—at least part of it was. How many other things didn’t she know? It was a question Caroline Muller Ryan, M.D., F.A.C.S., rarely asked herself. But she could not pretend that Jack’s nightmares weren’t real. He had trouble sleeping, was drinking too much, and what sleep he had was littered with things she could never ask about. Part of that frightened her. What had her husband done? What guilt was he carrying?

Guilt? Cathy asked herself. Why had she asked herself that?

 

Ghosn pried the hatch off after three hours. He’d had to change a blade on the cutting tool, but the delay had mainly resulted from the fact that he ought to have asked for an extra hand but been too proud to do so. In any case it was done, and a prybar finished the job. The engineer took a worklight and looked into the thing. He found yet another mystery.

The inside of the device was a metal lattice-frame—titanium perhaps? he wondered—which held in place a cylindrical mass ... secured with heavy bolts. Ghosn used his worklight to look around the cylinder and saw more wires, all connected to the cylinder. He caught the edge of a largish electronic device ... some sort of radar transceiver, he thought. Aha! So it was some sort of ... but why, then ... ? Suddenly he knew that he was missing something ... something big. But what? The markings on the cylinder were in Hebrew, and he didn’t know that other Semitic language well, and he didn’t understand the significance of these markings. The frame which held it, he saw, was partially designed as a shock-absorber ... and it had worked admirably. The framing was grossly distorted, but the cylinder it held seemed largely intact. Damaged to be sure, but it had not split.... Whatever was inside the cylinder was supposed to be protected against shock. That made it delicate, and that meant it was some sort of delicate electronic device. So he came back to the idea that it was a jamming pod. Ghosn was too focused to realize that his mind had closed out other options; that his engineer’s brain was so fixed on the task at hand that he was ignoring possibilities and the signals that presented them. Whatever it was, however, he had to get it out first. He next selected a wrench and went to work on the bolts securing the cylinder in place.

 

Fowler sat in a 16th-century chair, watching the protocol officers flutter around like pheasants unable to decide whether to walk or fly. People commonly thought that affairs like this one were run smoothly by professional stage-managers who planned everything in advance. Fowler knew better. Sure, things were smooth enough when there had been time enough—a few months—to work out all the details. But this affair had been set up with days, not months, of preparation, and the dozen or so protocol officers had scarcely decided who was the boss among themselves. Curiously, it was the Russian and the Swiss officers who were the calmest, and before the American President’s eyes, it was they who huddled and worked out a quick alliance, then presented their plan—what—ever it was—to the others, which they then put into play. Just like a good football squad, the President smiled to himself. The Vatican representative was too old for a job like this. The guy—a bishop, Fowler thought, maybe a monsignor—was over sixty and suffering from an anxiety attack that might just kill him. Finally the Russian took him aside for two quick minutes, nods were exchanged and a handshake, then people started moving as though they had a common purpose. Fowler decided that he’d have to find out the Russian’s name. He looked like a real pro. More importantly, it was hugely entertaining to watch, and it relaxed the President at a moment when he needed the relaxation.

Finally—only five minutes late, and that was a miracle, Fowler thought with a suppressed grin—the various heads of state rose from their chairs, summoned like the members of a wedding party by the nervous mother-in-law-to-be, and told where to stand in line. More perfunctory handshakes were exchanged, along with a few jokes that suffered from the absence of translators. The Saudi King looked cross at the delays. As well he might, Fowler thought. The King probably had other things on his mind. Already there were death threats directed at him. But there was no fear on the man’s face, Bob Fowler saw. He might be a humorless man, but he had the bearing and courage—and the class, the President admitted to himself—that went with his title. It had been he who’d first committed to the talks after two hours with Ryan. That was too bad, wasn’t it? Ryan had filled in for Charlie Alden, taking his assignment on the fly and doing the job as though he’d prepared fully for it. The President frowned to himself at that. He’d allowed himself to forget just how frantic the initial maneuvers had been. Scott Adler in Moscow, Rome, and Jerusalem, and Jack Ryan in Rome and Riyadh. They’d done very well, and neither would ever get much credit. Such were the rules of history, President Fowler concluded. If they’d wanted credit, they ought to have tried for his job.

Two liveried Swiss Guards opened the immense bronze doors, revealing the corpulent form of Giovanni Cardinal D’Antonio. The sun-bright TV lights surrounded him with a man-made halo that nearly elicited a laugh from the President of the United States of America. The procession into the room began.

