Chapter Two Thousand Eighty-Nine
10th September 1971
Plänterwald, Berlin
Looking at the map of the Southern Andes spread out on the table, Kiki did her best to explain where she had been months earlier when she and Ernesto Guevara crossed into Chile. “There was a low range of hills, but then we crossed a fallow field to a muddy track” She said, “There were no checkpoints or any evidence of patrols, at least none that I could see.”
“Thank you, Ma’am” the senior of the two Officers who had come to Kiki’s cottage said, “This information will be useful.”
“Traveling north on Chile’s Route 7, I saw how much of it had to be taken by ferry” Kiki said, “I’m not sure how useful this actually is because of that.”
“General Rommel told us that you were sharp” The Junior Officer said with a smile.
They were from the Office of Strategic Planning within the Military High Command, whose job it was to digest useful information wherever they could find it and turn it into actionable plans for Generals on the ground. They also started the process of learning from present conflicts, often while they were still in progress to see what lessons could be gleaned. It was composed of semi-retired Officers, mostly of the rank of Oberst or higher, and career bureaucrats like the two who had come to speak to Kiki today because they were extremely interested in how she had crossed over into Chile without anyone being aware of her movements.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel remained in charge of the Office though he had to be getting up there in years. He had commanded a successful operation in South Africa before going on to the Heer’s High Command. When he had retired, he had replaced Walter Horst whose health had been failing at the time. Kiki had gotten to know him and his family well when she had been recovering from a head injury and had spent the summer in an isolated chalet located on his property.
“Is the General well?” Kiki asked, Rommel had to be nearly eighty years old, and Kiki knew how difficult it was to get her father to admit that he wasn’t young anymore, that probably went double for a man who had spent his youth like Rommel had.
“He said that you would ask that” The senior Officer said, “And he told us to tell you that he was a bit put out that you and your family didn’t see for yourselves when you in Bavaria this summer.”
“My boat cannot go that high up into the mountains” Kiki replied stating the obvious. It was just like him to give Kiki a hint like that, and she would need to arrange to visit him the next time she went to Bavaria. Ben and Kiki had been getting hints from Balderschwang as well, they really wanted to meet the new Markgräfin and heir apparent now that Nina was old enough to travel.
Fort Irwin, California
Ritchie had done his best to bring the rest of his Platoon up to his standards, which were also the Green Beret’s standards. It was something that had not gone unnoticed by the Brass, and they had been called into the Colonel’s office where they had been issued Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol patches. Ritchie had almost laughed at the situation because unlike the others who were strutting around now that they were technically considered a Special Forces Unit, he knew exactly what they were in for. A few days later the others had found out as they had been ordered to perform reconnaissance across the Mojave Desert in a patrol that went far ahead of the main column, on foot. Over the last few days, they had gotten lost a couple times and had to sleep during the hottest part of the day in whatever shade they could find. There was also lots of dust, scorpions, and snakes to contend with.
The real fun had come when they finally sighted the “Enemy Forces.” They had withdrawn from the area without making contact and radioed the map coordinates of where they had spotted the “Enemies.” After that, there was nothing else to do but proceed to the extraction point and wait for the helicopters to pick them up.
“Was that it?” Walt demanded as they walked across the rough desert terrain.
“The idea is to gather intelligence” Ritchie replied, “If we are fighting the opposing force then something has gone wrong, and we would be trying to get clear before a regular Army Unit brought the hammer down on us.”
“That isn’t what I’ve seen” Rick said angrily, “The comic books showed the Hellcats blowing shit up and shooting Russians.”
Ritchie had seen those comic books, the old Combat Comics that had lionized German Special Forces. Few remembered that they were straight up German propaganda that depicted the Russians as barbarians, the Japanese as savages, and if American forces were mentioned at all, it was as the butt of a joke by clever Hellcats or Sealions tricking them, usually for beer. He had also seen many of the German movies about the Second World War and the Spanish mess that had preceded it. If anything, those were even more scathing in their depiction of America’s not so neutral neutrality.
“They were infiltrated by parachute, and extraction was difficult before helicopters” Ritchie said, “If they got sent in, it had to be for a high value target and there is a reason why more than half of them never made it back alive.”
The Davis brothers were silent for a few minutes as the implications of their new role sank in. They couldn’t say that Ritchie hadn’t tried to warn them.