"But you did hate him…"

"We do not always kill what we hate, captain. Nor do we always hate what we kill."

Townsend did not follow up immediately with another question, and a momentary silence shifted onto the courtroom.

Tommy had just enough time to think that Scott was doing quite well, when a strident voice burst from the crowd at his back, searing across the room.

"Liar! Lying black bastard!" There was an unmistakable southern accent marring each of the words.

"Killer! Goddamn lying murderer!" a second voice shouted out from a different section of the audience.

And then, just as rapidly, a third cry, only this time the words seemed directed at the men who'd first shouted.

"It's the truth!" someone yelled.

"Can't you tell the truth when you hear it?" These words had a Boston flat A tone that Tommy recognized from his days at Harvard.

In a corner of the theater, there was a scuffling sound, and pushing and shoving. As Tommy pivoted, staring back into the mix ofkriegies, he saw a couple of fliers suddenly chest to chest. Within seconds the noise of anger and confrontation erupted in more than one spot in the large room, and jam-packed men started to push and gesture. It seemed almost as if three or four fights were about to break out before Colonel MacNamara started to crash his gavel down furiously, the hammering noise punctuating the cascade of angry voices.

"Damn it! Order!" MacNamara cried out.

"I will clear this court if you cannot maintain discipline!"

The room seemed to glow red for an instant, continuing to throb before settling into an uneasy quiet.

Colonel MacNamara allowed the tense silence to continue, before he threatened the crowd ofkriegies again.

"I recognize that there are differences of opinion, and that feelings are strong," he said flatly.

"But we must remain orderly! A military trial must be a public event, for all to witness! I warn you men, do not make me take steps to control any further outbursts before they should happen!"

Then MacNamara did something that, to Tommy's eyes, seemed unusual. The SAO briefly turned toward Commandant Von Reiter, and said, "This is exactly what I have repeatedly warned you about, Herr Oberst Von Reiter nodded his head in acknowledgment of what MacNamara said. Then the SAO turned back to Walker Townsend, and made a small gesture for the prosecutor to continue.

Something else struck Tommy in that second. Every other time there had been even the slightest disruption in the proceedings, MacNamara had been furiously quick with his gavel. In fact. Tommy thought, the one thing that MacNamara seemed most capable of doing was slamming that gavel onto the table, because he certainly wasn't astute about the law or criminal procedures. This time, however, it almost seemed to Tommy as if the SAO had waited until after the first outburst, and that MacNamara had allowed the tensions to bubble close to the boil-over point, before demanding order. It was, to Tommy's mind, almost as if MacNamara had expected the outburst.

He considered this most curious, but did not have the time to reflect further, as Walker Townsend immediately launched into another question.

"What you want. Lieutenant Scott, is for this tribunal, and for all the men gathered here listening to you, what you want all of us to believe is that on the night of Captain Bedford's death, at some point after you went out to the corridor, and were seen skulking around in the dark, that you returned to your bunk and did not notice that some unknown person had removed your flight jacket and boots from their customary locations, and had stolen this sword you constructed from your kit, taken these items and utilized them in the murder of Captain Bedford and then returned them to your room, and that subsequently you did not observe the blood staining them?

This is what you want us all to believe, is it not, lieutenant?"

Scott paused, then responded firmly.

"Yes. Precisely."

"Lies!" shouted out a voice from the back, ignoring MacNamara's warning.

"Let him talk!" came the almost instant reply.

The SAO reached for the gavel again, but a grudging silence crept back into the courtroom.

"You don't think that's far-fetched, lieutenant?"

"I don't know, captain. I have not now, nor have I ever committed a murder! So I have no experience. You, sir, on the other hand, have prosecuted numerous murder cases. Perhaps you should provide us with the answer. Have none of the cases you've prosecuted ever been unusual? Surprising?

Have events never been mysterious and answers hard to come by? You're far more expert than I, captain, so perhaps you should be answering these questions."

"It's not my job to answer questions here, lieutenant!"

Townsend replied, anger creeping into his own voice for perhaps the first time.

"You're on the witness stand."

"Well, captain," Scott responded coldly, infuriatingly, and Tommy thought, nearly perfectly, "it is my belief that that is what we are put on this earth to do. Answer questions. Every time any one of us stepped up into a plane to go into battle, we were answering a question. Every time we face the real enemies in our lives, whether they are Germans or southern cracker racists, we are answering questions. That's pretty much all that life is, captain. But maybe here, in the bag, stuck behind the wire, you've forgotten all that.

Well, I, for damn certain, haven't!"

Townsend paused again. He shook his head slowly back and forth, and then started to walk back toward the prosecution's table. He was halfway there, when he stopped, and looked up at Scott, as if something had just occurred to him, a question that was more an afterthought.

Tommy instantly recognized this for what it was, which was a trap, but there was nothing he could do. He hoped that Scott would see through the histrionics, as well.

"Ah, lieutenant, just one final inquiry, then, if you don't mind."

Tommy abruptly reached out and pushed one of his law books to the floor, where it fell with a thudding sound that distracted Scott and

Townsend.

"Sorry," Tommy said, reaching down and making as much disturbance collecting the law book as he could possibly manage.

"Didn't mean to interrupt you, captain. Please continue."

Townsend glared, then repeated, "One more question, then…"

Lincoln Scott's eyes caught Tommy's for a split second as he read the warning in Tommy's small accident, then he nodded toward the prosecutor.

"What would that be, captain?"

"Would you be willing to lie to save your own life?"

Tommy pushed back, rising from his seat, but Colonel MacNamara had anticipated the objection, and he waved his hand sharply in front of himself, making a slicing motion to cut Tommy off.

"The defendant shall answer the question," he said swiftly. Tommy grimaced, and felt his insides constrict.

He thought this the worst question, an old-fashioned trick of the prosecutor's trade, one Townsend could never get away with in a real court, but there, inside the shadow trial of Stalag Luft Thirteen, it was allowed in ultimate unfairness.

There was no way to answer the question. Tommy knew. If Scott said yes he made everything else he'd said appear to be a lie. If Scott said no, then every kriegie in the audience, every man who'd felt the cold breath of death on their neck and knew they were wildly lucky to still be alive, would believe that he was lying right then, because it was worth anything to stay alive.

Tommy locked eyes for a moment with Lincoln Scott, and he thought the black flier saw the same danger. It was like passing between the twin terrors of Scylla and Charybdis.

One couldn't extract oneself without suffering a loss.

"I don't know," Scott replied slowly but firmly.

"I do know that I've told the truth here today."