Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Seventeen


1st January 1955

Berlin

Seeing the twins playing in the snow was a delight for Ilse. They were just able to enjoy themselves completely without fear. She remembered that when she was a child Ilse had needed to be on guard constantly. Even today as she watched Tatiana and Malcolm play, she had worries floating at the back of her mind regarding the industrial pollutants that might have been absorbed by the clouds before it had come down as snow. Who knew what they were being exposed to. Eha had recently completed her Degree in Pediatric Nursing and had returned home to Estonia. A reminder that the twins were getting older, turning four next month.

Ilse had been there earlier when Kat had come back home, upset by resent events in Hohenzollern Castle. After spending two days fighting the weather to get there, the brief meeting with the Empress things had not gone well. The Empress had decided that because of recent events, Kat herself would not be an appropriate person to take on the role of Obershofmeinsterin at this time. It seemed that having the Empress’ Spymaster occupy that position would raise a lot of questions that Kira didn’t want to answer. She spent the entire train ride home fuming about what had happened, and it made Ilse happy that she never been asked to participate in that sort of thing. If Ilse had to navigate the politics of the Imperial Court, then she probably would end up going completely mental. There Kat was, outraged that she had been denied a position that she had never wanted in the first place. It was all so maddening.

Sitting on the back steps watched as Kol and Tat threw snow at each other. The grey overcast didn’t trigger her agoraphobia quite as much as a clear sky might have. There was particular irony in that she was frightened of beautiful days. However, Ilse suspected that anyone who knew her from when she was a child might have felt that it was justice…

“Tante Ilse!” Tat yelled out for help. Kol had gained the upper hand and was using it to full advantage to shovel snow into his sister’s clothes.

“Kol, stop it” Ilse said sharply.

Malcolm stopped what he was doing, but the look on his face suggested that he didn’t regret it. Not for an instant. Ilse figured that he would have a very different perspective when his sister got even with him at some later point. First though his lack of ability to think things through on display.

“We are going back inside” Ilse said as she grabbed Malcolm’s hand and the look on his face revealed how disappointed he was by that sudden reversal. The snow that he had shoveled into Tatiana’s clothes was melting and Tatiana was already cold. In a few minutes she would be cold and wet.

With that Ilse led her niece and nephew into the house. Aunt Marcella had once said that even good children could be little shits when referring to Tatiana and Malcolm. That was hardly something that Ilse needed to be reminded of.


3rd January 1955

New York City, New York

It was the first time that Nancy had ever been in New York. It also happened to be the first time she had set foot in America since she had testified in front of HUAC, something that she had no desire to remember. The offices of the advertising firm of Haywood, Beckett and Gleason looked and smelled exactly what Nancy thought they would. Dark wood paneling and brown carpeting. It also reeked of stale cigarette smoke, questionable taste and entitlement. Basically, this place managed to encapsulate everything that Nancy found detestable about Madison Avenue.

“Good morning Miss Jensen” Gerald Beckett said. It was clear to Nancy that he was not used to having to treat a woman as a professional and an equal as opposed to a sexual conquest. “Did you find the hotel to your liking?”

Speaking of questionable taste. The hotel room was exactly the sort of place that she figured that the Gerald Becketts of the world lived when they were not at work. At the same time, it had been provided to Nancy free of charge if she agreed to meet with Gerald Beckett and Clive Haywood while she was in New York. All she had done in the hotel room was sleep, regretting that hadn’t taken up the offer to stay with Hubert and Penelope Ashworth while she was in America.

“It was adequate” Nancy replied, keeping her voice neutral.

“Good” Gerald said as they walked out of the lobby and towards the conference room. “Everyone is looking forward to meeting you. Getting a product featured in a film was revolutionary.”

“That was a bit of an accident” Nancy said, “I was sent to have lunch with some people from Babelsberg and UFA. We came up with it on the fly.”

“Brainstorming over drinks” Gerald said, “Some of the best ideas are come up with that way.”

“That is not how I would say that it happened” Nancy replied. The truth was that she had stopped drinking because it was doing her no good and the movie that Gerald was referring to had been the result of her venting about her personal frustrations.

“Whatever” Gerald replied, “I should also warn you that Clive is going to want to ask about your friendship with Countess von Mischner and how you've met the Kaiserin a few times, he’s a bit of a royalist. Also, we have a few questions about who shapes the public image of the Countess on this side of the Atlantic.”

“Are you people insane?” Nancy asked.

That was not the answer that Gerald was expecting.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Eighteen


14th January 1955

Berlin

If Sophie hadn’t warned Helene that things like this happened, she might have been scandalized. The coalition talks to form the next Government had come down to rail signaling and electrification in parts of Bavaria and Württemberg. The members of the regional parties from those places had milked their powerful position for everything it was worth. The result was that the rail infrastructure in some isolated pockets of Southern Germany was going to be upgraded. Helene might have complained but she knew that she might have done the same thing for Silesia if she had thought of it first. Instead, at Sophie’s prompting she had gone for improved education programs in the University of Breslau and the Education System of Silesia.

The result was that the German Empire had a new Government with the Social Democrats forming the largest block. It was not a particularly stable arrangement, and no one was expecting it to last for long. That meant that there would be new elections when it all fell apart because the coalition just had too many interests, pulling in too many different directions. Then no one knew what was going to happen. The other consequence was that the activism that had been seen throughout the postwar era was probably at an end. Instead, they were waiting for the results of those investments to pay off in coming years.

No sooner than the arrangement had been made official then word spread about what Emperor Louis Ferdinand was up to and that set everything into turmoil. While the Emperor was content to live within the strictures of being a Constitutional Monarch, there were times when many in the Reichstag were uncomfortable with the role that he played in foreign policy and as the head of the Military. There was also the religious aspect, which annoyed this body more than many here were prepared to admit.

It seemed that the Emperor had announced that he and his family were taking a religious pilgrimage of sorts, but he had to satisfy the various constituencies within the Empire by going to Rome, Constantinople and then Jerusalem. Helene didn’t need to scratch the surface to see that there was a huge political subtext to the whole thing. With the recent war in the Balkans and Asia Minor having burnt itself out, now was the time to forge a lasting peace if that was possible.

When Helene had discussed this with Sophie, Sophie had said that it was all a question of accountability. Who did an unelected Emperor answer to?

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It felt like a steel band being tightened around her head and then a tooth that had a filling in it started becoming painful for some reason. It was Kat’s understanding that this was the result of the pressure that she was under. Everything had to be prepared though the Royal Family wasn’t leaving for weeks. The result was that Kat found herself on the telephone talking to her Greek, Italian and British counterparts. It was an open question as to who could be more patronizing and condescending towards her. She was sorely tempted to make a call to the BND where Kat still had friends to find out what dirt they might have on these men so that she could put the fear of God in them. Then it occurred to Kat that she would be living down to her reputation if she did that. Kira had complained about her lack of diplomatic skills weeks earlier. It seemed that her tendency to go to war with people whose only crime had been the be obnoxious to her had been noticed. Kat had been instructed to cut it out.

Recently, Kat had been informed that her time with Imperial Shipping and Abwehr were being included as her time in service, meaning that her start date was now the 6th of September 1937. That had made the date in which she could resign with a full pension was a lot closer than she had realized. The thought of having no responsibilities other than her family for the first time since she had been a teenager. Kat had discovered that her family was larger and stranger than she had imagined in those days, that was something that she looked at with a bit of regret. In 1937 Ilse would have been nine, Stefan would have been five. If Kat had only known about her two youngest siblings, then their lives would have been radically different.


Over the Mid-Atlantic

It was when the airplane had lifted off the runway at Idlewild that two thoughts occurred to Nancy. The first was that she was happy to be going home, the second was that Berlin was now her home.

As the representative of Volkswagen, Nancy had managed to secure the services of Heywood, Beckett and Gleason, something that would make her employers in Wolfsburg happy. All it had taken was sending a telegram to Berlin and getting Ilse to find the photograph that had been floating around in the desk that Nancy had in her bedroom. It was an autographed photograph of the Kaiser and the Kaiserin that had been a gift from Kira after Princess Kristina had enjoyed visiting with Nancy’s mother. Apparently, the Kaiserin felt that meeting people from strange lands was important for her daughter to do. Compared to Berlin, Eastern Washington was about strange as it could possibly get. Ilse had then airmailed that photograph to the hotel that Nancy was staying at. Clive Haywood had been absolutely ecstatic after Nancy had given the photograph to him. Which had been enough to secure VW the services of the advertising agency for the next few years. They also had asked if Nancy could put them in contact with the House of Hohenzollern through Countess von Mischner so that they could handle the public relations in North America. While that sounded like a good idea to Nancy, she doubted that she would be able to convince Kat to do that without risking a friendship that she valued.

Ilse had included a brief letter detailing what had been going on in Nancy’s absence. Apparently, there was a Japanese corporation that was trying to contact her. Toyoda or something like that. According to the reference material that Nancy had found in the New York Public Library they were best known for manufacturing automated looms. She didn’t have the first clue as to what they might want with her.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Nineteen


23rd January 1955

Berlin

“I can understand the reasoning” Kira said, “But does your friend really think that an advertising firm can change the perceptions that people in America have of us?”

“I doubt that she does” Kat replied, “At the same time, it couldn’t hurt. Right now, when most Americans think of Germany it is the actions of the BND, the OKW and your own agents that come to mind first. That is followed by this funhouse mirror version of Bavaria a century ago. I don’t think I need to tell you what the problem is with that.”

“So, we allow these advertisers to showcase our tourist destinations? Our Universities and industry?” Kira asked, “The CIA, Deuxième Bureau and MI5 would be euphoric at the prospect.”

Kat was delighted to hear that many of the things that she had spent years explaining to the Empress had taken. The world of shadows that spies, assassins and those like Kat who countered them occupied was one of those things.

“You forgot the Russians, the Greeks, the Chinese and everyone else in the world who can afford to have an intelligence agency” Kat said, “They are already here, and they are not necessarily who we need to consider in this particular matter. It is the populations of those countries who we need to win over.”

“This seems to me like if we would be trusting people who are not under our control to work on our behalf” Kira replied.

“According to Nancy the one of the named partners, a Clive Haywood, would be eating out of your hand if you met with him for even a few minutes” Kat said.

“I see, Herr Heywood is one of those Americans who is thoroughly enamored with European Royalty?” Kira asked, the disgust evident in her voice. “And Fraulein Jensen? How much do you trust her and what exactly is her background other than being an American?”

“Nancy is one of the few people who I feel I can trust implicitly, and her grandparents were Danes living in Schleswig-Holstein before they immigrated to Washington State” Kat said, “That detail was enough to get her dismissed from her employment with the U.S. State Department.”

“That would also make her a German subject?” Kira asked, “If she wanted it.”

“That would not go over well with her former employers” Kat replied, “The fact that she has never been one of our people is one of key things that has been protecting her.”

“That is a shame” Kira said, “If she could be brought into the hundred that would simplify matters.”

“I didn’t think there were any openings in the Order of Louise.”

“It has been a harsh winter” Kira said, “There are already going to be a few names mentioned in remembrance at the next quarterly meeting. As the Order’s Dame Commander, you really should be up on these things.”

“I command the First Foot” Kat replied, “And the Imperial retinue has decided that they want to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Care to guess who has had to deal with that unholy mess?”

