I always find it fascinating when the readers guess what's next in the TL and it was something that I thought anyone was unlikely to guess when I wrote it.
Chapter One Thousand Fourteen
24th May 1953
Berlin
“Once again, I’m sorry Nancy” Kat said, “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Nancy was sitting on the back porch wrapped in a blanket, her bloodshot eyes and nose were still runny despite her getting sprayed from head to toe with cold water. Her clothes were deemed too contaminated to wear into the house.
“Just what was that?” Nancy asked.
“CS gas, military grade” Kat replied, “I thought I was dealing with the usual sort of pests from the US Government.”
“They weren’t” Nancy replied, “And I had the problem well in hand before you showed up with the gas grenades and the rubber bullets.”
“If they had been from the CIA you would have been happy to see me” Kat said, only to get a dirty look from Nancy. “I can’t apologize enough.”
“They were from General Motors” Nancy said, “And you overreacted.”
“That’s not fair” Kat said, “Compared to what I did to Russian Agents during the war, that was showing a lot of restraint.”
As Kat had found out after the fact, the three men were hired by GM. While Nancy’s efforts hadn’t had an impact yet. GM had caught wind of the ambitious business plan of VW and had understood that if Nancy’s efforts helped VW establish a foothold in North America then it would cut into GM and Ford’s market share at the entry level. It didn’t take much imagination to realize that eventually VW was going to develop a car for the midrange market, the Föhn 1200 as it was sold in Germany was well on its way there. GM had responded by sending private detectives to see what Nancy was up to. They were retired policemen from New York operating under the assumption that Berlin was a big city like Chicago, New York or Los Angeles. They had the BII all over them from the moment that they had stepped off the plane.
“You shot me” Nancy said, with increasing anger.
“You said it yourself that they were rubber bullets” Kat replied, “And I didn’t know you were in there.”
Nancy shot Kat another dirty look as the blanket fell open a bit, revealing an ugly purple bruise on the center of her crest. Nancy quickly pulled the blanket back about herself. She was furious about getting gassed, shot and then roughly decontaminated in the back garden by the Squad from the 1st Imperial Foot who Kat had brought along as backup. For Kat it had been a good op, four targets taken down before they could react. Unfortunately, one of the targets had been Nancy who had been trying to warn the three men to leave before Kat happened to them.
“What did you do with them?” Nancy asked.
“Those three idiots are currently in the cargo hold of a Lufthansa flight to New York” Kat replied, “The crew has instructions to dump them out as soon as they park the plane at Idlewild Airport.”
“Good” Nancy said as she noticed a familiar face peeking out the back door. To her absolute horror, Tilo stepped out onto the back porch.
“Did something happen?” Tilo asked.
Nancy turned to Kat and yelled “I HATE YOU!” Sharply and she ran past Tilo into the house, they heard a door slam a minute later.
“What was that about?” Tilo asked bewildered.
“Nancy has had a rough day” Kat replied, “Are you staying for dinner Dietrich?”
Tilo looked at Kat with narrowed eyes. He knew that there was a half dozen men from the 1st Foot about who would back her version of events, no matter what she did. He also knew that she outranked him and that this was the sort of thing that Kat Mischner had done to him since he was fourteen. She disliked him, and he never knew if he was about to step into a trap with her. He had a feeling that staying for dinner would be extremely bad for his health.
“I came to see how Nancy was doing” Tilo said.
“You saw” Kat replied, “Try not to have a bad day Dietrich.”
He had a vision of the tigress that people compared her to, sitting in the sun unsheathing claws and debating action. He realized that she was practically daring him to cause her trouble, so she would have an excuse to use them.
Petaluma, California
It was the first day that the afternoon felt noticeably warm. Jonny was drying his car after washing it, a 1939 Ford Coupe which he had bought for a song with a bit of his back pay when he had first come back from Mexico. He had spent the winter fixing it up car. With the new 239 flathead V-8 engine the car just flew. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other car pull up. They didn’t even try to hide its official nature. The man who got out of the backseat even walked like he had a broomstick up his ass.
“Whatever you are selling, I ain’t buying” Jonny said without ever looking up.
“You could at least hear what I have to say” The man said.
“I’ve done my bit” Jonny said looking at speck that he hoped wasn’t a chip in the paint, “Now I just want to get back to my life.”
“You’re a Technical Sergeant, John Casey, a rank that would take most men at least a decade to get” The man replied, “Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Presidential Unit Citation. Even a German Iron Cross and Federal Merit Cross in Gold won in action with allied forces.”
“Is there a point to this?” Jonny asked.
“With a record like that, you think that Uncle Sam is just going to let you walk away?”
“I’d say that you can watch me” Jonny said.
“Have it your way” The man said, “But when you get bored loading barges or get popped by the local Highway Patrol speeding in this car. Give me a call.”
He handed Jonny a business card. Jonny shoved it into the pocket of his shirt and thought no more of it.
