"Your people are still a little unhappy with this, aren't they?"

Avi frowned. Ryan had faced him with the necessity of expressing his personal opinion, or speaking the truth. They'd feel safer with our paratroops here man-to-man, Ryan?" Truth won out, as it had to with Avi.

"Sure."

"They'll learn. It will take a few more weeks, but they will learn. The Arabs like the Swiss, and the key to the peace on this street is how our Arab friends feel. Now, will you tell me something?" Clark's head moved fractionally at that.

"Maybe," Ryan answered, looking up the street.

"How much did you have to do with this?"

"Nothing at all," Jack replied with a neutral coldness that matched the pace of the soldiers. "It was Charlie Alden's idea, remember? I was just the messenger boy."

"So Elizabeth Elliot has told everyone." Avi didn't have to say any more.

"You wouldn't have asked the question unless you knew the answer, Avi. So why ask the question?"

"Artfully done." General Ben Jakob sat down and waved for the waiter. He ordered two beers before speaking again. Clark and the other bodyguard weren't drinking. "Your president pushed us too hard. Threatening us with withholding our arms "

"He could have gone a little easier, I suppose, but I do not make policy, Avi. Your people made it happen when they murdered those demonstrators. That reopened a part of our own history that we wish to forget. It neutralized your congressional lobby - a lot of those people were on the other side of our own civil rights movement, remember. You forced us to move, Avi. You know that. Besides -' Ryan stopped abruptly.

"Yes?"

"Avi, this thing just might work. I mean, look around!" Jack said, as the beers arrived. He was thirsty enough that a third of it disappeared in an instant.

"It is a slim possibility," Ben Jakob admitted.

"You get better intel from Syria than we do," Ryan pointed out. "I've heard that they've started saying nice things about the settlement - very quietly, I admit. Am I right?"

"If it's true." Avi grunted.

"You know the hard part about "peace" intel?"

Ben Jakob's eyes were focused on a distant wall as he contemplated - what? "Believing it is possible?"

Jack nodded. "That's one area where we have the advantage over you guys, my friend. We've been through all that."

"True, but the Soviets never said - proclaimed - for two generations that they wanted to wipe you from the face of the earth. Tell the worthy President Fowler that such concerns are not so easily allayed."

Jack sighed. "I have. I did. Avi, I'm not your enemy."

"Neither are you my ally."

"Allies? We are now, General. The treaties are in force. General, my job is to provide information and analysis to my government. Policy is made by people senior to me, and smarter than me," Ryan added with deadpan irony.

"Oh? And who might they be?" General Ben Jakob smiled at the younger man. His voice dropped a few octaves. "You've been in the trade for what - not even ten years, Jack. The submarine business, what you did in Moscow, the role you played in the last election -"