Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Fifty-Four



17th July 1972

Los Angeles, California

This was the first night that Ritchie was back at work after the birth of his son, Steven Johnathan Valenzuela. He had been on shift when Lucia had finally gone into labor more than a week after the original due date. She had not been shy about telling him about how she didn’t like how their kid seemed to already be making a habit of showing up late. He had taken a week off to help out around the house, mostly just to clean up after the party, but after a while he had grown stir-crazy. He had found himself being encouraged to go back to work by his wife, mother, and sisters.

“What you got under the hood of that thing?” The Cruiser yelled out the window of his 69 Chevy Malibu.

“Frankenstein has a Chrysler 440” Ritchie replied as he sat on the hood eating his lunch while Mike was in a nearby convenience store, whose owner he knew, relieving himself. He had learned from one of the mechanics that his car was called Frankenstein by those who had driven it in the past. It was a perfect name.

“Damn!” The Cruiser exclaimed.

“That means that I can outrun you down the quarter mile” Ritchie said with a smile. “Then bust your ass for illegal racing.”

“Not that I would do that Officer” The Cruiser said before driving off. Ritchie knew damn well that he would probably catch that guy and his buddies doing exactly that. They would need to be boxed in before the first car rolled up on them, otherwise they would take off in all directions. The last time that had happened, Ritchie had issued a dozen citations and half of them had been stupid enough to fight it in Court. Having enough of your parent’s money to buy a souped-up hotrod didn’t make you any smarter than anyone else. Ritchie was pleased as punch to go to the Courthouse as they tried to talk their way out of it. Presenting evidence as well as his notes recording every word that had been spoken during the stop proving that the defendant was full of shit certainly amused the Judge.

“Anything happen while I was gone?” Mike asked as he walked back to the car.

“Community relations” Ritchie replied.

“Talking to the neighborhood punks again” Mike said shaking his head, “Lucky for you, stupidity isn’t contagious.”

“I do what I can” Ritchie said as he threw the bag that contained what was left of his lunch into a trash can.

By the time he got into the car, Mike was already on the radio telling Dispatch that they were coming off their meal break. It was a relatively cool night for this time of the year, but the weather report had said that there was a heat wave coming. Ritchie knew that would give the crazies an excuse to really come out. Pulling out of the parking lot, Ritchie figured that they would head towards Downtown through the Fashion District. Unless they got call from Dispatch directing them to go there, he wanted to avoid Skid Row. Word was that Sergeant Wilkinson, AKA Billy the Kid or Wild Bill, was breaking in a new Boot and considering the hairy situations that Wilkinson liked to get into with known scumbags, everyone was avoiding that part of town unless they had been directly told to patrol it or were responding to a call for backup. Ritchie figured that he and Mike would be responding to something that Wilkinson had stirred up at least once tonight.

As Ritchie drove up the darkened streets, the radio came to life again. It wasn’t dispatch though.

“One Adam Twenty-Five, this is Gold drei” Said voice, crackling with static, “Do you copy?”

“Gold Three, this is Adam Twenty-Five” Ritchie said after grabbed the mike, “You do know that you can get in a lot of trouble for being on this band?”

“I think I am a bit out of your normal jurisdiction” Gold Three replied.

“Shit” Ritchie muttered. It wouldn’t just be the LAPD that had a problem with this radio contact. The State Department would have kittens if they learned that Gold Three, better known as Captain Manfred von Mischner of the German Army, had somehow made radio contact with him from halfway around the world. Ritchie figured that it must have had something to do with satellites and powerful radios transmitters. The Germans were wizards when it came to that sort of thing.

“Now just what did you want to talk to me about One Adam Twenty-Five?” Gold Three asked.

“Nothing that cannot be said over a phone call” Ritchie replied, “I just need to know that you won’t hang up on me like you have done with the other representatives from Universal.”

Ritchie had spent weeks trying to get a line through to the German Captain through back channels after it had become clear that Lucia would kill him if he left LA and that his mother would help her bury the body. The German partners of Universal Pictures had discovered that Manfred would simply hang up if they called about the script and that had resulted in an impasse. Ritchie had been hired to see if a compromise could be had. The trouble was that he needed to talk to Manfred personally. That had proven difficult.

“I’ll talk on the phone, if it is you and you alone” Gold Three said. Then the channel cleared of the static had he cut the connection.

“Who the Hell was that?” Mike asked.

Ritchie wasn’t sure exactly how to answer.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Fifty-Five



18th July 1972

Tempelhof

The last week before the Summer Holiday had finally arrived, though it felt like the remaining three days of the term would drag on forever. Sophie and Ziska were excited that they once again would be going to have adventures in the Spreewald like they had for the last few years. Sophie had something else she was excited about too. Zella, a dear friend of Kat’s, did music reviews for the Berliner Tageblatt and she had given Sophie an album that was coming out next month. She said that she thought that it was something that Sophie would like. Ziska had recognized the name of the band because she had a few forty-fives from a band that one of the members of this new band had been in. She insisted that Sophie could not play it until Ziska was there to listen to it with her.

That was why they were in the library after school as Sophie dropped the needle on the record. Like always, she thought it odd that of all the things that people knew about Kat, the one thing that never got mentioned was the stereo system in the library and the thousands of albums that she had. There were a lot of Jazz, Blues, and Rock & Roll records. Some of them were extremely rare, one-of-a-kind recordings that couldn’t be found anywhere else. She had always encouraged Marie Alexandra and Sophie to listen to them but frequently, Sophie found much of the music foreign to her ears. Some of the records from the Django Reinhardt Orchestra were fun takes on what would otherwise be stuffy, dry material and the early Rock & Roll stuff was easier to dance to than the newer stuff on the radio. However, things like the Blues recordings sounded to Sophie like something from a different planet.

Today, the music that blasted forth from the speakers was typical of the sort of guitar driven music that was popular around the world these days. It was clearly heavily influenced by the music of the Moondogs or the Kinks with the jangly Pop delivery, but the horn section revealed it to be an American recording. The song’s lyrics though, those were something else entirely. The song was about how being in love with someone left the singer feeling as if he was being used and slowly crushed to death. It was an astonishing thing for the artist to say, totally the opposite of what Sophie expected to hear. The next song was about disillusionment. The third song was about being bored on a weekend night and just knocking the neighborhood they lived in. Ziska said that it could have been written about anywhere. The fourth song though… That one was an acoustic interlude that cut close to home for Sophie. It was a song about having a crush and the painful realization that the object of your affection will never love you in return. It was a reminder of some of the foolish things that Sophie had done in the all too recent past. Mercifully, the next song was a rave up.

