"You're supposed to tell us that, Angie!" the Anchor noted crossly.

"Hold your water, Rick." Angie Miriles was tired of dealing with the airheaded prima donna. She sipped at her coffee for a minute or two and made her announcement. "I think I have this figured out."

"You mind filling us in?"

"Welcome!" Cardinal D'Antonio kissed Stavarkos on both cheeks. He found the man's beard distasteful, but that could not be helped. The Cardinal led the Patriarch into the conference room. There were sixteen people grouped around a table, and at the foot of it was an empty chair. Stavarkos took it.

"Thank you for joining us," said Secretary Talbot.

"One does not reject an invitation of this sort," the Patriarch replied.

"You've read the briefing material?" That had been delivered by messenger.

"It is very ambitious," Stavarkos allowed cautiously.

"Can you accept your role in the agreement?"

This was going awfully fast, the Patriarch thought. But-"Yes," he answered simply. "I require plenipotentiary authority over all Christian shrines in the Holy Land. If that is agreed to, then I will gladly join your agreement."

D'Antonio managed to keep his face impa.s.sive. He controlled his breathing and prayed rapidly for divine intervention. He'd never quite be able to decide whether he got it or not.

"It is very late in the day for such a sweeping demand." Heads turned. The speaker was Dmitriy Popov, First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union. "It is also inconsiderate to seek unilateral advantage when everyone here has conceded so much. Would you stand in the way of the accord on that basis alone?"

Stavarkos was not accustomed to such direct rebukes.

"The question of Christian shrines is not of direct significance to the agreement, Your Holiness," Secretary Talbot observed. "We find your conditional willingness to partic.i.p.ate disappointing."

"Perhaps I misunderstood the briefing material," Stavarkos allowed, covering his flanks. "Could you perhaps clarify what my status would be?"

"No way," the Anchor snorted.

"Why not?" Angela Miriles replied. "What else makes sense?"

"It's just too much."

"It is a lot," Miriles agreed, "but what else fits?"

"I'll believe it when I see it."

"You might not see it. Stavarkos doesn't much like the Roman Catholic Church. That battle they had last Christmas was a nasty one."

"How come we didn't report it, then?"

"Because we were too d.a.m.ned busy talking about the downturn in Christmas sales figures," you a.s.shole, you a.s.shole, she didn't add. she didn't add.

"A separate commission, then?" Stavarkos didn't like that.

"The Metropolitan wishes to send his own representative," Popov said. Dmitriy Popov still believed in Marx rather than G.o.d, but the Russian Orthodox Church was Russian, Russian, and Russian partic.i.p.ation in the agreement had to be real, however minor this point might appear. "I must say that I find this matter curious. Do we hold up the agreement on the issue of which Christian church is the most influential? Our purpose here is to defuse a potential flashpoint for war between Jews and Muslims, and the Christians stand in the way?" Popov asked the ceiling-a little theatrically, D'Antonio thought. and Russian partic.i.p.ation in the agreement had to be real, however minor this point might appear. "I must say that I find this matter curious. Do we hold up the agreement on the issue of which Christian church is the most influential? Our purpose here is to defuse a potential flashpoint for war between Jews and Muslims, and the Christians stand in the way?" Popov asked the ceiling-a little theatrically, D'Antonio thought.

"This side issue is best left to a separate committee of Christian clerics," Cardinal D'Antonio finally allowed himself to say. "I pledge you my word before G.o.d that sectarian squabbles are at an end!"

I've heard that before, Stavarkos reminded himself-and yet. And yet, how could he allow himself to be so petty? He reminded himself also of what the Scriptures taught, and that he believed in every word of it. Stavarkos reminded himself-and yet. And yet, how could he allow himself to be so petty? He reminded himself also of what the Scriptures taught, and that he believed in every word of it. I am making a fool of myself, and doing it before the Romans and the Russians! I am making a fool of myself, and doing it before the Romans and the Russians! An additional consideration was that the Turks merely tolerated his presence in Istanbul-Constantinople!-and this gave him the chance to earn immense prestige for his churches and his office. An additional consideration was that the Turks merely tolerated his presence in Istanbul-Constantinople!-and this gave him the chance to earn immense prestige for his churches and his office.

