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climate where no one dared speak "sedition" except to their closest, oldest friends, information flow would be very slow. Especially if people did not want to know. But sooner or later murder would out, the atrocities become common knowledge. What of German pride then?
    Coming to the corner that housed his destination, Martel turned from the boulevard and its obscene canopy of swastikas to Old Glory where it waved above the American Embassy. As ever, he felt a certain relief at the transition to American soil, symbolic though it was. Going through the outer doors, he returned as crisply as they were proffered the salutes of the Marine guards, stepped into the main corridor, and turned to sign in at the receptionist's desk, where to his surprise Betty was waiting to meet him.
    "Hi, Betts. What are you doing out here?" Normally at this time of day Betty would be busy keeping the intelligence section of the embassy running. She was one of those incredible private secretaries who wind up running the show. "Sharon sick again?"
    "They asked me to sit out here, so here's where I'm sitting. How was the parade, Commander?"
    "The usual," he replied as he leaned forward to scribble his name. "Lots of brass bands and marching around." Much more quietly he added, "Wait till you see the pics. If this doesn't wake people up, I don't know what could." Jim was being mildly out of line talking with her even in such vague terms, not because she shouldn't know but because they were arguably in a public place, deserted though it was.
    Betty McCann looked up at him with a smile. "Hey, Lover, one lieutenant commander, even one as gorgeous as you, can't take the whole weight of national defense policy on his shoulders."
    When he hardly smiled in return, nor reminded her that though they might have an understanding they were not lovers, and by the way why not? she too turned serious. "You and I have gone over the specs for those planes, Honey. As far as our side is concerned we wrote the book on German jets. You've even drawn schematics. Surely just seeing them in flight didn't add that much?"
    "Seeing them made it real. Betty, I'm telling you. We're in trouble, and if we don't wake up to that fact and do something about it, we could wind up fighting a war in the continental USA."
    "Jim, it's not that bad."
    "Not quite. Not yet."
    For a moment Betty seemed at a loss for words, as if she wanted to reassure him, but not falsely. She understood too well the profound implications behind Jim's concern, and suspected that the vision of Nazi air power he had just experienced would have had a similar effect on her. "Nothing much we can do here, though, except stay on top  of developments and do our jobs,"she finally ventured.
    "Betts, I think my dad might soon be moved to write another article, and this one not for Defense Analysis Quarterly."
    Bettys face fell. "Jim, don't. They're mad enough at you already."
    Jim shrugged. Frankly, he wasn't sure an article such as he had in mind would have any desirable effect, while he was pretty sure it would permanently blight his career. Also he realized that he would have to be awfully damned careful to avoid references to anything he had learned as a matter of performing his duties as an intelligence officer ... which would include about everything that would give such an article credibility. "Oh, hell, you're as right as you usually are. I'd just cancel myself out of the equation without doing any good." He smiled lopsidedly. "When they assigned me to intel they really muzzled me good, didn't they? Good thing I have you. . . ."
    "Me too." Betty smiled sympathetically, then turned impish: "And I have my sights set on an admiral of the fleet, my boy — an admiral who has done it all, up close and personal. I don't have my sights set on a defrocked flyboy history teacher stuck in some out-of-the way school because he resigned under a cloud!" Despite her attempted humor, clearly Betty shared his frustration over the