The rest of the album continued with the themes of alienation and disillusionment. How the very things that were supposed to bring you happiness in life brought pain. This was as the singer longed for those very things. For Sophie, this was totally unlike anything she had ever heard before. By the time side B concluded, Sophie wanted to flip it over and restart it. Ziska looked like she was getting bored though, so Sophie told her to go pick something else to listen to while they talked about what they going to be doing over the upcoming Summer Holiday.



Münsingen Proving Grounds, Württemberg

The arrival of the Pioneers to Münsingen changed everything. Before they had been doing the assigned work while avoiding too much contact with the personnel based at the Proving Grounds and keeping within the proscribed areas. The Pioneers had asked for volunteers to do things that were for lack of a better word, fun. Blasting tree trunks and learning how to drive a bulldozer on the sly had been things that they had done over just the last week. Yes, they had spent a great deal of time digging with shovels, buckets, and wheelbarrows, but the rewards made all of that worth it. Niko was actually disappointed that it was coming to an end when they boarded the train that would take them home in a few days to his complete astonishment.

That almost made up for Bas suddenly becoming a loose cannon over the last couple days. On Sunday, there had been an announcement that the Prussian Institute was changing one of its practices to keep up with the times. The Wahlstatt School was going to coeducational going forward. The code of conduct that spelled out how fraternization was forbidden was still in effect but next year they could expect that those rules would be ruthlessly enforced. Niko didn’t think that was as huge a deal as it was being made out to be. Still, he had heard a few ribald jokes thrown around right up until word reached Bas that one of the incoming students next year would be his youngest sister, Gretchen. That radically changed the complexion on things.

Few were crazy enough to pick a fight with Bas and for the last couple days he had clearly been looking for an excuse to pummel someone. Niko could tell that Bas was so angry about this that he had even stopped complaining about the food. Worse of all, Bas’ parents had informed him that he was going to Silesia with Niko this year because they were going to see his grandmother in Spokane, Washington. After that they had been elsewhere when he had tried to call them. It was clear to Niko that they were ducking Bas’ calls.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Fifty-Six



21st July 1972

Mitte, Berlin

Nancy didn’t have the first clue as to where Sabastian had gotten the money to make calls on a pay phone several times a day. Every time it was the same thing. Him complaining about spending the Summer at the Richthofen Estate, which she had thought he liked doing, and demanding to know what they were thinking by allowing Gretchen to attend the same school he was.

She had explained to him that the trip to Spokane wasn’t for pleasure. This was because his grandmother had recently suffered a stroke and was disabled, so Nancy and Alan both had to go to Washington to help get their mother situated. Tilo had agreed to come to offer moral support to Nancy if he couldn’t help her directly. She wasn’t taking Sabastian because if he went, then it was inevitable that he would get bored. Then the trouble would start. With Sabastian that could include Police involvement as well as a whole lot of angry neighbors. Spokane, Washington was one of the last places of Earth he should be. Anna and Gretchen were staying put as well with Nancy having arranged for the two of them to go with Kat’s ward Sophie to a Summer Camp for girls located in the Spreewald.

As for Gretchen attending his school, that had been Gretchen’s choice after she had made it clear she would deliberately flunk out of school to avoid attending the same school as Anna for reasons that Nancy was having trouble understanding. Nancy understood that once her youngest daughter put her mind to something then it was almost impossible to stop her. The Wahlstatt School had happened along at the right time to prevent that. Offering her a place in their pilot program. It seemed that the school was using the same tactics that the military had for years to prevent anything untoward from happening. With most of the girls they had selected being largely from New Junkers families, the school certainly had a strong incentive to see to it that the rules were obeyed. Of course, they would be dealing with hormonal teenagers, so they had their work cut out for them. Besides that, Gretchen would have her big brother nearby putting the fear of God into anyone who dared to give her so much as a sideways look.

Sabastian wasn’t interested in listening though. So, the conversations devolved into arguments and because no matter how grownup Sabastian tried to act, there were times when he reminded everyone what his actual age was. This was one of those times and with him being a teenager, everything was the end of the world. That was why Nancy was having her Personal Secretary take a message every time he called. Tilo had explained that they needed to be the adults in this situation and that rewarding their son’s obnoxious behavior wouldn’t help matters. Tomorrow, Sabastian would be traveling with Nikolaus to the Richthofen Estate and Nancy had been assured by Manfred the Elder that he would keep the boys too busy to cause much trouble over the summer. They knew that he was taking them to the Munich Games in August, so they Nikolaus and Sabastian would be extra motivated to stay in their Opa’s good graces.



Reichenwalde, Brandenburg

Clearing the cobwebs was how her father had put it. Just getting on your bike and riding fast, thinking about nothing else but the road around you until all your troubles were distant. Zella had tried that, and it had not worked, not really. She had eventually stopped after she had put an incredible amount of distance on the highways that ran around Berlin.

Now, Zella was on the shore of a lake, surrounded by forest and she didn’t have the slightest clue as to where she was. The instant she had stopped, all her troubles came instantly back to mind. Her career, her mother, Yuri, and the huge mess she had made of all of it. The idiot had told her that he loved her, and Zella had fled. It was something that she had been aware of, but to hear those words come out of his mouth had caused Zella to panic. She had felt as if her head had filled with static and by the time it had cleared, she was on her motorcycle trying to put as much distance between herself and Yuri’s apartment as she possibly could. Things had been going astonishing well lately, which made this latest episode so much more painful.

Zella had been reviewing albums for the BT and she had run across one by an American Rock band out of Memphis, Tennessee. Their label’s Berlin counterpart had asked Zella to give their album a listen and spread the word about the band if she liked it. She got the impression that the label, which normally dealt in Soul Music was not quite sure how to market a band that didn’t seem to fit into any ready category. It was clearly a Rock album, but the Pop influenced sound made it difficult to define. The thing was that Zella had reviewed albums by a band that had featured Alex Chilton before. That stuff had been bubblegum, and she had savaged it accordingly. This new album was a very different take that Zella had not expected. Looking at the name of the band and also the title of the album, the whole thing had just reeked of pretension. The music though, that had been something else entirely, surprisingly good.

