Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II

[Peabody-Martini]

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.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Fifty-Six


15th April 1954

Hohenzollern Castle

They might not have been able to make it in to Gymnasia for the end of term exams but as Kiki found out that didn’t mean that the exams couldn’t come to them. The Royal Tutor sitting there with a stop watch as the exams were done. The good thing was that once they were done then they were free for two whole weeks until the next term started, and they had the run of the castle which was like something from a fairy tale. Or as Aurora pointed out, like something from a ghost story, which was even better. Today they had decided to look at the large bronze statues on the south side of the castle, all of whom were Kiki’s ancestors depicted as heroic figures.

“He was the one who died in the arms of a prostitute?” Aurora asked looking at the statue of Wilhelm the III, Kiki’s grandfather.

“A prostitute?” Anya asked.

“A woman who sells herself for money” Kiki said, knowing that she was on dangerous ground here. Anya was an odd mix of worldly cynicism and complete naivety, one never knew where one stood with her. “To men usually, for sex.”

Anya looked completely aghast when she heard that. It was something else that Kiki had learned about the Russian girl, she had very definite views about morality and what she thought of those who fell short.

“It is not my place to judge” Anya said, “He would never have had a chance at repentance, which is sad.”

“My grandmother would tell you exactly where she thinks he ended up, it involves a lot of burning sulfur” Kiki said, “Though I don’t think many of my ancestors are going to be found in Heaven.”

Anya seemed surprised by that answer. The way she carried on sometimes, one would think that she thought that she was surrounded by a bunch of libertines, but the last few months had done a lot to knock out the underpinnings of many of Anya’s suppositions. Gia had said that when Anya got a bit older she would need them to be there for her as she learned that not everything she believed was always correct or realistic.

“Everyone knows what Wilhelm the Third was” Aurora said, “And all of this is boring. I would rather finally get an answer about what Anya wants to do for her birthday.”

Anya was apprehensive about her upcoming birthday in May, she had never had a real birthday party before and they had decided to help her plan one. However, every time they started to talk about it, Anya changed the subject or refused to talk about it.

“There has to be something?” Kiki asked as they once again pressed Anya, “What was your heart’s desire? What would be special for you?”

Aurora smiled at that, but Kiki noticed that Anya looked like she was about to burst into tears.

“A home and a family” Anya said in a small voice, “Sasha…”

Kiki knew that was what Anya called Gia, the name that Gia had gone by when she had been sent to live in Russia. As Anya started quietly crying Kiki realized that she had pushed the girl a little too far.

“It’s okay” Aurora said as she hugged Anya, despite some of the things that Anya had said, Aurora had refused to reject her. “You now have both. We’ll think of something fun for you to do.”

Then Anya turned and looked down the hill that dropped away steeply away from the castle and the green valley that spread out below. “This place is so beautiful” She said with a sniff, “But it is just… Too much.”


Alexandria, Virginia

The car had been completely stripped. Jonny had told him that anything that they didn’t need was just excess weight and they needed to get rid of it. Frank, Parker’s former college roommate was looking at the car and not looking particularly impressed.

“It looks like a typical piece of British crap” Frank said, he had told Parker that he was from New York, but the accent he spoke with said he was from somewhere much further east. “Disassembled like this you can see the piss poor quality control.”

“Jonny said almost the exact same thing” Parker replied.

“Then why use it?” Frank asked.

“Sponsorship” Parker said, “My father was willing to put up some of the money but nowhere near enough. We had to go begging for help from Ford and the race has rules governing how much the cars can weigh and their dimensions.”

Jonny had been busy all day, he had removed the gas tank and had been busy fabricating a new one that would partially fill the space formally occupied by the trunk. It would give them a bit more range, ride better and not be quite as vulnerable in the event of a collision.

“So, this is the car then?” Frank asked.

“Yep” Parker replied, “I do feel I ought to warn you about Jonny though. He knows all about these things, but he can be a real arrogant pain in the ass.”

“That sort of comes with the territory” Frank said, “My brother plays in the Army band back home and he said that Non-Commissioned Officers are like that.”

“New York Frank?” Parker asked.

“Real funny” Frank said, “What are you offering me anyway?”

“The experience of being in the chase van” Parker said, “I’m talking real excitement as opposed to teaching English literature.”

“Who else is coming along? Frank asked.

“A couple of Jonny’s friends from the 10th Alpine” Parker replied, “I really need someone along who looks at a book and doesn’t see only it as potential toilet paper, besides that you’ll be free.”

Even though Frank was laughing Parker knew he was in.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Fifty-Seven


19th April 1954

Berlin

Reading over the report Kat was annoyed. The performance of 1st Imperial Foot in the execution of evacuation protocols had revealed many flaws in their planning, mostly the result of what could only be described as human failings. The men of the 1st were all professionals, but they had found themselves extremely reluctant to enter the chambers of a sleeping adolescent Princess. That had resulted in Kat having to do it herself when she arrived, even though she lived ten minutes away that was unacceptable. The evacuation should have been well underway by the time she was just waking Kristina up. Then there was having to track down the Crown Prince and what had happened when the two men had arrived at Kat’s house.

Kat had already reached some conclusions of her own.

“The current makeup of the 1st Foot is going to have to change” Kat told the Oberst, “It took entirely too long to get underway and if that had been a real emergency, it might have ended tragically.”

The Oberst did not look very pleased, he was a traditionalist, and all of this did not come easily for him. Commanding the 1st Foot was the pinnacle of a long career that stretched back to the First World War. He would have considered the task of protecting the royal family an honor even if he wasn’t oathbound to do so. Now those things were coming into conflict in a rapidly changing world.

“I trust that you already have a course of action planned” The Oberst said.

“Yes” Kat said as she pulled a folder out of the accordion file she had brought. “These are just proposals, all of them would need to be approved by Division and you Sir.”

The Oberst looked through the typewritten pages until he came to the list of two dozen names which caused him to raise his eyebrows. “This would certainly change the character of the Regiment” He said, “It would however solve the problems that we have had with the Princesses.”

“They have all been vetted by me, meet my standards and would welcome the opportunity” Kat said.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Zella was angry.

“You got to spend the last week living in a castle” Zella said, “And no one even told me what was going on.”

On the weekend of the evacuation, Zella had been made to stay home and study by her mother. As she entered the Untertertia year, Zella’s mother kept telling her that the expectations were only going to get larger, which was the last thing she needed to hear. Studying algebra ahead of the final exams of the term while the others were off having an adventure was just one insult too many.

“Its not like we escaped from anything” Aurora replied, “It was made very clear that life would go on, just there and not here.”

“It was also scary at first” Kiki said, “Gräfin Katherine woke us up and she was in full ice queen mode. Get up, get dressed, get on the helicopter and no arguing with her allowed.”

“That is still a lot better than A plus B equals C minus can you please repeat the question” Zella said.

Anya just smiled at that mention, she was quietly sitting in the corner looking through a large book of photograph prints that Aurora had given her as an early birthday present. Gerda Taro, Retrospective 1935 to 1950. They all knew what her opinion of math.

“None of that matters now” Kiki said, having grown frustrated by her friends, “You came here today to help me find Hera.”

When they had arrived back in Berlin the day before it had been noticed that Hera, Kiki’s cat, had gone missing. With things still unsettled and the upcoming move to the summer residence it was likely that Hera would remain missing.


Prague, Bohemia

She might not have been a guilty party, but Regina felt like she had a target on her back just the same and she was sure that she was being watched. How could have the movement been so stupid? Even with the nebulous goals of the PIM beyond independence they had always known that they would need the support of the vast majority of the population of Poland. Instead, they had set off bombs killing the very people that they needed to be winning over. Regina hoped that the leadership of the PIM realized just how far up their collective ass that their friends from Federal Internal Intelligence was about to go.

Today, after work after she had left work the feeling of being followed had only grown. Regina knew what was about to happen. When she entered her one room apartment she left the door open. The elderly couple who rented it to her had always been kind to her, so she didn’t want to see their property damaged. Pouring herself a glass of water from the sink Regina sat down on her bed and waited. It was only minutes later that she heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall. She didn’t look up as they crowded into the apartment.

“Fraulein Klimek?” A Plainclothes Police Officer asked. The others, mostly uniformed, were busy going through her things.

“Yes” Regina said, she saw no point in denying it.

“We are going to need you to come us” The Plainclothes Officer said, “To answer some questions.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Fifty-Eight


2nd May 1954

Potsdam

She had named him for Ivan the Fool. Aurora had joked about him being Ivan the Terrible, but he was so small that Anya couldn’t imagine that a name like that would ever fit as she held the tiny ball of orange and white fur close. She also liked the story of the simple farmer who remained unswayed by the Devil’s tricks and deceptions, unlike his worldly and supposedly smarter brothers.

Weeks earlier they had spent hours searching for Hera and eventually concluded that Hera must not want to be found. Kiki was distraught after her lout of an older brother had suggested that perhaps it was better for everyone if Hera remained lost. A few days later Hera finally turned up outside the kitchen looking for food but before Kiki got there Hera had vanished again. A couple days later Hera was spotted sunning herself in one of the palace courtyards and couldn’t vanish before Kiki tried to scoop her up. To say that Hera took it badly was an understatement. While the cat was inclined to bite and scratch most people, Kiki had always been Hera’s person, so she hadn’t been inclined to try to fight with her until then. It had been Anya who had discovered the reason why when she discovered a half dozen tiny kittens hidden in the bushes just old enough for their eyes to be open. That solved the mystery of Hera’s disappearance.

It was then that Anya got a lesson in the sort of family that she had been adopted by. It was a time when the public was been hungry for good news and a feelgood human interest story of Kiki’s cat having kittens was given way too much attention. Then there was the diplomatic aspect. Two of the kittens shared the wild calico of their mother, they had been promised to the daughter of the French President and Princess Alberta of England. Of the remaining four, two were solid black and two were orange tabbies. The two black kittens and one of the orange kittens were going to the families of Ladies in Waiting in the Imperial Court. Ivan was one of the orange tabbies and Kiki said that Anya could have him when he was old enough to leave his mother.

As a result, Anya was here in the Summer residence every single day visiting Ivan and the other kittens. That was a joy that was distracting her from so much that was going on. She was to start school, as in other students. It was to be the first time that she had been in a classroom since she had left the orphanage except Anya feared it was going to be absolute nightmare. The friends she had made were all older than her and would be going to a different school. She was faced with daunting task making new friends as the strangest of strangers.