"Please forgive me. I have allowed some regrettable incidents to color my better judgment. Yes, I will support this agreement, and I will trust my brethren to keep their word."

Brent Talbot leaned back in his chair and whispered his own prayer of thanks. Praying wasn't a habit with the Secretary of State, but here, in these surroundings, how could one avoid it?

"In that case, I believe we have an agreement." Talbot looked around the table, and one after another the heads nodded, some with enthusiasm, some with resignation. But they all nodded. They had reached an agreement.

"Mr. Adler, when will the doc.u.ments be ready for initialing?" D'Antonio asked.

"Two hours, Your Eminence."

"Your Highness," Talbot said as he rose to his feet, "Your Eminences, Ministers-we have done it."

Strangely, they scarcely realized what they had done. The process had lasted for quite some time, and as with all such negotiations, the process had become reality, and the objective had become something separate from it. Now suddenly they were at the place they all intended to reach, and the wonder of the fact gave to them a sense of unreality that, for all their collective expertise at formulating and reaching foreign-policy goals, overcame their perceptions. Each of the partic.i.p.ants stood, as Talbot did, and the movement, the stretch of legs, altered their perceptions somewhat. One by one they understood what they had done. More importantly, they understood that they had actually done it. The impossible had just happened.

David Asken.a.z.i walked around the table to Prince Ali, who had handled his country's part in the negotiations, and extended his hand. That wasn't good enough. The Prince gave the Minister a brotherly embrace.

"Before G.o.d, there will be peace between us, David."

"After all these years, Ali," replied the former Israeli tanker. As a lieutenant, Asken.a.z.i had fought in the Suez in 1956, again as a captain in 1967, and his reserve battalion had reinforced the Golan in 1973. Both men were surprised by the applause that broke out. The Israeli burst into tears, embarra.s.sing himself beyond belief.

"Do not be ashamed. Your personal courage is well known, Minister," Ali said graciously. "It is fitting that a soldier should make the peace, David."

"So many deaths. All those fine young boys who-on both sides, Ali. All those boys."

"But no more."

"Dmitriy, your help was extraordinary," Talbot told his Russian counterpart at the other end of the table.

"Remarkable what can happen when we cooperate, is it not?"

What occurred to Talbot had come already to Asken.a.z.i: "Two whole generations p.i.s.sed away, Dmitriy. All that wasted time."

"We cannot recover lost time," Popov replied. "We can have the wit not to lose any more." The Russian smiled crookedly. "For moments like this, there should be vodka."

Talbot jerked his head toward Prince Ali. "We don't all drink."

"How can they live without vodka?" Popov chuckled.

"One of the mysteries of life, Dmitriy. We both have cables to send."

"Indeed we do, my friend."

To the fury of the correspondents in Rome, the first to break the story was a Washington Post Washington Post reporter in Washington. It was inevitable. She had a source, an Air Force sergeant who did electronic maintenance on the VC-25A, the President's new military version of the Boeing 747. The sergeant had been prepped by the reporter. Everyone knew that the President was heading to Rome. It was just a question of when. As soon as the sergeant learned that she'd be heading out, she'd ostensibly called home to check that her good uniform was back from the cleaners. That she had called the wrong number was an honest mistake. It was just that the reporter had the same gag message on her answering machine. That was the story she'd use if she ever got caught, but she didn't in this case, and didn't ever expect to be. reporter in Washington. It was inevitable. She had a source, an Air Force sergeant who did electronic maintenance on the VC-25A, the President's new military version of the Boeing 747. The sergeant had been prepped by the reporter. Everyone knew that the President was heading to Rome. It was just a question of when. As soon as the sergeant learned that she'd be heading out, she'd ostensibly called home to check that her good uniform was back from the cleaners. That she had called the wrong number was an honest mistake. It was just that the reporter had the same gag message on her answering machine. That was the story she'd use if she ever got caught, but she didn't in this case, and didn't ever expect to be.