Zella had worried that she was being biased in her reaction to the album, so she had figured that she needed to find exactly the sort of person who it was geared towards. So, she had given her advanced copy of the album to Sophie Sommers, the thirteen-year-old ward of Kat von Mischner. The reaction that Sophie had had reminded Zella of the first time she had heard the Moondogs years earlier. That band could be huge, Zella thought to herself as she stared across the lake as wind drove ripples across its surface.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Fifty-Seven



23rd July 1972

Mitte, Berlin

Sometimes, a small thing had an unexpected impact.

In the Arts and Entertainment section of the Sunday edition of BT, Zella’s column which had run most Sundays for the prior decade had been used by the Editor of that desk to fill in unused centimeters. For a variety of reasons not a whole lot of importance was placed on the reviews of Rock & Roll albums. So, when an article two thousand, five hundred words in length appeared titled Recommended Songs of the Summer, 1972 the Editor at the A & E Desk did what he always did and placed just above the fold next to an article about a puppet show that was scheduled to happen at the Tiergarten Zoo that afternoon.

The thing was that more people read Zella’s column than anyone realized. Something else that few others aside from Maria knew was Zella had been experiencing a lot of inner turmoil over the weeks leading up to the release of it. Maria knew that it was because her daughter clearly had feelings for that boy. Zella refused to admit it, even to herself though. The result was she had looked further abroad than she normally did and had taken several chances with her selections with bands that few had even heard of at that point. On the campuses of various Universities scattered throughout Berlin it seemed that the students had been looking for an anthem for the Summer Holiday that year. Zella served them up several.

The opening track was the second single of John Lennon’s solo album that was released on the second week of August titled The World Keeps Spinning. It was a song that started with a sonic blast courtesy of Scottish Guitarist Mark Knopfler. The protest song, a reworking of the folk song The Recruiting Sergeant also by Lennon followed. The next tracks were Liar by Queen, Then came the Last Days of May and Cities on Flame (with Rock & Roll) by Blue Oyster Cult. It grew even more obscure with Big Star’s Feel, In the Street, and Don’t Lie to Me. In a nod towards the place of her birth, Zella included Train Wreck by Marcus Hook Roll Band that would break up and reform a year later as AC/DC, but this track strongly hinted at what was to come. A single B-Side called The Wizard by the English band Mythology had been included, but Zella had clearly included it because it was a song that few others had heard. Something that would change in the coming weeks. Smashed in the Street and Garden Concertina Wire by Napkinwaffe as well as Dark Lady and Thorny Roses for my Grave by the Skorpions were included. Those two bands were regular features on Berlin’s University Radio Stations, but these were new tracks that she was reviewing. It concluded with a song titled The Angel by Singer/Songwriter Bruce Springsteen. Looking over list, Maria wondered if Zella was going for a theme when she had compiled that list.

In the coming weeks, it seemed like the songs that Zella had recommended were everywhere. This was often to the chagrin of the artists themselves, most of whom were still obscure in their own countries.



Potsdam

“I think we have a situation” Wulfstan said as Christian walked into their room. It was the sort of comment that made the hairs on the back of Christian’s neck stand on end. He was strongly tempted to ask, What do mean, we? Before turning on his heel and walking out of the room, leaving Wulfstan to fend for himself. The trouble was that ignoring any situation was a great way to make things ten times worse when he was forced to deal with it.

“What’s going on?” Christian asked.

“This” Wulfstan replied, and he closed the door. Mathilda, Wulfstan’s little sister had been standing behind it.

“Hello, Chris” Mathilda said with a wave of her hand and a shy smile.

“What is she doing in here?” Christian asked.

“That was what I was just asking her” Wulfstan replied, “She ran away from home and has been hopping trains.”

“I can see that” Christian said, “But I mean in here, in the Bachelor Noncommissioned Officer’s Barracks in the middle of what is supposed to be one of the most secure military installations in Germany.”

“I sort of snuck in” Mathilda said.

“You did what?” Christian replied, “How?”

An eleven-year-old girl in a purple woolen peasant dress could not have stood out more in this location. Somehow, she had also managed to get from Wollin Island to Potsdam with little in the way of money or knowledge of the world outside of the island where she had lived her whole life.

“There is that big field out in front of this building” Mathilda said, clearly referring to the parade ground. “The man who cuts the grass opened the back gate to bring his machine in, I just walked in after.”

The gate that Mathilda was referring to didn’t have sentries guarding it because it was only supposed to be connected to the yard where the maintenance equipment was kept. It was also covered by CCTV cameras for all the good that had done.

“The maintenance yard is supposed to be closed off from the outside” Wulfstan said, stating the obvious.

“Not with that hole in the fence behind one of those big metal buildings” Mathilda said, she clearly thought that this was a game.

“How did you find this room?” Christian asked, having a sinking suspicion that he already knew the answer.

“I asked people” Mathilda replied. Christian could only imagine. Mathilda was the picture of innocence when she wanted to be. Her plaintively asking for help finding her big brother on a Sunday when it would be assumed that she was visiting with her family and had gotten lost. People would be falling all over themselves to help her. The conniving little shit. The Oberst was going to fly into a rage when he learned of this and if this matter reached the ears of Friedrich IV, then it would be as if supernova had exploded in Potsdam.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Fifty-Eight



25th July 1972

Potsdam

It turned out to be every bit the shitstorm that Christian had predicted.

The Oberst had gone ballistic when he found out that Base security had been defeated by a child who said she had come through a hole in the fence that no one seemed to be able to find. The result was that the Junior Officers had been read the riot act, in turn they had chewed out the Noncommissioned Officers. Then the Emperor and Press found out what had happened… The issue wasn’t just that it was the Headquarters of the First Infantry Division and the First Foot by extension. The Base housed the Command-and-Control Center for the Berlin-Brandenburg Region as well as one of the Luftwaffe’s Satellite Communications and Analysis Sections. Because Berlin was the seat of power in the Empire, those things could not be located anywhere else. The Emperor and the Government needed the best available information to make decisions.

The result was a massive review of Base security from the ground up. If a little girl could get in so could Agents from any number of potentially hostile nations. Everyone remembered that the British had somehow managed to compromise the High Command in Wunsdorf-Zossen, even if exactly how and when had remained a mystery. That single event had compromised the entire North American Division of the BND, and no one had been allowed to forget it. Into this, the Oberst had called Christian to his office. After a considerable amount of yelling and threatening, because apparently killing the messenger was perfectly acceptable in this situation, Christian had been tasked with finding the hole in the fence and dealing with it.