Anya set Ivan down with his brothers and sisters while Hera was watching Anya warily with her mismatched eyes. “Take care of Ivan” Anya whispered to Hera before she went to see what the rest of the afternoon would bring.


Warsaw, Poland

There were no surprises here. The Germans suspected that he had been in on the bombings, so they had kicked his door in and had been questioning him. This had gone on for a few days, but it had been completely absurd how they had been going about doing it. The whole time there had been a State Prosecutor present, not to gather information for his trial but so make sure that his rights were protected and that everything was above board. If he had known that they would go about doing this with one arm tied behind their back, then he might have suggested that the PIM blow up Warsaw ages ago. Right now, he was counting down the minutes before they had to let him go. He would walk out of the Police Headquarters and have a feather in his cap. Leopold Wolanski stood up to interrogation and didn’t say a thing, that would be all anyone would remember. This might even be worth the time he had spent here.

He heard the door of the jail slam open. It was too early for his release, so something else must be happening. One of his jailers opened the cell across from his, the one that had been sitting empty for the entire time that Leo had been here. Then two guards came in dragging a figure between them, they threw the figure into the cell and then locked the door. As the guard’s footsteps faded and then the door slammed shut. Leo saw that it was a woman but couldn’t see her face. Then she rolled over and Leo’s breath caught in his throat, she was bleeding from her nose and mouth and her left eye was swelling shut. The worst part was that he knew exactly who she was.

“Regina” Leo called out to her and she didn’t respond.

Leo kept trying to get her attention for several minutes and he realized that she was ignoring him. Then he remembered the last conversation they’d had before she had boarded the train.

“Regina, I’m sorry” Leo said, “What did they do to you?”

Then she sat up stiffly and gave Leo a venomous look with her good eye.

“I was living quietly in Prague and then you happened to me again” Regina hissed.

“What do mean?” Leo asked.

“The Germans, they are convinced that the bombings in Warsaw were the start of a wider campaign” Regina spat, “Because I was known to have been in your crowd and lived in a different city, the Tigress was dispatched by the Kaiserin to make sure that there were no more bombings.”

“But the Germans have been treating us with kid gloves” Leo said, and Regina just started laughing.

“They treat you with kid gloves” Regina said, “Me, I got the goddamned Tigress who is above the Law because they want to know where the other bombs are.”

Leo was shocked, Regina didn’t know anything having been inactive in the PEM for years. The Germans didn’t care, and they had given Regina over to the Tigress. He knew that Regina would die before she gave up any information or even admit that she didn’t have any to give up. Then the door slammed open again and Leo heard approaching footsteps and one of the guards was unlocking the door to Leo’s cell.

“Looks like we are cutting you loose” The guard said as he opened the door, “Out you go.”

“But what about Regina?” Leo asked.

“That is none of your concern” The guard said as he pulled Leo out of the cell and pushed him in the direction of the door.

Then when he came through the door he saw her, the Tigress herself. Everyone had heard the stories about this woman, but in real life she was smaller than Leo had imagined. It wasn’t until he saw her eyes, cold and empty. He knew that Regina wasn’t going to walk out of here alive.

That was when he saw the State Prosecutor, the one who had been so keen on Leo’s rights being protected. “Your release has been secured” He said jovially.

“You’ve got to help her” Leo said in reply.

“Help who?” The Prosecutor asked.

“Regina” Leo said, “She doesn’t know anything, she’s been out of PEM for years.”

“Oh” The Prosecutor said, “The other prisoner you saw is here under the declared state of National Emergency, unless you give me more than that there is nothing I can do.”

Leo gulped, this situation had suddenly become impossible.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Fifty-Nine


2nd May 1954

Warsaw

“I’m terribly sorry about all this” Katherine said as she handed Regina an icepack wrapped in a towel, “You are going to have a black eye once we get the swelling down.”

“We had to make it believable” Regina said, “I couldn’t live with Leo hurting anyone else.”

What wasn’t believable to Regina was that Katherine von Mischner, the infamous Tigress of Pankow was so concerned about her getting hurt. She had seen it a couple hours earlier when it had come time to inflict the injuries and Katherine had tried repeatedly to talk her out of doing it. At that moment Leopold was busy telling Inspector Werth, who was playing the role of the State Prosecutor, everything he knew in an effort to get Regina out of the clutches of the Tigress.

“We shouldn’t have needed to do this in the first place” Katherine said.

“There was no way that you could have gotten him to talk unless he thought he was saving the world” Regina said, “And your secret is safe with me.”

“What secret is that?” Katherine asked.

“That you really are a compassionate person despite what the world believes about you” Regina said. She saw from the set of Katherine’s jaw that she didn’t like to hear things like that. At the same time during the two weeks prior when Regina had been in protective custody, Katherine had talked to Regina about her life, she had mentioned how her daughter Tatiana was such a sensitive little girl. It was obvious to Regina where that came from even if Katherine couldn’t see it.


Wunsdorf-Zossen

Hertha had yet another disappointing season and to add insult to injury Union had a great year. Hans however had discovered that he had a different team that he wanted to follow. Unfortunately, that led to a different sort of disappointment. Manfred’s team had just ended the season in a draw, falling well short of the goals needed for a championship. As Hans drove home he saw that Manfred was trying to hide his reaction to what had happened.

“You’ll be in a different league next season and you’ll be the only one who remembers this” Hans said as he turned into the driveway of their house and parked, “And that is only what you will want to take away from it.”

Manfred turned and looked at Hans bewildered, “What?” He said.

Hans made a point of never poking fun at either of his children, but it was obvious to him that there was a lot of Helene and her father in Manfred. Anything less than the total defeat of an opponent was unacceptable. That was what led Manfred to be disappointed that his team had played a superior team that had beaten them soundly earlier in the year and kept them to a tie. That was a victory in itself, but Manfred wasn’t able to see it yet. Helene had suggested that Ina was already so big hearted that she would probably just give her opponent the ball and then suggest that they go pick daisies instead. The very idea of winning was completely alien to her.

“Some things are more important than winning right now” Hans said, “You were in the entire game and you did far more than what was expected of you.”

What Hans didn’t need to mention was that at Manfred’s age just being able to maintain focus on the game itself for an entire hour was considered more than was expected.

“Besides that,” Hans said, “You did well this season.”

“But we lost, Poppa” Manfred said.

Get used to the idea, Hans thought to himself. No one wins all the time and the sooner Manfred learned that lesson the better. No one needed the sort of spoiled brat who walked around thinking that a victory was something he was intitled to.

“Tell anyone who asks that you did your best and you’ll get them next season” Hans said.

“Really” Manfred said.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Hans asked, and Manfred nodded his head.

With that Hans and Manfred walked to the house where presumably lunch was waiting.


Jena

“You should be so lucky” Zella’s Grandmother said to her.

This was because of Zella’s negative reaction to the pensioner’s home that her Grandmother had moved into. The place struck Zella as being impersonal and institutional. Her Grandmother lived in a room that felt more like a hospital than a home.

“Why would I consider that lucky?” Zella asked.

“Because I don’t have to clean anything, arrange for anything to be repaired and I finally have people to talk to.”

That was keeping with what Uncle Peter said about her Grandmother feeling lonely after her Grandfather had passed away. Still though.

“I also get regular visits from my one appropriately feisty Granddaughter” Her Grandmother said.

“You can’t be serious” Zella said, “You can’t possibly think that’s a good thing.

Her grandmother laughed, “You are more like me then you realize” She said, “Ask your father how he got that scar some time.”

“He said it was because you slapped him hard across the face while wearing a ring.”

Zella was horrified that her grandmother would bring that up.

“Did he tell you what he did?” Zella’s Grandmother said, “How he ran off and joined the army without telling anyone. He scared everyone half to death by doing that and deserved far worse than just getting slapped.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Sixty


10th May 1954

Potsdam

In many ways her presence was a mark of Kat’s personal success within the 1st Foot, however she was having trouble with the emotional and territorial aspect of it all. For a very long time she had been the only woman in the Regiment and she had been proud of that distinction, today that changed. Oberfähnrich Lea Bäcker was one of the first twenty-four that Kat had transferred into the 1st Foot. There was a rumor that her mother was the illegitimate daughter of a General only Kat had no idea which one. According to her file Lea had endured a very difficult time in the Bavarian War Academy, frozen out by her peers in an attempt to get her to leave. She had then been sent to work in civil affairs in Mexico in what was a criminal waste of her talents. At the end of that campaign when promotions and medals were being handed out generously Lea had been put on the first plane back to Bavaria and was again frozen out.

When Kat had read Lea’s file, she had realized that if she had gone the traditional route as opposed to Judenbach and the SKA then this was exactly what would have happened to her. She also knew that Lea needed someone to give her a chance and she was perfect for the protection of the royal princesses.

“Regardless of what anyone says” Kat said as they walked down the corridor of the Summer Residence, “The First Foot is a frontline Regiment, not the toy soldiers that critics try to say we are. In fact, we have a bigger job to do than most Regiments because we have a myriad of threats to deal with.”

The two soldiers from the 1st Foot who were walking with measured steps in the opposite direction stopped and stood aside. Kat saw that they were standing at attention and could hear the heel clicks as she passed. There were times when her rank and decorations were a bother. However, she noted with approval that nothing was out of place on their uniforms. Like the blue uniform that Kat was wearing, they looked like something from a century prior, but the weapons they were carrying were modern G44 Rifles with walnut stocks that had been made specially for the 1st Foot by Mauser by the most skilled gunsmiths in their employ.

“Good” Lea replied and then to Kat’s great annoyance she lost a bit of her composure and was trying unsuccessfully to hide a giddy smile. “I want to say how exciting it is to finally meet you Gräfin von Mischner, I’ve admired you since I was a little girl in primary school.”

Kira had warned her that this experience would leave her feeling incredibly old because all the women coming in were at least five years younger than she was. At the age of twenty Lea was eleven years younger than Kat.

“I’ve always tried to set a good example” Kat replied, a safe, neutral thing to say on that subject. With that they stepped out into a partly cloudy spring afternoon and walked across the gravel covered space to the pillars of the colonnade. “These are some of your charges.”

Kiki was sitting on the bench dangling a ribbon to play with half-dozen tiny kittens who were all ears and fuzzy fur they hadn’t grown into yet. The kittens were trying to attack the ribbon and ended up attacking each other. Anya was trying to climb between two pillars. When Kat and Lea walked up the kittens ran to their mother who in the shade of the pillars. Kat had been discussing with Kira the need to get Hera fixed but had not volunteered to be the one to try to catch the cat.

