Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty
20th August 1973
Mitte, Berlin
When you strike at a King, you must kill him.
Franz Josef Strauss was reminded of that quote by Emerson when he had returned from lunch to find a message left on his desk.
I no longer like the terms of our deal. It is time to renegotiate things because you have got just as much to lose now seeing as to how your little plan seems to have gone sideways. I am sure that you are not interested in concluding business.
Strauss had found that note have been dropped on his desk in his office. Of course, nobody had seen who had left it, but that was the nature of who he was dealing with. They had people everywhere and that poisoned this entire wretched city.
Matters had not gone according to plan. Strauss had thought that he finally had a chance to kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of Katherine von Mischner permanently and leave the head of the shadowy so-called GS, the Society of Silence exposed. It hadn’t been difficult; the GS was very aware that Katherine von Mischner was the daughter of the former head of their organization and had maintained a special relationship with the Jarl Gunnarsson, the immediate predecessor of the current head. There were rumors that Katherine knew the whereabouts of the lost fortune of Otto Mischner and Strauss had leaked documents that implied that after decades of investigation it had been discovered that there was some truth in that, and that the money was long gone. That was far more than enough for the GS to write off the loss and to balance the ledger somewhat by making an example of someone. Usually that came in the form of a pool of blood and viscera left to be found to let people know that someone was very dead and would never been seen again.
The previous Thursday, something had happened. Rumors had been flying all over that the house where the Tigress lived had been attacked. Then nothing more. Across the city, the police were reporting that certain known criminals had vanished, enough to create a power vacuum, and there was some debate about what exactly to do. Strauss had been told that the city sewers and storm drains would be checked, but the Tigress was well known to have a deep understanding of the undercity like few others. If she wanted somebody, or in this case a lot of somebodies, to vanish then it was likely that they never would be found.
The scary part was that the Tigress herself, Katherine von Mischner zu Berlin, the Prefect of Berlin, had been seen at the Alexanderplatz Marketplace serenely talking to the people who indirectly rented the stalls within marketplace from her. With it getting into late summer the busiest time of the year was coming for such an establishment, first with the harvest and then the Christmas Market that would spring up there. It was only natural that Katherine would take a personal interest.
That she was still alive then that meant that it was exactly like how the head of the GS had said in the note, the plan had gone sideways. His use of the words “little plan” also suggested that he knew that the whole thing had been contrived.
If the head of the GS thought that Strauss had orchestrated this outcome… It was a chilling thought.
Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park
It was Marie’s contention that boys their age were a major disappointment. It felt like everything that Sophie learned about Sepp Deisler fell into that category. First, there had been the incident on the lake the year before when he had been banging on her canoe with a bargepole to get her attention. Then this year he had snuck into the Girl’s Camp to speak with Sophie only to have no idea what he was going to say once he found her. Still, that was nothing compared to Sophie’s annoyance with herself because even after all of that she had agreed to go to the hedge. Standing there in the hot sunlight, she was feeling very stupid as she could feel sweat soaking through her clothes. She had wondered why none of the adults seemed to care about these meetings during the day, this answered that question. If she stayed here for too long, then she was asking for heatstroke.
“Are you there, Zoe?” Sophie heard a voice ask and she saw that Sepp was standing on something so that he was visible over the fence.
“Yes” Sophie replied.
“What?” Sepp asked, “You need to speak up.”
“Yes, I am here!” Sophie said, practically yelling. “Do you want everyone to know our business?”
Looking over her shoulder, Sophie knew that everyone would be talking about her doing this in a matter of minutes.
“Who cares?” Sepp replied with a shrug.
“I care” Sophie said.
“But you still came.”
And Sophie felt like an idiot for having done so.
“What was so pressing that you got yourself into trouble to talk to me?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t know” Sepp replied, “I just wanted to meet you is all and I didn’t get into too much trouble. Herr Fabel called my father and they told me that I wasn’t to do anything like that ever again. Then Poppa wanted to know if you were pretty, I told him you were.”
There had been few times that Sophie had been presented with such a clear injustice. If she had crossed over to the other side of the fence and had gotten caught, Kat would come and collect her. She would then spend the rest of the Summer Holiday locked in her room if she were lucky.
“What the fuck!” Sophie yelled, “There is no way in Hell that…”
Sepp was clearly taken aback by Sophie’s swearing. Whatever image he had of her in his mind that was not a part of it. He didn’t get a chance to reply because Sophie heard what sounded like splintering wood as whatever he was standing on broke under his weight. Sepp had a surprised look on his face as he fell into the thorn bushes.