Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Forty-three
9th April 1961
Mitte, Berlin
It was a funeral service like no other that Saint Hedwig’s had ever seen. When such a prominent member of the Church passes away it is normal for the Funeral Service to be a raucous affair, they had no idea what they were getting with this one.
Aside from the recent deceased’s family and their guests, the vast majority of the people present seemed to be there to make sure that he really was dead. The remainder were those merely curious because they had heard the rumors about the man. It was easy to identify most of the former, nondescript men who had eyes that seemed like that of a shark. Katherine von Mischner, who had watched the service from one of the alcoves just seemed angry, though she didn’t say a word to anyone. Though later as things began to spiral, she did look amused. Jacob Schmidt was equally silent, but it was noticeable something was off about him as his wife Esther and one of his Aides guided him to his seat.
It all had started well enough, but things swiftly got out of hand. The litany had been the one chosen by the Widow and clearly it was how she preferred to remember her husband. Then the eulogies had started, and they were delivered by people who had actually known the man and weren’t afraid to say what he was like.
Not that the seating for the extensive Schultz family was much better. Helga, the matriarch of the family had been married to Johann S. Schultz for forty-eight years and was not taking the loss well. Despite that, she still felt the need to give her youngest daughter and her youngest son Tilo’s wife the stink-eye. After years of living in the Order of Saint Clair, Inga had suddenly decided that she couldn’t do that anymore if she wanted to be true to herself. She had decamped to Berlin where she had found work as a Hospital Administrator and was now happy with her life. Tilo had married Nancy, an American woman who had worked directly for his father’s enemies before she had landed a job in the Public Relations Department at Volkswagen. Presently, she was on leave from her job as the Press Liaison for the Imperial Court and the Order of Louise. Ava was a bit more charitable towards Nancy but couldn’t understand the choices that her little sister had made. Hanna was trying to be the peacemaker like she had since she had been a little girl, without much success.
Jost, Lenz and Tilo had been stuck with the thankless task of trying to keep the grandchildren in order. Despite the ongoing service, Jost reverted to dealing with them the same way he would if they were new recruits. Lenz and Tilo, despite their much higher rank had a lifetime of conditioning to let senior Noncoms deal with minor matters. The two oldest grandsons, Erik and Karl were completely indifferent to what was happening until Ditte, Karl’s older sister, got after them to help. It was a bit too late to prevent it from becoming a complete fiasco. Fortunately, it didn’t become an International incident though the potential was there.
Later, once the burial, and wake were completed the Bishop quietly told Tilo that his family wasn’t going be excommunicated after the day’s events. Besides that, no other denomination would have them, so the Catholic Church was stuck with the Schultz family because they had been grandfathered in. It was impossible to tell if he was joking or not.
13th April 1961
At least it had been a fairly easy morning, the group that Kiki had been leading was composed mostly of Japanese tourists. Once she got past their love of flash photography, they were extremely appreciative of her efforts. They seemed to be delighted to learn that she had lived in Kyoto for a year and they were very polite when it came to her Japanese, which Kiki knew was far from perfect. If only every group was as respectful. The previous group had been families who had looked upon Kiki as a babysitter of sorts. Next week, schools were going to be back in session and Kiki would get the privilege of leading other people’s darling children through the Museum.
Today, Kiki had just handed off a group of tourists to the next guide when she got a message that she had a visitor waiting for her in the Staff Dining Hall. At first, she was a bit reluctant. This was unexpected and it was a long trudge to the top floor of the Eastern Wing which contained the Staff Housing. Then she was told that meant the next group would be handled by someone else, effectively giving her the rest of the afternoon off. That put an entirely different spin on things.
The Dining Hall wasn’t a large room as these things went. It could be crowded during the regular mealtimes, particularly around noon. It was late afternoon, so the only one present was a Heer Major who Kiki had never seen before. He was seated at the table with a cup in front of him and a file that he was reading. He motioned her to have a seat across the table from him.
“Fraulein Fischer” The Major said as she sat down with a smile that suggested that he knew it was an alias, he set the folder down on the table and Kiki saw that it was her own personnel file. “I am Major Kepler, and I happen to be the S7 for the Training Cadre that you have applied to join this July. From reading your file I must say that you are an interesting young woman.”
“That brought you all the way to Berlin?” Kiki asked.
“I had other business here in the capital” Kepler said, “And the General always welcomes anyone with a few good stories to his table. Besides, I was curious about an Imperial Princess volunteering for some of the most arduous training imaginable and a career in what could only be described as insanely dangerous at times.”
“Because I want to” Kiki replied.
Kepler leaned forward, “That isn’t a good enough answer” He said, “I would say that you think you have something to prove, if I had to guess.”
Kiki was silent.
“You also turned down an appointment to train at Judenbach two years ago” Kepler said, “What we do at Laupheim is assumed to not be as extreme as Judenbach, that assumption would be wrong. We expect the same things and have a similar attrition rate.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Kiki asked.
“Because while you’ve already checked many of the boxes of what we demand of our people, you should not be expecting that this will be easy” Kepler replied, “With that in mind, would you care to explain your motivations.”