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"How far north will they go?" the. President asked.

"All the way," said Vanzandt. "To within slingshot distance of Turkey. Since losing the Golan Heights to Israel in 1967, the Syrians have been pretty aggressive about defending their territory."

"'It's interesting that Turkey mobilized nearly six hundred thousand men," said Secretary of Defense Ernie Colon. "That's almost three times the total manpower available to the Syrian Army, the Syrian Navy, the Syrian Air Force, and the Syrian Air Defense Forces combined. Turkey's obviously saying, 'We'll take you on one-to-one. And if any other nations join in, we've got something left over for them too.' "

"That sounds good on the surface," said General Vanzandt. "But the Turks are facing a big problem. They have to fight this kind of terrorism, that's a given. But even if the Syrian military weren't a factor, a Turkish attack against the Kurds is a dangerous proposition. We know that the Kurds have been trying to smooth out their differences. Whether they caused the dam attack or not, it's certain to encourage and solidify the different Kurdish elements. A counterattack by Turkey will inspire even greater unity. There are fourteen to fifteen million Kurds among Turkey's fifty-nine million people, and they're ready to blow."

"Who can blame them?" asked Lincoln. "They've been shot at, gassed in their homes, and executed without trials."

"Hold it right there, Av," said Burkow. "Many of those Kurds are terrorists."

"And many are not," Lincoln 'replied.

Burkow ignored him. "Larry, what was that business in the Syrian Navy last month?"

CIA director Larry Rachlin folded his hands on the table. "The Syrians did an A-one job keeping this out of the press," he said, "but a Kurdish mole assassinated a general and two aides. When the mole was captured, another Kurdish mole took the general's wife and two daughters hostage and demanded his release. Instead, they sent him his colleague's head. Literally. There was a rescue attempt. By the time it was finished, the general's wife, daughters, and the second Kurd were dead along with two Syrian rescuers."

"If it's the Turks who are terrorizing the Kurds," said the President, "why did this mole turn on the Syrians?"

"Because," said Rachlin, "the Syrian President has come to the conclusion, correctly, that his armed forces are full of Kurdish moles. Some of them in very high places. He's vowed to flush them all out."

Lincoln sat back with disgust. "Steve, Larry, what's the point of all this?"

"The point is that we can't start bleeding all over for the Kurds," Burkow said. "We've been good to them in the past. But they're becoming increasingly militant, they're ruthless, and they've got God-knows-how-many moles in the Turkish military as well. If we get mixed up in this those Turkish moles may start turning on NATO assets."

"Actually, things could be a whole lot worse than that," Vanzandt said. "The Kurds have a lot of sympathizers among the Islamic fundamentalist parties in Turkey. Individually or together, those Kurds and their sympathizers could very well take advantage of the confusion of war to try and throw out the secular rulers in both governments."

"Out of chaos comes more chaos," Lincoln said.

"You got it," said Vanzandt. "Out with flawed democracy, in with religious oppression."

"Out with the U.S.," Defense Secretary Colon said.

"Out isn't the word for it," CIA Director Rachlin added. "Steve's right on the money. They'll start hunting us down not only in Turkey but in Greece. Remember all those Afghan freedom fighters we helped to arm and train to fight the Soviets? A lot of those people have thrown in with the Islamic fundamentalists. Many of them are being directed by Sheik Safar al-Awdah, a Syrian who is one of the most radical clerics in the region."

"God, I'd like to see someone drop-kick that son of a bitch," Steve Burkow said. "His radio speeches have sent a lot of people on one-way bus trips into Israel with bombs