“This is Princess Kristina and Fraulein Anya, Grand Duchess Jehane Alexandra’s ward” Kat said, “They are frequently joined by Markgräfin Marcella von Holz and Fraulein Aurora Taro-Capa. There is tedious officialdom involved but they have been declared Kristina’s friends and companions.”

With that Anya let go of the pillars and dropped to the ground. Anya then ran up to Kat, “Gospozha Katya, who is this woman?” She asked in Russian. Despite Kat’s best efforts Anya had yet to warm to her, suspicious of Kat for being a soldier and an agent of the German Empress.

“Her name is Fraulein Bäcker and her job is going to be to keep you and Kiki safe” Kat replied.

“Kiki might need protecting but I am not the sort that anyone would miss” Anya said with a great deal of certainty.

“I thought the same thing when I was your age” Kat said, “I was as wrong then as you are now.”

Anya just stared at Kat then looked at Lea before scurrying off. It was obvious that Lea had been unable to follow any of that exchange from the look on her face.

“Anya isn’t that bad once you get to know her” Kiki said as she got up from the bench. “You said your name was Fraulein Bäcker?”

“Yes, your Royal Highness Kristina” Lea said, “Is that how I address you?”

Kiki made a face, “Please don’t ever call me that” She said, “It makes me sound stuffy and old.”

“What should I call you then?” Lea asked.

“Everyone who actually knows me calls me Kiki” Kiki said.

“I would strongly suggest that you never call her that in front of the Empress” Kat said, “She prefers her children to be called by their proper names even if none of them seem to feel the same way.”

Lea smiled when she heard that. “Other than playing with your kittens what else do you like doing?” She asked.

“I don’t know” Kiki said, “Book, music and things.”

“She likes dancing and playing her viola” Kat said, “On Friday nights Kiki likes to stay up late and watch the Friday Variety Show with her friends.”

“It sounds like you and your friends have a lot of fun” Lea said.

“I guess” Kiki replied.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Sixty-One


14th May 1954

Dorylaeum, Greece

It had been fairly quiet on the frontier between Turkey and Greece lately. Fotios Papadopoulos knew that it couldn’t last having lived and worked in the border city for several years now. The irony was that he was here because he had joined the Navy intending to be on one of the Aegean patrol boats as opposed to spending his days in complete boredom aboard his father’s fishing boat. It was not like he hadn’t been warned by his father about what might happen. “You will go where they send you” Where his father’s exact words. On the day after Fotios joined the Greek Navy he had been told that they had no pressing need for Sailors, they did however have a constant need for Marines. Six years later he was a Diopos in the Marines with the promise of further advancement someday. It was that “someday” thought that had gotten him to foolishly reenlist after his five years was up just a few months prior.

Instead of advancement he had been sent to Dorylaeum, the asshole of the Hellenic Empire. The city itself wasn’t the problem, it was the frontier that was right against the eastern edge of the city. Whenever the decades of animosity blew out into the open, which was whenever the Turks were not busy fighting someone else, the gates in the barbed wire fence tended to be the place where the shooting started first. That wasn’t the reason why Fotios was leading a patrol in the center of the city. It was because the city itself was a part of the defense in depth and in this place, one never knew what would greet them when they walked around a corner on one of the narrow streets. Lately there had been rumblings that their Mafiosos were on the back foot and that the Turkish Mafia was making a big play to control the smuggling tunnels that ran under the frontier. If that happened, then the Turkish Army’s elite shock troops and sappers would not be far behind. That was also the reason that the Marines had been deployed into the city.

Glancing around a corner, Fotios kept his Simonov carbine ready. If trouble came he wanted to put bullets into it first, he had found during his career that most of his problems were quickly solved that way. He had been warned that they were to find the tunnel entrances that intelligence said was there and if the people controlling them sounded Turkish he was to shoot them and then use explosives to seal the tunnels.

Reaching the end of the street Fotios saw two men arguing with each other, who were supposed to be the lookouts. Both had the seedy look of Mafiosos and being the sort of men that they were, they were arguing over money and one was accusing the other of screwing his girlfriend. That they were stupid enough to do it in Turkish made Fotios’ job easy, it just proved what Fotios had known for a long time. That on the street level the Mafia on either side of the frontier didn’t typically attract the smartest sort. Fotios saw the surprised look on the Mafiosos face’s as they were silently subdued. Rushing into the building it was as that point when someone was stupid enough to open fire and the patrol made short work of the Mafiosos.

After Fotios set off the explosives sealing the tunnels, he heard explosions from other parts of the city. He had the sinking feeling that the other patrols had not been as successful as his in keeping the Turks contained. It was going to be a long afternoon.


Potsdam

For the last several days Kiki had been upset, that much was clear to Zella. At school and when Zella went to visit her all Kiki wanted to do was sit there brooding while Zella and Aurora tried to get to do something fun. Eventually, it had been Zella’s mother who had told her what was going on.

“For the last couple years or so, Kristina has been able to create a bubble of relative normalcy around herself” Zella’s mother had said, “The events of the last couple months have popped that bubble.”

It had taken the curators showing up in the Sanssouci Palace with the intent of completing the catalog of the Library that had finally gotten Kiki to lighten up a bit. At the core it was the personal collection of Friedrich the Great, Kiki’s great however far back great Uncle. Kiki had joined the effort with Zella and Aurora joining in. Zella had expected it to be boring, but she swiftly discovered that it was anything but.

The collection contained an eclectic assortment and Zella realized that there was a great deal of information here that she was certain that her parents wouldn’t want her to see and not just a large amount of bad French poetry.

“You are going to get us kicked out if you don’t behave yourself” Kiki said to Zella, “Most of this is historical in nature.”

“Perhaps” Zella replied, “But you do know what it means to be a dear friend of Old Fritz?”

That got Zella a dirty look from one of the curators, it was a controversial subject that was hotly debated among historians. Having Zella bring that up here was not welcome.

“Sorry, but both of you have been asked to leave” Fraulein Bäcker said, the head of Kiki’s protection detail, said.

The look that Kiki gave Zella as they were escorted out was withering.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Sixty-Two


16th May 1954

It was a Sunday morning and Kat expected the phone to start ringing or there to be pounding on her bedroom door at any second. It was just too nice a morning for that not to happen. Instead, they could hear just the sounds of the house waking up. The creak of the floorboards as Ilse was moving around. The twins bouncing around in their room as Eha tried to get them to be quiet because Kat and Doug were still asleep. Presumably, Petia would be down in the kitchen preparing the formal breakfast for the Sisterhood later and Anne probably really was still asleep.

Kat was sleepy having spent herself in the previous hour’s activities and was laying on her side dozing in the morning sunlight that was streaming in through the bedroom window. Doug could see the faint two scars on her back from the bullet grazes she had received long ago and a few white hairs among the copper colored tresses that spilled across the pillow. There was also the more substantial scar on the right cheek of her backside that had been left by one of the bullets that had grazed her back, but Doug knew better than to bring up. Not that he minded seeing it.

“You know, we could just stay in here the rest of the day” Kat said as she rolled over to face him, “No one will say anything.”

“The Empress might” Doug replied.

Kat groaned at the mention, “Kira is only going to want to talk about a few things” She said, “All of them being things I can’t deal with.”

“Greece obviously” Doug said, “I’ve no idea what else might be going on.”

That was the news that had been dominating coverage for the last couple of days. The Greece and Turkey had renewed their long running war over Anatolia. The difference this time was that the Turks had thought that they would steal a march on the Greeks by stirring things up in the Balkans and force the Greeks to fight a two-front war. All that seemed to have accomplished was antagonizing Russia at a time when Czar Georgy was trying putting out the Russian Empire as the defenders of Pan-Slavism and the Orthodox Church. Evidently that was something that the Turks had not factored into their planning. That it worked extremely well in distracting the Russian People from the domestic problems was beside the point. Even before this latest crisis, the Russians had been forging closer links with the Greeks, this was emphasized by the Greek Army and Navy using Russian designed weapons. Considering the minorities within the Russian Empire that were ethnic Turks, suddenly the Russians had a motivation to see Turkey stomped on hard. Considering her national origion and religion it was obvious why Kira would be interested in that complicated mess.

“Kiki and Zella have been bickering” Kat said, “It is just how things are with adolescent girls, everything is the end of the world with them. Today, they hate each other, tomorrow Kiki will be beside herself because she can’t imagine life without her dear friend. Then the day after, they will both be wishing that they could shove the other one into traffic.”

“Reasons like that are why I asked Tatiana not to grow up” Doug said. “She doesn’t seem to be listening though.”

That got a bit of a laugh from Kat. “It seems like a very reasonable request to make” She said.

“You said that there were a few things” Doug said, “What is the third thing?”

“Antonia’s health has been in decline over the last year, she was sick all last winter and has been having difficulty” Kat said, “And Kira is considering letting her retire so that she can focus getting well.”

“I take it that Kira is going to be looking for a new Mistress of the Robes if that happens?” Doug asked.

Kat frowned, “Kira is talking about who would be a good fit for that role” She said.

“And a particular Gräfin is at or near the top of the list?”

Kat’s frown deepened, it was clear that she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of further social advancement.

“She said that having Asia replace me as the Mistress of the Keys might be a good idea” Kat said, “Having someone with Asia’s background in that visible of a role would have substantial implications.”

Doug understood that, Asia was an ethnic Pole from Upper Silesia. It was obvious what the politics of the situation were. Even though he had lived in Germany for more than a decade Doug still had an outsider’s perspective in many regards. While his wife and those like her went along with the contention that Louis Ferdinand and Kira were above politics, it was clear to him that wasn’t true. He saw the hand of the Imperial Couple everywhere. That was why he wasn’t in the least bit surprised when he learned from Kat that Louis penned columns that appeared in newspapers across Germany. Or that Kira took great efforts to make sure that the Court of the Empress resembled the larger Empire and that included having Kat, a woman with a working-class background, as an important advisor.

“Are you going to take the appointment?” Doug asked, then he saw what Kat thought of the idea. “If it gets offered?”

“I don’t like not being given a choice” Kat said, “And Kira always maneuvers me into a position where I can’t say no.”

Doug was about to say something more when there was knocking on the door and voices calling through the door. Tatiana and Malcolm trying to get in.