“You’ll manage, after a lot of complaining like you always do” Kira said, “And you’ll get another medal out of it as well.”

Kira noticed that Kat was trying to hide her annoyance. Medals were a sore spot with her. Where a man in her position he would have strutted around like a peacock showing them off, Kat saw them as undeserved reminders of her suicidal efforts during the war. Recently, she had been informed that her time as an Abwehr trainee, Auxiliary, Officer and Kira’s Aide de Camp entitled her to the addition of a Fifteen Year, Long Service Cross to her ribbon bar. Kat had supposedly phoned Wunsdorf-Zossen and tried to tell Field Marshal Markgraf von Holz where the High Command could collectively shove that new medal. According to Lea, whose grandfather was the current OKH, the Markgraf had talked her out of raising a larger stink.

“Please talk to Fraulein Jensen about what I said” Kira said, “If she wants to make a life for herself here, I think she should at least be aware of her options.”


Washington D.C.

The month-old Congressional Session was turning into exactly the sort of shitshow that Truman had feared that it would become as soon as he saw the election returns in November. The Democratic Party still enjoyed large majorities, however the split between Northern and Southern factions of the party was becoming more pronounced. That had taken the form of the Southern faction becoming increasingly hostile towards what they regarded as interference by official Washington and the Courts. Heaven forbid that State laws needed to be Constitutional. While the violence that had marked the prior decade had not flared up again, not yet anyway. Truman figured that it was only a matter of time. It seemed as if the great grandchildren of those who been bled white for the Confederacy had learned all the wrong lessons from that.

If they were stupid enough to try to reprise the Civil War, they would discover that the United States wasn’t the same country that it had been in 1865. Even so Truman had been moving resources out of the South. The Army units based there did not have the latest equipment and the Navy had been quietly shifting units out of the Gulf of Mexico. The Interstate Highway system was also being built everywhere else first as well. If they wanted to fight a war with obsolescent weapons and no logistics. More power to them.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty


21st February 1955

Berlin

It was the sort of birthday parties that children had, cousins and other relatives mostly. Tatiana and Malcolm were old enough to be excited for the cake, presents and all the guests. That was something that Kat looked at with a bit of trepidation though. She also had suddenly found herself missing the two babies that they had been a few years earlier. Then she had realized that it was the same thoughts that had led Gerta into having Alois, who was presently toddling around. Kat had made Doug promise that if she ever talked seriously about having any more children, he was to immediately take a photographic assignment on a different continent and to stay there until her sanity returned. He had laughed at that, but Kat had been dead serious.

It was strange how things worked out, though. Suse was growing up fast and every time Kat saw her. She seemed to take on more aspects of her father, stubborn and determined to get what she wanted. Aspects of Suse that Kat whole heartedly approved of. Alois though already had the wild, sometimes vacant expression that was a hallmark of the Wolvogle line. As absent minded as the Old Wolf had seemed much of the time, his mind had been churning out a million thoughts a minute. By process of elimination he had eventually found the right solution. Kat had seen the office that Gerta maintained in Babelsburg, thousands of scripts, audio tapes, film clips and photographs practically spilling out into the hall. Now that she had more or less retired from acting, Gerta had taken on role of producing, not just the variety show, but a game show and two sitcoms. Gerta somehow was able to keep track of all of it while managing several creative teams and seemed happiest when she was at the center of the frenetic scene that was a television production in the minutes before broadcast.

Tatiana and Malcolm were sitting at the table playing a game with Helene’s children. Manfred was already well on his way to making the prediction about him being as big as Hans one day true. Hans had also infected his son with his passion for Football, much to Helene’s chagrin. A Footballer with Hans strength and the killer instinct of the von Richthofen family? Kat had joked that Hans had created quite the monster only to have Hans say seriously that it was something that they were trying to avoid. Ina on the other hand was a gentle soul who loved animals to the point of trying to adopt every stray cat and dog in the neighborhood. Neither Helene or Hans had any idea where Ina might have gotten that from. It was a lot like how Kat viewed Tatiana. Doug said that Tatiana had inherited her sensitivity from Kat, a detail that she found secretly horrifying. Malcolm though was rough and tumble, always seeking the next adventure. Doug had been reading to him from books about the Polar Explorers, which Malcolm loved. Of all the childhood heroes that he could have had, they were Roald Amundsen, Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Robert Peary. Kat supposed that her son could have done worse.

Kat just hoped that the children would be fine while she was away for a few weeks. They would be in good hands, and with how busy she had been over the last few years it was debatable just how much that they would even notice that she was even gone.

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Nancy was listening to Eha talking but only half hearing what she was saying. Eha had returned from her native Estonia to not just to visit Tatiana and Malcolm on their birthday but to go to finish the last of her certifications as well. She had also just told Nancy that she was going to be getting married that spring and Nancy couldn’t help but feel jealous. Eha was doing exactly what she wanted to do with her life, personally and professionally. Nancy however, felt like she was lost and just making it up as she went along. The thing with Volkswagen had panned out and she was getting calls from other corporations, Toyota Automotive of Japan most recently, asking her if she would be willing to consult for them.

All of that had left Nancy feeling like she was a bit of a fraud. Anyone could have looked at demographic data, trends and spotted the likely direction that things might be going in. The only thing really innovative that she done was point out how certain products could be subtly placed in movies and television shows. A different sort of subliminal advertising. Nancy had also discovered that if it was overdone or it was touch too obvious, then people swiftly learned to spot it. That actually made them less likely to buy the product. Knowing that, Nancy winced inwardly every time Catch a Tiger was mentioned. She had messed that up, she knew it now. There should have been a few other models of cars in the race.

Now, she was discovering that a term that she had heard OSS Officers use applied to her current profession. Blowback.

Supposedly, the Kaiser and Kaiserin were interested in meeting with Gerald Beckett and Clive Haywood to listen to their proposal, but the Kaiserin wanted something in return. There were openings among the one hundred Ladies who made up the Order of Louise. Nancy had discovered that Herzogin Marie Melita, the Consort of the Herzog of Schleswig-Holstein had sponsored her entry into the Order and Kat had said it was so that Kira would have a greater sense of control over what was being done in the name of the Kaiser. If Nancy did that then she would be burning a bridge. Even as unlikely as she was to get her old life back, accepting a place as a Dame of the Order would mean that it would be gone forever. There would also be the aspect that in the eyes of the US Government it could represent proof of the allegations against her.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-One


1st March 1955

Moscow, Russia

They were sitting in the study of the Czar, a fire to ward off the cold of the Russian winter. Fyodor Volkov was discussing the latest series of events with the Czar, the Chessboard forgotten as they had moved into thorny topics.

It was all part of a heroic narrative that many in the Russian Government were trying to sell the Russian people. Considering the events of the prior decades it was funny how things panned out, steam east of Moscow and electric to the west. In the long run it was predicted that diesel would completely replace steam and the main lines that ran to the Far East would be electrified. That was engineering on a scale that might have once been unimaginable made particularly poignant by who was paying for a great deal of that, the German Imperial Railroad and they were definitely getting a return on that investment. The riches of Siberia finally opening up and the Russians were having to fight tooth and nail to keep that wealth in Russia.

Fyodor liked to think that they, the Russians, would win in the end. That the unfolding story of the Trans-Siberian railroad and the Russian Far East might one day inspire a multitude of novelists and screenwriters the way that the American West did. The difference was that the Americans could keep their cowboys, they would have soldiers, engineers, railroad workers and unfortunately, many prisoners to play a role in that very Russian story.

It was that last group that concerned the Czar today. The woman who had been dubbed the Poisoner of Leningrad, Alisa Rosenbaum, had died of tuberculosis in Siberia a couple months earlier. She was alleged to have quietly killed several men and had systematically removed every asset she could find of theirs before the authorities figured out that they were dead. It hadn’t been until an official had grown suspicious of a forged marriage license supposedly signed by of one of the recently deceased that she had been arrested. It seemed that the men who she had preyed upon were those deemed sexual deviants, a community that had many reasons not to alert authorities themselves. The man in question was of the sort who was considered rather unlikely to get married.

“The whole situation is a mess” Georgy said, “In Saint Petersburg they were happy to learn that she was dead, they were however less thrilled to learn the NKVD had been keeping her alive for mostly propaganda reasons.”

“A living example of crimes motivated by greed and of being a Jew” Fyodor said, and he saw the look on Czar’s face as he said that.

Georgy had grown up in Paris in the Russian exile community there, later going to school in England. He had seen first hand the consequences of the French Government attempting to solve its problems by throwing Jews and Gypsies out of France. It hadn’t worked, the French Republic had fallen apart, and that action had proven to be to the benefit of the nations where those people had ended up. Mostly Germany and Italy, which was rather ironic to anyone who knew the history. Privately, Georgy had said that he felt that anti-Semitism was retrograde and frequently counter-productive, but as Fyodor had learned, Georgy maintained his position by choosing his battles carefully. Fighting against bigotry while they had a nation to rebuild would have been pure folly.

“I understand that” Georgy said, even if he wasn’t happy that he did.

“The present reality again?” Fyodor asked, “Not what we might want in a generation or two?”

Georgy just frowned. Despite Stalin’s boasting, it seemed like so much of Russia was stuck in the agrarian past. There was heavy industry, but much of it had been damaged and worn out during the war. Or worse, remained in Ukraine or Belarus, where the people had absolutely no inclination to cooperate with them. That on top of the demographic problems that Russia was having and their best minds emigrating to Europe and the Americas. It was a real mess. Problems that had taken generations to create were going to take almost as long to solve. It was a source of great frustration for everyone and not just the Czar.

“It doesn’t matter” Georgy replied, “Have you given any more thought to what we discussed last week?”

“Kaiser Louis Ferdinand’s trip to Jerusalem?” Fyodor asked.

“Rome and Constantinople as well” Georgy replied.

“He’s covering all of his bases” Fyodor said, “I’ll give him that much.”

“He needs to” Georgy said, “He rules over a nation that has a long history of religious violence. He has to make sure that everyone gets included or he will create a major headache for himself.”

“You’ve never felt the need to concern yourself with the concerns of various groups within our own empire.”

Georgy just stared into his drink and the light of the fire that was reflected in it.

“A considerable number of goat herders a thousand kilometers from anywhere of importance?” Georgy asked, “Besides that, if I didn’t give the Army something to do then I fear I would swiftly come to regret it.”

That was one of the brutal truths that Fyodor had learned from being close to the Czar. A saint would not have lasted long in that job and if shooting at Muslims kept the Army feeling like they were accomplishing something then it was a small price. Better out there, a thousand kilometers from anywhere, then how things had been in Stalin’s time with the NKVD on the loose and Military Intelligence not being a whole lot better inside the cities themselves.

“Our people in Rome have things handled there” Georgy said mildly, “Constantinople and Jerusalem remain under your sphere of influence.”

“Constantinople, sure” Fyodor replied, “Jerusalem, not so much.”

“Whatever” Georgy said, “Just make sure of one thing, no surprises, the Kaiser’s trip goes exactly as planned.”

“I know he has his own people for that” Fyodor said, “Remember that we had the BND and the German Army crawling up our backsides the entire time we were in Potsdam?”