 

Whoever had built this thing, Ghosn thought, knew a thing or two about designing for brute force. It was odd, he thought. Israeli equipment always had a delicacy to it—no, wrong term. The Israelis were clever, efficient, elegant engineers. They made things as strong as they had to be, no more, no less. Even their ad hoc gear showed foresight and meticulous workmanship. But this one ... this one was overengineered to a fare-thee-well. It had been hurriedly designed and assembled. It was almost crude, in fact. He was grateful for that. It made disassembly easier. No one had thought to include a self-destruct device that he’d have to figure out first—the Zionists were getting devilishly clever at that! One such subsystem had nearly killed Ghosn only five months earlier, but there was none here. The bolts holding the cylinder in place were jammed, but still straight, and that meant it was just a matter of having a big-enough wrench. He squirted penetrating oil onto each, and after waiting for fifteen minutes and two cigarettes, he attached the wrench to the first. The initial turns came hard, but soon the bolt allowed itself to be withdrawn. Five more to go.

 

It would be a long afternoon. The speeches came first. The Pope began, since he was the host, and his rhetoric was surprisingly muted, drawing quiet lessons from Scripture, again focusing on the similarities among the three religions present. Earphones gave each of the chiefs of state and religious figures simultaneous translations, which were quite unnecessary, as each of them had a written copy of the various speeches, and the men around the table struggled not to yawn, for speeches were only speeches, after all, and politicians have trouble listening to the words of others, even other chiefs of state. Fowler had the most trouble. He’d be going last. He surreptitiously checked his watch, keeping his face blank as he pondered the ninety minutes left to go.

 

It took another forty minutes, but finally all the bolts came out. Big, heavy, noncorrosive ones. This thing had been built to last, Ghosn thought, but that merely worked to his benefit. Now, to get the cylinder out. He took another careful look for possible antitamper devices—caution was the only defense in a job like his—and felt around the inside of the pod. The only thing connected was the radar transceiver; though there were three other plug connections, they were all vacant. In his fatigue, it did not strike Ghosn as odd that all three were facing him, easily accessible. The cylinder was jammed in place by the telescoped framing, but with the bolts removed, it was just a matter of applying enough force to drag it clear.

 

Andrey Il’ych Narmonov spoke briefly. His statement, Fowler thought, was simple and most dignified, showing remarkable modesty that was sure to elicit comment from the commentators.

 

Ghosn set an additional block and tackle on the A-frame. The cylinder, conveniently enough, had a hoist eye built into it. Thankfully the Israelis didn’t like to waste energy any more than he did. The remainder of the pod was less heavy than he expected, but in a minute he had the cylinder hoisted to the point that its friction in its nesting frame was lifting the whole pod. That couldn’t last. Ghosn sprayed more penetrating oil on the internal frame and waited for gravity to assert itself ... but after a minute his patience wore thin and he found a gap large enough for a prybar and started levering the frame away from the cylinder walls one fraction of a millimeter at a time. Inside of four minutes there was a brief shriek of protesting metal and the pod fell free. Then it was just a matter of pulling on the chain and hoisting the cylinder free.

The cylinder was painted green, and had its own access hatch, which was not entirely surprising. Ghosn identified the type of wrench he needed and began work on the four bolts holding it in place. These bolts were tight but yielded quickly to his pressure. Ghosn was going faster now, and the excitement that always came near the end of the job took hold, despite the good sense that told him to relax.

 

Finally it was Fowler’s turn.

The President of the United States walked to the lectern, a brown-leather folder in his hands. His shirt was starched stiff as plywood, and it was already chafing his neck, but he didn’t care. This was the moment for which he had prepared his entire life. He looked straight into the camera, his face set in an expression serious but not grave, elated but not yet joyous, proud but not arrogant. He nodded to his peers.

“Holy Father, Your Majesty, Mr. President,” Fowler began, “Messrs Prime Minister, and to all the people of our troubled but hopeful world:

“We have met in this ancient city, a city that has known war and peace for three thousand years and more, a city from which sprang one of the world’s great civilizations, and is today home to a religious faith greater still. We have all come from afar, from deserts and from mountains, from sweeping European plains and from yet another city by a wide river, but unlike many foreigners who have visited this ancient city, we have all come in peace. We come with a single purpose—to bring an end to war and suffering, to bring the blessings of peace to one more troubled part of a world now emerging from a history bathed in blood but lit by the ideals that set us apart from the animals as a creation in the image of God.” He looked down only to turn pages. Fowler knew how to give a speech. He’d had lots of practice over the previous thirty years, and he delivered this one as confidently as he’d addressed a hundred juries, measuring his words and his cadences, adding emotional content that belied his Ice Man image, using his voice like a musical instrument, something physical that was subordinate to and part of his intense personal will.

