"So you say," Townsend said with a snort and a shake of his head.

"That's right," Scott boomed.

"So I say!"

"Then," Townsend said, trying successfully to infect his words with a deadly combination of frustration and utter disbelief, "I have nothing else at this time for this witness." He resumed his seat.

Colonel MacNamara eyed Tommy.

"Do you wish to redirect, counselor?" he asked.

Tommy thought for a moment, then shook his head.

"No sir."

The SAO glanced down at Lincoln Scott.

"You are dismissed, then, lieutenant."

Scott rose, pivoted, and saluted the tribunal sharply, then, shoulders straight, marched back to his seat.

"Anything else, Mr. Hart?" MacNamara asked.

"The defense rests, colonel," Tommy said loudly.

"All right, then," MacNamara said.

"We will reconvene this afternoon for final arguments from both sides.

Gentlemen, these should be brief and to the point!" He banged his gavel down hard.

"Dismissed!" MacNamara said.

There was a rustling as men started to rise, and in that moment of confusion, a voice rang out: "Let's shoot him now!"

Only to be met by a second voice, equally outraged, crying, "You southern bastards!" Immediately there was a tangle of men, pushing, shoving, their voices all blending together in a cacophony of angers and opinions. Tommy could see kriegies restraining kriegies, and men looking to take a swing at each other. He wasn't sure how the camp divided on the question of Lincoln Scott's guilt or innocence, only that it was filling the men with tension.

MacNamara banged away. In a second, silence slipped over the angry men.

"I said "Dismissed!" MacNamara bellowed.

"And that's what I meant!" He eyed the tangled crowd of kriegies furiously, waiting in the edgy silence in the theater for a moment, then rising, and striding purposefully, he moved from behind the tribunal's table and stepped through the mass of men, eyeing each carefully, in that way he had which made it seem as if he were taking names and putting them to faces. Behind him, there was some grumbling, and a few more sharp words, but these faded as the men slowly began to file out of the courtroom, out into the sunshine of midday.

Alone with his thoughts and troubles. Tommy walked the deadline. He knew he should have been back inside the barracks room, pencil and paper in hand, scribbling down the words he would use that afternoon to try to save Lincoln Scott's life, but the wildly tossing seas within his own heart had driven him out into the liar's sun, and he marched along, his pace dictated by the sums and subtractions he was making within himself. He could feel the warmth on his neck, and knew it to be dishonest, for the weather would change again, and gray rain would overcome the camp soon enough.

The other kriegies out in the assembly yards, or walking the same route as Tommy, gave him a wide berth. No one stopped, not to curse him out or to wish him luck or even to admire the afternoon that surrounded them as tenaciously as did the barbed wire. Tommy walked in solitude.

A man who lives a lie… Tommy considered Scott's words describing

Vincent Bedford. He understood one thing about the murdered man: There had never been a bargain that Trader Vic struck where he did not come out ahead, except for the last, and that was the one that had cost him his life.

High price, Tommy thought with a cynical fervor. If Trader Vic had cheated someone on a deal, would that have been enough reason to kill him? Tommy walked on, asking himself: What did Vic deal in? And then he provided the answer: Vic dealt in food and chocolate and warm clothes, cigarettes and coffee and occasionally in an illegal radio and maybe a camera. What else?

Tommy almost stopped. Trader Vic dealt in information.

Tommy glanced over at the woods. He was passing behind the rear of Hut

105, near the slightly hidden spot that he believed was the actual murder location. Killed and then moved. He measured the distance to the wire from the rear of the hut, then looked farther, into the trees.

For a moment, he reeled under the pressures of the moment.

He thought of Visser and men moving around late at night and men threatening Scott against orders and all the evidence that pointed one way abruptly disappearing, and Phillip Pryce being summarily removed from the scene.

Everything came pouring at him, and he felt as if he were standing up in the face of a strong ocean wind, one that slung froth off the tops of wildly tossing whitecaps, and turned the water to a deep, murky gray color, promising a great storm that was moving steadily on the horizon.

He shook his head, and berated himself: You have spent too much time staring at the currents at your feet, instead of looking to the distance. He believed that this was the sort of observation Phillip Pryce would have made. But again, he felt trapped by all the events.

In his reverie, he heard his name being called, and for a moment, it seemed to him almost as if it were Lydia, calling him from the front yard, urging him to come out from indoors, because there was a scent of Vermont spring in the air, and it would be criminal not to snatch at it. But as he pivoted about, he saw that it was Hugh Renaday calling his name.

Scott stood nearby, and was gesturing toward him. Tommy glanced down at the watch he wore and saw that it was closing on the time for the final arguments to begin.

Even Tommy was forced to concede that Walker Townsend was eloquent and persuasive. He spoke in a low-key, almost hypnotic tone, steady, determined, the slight southern lilt in his voice giving his words an illusory credence. He pointed out that of all the elements of the crime, the only one truly denied by Lincoln Scott was the actual murder. He seemed to take delight in pointing out that the black airman had admitted to virtually everything else that constituted the killing.

As the entire camp, jammed into every inch of space in the theater, listened to Townsend's words, it seemed to Tommy that innocence was slowly, but certainly, being stripped away from Lincoln Scott. In his own quiet yet sturdy manner. Captain Townsend made it clear that there was only one suspect in the case, and only one man to be assigned guilt.

He called Tommy's efforts mere smoke screens, designed to deflect attention from Scott. He argued that the limited forensic capabilities within the camp made it all the more critical that the circumstantial evidence be given even more weight. He had nothing but contempt for Visser's testimony, though he was careful not to examine what the German had said, but instead to emphasize how he'd said it, which, Tommy recognized, was the best way of diminishing it.

And finally, in what Tommy was forced to swallow bitterly when he saw its brilliance. Walker Townsend suggested that he did not truly blame Lincoln Scott for killing Trader Vic.

The captain from Virginia had lifted his own voice, making certain that not only the tribunal but every kriegie craning to hear actually did hear.

"Who among us. Your Honors, would really have behaved differently?

Captain Bedford did much to bring his own death upon himself. He underestimated Lieutenant Scott from the outset," Townsend said, firmly.

"He did this because he was, as we have heard here, a racist. And he thought, in the cowardly way that racists have, that his target would not fight back. Well, sirs, we have all seen, if nothing else, that

Lincoln Scott is a fighter. He has told us himself how the odds did not affect him when he went into battle. And so, he took on Vincent Bedford, just as he took on those FWs arrayed against him. That death ensued is understandable. But, gentlemen, just because we can now understand the causes of his actions, that does not make him less accountable, nor does it make them any less despicable! In a way. Your Honors, this is the simplest of situations: Trader Vic got what he deserved for the way he behaved. And now, we must hold Lieutenant Scott to no less a standard! He found Vincent Bedford guilty and executed him! Now we, as civilized, democratic, and free men, must do the same!"