He heard a ferret close by, grunting out numbers.

He opened his eyes and saw that they had nearly completed the count. He looked across the yard and, almost as if on cue, saw Oberst Von Reiter, accompanied by Hauptmann Heinrich Visser, emerging from the office building and making their way past the cordon of saluting camp guards through the front gate toward the assembled fliers. As always, Von Reiter was dressed with rigid precision, each crease of his immaculately tailored uniform slicing the air, and Tommy imagined that as he strode forward they made the same whistling sound as a sabre slashing the wind did. Visser, on the other hand, appeared slightly less neat, a little crumpled, almost as if he'd slept in his uniform the night before. The empty sleeve of his greatcoat was pinned together but still napped as he kept pace with the taller camp commandant.

Tommy watched the Hauptmann's eyes, and saw that as he approached, they were sweeping across the rows of kriegies, taking in and measuring the men as they came to attention.

He had the sensation that Visser looked on them with some anger that he concealed carefully but not totally. Von Reiter, Tommy thought, even with all his military bearing and Prussian appearance, like a caricature from a propaganda poster, remained nothing more than a glorified jailer. But Visser, he was the enemy.

Colonel MacNamara and Major Clark stepped from the formations to confront the two German officers. There was a quick exchange of salutes and whispered conversation, then MacNamara turned, took a step forward, and loudly addressed the assembly.

"Gentlemen!" MacNamara shouted. Any residual noise among the kriegies ended instantly. The men craned forward to hear the commanding officer speak.

"You are by now all aware of the despicable murder of one of our number. It is now time to end all the rumors, scuttlebutt, and loose talk that has surrounded this unfortunate event!"

MacNamara paused, waiting until his eyes rested on Tommy Hart.

"Captain Vincent Bedford will be interred with military honors at noon today in the burial ground behind Hut 119.

Shortly after that point, the man accused of his murder, Lieutenant

Lincoln Scott, will be released from the cooler into the custody of his counsel, Lieutenant Thomas Hart of Hut 101.

Lieutenant Scott will be confined to his quarters in that hut at all times, unless engaged in legitimate inquiries in preparation of his defense."

MacNamara swung his eyes away from Tommy and back to the rows of men.

"No one is to threaten Lieutenant Scott! No one is to speak with

Lieutenant Scott unless they have pertinent information to impart! He is under arrest and is to be treated that way! Do I make myself clear?"

This question was answered without a sound.

"Good," MacNamara continued.

"Lieutenant Scott will appear before a military court-martial tribunal for a preliminary hearing within twenty-four hours. His trial on the accusations is scheduled for next week."

MacNamara hesitated, then added: "Until that tribunal reaches a conclusion. Lieutenant Scott is to be treated with courtesy, respect, and total silence! Despite your feelings and the evidence already collected he shall be presumed to be not guilty until a military court determines otherwise! Any violation of this order will be dealt with harshly!"

The colonel had drawn himself up, shoulders back, legs spread his hands clasped behind his back. The force of his command was like an ocean wave flooding over the kriegies.

There wasn't even a grumble from the back of the ranks of men Tommy exhaled slowly. He thought it would have been hard for the Senior American Officer to make a statement to the camp that was more prejudicial. Even the words not guilty were spoken in a tone designed to imply the precise opposite.

He wanted to step forward out of the lines and say something in defense of Lincoln Scott, but bit his lip, reined in an urge he knew would help no one and might actually harm his case, and remained silent.

MacNamara waited for an instant, then swung toward the German officers.

They saluted Von Reiter as always lifting his leather riding crop to the brim of his cap, then snapping it down to his polished boots with a cracking sound.

Major Clark marched to the front of the formation, moving like a middleweight closing in on an injured opponent hanging from the ropes.

He faced the airmen, and bellowed:

"Dismissed!"

In silence, the kriegies dispersed across the compound.

Fritz Number One was nowhere to be found, which surprised Tommy, but one of the other ferrets was aware of the order allowing him to travel to the British portion of the camp, and after Tommy had plied him with a pair of cigarettes in order to tear him away from what the ferret considered the absolutely essential duty of crawling around and poking through the muddy dirt under Hut 121, escorted him through the gate, past the offices and the shower block and the cooler, and up to the North Compound.

Hugh Renaday was waiting just inside the barbed wire, pacing aggressively as was his style, circling around within a small space, smoking continuously. He stopped and waved as Tommy hurried toward him.

"Eager to get to it, counselor. Come on, Phillip's as excited as a hound in heat. He's got some ideas…"

Hugh stopped, in the midst of the rush of words, staring at his friend.

"Tommy, you look terrible. What's wrong?"

"Does it show all that much?" Tommy replied.

"Pale and drawn, my friend. Couldn't you sleep?"

Tommy managed a smile.

"More like someone didn't want me to sleep. Come on, I'll fill you and Phillip in at the same time."

Hugh clamped his mouth shut, nodded, and the two men quick-marched through the compound. Tommy smiled inwardly as he recognized one of his friend's better qualities.

Not too many men, when their curiosity is pricked, are able to instantly silence themselves and start scrutinizing details. It is a quality that borders on the taciturn, perhaps an angle off the reflective. Tommy wondered whether Hugh was as quietly efficient with both his observations and his emotions in the cockpit of a bomber.

Probably, he thought.

Phillip Pryce was in the bunk room he shared with Renaday, monkishly hunched over a rough-hewn wooden desk, scribbling notes on a sheet of writing paper, gripping a small needle of pencil tightly in his long patrician fingers. He looked up and coughed once hard, as the two men entered the room. A cigarette stub was perched on the end of the table, burning, ashes littering the planks of the floor below. Pryce smiled, looked around himself for the smoke, picked it up, and waved it in the air like a philharmonic conductor directing the crescendo of a symphony.

"Many ideas, my dear boys, many ideas…" Then he looked at Tommy more closely, and said, "Ah, but I see that more has happened in the space of a few short hours. And what new information do you have for us, counselor?"

"A little middle-of-the-night visit from what I took to be the Stalag

Luft Thirteen vigilante committee, Phillip. Or perhaps the local chapter of the K-u Klux Klan."

"You were threatened?" Renaday asked.

"No. More like I was reminded…" Tommy launched into a brief description of being awakened by the hand on his mouth. He discovered that merely by telling his two friends what had happened, some of the echoes of anxiety within him fled. But he was also smart enough to understand that the sensation of wellbeing was as false as perhaps his fear was.

He more or less decided to maintain a certain degree of wariness, some position between the two extremes of fear and safety. "

"Just follow orders'… that's what they told me," he said.

"Bastards," Hugh blurted.

"Cowards. We should take this directly to the SAO and " Phillip Pryce held up his hand, shutting his roommate off mid-complaint.