Chapter One Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Two
24th August 1964
Lány Castle, Bohemia
The demonstration of the new weapons produced in the Kingdom of Bohemia had concluded with the representative from the Army asking if they wanted to test them out themselves. Vicky and Birdie had not been interested, but Michael had wanted to see the new rifle firsthand and had shot a full magazine at the targets that had been set out for exactly that purpose.
Firing the last shot out of the vz.62P, Michael removed the magazine and placed the rifle on the table next to a 9mm cz.60, the pistol that was an improved version of Browning Hi Power that Brno also made. General Morávek had been pushing for a new service pistol with a specific set of features for years and he had finally gotten it. The vs.62P on the other hand was based on a design of rifle that Hugo Schmeisser done in the forties. It was very different from the G44 rifle, though it used the same ammunition and magazines. Vicky just uncovered her ears and made a snide comment about the attachment between boys and the toys they play with. Michael had two decades of experience in dealing with her moods and didn’t feel the need to even be annoyed with his little sister. It had been Vicky herself who had asked for this because she had wanted to see what all the fuss was about the day before.
This was the rifle that had caused Mauser AG to attempt to purchase the Small Arms Division of Brno a few months earlier when it had been declared the standard rifle of the Bohemian Army and substitute standard for the Armed Services of the German Empire. That move had caused Michael to go before the Reichstag here in Prague and invoke the clause in the Treaty of Paris of 1918 that gave the Kingdom of Bohemia the right to maintain its own independent industrial and defense policies when it had been incorporated into the German Empire. That had effectively blocked the deal and until that had happened most of the Bohemian Reichstag had just assumed that Michael was a German Prince playing at being the King of Bohemia. He had noticed that people had certainly looked that him differently since then.
Later, when Michael had spoken with his father about what had happened his father had said that he should never apologize for putting the interests of the people of Bohemia first. He also got the impression that his father had his own opinions about what had transpired but as they had talked Michael had seen that his father was speaking as the Emperor and was completely unreadable when he did that.
The matter had been settled until Vicky had asked about it after she had arrived in Prague after she had decided she wasn’t interested in spending the rest of the Summer Holiday in Potsdam. The fact that she had come with Princess Alberta, or Birdie as she preferred to be called, of England in tow had certainly complicated matters.
Birdie’s mother had sent her to Germany over the summer because she felt that time away from London would be good for her. She had gone with Victoria to Prague on a lark and seeing Michael was a bonus in her thinking. The fact she still didn’t think that Michael being seven and a half years older than her posed a problem towards any possibility of future romance was a bit confounding to him. Michael had once asked why and she simply pointed out that her father was several years older than her mother, so it was not big deal. That had caused him to abruptly change the subject.
Then there was the other thing.
Birdie had started writing letters to him when he had gone to Korea because she felt that was what she was supposed to do and had continued in the year and a half since then. Mostly just pedestrian things, what she did from day to day and who she spoke with. Michael had written her back, mostly because he felt obligated to. He didn’t know what to make of the awkward young woman who had apparently had a crush on him since he had agreed that they should never get married. Just that made Birdie one of the strangest people he knew.
“Your brother took the time to arrange this for us” Birdie said to Vicky, “You don’t need to be that way.”
“It is not just my brother” Vicky said, “I have a lot of reasons to think that way. Mauser, the family trust, all of it is one giant rotten pustule.”
“Wouldn’t any pustule be rotten?” Birdie asked, “For it to even be there. You know?”
Vicky gave Birdie a dirty look.
“I think that Vicky is trying to explain that the business practices of the organizations and people behind recent events are not to her liking” Michael said.
“Thank you” Vicky said, “At least you understand.”
“It helps that I’m a step removed” Michael replied, “If I were in Poppa’s shoes, I would be sorely tempted to tell the Reichstag to sod off as I brought the guillotine out of the museum and put it to use in Königsplatz.”
“That sounds a bit extreme” Victoria said, “What Poppa is doing to those who stole from us seems to be far worse for them than just killing them.”
“For that lot, riding the U-Bahn with ordinary people is a fate worse than death” Michael said as he watched Birdie as she was picking up the brass cartridges that littered the ground.