U.S. train stations didn't work exactly the same way as their C.S. equivalents did, but they were pretty close. Potter found the right platform at the Broad Street station and waited for the train to come in.

Some of the men on it turned out to be released Confederate POWs. Some looked like Yankee hotshots on their way down to the CSA to see what they could make by picking the corpse's bones. Some just looked like…people. Potter wondered what they thought of him. In his present getup, he thought he looked pretty shady.

He got to Richmond late in the afternoon. A U.S. first lieutenant stood on the platform holding a sign with his name on it. He thought of walking by, but why give the United States excuses to land him in trouble? "I'm Clarence Potter," he said.

"My name is Constantine Palaiologos," the U.S. officer said. "Call me Costa-everybody does." His rueful smile probably told of lots of childhood teasing. "Since I got word you'd be coming here, I found an apartment for you."

"How…efficient," Potter murmured.

Lieutenant Palaiologos didn't even try to misunderstand him. "We do intend to keep an eye on you," he said. "The building wasn't badly damaged during the war, and it's been repaired since. It's better than a lot of people here are living."

"Thanks…I suppose," Potter said.

He smelled death in the air as the lieutenant drove him through the battered streets. He'd smelled it in Philadelphia, too; it was part of the aftermath of war. It was stronger here, not surprisingly. People looked shabbier than they did in the USA. They walked with slumped shoulders and downcast eyes-they knew they were beaten, all right. For the first time since the early days of the Lincoln administration, the Stars and Stripes flew all over the city, not just above the U.S. embassy.

The apartment building didn't look too bad. Some of its neighbors still showed bomb damage, but it even had glass in the windows again. Freshly painted spots of plaster probably repaired bullet holes, but there weren't a whole lot of buildings in Richmond that a bullet or two hadn't hit.

"So-is this where you keep all the old sweats?" Potter asked.

"No, General," Palaiologos answered seriously. "We try to separate you people as much as we can. The further apart you are, the less you'll sit around plotting and making trouble."

In the USA's shoes, Potter probably would have arranged things the same way. He let the young lieutenant show him his new digs. It was…a furnished apartment. He could stand living here. Once he got a wireless and a phonograph and some books, it might not even be too bad.

"Did I see a stationery store around the corner?" he asked.

"I think so," Lieutenant Palaiologos said.

"As long as you've got a motorcar, will you take me over there and run me back?"

"All right." Palaiologos spoke without enthusiasm, but he didn't say no.

Potter bought a secondhand typewriter, a spare ribbon, and two reams of paper not much better than foolscap. He got the U.S. officer to lug the typewriter up to the flat, which was on the second floor.

"I said I might write my memoirs," Potter told him after he put it on the kitchen table. "I may as well. Maybe the book'll make me enough money to live on." Palaiologos' grunt was nothing if not skeptical (and weary-the typewriter weighed a ton). Potter didn't care. He ran a sheet of paper into the machine. HOW I BLEW UP PHILADELPHIA, he typed in all caps. By Clarence Potter, Brigadier General, CSA (retired). He took out the title page and put in another sheet. I first met Jake Featherston late in 1915…

O ne more Election Day in New York City. One more trip to Socialist Party headquarters over the butcher's shop. One more tray of cold cuts from the Democrat downstairs.

Flora Blackford put corned beef and pickles on a bagel. "One more term, Flora," Maria Tresca said.

"Alevai." Flora knocked wood. One reason she kept getting reelected was that she never took anything for granted. She wasn't too worried this time around, not for herself. She hadn't been worried about the national ticket, either, not till the past couple of weeks. Now…"I hope Charlie La Follette does what he ought to."

On paper, the President of the USA had the world on a string. The war was over. He'd been at the helm when his country won it. The United States bestrode North America like a colossus: the Stars and Stripes flew from Baffin Island to below the Rio Grande. Surely people would be grateful for that…wouldn't they?

Not if they listened to the Democrats, they wouldn't. Tom Dewey and his running mate were saying the war was all the Socialists' fault in the first place. If Al Smith hadn't given Jake Featherston his plebiscite, the Confederate States wouldn't have got Kentucky and the state of Houston back. How could they have gone to war without Kentucky?

Nobody now seemed to remember there'd been guerrilla war in Kentucky and Houston and Sequoyah before the plebiscite. Flora agreed that Al Smith might have chosen better. But what he did choose wasn't halfway between idiocy and treason, no matter how the Democrats made it sound.

They were saying they could have fought the war better, too. And they were saying the United States went into it unprepared because the Socialists spent years gutting War Department budgets. Those budgets hadn't been exactly luxurious when Democrat Herbert Hoover ran things, either. Because of the economic collapse, nobody'd had much money to spend on guns…nobody but Jake Featherston.

The Democrats blamed the collapse on the Socialists, too. More to the point, they blamed it on Hosea Blackford. That made Flora see red. Yes, her husband was President when it happened. That didn't make it his fault. Except, in too many people's minds, it did. Hosea was a one-term President.

Herman Bruck looked at his watch. Every two years, he seemed a little plumper, a little grayer. Oh, and I haven't changed at all, Flora thought. That would have been nice if only it were true.

"Seven o'clock," Herman said ceremoniously. "The polls are closed." He turned on a wireless set.

None of the results from the East Coast would mean anything for a while. That wouldn't stop the broadcasters from reporting them and pontificating over them. It wouldn't stop inexperienced people from flabbling over them if they were bad or from celebrating too soon if they were good.

"Dewey jumps out to an early lead in Vermont!" a reporter said breathlessly. Flora had to fight the giggles. Of course Dewey led in Vermont. The sky would have to fall for him to do anything else. Vermont had been a rock-ribbed Democratic stronghold for years.

"Do you think we can hold New York?" Maria asked. That was a more important question. New York had a ton of electoral votes. It went Socialist more often than not, but Dewey the Democrat was a popular governor. How many people would vote for him for President because of that? Enough to swing the state?

"I hope so," Flora said. She didn't know what she could say past that. Polls called the race close, but she didn't have much faith in them. Pollsters had proved spectacularly wrong before.

Maine held its elections early, and had already gone for Dewey. A moment later, New Hampshire also fell into his column. Again, none of that was too surprising; only in landslide years did upper New England fall out of the Democratic camp.

But when early returns showed Dewey with a substantial lead in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Flora began to worry. Both states were in play in most elections. Herman Bruck said, "All depends on where the returns are coming from," which put the best possible face on things. He wasn't wrong, but they shouldn't have needed to fret so soon.

New Jersey seemed to be going Socialist, and by a solid majority. That made Flora breathe a little easier, anyhow. Any year the Socialists lost New Jersey would probably not be a year where they held on to the Presidency.