C larence Potter took his place in the Yankee courtroom. The Yankee kangaroo courtroom, he feared it was. The judges had let his lawyer question witnesses and even bring in Irving Morrell, but how much difference would any of that make? He'd superbombed the town where they were trying him. Evidence? Who gave a damn about evidence? If they felt like convicting him, they bloody well would.

He nodded to Major Stachiewicz, who'd defended him. "You did what you could. I appreciate it."

"I didn't do it for you, exactly. I did it for duty," the damnyankee said.

"I understand that. I don't want to marry you, either. But you made an honest effort, and I want you to know I know it," Potter said.

"All rise!" said the warrant officer who doubled as bailiff and recording secretary.

Everyone in the courtroom got to his feet as the judges came in. As soon as the judges sat down, Brigadier General Stephens said, "Be seated." Potter sat. He didn't want to let the enemy know he was nervous. In the rows of seats in the spectators' gallery behind him, reporters poised pens above notebooks.

Verdict day today.

The chief judge fixed him with an unfriendly stare. "The defendant will please rise."

"Yes, Your honor." Potter stood at attention.

"Without a doubt, General Potter, you caused greater loss of life than any man before you in the history of the North American continent," General Stephens said. That was cleverly phrased. It ignored the hell the USA's German allies unleashed on Petrograd earlier, and it also ignored the hell the United States visited on Newport News and Charleston. All the same, it remained technically true.

"Also without a doubt," Stephens continued, "you were able to do what you did thanks to a ruse of war, one frowned on by the Geneva Convention. Carrying on the fight in the uniform of the foe skates close to the edge of the laws of war."

He looked as if his stomach pained him. "However…" He paused to pour himself a glass of water and sip from it, as if to wash the taste of the word from his mouth. Then he had to say it again: "However…" Another long pause. "It has also been demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that U.S. forces utilized the identical ruse of war. Executing a man on the other side for something we also did ourselves strikes the court as unjust, however much we might wish it did not. This being so, we find you not guilty of violating the laws of war in bringing your superbomb to Philadelphia."

Hubbub in the courtroom as reporters exclaimed. Some rushed out to file their stories. No one paid any attention to the chief judge's gavel. Through the chaos, Potter said, "May I tell you something, sir?"

"Go ahead." No, Brigadier General Stephens was not a happy man. And, over at the prosecutor's table, Lieutenant Colonel Altrock looked as if he'd just found half a worm in his apple.

"I want to thank the court for its integrity, General," Potter said. "I have to say, I didn't expect it." Not from Yankees was in his mind if not on his tongue.

Stephens had to know it was there, too. His mouth twisted. "Your enemies are men like you, General," he said. "That, I believe, is the principal meaning of this verdict."

Potter inclined his head. "The point is well taken, sir."

"Happy day," Stephens said bleakly. "Please understand: we don't approve of you even if we don't convict you. You will be under surveillance for the rest of your life. If you show even the slightest inclination toward trouble, it will be your last mistake. Do I make myself clear?"

"Abundantly." Clarence Potter might have complained that he was being singled out for discriminatory treatment. He might have-but he wasn't that kind of fool, anyhow.

"Very well. I gather the men who debriefed you have now finished?"

"Yes, sir," Potter said. "They have squeezed me flatter than a snake in a rolling mill." He'd told them everything about his trip up from Lexington to Philadelphia. Why not? Come what might, he wouldn't do that again. He'd told them a lot about Confederate intelligence operations, too, but not everything. They thought he'd told them more than he really had. If they wanted to ferret out C.S. operatives up here, though, he thought they'd need more than he'd given them.

The U.S. brigadier general didn't laugh, or even smile. "You may collect the balance of the pay owed you as an officer POW under the Geneva Convention. And then you may…go." He drank more water.

Go where? Potter wondered. Nothing left of Charleston, not any more. And not much left of Richmond, either. Not much left of the CSA, come to that. He was a man without a country. Turning him loose might have been the cruelest thing the USA could do. All the same, he preferred it to getting his neck stretched.

"May I ask a favor of the court, sir, before I return to civilian life?" he said.

"What sort of favor?" If you needed a dictionary illustration for suspicious, General Stephens' face would have filled the bill.

"May I beg for a civilian suit of clothes? This uniform"-Potter touched a butternut sleeve with his other hand-"is less than popular in your country right now."

"There are good and cogent reasons why that should be so, too," the chief judge said. But he nodded a moment later; he was at bottom a fair-minded man. "I admit your request is reasonable. You will have one. If, however, you had asked for a U.S. uniform in place of your own, I would have refused you. You've already done too much damage in our clothing."

"My country is no longer at war with yours, General." My country no longer exists. "While our countries were at peace, I lived peacefully"-enough-"in mine. I intend to do the same again."

The suit they gave him didn't fit especially well. The wide-brimmed fedora that went with it might have looked good on a twenty-five-year-old…pimp. The kindest thing he could say about the gaudy tie was that he never would have bought it himself. He knotted it without a murmur now. The less he looked like his usual self, the better he judged his chances of getting out of Philadelphia in one piece.

Green banknotes-no, they were bills up here-filled his leatherette wallet. He wondered what the economy was like down in the ruins of the CSA. Would inflation run mad, the way it had after the Great War? Or were the Yankees ramming their currency down the Confederacy's throat this time? Either way, a wallet stuffed with greenbacks looked like good insurance.

They even gave him a train ticket to Richmond. That settled where he would go, at least for the time being. If he didn't have to pay for the ticket, he could hang on to some more of his POW pay.

That seemed a good thing, because he had no idea how to make more money. All his adult life, he'd been either a soldier-and the bottom had been blown out of the market for Confederate soldiers-or a private investigator-and he was, at the moment, one of the least private men on the continent.

His chuckle was sour, but not sour enough to suit one of the U.S. MPs keeping an eye on him. "What's so damn funny?" the Yankee asked.

"I may be reduced to writing my memoirs," Potter answered, "and that's the kind of thing you do after you don't expect to do anything else."

The MP's glance was anything but sympathetic. "You want to know what I think, Mac, you already did too goddamn much."

"That only shows I was doing my job."

"Yeah, well, if I was doing my job…" The U.S. sergeant swung his submachine gun toward Potter, but only for a moment. Discipline held. A good thing, too, Potter thought.

They hustled him out of the courthouse through a back door. A crowd of reporters gathered at the front of the building. None of them paid any attention to the aging man in tasteless clothes who went by in the back seat of a Ford.