“I suppose we will need find some clothes” Doug said, “Back to being parents.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Sixty-Three


21th May 1954

Alexandra, Virginia

The car was finally starting to come together, and Jonny had finally managed to figure out how to get the power he wanted out of the engines that they were using without blowing them up. He had been right about the newer overhead valve engines being superior to the older engines, even if they still were not quite what he wanted. It made him wonder what Ford was thinking he would do with engines that looked they had come off of an old Model T which was what those side valve engines were, so it was a good thing he had raised some Hell to get the better engines. Now he had something else to contend with, the garage they were working in was filling full of stuff. They had to be prepared for anything that might happen along the way. Judging from the travel advisories that the US State Department had just put out there was a good chance that a couple portions of the selected route of the race could well be through active warzones and he had not received word that anyone was talking about cancelling the race. A radio, maps, food, water, first-aid and tool kits, guns and ammunition, that was just the cargo space behind the driver and co-driver/navigator’s seats in the Anglia.

There was also the chase van which had also been provided by Ford that they were going to cram full of anything else that they thought that they might need, tools, car parts and tires being the most important things. Into this were Dave and Red, two friends of Jonny’s who he had known since he had been training in Colorado. Sanderson who was the representative from Ford Motor Company, he was also supposed to help the team with any legal problems that they might have along the way. The sixth man on the team was Frank, a jack of all trades who had been Parker’s college roommate and now taught High School English in New York. When Jonny heard Frank’s voice he had wondered if it was Parker’s idea of a joke, it was the same accent from the West Counties where Jonny’s Grandfather was from. When Frank had shook Jonny’s hand he had said that he had heard that Jonny was just another arrogant Yank with a chip on his shoulder. That was when Jonny knew that he was going to get well with the Irishman.


Washington DC

The Turks were making a hash of things and that wasn’t what Truman had been told was going to happen. The CIA had been secretly arming the Turks for the last year because the chance to change the strategic situation was too good to pass up. The Germans collectively, would prefer a trip to the Dentist than to have another war right now with the rest of Europe following suit. The idea had been to draw them into the morass of Asia Minor, there no matter what the outcome was American interests would benefit.

What no one had counted on was Russia and a handful of small principalities that no one had had heard of until they figured predominantly in International affairs. It was something that had irked Truman. “No one realized that Serbia would become such a factor” was what one National Security Adviser had said. The silence that had fallen on the room after that statement had told the entire story. How could a supposedly learned man make such a stupid comment? It had been all he could do not fire him on the spot.

The plan had worked though, all of the world’s eyes were on Asia Minor. Just in time to watch as the American tanks that had been sold to the Turks revealed themselves to be critically flawed when they came up against Greek Panther IIs left over from the Second World War. The reason why the Germans had not deployed their own tanks to Mexico but had instead let French and American armor have its day in the sun was suddenly very apparent. They had been busy taking notes.


Potsdam

A Gutter Blues band was playing on the Variety show, they were wearing clothes that looked like something from a Buck Rogers comic book and the lyrics did not match the theme by any stretch of imagination. Kiki realized that it just wasn’t as much fun without Zella’s comments about how the extremes that the band had gone to in order to get attention were. Zella would be gleefully ripping them apart. Just who had made those costumes and why did they think it was a good idea? Tonight, Zella was absent because she had been arguing with Kiki. Aurora didn’t want to come between her friends, so she had stayed away as well.

Anya had fallen asleep despite the barely contained excitement that she was pretending that she didn’t have over her birthday party on Sunday afternoon and the novelty of staying up late on a Friday night. She had never watched television before she had come to live with Gia and said she found it a poor substitute for going and doing things. Kiki supposed that Anja was right about that, but there was something alluring sitting on the couch and doing nothing at all. As she sat there watching the absurd spectacle unfold Kiki came to the realization that without Zella this was actually incredibly boring. That was what prompted her to turn it off.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Sixty-Five


25th May 1954

Wunsdorf-Zossen

When Kurt was promoted to Oberst he was expecting to be transferred to Panzer Regiment. Instead he was assigned to the staff of Generaloberst Erhard Raus, the present Chief of the OKH and heard a number of jokes about how the tiny Bohemia was conquering the German Empire by taking over the Heer. Gerta didn’t mind because she was now living a stone’s throw away from her friend Helene even if the children missed the horses and the dogs at the Wolvogle house in Werder. The sting was taken out of it by Suse Rosa being promised a kitten from Princess Kristina and Suse had already named him Finster, which was a big clue about what color he was after Gerta took Suse to visit.

That was also when they started getting intelligence reports about the performance of Panther IIs in the field in the hands of Greek crews. Kurt almost felt sorry for the Turkish tank crews who had been using American medium tanks, high profile, inadequate armor, ammunition stored in sponsons and a 75mm main gun. Good for infantry support and probably would have excelled in that role, something like the role that the StuG played. Against more modern armor it was suicide. Perhaps more than a decade earlier before the Tigers and Panthers were in the field it would have been a fair fight. It was Kurt who was looking at the photographs in the after-action reports compiled by their observers, the 8.8cm KwK 36 still packed quite a punch and the Greeks were using APCBC shells so the results were not pretty.

Then he saw something in one of the photographs and reached for the phone. After he got connected he waited for the General to pick up.

“Sir, this is Oberst Knispel” Kurt said.

“Who?” Kurt heard the General ask.

“Your Aide from the Panzer Corps” Kurt replied.

“The short one?”

Kurt knew that it was the General's prerogative to remember whatever he wanted and in the bureaucratic structure of the OKH Kurt was one of hundreds of high-ranking Officers. It was however a bit annoying to have that play out in front of him like that.

“I guess Sir” Kurt said, “I was ordered to tell you if I found anything that would interest you.”

Or at least those had been the General’s orders a few days earlier.

“Very well, what did you find?”

“There is a photograph here of a knocked-out Sherman that wasn’t hit by anything we have sold the Greeks” Kurt said, “According to the photograph I’m looking at a hole cut through the front glacis that looks at least ten centimeters in width.”

That got the General’s attention. If they hadn’t been the ones to sell it to the Greeks that left one other seller and there were a lot of troubling implications.


Potsdam

Gia looked at herself in the mirror and for what must have been the millionth time wondered what others saw. She had recently been given an advanced copy of the diaries that her mother had left behind when she had fled Russia, they were to be published. In the wake of Gia’s autobiography and having the knowledge of everything that she had left out at the forefront of her mind she had been left deeply troubled. Who was Jehane Thomas? Or was she Alexandra Lukichna? She had always had a difficult time telling exactly who she was after having to assume so many identities. Perhaps it was as simple as what Anne had said that Anya had told her about the words of that strange bird-lizard in her dream, I know who I am. Did Gia know who she was?

Anya ran past with a smile on her face, she was enjoying the afternoon which was good to see. Trailing after her was a small ball of orange and white fur. Anya wanted to come here every day to visit and that wasn’t a problem. Since Gia had moved to a house in Potsdam itself she knew that Kat had been keeping tabs on her through the bodyguards that she wished she didn’t need. Kira hadn’t said anything, but she had been hinting that there were expectations that Gia might need to start taking seriously. It was obvious what Kira was getting at even without the occasional social invitation from well to do men that her cousin sent her way what Kira was getting at. So far, all she had happened was that Gia had concluded that Czar Georgy had very questionable taste in men and had said as much. Kira had said that wasn’t funny, while everyone else within earshot had disagreed.

Gia scooped Ivan up, he already followed Anya everywhere and Gia just knew that when he got older he was going to be a big easy-going meatball of a cat. For now, he was just a small thing still dependent on his mother for a couple more weeks. When she had been younger she had wanted a kitten, but her father had been allergic to cats so that wasn’t an option. Later having pets had had been out of the question considering how unsettled her life was. She had grown up listening to stories about Ortipo, her mother’s French Bulldog or any of the other dogs and cats that had been left behind when her family had been forced into exile. Gia didn’t want that to happen. Letting Anya have Ivan was a mark of stability that she hoped would last.

“You won’t ever try to fix me up with a man who I can’t talk to because he doesn’t listen?” Gia asked as she scratched behind Ivan’s ears and he purred loudly, “Or worse is an uncultured brute?”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Sixty-Six


1st June 1954

Chelyabinsk, Russia

“Just remember Fedya, that once you take your hand off the piece you’ve made your move” Arkadiy said.

Fyodor set the piece back down on the chessboard without making a move. If they were just playing the game, then Fyodor could have easily beaten Arkadiy. Instead Arkadiy was pulling the same sort of garbage that he had been pulling since they were children, getting inside Fyodor’s head and making him second guess himself. If that didn’t look like it was working, then Arkadiy would just straight up cheat because one of the hard rules that Arkadiy had was that he never lost at anything or at least would never admit to it after the fact.

“So much hesitation” Arkadiy said, “It’s like what Poppa used to complain about, you always waffled, even as a child.”

“He also said you were an obnoxious little snot rag” Fyodor replied, “In fact he said that about you just last week.”

“He talks to you at least” Arkadiy said, “Make your move already.”

Fyodor finally made his move advancing his bishop across the board. Arkadiy being Arkadiy, he thought he had baited Fyodor into making a rash move took Fyodor’s bishop with his queen.

Arkadiy looked at Fyodor with a smirk on his face.

Fyodor just shrugged. “It’s only a game” He said.

“You always say that when you are losing” Arkadiy replied.

Instead of answering Fyodor moved his knight and set up a fork between Arkadiy’s King and Queen. “Check” He said.

Arkadiy spent the next few minutes cursing his rotten luck.

“A smart man creates his own luck” Fyodor said, “Your move brother.”

Arkadiy was forced to move his king and then lost the queen and was in check again. He was only two or three moves from checkmate regardless of what he did. Arkadiy’s reaction was typical, “You win” He growled, then got up and stalked off. His posture suggesting that the next person he caught stepping out of line was in for a lot of pain. Fyodor just chuckled as he put the pieces into the elastic bands that held them in place when he folded the board shut and closed the latches.

Carrying the board under his arm he whistled a tune as he made his way out of his brother’s office and through the shop that his brother ran. On the shop floor were several of the factory new T-54 tanks that had been produced in great secrecy that were being readied to be shipped to frontline units. The men who should have been working on them were noticeably scarce but those who could find an excuse to be elsewhere when the Volkov brothers played chess tended to do so.

At present, they were waiting word back from the Platoon of T-54s that had been deployed in Greece. If it all went well than they were looking forward to a very good year in Chelyabinsk. That was well and good for Arkadiy, but Fyodor would be busy elsewhere.


Tempelhof

It was a vast construction site and the moment that Kat had been dreading for months had finally come to pass. One of her father’s associates from the organization was in the project’s field office along with a number of enforcers who were refusing to leave until she had met with them.