Then Wulfstan’s parents showed up and that added another layer of complication. Because of the National security implications, Mathilda just couldn’t be released into their custody. Sneaking into the Potsdam Barracks was something that neither the State nor Military could allow to slide. There was also the detail that Wulfstan’s father was well known to the BII due to his legal battles over the status of land surrounding his property and the various attempts to develop the areas surrounding the National Park just to the south. The refusal to release Mathilda had resulted in the usual bluster that normally worked on Wollin Island, it had the exact opposite effect here. Wulfstan had stood silently, telling Christian later that he had been totally embarrassed as his father had been told to shut up and that if he said one more word, he would get buried in pretrial confinement until the entire matter was worked out, or Hell froze over, whichever came first.

After that Christian and Wulfstan were the only ones who Mathilda would talk to, and she had become recalcitrant even with them. So, getting her to show them exactly how she had gotten in had proven difficult. It wasn’t until the Special Inspector, General Stefan von Mischner, who had been appointed to oversee the review arrived from Wunsdorf that things had turned around. For Christian it was a bit odd meeting the Staff Officer who he had only known from what Manny had to say about him. General von Mischner said that his daughter Elke was Mathilda’s age and that he would take a crack at talking with her. Eventually, he convinced Mathilda to show them how she had done it.

A short time later, they were staring at the rusted chain link fence where it met some thorn bushes. It was revealed that the fence had rusted through and was disintegrating once they had cut the bushes back, that was even before they found the hole itself. It had probably been cut by local kids just to see what was inside and they had probably been disappointed to learn that the maintenance yard was actually outside the main perimeter. The back wall of one of the storage sheds was up against the fence which was why it had gone unnoticed. Looking at the wall made of corrugated galvanized steel, Christian saw that there had just been enough room for someone as small as Mathilda to have squeezed through which confirmed his suspicions about who had done it. For the life of him, Christian didn’t have the first clue as to how she must have found this in the first place in the time she’d had. To Christian’s annoyance, the entire section of fence needed to be replaced and he had General von Mischner watching the entire time. Having a General present as he went about an assigned task was like having an itch in the middle of his back that he couldn’t reach.

The only fortunate part was that the roll of chain-link for new fence section was in the very shed that had concealed the hole. Even so, a big show was being made of this with a pair of SPz4 APCs parked nearby just to let everyone know that they meant business. Christian would have preferred some additional pairs of bolt-cutters to help speed the process along.

As the men Christian was supervising strung a new coil of barbed wire across the top of the fence, he turned to the General and asked. “What is going to happen to the girl?”

“She is the sister of your friend, Yes?” The General asked in reply.

“That was the entire reason for this” Christian said, knowing that he was taking a big risk by speaking up. “If Wulf wasn’t here then none…”

“You mean to say that this installation would still be compromised, and we would be unaware of it” The General said, Cutting Christian off. “Until someone decidedly less friendly than Mathilda Auer exploited it to our detriment.”

“I see, Sir” Christian replied. It was the General’s job to see the big picture, whereas he seldom had to consider more than what was right in front of him.

“The girl is being taken care of” The General said, “Over the last few decades we have discovered that certain talents that people have need to be nurtured in the appropriate settings or else they express themselves in detrimental ways. The Emperor himself has taken an interest in her case, so you should consider this matter closed.”

Christian gulped, that drew a very firm line under all of this and he was certain that Wulfstan was not going to like the outcome.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Fifty-Nine



28th July 1972

Tegel, Berlin

The building was new they said, built in the last few years. Mathilda couldn’t have said if it was or not as she sat on her bed with her chin resting on her knees and her back against the wall. Instead, she found herself oddly homesick for Wollin Island, the place she had been desperate to escape just days earlier. She had been brought here, what she was told was a State School for Girls which was supposed to be a safe place for her until they figured out what to do with her. It left Mathilda wondering exactly what an unsafe place would look like, because this didn’t seem too safe to her. She was surrounded by tough city girls who talked so fast that she could hardly keep up with what they were saying, and the things they said… It was terrifying.

Before they had sent her here, she had been grilled by adults, asking why and how she had snuck into the Potsdam Barracks. When Mathilda tried to answer those, she only made matters worse. She had refused to answer further questions until a man who introduced himself as Stefan had talked to her. He had been honest with her, telling Mathilda that she wasn’t actually in trouble but had made a mistake that had embarrassed a lot of important people who were worried about their careers. He had convinced her that the best thing she could do was show him exactly how she had gotten inside the Military Base.

Once that was over, she had been taken to a woman who identified herself as a Social Worker and she had a set of questions of her own. They were all about Mathilda herself and as she discovered, she didn’t seem to know the answers to any of them. Had she attended school at all? Did she have a Social Insurance Number? Had she ever been taken to see a Doctor? Were there immunization records for her somewhere? She kept saying that she didn’t know or got confused as to what was being asked. Finally, Mathilda was asked a question she did know the answer to. Had she been born on Wollin Island? She had said yes to that. Only to get asked why had they been unable to find a record of her birth in Western Pomerania?

When Mathilda said she didn’t know after that last question, the Social Worker had just sighed. She then said that she would need to get her stepson to intercede directly on her behalf because Mathilda was obviously one of his subjects even her parents were being idiotic luddites. Mathilda had asked what that meant only to get told that it wasn’t important. She needed to be taken to the hospital immediately because it was actually dangerous for her to be around other people.

Mathilda had spent the next couple days getting poked and prodded in the hospital. Had blood drawn from both her arms and given a number of injections that she was told would prevent her from getting sick. Then she had been sent on to the State School. Unfortunately, she had also lost everything she had brought with her from Wollin Island in the process and had never felt so lonely in her life. Everything was unfamiliar, from the clothes she was wearing to the room that she was now sharing with another girl who didn’t want to talk to her. At the moment, they were in the midst of the Summer Holiday which seemed to Mathilda involve a whole lot of complaining about being bored.

“Can you come with me Mathilda?” Frau Weber, the Matron who managed this floor and the thirty odd girls who lived on it asked.

Mathilda reluctantly followed. She had been warned about how being obstinate would only make things worse for her. She was unsure how that was possible but having that happen on only the second day here seemed rather foolish.

“Your visitor is a very important man, and he has come a long way to see you” The Matron said as they descended down the stairs. “Please be respectful.”