“You know what I mean” Georgy said, “If you know someone is about to do something stupid, teach them the error of their ways. It is in our best interest that Louis Ferdinand has quiet, enjoyable tour.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Two


29th March 1955

Kiel

Two of the Sailors were listening to a radio as they worked as Kat boarded the SMY Hohenzollern IV. The music was Rock Around the Clock by Bill Halley and his Comets. A recent film called Blackboard Jungle had made that song an international hit, Kat had recognized it instantly as a redux of a song called Rock this Joint that had been a staple of Berlin’s university radio stations for years. Kat had brought the reasons for this up with Nancy who had said that it was big business in America, getting white artists to perform sanitized versions of songs that had been written and performed by Negro artists.

That had led directly to a wide-ranging conversation about race in America. Nancy had admitted that in the working-class suburb of Seattle where she had lived it had been rare to encounter someone of a different race, they had just lived elsewhere. It had been awkward as Nancy had ended up saying that it had mostly been for reasons that she had never even thought about before Kat had brought it up.

Then the conversation had shifted to Nancy’s waffling about her entry into the Order of Louise. She was running out of time until the spring meeting when she would have to give an answer. While Nancy wasn’t sure what wanted, and she saw the pros and cons involved. Kat secretly hoped that Nancy would tell Kira no. Doug had told Kat that she needed to talk to Nancy and tell her the truth about Kira, that the Empress manipulated the lives of everyone who fell into her circle. Kat had found that she lacked the courage to do that.

“Ma’am” A Naval Cadet said, snapping Kat out of her thoughts. “I’m supposed to be showing you around today.”

Kat saw the Cadet, blue winter naval uniform and not looking old enough to be out of school. As she followed him through the ship as he rattled off the statistics about the Hohenzollern IV and none of it meant a whole lot to her. She knew what steam turbines and radar did even if she didn’t know quite how they worked. The detail that the ship had an armory that could equip the entire crew plus a Platoon of Marines was certainly useful. As was the fully equipped sickbay and the 37mm Flak guns.

The plan was to have the Royal Yacht depart Kiel so that she would be in position off the coast of Italy when the Emperor and his family arrived in Rome. It would allow them to travel in comfort while having a secure base operate from.

“This is your stateroom, Ma’am” The Cadet said as they walked into suite of rooms that was large considering that on a ship space was at a premium. An outer room appointed as an office and what would have to be a very cozy conference room as well as an inner room that was for sleeping in. All with a nautical theme, which was appropriate.

“It seems like a bit much” Kat replied.

“All the quarters on this deck except the Emperor and Empress’ are identical” The Cadet said.

“I see” Kat said, “The idea is to keep me close to the Emperor?”

“Your predecessor is said to have felt that it was important” The Cadet said.

That sounded right in keeping with the thinking of the prior commander of the First Foot. He had always been at the elbow of the Emperor.

The Hohenzollern IV had been kept in storage for the last several years, only being sent for refit a year earlier. The last time the yacht had been used was when the royal family had taken a vacation to Norway several years earlier. Kat had missed out on that, something for which she was quite thankful. She had heard the stories about that trip and why there had not been a second one. She was glad that the children were older. Less prone to outbursts and seasickness.

“If you could take me to where the men will be sleeping” Kat said only to see the Cadet hesitate.

“Are you sure, Ma’am?” The Cadet asked only to get a withering look.

With a bit of reluctance, the Cadet led her down through the decks. They walked through the galley which was quiet at the moment but once there was more than a caretaker crew aboard it would be a hive of activity. Eventually they entered a deck that was dark, with the lingering smells of feet and cigarette smoke. It was subdivided into small cubicles with bunks crammed into them that were bolted to the bulkheads. It only took a quick glance at the porthole to see that they were right on the waterline. Once this ship was underway those were unlikely to ever be opened, which was why the ventilation was so poor.

“This is perfectly adequate according to regulations Ma’am” The Cadet said. That was something that Kat was perfectly aware of. The stateroom that she had on this ship was absolutely palatial compared to this.

“And where are your quarters?” Kat asked.

“Junior officer’s quarters off the galley a deck above this one” The Cadet said, he was obviously starting to wonder if he was doing something wrong.

“The privileges of rank” Kat said, “Just have it be something that you try not to forget.”

“If you say so, Ma’am” The Cadet replied.

It was like the conclusion that Kat had reached in her conversation with Nancy. It was awfully hard to see something as a privilege when you were in the middle of enjoying it.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Three


9th April 1955

Off Fiumicino, Italy

A few years earlier, Kiki had been required to go on a similar vacation with her family, the term vacation was used loosely because it had been anything but a vacation, to Norway. It had all been for politics and show, which was bad enough, though the stated reason had been to commemorate similar trips that her great grandfather had taken fifty years earlier. Bad weather, sea sickness, Kiki’s sisters coming down with the flu and hours upon hours of boredom had been the highlights. To Kiki’s astonishment, being back in Potsdam and getting lectured by the Royal Tutor had felt like paradise after that ordeal.

The next vacation like that had been to the colonies in the South Pacific. Only her parents had made Kiki stay behind with her brothers and sisters. To say that she had been disappointed was a bit of an understatement.

Now on this trip to the Holy Land, Kiki had been allowed to come but parting with Zella and Aurora had not been fun. They were going with the rest of the scout troop on a museum tour in Berlin with a couple of day trips to the nature preserves outside the city planned. They had been envious of Kiki going on a Mediterranean Cruise while it was barely spring at home. It didn’t seem to matter to Zella how many times that Kiki had pointed out how what she was doing sounded far better than it really was.

First had come the frantic trip to the airport, because the entire family was present it had been under heavy guard. Then had come the arrival in Rome in the middle of the night, getting hustled onto a helicopter and flown out to the SMY Hohenzollern. Kiki might have wanted to see the sights of Rome, but it seemed that the Italian police had caught wind that there was a kidnap and ransom scheme aimed directly her and her sisters by the local Mafia. Seeing Rome was out of the question, so they got sent to the enormous monstrosity that was laughably called a yacht while their father would spend the day meeting with the King of Italy, the Prime Minister and the Pope.

In the meantime, Kiki had woken up in the stateroom that she was sharing with Victoria, Marie and Anya to them bickering with each other over some trifling matter. Despite being close to the twin’s age, Anya had never gotten along very well with them. She preferred to be in the company of Kiki and her friends, perhaps it was because they were a few years older than her. That had been enough to get Kiki to leave the stateroom, but she wasn’t about to go back to sleep any time soon.

It was a relatively warm morning as Kiki made her way aft in the grey predawn. Padding down the stairs, or was it called a ladder on a ship? Kiki entered the formal dining room and saw who was sitting in the pool of light around one of the tables.

“Is wandering around in your dressing gown and pajamas now your thing?” Gräfin Katherine asked when she looked up from the papers spread out across the table as Kiki sat down.

“The twins are arguing with Anya” Kiki said, “They woke me up.”

“I suggested that you should get your own cabin” Katherine said, “But your mother felt that having you with your sisters would be a comfort to them if things get difficult.”

Kiki didn’t like hearing that she was just expected to be responsible for her sisters. It wasn’t the first time that had happened.

“I wish she had asked me first” Kiki replied.

“Being grown up means doing things that no one asked you about first or you don’t want to do a lot of the time” Katherine said, “You should see mess that this paperwork reflects below decks.”

“Something going on?”

“Just little boys who don’t want to share their corner of the playground” Katherine replied, “So they’re making things as difficult as possible. Cats and Sealions have always had a troubled relationship, though frequently they have needed to work together. Making that happen over the next couple weeks is my problem.”

Kiki had no idea what the Gräfin was going on about.

“You’ll miss your little sisters when you go to University in a few years” Katherine said, “As bothersome as you find them now.”

“I’m not going to University” Kiki said.

“Really now” Katherine said, “You have other plans?”

“Joint Medical Service” Kiki replied.

“That is just another way to go to University” Katherine said.

“How?” Kiki asked. The few times that she had expressed her personal ambition to her educators they had always told her that she should have higher aspirations or worse, told her that as a pretty little princess she didn’t really need aspirations at all.

“When you join, you’ll be trained as a field medic” Katherine said, “That’s a one-year course these days after basic training. A year in a University setting.”

All of that was news to Kiki.

“Then, as smart as you are Kiki, you’ll be strongly encouraged to go to University and Medical School” Katherine continued, “I personally think that you’ll love the challenge of being a Surgeon.”

Kiki was surprised by Katherine being so frank on the subject.

“How do you know all that?” Kiki asked.

“I considered going that direction after the war” Katherine said, “Life happened though.”

“I didn’t know” Kiki mumbled.

“That’s alright” Katherine said then she subtly signaled over the Steward who Kiki had not seen, “I would recommend the Brussels waffles if you want something to eat.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Four


11th April 1955

The Strait of Messina, off Italy

When Kiki had asked if the Hohenzollern IV could go any faster the Captain had just laughed not realizing that she was dead serious. She wanted to get away from Italy as fast as she could especially after what had transpired the previous day. They had been guests of the Italian King at the villa in Naples over Easter Sunday and at dinner Kiki had found herself seated between Vittorio, the Prince of Piedmont and Prince Amedeo of Aosta. It was instantly obvious to her why that had happened.

Kiki found that Vittorio had a very high opinion of himself that she didn’t think was deserved. Of course, he got on well with Freddy and Mikey. Kiki hoped that they would all be happy together, without her needing to ever get involved. Amedeo, at eleven, had no idea of the subtext of what was going on and had talked to Kiki about boats and how he wanted to be a Naval Officer like his father. He then spent the rest of the meal rattling off facts and figures that had bored Kiki to tears. Hearing that the SMY Hohenzollern IV was hundred and eighty meters in length, seventeen meters in beam and could go thirty-three knots wasn’t information she needed to hear. And exactly how fast was a knot anyway?

It had been when they had returned to the ship and she had a chance to talk to Gräfin Katherine that she was able to understand that it was all about keeping up appearances. And that she had to be prepared for these sorts of things more and more as she got older. The laws surrounding dynastic marriage had changed. This was mostly in reaction to the Socialist critiques of the First World War that featured entire nations led into destruction because they blindly followed an inbred king into a stupid war against his equally inbred Brother-in-Law/cousin-uncle. Still, those changes were fighting against tradition and inertia. Katherine had said that Kiki could do whatever she wanted with her life, but she would always have her parent’s expectations to deal with. Katherine said that she didn’t need to concern with these things for a long time. Instead she should just concentrate on having the best life she could.

Sitting on a steel equipment box near the bow of the ship, Sicily and Calabria clearly visible, as well as Z74 about a kilometer ahead of them. The Destroyer was one of their escorts to Constantinople, Kiki had seen the antelope painted on the superstructure when the Destroyer had passed them before they had entered the Strait, so it was obvious what the informal name of Z74 was. This was really what Kiki felt vacations should be about, seeing amazing, beautiful places and…

That was when she heard the “click” and she turned to see the photographer who had snuck up on her.

“Sorry to interrupt you Princess” The man said as Kiki scowled at him. If he knew he was interrupting her, then why had he taken the picture? Just once, Kiki wished that they would leave her alone.


Pankow-Heinersdorf

Getting a call from Marcella Böhler-Strobel was unexpected. Especially considering that she invited Nancy for tea. The truth was that she hardly knew Marcella, despite knowing her niece for what had seemed like her entire life. Entering the house, Nancy saw that it was a nice enough, one of the thousands of row houses found throughout the city. Supposedly, Marcella had declined when she was offered something nicer a few years earlier by the children she had raised as her own. Overall the house had a comfortable lived in feel, the sort of place that had far more happy memories than sad.

