Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
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Part 72, Chapter 1053
Chapter One Thousand Fifty-Three
1st April 1954
Potsdam
It had been a long day for Anya as she tried to keep her eyes open. She had started dance lessons and they had turned out to be harder work than anything else she had done in her life. Sasha had said they were something that she could do but only if it was what she wanted. She had leaped into it whole heartedly and discovered that it wasn’t as fun as she imagined it would be. Now she was waiting for dinner, and a chance to sleep.
“Congratulations, Anya” Sasha said as she handed Anya the thick letter that had arrived in the mail, “You are no longer an orphan according to the State.”
Fortunately, the pages were entirely in Cyrillic which was fortunate because she could read that as opposed to the frustrating German that she was getting tutored in and that wretched torture known as mathematics. Anya read down the letter that had been addressed to Sasha from the relevant State agencies in Russia and Pskov Oblast she was now officially the adopted daughter of Jehane Alexandra Lukichna Thomas-Romanova.
It was a surprise to Anya to learn that she had been born inside the Butyrka Prison in Moscow. Her mother had died there a month after Anya had been born, murdered as the collapsing regime of Stalin had ordered all prisoners liquidated in the final days before the city fell. Her father was presumed to have died the brutal battle that had been fought over prior the winter in the Penal Brigades. The last account was of him was being among the men ordered to hold trench line against the German 5th Panzer Army. A decade later Ivan Maksimov had not reemerged, the Russian State had officially declared him deceased in 1950.
It went on for page after page, the fate of every relative that Anya once had was tracked down. It was depressing reading. Her great uncle had apparently been the one to have displeased Stalin sometime in the war and over the next several months Anya’s extended family had been reduced to near extinction, Anya was the only one who was left.
“Why did you do all this?” Anya asked. Sasha had an exhaustive search conducted on Anya’s behalf.
“Because it was the right thing to do” Sasha said, “If you had anyone still out there I had to try to find them.”
Then Sasha hesitated for a second, then got up and pulled a lockbox from one of the cupboards. Opening it she pulled a small black cylinder and a paper booklet out. “I wasn’t sure if I should give these to you, but they were in the archives of the 5th Army in Posen.”
Opening the booklet, Anya saw that it was a soldier’s pay book, with a photograph of a man staring at the camera with a neutral look on his face. It was with an electric shock that she realized that this was the father she had never seen before. The black cylinder contained a scrap of paper with his particulars. However, these things represented the end of the hope that he might have been alive. The German Army wouldn’t have taken the items from a living man.
“I’m still trying to find what the NKVD had on your mother or grandparents” Sasha said apologetically, “But I was told that will take time.”
Anya was shocked, Sasha might have taken her in, but it had only been an abstract thought, temporary in nature, until that moment and Sasha had done far too much for her. It was suddenly real and stupidly Anya found that she couldn’t stop crying.
Fort Meade, Maryland
At long last Jonny was able to get his car out of storage. The months spent in the garage had not been good for it. Still, it was good to be working on his own car in the garage before driving it back to Fort Meade. As a part of their continued cover Jonny and Parker had finally been transferred from California to Maryland. Much to Parker’s despair they had been assigned to Motor Pool as soon as they had arrived on base.
“So, there we were” Jonny was saying to some of the other enlisted men who had gathered to look at Jonny’s Ford, “Driving flat out on a road in Virginia, the County Deputy Sheriffs behind us and the State Troopers ahead of us.”
“You expect me to believe that it was Parker here?” A Corporal asked, elbowing Parker in the side. “There with you?”
“I shit you not” Jonny said, “It’s true, he also lost his lunch as soon as I stopped the car.”
The assembled men laughed at that. Parker might be catching some guff now, but it would give him a bit of a reputation among these men that he was one of them despite his snooty attitude.
“What happened next?”
“We stashed the car in a barn and walked back into base” Jonny said, “I’ve no clue about what the Lawmen did, probably still looking for us.”
With that, everyone went their separate ways as quickly as they had gathered. Jonny closed the hood on the Ford because he was done explaining what he had done with the engine in the months after he had gotten back from Mexico. He noticed that Parker was still watching him.
“How do you do it?” Parker asked, “Get them to accept you like that?”
“They know I’m one of them” Jonny said, “You would see that you are too if you would ever pull that stick out of your ass. They know that you were a College boy, but rather than joining as a Lieutenant, you came in on the bottom. There is a lot of cred there for if you learn to use it.”