“Yes, Ma’am” Mathilda replied. That was how she had answered every question the Matron had asked. It seemed to be the right tact.

“I will wait by the door” The Matron said as Mathilda passed her, “If you are made to feel uncomfortable at all, understand that you are free to leave the room at any time.”

Mathilda cautiously entered a room where this important man was waiting. He old, far older than even Mathilda’s father, but where her father was bald and fat, this man was thin, and his hair was totally white. The glasses he wore as well as the tweed jacket he wore made him look like the Professors in the comic books that she had read on the sly with Wulfstan before he went away to the Army.

“Good morning, Fraulein Auer” The man said, “I am Doctor Holz, and I was asked by a dear friend to see you today.”

That nearly caused Mathilda to bolt from the room. The last thing she needed was another Doctor.

“I am not here to conduct an exam” Doctor Holz said, looking at her arms which still had bruising on them from when she had been jabbed earlier in the week. “All I want to do is talk.”

“Talk?” Mathilda asked, “About what?”

“Anything you want” Doctor Holz said, “I’m curious about what is going on in that head of yours.”

“Why should I tell you?” Mathilda asked.

“To unburden yourself” Doctor Holz replied, “To know that you are not alone in your feelings. I am someone who will not judge you and anything said will be in the strictest of confidence.”

“I don’t believe that” Mathilda said. In her experience, no one could keep a secret for long and everyone judged everyone.

“Perhaps a show of good faith first” Doctor Holz said before he produced the drawstring bag that held Mathilda’s clothes and belongings. “And I am sure that you particularly want this back.”

He handed Mathilda the silver Mjölnir pendant on a leather necklace. “That really is beautiful craftmanship, it looks like the original that I saw in the National Museum in Stockholm” He said.

Mathilda waited for a snide comment about her religion to follow, but it never came. Instead, Doctor Holz just waited for her to reply.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Sixty



29th July 1972

Potsdam

The only reason why Freddy had taken up the cause of Mathilda Auer was that it was a welcome distraction from the impending visit from the President of the United States. Meeting with his stepmother and Doctor Peter Holz to discuss their findings after they had individually met with the girl was a part of that. Many had already observed that her actions reflected talents that were similar to that of a young Kat Mischner. It was something that Freddy figured Kat herself would probably have a few choice words if anyone could find her. It seemed that Kat had arranged for her children to spend the summer without her and had vanished along with Doug Blackwood. Freddy figured that it was she didn’t want to be bothered on her birthday and that Petia Fydorova, Kat’s Household Manager and longtime confidant probably knew where she was, but good luck getting that information out of the Russian woman.

“I ended up asking the girl herself to see if she understood the implications of her situation” Charlotte said, frustration evident in her voice. “She had no idea what I was talking about, much less the implications.”

“What child does?” Freddy asked in reply. It would be like asking Mirai or Alex and he figured that his daughters would not answer the questions differently even if it was their Oma asking. “Are you certain that she existed entirely outside the system?”

“Yes” Charlotte replied, “This isn’t the first time I have encountered this.”

“Exactly why would a parent do that?” Freddy asked.

“They give lots of reasons” Peter replied, “Religious rationalizations are common, but it always seems to come down to control though. A girl who has no other options is dependent upon her parents and parent’s community and can have her life choices dictated to her.”

Freddy didn’t need to be told by them the potential for abuse that represented. “You said that her parents were among the Neo-Pagan revival from years ago?” He asked.

“That has got far less to do with this than you would think” Charlotte replied, “The other times I have encountered this has been among Fundamentalist Christians.”

“That is certainly ironic” Freddy muttered to himself considering who was expected to try to make hay over this situation.

“Mathilda is not what people seem to think she is” Peter said, “Despite being a highly intelligent and determined young woman, she is not the next potential Kat Mischner. The sequence of events that led to Kat becoming who she is are unique to her and I wouldn’t wish that sort of experience upon my worst enemy.”

It was something that Peter had hinted at, Katherine von Mischner’s life should have destroyed her. Instead, she had become the woman who had become a surrogate Aunt to Freddy and his younger siblings. However, most of the world saw her as the ruthless Tigress of Pankow and with her turning fifty in a few days, there was speculation about if there was a potential successor waiting in the wings.

“What should we do with Mathilda then?” Freddy asked.

“Place her in an appropriately structured setting, encourage her to do something else with her life and let her be forgotten as people move on to the next shiny object” Charlotte replied with Peter nodding in agreement.

“Exactly what do you have in mind?” Freddy asked.



Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park

Sophie was laying in the bottom of the canoe, enjoying the shade of the tall trees that grew along the western bank of the lake on a warm afternoon. It was what she had been doing every day for the last few days and after the weeks and months leading up to this, it was a welcome change. Ziska had gone with her because one of the rules of the camp was that no one was allowed to go anywhere alone but they were encouraged to spend their days outside. Especially if it was on the water. A few minutes earlier, Ziska had jumped over the side of the canoe to cool off. Every once in a while, the wind would shift, and the canoe would be pushed a few meters on its line.

There was a THUD! And Sophie sat up alarmed.

And she was greeted with laughter as four boys were on a punt were a few meters away. One of them was holding an aluminum pole that he had just whacked the bow of the canoe with, and he had a big smile on his face. He looked like he was Sophie’s age, but the other boys were much younger, nine or ten. Meaning that he was supposed to be setting an example instead of this tomfoolery.

“You are supposed to be leaving us alone” Sophie said.

“Where’s the fun in that?” The boy said. Then he saw Ziska hanging on to the side of the canoe. “Two pretty girls should expect attention.”

“Piss off!” Ziska yelled angerly.

The boys just laughed at that as they poled their punt away. Once they were gone, Ziska climbed over the stern of the canoe. It had only taken them a few tries this week before they had got the hang of climbing into the canoe without tipping it.

“Pests” Ziska said, “We should go before they come back.”

“They seemed harmless” Sophie replied even as she grabbed the oar.

“Yes, but how do think they would have responded to this?” Ziska asked gesturing to her right leg. Because she had been swimming, she wasn’t wearing any prosthesis, the missing foot and ankle were plain as day.

“Sorry” Sophie replied, “I didn’t think.”

“Clearly” Ziska said.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Sixty-One



2nd August 1972

Langeoog

Kat had needed to retreat from Berlin for a time because things had grown overwhelming. Beyond the expectations that people had of her, she had Marie Alexandra and Sophie to contend with. The two of them seemed determined to make things complicated in a way in which only young women were capable of. Sending them off to camp where they could be both closely watched and someone else’s problem for a month was a godsend.