Sitting at the table sipping tea that she found bitter, Nancy looked across the table at Marcella.

“Klaus is going to be at work for a few more hours giving us plenty of time to talk” Marcella said, “The Doctors keep telling him that he needs to retire, between his back and his heart it’s only a matter of time before those things take him out for good. But he thinks that if he stops, that will be the thing that kills him.”

“My father was like that” Nancy replied, unsure about what else to say.

They sat there for a few minutes in awkward silence before Marcella said, “Katy told me about the offer you received, and I think it puts you in a powerful position to help her.”

“I don’t see how I could help her” Nancy replied, “She is the one who helps everyone else.”

“That is exactly why she needs your help” Marcella said, “Growing up, she had a hard time making friends. She was a shy, but smart little girl. Fading into the walls unless she wanted to know the answer to a question and drove her teachers insane. Then for a couple years, she withdrew entirely into herself before she met Helene.”

Nancy knew the reasons for that, however…

“She is always around friends and family” Nancy said, “I don’t see what the problem is.”

“It’s because she can’t tell the difference” Marcella said, “She treats everyone in her small circle of friends like if they were members of her family.”

“She is generous” Nancy said, “But…”

“To a fault” Marcella replied cutting Nancy off, “If you asked Katy to cut her heart out and give it to you, she would. She wouldn’t even think about it.”

“Sure, but Kat has us to protect her” Nancy said only to get a hard look from Marcella.

“Not everyone she considers a friend is interested in protecting her” Marcella said, “She constantly gets taken advantage of.”

“I can’t imagine who would be crazy enough to try to take advantage of her” Nancy said.

“Kira Kirillovna Romanova, that’s who” Marcella replied, nearly causing Nancy to choke on her tea.

“Are you insane?” Nancy stammered, “What could you possibly expect me to do about her?”

“Not much” Marcella replied, “But the Order of Louise likes to pretend that all the members are equal with the Empress as the foremost. If you were willing to play the Devil’s advocate with some of the Empress’ worst impulses there it would help Katy a lot. The one thing she will never tell Kira is no.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Five


12th April 1955

Aegean Sea

This trip was one headache after another. First, there was an informant that the Italian Police had in the Camorra telling them that some of the more enterprising members were planning on kidnapping one or more of the Princesses to ransom them back for a considerable fortune. While Kat had absolutely no doubts about the abilities of the First Foot against likes of the Camorra gangs, they had trained against the likes of the NKVD which were a slightly more brutal sort of scum. It was figured that littering a public space with the bodies of Italian criminals would be extremely bad optics, so except for the excursion to a villa owned by the House of Savoy as guests of the Italian King the Royal children had spent their time on the SMY Hohenzollern IV.

That led directly into the next headache. As the Hohenzollern proceeded at a sedate pace across the Mediterranean Sea towards Greece, Kat had been strongly encouraged to take a break. There was a Destroyer, the SMS Z74 and the much smaller SMS T33 Torpedo Boat escorting the yacht. If by some miracle, a surface raider got past them, they would discover that the SMY Hohenzollern, while not really a warship, was more than capable of defending herself. For one day at least, Kat didn’t have a whole lot to do. That was how she ended up wearing one of the sun dresses that Helene had insisted that she needed to bring along. Drinking iced tea while sitting on a deck chair talking with a man who she had no idea if he was real or not. Cosimo de’ Medici.

The Italian Diplomat, Kat had her doubts if that really was what he was, was a dapper man in in his early forties who wore a white suit and a fedora. To Kat it seemed like he reveled in the stereotypes surrounding men in his position. He claimed to be descended from the Medici family of Florence. Kat wasn’t sure if that was true, she had thought that family had gone extinct in the Eighteenth Century. It was either fortunate or unfortunate that Cosimo had a weakness for fast cars and women. Lacking the former aboard a ship, he had looked for the latter. As the only currently unattached women aboard, Gia and Lea were going out of their way to avoid him. The result was that he was on the deckchair next to Kat’s talking to her. She could keep an eye on him this way and he didn’t seem to care that she had a reputation as one of the most dangerous people in existence and was happily married.

“You see Contessa” Cosimo said, “The King trusts me to mind his interests, nothing more.”

“And if Umberto asked you to do anything more than that?” Kat asked.

“On this excursion anything more would be counter to the interests of Italy” Cosimo said happily.

“I notice that you didn’t actually answer the question” Kat replied, “And I’m still debating whether or not to have you thrown overboard so that you can swim home.”

“Exactly what are you trying to get me to say that I am?” Cosimo said.

“I already know what you are” Kat said, for some absurd reason she was enjoying this game. At least it was a distraction from the third headache, the message that Kat had received from Nancy “A fixer, any time Umberto wants something done, no questions asked there you are.”

“You think I am some sort of Soldato?” Cosimo asked.

“No” Kat replied, “I think that you are more of a Caporegime with Umberto as your Don.”

“There is so much wrong with what you just said” Cosimo said, “I will have you know that I would settle for nothing less than being a Sottocapo, if what you said was true.”

“What is the truth then?” Kat asked.

“I am but a humble civil servant who has been called upon to represent my country upon the world stage.”

“Who claims to be from one of the richest families in history?”

Cosimo just smiled at that. “The fortune you speak of was frittered away centuries ago. Which as you have pointed out, was when my family faded from the history books” He said.

“That is if you really are who you say you are” Kat replied.

“But who are you Contessa?” Cosimo asked, “The German woman who has transcended the limitations of her gender and class rising high in the service of both your military and in the Court of your Kaiser? Or are you really the daughter of a Mafia Don, or at least the German equivalent? Even going so far as continuing to employ his Consigliere after he was killed by your half-brother.”

Cosimo had just made a mistake, very few people knew that Urban Dreschner had been Kat’s brother. Those who did tended to be those who had direct dealings with Kat’s father. Exactly what sort of diplomat would have had dealings with Otto Mischner? Certainly not a humble civil servant as Cosimo had described himself.

“I had no control of what my father was” Kat said, “And you will find that I’ve always been straightforward about the difficulties that has caused me and how I never approved of much of what he did.”

“You say that” Cosimo replied, “But you also benefited in many ways.”

“I’m perfectly aware of that” Kat said, “I recently had a conversation with a friend regarding the nature of privilege and how one might not see that they are in a privileged position.”

“By the way you say that I get the impression that you didn’t see that as a privilege” Cosimo said.

“Finding yourself as a pawn in those games is an education” Kat replied, “One I could have lived without.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Six


14th April 1955

Berlin

Tatiana and Malcolm were arguing with each other in the back garden as Doug pulled the microbus into it’s parking spot. He had been out to Tempelhof that morning at the site of the house that his family was going to move into as soon as it was complete that autumn. He would miss living in this ramshackle old house even if Kat had no intention of selling it, keeping it as a rental property with some very select tenants. Supposedly, Anne had every intention of moving into the room he shared with Kat the instant they moved out. Kris and Judita were moving in as well. Asia and Nancy weren’t going anywhere while Petia and Ilse were moving to the new house. Petia was convinced that the house would be burnt to the ground within a week, so Kat and Doug had best have it insured. It wouldn’t be Petia’s problem anymore and they would make killing off it. Doug had laughed about it until he had realized that she wasn’t exactly joking.

“Papa!” Tat yelled as soon as Doug came through the gate, “Kol kidnapped Kora!”

Kora was a ragdoll that Aunt Marcella had made for Tatiana as a gift for her first birthday. Despite having far nicer toys available to play with, Kora remained Tat’s personal favorite. Lately, Kora had also become different sort of favorite for Malcolm. Whenever he really wanted to wind up his sister, he would steal the doll and hide it.

Trying to look sternly at Malcolm, Doug discovered for what must have been the millionth time that he simply wasn’t the disciplinarian in this family. Kat and Petia were the ones who the children feared in that regard, Doug didn’t really have that in him.

Still, he took Tat and Kol by the hand and led them into the kitchen. Nancy looked up from the papers she was filling out that covered the entire table. Doug’s heart sank when he saw what she was working on. Kat had said that she had not wanted Nancy to do this but had said nothing to Nancy, who was going ahead. The situation was complicated, because both of Nancy’s paternal grandparents were from Schleswig-Holstein, she was able to argue to the AA that she was ethnically and culturally German despite being from Washington State in America. It was similar to the sort of arrangement that had been worked out with the Volga Germans during and after the Second World War.

Kat had said that the only reason Nancy would do this was to enter the Order of Louise, she worried about what might happen if her friend fell into the Kaiserin’s orbit. Apparently, Kira could be extremely manipulative, something that was at odds with her public image. At the same time, Doug had been talking to Kat about letting the people she was close to make their own mistakes.

“Who is supposed to be keeping an eye on these two?” Doug asked.

Nancy winced. “I was supposed to” She said exasperatedly, “Petia went to the market and Anne got a call from her agent. One of her novels was accepted with revision, so she has been working on that.”

“I see” Doug said as he seriously wished that Eha was still around, everyone else had their own lives and were busy. Then turning to Malcolm, Doug said, “You, in the corner until you tell your sister what you did with her doll.”

Malcolm walked to the corner that he had gotten a lot of experience standing in over the last year. He had the same look on his face that Doug had seen many times on his wife and daughter as well that basically said, “When Hell freezes over.”


Off Constantinople

It was a study of contrasts that Fyodor discovered when he boarded the German Imperial Yacht as she sat at anchor in the Sea of Marmara. Up at the bow the Kaiserin and most of her Court were having a luncheon while Kaiser was meeting with the Emperor of the Hellenes. The helipad on the fantail was occupied by the German Soldiers and Marines who were not on guard duty and they were doing something else entirely. A German Marine, if the tattoos were anything to go by, was discovering that he was in over his head with an opponent who brute force was ineffective against as his comrades cheered him on. Fyodor had heard of matches like this among the elite of the German military, those who called themselves Cats and Sealions. It was a rivalry that their leadership used to encourage them to aspire to greater things. The opponent was a young woman, tall and rather thin, who was fearless while facing a man twice as big as she was. This wasn’t surprising, the German First Foot Regiment was known for having women within their ranks to make guarding the Kaiserin and her daughters easier. The Russian Army had long employed women in such roles so Fyodor didn’t see it as a problem. He was however surprised to find that the Italian King’s hatchet man, Cosimo de’ Medici, a man he would have described as a shark in a three-piece suit was there watching the match.

“Major Volkov” Cosimo said, “Pleased that you could join us.”

“I’m surprised to see you here” Fyodor said, he had encountered Cosimo in Croatia. The Italians and the Croatians were presently thick as thieves, a detail that complicated matters for the Russian’s Serbian allies.

“His Highness, King Umberto the Second, felt that it would serve everyone’s interests if this mission was a wild success” Cosimo said, not taking his eyes off the match.

“The Czar feels the same way” Fyodor said, “This puts us on the same side this time.”

“Should we call the Pope or the Patriarch and let them know that we have genuine miracle here” Cosimo replied, “Fyodor Volkov agreeing to cooperate?”

“Real funny” Fyodor growled, “Any idea where the Tigress is?”

“She went with the Kaiser into the city” Cosimo said, “I believe that is her duty.”

