Hood watched her go, his own eyes dampening. And when she had disappeared into the crowd of police and medics he smiled sadly.

The date, at last, had been kept.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

Monday, 9:32 A.M.,

Washington, D.C.

Hood, Stoll, and Herbert were welcomed back to Op-Center with a small party in the Tank, the high-security conference room. When they arrived, the senior staffers were already gathered with trays of coffee, croissants, and crullers.

"We bought out all of the French and German-sounding pastries in the commissary," Ann Farris pointed out as she welcomed Hood with a cheek-to-cheek air kiss.

Ed Medina and John Benn had spent the weekend building a small tableau of toy soldiers representing NATO, Hood, and Herbert. They were defending a fort labeled "Decency" from a horde of disfigured soldiers pouring from a troop transport labeled "Hate."

The bruised but unbowed Herbert was touched. Stoll lapped it all up. Hood was embarrassed. Rodgers stood cross-armed in the corner, out of Hood's limelight, a hint of envy in his expression.

When prompted to speak, Hood perched himself on the corner of the conference table and said, "All we did was what people like General Rodgers and our Striker personnel do all the time."

"Run amok abroad," Lowell Coffey suggested, "and make the diplomats earn their pay?"

"No," Stoll countered. "Fight for truth, justice, and the American way!"

"Where're my pom-poms?" Ann Farris asked.

Hood quieted the twenty-odd people gathered in the office. "Like I said, we only followed the example that our Op-Center colleagues have set for us. Speaking of which, Mike-- you want to make the announcement?"

Rodgers shook his head and extended his hand toward Hood. Hood wanted to drag him over, force him to share in this triumph. But self-promotion was not in Rodgers's lexicon.

Hood said, "Over the weekend, General Rodgers finalized plans for Colonel Brett A. August to come to Washington to take command of Striker. Colonel August was the man who actually collared Gerard Dominique, and he's going to be a great stragetic and personal asset to our team."

There was a smattering of applause and upthrust thumbs.

"As I'm sure you've all noticed," Hood went on, "this weekend the press was full of the fall of Dominique and the implications of Operation L'Ecouter. I saw a lot of editorials about the way the prejudices and suspicions of otherwise good people were going to be manipulated, used to destroy lives and societies. I hope the warnings don't die with the headlines. Ann, we'll have to talk about that. Let's see if we can work up some kind of educational program for schools."

She nodded and smiled proudly at him.