And so, Robby told himself, so ends my second war, if that's what it was He brought his Tomcat around, with Sanchez on his wing. Four more F-14s would orbit here, just to keep an eye on things for the next few hours.

Jackson trapped just in time to see a rescue helicopter landing forward. By the time he dismounted the aircraft, three people were in the ship's hospital. He headed down to see who they were and what had been going on. A few minutes later, he knew that he wouldn't be painting any more victory flags on his aircraft. Not for something like this.

Berlin settled down much more quickly than anyone imagined. The relief column of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment had only gone thirty kilometers when the halt order arrived, and it pulled off the autobahn to wait. Inside Berlin itself, the American brigade got the word first, and pulled back into the western portion of the kazerne. Russians probed forward with dismounted infantry to see what was happening, but without orders to renew the attack, they remained tensely in place. Soon the area was flooded with police cars, much to the bemusement of the soldiers. Twenty minutes after the Americans began moving, communications were reestablished with Moscow, and the Russians pulled farther back into their defensive positions. A number of unexplained bodies were found, including the regimental commander and his executive officer, plus three tank crews, all of whom had been killed with small-arms fire. But the most important discovery was made by a Berlin policeman, who was the first to examine the truck and staff car ripped apart by 25mm cannon slugs from a Bradley. The 'Russians' were all dead, but none had identity disks. The policeman immediately called for assistance, which was dispatched at once. Two of the faces looked familiar to the cop, though he couldn't remember why.

"Jack."

"Hi, Arnie, grab a seat."

"What happened, Jack?"

Ryan shook his head. His mental state was one of giddiness. His reason told him that sixty thousand people had died, but despite that, the relief at having stopped something a hundred times worse had left him in a slightly drunken condition. "Not really sure yet, Arnie. You know the important part."

"The President sounds like hell."

A grunt. "You ought to have heard him a couple hours ago. He lost it, Arnie."

"That bad?"

Jack nodded. "That bad." A pause. "Maybe anybody would have, maybe you just can't expect a guy to deal with this, but - but that's his job, man."

"You know, he once told me that he was most grateful for Reagan and the others because of the changes, the fact that something like this wasn't really possible anymore."

"Listen, man, as long as those goddamned things exist, it's possible."

"You advocating disarmament?" van Damm asked.

Ryan looked up again. The giddiness was gone now. "I got the stars out of my eyes a long time ago. What I'm saying is, if it's possible, you damned well think about it. He didn't. He didn't even look at the wargames we ran. He was just so sure it would never happen. Well, it did, didn't it?"