"Halt!" Ryan stopped cold in his tracks and turned to see where the sound had come from. It was an Air Force security policeman - woman. Girl, actually, Ryan saw, though her M-16 rifle neither knew nor cared about plumbing fixtures.

"Did I do something wrong?"

"ID, please." The young lady was quite attractive, and quite professional. She also had a backup in the trees. Ryan handed over his CIA credentials.

"I've never seen one of these, sir."

"I came in last night on the VC-10. I'm staying over at the Inn, room 109. You can check with Colonel Parker's office."

"We're on security alert, sir," she said next, reaching for her radio.

"Just do your job, miss - excuse me, Sergeant Wilson. My plane doesn't leave till ten." Jack leaned against a tree to stretch. It was too nice a morning to get excited about anything, even if there were two armed people who didn't know who the hell he was.

"Roger." Sergeant Becky Wilson switched off her radio. "The Colonel's looking for you, sir."

"On the way back, I turn left at the Burger King?"

"That's right, sir." She handed his ID back with a smile.

"Thanks, sarge. Sorry to bother you."

"You want a ride back, sir? The colonel's waiting."

"I'd rather walk. He can wait, he's early." Ryan walked away from a buck-sergeant who now had to ponder the importance of a man who kept her base commander sitting on the front step of the Cannon. It took ten brisk minutes, but Ryan's directional sense had not left him, despite the unfamiliar surroundings and a six-hour time differential.

"Morning, sir!" Ryan said as he vaulted the wall into the parking lot.

"I set up a little breakfast with COMUSAFE staff. We'd like your views on what's happening in Europe."

Jack laughed. "Great! I'm interested in hearing yours." Ryan walked off toward his room to dress. What makes them think I know anything more than they do? By the time his plane left, he'd learned four things he hadn't known. Soviet forces withdrawing from what had formerly been called East Germany were decidedly unhappy with the fact that there was no place for them to withdraw to. Elements of the former East German army were even less happy about their enforced retirement than Washington actually knew; they probably had allies among ex-members of the already de-established Stasi. Finally, though an even dozen members of the Red Army Faction had been apprehended in Eastern Germany, at least that many others had gotten the message and vanished before they, too, could be swept up by the Bundes Kriminal Amt, the German federal police. That explained the security alert at Ramstein, Ryan was told.

The VC-208 lifted off from the airfield just after ten in the morning, headed south. Those poor terrorists, he thought, devoting their lives and energy and intellect to something that was vanishing more swiftly than the German countryside below him. Like children whose mother had died. No friends now. They'd hidden out in Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic, blissfully unaware of the coming demise of both communist states. Where would they hide now? Russia? No chance. Poland? That was a laugh. The world had changed under them, and was about to change again, Ryan thought with a wistful smile. Some more of their friends were about to watch the world change. Maybe, he corrected himself. Maybe