“You can’t be serious?” Parker asked in disbelief.
Jonny just shrugged, it wasn’t his job to make people like Parker. Still, making Parker less of a pain in the ass would probably make his life easier.
1st April 1954
Potsdam
It had been a long day for Anya as she tried to keep her eyes open. She had started dance lessons and they had turned out to be harder work than anything else she had done in her life. Sasha had said they were something that she could do but only if it was what she wanted. She had leaped into it whole heartedly and discovered that it wasn’t as fun as she imagined it would be. Now she was waiting for dinner, and a chance to sleep.
“Congratulations, Anya” Sasha said as she handed Anya the thick letter that had arrived in the mail, “You are no longer an orphan according to the State.”
Fortunately, the pages were entirely in Cyrillic which was fortunate because she could read that as opposed to the frustrating German that she was getting tutored in and that wretched torture known as mathematics. Anya read down the letter that had been addressed to Sasha from the relevant State agencies in Russia and Pskov Oblast she was now officially the adopted daughter of Jehane Alexandra Lukichna Thomas-Romanova.
It was a surprise to Anya to learn that she had been born inside the Butyrka Prison in Moscow. Her mother had died there a month after Anya had been born, murdered as the collapsing regime of Stalin had ordered all prisoners liquidated in the final days before the city fell. Her father was presumed to have died the brutal battle that had been fought over prior the winter in the Penal Brigades. The last account was of him was being among the men ordered to hold trench line against the German 5th Panzer Army. A decade later Ivan Maksimov had not reemerged, the Russian State had officially declared him deceased in 1950.
It went on for page after page, the fate of every relative that Anya once had was tracked down. It was depressing reading. Her great uncle had apparently been the one to have displeased Stalin sometime in the war and over the next several months Anya’s extended family had been reduced to near extinction, Anya was the only one who was left.
“Why did you do all this?” Anya asked. Sasha had an exhaustive search conducted on Anya’s behalf.
“Because it was the right thing to do” Sasha said, “If you had anyone still out there I had to try to find them.”
Then Sasha hesitated for a second, then got up and pulled a lockbox from one of the cupboards. Opening it she pulled a small black cylinder and a paper booklet out. “I wasn’t sure if I should give these to you, but they were in the archives of the 5th Army in Posen.”
Opening the booklet, Anya saw that it was a soldier’s pay book, with a photograph of a man staring at the camera with a neutral look on his face. It was with an electric shock that she realized that this was the father she had never seen before. The black cylinder contained a scrap of paper with his particulars. However, these things represented the end of the hope that he might have been alive. The German Army wouldn’t have taken the items from a living man.
“I’m still trying to find what the NKVD had on your mother or grandparents” Sasha said apologetically, “But I was told that will take time.”
Anya was shocked, Sasha might have taken her in, but it had only been an abstract thought, temporary in nature, until that moment and Sasha had done far too much for her. It was suddenly real and stupidly Anya found that she couldn’t stop crying.
Fort Meade, Maryland
At long last Jonny was able to get his car out of storage. The months spent in the garage had not been good for it. Still, it was good to be working on his own car in the garage before driving it back to Fort Meade. As a part of their continued cover Jonny and Parker had finally been transferred from California to Maryland. Much to Parker’s despair they had been assigned to Motor Pool as soon as they had arrived on base.
“So, there we were” Jonny was saying to some of the other enlisted men who had gathered to look at Jonny’s Ford, “Driving flat out on a road in Virginia, the County Deputy Sheriffs behind us and the State Troopers ahead of us.”
“You expect me to believe that it was Parker here?” A Corporal asked, elbowing Parker in the side. “There with you?”
“I shit you not” Jonny said, “It’s true, he also lost his lunch as soon as I stopped the car.”
The assembled men laughed at that. Parker might be catching some guff now, but it would give him a bit of a reputation among these men that he was one of them despite his snooty attitude.
“What happened next?”
“We stashed the car in a barn and walked back into base” Jonny said, “I’ve no clue about what the Lawmen did, probably still looking for us.”
With that, everyone went their separate ways as quickly as they had gathered. Jonny closed the hood on the Ford because he was done explaining what he had done with the engine in the months after he had gotten back from Mexico. He noticed that Parker was still watching him.
