"Thanks," Moss said. If he'd satisfied his client, his own conscience could stay reasonably clear. That was just as well, because he had no doubt in his own mind that Pinkard was guilty. If they didn't hang him, would they-could they-hang anybody?

"All rise!" the warrant officer who transcribed the proceedings intoned as the panel of judges entered the courtroom.

Moss stood and came to attention. Jeff Pinkard stood but didn't. He'd loudly denied that the court had any jurisdiction over him. That wouldn't endear him to the men who judged him. Everyone sat down again.

"We have reached a verdict in United States vs. Jefferson Davis Pinkard," the chief judge said.

Beside Moss, Pinkard stiffened. His jaw set. He might claim he was ready for the Army to convict him, but he wasn't, not down deep. Who could be? No one was ever ready to face his own death.

"The defendant will please rise," the chief judge said.

Pinkard did. This time, without being asked, he did come to attention. Maybe the solemnity of the moment pressed on him in spite of himself. He'd fought in the Great War. Nobody said he'd been anything but brave. Nobody said that about Jake Featherston, either. Bravery wasn't enough, not by itself. The cause for which you showed courage counted, too.

"Jefferson Davis Pinkard, we find you guilty of crimes against humanity," the chief judge said. Pinkard's shoulders sagged. The breath hissed out of him, as if he'd been punched in the gut. The officer pronouncing his fate continued, "We sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, at a date to be set by competent military authority. May God have mercy on your soul."

Jonathan Moss jumped to his feet. "Your Honor, I appeal this conviction and the sentence you've imposed."

"You have that privilege," the chief judge said. "Appeals will be heard by the Secretary of War and, no doubt, by the President of the United States. I do not believe the upcoming change in administrations will affect the process."

He was bound to be right. The outgoing Socialists wouldn't show mercy to someone like Jeff Pinkard. They were the ones who'd brought him to justice in the first place. And the Democrats had campaigned by saying, If we were running things, we would have been even tougher. Still, you had to go do everything you could.

"Do you have any statement for the record, Mr. Pinkard?" the chief judge asked.

"Damn right I do," Pinkard said-he had no quit in him. "You can hang me. You won, and you caught me, so you can. But that don't make it right. I was doing a job of work in my own country, following orders from the Attorney General of the CSA-"

"Ferdinand Koenig has also been sentenced to death, among other things for giving those orders," the chief judge broke in.

Jeff Pinkard shook his head. He was furious, not bewildered. "It's none of your goddamn business what we did. It wasn't your country, and they weren't your people."

"We made it our business," the chief judge replied. "We want people everywhere to get the message: doing things like this is wrong, and you will be punished for it. And besides, Mr. Pinkard, you know as well as I do-if you'd won the war, you would have started in on us next."

Pinkard didn't even waste time denying it. He just said, "Yeah, and you'd've had it coming, too. Fuck you all, assholes."

"Take him away," the chief judge said, and several burly soldiers did just that. With a weary sigh, the chief judge used the gavel. "This court is now adjourned."

Major Goodman came over to Moss. "You did everything you could, Colonel. You had a losing case and a losing client. He's a cold-blooded, hard-nosed son of a bitch, and he deserves everything he's going to get."

"Yeah, I know," Moss said. "You still have to try. He's got courage. I was just thinking that a minute ago."

"Courage is overrated. How many brave butternut bastards did we just have to kill?" the military prosecutor said. "You have to understand what you're fighting for. Otherwise, you're an animal-a brave animal, maybe, but an animal all the same."

"I won't argue with you. I feel the same way," Moss said.

"He can't complain he wasn't well represented," the chief judge said. "You did a fine job, Colonel. You did everything we let you do, and you would have done more if we'd left more in the rules."

"Not letting me do more will be part of the appeal," Moss said. "The question of jurisdiction still troubles me."

"You saw the evidence," the chief judge said. "Did you go to Camp Humble and see the crematoria and the barracks and the barbed wire? Did you go out to Snyder and take a look at the mass graves?"

"No, sir. I didn't want to prejudice myself against him any worse than I was already," Moss said.

"All right. I can understand that. It speaks well of you, as a matter of fact. But what are we supposed to do with him? Tell him not to be naughty again and turn him loose? I'd break every mirror in the house if we did."

"Well, so would I, when you put it that way," Moss said. "One of the reasons I don't feel worse about defending him is that I knew he wouldn't get off no matter what I did. Still, technically…"

The chief judge made a slashing motion with his right hand. "The law is about technicalities a lot of the time. Not here. We aren't about to let quibbles keep us from making Pinkard and Koenig and the rest pay for what they can. I hear we were going to shoot Featherston without trial if we caught him, but that got taken care of."

"Didn't it just?" Moss said. "That colored kid's got it made. He'll be a hero the rest of his life. Too damn bad all the other blacks had to pay such a price." He suspected one reason the United States were making so much of Cassius was to keep from noticing their own guilty conscience.

"What about you, Colonel?" the chief judge asked. "You're going through the motions with the appeal, and we both know it. What are you really going to do once this case winds down?"

"Looks like private practice," Moss answered without enthusiasm. "In wartime, the Army didn't mind using pilots with gray hair. I even got to fly a turbo in combat, and that was something, no two ways about it. But they don't want to keep me in that slot now, and I can't even say I blame 'em. Fighter pilot is really a young man's game."

"I was impressed with the way you handled yourself here," the judge said. "Are you interested in joining the Judge Advocate's staff full time? This is one of those places where you can count on skill to beat reflexes. Look at me, for instance." His hair was grayer than Moss'.

"Huh," Moss said: an exclamation of thoughtful surprise. "Hadn't even thought of that, sir. Don't know why not. Probably because I got this assignment taking over from the poor guy in the motorcar crash. It always felt temporary to me."

The chief judge nodded. "I take your point. And if you've had enough of living on an officer's salary, I can see that, too. You'll eat steak more often if you go civilian."

Moss started to laugh. "I'll tell you another reason you took me by surprise: I spent my whole career between the wars, trying to kick military justice in the teeth up in Canada."

"I know. I checked up on you," the chief judge said calmly. "If you wanted to, you could do the same thing here. Lord knows you'd have plenty of business."

"That crossed my mind, sir," Moss said. "Can't say it thrills me, though. Far as I can see, the Canucks got a raw deal. I think I'd say the same thing if I didn't fall in love with a Canadian girl. But the white Confederates? I was on the ground in Georgia for a couple of years, remember. Those people deserve everything they're getting, and another dollar's worth besides."

"Think about switching sides, then," the chief judge said. "Plenty more trials coming up. Not all of them will be as cut-and-dried as Jefferson Pinkard's, either. We do need people who can conduct a good defense, and you've shown you can do that and then some. But we need prosecutors, too."