They stood up together; Abrams bought a half-­pint of vodka, and they opened the bottle and drank from it as they walked through the empty ruined streets to the Tribunal. Nearby, everything was quiet, but they heard yells in the distance, and the echo of someone running in another block. It was almost nine, but still light. The long northern twilight had just started and their shadows blended with the shadows of broken walls. At the Tribunal entrance, Abrams capped the bottle and put it in his pocket. A WAC with high, pointy breasts pushing her khaki jacket sat in the hot marble reception area. She nodded at Abrams and barely looked at Bianco, and together the two men went up the curving marble staircase to the second floor.

At the top of the stairs, MPs guarded double carved-oak doors. Abrams asked if the prisoner had been fed; one of the men said he had, but hadn’t eaten much. Abrams asked if the Judge Advocate’s man had been there yet. He had, said the MP, and they were coming back at ten to move the prisoner. Then the MP opened the door and closed it after them.

Bianco thought the room was empty until a tall man came out of the shadows next to the windows and stood in the middle of the room looking at them. Abrams and Bianco saluted, and the man returned the salute. He looked like Bianco thought he would: thin and blond with wide-­set blue eyes and white lashes. His hair was combed back from his high forehead, and a protuberant ridge in his skull made a line from his hair to his eyebrows. His nose was thin, so were his lips, but they were well formed, with a deep bow. He would have been handsome except that his skin was yellowish-­white, and Bianco remembered that he’d been in hiding for six months. In a basement without sun or fresh air.

The room they’d put him in was typical Nuremberg; except for the scarred oak-­paneled walls, everything in it was red—carpet, drapes, torn plush chairs. It was a deep red, almost maroon, and where the fabrics were worn, the nap was pink. The color of the room trapped the heat. Bianco’s shirt stuck to his back in a second and Speiser’s face shone with sweat.

“Ah, the Jewish doctor.” Speiser’s English was good. “I didn’t expect to see you again. But I welcome visitors. This room isn’t restful.”

Abrams said, “This is Major Bianco.”

Speiser smiled at Bianco and Bianco saw that his gums were swollen and gray, and his teeth looked loose. If he had scurvy, the Army would give him fresh oranges and massive doses of vitamin C before they hanged him. Bianco smiled back.

“And who is Major Bianco?” Spieser asked.