Chapter One Thousand Twenty-Two
19th July 1953
Kyoto, Japan
Suga was enjoying a peaceful afternoon as she sat on her favorite bench on the edge of the rock garden. Haru was already done for the day, he said that he would rather sit in the shade than work in the afternoons during this time of year. Suga figured that she would have to find shade herself soon.
“In your letters, you described this place as peaceful” Suga heard a strangely accented voice say in English.
Suga looked over and saw a woman wearing a dark green dress made of a light weight fabric. The two things that struck Suga was that she was wearing a pair of slipper-like shoes and that her copper colored hair was being worn loose. Both those things seemed to be out of character for Gräfin Katherine. But then, did Suga really know her? There had been many times when Freddy had put something in the letters that seemed at odds with what she thought she knew.
“You read the letters?” Suga asked.
“No” Katherine replied as she sat down on the bench, “But Freddy tells me a lot, he said that you enjoy sitting on a bench beside a Zen garden and feel at peace.”
“I try to feel at peace” Suga said, “More of an aspiration.”
“That is a good thing to aspire to” Katherine said.
“Are you at peace ever?”
Katherine thought for a few seconds then she said, “Imagine laying in bed in the early morning hours and you can hear the rain drops hitting the glass of the windows or see the shadows of snowflakes. You are warm and only half awake, all of the world’s problems seem very distant.”
“That sounds nice” Suga said.
“It is” Katherine replied, “Unfortunately I never get to enjoy it for long because I live with two toddlers who need me.”
“Tatiana and Malcolm?” Suga asked. Freddy had mentioned them, Katherine’s two children, in one of his letters.
Katherine just smiled. This whole exchange was not what Suga was expecting. She remembered Katherine as this cold and harsh woman wearing a military uniform. What she was like now was nothing like that.
“Why are you here?” Suga asked.
“For a couple of different reasons” Katherine said, “I was sent to Japan for something that you have for Freddy for one.”
“Aki isn’t here” Suga said.
“Don’t be silly” Katherine replied, “That doesn’t need to be done until I’m ready to return home.”
“When is that?”
“In a few days” Katherine replied, “It depends on when I can pry my so-called expert on Asian Cultures out of this country and I might take in some of the sights myself.”
“What would you see?” Suga asked.
“I don’t know but find the idea of being someplace where no one knows me refreshing” Katherine replied.
Suga found that extremely funny. Now who is being silly, she thought to herself. Then Katherine looked at her, confused.
“Westerners with red hair tend to stand out” Suga told her, “Especially when they are an exotic Countess mentioned in all the papers. Arrangements are going have to be made so you don’t get mobbed.”
Suga figured that Katherine would not like being lectured by a girl half her age and knew as soon as she said it that it was a major breech of courtesy. Katherine however didn’t seem to mind.
“I was also asked by Kira Kirillovna to get a measure of you as a person” Katherine said. “What you might do on a lazy Sunday afternoon in the summertime, for example.”
That shocked Suga. Something she hadn’t anticipated, they couldn’t possibly think that…
“Tell me about Maeda Natsumi” Katherine said interrupting Suga’s train of thought.
Wunsdorf-Zossen
Kat’s revenge was complete, he had to give her that. As of this morning Schultz was one of the most famous, now former, Spymasters in the world. With one of the acclaimed front pages of the BT depicting him and a photograph of his face gracing every major newspaper in the world. The day before he had been informed that his replacement in the BND-NAA had been appointed. That meant that he had been officially put out to pasture. Oddly, a strange spin had emerged on the story. That when he and Martzel had caught up with Teller they had a choice. Let the attack happen, which would have been to their own nation’s advantage and probably would have knocked out a rival power. Or they could do the honorable thing and stop the attack, saving tens of thousands of lives in the process. The reality was that Martzel didn’t put that much thought into it. He had seen Teller as a crazed animal needing to be put down before anyone else got hurt.
Sitting on his back-porch Schultz thought about the future, he had been asked to help with the security review that was going on in the BND. The Brits had gotten into what was supposed to be one of the most secure buildings in the world. The OKW wanted to know exactly how that had happened. To his annoyance his can of beer was empty, then he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and chucked the can at it. Schultz heard a clank and a voice yell “Ow!” as Erik jumped up having been beamed in the head.
“What did you do that for!” Erik demanded.
“Sneaking up on people is rude” Schultz replied, “Now go get me a beer from the icebox.”
Schultz heard Erik walking away grumbling. “You’re just lucky it wasn’t a bottle” He called after his grandson and then was chuckling to himself. It was nice that he could still show Erik and Karl who was boss in this house. The thing was at twelve they were reaching an age when they would start trying to hit back.