“How do you do it?” Parker asked, “Get them to accept you like that?”
“They know I’m one of them” Jonny said, “You would see that you are too if you would ever pull that stick out of your ass. They know that you were a College boy, but rather than joining as a Lieutenant, you came in on the bottom. There is a lot of cred there for if you learn to use it.”
“You can’t be serious?” Parker asked in disbelief.
Jonny just shrugged, it wasn’t his job to make people like Parker. Still, making Parker less of a pain in the ass would probably make his life easier.
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College Boy had better get with the program or else he is going to find himself as a Political Officer in a consulate somewhere in the German Pacific Islands.
Still have no clue about the cover stories Jonny and Parker are trying to establish.
The scene with Anya looking her father's paybook is an excellent call back to when Hans, Jost, and Soran were sorting out the Soviet Army paybooks from a penal brigade.
Maybe Hans could explain one day to Anya about how Stalin deliberately wasted her father life.
Still have no clue about the cover stories Jonny and Parker are trying to establish.
The scene with Anya looking her father's paybook is an excellent call back to when Hans, Jost, and Soran were sorting out the Soviet Army paybooks from a penal brigade.
Maybe Hans could explain one day to Anya about how Stalin deliberately wasted her father life.
If Gia and Hans ever have that conversation, maybe via Kat initially, I could see that being a hard decision, but an even tougher conversation between Hans and Anya. This is one that Peter may need to be involved in.
Anya may find herself becoming strongly, even rabidly anti-Communist as a result. But then finding out that you're an orphan because Stalin had a hissy fit and butchered your entire family tends to have that effect...
Part 72, Chapter 1054
Chapter One Thousand Fifty-Four
10th April 1954
Baltimore, Maryland
“Pleased to finally meet you Mr. Casey” The Suit from the Ford Motor Company said when he shook Jonny’s hand, “I was told by a mutual friend you are a Ford man.”
“I’ve a 39 Coup” Jonny said happily.
“That is a good year” The Suit said, “I also heard that you are also from the Bay Area, Petaluma. I’m originally from San Francisco and went to school at UC Berkley.”
“I am from Petaluma, Sir” Jonny said, “Instead of Berkley I went to the school of hard knocks in Mexico.”
The Suit laughed at that, probably unaware that Jonny was being dead serious with that answer.
“In many ways that makes you better for this than your partner” The Suit said as he removed a folder from his briefcase and handed it to him. Inside was a color hand-bill for that German film that had come out months earlier.
“Is this a joke?” Jonny asked.
“Hardly” The Suit replied, “The German firm Volkswagen is looking to eat our lunch, we believe we can eat into their market share, but that film proves that they have the jump on us and they have a rather innovative way of advertising it. This film for example.”
Skimming through the pages Jonny saw the details of what was being highlighted. The Silk Road, a ten-thousand-kilometer race from Beijing to Berlin across every kind of landscape imaginable. He saw a three-view drawing of a compact sedan, the Anglia 100E. “What exactly are you asking me to do here?” He asked.
“We want you on our team” The Suit said, “You are known as driver and a mechanic. We can make it look like you were hired for your talents. Your friend Jamison Parker the Third, who you met in the Army, has family money that is backing your entry into the race.”
“Wait one second” Jonny asked, “What the Hell kind of name is Jamison, since when is he my friend?”
“We know that the situation has been less than ideal” The Suit said, “But it shouldn’t be too difficult with Mr. Parker back into his normal element.”
That made sense, the CIA had been setting it up so that anyone who looked into them would have seen them working in the motor pool of various Army Bases. It would be no surprise when they turned up in Beijing at the start of the race. There was one problem though…
“This is outside of the jurisdiction of my Employer” Jonny said, “Industrial espionage?”
“Not as much as you might think” The Suit said, “The woman who has been working for Volkswagen was working for the U.S. State Department. The competition, General Motors, made the mistake of spying on her and found out the hard way that she is under the protection of a rather infamous German Countess. You know the brother of that Countess, a Colonel von Mischner?”
“I met him a few times, but I would hardly say I know him” Jonny replied.
“But what did he know you as?” The Suit asked, “That might be enough to keep you from being unceremoniously booted out of Europe. For the rest, you’re just to gather information that your Agency might find useful, photographs, specs and anything else you find that will be useful to my company will be passed along accordingly.”