On the other side was Aunt Marcella whose health was deteriorating. There was no explanation beyond her being an elderly woman who had lived a tough life and at the age of seventy-five her body was worn out. Despite Marcella’s assurances to Kat that she was going to be fine, Kat was aware that she would need to face the reality that she would no longer have the woman who had been her mother in her life at some point in the near future. The situation with Doug’s parents was not much better and Kat had started to dread hearing the phone ring, especially at night.

Staring out at the beach and the waves rolling in, Kat remembered wading in the surf with Gia thirty years ago to the day on the same stretch of beach. She remembered that she had pushed all thoughts of the war and everything that had been weighing on her out of her mind for a few hours and had just been carefree. These days, Gia spent her summers living in the Transbaikal region of Siberia with her son Alexei and her husband, provided he hadn’t been called away. Kat found that she missed the little sister who Gia had become. She also missed the other girls who had become the improvised family for them. They all had careers and families of their own these days.

Next week, it was expected that she was going to meet with the President of the United States in her capacity as the Prefect of Berlin. What exactly was she supposed to say? Thank you for meeting with me, Sir. By the way I despise your country and think that you treat the Office you hold as little more than a means to burnish your portfolio. The whole thing had the makings of a disaster. Of all the things that Kat had been accused of over the years, being diplomatic was not one of them.



Richthofen Estate, Rural Silesia

“I think that you will like it here Mathilda” Charlotte said, “Or at least it is much better than the State School.”

Anything would be better than being in that school surrounded by hostile strangers, Mathilda thought to herself as she looked out the window as the trees passed by. She was sitting in the back seat of the car that had brought her and Charlotte from the train station.

Plus, she was escaping from Berlin itself. She had always dreamed of going to the city, the reality of it though had been overwhelming. The crush of humanity, noise, and bright lights. All of those had become too much. There had also been the aspect of finding out what her father really thought of her. The context of all the comments he had made about hearth and home over the years suddenly made perfect sense. Her brother Wulfstan was expected to go out into the world and make something of himself, whereas Mathilda was supposed to stay home, unable to leave her father’s household. Charlotte had explained that she had been extremely vulnerable to coercion, whatever that meant. Mathilda’s thoughts kept going back to her beleaguered mother. While her father had been intent on living what increasingly felt like a childish fantasy, her mother had made jewelry that she had sold at the various fairs they attended. It had often been the main source of actual money that they had had. There was also the kitchen garden that Mathilda had helped tend, which frequently kept them from starving. Finally, there had been what they had been able to gather from the forest around their house. Besides boasting and arguing with people, what had her father ever done? The small hammer pendant that Doctor Holz had returned to Mathilda had been made by her mother and been a Name Day gift to her.

Looking out the car’s window, Mathilda saw that the trees that grew along the road had given way to a meadow and there was a collection of buildings that had additional trees growing among them. The car stopped in front of the largest and most imposing and the car’s door was opened.

“I need you to stay close to me” Charlotte said and if to ad emphasis, she took Mathilda’s hand as they entered through the house’s front door. “Kurfurst von Richthofen has agreed to let you live in his household until school starts and he would like to meet you. He is an important man, so please be respectful.”

“As important as Freddy?” Mathilda asked, and she saw a look of annoyance cross Charlotte’s face. She had been introduced to Friedrich, or Freddy as he had told her to call him. He had told Mathilda a few silly jokes before he had talked to her about what she wanted to do when she grew up.

“You’ll find that the Kurfurst has far more gravitas” Charlotte replied, “My hope is that one day my stepson will be as respected as his father, but that day is still far off.”

They eventually entered a room and Mathilda’s breath caught in her throat. Along one of the walls was glass fronted cases filled with weapons. The other walls were covered in hunting and war trophies of all kinds, along with hundreds of photographs. This was the inner sanctum of not just any warrior, but what she had always imagined what that of the high kings of the old stories looked like.

“So, you’re the little runaway I’ve heard so much about” An elderly man seated in a highbacked chair said.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two thousand One Hundred Sixty-Two



7th August 1972

Potsdam

“I leave town for a few days, and you entirely take leave of your senses?” Kat asked.

“We have the matter well in hand” Freddy replied, “Manfred von Richthofen agreed to take the girl in until September and she is said to be enjoying herself there.”

“That is not the problem” Kat said, “The girl’s father is one of those people who blend Nationalism, Nordic Paganism, and crass bigotry into a religion. Even the fringe right Nationalists and Royalists think those people are nuts. And you just poked one of them in the eye.”

“We had to do what was best for the child” Freddy said, “Especially after she broke into what was supposed to be a high security facility and we found out what had been done to her.”

“I don’t disagree” Kat replied, “Just you should have thought this through before you acted. The BII are going to have their hands full containing this and the First Foot… Are you certain that the son can be trusted?”

“Unteroffizer Wulfstan Auer finds his father to be an embarrassment” Freddy said, “And even if he didn’t, you should know better than anyone that the conduct of one’s parent is hardly a reflection on them personally. When he was questioned regarding his father’s activities the investigators got the impression that in his personal beliefs keeping an oath is something Auer takes very seriously. As in, he would sooner kill himself than break the oath he swore to the Realm and Emperor when he joined the Heer.”

Kat was a bit stung by that, Freddy had never brought up what must be common knowledge about Kat’s father before. He did have a good point though. Children were not their parents, still she figured that she would need to have Wulfstan Auer subtly watched, just in case.

“Did you enjoy your birthday?” Freddy asked, changing the subject. “This is one of those that is considered a milestone, normally spent with close friends and family.”

“I spent it quietly with my husband at my house on Langeoog” Kat replied, “I didn’t want a big production and my children would have insisted that it became exactly that. It would have been even worse if I had involved my closest friends.”

“Doctor Holz did mention something about how you tend to get melancholy at times” Freddy said, “And like to be left alone.” That was a bit of an understatement. Kat wished that Peter had not said that though. She had not had a truly black mood in some time, but with the children getting older there would soon be less to occupy her mind. Would she find herself having the sort of depression that she’d had endured just after the Soviet War, when she had been unable to get out of bed for days at a time?

“That is not something that you need to concern yourself with” Kat replied.