“Why aren’t you in prison?” Kat said to Jarl Gunnarsson as soon as she walked in. The big Swede had been one of her father’s lieutenants in the Hanseatic Ports, now he was back.

“Your delightful Government had me deported to serve out my sentence in Sweden and I was eventually released after doing my time” Gunnarsson said with mock solemnity knowing as well as Kat did that it was an example of wholesale corruption. For the sort of things that had gotten him thrown in prison he shouldn’t have been out for another thousand years or so. It was only because of the shift in the political climate over the last few years that he had kept his head.

“Bullshit” Kat replied, “What do you want?”

“I can’t visit the daughter of a dear old friend and see that my organization’s money is being invested wisely?” Gunnarsson asked.

“I have no idea what you are talking about” Kat replied, “This project is being paid for with money that was loaned to me by Jehane Thomas-Romanova.”

Gunnarsson just laughed at that. “Otto always said that you were the smartest of his children, no one honestly believes that you would pay for this project directly with your own money” He said, “It’s tragic that you weren’t born a boy otherwise the organization would rule the whole of Europe from the shadows. Instead, you seem to have found a path to power through the Court of your Empress.”

He made it sound as if she had settled for second place.

“Again, what do you want?” Kat said.

“What if I wanted it all back?” Gunnarsson asked his voice full of menace, “What are the odds of you walking out of here alive?”

Kat stepped forward and her coat fell open revealing the MP45 on its sling that she was wearing. “Better than yours” She said, “And even if you made it out of here the Company from the First Foot surrounding this building would see to it that you didn’t get far.”

Gunnarsson just smiled at that.

“Your actress friend was named for Lagertha of Gauldalen” Gunnarsson said, “I think that Lagertha herself might have said you are a bit more deserving. Otto warned me not to underestimate you.”

Kat gave an exasperated sigh, she had never liked these stupid games that her father’s men reveled in. This whole thing was about seeing what she was made of.

“What the Hell do you want?” Kat hissed, “That’s the last time I’m asking.”

“Otto told me that you would make the family look completely legitimate and that there would be plenty of money to be made on the back end” Gunnarsson said.

It was clear what Gunnarsson was saying. We are here and there is nothing you can do about it without starting an unwinnable war. Kat might have had made sure that nothing was skimmed from the project itself, but it was employing a small army of workers and the organization was there to feed whatever vices they had. Even as pointless as if would have been, Kat really wanted to shoot Gunnarsson.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Sixty-Seven


4th June 1954

Moscow, Russia

“According to Senior Lieutenant Ivanov they have been having the expected mechanical and logistical troubles” Fyodor said, “The Greeks are suitably grateful even if they are used to a different set of requirements. There is however a problem in that they haven’t been able to keep international observers entirely out of the engagement zone.”

Field Marshal Zhukov had been pleased right up until that last part. The plan had been to field test new tanks and helicopters in the latest Greco/Turkish war. The helicopters were impossible to hide and roughly equivalent to the European designs that they had shamelessly copied. The tanks were a different matter, there was a great deal of national prestige tied up in them. Until everyone was certain that the T-54 was the world beater that they thought it was then no one outside of Russia would see it. There was also the element of surprise. Fyodor’s father being a cavalry General understood that, just there was the very different realities of how he and his two oldest sons had spent the war had caused a rift in the family that they were still dealing with.

Fyodor had been a teenaged conscript who had been plucked from his secondary education and sent to the front with a rifle only to get overrun during the apocalyptic battle of Stalingrad. Arkadiy being couple years older had been commanding a tank Platoon during the brutal latter stages of the war as the Army had been steadily pushed back to Moscow. The German Army had put him in a prisoner of war camp until he had been given a chance to go to University in Munich. Fyodor’s father had been in Canada with all the other hard cases who had been loyal to Russia and by extension the Soviets right up until the Germans had started opening up the archives of the NKVD to journalists and they found that everyone had been denouncing and informing on everyone else. Arkadiy had a sneering perspective over what had happened to his father and younger brother when they returned to Russia that only Fyodor had been able to get past.

“Is Ivanov aware of how much the French or Germans know?” Zhukov asked.

“He wasn’t able to say with any certainty Sir” Fyodor answered. He had been tasked with overseeing the portion of this project that remained within Russia by the Field Marshal and had learned far more about armor in the past few months then he ever wanted to know. He had only been an aide of Zhukov for the last six months, before that he had leading a Rifle Company in the Russian Far East. It had been his father who had plucked him from obscurity and gotten him this appointment. Arkadiy might be content to rot in Chelyabinsk, but Fyodor wasn’t.

He didn’t need to say that their own Intelligence had discovered that what they regarded as the key rival of the T-54, the Pzkpfw VII Lynx, was about to have a new version reach the field and that would mess everything up. The last thing they needed was an innovative product that could be undercut by an established rival.

“I will tell the Czar of this project’s success the next time I speak with him” Zhukov said.

“Thank you, Sir” Fyodor said.

“Don’t thank me” Zhukov said, “You screw this up then you will be wishing that you were still stuck in the asshole end of nowhere.”

Fyodor knew that wasn’t an idle threat.


Rural Eastern Virginia

When Jonny had told Parker that he only thought he knew how to drive he had thought that Jonny was putting him on again. It was only when he found himself on a dirt road outside Alexandria and Jonny handed him the keys to the Anglia that he learned that Jonny was dead serious.

“You are going to learn to drive fast over the next few days” Jonny said, “Or you’re going to get us killed and I’ll kick ass for it.”

That was about as close to a vote of confidence as Parker ever received. It had been over the next few days that Jonny had been yelling at him as he had been drenched in sweat driving at dangerous speeds on the frequently unpredictable roads of the Virginia countryside. There was also the small matter of the State Troopers who still remembered the time that they had failed to catch Jonny when he had been in Virginia the prior year. This whole thing was insane, but Jonny didn’t seem to care. They finally got pulled over while driving back into Alexandria. It was extremely questionable about whether or not the Anglia was street legal and once the Trooper started looking at the extensive modifications on the car they would be lucky to not to be arrested and have the car impounded. Jonny just told him to play it cool. That seemed like an incredibly easy thing for Jonny to say. Unless he was getting shot at, things hardly seemed to phase him.

“What is the problem officer?” Parker asked, Jonny had advised him in the past that police in the sticks are all about unearned respect and unquestioned authority. Show weakness, or worse, be the wrong color in the wrong place and they would stomp you into the ground in order to prove what great men they were.

“You know how fast you were going Mister Parker?” The State Trooper asked.

“Below the speed limit if that is what you are asking” Parker said, “My friend could vouch for that, he was just telling me that I was driving like an old woman.”

The Trooper looked at him sourly.

“What sort of piece shit car is this?” The Trooper asked.

“A Ford” Parker replied.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Sixty-Eight


5th June 1954

Berlin

It was the first time that Judita had been in the hospital in years and she wasn’t liking it anymore than her prior experiences. Especially because she had a doctor talking at her.

“I notice that suffered a fairly substantial head injury several years ago” The Doctor said.

“It has nothing to do with that” Judita answered, she had already been forced to admit that she experienced nausea in descending elevators. The Doctor had made clear that everything relevant.

“I must disagree with you Fraulein Schovajsa” The Doctor said, “It says here that you were unconscious for a week.”

“I just wasn’t feeling well” Judita replied, “All that happened was that I was feeling faint.”

“You suffered a convulsive seizure that you are now trying to minimize, and your roommate, who I might add is terrified for you, told us that it may have happened before” The Doctor said, “We still need to run more tests, but it looks like you are Epileptic. That is something that you need to take very seriously.”

That was not something that Judita wanted to hear, as she tried not to burst into tears she focused on the most distant point she could see and shut out what he was saying. In exasperation the Doctor got up and she was left alone. This was everything she imagined would happen in her life crashing down around her. Kat would learn of this, that was unavoidable. She would never get a chance to prove herself as she had hoped, the opportunity had passed because of her health. She sat there in the examination bay for a time feeling sorry for herself.

“Hello Jitka” A disheveled man wearing a stained lab coat said as he walked in. “You are looking well today.”

“Is that a joke?” Judita said, no one had called her that in years.

“Hardly considering how you were the last time we saw each other” The man said, “I was having to set the bones in your arm and leg in the castle, and you had a nasty cut on your scalp.”

“How can you remember that and who are you?”

“Albert Brandt, I’m a Doctor here, Neurologist by specialty though much of my work has been in Pharmacology” Brandt said, “And I tend to remember the miracles.”

“You are saying I’m a miracle?” Judita asked, because it certainly didn’t feel that way.

“A girl gets brought in after having a building fall on her, unconscious, with a crushed body and a grim prognosis at that time” Brandt said, “She makes a full recovery and goes on to make something of herself like you have. I would say that is a miracle.”

“According to your friend who just left I wouldn’t say that the recovery was full” Judita said.

Brandt just shrugged. “He’s an Emergency Surgeon” He said, “The best sort of person to have on hand if you were bleeding out, but not the best person if you are sick and needed convincing to take better care of yourself.”

Judita looked at Brandt quizzically. “What are you doing here?”

“I pay attention to who gets admitted down here” Brandt said, “Those from Gräfin von Mischner’s inner circle are always fascinating.”

“You cannot be serious” Judita said.

“Serious as a heart attack” Brandt said, “Now are you interested in learning how to control your condition or are you planning to have another seizure in a market. Which happens to be what landed you here today.”

“You know about that?” Judita asked, mortified that might be common knowledge.

“Doctors do talk to each other” Brandt said, “Particularly when they are dealing with a stubborn patient who they are happy to pass to on someone else.”


6th June 1954

Potsdam

“According to intelligence sources, we are continuing to find evidence of Russian armor being deployed in Greece” Kat said as she summarized what she had just read aloud.

“We’ve known all along that Russia would reemerge on the world stage” Kira said, “I just hoped that Georgy would wait a bit longer before jumping in with both feet.”

It was something that was inescapable, the way that the current structure of the Russian Government was very different from other nations that it might have been based on. It had been hoped years earlier that elected bodies would maintain greater control than they had. While the Czar wasn’t able to be an autocrat by any stretch of the imagination, Georgy had convinced the bulk of the Russian public that he shared their struggles and represented their interests against the rest of the world. That had unfortunately included their own elected Government at times. The result was that Georgy had more power over Russia than any other monarch in Europe had over their nation. Kat’s hope was that the Reichstag was paying attention to that and would respond accordingly in the future.

