War Of Honor

"I wouldn't be surprised if you were," Jason said, and produced an off-center smile. "Seems like every time we turn around someone's giving one of us a fresh reason to be pissed off, doesn't it?"

"Sometimes," Arnold agreed. He tipped back his chair and squeezed the bridge of his nose. It would have been nice if he could have squeezed the overwhelming sense of fatigue out of himself, but that wasn't going to happen.

Jason watched him for several seconds. Arnold had always been the leader. Partly that was because he was over ten T-years older than Jason was, but Jason was honest enough to admit that even if their ages had been reversed, Arnold would still have been the leader. He was smarter than Jason, for one thing, and Jason knew it. But more importantly, he possessed something that had been left out of Jason's personality. Jason wasn't entirely certain what that "something" was, but he knew it gave Arnold a spark, a presence. Whatever it was, it lay at the heart of the almost frighteningly powerful magnetism Arnold could exert upon those around him when he chose.

Well, upon almost all of those around him. Eloise Pritchart and Thomas Theisman appeared remarkably resistant to what several of their congressional allies referred to as the "Giancola Effect." Which unhappy reflection brought Jason back to the purpose of his visit.

"What do we do now?" he repeated, and Arnold lowered his hand to look up at him.

"I'm not sure," the Secretary of State admitted after a moment. "I hate to admit it, but Pritchart and Theisman completely surprised me with that news conference. I guess they were more alert to where I was headed than I thought they were."

"Are you sure? I mean, it could have been a genuine coincidence."

"Sure it could," Arnold said acidly. "But if you think it was, I've got some bottomland I'd like to sell you. Just don't ask me what it's on the bottom of!"

"I didn't say I thought it was a coincidence," Jason said with some dignity. "I only said that it could have been, and it could have."

"In the theoretical sense that anything could be a coincidence, you probably have a point, Jase," Arnold replied a bit more patiently. Not a lot, but a bit. "In this particular case, though, it had to be deliberate. They knew we'd been talking to people, and they must have suspected that we were just about ready to a

"McGwire asked me about her speech," Jason told him, and Arnold grunted. The mysterious speech all of the news services pla

"He wanted to know what she intends to a

"No, I doubt it was," Arnold agreed. He swiveled his chair gently from side to side for two or three seconds, gazing at his brother contemplatively, then shrugged. "I haven't seen a draft of her speech, but based on a few things she's said to me over the last week or so, I have a pretty shrewd notion of what she plans to say, and I can't say I'm exactly thrilled by it."

"You think she's going to talk about the negotiations with the Manties, don't you?" Jason said.

"I think that's exactly what she's going to talk about," Arnold acknowledged. "And I think she's going to tell Congress—and the voters—that she intends to pursue an actual peace treaty with considerably more vigor. Which is why there's no way in Hell Theisman's news conference was a coincidence."

"I was afraid that was what she was going to say," Jason admitted. He sighed. "She's taking your position away from you."

"Tell me something I don't already know." Arnold snorted. "It has to be Pritchart, too. She's a much better political tactician than Theisman. Besides, Theisman was our best ally as far as timing the a

"Is there anything we can do about it?" Jason asked.

"Not that I can think of right off the top of my head." Arnold's voice was sour. "I'm begi

He tipped his chair even further back and gazed up at the ceiling, eyes slightly unfocused in thought, and Jason watched him silently. He knew better than to interrupt his brother when he was thinking that hard, so he found himself a chair and sat down to wait it out.

It took a while, but finally Arnold's eyes dropped back into focus, and he smiled at Jason. It was unkind, but true, that Jason wasn't exactly the sharpest stylus in the box. He was loyal, energetic, and enthusiastic, but on his best day, no one had ever accused him of having an excess of intellect. There were times when he let his enthusiasm get the better of him, and he was entirely capable of putting his foot squarely into his mouth. And, to be honest, he had a way of asking irritating questions—the sort which either had no answer at all, or whose answer was so blatantly obvious any moron ought to know what it was without asking. But at the same time, there was something about him, something about those selfsame irritating questions, which had a way of striking sparks in Arnold's own thinking. It was as if the need to figure out how to explain things to his brother caused his own thoughts to gel magically.

Jason sat up straighter as Arnold smiled at him. He knew that expression, and his flagging spirits perked up instantly.

"I think, Jase, that I've been coming at this the wrong way ever since Theisman opened his mouth," Arnold said thoughtfully. "I've been thinking about the way Pritchart is about to try to take over my own position and squeeze me out. But when you come right down to it, she can't. Not as long as I'm Secretary of State. She can try to take credit for any success our negotiations might achieve, and she can try to convince the public that she's the one who decided to take a firmer position with the Manties. But in the end, I'm the one who's going to be carrying out those negotiations."

"So she's going to have to share at least some of the credit for any successes with you," Jason said, nodding slowly.

"Well, yes, she is," Arnold agreed. "But that isn't really what I was thinking about." Jason looked confused, and Arnold gri

Jason still looked less than totally enlightened, and Arnold decided not to be any more specific. Not yet. In fact, he almost wished he hadn't said as much as he already had, given Jason's propensity for occasionally blurting out things at inconvenient moments.

Fortunately, Jason was accustomed to leaving the heavy intellectual lifting to him. It wasn't really necessary to explain things at this point. Indeed, it might be just as well not to explain them at all. Jason was very good at carrying out instructions, as long as those instructions were specific and uncomplicated, so perhaps it would be wisest not to burden him with more than he absolutely needed to know.