Fyodor was about to respond to that when the match took a turn. The Marine’s opponent had gotten her legs around his neck and he was unable to pry her off him as his face turned several shades of red. Then as the match was called and she bounded to her feet as the Marine lay on the pad trying to get air back into his lungs. The clothes that she was wearing were the sort that were all the rage for women who were into exercise that revealed a lot of skin. Not that Fyodor minded the view, long well-muscled legs and on her bare midriff there was an intriguing pale scar on the right side that looked like an old bullet wound. Then woman brushed back her hair and Fyodor realized that it was Grand Duchess Jehane Alexandra. Czar Georgy was not going to like this at all.

“You have to admit that she is glorious” Cosimo said.

Fyodor didn’t know if he should agree with that or punch the Italian out for even saying it.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Seven


17th April 1955

Off Constantinople

This was the first time that Fyodor had managed to get Jehane Alexandra to talk to him. She had been ducking him for the last few days since he had seen her win a fight against one of the elite members of the German Marine Recon, a feat that he would have dismissed as impossible if he hadn’t seen her do it. She was just finishing breakfast in the formal dining room of the SMY Hohenzollern while they were waiting for the Kaiser and Kaiserin to depart for the city when Fyodor joined them at the table. It was planned to have the Kaiserin attend mass with the Patriarch of Constantinople while accompanied by her daughters, today being Easter Sunday for the Orthodox Church. Jehane was to accompany the Kaiserin with her ward, Anya Maksimova.

Presently, Anya was dressed in a stiff formal dress and made up in such a way that she looked like a doll as opposed to girl. Jehane had made quite an effort with napkins to keep her from messing that up.

“Don’t mind her” Jehane Alexandra said, “She’s both giddy and terrified at the prospect of celebrating Easter in Constantinople and meeting the Patriarch.”

For lack of anything better, Feodor had put on his dress uniform to avoid appearing out of place in such a formal setting, that had proven to be folly. When he had walked from the cabin in the Officer’s quarters that he shared with three other men who were all Lieutenants, an unmistakable message from the Gräfin about exactly what his personal standing was with her, he had seen how many of the Hellcats and Sealions had bristled at the sight of a Russian uniform. Marshal Zhukov and Czar Georgy had threatened to send him to Siberia as a consequence of failure on a few occasions, the difference being that with Zhukov, he would go as a prisoner. Fyodor was starting to think that Siberia would be preferable to this.

“Czar will be very unhappy to learn the way that you’ve conducted yourself” Fyodor said, “Fighting against Marines while half naked.”

“I saw the look on your face” Jehane replied with a smirk, “You liked what you saw until you realized it was me.”

“That is beside the point” Fyodor said, “The Czar sent me to ensure that this mission is a success, having you cause a scandal will wreck everything.”

“My cousin grew up in Paris” Jehane said, “You can trust that he has seen things far more risqué than the clothes I wear to exercise.”

“Do they need to be so revealing?” Fyodor asked.

“It’s about being unencumbered” Jehane said, “Also more fabric tends to get soaked with sweat, so it’s perfectly practical.”

“I think that people back home would have a very different perspective” Fyodor said.

Jehane gave him a look. “It’s home for you” She said, “For me home is an abandoned homestead in British Columbia and Berlin.”

The complete arrogance of his perspective hit him when she said that. Despite her being fluent in Russian she had only been there a handful of times. She had grown up in Canada and Germany.

“I apologize” Fyodor said, “I forgot about that.”

“A Russian solder apologizing for anything?” Jehane asked, “Now I believe that I’ve seen everything.”

“It’s not something I do often” Fyodor mumbled, aware that in this wardroom there were probably inordinate number of people who could follow along with this conversation.

Jehane and Anya laughed at his discomfort.

“How did you end up in a fight with a Marine anyway?” Fyodor asked to change the subject.

“It was because of an argument between the Hauptmann in charge of Marines aboard this ship and Kat” Jehane said, “He said that no one needed to teach a Marine how to fight because they had to be fighters to even get into the Marine Infantry.”

When he had been a Prisoner of War in Bavaria, Fyodor had heard stories from men who had fought in the Siege of Leningrad. It all was the stuff of nightmares, but even in all of that the two German Marine Divisions that had stormed into the city in the last days had stood out as being of the worst sort imaginable. They were famously composed of the dregs of the German Army and they had fought in a brutal frenzy during the house to house fighting. They had then been sent to the South Pacific where the war against Japan had been fought by the Allied Navy on a scale far larger than Europe with a fraction of the numbers. They had excelled in the jungle warfare which wasn’t really a surprise. In the years since the war had ended the German Navy had tried to professionalize the Marine Infantry but they had tenaciously clung to their reputation of being the absolute worst of the worst.

“I don’t see what that has to do with you” Fyodor said.

“Kat said that with the exception of those in the MA who had been through Judenbach the rest were undisciplined and lacked training in hand to hand combat” Jehane said, “The Hauptmann demanded that she prove that, so Kat asked me if I would be willing help her demonstrate how wrong he was in the most embarrassing way possible.”

“By having one of their best brawlers beaten up by a girl half his size” Anya said proudly, “Sasha thought him a lesson.”

“Something like that” Jehane said, “They had no idea that I am a qualified instructor in Contact Combat.”

“How exactly did that happen?” Fyodor asked, “I have a hard time imagining that would be a part of the education of a Grand Duchess.”

“You would be amazed, one of my students is Kiki er… Princess Kristine” Jehane said, “Kat said that it would make things easier for her if I learned to protect myself.”

Fyodor did see the logic in that, even if he didn’t necessarily approve of the result.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Eight


19th April 1955

Kiel

What a laugh, German Marines can be beaten up by little girls. Ask me again why the whole world dances to their fiddle?

Careful, don’t you know that Creepy is probably listening in?

Who cares? What exactly will he be able to do?

As Jacob looked over the day’s signal intercepts, he was reminded that there were few secrets in the Fleet, or the world’s Navies for that matter. Word had spread rapidly about the events of the prior week and context was completely lacking. At the age of twenty-six Jehane Thomas-Romanova was not a little girl by any means. Nor was she just any ordinary woman.

The exchange was between the Captain of the USS Enterprise and the Vice Admiral who Commanded the United States Navy’s 2nd Fleet. Captain Heinlein was wrong about no one caring, Jacob did, and he also wrong about Jacob being unable to do anything. Jacob could think of several things that he could do to make the Captain’s life miserable without ever leaving Kiel.

That still left the question of what to do about the Meeresaufklärung. Jacob had made a mistake when he had shifted training from Judenbach to Cuxhaven years earlier. The idea had been to have the elite MA units help in Jacob’s efforts to improve the rest of the Marine Infantry. Instead the reverse had happened, the Marine Infantry had degraded the MA. It wasn’t hard to discover the reasons for that. The best Officers and Noncoms from the MA had been needed badly throughout the Marine Infantry setting them up for rapid promotion and transfer. Added to that, the Marines in general, the MA in particular, had repeatedly found themselves on the chopping block whenever the budget cuts needed to be made. The loss of effective leadership and the slide of standards resulted in embarrassing incidents like the one aboard the SMY Hohenzollern IV. As soon as Jacob heard that it had been Fraulein Thomas-Romanova involved he knew that it was the SKA Hellcat’s way of trying to get the Sealions to self-correct. If they could get the funding.

It was Jacob’s understanding that the portion of the MA that had been stationed in the Far East had somewhat maintained their professional standards. Hopefully it would be a resource he could call on.


Eastern Mediterranean

Everyone was saying that this trip was a major success so far, but Kiki wasn’t stupid. She had seen that almost as soon as they had left Constantinople the blue dress uniforms on the First Foot and the Marines had vanished, replaced by the brown on tan tropical splinter. While the rubberized canvas covers on the anti-aircraft guns had remained in place, Kiki had seen the ships crew quietly going about making sure that they were in working order. Gräfin Katherine’s comment about how Kiki would be a comfort to her sister’s and Anya if things got difficult was suddenly at the forefront of her mind. Perhaps it was watching the news with Zella and Aurora most Friday nights while they waited for the Weekly Variety to come on or because she was just getting older, but Kiki was aware of the sort of things the adults were preparing for. This wasn’t a novel or a movie, there was absolutely no guarantee of a happy ending for any of them.

Then again, a film she had watched recently had graphically suggested as much, The Liar. The film makers had pulled a fast one on the audience, taking a story that people knew well and making unrecognizable until the very end when the shocking truth was revealed. The plot twist which was right there in the title. The nameless protagonist, imprisoned by what he says is a tyrannical state and abandoned by his own, escapes and plots revenge against his captors. It is not until the last minutes of the film that the audience realizes that the narrator has been lying to them the entire time, he is a delusional madman blaming others for the damage that he had caused. The nameless protagonist was César Sauvageot and he was about to perform an atrocity that would cause his name to be used in the same breath as Gavrilo Princip and John Wilks-Booth. Then once the bombs were set the film had been a race against time and even though everyone knew how it ended, it still came as a shock. The final scene of the film, the girl who was not even a named character but had been a part of the team hunting the protagonist, staggering to her feet amid the ruble as the only noise was a high-pitched ringing and looking around in mute horror. They had won but it had all blown up in their faces.

After the film had ended, Kiki realized that she knew that girl quite well. The way that Gräfin Katherine carried herself, turning her right ear towards people when she was listening. Being particularly pensive some days, clutching her head around her left ear when she thought no one could see her. The Gräfin was partially deaf in that ear and it rang because she had been caught in the blast. If that could happen to a strong woman like Katherine…

Kiki was back in her place near the bow, sitting on the equipment box looking at land to what she presumed was the north lit up by the waning quarter moon and a few lights on the shore.

“I think that is Cyprus” Kiki heard a voice say to her left and Katherine emerged from the shadows, “Couldn’t sleep?”

“I keep thinking about tomorrow” Kiki said, “Are we in danger?”

“No, we wouldn’t have brought you here if you were” Katherine said, “But we have to prepared for anything. Especially in a place like the Palestine Mandate.”

Once Kiki might have been comforted by that. These days, not so much. Adults always meant well, but Kiki had realized that they were no more in control than she was.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Nine


20th April 1955

Old City, Jerusalem

Katherine had said that she hated this place as soon as the helicopters had landed.

It was worse than the Medieval cities in Germany from a security standpoint. The advance teams had discovered that they simply could not cover every corner on the narrow streets that twisted and turned in a three-dimensional maze. The masonry walls that would stop everything shy of heavy artillery were making Katherine deeply agitated as well. She had said as much when she had gone over the situation with Kiki’s father. From the Landing Zone to the Old City they had been in a convoy of vehicles with eight-wheeled armored cars leading and trailing. The British Army was out in force, but no one knew if that was a help or a hindrance. Among the various factions within the Mandate, mutual dislike of the British was one of the few things that they all agreed on. It all made Kiki wonder why they had gone ahead with this whole thing.

Kiki had found it a relief to reach the Old City. In the open, the sun had beat down upon them and it had seemed like an incredibly hot day. It had basically still been winter at home when they had left, here it had seemed like summer. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like here in a few months.

“Don’t wander off Whippet” Freddy said, as they walked into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Freddy was being Freddy again, Kiki wished that he would cut it out.