“This city, this Vatican state, is consecrated to the service of God and man, and today it has fulfilled that purpose better than at any time. For today, my fellow citizens of the world, today we have achieved another part of the dream that all men and women share wherever they may live. With the help of your prayers, through a vision given us so many centuries ago, we have come to see that peace is a better thing than war, a goal worthy of efforts even more mighty, demanding courage far greater than is required for the shedding of human blood. To turn away from war, to turn toward peace, is the measure of our strength.

“Today it is my honor, and a privilege that all of us share, to announce to the world a treaty to put a final end to the discord that has sadly defiled an area holy to us all. With this agreement, there will be a final solution based on justice, and faith, and the word of the God Whom we all know by different names, but Who knows each of us.

“This treaty recognizes the rights of all men and women in the region to security, and freedom of religion, to freedom of speech, to the basic dignity enshrined in the knowledge that all of us are God’s creations, that each of us is unique, but that we are all equal in His sight....”

 

The final hatch came open. Ghosn closed his eyes and whispered a fatigued prayer of thanks. He’d been at this for hours, skipping his noon meal. He set the hatch down, placing the bolts on the concave surface so that they wouldn’t be lost. Ever the engineer, Ghosn was neat and tidy in everything he did. Inside the hatch was a plastic seal, still tight, he noted with admiration. That was a moisture and weather seal. And that definitely made it a sophisticated electronic device. Ghosn touched it gently. It wasn’t pressurized. He used a small knife to cut the plastic and peeled it carefully aside. He looked for the first time into the cylinder, and it was as though a hand of ice suddenly gripped his heart. He was looking at a distorted sphere of yellow-gray ... like dirty bread dough.

It was a bomb.

At least a self-destruct device. A very powerful one, fifty kilos of high explosive....

Ghosn backed off; a sudden urge to urinate gripped his loins. The engineer fumbled for a smoke and lit it on the third attempt. How had he missed ... what? What had he missed? Nothing. He’d been as careful as he always was. The Israelis hadn’t killed him yet. Their design engineers were clever, but so was he.

Patience, he told himself. He commenced a new examination of the cylinder’s exterior. There was the wire, still attached, from the radar device, and three additional plug points, all of them empty.

What do I know of this thing?

Radar transceiver, heavy case, access hatch... explosive sphere wired with ...

Ghosn leaned forward again to examine the object. At regular and symmetrical intervals on the sphere were detonators ... the wires from them were ...

It isn’t possible. No, it cannot be that!

Ghosn removed the detonators one by one, detaching the wires from each, and setting them down on a blanket, slowly and carefully, for detonators were the most twitchy things man made. The high explosive, on the other hand, was so safe to use that you could pinch off a piece and set it on fire to boil water. He used the knife to pry loose the surprisingly hard blocks.

 

“There is an ancient legend of Pandora, a woman of mythology given a box. Though told not to open it, she foolishly did so, admitting strife and war and death into our world. Pandora despaired at her deeds until she found, remaining alone in the bottom of the nearly empty box, the spirit of hope. We have seen all too much of war and strife, but now we have finally made use of hope. It has been a long road, a bloody road, a road marked with despair, but it has always been an upward road, because hope is humanity’s collective vision of what can, should, and must be, and hope has led us to this point.

“That ancient legend may have its origin in paganism, but its truth is manifest today. On this day we put war and strife and unnecessary death back into the box. We close the box on conflict, leaving in our possession hope, Pandora’s last and most important gift to all humanity. This day is the fulfillment of the dream of all mankind.

“On this day, we have accepted from the hands of God the gift of peace.

“Thank you.” The President smiled warmly at the cameras and made his way to his chair amid the more-than-polite applause of his peers. It was time to sign the treaty. The moment was here, and after being the last speaker, Fowler would be the first to sign. The moment came quickly, and J. Robert Fowler became a man of history.

 

He was not going slowly now. He pulled the blocks away, knowing as he did so that he was being reckless and wasteful, but now he knew—thought he knew—what he had in his hands.

And there it was, a ball of metal, a shining nickel-plated sphere, not corroded or damaged by its years in the Druse’s garden, protected by the plastic seal of the Israeli engineers. It was not a large object, not much larger than a ball that a child might play with. Ghosn knew what he would do next. He reached his hand all the way into the sundered mass of explosives, extending his fingers to the gleaming nickel surface.

Ghosn’s fingertips brushed the ball of metal. It was warm to the touch.

“Allahu akhbar!”