“What’s the catch?” Jonny asked.
“You need to figure out how to make a compact economy sedan into a convincing racecar and make sure that Mr. Parker can spell you out as a driver” The Suit replied.
“The race starts in three months” Jonny said.
“You had better get busy then” The Suit said, “The car will arrive in the garage you’ve been using in Alexandria later today. Good luck, Mr. Casey.”
Then with that the Suit left.
11th April 1954
Berlin
It was supposed to have been a quiet spring morning instead Kat had found herself dragged out of bed as two Feldwebels from the 1st Foot had been pounding on her front door until Petia had been forced to let them in. Then they had gone straight to Kat’s bedroom door which was locked and started pounding on that. While it was fortunate that she wasn’t asleep, Kat and Doug had been in the middle of something that she was unhappy to have interrupted. The two Feldwebels waited red-faced in the parlor for a few minutes while she got cleaned up and dressed. The whole time her mind was reeling with the news that they had given her. Multiple bombings in the center of Warsaw. The 1st Guard Division was on high alert and had deployed throughout the city, the two Feldwebels had been sent to retrieve her so that she could help secure the Royal family.
Once she was in the Palace, Kat learned that the Emperor had already been taken to the Command Center of 1st Guard in Potsdam when he was being briefed on the response. It was possibly one of the most secure locations in the Empire. Kira was in the hall she used in the Hohenzollern Palace to hold Court in, surrounded by armed guards as well as her Ladies in Waiting. She had ordered Kat to prepare the children to leave the palace which had turned out to be more complicated then she had thought it would be.
Kat had needed Matthias’ help to find Freddy in the kitchen eating breakfast and to her great annoyance she realized that Freddy was now taller than she was. She had tasked Freddy and Matthias with getting Michael and Louis out of bed while she braved the perils of Kiki’s suite of rooms. Opening the door, Kat saw the usual detritus of Kiki’s varied interests spilled across the floor. Lately, Kiki had been putting in an effort to keep the floor somewhat clear so that the girls could practice dancing with Prince Louis as a reluctant dance partner. She found Kiki, Aurora and Anya asleep in Kiki’s bed. As Kat helped the groggy girls get dressed and find Kiki’s glasses she asked where Zella was.
“Zella's mother saw her marks on the last algebra exam and she just exploded, so Zella is being punished” Kiki said.
Then Anya muttered something in Russian that Kat didn’t quite catch but Kiki must have.
“I don’t think that math was invented by Stalin to torture people” Kiki said mater of fact to Anya.
10th April 1954
Baltimore, Maryland
“Pleased to finally meet you Mr. Casey” The Suit from the Ford Motor Company said when he shook Jonny’s hand, “I was told by a mutual friend you are a Ford man.”
“I’ve a 39 Coup” Jonny said happily.
“That is a good year” The Suit said, “I also heard that you are also from the Bay Area, Petaluma. I’m originally from San Francisco and went to school at UC Berkley.”
“I am from Petaluma, Sir” Jonny said, “Instead of Berkley I went to the school of hard knocks in Mexico.”
The Suit laughed at that, probably unaware that Jonny was being dead serious with that answer.
“In many ways that makes you better for this than your partner” The Suit said as he removed a folder from his briefcase and handed it to him. Inside was a color hand-bill for that German film that had come out months earlier.
“Is this a joke?” Jonny asked.
“Hardly” The Suit replied, “The German firm Volkswagen is looking to eat our lunch, we believe we can eat into their market share, but that film proves that they have the jump on us and they have a rather innovative way of advertising it. This film for example.”
Skimming through the pages Jonny saw the details of what was being highlighted. The Silk Road, a ten-thousand-kilometer race from Beijing to Berlin across every kind of landscape imaginable. He saw a three-view drawing of a compact sedan, the Anglia 100E. “What exactly are you asking me to do here?” He asked.
“We want you on our team” The Suit said, “You are known as driver and a mechanic. We can make it look like you were hired for your talents. Your friend Jamison Parker the Third, who you met in the Army, has family money that is backing your entry into the race.”
“Wait one second” Jonny asked, “What the Hell kind of name is Jamison, since when is he my friend?”
“We know that the situation has been less than ideal” The Suit said, “But it shouldn’t be too difficult with Mr. Parker back into his normal element.”
