"True, I guess." the Chief of Staff agreed reluctantly. He thought for a moment. "Jerusalem, you mean?"

"Bingo." Ryan finished off his Coke and crushed the can before flipping it into van Damm's trash can for two. "The city is sacred to three religions - think of them as three tribes - but it physically belongs to only one of them. That one is at war with one of the others. The volatile nature of the region militates towards putting some armed troops in the place, but whose? Remember, some Islamic crazies shot up Mecca not that long ago. Now, if you put an Arab security force in Jerusalem, you create a security threat to Israel. If things stay as they are, with only an Israeli force, you offend the Arabs. Oh, and forget the UN. Israel won't like it because the Jews haven't made out all that well in the place. The Arabs won't like it because there's too many Christians. And we won't like it because the UN doesn't like us all that much. The only available international body is distrusted by everyone. Impasse."

"The President really wants to move on this," the Chief of Staff pointed out. We have to do something to make it look like we're DOING SOMETHING.

"Well, next time he sees the Pope, maybe he can ask for high-level intercession." Jack's irreverent grin froze momentarily. Van Damm thought he was cautioning himself against speaking badly of the President, whom he disliked. But then Ryan's face went blank. Arnie didn't know Jack well enough to recognize the look. "Wait a minute "

The Chief of Staff chuckled. It wouldn't hurt for the President to see the Pope. It always looked good with the voters, and after that the President would have a well-covered dinner with B'nai B'rith to show that he liked all religions. In fact, as van Damm knew, the President only went to church for show now that his children were grown. That was one amusing aspect of life. The Soviet Union was turning back to religion in its search for societal values, but the American political left had turned away long ago and had no inclination to turn back, lest it should find the same values that the Russians were searching for. Van Damm had started off as a left-wing believer, but twenty-five years of hands-on experience in government had cured him of that. Now he distrusted ideologues of both wings with equal fervor. He was the sort to look for solutions whose only attraction was that they might actually work. His reverie on politics took him away from the discussion of the moment.

"You thinking about something, Jack?" Alden asked.

"You know, we're all "people of the book," aren't we?" Ryan asked, seeing the outline of a new thought in the fog.

"So?"

"And the Vatican is a real country, with real diplomatic status, but no armed forces they're Swiss and Switzerland is neutral, not even a member of the UN. The Arabs do their banking and carousing there gee, I wonder if he'd go for it ?" Ryan's face went blank again, and van Damm saw Jack's eye center as the lightbulb flashed on. It was always exciting to watch an idea being born, but less so when you didn't know what it was.