An hour later, at the routine morning meeting between the President's press secretary and the White House correspondents, the Post reporter announced an "unconfirmed report" that Fowler was going to Rome-and did this mean that the treaty negotiations had reached an impa.s.se or success? The press secretary was caught short by that. He'd just learned ten minutes before that he'd be flying to Rome, and as usual was sworn to total secrecy-an admonition that carried about as much weight as sunlight on a cloudy day. He allowed himself to be surprised by the question, though, and that surprised the man who had fully expected to engineer the leak-but only after after lunch at the afternoon briefing. His "no comment" hadn't carried enough conviction, and the White House correspondents smelled the blood in the water. They all had edited copies of the President's appointments schedule, and sure enough, there were names to check with. lunch at the afternoon briefing. His "no comment" hadn't carried enough conviction, and the White House correspondents smelled the blood in the water. They all had edited copies of the President's appointments schedule, and sure enough, there were names to check with.

The President's aides were already making calls to cancel appointments and appearances. Even the President cannot allow important people to be inconvenienced without warning, and while those might keep secrets, not all of their a.s.sistants and secretaries can. It was a cla.s.sic case of the phenomenon upon which a free press depends. People who know things cannot keep them inside. Especially secret things. Within an hour, confirmation was obtained from four widely separated sources: President Fowler had canceled several days' worth of appointments. The President was going somewhere, and it wasn't Peoria. That was enough for all the TV networks to run bulletins timed to erase segments of various game shows with hastily written statements, which immediately cut to commercials, denying millions of people the knowledge of what the word or phrase was, but informing them of the best way to get their clothes clean despite deep gra.s.s stains.

It was late afternoon in Rome, a sultry, humid summer day, when the pool headquarters was told that three, only three, cameras-and no correspondents-would be permitted into the building whose outside had been subjected to weeks of careful scrutiny. In the "green room" trailers near each of the anchor booths, the network anchors on duty had makeup applied and hustled to their chairs, putting their earpieces in and waiting for word from their directors.

The picture that appeared simultaneously on the booth monitors and TV sets all over the world showed the conference room. In it was a large table all of whose seats were filled. At its head was the Pope, and before him was a folder of folio size, made of red calfskin-the reporters would never know of the momentary panic that had erupted when someone realized that he didn't didn't know what kind of leather it was, and had to check with the supplier; fortunately, no one objected to the skin of a calf. know what kind of leather it was, and had to check with the supplier; fortunately, no one objected to the skin of a calf.

It had been agreed that no statement would be made here. Preliminary statements would be made in the capitals of each of the partic.i.p.ants, and the really flowery speeches were being drafted for the formal signing ceremonies. A Vatican spokesman delivered a written release to all of the TV correspondents. It said in essence that a draft treaty concerning a final settlement of the Middle East dispute had been negotiated, and that the draft was ready for initialing by representatives of the interested nations. The formal treaty doc.u.ments would be signed by the chiefs of state and/or foreign ministers in several days. The text of the treaty was not available for release, nor were its provisions. This did not exactly thrill the correspondents-mainly because they realized that the treaty details would be broken from the foreign ministries in the respective capitals of the concerned nations, to other reporters.

The red folder was pa.s.sed from place to place. The order of the initialers, the Vatican statement pointed out, had been determined by lot, and it turned out that the Israeli Foreign Minister went first, followed by the Soviet, the Swiss, the American, the Saudi, and the Vatican representatives. Each used a fountain pen, and a curved blotter was applied to each set of initials by the priest who moved the doc.u.ment from place to place. It wasn't much of a ceremony, and it was swiftly accomplished. Handshakes came next, followed by a lengthy bit of mutual applause. And that was it.