That made sense, the CIA had been setting it up so that anyone who looked into them would have seen them working in the motor pool of various Army Bases. It would be no surprise when they turned up in Beijing at the start of the race. There was one problem though…
“This is outside of the jurisdiction of my Employer” Jonny said, “Industrial espionage?”
“Not as much as you might think” The Suit said, “The woman who has been working for Volkswagen was working for the U.S. State Department. The competition, General Motors, made the mistake of spying on her and found out the hard way that she is under the protection of a rather infamous German Countess. You know the brother of that Countess, a Colonel von Mischner?”
“I met him a few times, but I would hardly say I know him” Jonny replied.
“But what did he know you as?” The Suit asked, “That might be enough to keep you from being unceremoniously booted out of Europe. For the rest, you’re just to gather information that your Agency might find useful, photographs, specs and anything else you find that will be useful to my company will be passed along accordingly.”
“What’s the catch?” Jonny asked.
“You need to figure out how to make a compact economy sedan into a convincing racecar and make sure that Mr. Parker can spell you out as a driver” The Suit replied.
“The race starts in three months” Jonny said.
“You had better get busy then” The Suit said, “The car will arrive in the garage you’ve been using in Alexandria later today. Good luck, Mr. Casey.”
Then with that the Suit left.
11th April 1954
Berlin
It was supposed to have been a quiet spring morning instead Kat had found herself dragged out of bed as two Feldwebels from the 1st Foot had been pounding on her front door until Petia had been forced to let them in. Then they had gone straight to Kat’s bedroom door which was locked and started pounding on that. While it was fortunate that she wasn’t asleep, Kat and Doug had been in the middle of something that she was unhappy to have interrupted. The two Feldwebels waited red-faced in the parlor for a few minutes while she got cleaned up and dressed. The whole time her mind was reeling with the news that they had given her. Multiple bombings in the center of Warsaw. The 1st Guard Division was on high alert and had deployed throughout the city, the two Feldwebels had been sent to retrieve her so that she could help secure the Royal family.
Once she was in the Palace, Kat learned that the Emperor had already been taken to the Command Center of 1st Guard in Potsdam when he was being briefed on the response. It was possibly one of the most secure locations in the Empire. Kira was in the hall she used in the Hohenzollern Palace to hold Court in, surrounded by armed guards as well as her Ladies in Waiting. She had ordered Kat to prepare the children to leave the palace which had turned out to be more complicated then she had thought it would be.
Kat had needed Matthias’ help to find Freddy in the kitchen eating breakfast and to her great annoyance she realized that Freddy was now taller than she was. She had tasked Freddy and Matthias with getting Michael and Louis out of bed while she braved the perils of Kiki’s suite of rooms. Opening the door, Kat saw the usual detritus of Kiki’s varied interests spilled across the floor. Lately, Kiki had been putting in an effort to keep the floor somewhat clear so that the girls could practice dancing with Prince Louis as a reluctant dance partner. She found Kiki, Aurora and Anya asleep in Kiki’s bed. As Kat helped the groggy girls get dressed and find Kiki’s glasses she asked where Zella was.
“Zella's mother saw her marks on the last algebra exam and she just exploded, so Zella is being punished” Kiki said.
Then Anya muttered something in Russian that Kat didn’t quite catch but Kiki must have.
“I don’t think that math was invented by Stalin to torture people” Kiki said mater of fact to Anya.
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Part 72, Chapter 1055
Chapter One Thousand Fifty-Five
13th April 1954
Hohenzollern Castle, Hohenzollern Lands, Southern Germany
Freddy was sitting on the battlements of the castle trying to sort his thoughts while writing a letter to Suga. On the prior Sunday morning, he had just sat down to an early breakfast after talking one of the cooks into giving it to him early when Kat burst in and told him that he had an obligation to get his younger brothers out of bed because of an unstated emergency. It was minutes later that he found himself with Matthias dragging a recalcitrant Mikey and Lou to a waiting helicopter that had taken off and flown south with his mother and his cousin Gia aboard. A couple hours later it had landed at the Hohenzollern Castle followed minutes later by a second helicopter with Kat, Freddy’s sisters, Gia’s girl and Kiki’s friend Aurora.