“We have been talking for a long time about the need to reach out diplomatically to your cousin” Kat said.

“You have been talking about that” Kira replied, “And I have been giving you my reasons for taking a different course of action.”

“Very well” Kat said, “We will still need to do something, if the Greeks get greedy then we are unsure of the consequences.”

Kira became stone faced. She understood the implications, but at the same time there was a part of her that had taken sides in this matter.

“I learned that one of the eyes was in the hospital yesterday” Kira said. Changing the subject to something that Kat couldn’t easily dismiss.

“Judita suffered a seizure in the market yesterday morning” Kat said, “She has had her problems, this just adds to it.”

All the girls were having issues. Judita getting sick had come on the heels of Kris discovering that she had low bone density. Then of all the Doctors who could get through to Judita it had to be Brandt. He had gotten Judita to agree to cooperate with treatment and then suggested a few things that were questionable.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Sixty-Nine


8th June 1954

Berlin

“According to the police in Stockholm Jarl Gunnarsson never left his neighborhood” Anton Knoph said.

“I was talking to him last week” Kat said, “In Tempelhof.”

“I believe you” Anton replied, “But unless you have more than that, it isn’t enough to go on.”

Kat was clearly exasperated by the situation. That meant that someone’s palm was getting greased. Or worse someone official was turning a blind eye to the actions of Gunnarsson because he served a purpose like Otto Mischner had.

“Look” Anton said, “You knew when you worked to take out your father and as much of the organization as you could that eventually someone else would replace him.”

“That doesn’t mean that I have to be happy about it” Kat replied.

“I wouldn’t expect you to” Anton said, “I do however hope that you would be realistic enough to know that some things can never truly be eliminated, only controlled.”

Kat didn’t answer, instead she focused on the cup of tea in front of her, the surface of the table they were sitting at, the other tables and chairs in the eatery that she had met Anton in.

“Agnesa told me to extend an invitation to you and Douglas” Anton said, “If you think that he might be interested in a dinner with adult conversation.”

“I’ll talk to Doug” Kat replied, “It will also depend on when I’ll be free. In my current position I’m sort of at the mercy of the Emperor’s schedule.”

“The difficulties of being the Captain of the Guard?” Anton asked.

“You joke” Kat said, “But if the Oberst follows through on his threat to retire the entire First Foot will become my problem.”

“Such a hardship” Anton said, “Being a pioneer in a career that you have excelled in.”

“Tell that to the Generalmajor who commands the Brigade” Kat said, “Hating me seems to be the only thing that he is passionate about.”

“Semper talis” Anton said with a slight smirk.

The moto of the First Foot; Always the same.

Kat didn’t find what Anton was implying remotely amusing in this context.


Greco-Albanian Frontier

Once the frontier in the south had stabilized Fotios had found himself on a transport plane headed north to where the Greek Army and Marines were massing. When the war had started Greece had been hit in the north by an invasion from Albania as well as in the south in what was now seen as a coordinated attack, the sort of thing that couldn’t be allowed to happen without retaliation. At the same time Greece was loath to counter attack too far into Turkish held territory because the last thing they needed was to occupy the land and have thousands of potential enemies at their backs that would need to be taken care of. Nether feeding or starving them was something that the Greek State wanted to expend the time or resources on.

Albania was a different story, portions of the country were historically Greek and Fotios’ Squad was among those who had been tasked with securing those. Any Albanians still present had best be prepared to run because they were not in the mood to be merciful today. Still, whatever they did would be very tame compared to what was happening to their cousins in Serbia and Bosnia. Fotios would be content to push the Albanians out of Northern Epirus. It was justice as far as he was concerned payment for being stupid enough to ally themselves with the Turks.


Potsdam

“You will one day be an exotic beauty like your dear Aunty Sasha” Voll said as he stood looked at Anya in the mirror. “But always remember that it has far more to do with attitude than anything else Anya love.”

Voll had brought Zika Jankovic for this visit. Zika was a hairdresser who was just here to trim the ends as Anya grew her hair out. It was probably a waste Zika’s talents but Voll had said that for a girl with Anya’s experience it was about trust and knowing that nothing bad would come from this. In Pskov they had quite literally held Anya down and sheared her like a sheep every few months. Gia also knew that Anya liked being the center of attention and how Voll and Zika seemed to hang on every word. They were both professionals and that was exactly what they did.

If you only knew child, Gia thought to herself.

To Anya, Klaus Voll was merely silly. As she got older she would recognize the flamboyant behavior for what it was, but for now he was one of the few adults willing to listen intently. It was Gia’s hope that eventually experiences like this one would break through the rather extensive religious indoctrination that Anya had been subjected to. There were also things in Gia’s past that would be somewhat difficult to explain.

Kat had impressed on Gia the need to always be honest with Anya, that children know when you are lying, even by omission. Still, how would she explain that out of loneliness and the need for any physical connection she had found herself in love with her best friend? Asia was nonchalant about what had happened. There’s a reason why all the stereotypes about girl’s schools exist, was how Asia had put it. Gia remembered how painful the breakup had been when they had concluded that they would only be able to be friends because of who Gia was on the flight back from Canada. How did one explain to a girl like Anya that in her life Gia had found herself equally attracted to men and women?

“What do you think Sasha?” Anya asked.

“I think it looks much better” Gia answered, “You were getting all shaggy.”

Anya laughed at that, it was a wonderful thing to hear.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Seventy


15th June 1954

Berlin

“My whole life was a mistake” Ilse stated, “There is no other way to describe it. My mother was an addict and my father had money, that is how deep their relationship went. They had me by mistake and everything since has reflected that.”

Otto Mischner had also controlled the supply of drugs coming into Berlin, but Ilse doubted that Ingrid had known that.

“Your father made a point of telling you that your mother loved her addictions, particularly to heroin, more than she loved you” Doctor Glas said, “But on some level she must have wanted you to be safe.”

Ilse knew better. Otto had been cruder than that. “Dear old Mum, who loved the needle far more than her little girl” Had been his exact words the one time that Ilse had talked to him. He had made very clear that if Ilse had stayed with her mother she would have eventually been sold into something unimaginable just so that her mother could score a fix. Not that it made the sense of abandonment any easier.

“I doubt that” Ilse said, “She left me on the steps of a church where a Priest had once been kind to her. Considering some of the things that we now know about the Catholic Church I seriously have to wonder exactly what that was.”

That is being very cynical” Doctor Glas said, “Even for you.”

“Am I wrong?” Ilse said, “Something that my older sister said once, that there were no virgins under her roof, though that probably changed when Anne moved in. I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Actually, it has a great deal to do with a great many things” Doctor Glas said, “There are several aspects of your past that you have been dancing around for months, afraid to mention.”

That was not the reaction that Ilse had been expecting. Minka Glas was taking all of this so seriously and that had not been her intention at all. It wasn’t something that Ilse was remotely prepared to deal with. They sat there staring at each other for an excruciatingly long minute in silence.

“Are you afraid that your boyfriend will find out about your past?” Doctor Glas asked, “That his parents. Which includes the fear that his father, who has become a father figure to you as well, will reject you for it?”

“I never said that anything like that” Ilse snapped.

“You haven’t said that directly, but you have to know how your words and actions can be interpreted?” Doctor Glas asked, “I’ve seen how you engage in denial by pretending that the awful things that surrounded your childhood never actually touched you. You forget that you aren’t the only one from that orphanage that I talk to. In my notes there are a several references to what really happened to you from different people.”

It felt like Ilse’s head was filled with static, which was what happened when had to deal with a relentless attack like this.

“Why are you doing this!” Ilse yelled at Doctor Glas out of hurt and confusion. “Are you are just being cruel for the fun of it?”

“Because you have been coming in here for two years and while you have made progress in many areas there are other things that you are not talking about” Glas said, “You either trust me by now or you do not but talking around the traumatic events that negatively affect your entire life doesn’t help you. It means that I can’t help you, no matter how much I want to.”


Washington DC

The Ambassador to the LN was just a font of bad news. Truman now realized too late that he had helped to inadvertently set into motion forces that he hadn’t properly understood. The Turks had been shoved back across the border in Asia Minor and the CIA was sending back reports that the Greeks were armed with rifles built locally from a pattern they had licensed from Russia and that a handful of Russian built tanks had been spotted at the front. The reemergence of Russia onto the International Stage had not been Truman’s intention. Nor had he thought that the Greeks would invade southern Albania, Truman had thought that that they would be too busy with the Turks and then there was what was happening in Bosnia and Serbia where it had become a war of mutual extermination as hatreds across ethnic lines dating back centuries spilled out into the open.

The most troublesome part for Truman was that he feared that he was looking at things to come closer to home. The situation in North Carolina had solved itself. However, in its wake there were harsh accusations that the strike was the result of outside agitators. Truman recognized it for the dangerous dog whistle that the factory owners and local politicians were blowing instantly, just there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about that without exceeding the authority of his Office. He considered himself fortunate that the North Carolina situation was along class lines. Next time though, he feared that it would fall along racial lines. Lyndon Johnson had joked about what happened if the lowest white man could be convinced that he was better than the best colored man. Truman could see the truth behind that joke. At any second, the US Supreme Court was going to issue a ruling that revolved around the constitutionality of separate accommodation. Contrary to what some people believed, sometimes you can hear the train before it hits you.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Seventy-One


18th June 1954

Berlin

As Ilse opened her bedroom door she caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. She could tell that she looked tired having only managed to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she had the thoughts of everything that was going on swirling through her mind. She had been told that memory did strange things and had seen enough of that over the prior months to take it seriously and Doctor Glas had said that she knew some of the things that had happened to her personally. Ilse had thought that she was doing well when she had finally dealt with having watched Alex get her face kicked in but there was more. Those were the thoughts that had kept her awake through the night and consumed her thoughts as she walked down the stairs.

“Happy birthday Ilse” Doug said as she entered the kitchen. The kitchen was a scene of bedlam as it was on most mornings. Kat was already gone for the day and Eha had gone home for a holiday, she wasn’t due back until the end of the week. Doug was keeping as close an eye on the twins as he could manage with predictable success. It took a withering look from Petia to get them to stop throwing food at the other whenever Doug turned away.

“Thank you” Ilse mumbled. For her, it was another day at work.

Ilse had thought that once she had received her Doctorate that she would have secured her future. Instead, she had learned that a whole new and even more cut-throat part of her career was opening up. Worse, it wasn’t just herself that she had to worry about but a dozen student researchers who she was supposed to advise and be supervising. Sort of difficult for Ilse to do when her own fears had become the biggest obstacle to getting out into the field. Then there were the other faculty members who found the idea of anyone not a student under the age of fifty and the existence of women deeply unsettling.

