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have to. I will support you in every particular.'

'Be my pleasure.' De Manrique's growl was that of a man in middle age, not a youth. Different in timbre; different, even more, in the depth of the gravel. 'Damn them, anyway. The grief they caused us, everywhere we went. Ha!' His rough, scarred face broke into a narrow grin. 'I'll say this for those cursed Americans. When the Inquisitors in the Wartburg tried to drive the soldiers back to the walls, their sharpshooters singled them out for the killing.'

But the grin faded, within three steps. De Manrique had been the commander of the Spanish army shattered outside Eisenach and then trapped in the Wartburg. One of the worst defeats in Spanish history, that had been. Precious few times in history had an entire Spanish army surrendered, especially to a smaller force. De Manrique had been lucky, afterward, to have been simply disgraced instead of imprisoned. As it was, he had spent several weeks in the tender graces of the Inquisition, being tested to see if his failure reflected a deeper evil.

The cardinal-infante had saved him, then-just as Don Fernando had been the man who insisted on adding Miguel to his staff for the expedition to the Netherlands. In the months since, the veteran general had come to have a great deal of respect for the young prince of Spain. Headstrong he might be-and no 'might be' about it. Rash, reckless, given to taking chances… yes, yes, certainly. But he listened. And, if nothing else, did not share the automatic assumption of most Spanish hidalgos that they already knew all the secrets of the ancient art of war.

The corridors of the palace were a bit chilly, despite the season. But it was not the chill of the evening which caused a momentary shiver in Miguel's shoulders. He-not self-satisfied hidalgos on their estates in Castile-had been the one who saw the inferno which the Americans had unleashed on the Wartburg. Some kind of hideous flame-weapon worse than any legends of Greek fire. And he-not them-had seen the brains of his soldiers splashed out of their skulls by muskets fired at an impossible range.

The shiver came, and went. Miguel de Manrique was a soldier, after all. And he did have the pleasant memory of seeing the brains of arrogant Inquisitors being splashed as well.

'On a leash,' he repeated. 'Leashed, and muzzled.'

Chapter 17

Halfway across Europe, another middle-aged face was creased by a scowl.

'Goddammit, Mike, there are laws.'

Mike Stearns returned the glare of Grantville's former police chief with an expression which did not even strive for innocence. Just… mild-mannered.

'I'm aware of that, Dan. I'm also aware that I can't slide around you the way I used to do-now and then-by arguing it was out of your jurisdiction.'

'Not hardly!' snapped Dan Frost. Frost was now head of the national police force of the entire United States-which, for all that its powers were constrained, had much greater authority than the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. of another universe. Mike Stearns had insisted on that, just as he had insisted on Dan's appointment to the post. With the crazy quilt of legal jurisdictions that still made up the newly formed United States, he wanted no chance of allowing some arrogant little German princeling to flaunt new laws on the grounds that his domain of a few hundred acres was 'beyond national jurisdiction.'

Still, the U.S. Police Force was hardly unrestrained by legal limits. The Constitution of the new U.S. had the same Bill of Rights as that of the old one. And-what was more to the point, in the current discussion-was based on the same fundamental legal principles.

One of which-very basic-was that if a man breaks the law he gets arrested and charged in a court. He does not get subjected to the secret and essentially private justice of the executive branch of government.

'Dammit, there are laws,' repeated Frost. The police chief cast a sour glance at one of the other occupants of the greenhouse where this little impromptu meeting was being held. Harry Lefferts, that was, lounging casually against a nearby planter. The young soldier, formerly a coal miner, had a rather peculiar position in the hierarchy of the new U.S. Army. Officially, he was 'Captain Lefferts.' In practice, he amounted to Mike Stearns' personal little one-man combination of the old OSS-in its woolliest World War II days-and what militant trade unions like the UMWA sometimes euphemized as the 'education committee.'

'Especially with him around,' gruffed Dan, jerking his thumb at Harry. 'Or are you going to tell me you brought him to 'reason' with Freddie?'

Harry just smiled. Mike shook his head. 'Dan, if I hadn't brought Harry, you'd be giving me a hard time for risking myself-not much of a risk, bracing Freddie-in my august capacity as Mister President. You can't have it both ways.'

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the owner of the greenhouse spoke up. Until now, Tom Stone-'Stoner' to everyone-had kept silent. Clearly enough, the whole situation made him very uncomfortable to begin with. Mike had been tipped off about Freddie Congden's treason by Tom himself, who was the man's nearest neighbor. Given Stone's history and general attitudes, it was well-nigh miraculous-and something of an indication of his personal trust in Mike-that he had done so at all. The nickname 'Stoner' was no accident, and Tom had the usual attitude toward 'snitching' that any longtime hippie and enthusiast for what he liked to call 'alternate reality' normally had. It was crime which ranked almost on a par with arson or armed robbery.

Still… he did trust Mike, and his marriage to a German woman the year before had given him a somewhat different perspective on things. His wife Magdalena's definition of 'atrocity' was a lot more material than Stoner's. Just as her definition of a 'bad trip' was a journey across her war-torn homeland.

'Let me ask you something, Dan,' Stoner said abruptly. 'Seeing as how you're making such a fuss over the official rules and regulations. How come, all those years, you never busted me? Back when you were the town's police chief.' A nod of Stoner's head indicated the marijuana plants growing in the adjoining greenhouse. 'Sure, now that stuff's nice and legal-even a prized crop, seeing as how we haven't got anything better in the way of an analgesic. Not in the kind of quantity I can produce, anyway. But it sure as hell wasn't legal in the old days.'

