"You find out something helpful?"

Tommy whispered his reply "Maybe. I found out something.

But I'm not sure how it helps."

Scott leaned back.

"Great," he muttered under his breath.

He picked up the stub of a pencil from the rough table and tapped it against the wooden surface. Scott fixed his eyes on the morning's first witness, another officer from Hut 101, who was being sworn in by MacNamara.

Tommy checked his notes. This was one of the witnesses who saw Scott in the hut's central corridor on the night of the murder. He knew what was coming was the worst sort of testimony.

An officer with no particular connection to either Scott or Trader Vic, who would tell the court that he saw the black airman outside his bunk room, maneuvering through the darkness with the aid of a single candle.

What the witness would describe were all actions that any man might have performed.

Taken independently, they were benign. But in the context of that murderous night, they were damning.

Tommy inhaled deeply. He had no idea how to assault this testimony.

Mostly, because it was true. He knew that within a few moments, the prosecution would have painted an important brush stroke of their case-that on the night of Trader Vic's death, Lincoln Scott was out and about, not pathetically shivering in his bunk beneath a thin, gray German-issue blanket, dreaming of home, food, and freedom like almost all the captive men in the South Compound.

He bit his lower lip, as Captain Townsend slowly began to question the witness. In that second, he thought the trial a bit like standing in the sand on the beach, just where the froth of the surf plays out, right at the point where the nearly spent force of the wave can still pull and tug at the sand, making everything unstable and unsteady beneath the feet. The prosecution's case was like the undertow, slowly dragging everything solid away, and right at that moment, he had no real idea how to put Lincoln Scott back on firm earth.

Shortly after midday, Walker Townsend called Major Clark to the witness stand. He was the final name on the prosecution's list of witnesses and, Tommy suspected, would be the most dramatic. For all of Clark's blustery anger. Tommy still suspected him of having a streak of composure that would emerge on the stand. It would be the same sort of composure that had allowed the major to steer his crippled, burning B-17, with only a single engine functioning, to a safe landing in a farmer's field in the Alsace, saving the lives of most of his crew.

When his name was called out by the Virginian, Major Clark rose swiftly from his seat at the prosecution's table.

Back ramrod straight, he crossed the theater quickly, seizing the Bible that was proffered and swearing loudly to tell the truth. He then sat in the witness chair, eagerly awaiting Townsend's first question.

Tommy watched the major closely. There are some men, he thought, who managed to wear their imprisonment with a rigid, military sense of decorum; Clark's uniform was worn, patched, and tattered in numerous places after eighteen months at Stalag Luft Thirteen, but the way it draped on his bantamweight frame made it seem as if it were newly cleaned and pressed. Major Clark was a small man, with a hard face, humorless and stiff, and there was little doubt in Tommy's mind that he was a man who had narrowed his course through the world down into the twin requirements of duty and bravery.

He would acquire the one and perform the other with a complete singleness of purpose.

"Major Clark," Captain Townsend asked, "tell the court how it was that you came to this prisoner-of-war camp?"

The major bent forward, ready to begin his explanation, just as every other kriegie witness had, when Tommy arose.

"Objection!" he said.

Colonel MacNamara eyed him.

"And what might that be?" he inquired cynically.

"Major Clark is a member of the prosecution. I would think that fact alone would preclude him from testifying in this matter, colonel."

MacNamara shook his head.

"Probably back home, yes.

But here, due to the exigencies and uniqueness of our situation, I will allow both sides some latitude in who they call to the stand. Major

Clark's role in the case was more akin to investigating officer.

Objection is overruled."

"Then I have a second objection, colonel."

MacNamara looked slightly exasperated.

"And that would be what, lieutenant?"

"I would object to Major Clark describing the history of his arrival here. Major Clark's courage on the battlefield is not at issue. The only point it serves is to create an exaggerated sense of credibility for the major. But, as the colonel is well aware, brave men are capable of lying, just as easily as cowards are, sir."

MacNamara glared at Tommy. Major Clark's face was set and hard. Tommy knew the major would take what he had just said as an insult, which was precisely what he had intended.

The colonel took a deep breath before replying.

"Do not reach beyond your grasp, lieutenant. Objection remains overruled. Captain, please continue."

Walker Townsend smiled briefly.

"I would think that the tribunal might censure the lieutenant, sir, for impugning the integrity of a brother officer…"

"Just continue, captain," MacNamara growled.

Townsend nodded, and turned back to Major Clark.

"Tell us, please, major, how you happened to arrive here."

Tommy sat back, listening closely, as Major Clark described the bombing raid that resulted in his plane crash-landing. Clark was neither boasting nor modest. What he was, was accurate, disciplined, and precise. At one point, he declined to describe the B-17's ability to maneuver on one engine, because, he said, that information was technical and might serve the enemy. He said this and gestured toward Heinrich Visser. One thing did emerge that Tommy found intriguing, if not critical. It turned out that Visser was the major's first interrogator, before being released into the camp. Visser had been the man asking questions that Clark refused to answer, questions about the capabilities of the aircraft and strategies of the air corps. These had been standard questions, and all fliers knew to answer solely with their name, rank, and serial number. They also knew that the men who demanded these answers were security police, regardless of how they identified themselves. But what Tommy found interesting was that Clark, and therefore the other high-ranking members of the American camp, were well aware of Visser's dual allegiances.

Tommy snuck a glance at the one-armed German. Visser was listening intently to Major Clark.

"So, major," Walker Townsend suddenly boomed, "did there come a time when, as part of your official duties, you were called to investigate the murder of Captain Vincent Bedford?"

Tommy swung his eyes over to the witness. Here it comes, he thought to himself.

"Yes. Correct."

"Tell us how that came about."

For a moment. Major Clark turned toward the defense table, fixing

Tommy, then Lincoln Scott, with a harsh, unforgiving glare. Then, slowly, he launched into his story, lifting his voice, so that it coursed past Captain Townsend, and reached out to every kriegie in the audience, and all those hanging by the windows and doors, Clark described being awakened in the predawn hours by the ferret's alarm-he did not identify Fritz Number One as the ferret who discovered the body-and how he had carefully entered the Abort and first seen Vincent

Bedford's corpse. He told the assembly that the very first and only suspect had been Lincoln Scott, based on the prior bad blood, animosity, and fights between the two men. He also told how he had spotted the telltale crimson blood spatters on the toes of Scott's flight boots and on the left-hand shoulder and sleeve of his leather jacket, when the black airman had been confronted in Commandant Von Reiter's office. The other elements of the case, Clark said, fell into place rapidly. Trader Vic's roommates had told of Scott's construction of the murder weapon, and informed him about the hiding place beneath the floorboards where it had been concealed.