“Good morning, sir, or afternoon, or whatever time of day it is out there,” Potter said. “What can I do for you?”

Instead of answering right away, Forrest cocked his head to one side, an odd sort of smile on his face. “I purely love to listen to you talk, General-you know that?”

“You may be the only person in the Confederate States who does,” Potter answered. He’d gone to college up at Yale before the Great War. U.S. speech patterns and accent had rubbed off on him, not least because even then the Yankees had made things hard for Confederates in their midst. He’d wanted to fit in there, and he had-and he’d had a certain amount of trouble fitting into his own country ever since.

“But I know how useful it is to be able to talk like that,” Forrest said.

Quite a few of the C.S. spies Potter ran in the USA were Confederates who’d been raised or educated on the other side of the border. Sounding like a damnyankee helped a lot. It made real Yankees believe you were what you said you were, and was often more convincing than the proper papers. If you sounded right, you might never have to show your papers.

With a sour chuckle, Potter said, “It’s almost got me shot for a spy here a few times.”

“Well, that’s some of what I want to talk to you about.” Nathan Bedford Forrest III sank into the chair in front of Potter’s desk. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his butternut tunic, stuck one in his mouth, and offered Potter the pack. After Potter took one, Forrest lit them both.

They smoked for a couple of drags apiece. Potter knocked ash into a brass astray on the desk. He said, “If you think you’ve intrigued me… you’re right, dammit.”