It wasn’t the first church that they had visited today, this one was supposedly built on the site of Jesus’ tomb and Kiki didn’t care. She wasn’t feeling well and had not even wanted to get out of bed that morning. Her mother had insisted that she come because it was about being seen. Fortunately, it was a weekday so there were only few tourists around who were looking at the Royal party with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. The heavily armed guards from the First Foot saw to it that most of them were keeping their distance. It did however mean that the benches along some of the walls outside the dome with the rotunda. With the press swirling around her parents no one was paying attention her, that actually suited Kiki just fine.

“You know the German Crown Prince?” A woman asked in English with an accent that sounded incredibly strange to Kiki’s ears.

Kiki glared at the middle-aged woman, she looked like she came from Norway or Sweden but didn’t talk like someone from there. Worse, she didn’t seem to be put off by Kiki’s surly mood. The cow was sitting there with a vague smile on her face. Kiki realized that she was enraptured with this place. In many ways she envied people like this woman, Kiki looked around this place that should have been one of the holiest places of her own religion and she just felt nothing.

“I know him, yes” Kiki replied.

“He’s grown into such a handsome young man” The woman said, “I’ve seen photographs in magazines, but real life is completely different.”

“If you say so” Kiki said she had never seen what was so great about her older brother.

“The German Kaiser and Kaiserin were just here” The woman said, “But you are a part of the royal entourage? You must see them every day.”

“Yes” Kiki said.

“Have you ever been to Saint Cloud?” The woman asked, “In Minnesota.”

“I’ve never been to America” Kiki replied, “I take it that you are from there?”

“Oh, yes” The woman said, “I’m Olivia Anderson by the way, William, my husband went to find the men’s room and he’s going to meet me back here. This whole thing is an anniversary present he gave me.”

That was far more information than Kiki needed to know.

Kiki almost replied, then a wild thought occurred to her. This woman didn’t know her, and she remembered the how Katherine’s sister Ilse had been named. If Kiki had been born to an unknown mother in the same place…

“I’m Kiki von Fischer” Kiki said, for Fischer Island which sat in the center of Berlin. The place where she had been born, even if it was really in the palace. It seemed perfect.

“And how did you get to be a part of the entourage?” Olivia asked.

“My father is a General, Luftwaffe” Kiki replied. It was true, after fashion. When her father played at being the head of the military, he wore the grey-blue uniform of the Luftwaffe. “I’m an official friend and companion to Princess Kristina.”

“That makes you a very lucky girl Kiki” Olivia said, “I understand that some of young ladies with the entourage are real Princesses. Her for example.”

Kiki saw that Olivia was gesturing towards Anya and almost laughed. The truth was that over the last year the Russian girl had become a bit of a social butterfly and Anya actually looked like what people thought a princess should. Kiki had become ever more physically awkward during that time. She’d grown several centimeters and there had been other things that left her completely off balance. With her glasses and brown curls, no one in their right mind would think that she looked the part.

“That is Anya” Kiki said, “She is Grand Duchess Jehane Alexandra’s ward.”

Then Gia walked out of the tomb. A few paces behind her was that Russian Major who had been following her around for the last few days trying to convince her to dress and act like a proper woman of her station. Kiki considered that a bit too much of an ask, Gia was the sort who started trends as opposed to following them.

“Who is that?” Olivia asked.

“That is Jehane herself” Kiki replied.

“She is beautiful” Olivia said.

Then Katherine stepped out of one of the corridors, positioning herself where she could see Marie and Victoria as well as Kiki. She was wearing the military kit, flak vest, helmet and a submachine gun being held readily.

“My word?” Olivia said.

“That is Oberst Gräfin Katherine von Mischner” Kiki said, “She’s in charge of the First Foot Guard, they protect the Kaiser.”

“Ober… what? Olivia asked, “Gray fin?”

“Sorry” Kiki said, “She’s a Countess and an Army Colonel.”

“Wow, impressive” Olivia said, “Are there others like her?”

“There’s Lieutenant Bäcker” Kiki said, “She’s my… er… The Kaiserin’s Aide-de-Camp and the Katherine’s protégée.”

“That’s very different” Olivia said, “I can’t wait to tell the garden club back home about this. They won’t believe it.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Thirty


25th April 1955

Souda Bay, Crete

When the SMY Hohenzollern IV steamed away from Palestine it had felt like everyone had let out a breath that they didn’t know they were holding. As per the plan, the Hohenzollern had gone to Crete so that everyone would have a chance to decompress for a few days after a trip that had secretly been a diplomatic minefield. In a few days the Hohenzollern would be bound for Athens so that the Royal family could fly back to Berlin and life would go back to normal.

It was nice to see the Emperor and Empress spend time on the beach with their children like if they were an ordinary family on vacation. On this trip it was noticeable that Freddy had started to get attention of the female sort. That was hardly a surprise and at sixteen keeping him out of trouble was become quite a task for the First Foot. This was just one more wrinkle to that. Kat had made it clear to them that there would be no excuses if anything happened before its proper time. She didn’t like that she had even needed to make that clear. Mikey was only a year younger, but he was not as outgoing, nor was he the natural athlete his older brother was. Next to Freddy, Mikey might as well be invisible.

Kiki presented a different set of problems for Kat. She remembered what it was like to be Kiki’s age. Having to get used to a body that had suddenly grown unfamiliar and like Kat she would take years to come into her own. She was tall, gawky if there was a word for it. It wasn’t helped by her having a narrow face, the round lenses of the steel framed glasses that she wore and the way that she wore her hair really did have the odd effect of making her look a bit like the whippet that her brothers joked that she looked like. Kat was a bit horrified that thought occurred to her.

Kat had also listened in on the conversation that the Princess had with that American tourist. Kiki was the sort that older women wanted to talk with and help where they could, the proverbial little sister. Kat had realized that Kiki was far more comfortable being someone else rather than herself. For Kat, it was all too familiar. The name that Kiki had picked for herself was a good one, one that did not immediately identify her as royalty and it might be useful in the future. Kiki had mentioned to Olivia Anderson that when she was old enough, she was going to join the Joint Medical Service and eventually become a Doctor. All so she could help people.

Prince Louis had been trying to convince the crew of the Hohenzollern to let him try out one of the eight dual-mount 37mm cannons that were on the ship. Perfectly in keeping with his character. Rea and Vicky had enjoyed the trip and the tour of Jerusalem. Now, they were trying to impress the journalists who had accompanied them with their newfound solemnity. What the journalists didn’t know was that they were the straight men in a joke that the Princesses were putting over on them.

For Kat herself, things had turned out quite well. When the Hohenzollern had dropped anchor the day before in Souda Bay the day before, Douglas along with Tatiana and Malcolm were on dock when the launch had pulled into the dock at Souda. After arranging for the outer cabin of Kat’s stateroom to be converted so that her children could sleep there neither Tat and Kol seemed too inclined to sleep much. Between the ship’s crew, the First Foot and the Marines they had discovered that they had a whole lot of extremely fun and terrible influences to meet. Fritz Schafer had said that he would keep an eye on them while Kat and Doug got reacquainted with each other. Presently, the twins were still sleeping having stayed up most of the night though it was almost noon. That gave Kat time to discuss matters with Doug.

“If Kiki is still interested in joining the Joint Medical Service in a few years I have to help her” Kat said.

“That will probably be something that will anger Kira” Doug said, “Especially if you go around behind her back regarding her daughter.”

“I know that” Kat replied, “But you were not there in Naples. Kiki was practically thrown at the two princes who are second and third in line for the Italian throne. She found Vittorio revolting and Amedeo bored her with endless talk about ships. I can tell that Kiki will never be the sort of consort that they might want. She’s too intelligent and ambitious to ever be happy in that sort of role.”

Doug listened, then thought about it for a minute. “Kiki is thirteen now” He said, “That gives you at least three or four years before she can legally join. That might be long enough to get Kira to see your perspective on the matter.”

“When I’m meeting with Kira alone it seems like she always can just buffalo me into doing what she wants” Kat said, “No matter what I do, the Empress seems to box me in until I’ve only one choice and it’s exactly what she wants.”

“I know that you are not going to like to hear this” Doug replied, “But Nancy mentioned that her entire motivation for applying for citizenship and accepting a place in the Order of Louise is so that you have a friend in the Court. Your Aunt Marcella said that she felt that it was something that you needed and asked her to do it.”

Kat was touched, but she also feared for her friend. Once Nancy lost the ambiguity regarding her situation then her former employers were going to be furious.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Thirty-One


29th April 1955

Souda Bay

Tonight, once the Regional Governor of Crete was off the SMY Hohenzollern IV they would depart for Athens and tomorrow this entire trip would be over. They would board an airplane and fly home. Freddy had enjoyed all of it, though there had been a few things that he had noticed that meant substantial change was coming. Kiki was acting stranger than usual, hardly a surprise there. On one hand she was still being treated like a child, on the other she was being introduced to potential suitors and expected to act the part of the gracious lady. Young men she might want to consider interacting with socially in the future. It had been clear from her reaction in Italy that she wasn’t the least bit interested and in Constantinople she had made sure to never once be in the same room as the Greek Crown Prince. Freddy had exactly the opposite experience. They were the only people he had ever met who understood where he was coming from. Kiki said that Vittorio of Italy was arrogant and had an overly inflated opinion of himself. She wasn’t wrong about that. However, upstairs after dinner, drinking wine and shooting pool while just talking about the latest movies and football had been a lot of fun.

Then there was what had happened on the morning they had left for Jerusalem. Kiki had complained about not feeling well but their mother had told her she wasn’t actually ill, so she needed to get out of bed. Freddy knew what all of that had been a euphemism for and had watched as his little sister had not enjoyed herself as they were shuffled site to site, looking pensively out the windows of the car. Later, she had said to Freddy that she just wished that she had just been allowed to stay home with her friends.

What Kiki didn’t know was that the entire trip had been about far more than just a pilgrimage. It had been a way for Freddy’s father to talk to the regional powers informally about the latest conflict in Anatolia and the Balkans, get them all back to the table so that a lasting peace could be built. Freddy had been told about what was happening by his father a few days before they had left for Italy, it being felt that Freddy was old enough to be trusted with that information. Then once they were there in Jerusalem, it had seemed to Freddy that they had put the needs of the State far above those of Kiki. When he had tried to cheer her up, she had just gotten annoyed and walked away from him.

Now, at this formal dinner marking the conclusion of the pilgrimage. Freddy’s father had passed out the red and gold medals, similar to the one had been issued by Freddy’s Great Grandfather decades earlier, had been issued to all those who had traveled in the entourage. For Freddy it was the first medal that he had received for something that he had done personally. Even if it was just going to various holy sights with his younger siblings. He had noticed that the Gräfin had placed the hers back into the box she and seemed to be making a point of ignoring it.

Marie and Victoria were still trying to put one over on everyone with their overt piety. Freddy had seen that they had not been so pious when they had picked the pocket of one of the Coxswains a few hours earlier simply because they had gotten bored. Of all the girls it had been Anya who was most affected by what she had seen, but once they were back on the yacht and headed for Crete, she had gone back to her usual complaints about how it was difficult to practice dancing in the cabin that she shared with the other girls.


Moscow, Russia

“You’ll be pleased to know that the German Kaiser felt that you deserved this overtly Catholic medal” Georgy said. He clearly found this whole thing amusing as he handed Fyodor the box containing a Jerusalem Cross on its red ribbon. “Do I need to arrange an awarding ceremony?”

