The Victorious opposition

"Or to defend if the Confederates start flying missions out of Kentucky," Trotter agreed.

"I don't want to defend. To hell with defending," Moss said savagely. "If those bastards think they can start a new war, I want to go out and tear 'em a new asshole so they'll goddamn well think twice."

That made Captain Trotter grin. "No wonder you're still a good pilot. You've got the killer instinct, all right."

Moss knew he should have smiled, too. Try as he would, he couldn't. Yes, he had a killer instinct. He'd been thinking about that while he was up in the fighter. But he hadn't thought about it in terms of the Confederates then. He'd thought about Canadians, people he'd been dealing with-hell, people he'd liked, people he'd loved-for more than twenty years.

Trotter might have picked that out of his head. "Maybe getting away from these parts will do you good," he said.

"Will it? I have my doubts," Moss answered. "It won't bring Laura and Dorothy back to life. It won't make me stop wanting to blow Canada to hell and gone."

The commandant shifted uneasily in his swivel chair. He didn't seem to know what to make of that. Moss could hardly blame him. He hadn't known what an explosive mixture grief and rage and hate could be till it overwhelmed him. For a moment, he wondered if the damned Canuck who'd sent Laura the bomb had had that same hot, furious blend blazing in him. Only for a moment. Then Moss shoved the thought aside. To hell with what the damned Canuck had been thinking. If I knew who it was… Regretfully, Moss shoved that thought aside, too. He didn't know. From what U.S. investigators said, it wasn't likely he ever would.

"Well," Trotter said, "any which way, you will be going back to the States. Your orders say, 'as quickly as practicable.' How soon can you be on a train?"

If Moss hadn't had tragedy strike him, he knew he wouldn't have got that much consideration. The other officer would have said, Be on the train at seven tomorrow morning, and off he would have gone. Here, though, even if he didn't think getting away would do much for him, he was far from sorry to put Canada behind him. "I don't have much left to do here," he said. "I've been settling affairs ever since… since it happened. After my apartment got blown to hell, it's not like I've got much left to throw in a suitcase. If it wasn't for your kindness, I wouldn't have a suitcase to throw my stuff in, either."

"I'd say we owe you more than a suitcase, Major Moss," Trotter told him. "I've taken the liberty of checking the train schedules…" He paused to see if that would a

"That's what the schedule says, anyway," Moss observed dryly. If the train was within half an hour of that, it would be doing all right.

Trotter nodded. "Yeah, that's what it says. And a train from Chicago to Mount Vernon goes out at half past nine tomorrow night. You'll have to kill some time in Chicago, but if you're from there it shouldn't be too bad."

"Maybe," Moss said. He didn't want to see his family. He'd had enough trouble with them at the funeral. But Captain Trotter didn't need to know about his difficulties there. His family had thought he was crazy to marry Laura Secord, and they'd seemed offended when the union didn't fall apart in short order. But he could find ways to spend time in Chicago without having anything to do with them. He could, and he intended to.

"Good luck," Trotter said.

Moss didn't laugh in his face. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why. If he'd had anything remotely approaching good luck, his wife and daughter would still be alive, and he wouldn't be wearing U.S. uniform again. But he hadn't, they weren't, and he was. "Thanks, Captain," he said, very much as if he meant it.

When Hipolito Rodriguez walked into Freedom Party headquarters in Baroyeca, the first thing he saw was a new map on the wall. It showed the Confederate States as they were now, with Kentucky and what had been called Houston back in the fold. The lands the United States had seized in the Great War and not yet returned-chunks of Virginia, Arkansas, and Sonora-had a new label: Unredeemed Territory. That same label was applied to Sequoyah, even though the plebiscite there had gone against the CSA.

Part of Rodriguez-the part that had hated los Estados Unidos ever since their soldiers tried to kill him during the Great War-rejoiced to see that label on Sequoyah. A lingering sense of fairness made him wonder about it, though. Pointing to the map, and to Sequoyah in particular, he asked Robert Qui

"Sн, Seсor Rodriguez. Absolutamente," the local Freedom Party leader answered. "The election in Sequoyah was a shame and a sham. Since the war, los Estados Unidos sent so many settlers into that state that the result of the vote could not possibly be just. Since they had no business occupying the land in the first place, they had no business settling it, either."

"Is this what Seсor Featherston says?" Rodriguez asked.

Qui

Rodriguez eyed the map again. Slowly, he nodded. But he could not help saying, "If Seсor Featherston tells this to the United States, they will not be happy. They thought the plebiscite settled everything."

"Are you going to lie awake at night flabbling about what the United States think?" Qui

But Hipolito Rodriguez gave back a shrug. "It could be that I am, seсor," he said. "Please remember, I have a son who is in the Army. I have two more sons who could easily be conscripted." Since he was only in his mid-forties himself, he was not too old to put the butternut uniform on again, but he said nothing about that. He was not afraid for himself in the same way as he was afraid for his boys.

"How long have you wanted revenge against the United States?" Qui

"A long time," Rodriguez admitted. "Oh, sн, seсor, a very long time indeed. But now it occurs to me, as it did not before, that some things may be bought at too high a price. And is it not possible that what is true for me may also be true for the whole country?"

"Jake Featherston won't let anything go wrong." Qui

Rodriguez let that certainty persuade him, too-certainty, after all, was a big part of what he'd been looking for when he joined the Freedom Party. "Bueno," he said. "I hope very much that you are right."

"Sure I am," Qui

Falling back into that weekly routine did help ease Rodriguez's mind. Robert Qui

Once the a