Later, Freddy had learned that it was part of a longstanding protocol to preserve the succession in the event of the destruction of Berlin. The 1st Imperial Foot Regiment was to carry those orders out and they could only be countermanded by his father. On the other hand, Freddy’s father had stayed in Berlin to provide a steadying influence and had later traveled to Warsaw. Freddy had realized that it was about appearances, Louis Ferdinand had to be seen as the leader of the entire Empire, no exceptions, and that included Polish subjects.
Later Kat had briefed his mother of the sequence of events that had resulted in the evacuation and Freddy had been encouraged to sit in. What he had heard was surprising. A series of bombs carried by lories had detonated in the center of Warsaw, Government buildings had been targeted as with the Ministry of War being hardest hit. Then several follow up blasts that had been targeting the police and firefighters who had been responding. This had been on Sunday morning but still it had left hundreds dead and injured. The Polish Independence Movement was claiming responsibility and the BII was saying that they were trying to provoke a response similar to the one by the British after the Easter Rising in Ireland decades earlier. Kat had advised Freddy’s mother that in was in everyone’s interest that not happen.
Freddy had followed along as Kat had said that she felt that Aurora Taro should be commended for staying with her friends during the evacuation. Then the conversation had taken a turn, his mother and Kat had decided that his mother needed to address the public, calling for calm and unity. Then they had decided that Freddy would need to be at his mother’s side when she gave the address. It had been done that evening following an address by the Chancellor. Freddy hadn’t said a word but still he had felt sweat trickling down his sides the entire time he had been there in front of the lights.
Then came the wait.
The 1st Guard Division was working with the City Police to determine if it was safe to return. Memories of the Reichstag bombing haunted Berlin, and no one was taking any chances. Looking down into countryside that the castle had a commanding view of Freddy had to conclude that it was quiet here, he had to give it that much.
Freddy didn’t include it in his letter, but he was starting to suspect that this whole thing had been a test run.
Alexandria, Virginia
The first thing that they had needed to do was remove anything that added weight to the car. Ford had helped by sending them a factory new Anglia where little had been installed in it yet. The interest of Ford was that if they competed in the Silk Road Rally the resulting publicity was help introduce the Anglia to the American market. Jonny wished them luck in that, he had other concerns.
The side-valve engine was a bit of a challenge, unlike a full-sized car like the Coup, a larger engine would just weigh down the front end. Four-cylinders and a three-speed manual transmission. Things which signaled no end to the trouble for him.
Jonny had made a few phone calls to people who he thought might be knowledgeable regarding the anemic engine. After they stopped laughing about how he was intending to do what with what and where he was able to get some real help. The engine would need to be heavily modified and her would need to test every change he made before he dared to race it and it wasn’t as simple of thinking of it as half of a V8 engine. Then he had been told about how the division of Ford in England had already dealt with this problem, the more modern engine in the Consul was exactly what he needed. It had taken several phone calls to Detroit, but they were going to have several Consul 4 engines delivered from England next week. There were plenty of other things that they would be doing in the meantime.
“Why didn’t they just do that in the first place?” Parker asked.
Jonny didn’t answer because it was the exact same question that he had asked Ford and had not gotten an answer back. Instead, he just worked on unbolting the back seat. He had tasked Parker with removing all the hardware from the trunk lid, the hinges and springs so that it could be welded into place. Then would come working on improving the suspension. The list of things that would need to be done were endless and they had to have it all done and be on their way to China by end of June.
13th April 1954
Hohenzollern Castle, Hohenzollern Lands, Southern Germany
Freddy was sitting on the battlements of the castle trying to sort his thoughts while writing a letter to Suga. On the prior Sunday morning, he had just sat down to an early breakfast after talking one of the cooks into giving it to him early when Kat burst in and told him that he had an obligation to get his younger brothers out of bed because of an unstated emergency. It was minutes later that he found himself with Matthias dragging a recalcitrant Mikey and Lou to a waiting helicopter that had taken off and flown south with his mother and his cousin Gia aboard. A couple hours later it had landed at the Hohenzollern Castle followed minutes later by a second helicopter with Kat, Freddy’s sisters, Gia’s girl and Kiki’s friend Aurora.
Later, Freddy had learned that it was part of a longstanding protocol to preserve the succession in the event of the destruction of Berlin. The 1st Imperial Foot Regiment was to carry those orders out and they could only be countermanded by his father. On the other hand, Freddy’s father had stayed in Berlin to provide a steadying influence and had later traveled to Warsaw. Freddy had realized that it was about appearances, Louis Ferdinand had to be seen as the leader of the entire Empire, no exceptions, and that included Polish subjects.