Fyodor had completed the mission. The German Kaiser and his entourage had traveled through the Holy Land unmolested. He just wished that the Kaiser had kept his medal. Fyodor was acutely aware of how that medal alone would have gotten him shot a decade earlier.

“That is unnecessary Sir” Fyodor replied, leaving it at that.

Fyodor had seen no point in sticking around once the SMY Hohenzollern reached Crete, so he had gotten on the first available airplane back to Russia, via Bucharest.

“What were your impressions?” Georgy asked.

“Of what?” Fyodor asked in reply.

“Jerusalem, the German Kaiser, his family, anyone you might have encountered along the way?”

Fyodor just wished that the Czar had just wanted to play a game of chess over drinks.

“Our dear Italian friend, Cosimo de’ Medici was already aboard when I got there” Fyodor said.

“How did you react after what happened in Croatia?” Georgy asked. Did everyone know about that?

“I had other considerations” Fyodor replied, “Your cousin, that woman is impossible.”

“Why, what did she do?”

“Did you know that she teaches unarmed combat?”

“I have had heard rumors to that effect” Georgy replied.

“I watched her win a not-so friendly match against a Marine twice as big as her in hand to hand” Fyodor said.

“And that means… What?”

Fyodor took a minute to carefully consider his next words. How to say this without getting sent to a gulag.

“When she exercises and practices fighting, her clothes are designed not to encumber the body of the woman wearing them and they are rather revealing” Fyodor said with a gulp, “I couldn’t help but noticing that she is an extremely attractive woman.”

Georgy laughed at that. “All this time, I’ve thought you have ice water flowing through your veins” He said.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Thirty-Two


30th April 1955

In Transit, Over Austria

Tatiana was leaning on Kat having fallen asleep after the airplane had taken off while sitting in the window seat with Kat in the aisle seat and Gia in the seat across the aisle. Malcolm was in the window seat opposite from his sister, also asleep.

The novelty of being aboard the SMS Hohenzollern had remained even as the yacht had pulled into Athens. There had been a huge amount to explore on the ship and with Shafer along with some to the other older Noncoms keeping a close eye on them they were kept away from anything really dangerous. Mostly keeping them from pestering the crew with questions had been the extent of what was necessary. Then had come the excitement of boarding an airplane for the second time in a week. Once the plane had reached altitude and there was no more to really see the two of them had fallen asleep.

“They’ve gotten so big” Gia said. She had switched seats with Doug so that they could finally get a chance to catch up.

“They are starting Kindergarten over the summer term” Kat replied.

“You’re joking” Gia said, “It doesn’t seem like that long ago that they were just babies.”

“Life flies when you are having fun” Kat replied, “Speaking of life, I think that Major Volkov is sweet on you.”

Gia blushed as soon as Kat said that.

“I know that you have a soft spot for your counterparts in other nations. That is, when you aren’t trying to shoot them” Gia said, “But Fyodor Volkov is Russian, he is also another one of my cousin’s stooges, he’s in the Main Intelligence Directorate, that’s Military Intelligence, you know NKVD adjacent, he’s also Russian, did I mention that.”

Kat just shrugged. “What he does for a living and who he does it for doesn’t change the fact he’s sweet on you” She said, and Gia gave her a dirty look.

“What have you got planned for the next few weeks?” Gia asked to change the subject.

“As little possible” Kat replied, “I am being encouraged to take some leave starting as soon as we get everything squared away in Berlin. I’m taking them up on that.”

“That sounds nice” Gia said, “Are you still going ahead with what you were talking about a few weeks ago?”

“After everything that has happened since, it sounds even better” Kat replied, “And if I’m being allowed to jump the queue, I see no reason not to take advantage of it.”

“Still, to be as free as you’ve ever been after twenty years, nowhere near as many responsibilities” Gia said, “I envy you.”

“I fear that I will have no idea what to do with myself” Kat replied.

“Perhaps” Gia said, “But you’ll have the rest of your life to figure that out. It’s extremely exciting when you think about it.”

Kat had told Gia about the offer she had received, that her time in service would be considered from when she had joined Abwehr in 1937. 1st September 1957 would mark twenty years of service for her and baring a major crisis which could cause her to be recalled, it would be the end as well. She would suddenly have the freedom to define the rest of her life entirely on her own terms and not be as beholden to anyone. Gia was right, it was exciting.


Cuxhaven

A single day can change everything. Tilo had been moping around his apartment in Flensburg as the Spring Holiday had drawn to a close. Teaching Philosophy was challenging but as he had discovered, it was a bit repetitious. Then the telegram had arrived ordering him to report to Cuxhaven. Once he had gotten there, he had been briefed about what he was being asked to do. The MA was seen as being in dire need of restructuring. If Tilo didn’t mind leaving his teaching post at the Naval Academy, he was being offered the role of Executive Officer of the MA training school. He was partially responsible for bringing the MA back up to the standards that they had just after the war had ended.

As Tilo had walked through the dilapidated barracks he had seen the extent of how far the MA had fallen. To his shock, it had reminded him of tents pitched in a muddy field on the edge of an airstrip in Vietnam just after the Battle of la Drang. Then everything had been at a low ebb too. The Commanding Officer of the MA had yet to arrive so that left Tilo in charge. For lack of any better ideas he had ordered the men to fall out and he had seen two problems instantly. The first was that there were far fewer of them than there should have been. The other was that they all had the familiar slouch that Tilo knew so very well from when he had been on the other side of this sort of thing.

The funny part was he knew exactly what to do about it. Any Heer Officer would have tried to build them up and they would have pushed back. In the Marine Infantry, one didn’t start by building, it was a demolition operation first. These men were scum and they knew it and one couldn’t divide or multiply when starting from zero. Already, he had heard grumbling about “The Teacher” among the men. They could call him whatever they wanted, but they clearly forgot that when they had been in school there had always been teachers that the students were terrified of. They would remember that detail and then some, especially after Reier got here tomorrow.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Thirty-Three


6th May 1955

Berlin

Kiki winced every time her family trip was mentioned in school, all week she had been hearing it. The whole pilgrimage had been for domestic consumption and everywhere she looked there was the warm glow of approval. They had made the trip in a manner had respected the different beliefs that people held throughout the German Empire. There were those who disagreed on principle, that a more explicit separation of church and state was needed. The funny part was that Kiki was inclined to agree with them if it meant that she would never be asked to go back to Jerusalem again.

The first day back in school, Monday, had been a nightmare. Zella and Aurora were angry about having been left behind despite Kiki telling them that she had been wishing that she were back here with them the entire time. Then on Friday, the Teacher had insisted that Kiki tell the class about the journey to the Holy Land. So, Kiki had gone in front of the class and told them exactly what it was like. Mobsters derailing their plans in Rome, boorish Italian Princes in Naples. Sharing a small cabin with her sisters and listening to them bicker constantly. Easter in Rome and Constantinople and everything that went with both, a week apart. The constant intrusion of the press. Then the cherry on top that sour ice cream sundae of misery. Having cramps and feeling sick all day in Jerusalem as they were rushed from place to place under heavy security while being made fun of by her brothers. The highlight of the entire trip had been conversation with a kind American tourist who had no idea who she was. Crete wasn’t bad, but that had only been the last few days. Kiki’s conclusion was that she would have been happier if she had just stayed home. But she got to see Jerusalem, for what it was worth.

As she trailed off at the end and walked back to her desk, Kiki saw that the entire class were looking at her in shock. For as long as she had been attending the Gymnasia, Kiki had never told them so directly what it was like to be her. It had obviously not occurred to any of them that she would be unhappy with her life. That was the reality. Kiki had been given everything in life, but she was never allowed to forget for an instant that none of it ever really belonged to her. Everything, from the clothes on her back all the way up to the palaces and land, were actually owned by her family’s trust. It was only on loan to her and that was only if she continued to ask nicely. The trip to Jerusalem had been an eye opener for Kiki, she had to find a way to have a life of her own or being a wife in a dynastic marriage would be all she could hope for.

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

The house was crowded again when Ilse got home from the laboratory. She had realized once Doug had left with the children that she missed the noise, with just Petia and Anne in the house it had been uncomfortably quiet. Nancy was out all the time at her job in Wolfsburg or dealing with the Foreign Office. Asia was absent most of the time, on whatever mysterious errands the Empress sent her on. Tonight, everyone in the kitchen talking about whatever. Laughing and joking as they ate dinner.

When Ilse had seen the blueprints for the new house that was being built in Tempelhof, she had looked with a bit of apprehension at the size of the space that she was told would be her room. The small attic room she presently had being much more to her liking. There was also the question if the new house would have the same feel as the old one. Tonight, it seemed the answer to that question was that home was the people rather than the place.


Cuxhaven

Any hope that the Oberst would rein Tilo and Reier in was dashed when he had stepped over the body of a man who had passed out and had been left lying in the mud of the parade ground. If they wanted to call Tilo the Teacher then guess what, they had a lot to learn. The first week was brutal because from the perspective of both Tilo and Reier, if these men wanted to call themselves Sealions then they needed to earn it. Whatever grumbling there had been was met with complete indifference. Your Regiment’s XO and senior Noncom are kicking everyone’s ass? Isn’t that their job?

Not that everything was going completely well for Tilo. While the Brass in Cuxhaven were always happy to see the enlisted men working hard, the same as anywhere else, he was getting pressured for quick results. There was even talk resuming the practice of taking the castoffs of Judenbach again. There were a few problems with that. The first was that without a war the high tempo of training in Judenbach that had created those castoffs was nonexistent. The other was that the stink that had been coming from Cuxhaven was impossible to hide, while the elements MA had served with distinction in Mexico, most of them had come from Korea with the Third Division. The MA Companies from other Divisions had not faired well in garrison. Anyone from Judenbach might not be interested.

Then today, Tilo had learned that Emrich Lichtenfeld was coming to Cuxhaven to assist his efforts. Someone high up the food chain had heard about the embarrassing incident aboard the SMY Hohenzollern and had taken steps to rectify that. They had also been advised to avoid Jehane Alexandra Thomas-Romanova in the future, something that was hardly a surprise.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Thirty-Four


22nd May 1955

Berlin

When Kat arrived back in the palace it was for the usual Sunday meeting with the Empress as the Mistress of the Keys. That had gone smoothly enough, mostly they had ended up talking about the summer meeting of the Order of Louise next month. Tomorrow, she looked forward to conducting an inspection of the Enlisted Barracks of the First Foot Guard in Potsdam. When the cat’s away, the mice will play. That was as true as it had ever been. Kat had already heard from Schafer who said that the XO had at least kept the bottles and cans from spilling out into the street. Kat suspected that he was exaggerating a bit. Apparently, they were working frantically on cleaning it out before she saw the mess. Once the First Foot had made it back from Jerusalem, they had thrown quite a party and then had procrastinated on the cleanup. That was something that would be a problem that Kat would worry about tomorrow. Today, she had something much more fun to consider. Opening the door to Kiki’s room, Kat saw that the Princess laying in her bed sleeping in an old sports jersey that she had stolen from her brother Freddy and now used as a nightgown.

“Time to wake up” Kat said as she sat down on the bed, “Though you were never asleep in the first place.”

