“I don’t know.”

“Why doesn’t Tom tell him to stop this?”

Mom’s right. Quentin should be objecting like crazy. Yet even though Judge Elder knows this testimony should be inadmissible, he wants to hear what Major Powers has to say. The jury does, too. That’s why Quentin isn’t objecting. He doesn’t want to be seen as trying to hide any part of the truth. By refusing to protest, he’s saying, We’re all here to get to the bottom of things, so to hell with the rules. We’re not afraid of what anybody has to say.

“I think Dad and Quentin are on the same page, Mom.”

“Then you’ve got to stop it.”

“I can’t,” I whisper.

“You’re on the legal team, aren’t you?”

“Technically.”

“Then object!”

“Dad doesn’t want me to do that.”

“I want you to. I’m telling you to do it. Your father’s not thinking straight.”

“And how did you come to meet Dr. Cage in Korea?” Shad asks from the podium.

“Mom, I’ll help you get Quentin fired at the next recess, but I’m not going to create a scene that might be damaging to Dad by getting into a fight with Quentin in front of the jury.”

She closes her eyes as though to block out the exchange occurring before her.

“On November twenty-eighth,” answers the major, “my aircraft was hit by ground fire, and I had to crash-land the plane. Chinese troops were trying to get to me when some stragglers from a shattered American infantry unit pulled me out of the cockpit and took me with them.

“I’d sustained serious injuries to my legs, but with the massive attack under way, there was no way to get me to a MASH unit, or even a collecting station. The marines had been hit at Chosin Reservoir by this time, and they were holding up pretty well, but the army was in chaos across the peninsula. There was only one road leading south through the mountains from the Eighth Army’s Ch’ongch’on River positions. After some hours, I was loaded into a box ambulance that was part of a massive convoy trying to retreat down that road. We could only move vehicles in small groups because the Chinese controlled the high ground on both sides of the pass, which had become known as the Gauntlet.”

“Please continue.”