"A honey trap. Oh, boy," Jerry Dover said in a hollow voice. He looked at Melanie. "I thought you meant it."

"With you…I came a lot closer than I did with some others," Melanie said.

"Great. Terrific." He finished the drink in a gulp. What did they say? A fool and his money are soon parted. He'd parted with money, and he'd been a fool. He'd needed a while to realize how big a fool he'd been, but here it was in all its glory. He got to his feet. "'Scuse me. I have to go back to work." Well, he wouldn't be that kind of fool again-he hoped. He hurried away from the table.

Y ou know what Mobile is?" Sam Carsten said.

"Tell me," Lon Menefee urged him.

"Mobile is what New Orleans would've been if it was settled by people without a sense of humor," Sam said. New Orleans was supposed to be a town where you could go out and have yourself some fun. People in Mobile looked as if they didn't enjoy anything.

"Boy, you've got something there," the exec said, laughing. "Even the good-time girls don't act like they're having a good time."

"Yeah, I know." Sam had seen that for himself. He didn't like it. "Pretty crazy-that's all I've got to tell you. This was a Navy town, too. If a bunch of horny, drunk sailors won't liven you up, what will?"

"Beats me," Menefee said.

Sam pointed. "Crap, that's their Naval Academy, right over there." It and the whole town lay under the Josephus Daniels' guns. Several C.S. Navy ships and submersibles lay at the docks. U.S. caretaker crews were aboard them. Sam didn't know what would happen to them. People were still arguing about it. Some wanted to take the captured vessels into the U.S. Navy. Others figured the spares problem would be impossible, and wanted to scrap them instead.

"Academy's out of business," Menefee said. Sam nodded. All the cadets had been sent home. They weren't happy about it. Some wanted to join the U.S. Navy instead. Some wanted to shoot every damnyankee ever born. They weren't quite old enough to have had their chance at that. The exec waved toward the Confederate warships. "What do you think we ought to do with those, sir?"

"Razor blades," Sam said solemnly. "Millions and millions of goddamn razor blades."

Menefee grinned. Anything large, metallic, and useless was only good for razor blades-if you listened to sailors, anyhow.

Here on the Gulf coast, winter was soft. Sam had wintered in the Sandwich Islands, so he'd known softer, but this wasn't bad. Things stayed pretty green. It hadn't snowed at all-not yet, anyhow. "A couple of more days and it's 1945," he said. "Another year down."

"A big one," Lon Menefee said. "Never been a bigger one."

He wasn't old enough to remember much about 1917. Maybe that had seemed bigger in the USA. Nobody then had known how awful a war could be. A lot of people were inoculated against that ignorance now. And 1917 had shown the USA could beat the Confederate States and their allies. Up till then, the United States never had. Now…Maybe now the USA wouldn't have to go and do this all over again. Sam could hope so, anyhow.

He didn't feel like arguing with the younger man, nor was he sure he should. "What with the superbomb and everything, I'd have a devil of a time saying you're wrong."

"We've got it," the exec said. "Germany's got it. The Confederates had it, but they're out. The limeys had it, but-"

"Maybe they're out," Sam put in. "You never can tell about England."

"Yeah," Menefee said. "Japan and Russia and France all have the hots for it."

"I would, too, if somebody else had it and I didn't," Sam said. "I remember how rotten I felt when Featherston got Philly. If he'd had a dozen more ready to roll, he might have whipped us in spite of everything."

"Good thing he didn't," the exec said. "But how are you supposed to fight a war if everybody's got bombs that can blow up a city or a flotilla all at once?"

"Nobody knows," Sam answered. "I mean nobody. The board that talked to me when we came in for refit right after the war ended asked if I had any bright ideas. Me!" He snorted at how strange that was. "I mean, if they're looking for help from a mustang with hairy ears, they're really up the creek."

"Maybe the Kaiser will be able to keep England from building any more and France from getting started. Japan and Russia, though? Good luck stopping 'em!" Menefee said.

"Uh-huh. That occurred to me, too. I don't like it any better than you do," Carsten said.

"It's going to be trouble, any which way," Menefee predicted.

"No kidding," Sam said. "Of course, you can say that any day of the year and be right about nine times out of ten. But just the same…Hell, if Germany and the USA were the only countries that could make superbombs, how could we stay friends? It'd be like we mopped the floor with everybody else, and we had to see who'd end up last man standing."

"Hard to get a superbomb across the ocean," Menefee said. "We don't have a bomber that can lift one off an airplane carrier, and the Kaiser doesn't have any carriers at all."

"We don't have a bomber that can do it now. Five years from now? It'll be different," Sam said. "They'll shrink the bombs and build better airplanes. Turbos, I guess. That's how those things always work. I remember the wood and wire and fabric two-decker we flew off the Dakota in 1914. We thought we were so modern!" He laughed at his younger self.

Lon Menefee nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right, skipper. But the Germans still don't have carriers."

"Maybe they'll build 'em. Maybe they'll decide they don't need 'em. Maybe they'll make extra-long-range bombers instead. If I were fighting the Russians, I'd sure want some of those. Or maybe they'll make rockets, the way the damn Confederates did. I bet we try that, too. How's anybody going to stop a rocket with a superbomb in its nose?"

The exec gave him a peculiar look. "You know what, skipper? I can see why the board asked you for ideas. You just naturally come up with things."

"Well, if I do, the pharmacist's mates have always been able to treat 'em," Sam answered. Praise-especially praise from a bright Annapolis grad-never failed to make him nervous.

He got a grin from Menefee, but the younger man persisted: "If you'd gone to college, you'd be an admiral now."

Sam had heard that before. He didn't believe it for a minute. "I didn't even finish high school. Didn't want to, either. All I wanted to do was get the hell off my old man's farm, and by God I did that. And if I was the kind of guy who went to college, chances are I wouldn't've been the kind of guy who wanted to join the Navy. Nope, I'm stuck with the school of hard knocks."

"Maybe. But it's still a shame," the exec said.

"Don't flabble about me, Lon. You're the one who'll make flag rank. I like where I'm at just fine." Sam wasn't kidding. Two and a half stripes! Lieutenant commander! Not bad for a man up through the hawse hole, not even a little bit. And his superiors still wanted him around. Maybe he could dream of making commander, at least when they finally retired him. He sure hadn't wasted any time sewing the thin gold stripe between the two thicker ones on each cuff.

He'd flustered Menefee in turn. "Flag rank? Talk about counting your chickens! I just want to see what I can do with a ship of my own."

"I understand that." Sam had waited a long, long time for the Josephus Daniels. But doors opened to young Annapolis grads that stayed closed for graying mustangs.

Menefee pointed across the water. "Supply boat's coming up."

Before Sam could say anything, the bosun's whistle shrilled. "Away boarding parties!" Sailors armed with tommy guns went down into a whaleboat at the archaic command. Others manned the destroyer escort's twin 40mms. After that bumboat attacked the Oregon, nobody took chances.

If the boat didn't stop as ordered, the guns would stop it. But it did. The boarding party checked every inch of the hull before letting it approach. Sam hadn't had to say a word. He smiled to himself. This was the way things worked when you had a good crew.