“Very well then” Freddy said, “As you know President Rockefeller is coming in a couple days. Have you thought about what you intend to discuss with him?”

For the first time since Kat had been in school, faking illness suddenly held a lot of appeal.



Silesia

Women have a special connection to the Earth, that was what Mathilda’s mother had always told her. Laying on the grass on the edge of the forest having kicked off her sandals was a good way to feel that connection. The forest here being truly ancient, her nose was filled with the scent of soil, damp, and what could only be described as the green smell of growing things. Looking up through the trees at the sun, she listened to the wind and tried to discern if there were whispers riding on it. Instead, she could hear Anna and Gretchen listening to Rock & Roll music in the garden on the portable radio they had. Occasionally she heard the sound of Nikolaus and Sabastian debating this or that odd thing, sports, movies, or comic books were popular with those two. To Mathilda’s amusement, the two boys fancied themselves great outdoorsmen. Their inability to go more than five minutes without talking and they made enough noise tromping around that everyone and everything could hear them for kilometers all around.

That was when Mathilda felt something warm and wet touch her ear and had to stifle a giggle as the dog withdrew its nose. Turning her head, she saw that Freyja was visiting along with her seven puppies in tow. The Siberian Husky bitch had had no name a week earlier when Mathilda arrived, just a number, but she had decided that wouldn’t do and decided that naming her for the Goddess of Beauty was a good choice. She was beautiful, with silvery white fur where it wasn’t copper-red, and Freyja seemed to like the name, answering to it the instant Mathilda started calling her that. The puppies were offspring of Freyja and Opa’s dog Rust. Part of a program to improve upon bloodline of the Akita, a breed that Mathilda had never heard of before coming here, which was in danger of becoming inbred due to the small numbers within Germany.

It was then that Mathilda was swarmed by the puppies who were in a frenzy to be the first to kiss her face. Despite her desire not to make noise, she couldn’t help but laugh as this was happening.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Sixty-Three



10th August 1972

Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport

To borrow a phrase from Mark Twain, the Secret Service Agents looked as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The instant they landed in the airport complex that served the Capital of the German Empire, they had made it very clear that they considered this hostile territory.

The Press was out in force, capturing every movement as President Nelson Rockefeller made his way from Air Force One to Customs, even though it was unnecessary there was a tradition of the President arriving like any other guest. Something else that was also apparently a tradition was that the Customs Agent was a young woman. Rockefeller knew that looks were deceiving, to even be here she would need to be a full-fledged member of the German Federal Police if not an Agent in the Federal Internal Intelligence Agency. Kurfürstin Katherine von Mischner-Blackwood had played the exactly the same role back when Harry Truman had visited Berlin back in 1950. Rockefeller had seen that in the background information as he had been prepped for tomorrow’s meeting with the Kurfürstin after his meetings with the Kaiser and the Chancellor of the Reichstag. The day after he was scheduled to meet with King Albrecht of Bavaria in Munich and with Princess Kristina along with an assortment of what had been termed Princelings at Berg Hohenzollern.

As the Customs Agent looked through his passport and asked the same questions she asked every passenger, she looked bored. However, Rockefeller caught the look she gave him and everyone who was traveling with him. She was memorizing every single detail she saw and seemed very practiced at doing that sort of thing. It was a reminder that this was the lion’s den they were walking into. Rockefeller’s party was to stay in a hotel tonight in the City Center and the advance team had swept the suit for bugs and had found none. It was a result that no one trusted, even for a second. It was figured that either their hosts had totally changed their ways or else were using some previously unknown technology. The Secret Service and the CIA were both in agreement that it was probably the latter.



Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park

When Marie Alexandra had come home from Switzerland, she had thought she would finally be free. Apparently, she had thought too soon, because no sooner than she had stepped off the train then she was informed that her mother had arranged for her to attend camp in the Spreewald with Sophie and Ziska.

As a sixteen-year-old, Marie had been elevated to a position of responsibility. What that meant in practice was that she was tasked with keeping a close eye on the children who were constantly getting into trouble, or those in Sophie and Ziska’s cohort who had morphed into hormonal teenagers over the last year in Marie’s absence.

The boys from the camp a few hundred meters down the lakeshore were nothing but trouble. In the encounters that Marie had had with them, they had all been younger than her. Few things were more obnoxious than a twelve or thirteen-year-old boy mouthing off to her as she told them to go back to their side of the fence. The worst part was that Marie found herself inadvertently using words that she had last heard from the mouth of her mother when they had been directed at her when she discovered that some of these boys were sniffing around Sophie and Ziska. It wasn’t fair that this was how she got to spend the summer after spending an entire school year getting lectured about manners and etiquette. Those were two things that she found that there was no room for here.

Today, it had been Marie’s hope that she would finally be able to spend an afternoon relaxing. That hope was dashed when she had to drop everything when she had a group of the much younger girls come to her for help when one of their own had taken a bad spill, scraping both her knees and the palms of her hands. Marie had done her best to comfort the screaming nine-year-old as the Camp’s Nurse cleaned gravel out of the wounds.



Memphis, Tennessee

The summer of 1972 was proving to be a brutal one for Stax Records. The breakdown of the distribution partnership with Atlantic Records had thrown everything into disarray. The new distribution deal with CBS had proven problematic as CBS had a vast catalog of artists that they didn’t want Stax to undercut.

Then there was this new band, Big Star, making music that was difficult to define, which radio station directors hated, but had made a critically acclaimed record. The distribution of said record had proven difficult and the marketing department was at something of a loss because this band was outside their normal experience. To buy himself time Jim Stewart had been looking for a way out of this situation. They had a potential hot seller if only they could figure out how to go about doing it.

Strangely, the German label Electrola, Stax Records’ European partners that they had had some success selling copies of Big Star’s record. They said that they had even gotten endorsed by Marcella von Holz, whoever that was. The answer seemed simple enough for Stewart, send the band on a self-funding vacation in the land of beer, sausages, and lederhosen. They would have some fun and by the time they got back in a few weeks things might have worked themselves out.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Sixty-Four



11th August 1972

Potsdam

The guards in blue coats did their best to stay unobtrusive, but it was hard to ignore the fact that they looked like they were armed to the teeth and never more than a few paces away. Still, they didn’t bother the Secret Service more than the men in black who surrounded Kaiser Friedrich IV himself. According to the Agent-in-Charge, those were the men of the First Foot Guard Regiment who had volunteered for further training after the first eighteen-month stint in the Regiment was complete. They were the personal bodyguards of the Kaiser and reputed to be the most dangerous men in an outfit that was filled with decorated combat veterans. In a few hours, Rockefeller was set to meet the woman who had set that unit up when she had been the Operations Officer of the First Foot.

