"I didn't know that, Jack. Honestly, I didn't know."

"Mr. President, I choose to believe that you are an honorable man. What you just said, sir, is that really an excuse?" Jack paused, and was fully answered by silence.

"Do you wish to meet with the congressmen before I brief them, sir?"

"Yes. Why don't you wait outside for us."

"Thank you, Mr. President."

Jack waited for an hour of discomfort before Trent and Fellows reappeared. They drove with him to Langley in silence, and the three walked into the office of the Director of Central Intelligence.

"Judge," Trent said, "that may have been the greatest service you have ever done your country."

"Under the circumstances -" Moore paused. "What else could I have done?"

"You could have left them to die, you could have warned the opposition that we were coming in," Jack said. "In that case I wouldn't be here. And for that, Judge, I am in your debt. You could have stuck with the lie."

"And live with myself?" Moore smiled in a very strange way and shook his head.

"And the operations?" Ryan asked. Exactly what had been discussed in the Oval Office he didn't know, and he told himself not to make any guesses.

"Never happened," Fellows said. "Under the hazardous-operations rule, you have done what you needed to do - granted, a little late, but we have been notified. We don't need another scandal like this, and with the way things are going, the situation will settle itself. Politically it's shaky, but legally you can argue that it's all according to Hoyle."

"The craziest part of all is, it almost worked," Trent observed. "Your CAPER operation was brilliant, and I assume it'll be kept going."

"It will. The whole operation did work," Ritter said for the first time. "It really did. We did start a war within the Cartel, and Escobedo's killing was just the last act - or maybe not if it goes on further. With that many chieftains gone, maybe Colombia will be able to do a little better. We need that capability. We can't have it stripped away from us."

"I agree," Ryan said. "We need the capability, but you don't make public policy this way, damn it!"

"Jack, tell me what right and wrong is?" Moore asked. "You seem to be the expert today," he added without very much irony.

"This is supposed to be a democracy. We let the people know something, or at least we let them know." He waved at the congressmen. "When a government decides to kill people who threaten its interests or its citizens, it doesn't have to be murder. Not always. I'm just not sure where the line is. But I don't have to be sure. Other people are supposed to tell us that."

"Well, come January, it won't be us," Moore observed. "It's agreed, then? It stays here. No political footballs?"

Trent and Fellows could scarcely have been further apart politically, the gay New Englander and the tough-minded Mormon from Arizona. They nodded agreement.

"No games on this," Trent said.

"It would just hurt the country," Fellows concurred.

"And what we've just done..." Ryan murmured. Whatever the hell it was ...

"You didn't do it," Trent said. "The rest of us did."

"Right," Jack snorted. "Well, I'm gone soon, too."

"Think so?" Fellows asked.

"Not so, Dr. Ryan. We don't know who Fowler is going to appoint, probably some political lawyer he likes. I know the names on the list," Trent said.

"It sure as hell won't be me. He doesn't like me," Ryan said.

"He doesn't have to like you, and you're not going to be Director. But you will be here," Trent told him. Deputy Director, maybe , the congressman thought to himself.

"We'll see." Fellows said. "What if things turn out differently in November? Fowler may just screw it up yet."

"You have my word, Sam," Trent replied. "If that happens, it happens."

"There is one wild card, though," Ritter pointed out.

"I've already discussed that with Bill Shaw," Moore said. "It's funny. The only law he actually broke was illegal entry. None of the data he got out of her was technically classified. Amazing, isn't it?"

Ryan shook his head and left work early. He had an appointment with his attorney, who would soon be establishing an educational trust for seven kids living in Florida.

The infantrymen were cycled through Fort MacDill's special-operations center. Told that their operation had been a success, they were sworn to secrecy, given their promotions, and sent on to new postings. Except for one.

"Chavez?" a voice called.

"Yo, Mr. Clark."

"Buy you dinner?"

"There a good Mexican place around here?"

"Maybe I can find one."

"What's the occasion?"

"Let's talk jobs," Clark said. "There's an opening where I work. It pays better than what you do now. You'll have to go back to school for a couple of years, though."

"I've been thinkin' about that," Chavez replied. He'd been thinking that he was officer material. If he'd been in command instead of Ramirez, maybe - or maybe not. But he did want to find out.

"You're good, kid. I want you to work with me."

Chavez thought about that. At least he'd get a dinner out of the idea.

Captain Bronco Winters was dispatched to an F-15 squadron in Germany, where he distinguished himself and was soon a flight leader. He was a calmer young man now. He'd exorcised the demons of his mother's death. Winters would never look back. He'd had a job, and done it.

It was a cold, dismal fall after a hot, muggy summer in Washington. The political city emptied out for the presidential election, which shared that November with all of the House seats and a third of the Senate, plus hundreds of political-appointment slots in the executive branch. In the early fall, the FBI broke several Cuban-run spy rings, but strangely that was politically neutral. Although arresting a drug ring was a police success, arresting a spy ring was seen as a failure because of the existence of a spy ring in the first place. There was no political advantage except in the Cuban refugee community, whose votes might as well already have been cast anyway, since Fowler was talking about "opening a dialogue" with the Cuba they had left. The President regained the lead after his own convention, but ran a lackluster campaign and fired two key political advisers. But most of all, it was time for a change, and though it was close. Robert Fowler carried the election with a bare 2 percent advantage in the popular vote. Some called it a mandate; others called it a sloppy campaign on both sides. The latter was closer to the truth, Ryan thought after it was all over.

All over the city and its environs, displaced appointees made preparations to move home - wherever home was - or to move into law offices so that they could stay in the area. Congress hadn't changed very much, but Congress rarely did. Ryan remained in his office, wondering if he'd be confirmed as the next DDL It was too soon to tell. One thing he did know was that the President was still President, and still a man of honor, whatever mistakes he'd made. Before he left, pardons would be issued to those who needed them. They'd go on the books, but no one was expected to notice, and after things were explained to the Fowler people - Trent would handle that - it wasn't expected that anyone ever would.

On the Saturday after the election, Dan Murray drove Moira Wolfe to Andrews Air Force Base, where a jet was waiting for them. It took just over three hours before they landed at Guantanamo. A leftover from the Spanish-American War, Gitmo, as it's called, is the only American military installation on Communist soil, a thorn stuck in Castro's side that rankled him as much as he rankled his oversized neighbor across the Florida Strait.

Moira was doing well at the Department of Agriculture, executive secretary to one of the department's top career executives. She was thinner now, but Murray wasn't concerned about that. She'd taken up walking for exercise, and was doing well with her psychological counseling. She was the last of the victims, and he hoped that this trip would help.