“Twenty-Six?” Doug asked.

“Yes” Ilse replied as she got herself a glass of fruit juice from the refrigerator, Tatiana was watching her intently as she did that. There were times when Ilse’s niece had an unnerving focus for a small child and it was a reminder that Tatiana was very much Katherine’s daughter. Malcolm was cut from different cloth, he was intent on grabbing the newspaper off the table that had been quite deliberately placed out of his reach. Ilse could see the headline was about the current mess in the Balkans. Be glad you are not a man was how Stefan had put it when they had talked the night before. The Heer was watching closely the events to the south for reasons that were obvious to anyone who knew anything about history. Stefan had said that his Division would be unlikely to be among the first to be deployed the Slovakia after repeated deployments over the last two years, but if things continued to spiral then all bets were off.

“Lisa!” Petia snapped which got Ilse’s attention. “Don’t you dare think of leaving this house with just that to eat.”

Doug seemed amused. It was Petia’s thing. They had become her family over the last decade and that included making them take care of themselves, however reluctant they were to do it themselves. “I wouldn’t argue her” He said, “Particularly not today.”

“What about today?” Ilse asked.

“Your birthday” Petia said as she glared at Ilse until she sat down at the table and then went back to the stove muttering something in Russian about being punished with stubborn girls for being one. A minute later a plate of scrambled eggs and toast was set in front of Ilse.

“I know you have no plans for tonight, but Kat said that she was interested in having a small get together” Doug said, “A few close friends and family is all.”

“I don’t know” Ilse mumbled, with her family the definition of few was rather expansive.

“You always say that, but you’ll have fun” Doug said, “Now eat that before Petia gets on your case.”


Washington DC

It seemed absurd that such a small thing that would have such a devastating impact.

Decades earlier the Court had ruled in Plessy vs. Ferguson that segregation laws were Constitutional so long as the separated accommodations were equal in quality. There were times when Truman wondered how that decision had been greeted with anything other than laughter at the time.

In the years since the country had seen segregation taken to many absurd extremes. Now, with a single decision the Court had reversed itself with Smith vs. the State of Indiana, a case over a hotel room in Gary and the State telling the owner just who he could or could not rent a room to. Truman had a feeling that a powerful weapon had just been handed to those who would be looking to undo the last couple decades of progress. There were a lot of people in America, and not just the South, who would happily drink poison if they thought that it would hurt a person of color worse.

In the run up to the Court making its decision Truman had watched how fast this had split his party’s leadership and he could only imagine what this would do once the implications sank in with the American public. When they realized that the Jim Crow was no longer the Law of the Land then the Supreme Court had just become the Klan’s best recruiting sergeant.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Seventy-Two


27th June 1954

Wunsdorf-Zossen

As the match concluded Hans was sitting on the couch with Manfred watching the post-match commentary. The match between Brazil and Hungary had been a brawl thinly disguised as a Football game.

“Before your mother asks, and she will” Hans said, “Let’s just agree that you will tell her that this was an example how you not be conducting yourself on the pitch and that will be the truth.”

Manfred nodded vigorously in the way he always did when he thought that Hans was asking him to put one over on Helene. The thing was that Hans was being serious, he had seen a few club matches that had played out like that but never had seen one like that happen in an International game. This was just one game so far in the World Cup Quarter Finals that was happening in Switzerland. Hans would have liked to have gone but with the 4th Division on heightened alert due to recent events in the Balkans that seemed like a bad idea. Word had come all the way down from Headquarters that anyone who dared to ask for leave had better be prepared to get every shitty assignment for the next several months.

Then a thought occurred to Hans, Uncle Klaus would have been watching the same game he had. With his mild demeanor few would have understood that Klaus was a fan of the sort of sport that they had just witnessed. He wouldn’t have cared who was playing just that they had given everything to the game, including leaving blood on the field.


Potsdam

When Sasha had been called to the palace she had told Anya to go find something to do while she met with the Empress. Normally that would have been to see what Kiki was doing but as she found out, the Princess was out of the palace to go clothes shopping. It was something that Anya was glad she had arrived too late to partake in. There had been few times when Sasha had insisted that Anya needed to look presentable and she had not seen anything wrong with her appearance. Her clothes were serviceable, far nicer than anything that she had before, but Sasha had said that there were times when she needed to dress in a way that didn’t suggest that she was there to paint the house or install a light fixture. What did that even mean?

Waiting for Sasha inside was out of the question. Whenever she was in the palace by herself there were attendants watching her every move. Instead she went out into the expansive grounds of the estate. It was quiet, just the distant sound of traffic and the horn of a train in the distance. Walking among the trees Anya saw Friedrich with his monstrous dog coming from the opposite direction and it was too late to run and hide where they wouldn’t see her. It wasn’t that she disliked dogs. It was that Aki was huge, bigger than she was, clumsy and way too friendly. At least too friendly to her at any rate, supposedly the big dog was standoffish with people he didn’t consider his.

As Freddy and Aki saw her, Aki came bounding up to Anya.

“No jumping!” Friedrich yelled as Aki rather ineffectively as Anya found her herself bowled over by forty or more kilos of dog. Seconds later she was looking up at the clouds after having the air blasted from her lungs. Aki was joyfully licking her face. She was also aware of water from the grass soaking through her dress.

“I’m sorry” Friedrich said as he caught up with Aki and grabbed him by the collar pulling him away, “We’ve been trying to get him to stop doing that, but it has been slow going.”

“Your dog is an abomination” Anya said as she got her wind back and Friedrich helped her to her feet, “It should not be allowed to run free.”

Then she saw the look of incomprehension cross Friedrich’s face and realized that he couldn’t understand her. In her fear and anger from having that stupid dog knock her down she had switched to her default language, one he clearly didn’t understand.

“Excuse me?” Friedrich said, “If you could repeat that.”

“Your dog…” Anya started to say in German but now discovered that she just didn’t have the fire behind it if she had to repeat it. “It wasn’t nice, he’s too big for that.”

“Oh” Friedrich replied, “I said I was sorry and that we are trying to get him under control.”

Anya looked at herself and realized that the entire back of her dress was covered by a big muddy grass stain, Sasha was going to be cross with her for this. Anya glared angerly at Friedrich even though he towered over her.

“No wonder Gia likes you so much” Friedrich said, “The Sisters always look for formidable.”

"Why do you call Sasha that?” Anya asked ignoring much of what he had just said, “It isn’t her name.”

“It’s the name she took when was hiding from Stalin” Friedrich replied, “And it’s the one everyone outside of Russia uses.”

“The Church says her name is Alexandra though.”

“I understand that it is really Jehane Alexandra” Friedrich said. Anya had heard that French name before and knew that it had come from Sasha’s Paternal Grandmother.

Just then four figures separated from the trees and approached them. “Is Fraulein Maksimova hurt?” The man asked, it was hardly a surprise the Friedrich’s security detail would have seen everything that happened.

“No, just a bit shaken” Friedrich replied, “We will need to find some clean clothes for her though.”

“Not a problem” The man said and then three of the men faded back into the trees.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Seventy-Three


4th July 1954

Potsdam

To have gone to Bern to watch the Final would have been amazing but first Kat and then his father had said no. If the security could have been arranged weeks earlier then it would have been different. Instead, Freddy was getting to settle for watching the game on television and that was probably just as well. The National team was going down to an ugly two to nil loss to Hungary and with only a minute or so left in the game a miracle was looking very unlikely. He could see that Louis was fidgeting, not interested in the game.

“Why don’t you find something else to do” Freddy said to his ten-year-old brother only to get a baneful look.

“They are out there” Louis said.

“Who?” Freddy asked in reply.

“Those girls” Louis said, “They always want me as a dance partner or listening to some new music they’ve found, or they want…”

Louis stopped when he realized that Freddy was trying not to laugh. Kiki, Zella, Aurora and Anja had frequently pulled a reluctant Lou into whatever they happened to be doing. In most other respects he was reckless to the point of insanity, but the girls made him awkward and clumsy. Which was probably the reason why they delighted in including him.

“Its not like they are making you do anything too embarrassing” Freddy said, only to get another look from Louis.

Freddy didn’t care, instead he turned his attention back to the game which was reaching its humiliating conclusion. Louis did his best to sneak out of the room and down the corridor outside, an effort that was completely ruined by Aki thinking it was a game.

----------------------------------------------------------------

“Georgy is coming here” Kat said, “I understand your reasons for not wanting to meet with him, but you are out of excuses.”

Kira was understandably not thrilled with this new development. Had she gotten her way years earlier Russia would have looked very different, no Czar Georgy was merely the tip of the iceberg. She had actually advocated Russia becoming a constitutional republic and had felt that the country should make a complete break with the past. While she had been extremely effective in the eventual structure the Russian Government it had still been not quite what Kira had wanted. She had known that Georgy was going to bring that up the first chance he got so she had been avoiding the Russian Czar for the last few years.

“I understand that” Kira replied, “But why here?”

“The last conference that this city hosted reshaped the post-war world” Kat said, “To get the Serbians to the table we need to have the Russians convinced that they are an equal partner in these negotiations. Having the conference in Potsdam will do that.”

The Greeks had not exactly confirmed that they would be at the conference but in the present climate they wouldn’t be left with much of a choice. It was now clear that the Greeks had no intention of leaving southern Albania now that they had invaded it. As it was they were looking at a major humanitarian crisis in the autumn as the Serbs had pushed most of the ethnic Albanians out of Serbian territory into Bosnia which was currently fighting a two-front war.

“Why did this have to happen again?” Kira asked, “Or at least now?”

“Intelligence suggests that the Turks were convinced that they could break the general stalemate of the last few decades” Kat said, “This was due to them acquiring weapons and presumably the patronage of the Amis… er, the United States.”

“That is all we need” Kira said with an exasperated sigh.

“The good news is that the British think they can keep American flagged freighters out of the Mediterranean and Turkish ships in” Kat said, “But that will be an imperfect solution.”

“Which is why we need the conference?”

“Exactly” Kat said, “Unless you like idea of refugees spilling out of the region and the risk of further destabilization if this conflict spreads.”

“No one wants that” Kira replied.

What Kat left unsaid was that Intelligence had said that the Greeks had a few things up their sleeve that could turn nightmarish if deployed. It was hoped that any conference would head that off.