Later Kat had briefed his mother of the sequence of events that had resulted in the evacuation and Freddy had been encouraged to sit in. What he had heard was surprising. A series of bombs carried by lories had detonated in the center of Warsaw, Government buildings had been targeted as with the Ministry of War being hardest hit. Then several follow up blasts that had been targeting the police and firefighters who had been responding. This had been on Sunday morning but still it had left hundreds dead and injured. The Polish Independence Movement was claiming responsibility and the BII was saying that they were trying to provoke a response similar to the one by the British after the Easter Rising in Ireland decades earlier. Kat had advised Freddy’s mother that in was in everyone’s interest that not happen.
Freddy had followed along as Kat had said that she felt that Aurora Taro should be commended for staying with her friends during the evacuation. Then the conversation had taken a turn, his mother and Kat had decided that his mother needed to address the public, calling for calm and unity. Then they had decided that Freddy would need to be at his mother’s side when she gave the address. It had been done that evening following an address by the Chancellor. Freddy hadn’t said a word but still he had felt sweat trickling down his sides the entire time he had been there in front of the lights.
Then came the wait.
The 1st Guard Division was working with the City Police to determine if it was safe to return. Memories of the Reichstag bombing haunted Berlin, and no one was taking any chances. Looking down into countryside that the castle had a commanding view of Freddy had to conclude that it was quiet here, he had to give it that much.
Freddy didn’t include it in his letter, but he was starting to suspect that this whole thing had been a test run.
Alexandria, Virginia
The first thing that they had needed to do was remove anything that added weight to the car. Ford had helped by sending them a factory new Anglia where little had been installed in it yet. The interest of Ford was that if they competed in the Silk Road Rally the resulting publicity was help introduce the Anglia to the American market. Jonny wished them luck in that, he had other concerns.
The side-valve engine was a bit of a challenge, unlike a full-sized car like the Coup, a larger engine would just weigh down the front end. Four-cylinders and a three-speed manual transmission. Things which signaled no end to the trouble for him.
Jonny had made a few phone calls to people who he thought might be knowledgeable regarding the anemic engine. After they stopped laughing about how he was intending to do what with what and where he was able to get some real help. The engine would need to be heavily modified and her would need to test every change he made before he dared to race it and it wasn’t as simple of thinking of it as half of a V8 engine. Then he had been told about how the division of Ford in England had already dealt with this problem, the more modern engine in the Consul was exactly what he needed. It had taken several phone calls to Detroit, but they were going to have several Consul 4 engines delivered from England next week. There were plenty of other things that they would be doing in the meantime.
“Why didn’t they just do that in the first place?” Parker asked.
Jonny didn’t answer because it was the exact same question that he had asked Ford and had not gotten an answer back. Instead, he just worked on unbolting the back seat. He had tasked Parker with removing all the hardware from the trunk lid, the hinges and springs so that it could be welded into place. Then would come working on improving the suspension. The list of things that would need to be done were endless and they had to have it all done and be on their way to China by end of June.
Magnificent story, and magnificent castle. Much nicer place to keep continuation of government people than whatever bunker is used in the USA.
If this is a long distance race, making the trunk accessible might be a good idea, to put a spare tire, critical parts, and the occasional body in. "Spare parts" might include a few firearms or caltrops.
However, replacing some parts, like the hood (or bonnet for the Brits) with aluminum, and putting in a prop rod instead of springs, might not be bad. Or Ian Flemming hears rumors that someone is doing that, after a wiseguy comment, and it inspires the future Bond cars.)
If this is a long distance race, making the trunk accessible might be a good idea, to put a spare tire, critical parts, and the occasional body in. "Spare parts" might include a few firearms or caltrops.
However, replacing some parts, like the hood (or bonnet for the Brits) with aluminum, and putting in a prop rod instead of springs, might not be bad. Or Ian Flemming hears rumors that someone is doing that, after a wiseguy comment, and it inspires the future Bond cars.)
The Crown Prince has just received his first lesson on what it means to wear the crown: While other people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, YOU ARE the Island of Calm reassuring the people, giving them hope, providing comfort, and most of all being the living symbol of national unity.
A drive like that, you're going to need to do repairs in the field and will need some spare parts too.