Father Timothy Riley, S.J., was waiting for them, a briar pipe clamped in his teeth as he paged through the morning's Post. A glass sat at his right hand, a skim of sherry at the bottom of it. Father Tim was wearing a rumpled shirt and a jacket that needed pressing, not the formal priest's uniform that he saved for important meetings and had been hand-tailored by one of the nicer shops on Wisconsin Avenue. But the white Roman collar was stiff and bright, and Jack had the sudden thought that despite all his years of Catholic education he didn't know what the things were made of. Starched cotton? Celluloid like the detachable collars of his grandfather's age? In either case, its evident rigidity must have been a reminder to its wearer of his place in this world, and the next.

"Hello, Jack!"

"Hi, Father. This is Charles Alden, Father Tim Riley." Handshakes were exchanged, and places at the table selected. A waiter came in and took drink orders, closing the door as he left.

"How's the new job, Jack?" Riley asked.

"The horizons keep broadening," Ryan admitted. He left it at that. The priest would already know the problems Jack was having at Langley.

"We've had this idea about the Middle East, and Jack suggested that you'd be a good man to discuss it with," Alden said, getting everyone back to business. He had to stop when the waiter returned with drinks and menus. His discourse on the idea took several minutes.

"That's interesting." Riley said, when it was all on the table.

"What's your read on the concept?" the National Security Advisor wanted to know.

"Interesting " The priest was quiet for a moment.

"Will the Pope ?" Ryan stopped Alden with a wave of the hand. Riley was not a man to be hurried when he was thinking. He was, after all, an historian, and they didn't have the urgency of medical doctors.

"It certainly is elegant," Riley observed after thirty seconds. "The Greeks will be a major problem, though."

"The Greeks? How so?" Ryan asked in surprise.

"The really contentious people right now are the Greek Orthodox. We and they are at each other's throats half the time over the most trivial administrative issues. You know, the rabbis and the imams are actually more cordial at the moment than the Christian priests are. That's the funny thing about religious people, it's hard to predict how they'll react. Anyway, the problems between the Greeks and Romans are mainly administrative - who gets custody over which site, that sort of thing. There was a big go-round over Bethlehem last year, who got to do the midnight mass in the Church of the Nativity. It is awfully disappointing, isn't it?"

"You're saying it won't work because two Catholic churches can't -"

"I said there could be a problem, Dr Alden. I did not say that it wouldn't work." Riley lapsed back into silence for a moment. "You'll have to adjust the troika but given the nature of the operation, I think we can get the right kind of cooperation. Co-opting the Greek Orthodox is something you'll have to do in any case. They and the Muslims get along very well, you know.