"By G.o.d," Jack said, watching the TV picture change. He looked down to the fax of the treaty outline, and it was not very different from his original concept. The Saudis had made changes, as had the Israelis, the Soviets, the Swiss, and, of course, the State Department, but the original idea was his-except insofar as he himself had borrowed ideas from a mult.i.tude of others. There were few genuinely original ideas. What he'd really done had been to organize them, and pick an historically correct moment to make his comment. That was all. For all that, it was the proudest moment of his life. It was a shame that there was no one to congratulate him.

In the White House, President Fowler's best speechwriter was already working on the first draft of his speech. The American President would have primacy of place at the ceremony because it had been his idea, after all, his speech before the U.N. that had brought them all together in Rome. The Pope would speak-h.e.l.l, they would all speak, the speechwriter thought, and for her that was a problem, since each speech had to be original and unrepet.i.tive. She realized that she'd probably still be working on it while hopping the Atlantic on the -25A, pecking busily away on her laptop. But that, she knew, was what they paid her for, and Air Force One had a LaserJet printer.

Upstairs in the Oval Office the President was looking over his hastily revised schedule. A committee of new Eagle Scouts would have to be disappointed, as would the new Wisconsin Cheese Queen, or whatever the young lady's t.i.tle was, and a mult.i.tude of business people whose importance in their own small ponds quite literally paled when they entered the side door into the President's workshop. His appointments secretary was getting the word out. Some people whose visits were genuinely important were being shoehorned into every spare minute of the next thirty-six hours. That would make the President's next day and a half as hectic as it ever got, but that, too, was part of the job.

"Well?" Fowler looked up to see Elizabeth Elliot grinning at him through the open door to the secretary's anteroom.

Well, this is what you wanted, isn't it? Your presidency will forever be remembered as the one in which the Middle East problems were settled once and for all. If-Liz admitted to herself in a rare moment of objective clarity- admitted to herself in a rare moment of objective clarity-it all works out, which is not a given in such disputes as this.

"We have done a service to the whole world, Elizabeth." By "we" he actually meant "I," Elliot knew, but that was fair enough. It was Bob Fowler who'd endured the months of campaigning on top of his executive duties in Columbus, the endless speeches, kissing babies and kissing a.s.s, stroking legions of reporters whose faces changed far more rapidly than their brutally repet.i.tive questions. It was an endurance race to get into this one small room, this seat of executive power. It was a process that somehow did not break the men-pity it was still only men, Liz thought-who made it safely here. But the prize for all the effort, all the endless toil, was that the person who occupied it got to take the credit. It was a simple historical convention that people a.s.sumed the President was the one who directed things, who made the decisions. Because of that, the President was the one who got the kudos and the barbs. The President was responsible for what went well and for what went badly. Mostly that concerned domestic affairs, the blips in the unemployment figures, interest rates, inflation (wholesale and retail), and the all-powerful Leading Economic Indicators, but on rare occasions, something really important happened, something that changed the world. Reagan, Elliot admitted to herself, would be remembered by history as the guy who happened to be around when the Russians decided to cash in their chips on Marxism, and Bush was the man who collected that particular political pot. Nixon was the man who'd opened the door to China, and Carter the one who had come so tantalizingly close to doing what Fowler would now be remembered for. The American voters might select their political leaders for pocketbook issues, but history was made of more important stuff. What earned a man a few paragraphs in a general-history text and focused volumes of scholarly study were the fundamental changes in the shape of the political world. That was what really counted. Historians remembered the ones who shaped political events-Bismarck, not Edison-treating technical changes in society as though they were driven by political factors, and not the reverse, which, she judged, might have been equally likely. But historiography had its own rules and conventions that had little to do with reality, because reality was too large a thing to grasp, even for academics working years after events. Politicians played within those rules, and that suited them because following those rules meant that when something memorable happened, the historians would remember them.

"Service to the world?" Elliot responded after a lengthy pause. "Service to the world. I like the sound of that. They called Wilson the man who kept us out of war. You will be remembered as the one who put an end to war."

