"Why, Tommy, I thought y'all were just collecting some firewood for the cooking stove, that's all…" Townsend said brightly, interrupting the colonel, but not receiving a rebuke.

"I had no idea it had something to do with our case."

Tommy pivoted toward Townsend.

"The hell you did!" he said.

"You followed me over there and observed me prying that board from the wall. You knew exactly what I was doing. And you were equally concerned that Visser saw the same…"

"Keep your voice down, lieutenant!" Clark interjected.

Townsend continued to shake his head.

"Nothing of the sort," he said.

Tommy turned to Colonel MacNamara.

"Sir, I object-" Again the colonel cut him off.

"Your objection is noted, lieutenant. But…" he paused, eyeing Scott for a moment, before turning his gaze on Tommy, and then speaking with a solidity that seemed to even stop the cold wind, "it is my decision that the matter of this bloodstained board is now closed.

If it did exist, then it was probably understandably mistaken for firewood and innocently burned by some third party genuinely unaware of its significance. That is, if it actually did exist, of which there remains absolutely no concrete proof in the slightest. Mr. Hart, you may still argue what you wish at trial. But there will be no mention of this alleged evidence without some independent corroboration. And we will hear any claims you might make about it and what it might show in private, out of the sight of the Germans! Do I make myself clear?"

"Colonel MacNamara, this is wrong and unfair. I protest-" "Your protest is also noted, lieutenant."

Scott was seething, instantly brought to a boil over by the summary dismissal of their claims. He stepped forward, his fists clenched at his side, jaw stuck outward, about to vent his fury, only to be met with a withering stare from the commanding officer.

"Lieutenant Scott," MacNamara whispered coldly, "keep your mouth shut.

That's a direct order. Your counselor has spoken on your behalf, and further debate will only worsen your situation."

One of Scott's eyebrows shot upward in angry inquisition.

"Worsen?" he asked softly, controlling his rage with internal ropes and hawsers, padlocks and chains.

The single-word question fell into a silence surrounding the men. No one took up a response.

MacNamara continued to freeze the three members of the defense with his steady glare. He allowed the quiet to continue for a few seconds, then he slowly lifted his hand to the edge of his cap, deliberately, the pace displaying his own knotted angers.

"You are all dismissed until zero eight hundred"-he looked down at his watch-"which is fifty-nine minutes from now."

Then MacNamara and Clark turned and headed inside the hut. Townsend, too, started to leave, but Tommy shot out his right arm and seized the captain by the sleeve.

Walker Townsend pivoted like a sailboat coming about under a stiff breeze, and faced Tommy, who had but one word for him, before releasing him: "Liar!" Tommy whispered into the Virginian's face.

The captain half-opened his mouth to respond, then thought better of it. He spun about and marched off swiftly, leaving the three members of the defense alone at the side of the hut.

Scott watched the captain walk away, then he took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall of Hut 122. He reached inside his flight jacket slowly, removing a half-eaten bar of chocolate. He broke off three small chunks, handing one each to Tommy and Hugh, before popping the smallest of the three into his own mouth. For a moment, the trio stepped out of the wind, against the building, letting the richness of the Hershey's bar melt in their mouths, awakening their taste buds.

Tommy allowed the chocolate to turn to mush on his tongue before swallowing.

"Thanks," he said.

Scott grinned.

"Well, that was such a bitter little meeting, I figured we all needed something to sweeten up our existences, and the chocolate was all I currently had available."

The three men all laughed at the joke.

"I would hazard a guess, lads," Renaday said, "that perhaps we should not be expecting too many rulings heading our direction during the upcoming proceedings."

Scott shook his head.

"Nah," he said.

"But he'll still throw us some bones, won't he. Hart? Not the important bones. The ones with meat on them. But some of the smaller ones will still come our way. He wants it to look fair. What did I say before?

A lynching. But a fair one."

Scott sighed.

"Hell," he said, "that was funny. Well, maybe not outright funny, but amusing. Except that it's happening to me." He shook his head.

Tommy nodded.

"Learned something, though. Something I hadn't really thought of. You didn't see it, Scott?"

The black airman swallowed and looked quizzically at Tommy for a moment.

"Keep talking, counselor," he said.

"What was there to see?"

"MacNamara was real concerned about how things play out in front of the Germans, wasn't he? I mean, here we are, stuck over here out of sight of everybody in the camp just about, and he's talking about not letting the Krauts see anything.

Especially something that might suggest that Trader Vic was killed someplace other than that Abort. Now I find that sort of interesting, because, if you think about it, what they really want to show the damn Nazis is how damn bend-over-backwards fair we are in our trials. Not the exact opposite."

"In other words," Scott said slowly, "you think this railroad is part show?"

"Yeah. But it should be show in the opposite direction.

That is to say, a railroad that doesn't look like a railroad."

"Well, even if it is, what good does that do me?"

Tommy paused.

"That's the twenty-five-cent question, isn't it?"

Scott nodded. For a moment he seemed deep in thought.

"I think we learned something else, too. But of course, there's not enough time to do anything about it," the black flier added.

"What's that?" Renaday asked.

Scott looked up into the sky.

"You know what I hate about this damn weather?" he asked rhetorically.

He answered his own question immediately.

"It's that one minute the sun comes out, you can take off your shirt and feel the warmth and you think that maybe there's some hope, and then you wake up the next day and it seems like winter's back and there's nothing but storms and cold winds on the horizon." He sighed, took out the candy bar, and once again broke off a piece for each of them.

"I might not be needing this much longer," he said. Then he twisted toward Hugh.

"What I learned from this little get-together," he said slowly, "is what we should have assumed from the start. That the chief prosecutor is willing to lie about what he saw right in front of the commanding officer. What we should be wondering about is what other lie he's got planned."

This observation caught Tommy by surprise, though upon an instant's reflection, he believed that it was absolutely accurate.

He warned himself: There's a lie somewhere. He just didn't know where it was. But that didn't mean he shouldn't be ready for it.

Tommy glanced down at his watch.

"We'd better get a move on," he said.

"Wouldn't want to be late," Scott said.

"Though I'm not sure that showing up is such a really great idea, either."

Hugh smiled and waved at the nearest guard tower. Two cold goons were huddled in the center, trapped by the wind.

"You know what we should do, Tommy? Wait until everybody's gathered at the trial and then just walk out the front gate like those Brits tried.

Maybe nobody'd notice."

Scott laughed.

"We probably wouldn't get too far. I have my doubts that there are a whole lot of Negroes walking around Germany right at this moment. I don't think we're to be included in the great Nazi master plan. Which might make it a little tricky for me to be out and about in the countryside, escaping."