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" 'Morning, Candi," Al Gregory said in Langley.

Two thousand miles away, Dr. Candace Long twisted around in her bed and stared at the clock. "You at the airport?"

"Still in Washington, honey. If I'm lucky, I'll fly back later today." He sounded tired.

"What's happening anyway?" she asked.

"Oh, somebody ran a test, and I have to explain what it means to some people."

"Okay. Let me know when you're coming in, Al. I'll come out to get you." Candi Long was too groggy to realize that her fiance had bent a rule of security to answer her question.

"Sure. Love ya."

"Love you, too, honey." She replaced the phone and re-checked the clock. There was time for another hour's sleep. She made a mental note to ride into work with a friend. Al had left his car at the lab before flying east, and she'd ride that one out to pick him up.

Ryan got to drive Major Gregory again. Moore took General Parks in his Agency limo.

"I asked you before: what are the chances that we'll find out what Ivan is doing at Dushanbe?"

Jack hesitated before answering, then realized that Gregory would hear it all in the Oval Office. "We have assets that are working to find out what they did to increase their power output."

"I'd love to know how you do that," the young Major observed.

"No, you don't. Trust me." Ryan looked away from the traffic for a moment. "If you know stuff like that, and you make a slip, you could kill people. It's happened before. The Russians come down pretty hard on spies. There's still a story floating around that they cremated one-I mean they slid him into a crematorium alive."

"Aw, come on! Nobody's that-"

"Major, one of these days you ought to get out of your lab and find out just how nasty the world can really be. Five years ago, I had people try to kill my wife and kid. They had to fly three thousand miles to do it, but they came anyway."

"Oh, right! You're the guy-"

"Ancient history, Major." Jack was tired of telling the story.

"What's it like, sir? I mean, you've actually been in combat, the real thing, I mean-"

"It's not fun." Ryan almost laughed at himself for putting it that way. "You just have to perform, that's all. You either do it right or you lose it. If you're lucky, you don't panic until it's all over."

"You said out at the lab that you used to be a Marine "

"That helped some. At least somebody bothered to teach me a little about it, once upon a time." Back when you were in high school or so, Jack didn't say. Enough of that. "Ever meet the President?"

"No, sir."

"The name's Jack, okay? He's a pretty good guy, pays attention and asks good questions. Don't let the sleepy look fool you. I think he does that to fool politicians."

"They fool easy?" Gregory wondered.

That got a laugh. "Some of them. The head arms-control guy'll be there, too. Uncle Ernie. Ernest Alien, old-time career diplomat, Dartmouth and Yale; he's smart."

"He thinks we ought to bargain my work away. Why does the President keep him?"

"Ernie knows how to deal with the Russians, and he's a pro. He doesn't let personal opinions interfere with his job. I honestly don't know what he thinks about the issues. It's like with a doc. A surgeon doesn't have to like you personally. He just has to fix whatever's wrong. With Mr. Alien, well, he knows how to sit through all the crap that the negotiations entail. You've never learned anything about that, have you?" Jack shook his head and smiled at the traffic. "Everybody thinks it's dramatic, but it's not. I've never seen anything more boring. Both sides say exactly the same thing for hours-they repeat themselves about every fifteen or twenty minutes, all day, every day. Then after a week or so, one side or the other makes a small change, and keeps repeating that for hours. The other side checks with its capital, and makes a small change of its own, and keeps repeating that. It goes on and on that way for weeks, months, sometimes years. But Uncle Ernie is good at it. He finds it exciting. Personally, after about a week,