Fowler and Elliot both knew that scant months after being reelected on that platform, Wilson had led America into its first truly foreign war, the war to end all wars, optimists had called it, well before Holocaust and nuclear nightmares. But this time, both thought, it was more than mere optimism, and Wilson's transcendent vision of what the world could be was finally within the grasp of the political figures who made the world into the shape of their own choosing.

The man was a Druse, an unbeliever, but for all that he was respected. He bore the scars of his own battle with the Zionists. He'd gone into battle, and been decorated for his courage. He'd lost his mother to their inhuman weapons. And he'd supported the movement whenever asked. Qati was a man who had never lost touch with the fundamentals. As a boy he'd read the Little Red Book Little Red Book of Chairman Mao. That Mao was, of course, an infidel of the worst sort-he'd refused even to acknowledge the idea of a G.o.d and persecuted those who worshiped-was beside the point. The revolutionary was a fish who swam in a peasant sea, and maintaining the goodwill of those peasants-or in this case, a shopkeeper-was the foundation of whatever success he might enjoy. This Druse had contributed what money he could, had once sheltered a wounded freedom fighter in his home. Such debts were not forgotten. Qati rose from his desk to greet the man with a warm handshake and the perfunctory kisses. of Chairman Mao. That Mao was, of course, an infidel of the worst sort-he'd refused even to acknowledge the idea of a G.o.d and persecuted those who worshiped-was beside the point. The revolutionary was a fish who swam in a peasant sea, and maintaining the goodwill of those peasants-or in this case, a shopkeeper-was the foundation of whatever success he might enjoy. This Druse had contributed what money he could, had once sheltered a wounded freedom fighter in his home. Such debts were not forgotten. Qati rose from his desk to greet the man with a warm handshake and the perfunctory kisses.

"Welcome, my friend."

"Thank you for seeing me, Commander." The shopkeeper seemed very nervous, and Qati wondered what the problem was.

"Please, take a chair. Abdullah," he called, "would you bring coffee for our guest?"

"You are too kind." "Nonsense. You are our comrade. Your friendship has not wavered in-how many years?"

The shopkeeper shrugged, smiling inwardly that this investment was about to pay off. He was frightened of Qati and his people-that was why he had never crossed them. He also kept Syrian authorities informed of what he'd done for them, because he was wary of those people, too. Mere survival in that part of the world was an art form, and a game of chance.

"I come to you for advice," he said after his first sip of coffee.

"Certainly." Qati leaned forward in his chair. "I am honored to be of help. What is the problem, my friend?"

"It is my father."

"How old is he now?" Qati asked. The farmer had occasionally given his men gifts also, most often a lamb. Just a peasant, and an infidel peasant at that, but he was one who shared his enemy with Qati and his men.

"Sixty-six-you know his garden?"

"Yes, I was there some years ago, soon after your mother was killed by the Zionists," Qati reminded him.

"In his garden there is an Israeli bomb."

"Bomb? You mean a sh.e.l.l."

"No, Commander, a bomb. What you can see of it is half a meter across."

"I see-and if the Syrians learn of it ..."

"Yes. As you know, they explode such things in place. My father's house would be destroyed." The visitor held up his left forearm. "I cannot be of much help rebuilding it, and my father is too old to do it himself. I come here to ask how one might go about removing the d.a.m.ned thing."

"You have come to the right place. Do you know how long it has been there?"

"My father says that it fell the very day this happened to me." The shopkeeper gestured with his ruined arm again.

"Then surely Allah smiled on your family that day."

Some smile, the shopkeeper thought, nodding. the shopkeeper thought, nodding.

"You have been our most faithful friend. Of course we can help you. I have a man highly skilled in the business of disarming and removing Israeli bombs-and then he takes the guts from them and makes bombs for our use." Qati stopped and held up an admonishing finger. "You must never repeat that."

The visitor jerked somewhat in his chair. "For my part, Commander, you may kill all of them you wish, and if you can do it from a bomb the pigs dropped into my father's garden, I will pray for your safety and success."