leverage to stop the Israelis from taking Cairo, Beirut and Damascus."

"You're saying the President won't stand in their way if they resort to

nuclear weapons?"

"Something like that," Schiller said with studied indifference.  He

turned to Nichols.  "Whose deal?"

"I believe it's mine," said the Senator, trying his best to sound

casual.  This switch in the President's Middle East policy was news to

him.  "Shall we ante fifty cents?"

The Russians were not about to let loose.

"I find this most disturbing," said Vyhousky.

"A new posture had to come sometime," Nichols confessed. "The latest

projections put United States oil reserves at eighty billion barrels.

With prices pushing fifty dollars a barrel, our oil companies can now

afford to mount a massive exploration program.  And, of course, we can

still count on Mexican and South American reserves.  The bottom line is

that we no longer have to rely on the Middle East for oil.  So we're

cutting bait. If the Soviet government wants to inherit the Arab mess,

take it as a gift."

Korolenko couldn't believe what he was hearing.  His ingrained wariness

made him skeptical.  But he knew the Americans too well to doubt they

would bluff or mislead him, on an issue of such magnitude.

Senator Pitt had his doubts, too, about the game plan the President was

leaking to the Soviet representatives.  There was a strong possibility

oil would not flow over the Rio Grande when America needed it.  Mexico

was a revolution waiting for the starter's gun.

Egypt was cursed with a Dark Ages fanatic like Yazid.  But Mexico had

its madman in a Topiltzin, a Benito JuArez/Emilio Zapata messiah who

preached a return to a religious state based on Aztec culture.  Like

Yazid, Topiltzin was supported by millions of his nation's poor, and he

was also inches away from sweeping out the existing government.

Where were all the madmen coming from, the Senator wondered?   Who was

spawning these devils?   He made a conscious effort to keep his hands

steady as he began to deal.

"Five card stud, gentlemen, jokers wild."

Huge figures rose up in the eerie silence of the night and gazed through

empty eyes at the barren landscape as if waiting for some unknown

presence to bring them to life.  The stark, rigid figures stood as tall

as a two-story building, their grim, expressionless faces highlighted by

a full moon.

A thousand years ago they had supported a temple roof that sat on top of

the five-step pyramid of Quetzalcoatl in the Toltec city of Tula.  The

temple was gone but the pyramid remained and was reconstructed by

archaeologists.  The ruins stretched along a low ridge, and during the

city's glory sixtythousand people lived and walked on its streets.

Few visitors found their way to the site, and those who took the trouble

were awed by TVIa's haunted desolation.

The moon cast ghostly shadows through the dead city as a solitary man

climbed the steep steps of the pyramid to the stone statues at the