Chapter Seven Hundred Ninety-Nine
17th February 1950
Tempelhof Airport
It had already been a few weeks, but she had already learned that businessmen as a class were problematic, those from the American State of Texas seemed to take that to a new level. For Kat, most people who could afford air travel were respectful to her. Because the airport doubled as a Luftwaffe base Kat was a part of the security of that base, the part that dealt with the civilian part of it. She was used to having been a Major before. Now, she was discovering that a Support Officer was about the equivalent to an Unteroffizer. In International Arrivals she was just supposed to be pleasant and keep the line moving along, not that the arriving passengers always made that easy. Because she spoke English, Kat was expected to deal with a large share of those from the United States and the British Commonwealth. Which was why she was talking to the Texan.
“Now, are all the women in this town as gorgeous as you?” The Texan asked with a smile. He was typical of what she’d come to expect. Red and cream suit, 10-gallon hat, bolo tie and cowboy boots. Her friend Martzel Ibarra, a Gaucho who was familiar with this sort of things would have described a man like this as “All hat, no cattle.”
“Passport, please” Kat said flatly.
He handed it to her, Jefferson Davis Beaumont. Wonderful, she thought to herself. A name like that let her know exactly what she was dealing with.
“The purpose of your visit, Mister Beaumont?” She asked.
“Business, of course” Beaumont replied, “Possibly pleasure, darlin. My friends call me Bo.”
Kat understood what he was implying to her annoyance. It was the sort of thing that she was on the receiving end of a dozen or more times a day.
“I’m married” Kat said, “Do you have anything to declare?”
“Just that it’s a crying shame that a pretty little thing like you is already hitched.”
It was all she could do not to grown over an asinine comment like that. Anton had said that she would do her time here and eventually move on to something better. Right now, that something better seemed extremely far away.
Vienna, Austria
Nancy was enjoying an afternoon to herself. The Ambassador had returned home to attend a funeral. The term that he direct supervisor had used was “While the cat was away, the mice will play.” Not that the business of the Embassy had shut down, far from it. The men who worked on the third floor, that the regular Embassy staff weren’t supposed to talk about, were all busy in their comings and goings. For Nancy, no one needed her help to talk to Austrian Officials and not cause international incidents. Instead she was using an office typewriter to catch up on her correspondence.
Getting a letter from Suga-no-miya of Japan had been a surprise, for Nancy as well as her supervisor when she had reported it. All the Japanese Princess had wanted was some gift ideas for what to send Prince Friedrich of Germany. If the State Department had been up on it, they would have known that the two of them were friends having bonded over a State visit by the Japanese royals to Potsdam a couple years earlier. Nancy had said none of that, not being interested in overstepping her bounds more than she did already by having interesting friends. She also needed to write Ilse Tritten back regarding her desire to collect water samples in the rivers that flowed through Austria. Nancy wondered why Ilse would want her help. Shouldn’t Ilse have contacted the contacted the Austrian Government first? Nancy said as much in her letter replying to Ilse.
“Important business?” A voice asked.
Nancy looked up and saw the face of Mike Smith or whatever his real name was, the OSS Agent from Berlin when she’d been there.
“Not really” Nancy replied, “Just catching up on a few things. Any other of my friends you need me to spy on for you?”
“No need to be that way” Smith said, “We’re in a new era of interagency cooperation, President Truman said so.”
“What does that even mean?” Nancy asked.
“The Hell if I know?”
“It seems like that’s something that you should be learning instead of bothering me.”
With that she went back to her work, she wished her job was different and that the men she worked with would just leave her alone. It precluded a personal life for her. While her male counterparts had wives and families she was acutely aware that for her to get married she would be giving up everything she had worked for. A common joke Nancy had heard among the women who also worked for the State Department was that “I do” was synonymous with “I quit” or “I resign.”
Perhaps she ought to invite Ilse here. While her friend lacked the hard edges of her older sister and didn’t attract attention like a few things shy of an atomic bomb, she was still a lot of fun to have around. An explanation of Ilse’s work and why she of all people would be trying to work around the Austrian Government.
Mike walked off after a few minutes as Nancy composed her letter to Ilse. It was much easier than thinking about what sort of gift Prince Freddy might like for his birthday.