He glanced proudly at the vigorously growing, healthy plants. A special strain, those were, that he'd carefully cultivated over the years, and which produced a variety of the drug that all the area's medical and dental practitioners had come to prize highly. 'And-yeah, sure-in the old days I didn't grow the stuff in the open like this. But don't tell me you never had any idea what I was doing.'

Dan Frost looked uncomfortable. Then, looked away, staring at a nearby patch of herbs. Mike had a hard time not laughing. Clearly enough, Dan was trying to figure out which plants in that batch might have been illegal substances before the Ring of Fire.

It was hard to know. Tom Stone was as good a greenhouse grower as he was an 'informal pharmacist.' Since he'd left Purdue as a pharmaceutical graduate student in the late 70s, he'd spent most of his time in Grantville running his own commune of sorts. There probably wasn't much of anything he couldn't grow, if he wanted to. Mike had noticed Dan giving the mushrooms in another adjoining greenhouse something of a stony look.

'Ah, hell,' muttered the police chief. 'Yeah, sure, I knew what you were doing. But… I never got a whiff of you messing around with cocaine or heroin, and I knew you weren't selling any of your pot to the kids in town.' He shifted his seat on the bench, still looking uncomfortable. 'And… you looked to be raising those three kids of your own okay. I knew they were doing well in school. I checked. So. You know. What was I supposed to do? If I busted you, who was going to take care of the kids?'

He took a deep breath and scowled at nothing in particular. 'Truth is, I always thought that damn 'War on Drugs' was friggin' stupid anyway. At least, the way it was being done. And I had other things to worry about. Small stuff, like a guy beating his wife half to death or drunk drivers or grand theft auto or a brawl every other night in the Club 250. So… Fuck it. I just looked the other way.'

'Broke the rules, in other words,' said Stone.

Frost's face tightened. 'Dammit, it's not the same thing.'

Mike was tempted to intervene, but decided to let Tom keep handling it. As much as anything else, because James Nichols had given him firm instructions to do anything possible to keep advancing Stoner's slowly developing sense of 'civic responsibility.' The ex-hippie and drop-out was proving to be one of the most valuable members of their new society, as far as the good doctor was concerned.

Besides, there was just something quietly hilarious about watching Tom Stone lecturing Dan Frost on the fine points of police ethics. Mike could see Harry Lefferts, standing far enough behind Dan Frost to be out of sight, grinning widely. Mike didn't have any doubt at all that Harry and his friend Darryl had been among Stoner's regular customers in the days before the Ring of Fire.

'Yeah, it is, Dan. If you think about it, what Mike's proposing to do is to not bust Freddie. So there's no issue here about Star Chambers and secret prisons and gulags and torture cells. He just wants to quietly let the situation continue… just… you know. What you might call under new management. I mean, what the hell. How can you accuse him of wanting to violate Freddie's 'rights' when he could have him pitched in jail forever or even-' Stoner scowled. 'Dammit, why the hell we had to keep that stinking death penalty is a mystery to me, but we do have it even if it's never been used. And don't think once people found out what Freddie's been doing they wouldn't be hollering for the hangman.'

Mike said nothing. Personally, although he'd never fully made up his mind, he tended to lean heavily against having a death penalty. But…

One battle at a time. Most of the 'old Americans,' even, were in favor of the death penalty. 17 th -century Germans already tended to think he was crazy enough, without tossing that issue into the soup. To them, having a death penalty was as much of a given as dew in the morning.

'So the point is,' Stoner continued, 'you can't hardly accuse Mike of wanting to do anything to Freddie secretly that he couldn't do ten times worse right out in the open. And there's another advantage to his approach, you ask me, which is that…'

Stoner eyed the police chief aslant, clearly a bit wary of his next words. 'Look, Dan, I hate to be the one to tell you this-you being a cop your whole life and all-but too much law can be even worse than not enough.'

Suddenly, Dan Frost burst out laughing. 'You're telling me? Christ, Stoner, sometime I oughta make you fill out one of those old forms I used to have to use.'

The mood had lightened enough, Mike decided. It was time to 'close the deal.'

'Look, Dan, I know I'll be bending the rules. But, dammit, Stoner's right. Leave aside whether they'd hang the bastard or not. Frankly, I can't say I'd lose much sleep over that, anyway. On the best day of his life, Freddie Congden was a flaming asshole. You know it as well as I do. I never could figure out why Anita took as long as she did to pack up her bags and leave the guy.'

' 'Fraid he'd kill her,' grunted Dan. 'Took me months to convince her I'd see to it he didn't. Which, ah-' He looked away. 'I did.'

Harry's grin was even wider than before. 'Broke the rules again, huh? Hell, Dan, you should've kept your own hands clean and just quietly passed the word to me and Darryl. We'd've seen to it good old Freddie didn't lay a hand on Anita. Hard for a man to beat his wife when he can't catch her. Which I'll gua-ran-tee Freddie couldn't have done, not after Darryl and I reasoned with him. Amazing, the persuasive powers of a two-pound ball-peen hammer applied to a kneecap.'

Dan scowled, but said nothing. Mike continued smoothly.

'And you know what else will happen, Dan. Every old maid in the country-most of 'em pot-bellied men-will set up a howl and a shriek for every book in sight to be put under lock and key. Before you know it, it'll be harder to get into a library than Fort Knox. Leaving aside the damage to real civil liberties, that'll cause ten times worse damage to our own technical development than any amount of spying could do. I mean, face it. Do you really want to see