Central Pacific

The ship was in the wide Pacific after crossing through the Panama Canal. Jonny realized that it was as close to Mexico he had been since he had left that country when the war had ended there. Now it was Independence Day and they were steaming for China and the Silk Road Rally. Aboard this ship was the other team from Ford as well as the teams from Dodge, Chevrolet and Studebaker. It had made for some lively conversations in the wardroom. The rest of the time, Jonny had been in his cabin studying the route of the Silk Road and every bit of material that he could find on the various regions they would be passing through. Today though, Jonny had felt that he needed to make his way up top just after sunset because he had been invited. Apparently, there was something special planned.

“You made it” Parker said as Jonny made his way to the fantail, “Frank figured that you would spend the night in your cabin again.”

“It seemed like a good night to be out” Jonny relied then he saw the beer in Parker’s hand, “Got any more of those?”

“Plenty” Parker said as he handed him a can from the ice filled tub, “No fireworks though.”

Jonny looked up at the night sky. This far out to sea there was no light pollution and it was clear, so the stars stood out in crystalline glory.

“We don’t need them” Jonny said.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Seventy-Four


8th July 1954

Washington DC

As the Secretary of the Navy concluded his briefing Truman had plenty to say.

“I think that this is biggest load of manure I’ve ever been fed” Truman said as he looked over the formal notification from the British Navy. “Completely self-serving to boot. Anyone who looks at a map can tell why.”

The actions of the British had everything to do with their control of the Suez Canal and Palestine. Anything that threatened the British interests in either the Middle East and Far East was extremely unwelcome. Especially with the resent success that the British had started to have in exploiting the oilfields of Arabia. What they were doing was effectively blockading Turkey and the Balkans with the stated reason that they were containing the regional war that had broken out. Again, all one needed to do was look at a map. Cutting Greece and Turkey off from international shipping hurt the Turks a lot more than the Greeks. This was because Greeks and their friends, the Russian, controlled the Black Sea. They had not forbidden shipping, but they had said that they couldn’t guarantee the safety of ships in the Eastern Mediterranean and would be looking for ships carrying munitions into the conflict. The risk adverse nature of the shipping companies had done the rest.

“What exactly are we supposed to do about this?” Johnson asked. It was a good question.

“We can either start a war out of stubbornness and stupidity against what will be a proxy of everyone who doesn’t like us at the far end of what is basically a British Lake with damn near everyone else in Europe backing their play” Truman said, “Or we can tell the Turks to end this mess before the situation gets worse.”

“How can this mess get worse?” Johnson asked.

“It always can potentially get worse” Truman replied, “The saving grace is that we can just say that we sold the Turks our surplus, what they did with it is their problem. This time it’s the Brits and the Krauts who get egg on their face. About time.”

Truman figured that they would have to take that at face value in Europe because despite their reputation no one over there wanted a wider war. The peace conference that the German Government was trying to put together was proof. With any luck the Greeks and Turks had finished with the stupidity and would settle for yelling across a table at each other for a while.


Northern Epirus (Occupied Southern Albania)

“Diopos Papadopoulos, you come highly recommended” The Admiral said as Fotios entered the Theater Headquarters of the Hellenic Navy.

“Thank you, Sir” Fotios replied.

“What do you understand about war?” The Admiral asked.

“Fighting, killing, taking ground and holding it, doing your best to win” Fotios replied. It was the textbook answer.

“Good” The Admiral said, “That is what is involved in winning a battle, but winning a war is a different matter. The idea is to deprive the enemy of the ability to wage war, the current war and ideally the next.”

“I see, Sir” Fotios replied, even though he didn’t.

“What I am asking you to do is the sort of mission that ends wars” The Admiral said, “It is also the sort that I cannot order you to do, my hope is that you will volunteer of your own accord though I must warn you that due to the nature of the mission the world will probably never know of your valor. But afterwards, you will know that you will have won the peace, if you survive.”

Fotios wondered what he was being asked to volunteer for. But the idea that he could win the war with a single mission was enticing.


Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia

It was one of the perks of the job. Kurt had been sent to inspect the Panzer manufactures throughout the Empire and today that had brought him to Prague. What had been discovered was that Bavaria, Bohemia and Slovakia all had different requirements and needs. So long as the differing versions of the Lynx fell within certain guidelines they were encouraged to tailor their vehicles to suite their own needs. What Kurt was looking at fell outside of that, way outside of that.

ČKD and Škoda had outdone themselves, he was looking at a Lynx that how been modified beyond all recognition. The hull was similar to the standard Lynx, but the turret was vastly different. It had been rebuilt, incorporating the latest armor scheme, whatever its merits were it certainly had more elbow room, Kurt had to give it that much. The most noticeable change was that the main gun was not the familiar 8.8cm/L71 that was the standard throughout the German Empire.

“What is this?” Kurt asked pointing at the gun. The gunner who was giving him the tour gulped.

“It’s experimental” The gunner said nervously, “10.5cm, Sir.”

Kurt looked up at it, “What’s the length?” he asked.

“6.615 meters” The Gunner said. Of course, he would have had that detail memorized.

Kurt looked up at the gun again, he understood exactly what that meant. 63 calibers, if his math was correct, exactly the same as the Flak 38. It was clear what Škoda had done there. He was going to have to land with both feet on whoever was responsible for this, then he was heading back to Wunsdorf and recommending that they study this design for widespread adoption because it was exactly what was needed to counter the latest designs of the Russians. He remembered all the times that he had seen General von Wolvogle do things like that and they had seemed insane at the time. Now Kurt was discovering the higher he rose in the Heer that there was a method behind the Old Wolf’s madness if he wanted to get results.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Seventy-Five


20th July 1954

Wunsdorf-Zossen

As soon as he got back to Wunsdorf Kurt had presented what he had found to Generaloberst Raus. The General blew his stack when he realized that the much of the German Panzers, which were less than a decade old, would need either substantial upgrades or replacement. It had not been what the General had wanted to hear. It was expected that the Reichstag would collectively have a tantrum when they learned about this. Fortunately, he had already figured out how to go about doing it. Looking at the technical drawings he saw that the changes to the hull were minimal. Even with the extensive modifications that he had seen in Bohemia the size of the turret ring was identical. All that had really changed was the turret itself was wider to accommodate spaced armor similar to that already used on the Luftpanzer and to make room for the larger gun. Underneath, it was the same elongated hexagon that every Panzer since the Panther I had used.

Kurt’s thoughts were abruptly brought back to the present as Finster started trying to climb his leg. Carefully extracting the kitten’s claws from his pants leg, Kurt grabbed the black ball of fluff. “Suse!” Kurt yelled.

“What?” Suse asked when she walked in before she saw that Kurt had Finster. “You found him” She exclaimed.

“You are responsible for this little monster” Kurt said.

“Yeah, but he got away from me when I…” Suse trailed off when she saw the blue print of the new version of the Lynx.

It was a reminder that far from being interested in things that most girls were, Suse was obsessed with being a Panzer Commander. Gerta had said that she would grow out of it but over the last couple years she had shown no sign of that. Kurt had no idea what would happen if Suse attempted to join the Panzer Corps, but he hoped that having more than a decade between now and then would prove Gerta right.


Berlin

She might have clawed her eyes out if Ilse thought for a second that it would do her any good as she read about what had had happened from the perspective of others with the names carefully removed. Account after account of things that had happened to her and things she was said to have done. It was the later that was the worst aspect and it swiftly became clear why Doctor Glas had been reticent to bring it up with her.

“This doesn’t make you a bad person” Doctor Glas said, “You were in situations that simply should not have been allowed. You were not responsible, those who were supposed to care for you were.”

Ilse was in complete disagreement with that.

“Kat is always worried that she has the potential to become a monster like our father” Ilse said, “I already am one.”

“There is a reason why concepts such as age of reason exists” Glas said, “As I said you were not responsible.”

It was all there, Ilse had behaved savagely towards other children. Doing anything she could to wring out any momentary advantage, according to this the only reason she hadn’t inflicted the sort of injury she had seen on Alex was lack of opportunity. Ilse felt the same way that she did when she was having a panic attack.

“You are hyperventilating again Elisabeth” Doctor Glas said. How could she possibly be so calm? “We’ve talked about how to respond to this.”

They sat there for several long minutes as Ilse was trying to breath slowly through her cupped hands in an effort to regain control.

“Your reaction means that you understand the implications as an adult” Glas said, “But then, you were just a child trying to survive.”

“That doesn’t make it right” Ilse replied.

“It doesn’t, and it is good you understand that” Doctor Glas said, “But one thing that you must understand is that frequently there is a very fine line between those who are abused and abusers themselves.”

That was horrible thing for Ilse to learn about herself.


Ankara, Turkey

It had become the new reality of modern warfare, sitting in a basement listening to bombs falling on the city. What was galling for Abdullah Uzun was that he was in the basement of the Ministry of War. He never could have imagined this when he had had been a boy and had watched as they had defeated the British at Gallipoli. Even in that victory there were warning signs that they should have paid heed to. Starting the battle with every advantage they had fought the British to a stand-still and then their opponents had withdrawn in good order with a deception campaign that shouldn’t have worked. In the months that followed the British and French had pushed them back everywhere.

When the Germans had managed eke out a narrow victory they had wrongly assumed that the Allies would concede a victory to them. Instead, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire had accelerated as the British withdrew to Palestine and Egypt. Sensing weakness, groups within the Ottoman Empire that had centuries worth of grievances had revolted at once. When the smoke cleared, the Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and anyone else who thought they had a claim had grabbed everything they could as the Turkish Army had been in rapid retreat. Turkey had been reduced to a mere shadow of what had once been one of the greatest Empires in the world.

Anything but peace had followed. Turkey was beset on all sides by enemies and Uzun had eventually rose to the rank of Colonel. Now once again Turkey had taken a roll of the dice and lost. The stalemate that had developed with the Greeks was seen as leading to a final Greek victory in the long term. As the fortunes of Turkey had declined, Greece had been rapidly industrializing. It had been realized that if Turkey did not find a way to kick the Greeks off Anatolia soon then they would remain hopelessly overmatched in the future.

The sudden offer of military equipment a couple years before had seemed like a gift from heaven. Then the opportunity to force the Greeks to fight a two-front war had presented itself and it had seemed like everything was going their way.

Until it wasn’t.

Uzun felt the concussion of another bomb exploding on the street level as a reminder of that. The Albanians had gotten a message through to Ankara, according to them Tirana had been flooded with refugees and was coming under increasing air attack. For them this was turning into an even greater disaster than it was for Turkey.