Kiki opened her eyes, which were bloodshot and swollen. She had clearly been crying again and that was the reason that Kira had asked Kat to talk to her. Kira had said that since they had gotten back from the Near East Kiki had been difficult, mostly due to her age. Kat suspected that it was a little more involved than that. Most people would have looked at Kiki’s seemingly luxurious life and concluded that she was being unreasonable. One of Kira’s concern was that such a misinterpretation might happen even as she struggled to understand her daughter. Kat had however recognized what was truly going on, as unlikely as it seemed Kiki had realized that she was in a nice little box as defined by other people’s expectations. She would never be happy so long as she was required to conform to that.

“Go away” Kiki muttered before rolling onto her side facing away from Kat.

“No” Kat replied.

At this point everyone else who had been sent to talk to Kiki had simply given up. As absurd as it sounded, no one in the palace had been interested in fighting with a teenaged girl so long as she was quiet in how she went about being miserable. There had been a few quibbles about how if Kiki was going to be a brooding presence that might affect public appearances, precisely the wrong tact to have. When Kat had suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea if Kiki was no longer considered a public figure for the foreseeable future it had caused a bit of an uproar. Unless Kiki was given space to figure out what she wanted for herself then she would find other, less quiet ways to act out. Why was it that it never seemed to occur to anyone that not everyone wanted to be in the limelight?

“Just leave me alone” Kiki said.

“I remember few times where I had someone refusing to leave me alone” Kat said, “This is how I pass on that favor.”

Kiki rolled back over and faced Kat, “You think bothering me is doing me a favor?” She asked.

“Yes” Kat replied, “I just don’t want you to get to the point where I was before someone stepped in.”

“How bad could you possibly have been?” Kiki asked.

“Suicidal, depressed and dealing with effects of traumatic stress” Kat said matter of fact, “No one is immune to that sort of thing.”

The look on Kiki’s face suggested that wasn’t the answer she was expecting.

“I got your mother to agree that some changes are necessary” Kat said.

“What?” Kiki asked, “Make me attend fewer garden parties where the insufferable talk endlessly about the inconsequential?”

“I don’t disagree with you there” Kat said, “However, I have a bit more in mind.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“By giving you a bit of what you think you want” Kat replied, “I also had a few Press passes revoked, the more obnoxious ones who you’ve been complaining about.”

Kiki seemed pleasantly surprised by that. “Exactly what do you mean by what I think I want?” She asked.

“You’re thirteen, which is a bit young for an after-school job” Kat said, “However, having you volunteer at the University Clinic seems like a good fit.”

The University of Berlin’s Clinic was one of the largest hospital systems in the city. They were always looking for warm bodies to perform tasks that were both menial and boring. Kiki would learn how the medical system really worked first hand, probably in the mailroom stuffing envelopes and hopefully doing what she was told.

“Thank you” Kiki exclaimed, and she hugged Kat.

“Don’t thank me yet” Kat said sternly, “No one is going to give you a pass because of who your parents are. Hard work and diligence are what will be expected and that is exactly what you will give.”

Kiki didn’t seem too put off by that. As much as she was annoyed by her oldest brother, in that moment she revealed that she was more like Friedrich than she imagined.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Thirty-Five


29th May 1955

Wunsdorf-Zossen

There was a flip side to what Tilo was doing that he had discovered in recent weeks as he and Reier had done the hard and painstaking work of rebuilding the MA in Cuxhaven. Reier had told stories about what the MA had been up to in the South China Sea, the East Indies and rest of the South Pacific. Reier was probably exaggerating the way he always did, but he had made it sound like a heroic saga. Smugglers, pirates, actual battles with boarding actions. Rather than in the days of sail a pirate ship might be a fishing trawler with a 75mm bolted to the foredeck and a pair of machine guns aft, a locally produced speedboat or a bewildering array of ships and boats. These modern-day corsairs preyed upon the merchant shipping and the Sealions of the Kaiserliche Marine Infantry took the fight right to them because no one else would. After all, on the very far margins it takes really bad men to allow others to do some good.

As much as they were kicking everyone’s ass and that was resulting in considerable disgruntlement, the men had wanted in on the action that was happening on the other side of the globe. Reier, being the crafty bastard that he was, knew that those were the coveted shipboard billets that were very limited in number. He had the men clamoring to up their personal standing within the Regiment. If fighting wasn’t currently prohibited amongst the ranks, they would be fighting each other for it. There were also men coming back from the Far East who had proven useful and negotiations with Judenbach for training purposes were ongoing. The Hellcats still didn’t want them stinking up their tidy little camp without quite a bit in return.

“I hear they finally got you out of the classroom and doing real work” Jost said. For the first time since Easter Tilo had felt free to come south for a family dinner.

“They got me as the XO of the Sealion Regiment garrisoned in Cuxhaven” Tilo replied, “It’s still early days but they’re getting better.”

“From what?” Jost asked with a smirk.

There was a rivalry among the military units who regarded themselves as the best of their particular specialties. Jost was a Noncom in a Regiment that fancied itself as the finest Heavy Infantry in the World. That wasn’t as impressive as it sounded because no other Army in the world employed Panzer Dragoons to the extent that the Heer did. The Sealions’ fall from grace had been noticed by the 140th Souville Regiment and with Tilo cleaning up the mess, Jost was perfectly happy to gloat.

“It is what it is” Tilo said, not reacting because he knew that would give Jost a great deal of satisfaction. Tilo wasn’t about to give him that.

Tonight, as Tilo had discovered his family was a mixed bag. Lenz had announced that his wife Keren was expecting over Christmas, presently she was heavily pregnant meaning that Tilo would have another niece or nephew in the coming months. If God had a sense of humor, then it would be girl. Tilo could just imagine the reaction that Lenz would have when he realized that there were a lot of men like him out in the world. Ava and Hanna worked in the sprawling Zossen complex in a civilian capacity. As the secrecy that surrounded the network of buildings, bunkers and a staggering array of defensive works deepened they had remained among the few who were trusted to work there. Inga was elsewhere tonight which wasn’t a surprise, what was a surprise though was that their mother was fretting over her. A week earlier when Tilo’s mother had visited her in the convent Inga had said something about having a spiritual crisis. Ava had said that recently Inga had received a letter from Sarah, the girl who had lived next door to them when they had been children and that had touched this off. Tilo had no idea what that could possibly be about or why it would cause his mother so much distress.


30th May 1955

“The only reason we agreed to let you do this was because of the donation your parents made to this hospital Fraulein von Fischer” The Hospital Administrator had said, “While it is commendable that you want to pursue a career in medicine, this is not the sort of place for a spoiled rich girl to work out her issues.”

As Kiki followed the Senior Nurse down the hospital corridors the things that Kat had said to her started to make sense. Kat had warned her that she should expect two sorts of reactions here. The first and most likely was that she would be given a boring, repetitious job in the hope that she would leave of her own accord. The second possibility was that she would given an impossible, heartbreaking task that would result in her fleeing. Kiki had said to Kat that it was a hospital, people go there to get better. Kat had told her that she was being naïve, that not every ward in a hospital was one that people were expected to ever leave. What would Kiki do if she found herself in Pediatric Oncology? She had needed to look up what that meant, and it sounded every bit as terrible as Kat made it out to be.

“This is the Geriatrics Ward” The Senior Nurse said as she opened the door. The first thing that struck Kiki was the smell, followed by the feel of the place, despair seemed to ooze out of the walls. “Most of the patients have outlived everyone that they knew in their lives. A young woman willing to spend time with them would be a big help. I should warn you that you should avoid getting too attached.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Thirty-Six


20th June 1955

Berlin

Every Monday and Wednesday Kiki came into the Ward and visited with the patients for a couple of hours. As the Senior Nurse had told her most of them had reached an age where they had survived the loss of a spouse, children or any other loved ones they might have had. Most of them seemed happy that they had someone to talk to and Kiki had heard several times that they had a great granddaughter her age. She had also discovered that age affected people in different ways. Frau Nagler at Ninety-Six years old, having been born in the middle of the last century she had witnessed the momentous events. Her mind was still sharp, but her body had failed her in the end. Herr Blum was twenty years younger than her and he was still physically vigorous, but his mind was completely gone. According to the Nurses who minded the Ward he frequently asked about people who had been dead for decades or about events that had happened a lifetime ago as if they were going to happen next week.

Sometimes she watched television with the patients, the legal and medical dramas that they liked to watch mostly. The Nurses had advised her to make sure that the television was off before the evening news came on because it caused them a great deal of distress. “It’s because we are old enough to see plainly that people are making the same stupid mistakes their forebears did” Frau Nagler said as an explanation.

Kiki liked that here she was just that, Kiki. No one here saw her as anything more than that. It was particularly nice to get nothing but encouraging words when she told the patients that she there as a volunteer because she wanted to join the Medical Service when she was old enough. Probably the best aspect of all this was that Kat had provided her with the documentation to give to the University Administration, it was all under the name Kristina “Kiki” von Fischer and it listed her officially as a Student Volunteer. It was possibly the greatest thing that Kat could have given her.

Then she learned when she came in on a Monday afternoon that Herr Blum had passed away over the weekend and the reality of what she was doing here hit her full force. Kiki knew that Herr Blum had checked out mentally months before his body had, but she had never interacted with someone who had died like that before. It was something that she never forgot.


Mirny, Kakut Region, Siberia

It was supposed to be spring, it didn’t seem to be. Not here anyway, a place where summer never really arrived. The climate was harsh, and one didn’t need to look too far to see that so far in this project where the labor over the winter had come from. A substantial number of prisoners had died already, and it was expected that many more would as they got this operation running. The representative of Czar Georgy had seen the Geologist’s report and the greatest secrecy had been slapped on the entire thing. No one aside the people here and the small circle that made up the Czar’s closest advisors knew about the project. If this panned out, it could solve most of Russia’s fiscal issues in one fell swoop. Or it could go into the pockets of whoever managed the project. Fyodor had been ordered have anyone involved shot if they showed the slightest inclination towards corruption. There would be plenty of wealth to go around but the Czar got the first cut.

“You are certain that this find will be worth greater investment?” Fyodor asked the Geologist as soon as they got into shelter. As they had walked from the vehicles to the project trailers Fyodor had tried to avoid looking at the grey figures that were at the center of so much controversy. It was another one of those things that would require the attitudes of the Russian public to change.

The Geologist unlocked the cabinet and pulled a sample like the one that had been sent to Moscow, most would have seen a plain grey rock. The Geologist had seen it as a telltale of something more valuable buried deeper.

“If you read the report you know this is Kimberlite” The Geologist said, “Which we found on the surface.”

“When the Czar saw your report, he understood the implications” Fyodor said, “That is why he sent me.”

“I see” The Geologist said and then he pulled out a second sample. “This took some doing, explosives and jet engines to get through the permafrost in these conditions.”

The second sample were colorless stones, uncut diamonds. Fyodor could already see the small fortune in front of him. A tiny portion of what was believed to still be below.


Washington D.C.

It had hit the State Department like a ton of bricks dropped from the stratosphere. A former State Department employee had applied for dual citizenship with the intention of joining an organization whose motives and conduct had long been deemed suspect by the CIA, FBI, NSA and most of the rest of the alphabet soup. It was unknown if the National Park Service had tangled with the Agents of the German Federal Foreign Service or the less official Intelligence Service run by the Kaiserin. Considering the events of the prior decade…

When Vice-President Johnson found out he just exploded.