To the German’s credit, they had gone all out for this morning’s State Visit. Everywhere Rockefeller looked he saw American Flags as well as the Red, White, Black of the German Empire, the Red, Black, and Gold of the Reichstag and the Federation as well as the State flags of Berlin and Brandenburg. It seemed to call out that they were all friends here. The trouble was that relations between the two nations had been anything but cordial since SMS Moltke had mistaken the USS Des Moines for a British Cruiser off Ireland during the First World War. The Germans had stubbornly clung to their position that the findings of their own investigation into incident had been correct. The fact that the reputations of Franz von Hipper and Jacob von Schmidt, both regarded as heroes of the Reich, were bound up in that incident didn’t help matters.

Talking with Friedrich himself was just as difficult as Rockefeller figured it would be. The Kaiser was a relatively young man and frequently it felt like he was talking past Rockefeller. Things like the need for greater cooperation in International Arms Reduction or preventing future tragedies like Argentine-Chilean War from happening again. The brutal truth was that war had been a proxy fight between Germany and the United States. The idea had been to get the Germans to spend blood and treasure in a pointless expedition in what was considered a wasteland. It remained to be seen what that plan would look like in the fullness of time. As soon as Rockefeller had that thought, he saw one of the soldiers, a Staff Sergeant of the First Foot if he was reading their rank correctly. He was highly decorated though he had to still be in his early twenties. Something about the look in the eyes of that young man… This was someone who had been sent through the meatgrinder.

“I understand that you are going to be meeting with Tante Kat after this” Friedrich said with a smile, “Good luck with that.”

“You just referred to that woman as your Auntie” Rockefeller asked in disbelief.

“She always joked that it comes from how she spent a great deal of time around me and my brothers and sisters back when she was the Royal Assassin” Friedrich replied.

He had to know that was not a joke, Rockefeller thought to himself. The CIA had uncovered a lot of the details left out of her biography, the ones that involved her going places on the order of Friedrich’s father and solving a problem. If that problem had a name, then that person vanished as if they had never existed. Then there were the rumors of what she had done while fighting the Soviets, a red-haired girl coming out of the night and begging Russian soldiers for help to get them to lower their guard, then she killed them.

“Try talking to her directly” Friedrich said, “If you try to bullshit her then you are going to have a bad afternoon.”

It was odd to hear that term spoken by the Kaiser, if made Rockefeller wonder where he had picked it up from.



Silesia

Watching the forest had long been a pastime of Ilse’s. Back when she had been recovering from her bout with agoraphobia, she had found that the hunting blinds set up by her eventual father-in-law had been a means of observing nature while not allowing the fear that had gripped her to cripple her. One of the side benefits was that she had gotten to watch Nikolaus, Sabastian, Marie Alexandra, Anna, and Gretchen grow up here. She figured that Ingrid would do the same thing in time, she was still much too young to play in the forest with her older brother or cousins. So, it was wonderful that Izabella had agreed to watch Ingrid while Ilse was out here doing this today. As a Biologist, Ilse found that spending time in nature was helpful as opposed to what she had to contend with in Breslau.

What happens when a jagged little line was recognized as an upward trajectory? A world of trouble, that was what.

However, this time when Ilse came home, she discovered that Manfred the Elder had decided that a statement needed to be made about what he regarded as excessive secrecy by the Military. It was something that she had listened to him complain about dozens of times. “How are they supposed to be heroes if no one can know their damned names?” being typical of the sort of thing he said. In seemed that he had decided to take in a girl who had snuck into a military installation. The girl herself, Mathilda, was certainly an odd child.

Ilse had watched as Mathilda had run circles around Nikolaus and Sabastian. What was odd was that the two dresses she wore, one purple and one burgundy, were colors that should have stood out more. Ilse figured that Mathilda only was seen if she wanted to be seen and that Ilse desperately needed the take the girl clothes shopping.

Mathilda was wearing the burgundy dress as she drifted through Ilse’s field of view. She was singing a song about the Oak King and the Holly King as they vied for the affections their Mistress. It told the story about the Oak King was at his greatest strength during the height of summer, then came the decline in the autumn. Finally, the Oak King “died” in the winter. That was when his mistress came to him, and he was reborn in the springtime. It was a pretty song and Ilse knew that she would need to ask about the song when she got the chance.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Sixty-Five



13th August 1972

Hohenzollern Castle

This place reminded President Rockefeller of Disneyland, but not in a good way. When he had pointed that out to Princess Kristina, she had looked amused. She said that he should see Neuschwanstein Castle before reaching that conclusion. He figured that Kristina must have misunderstood what he had actually meant.

This place felt like it was detached from the real world, and it was like looking in a distorted funhouse mirror. It was as if life had been frozen in place since the Late Medieval Period. Frank Church, the National Security Advisor had warned him that looks were deceiving. The principal industries in this region were technology related with Zuse, Sony, and the European division of IBM being among the largest employers. It was whispered that one of the key installations of the German Nuclear Weapons program had been located in or near Hechingen during the Soviet War before the whole thing had been moved to Kempten, Bavaria.

That was in keeping with the rumors that there were secrets buried deep under the German Countryside that made what they did to Kure look like pleasant Sunday picknick. Just the implications of having had nuclear weapons on standby but had opted for a thermobaric-chemical attack as a measured response was chilling. Who had that sort of control during what had been a retaliatory strike? Rockefeller figured that the American response in such a situation would have been to reduce every major city in Japan to irradiated ash. It suggested that Plan Quartum had been made years earlier and the Germans had stuck to it. The CIA had heard about Contingency Operation Sextum from the inside source that they had developed in the German Government. Considering the reality of Quartum Rockefeller could only pray for the sake of humanity that whatever those plans were, they never saw the light of day.

That was where diplomacy came into the picture. The meetings with the Kaiser Friedrich and Chancellor Brandt had been productive but not to the degree that Rockefeller might have liked. The two meetings that had followed with Katherine von Mischner and Albrecht of Bavaria stood in stark contrast with each other. Katherine clearly felt the meeting was an obligation and had done nothing to hide her legendary misanthropic attitude. Rockefeller had realized that she didn’t even like the role that she had been thrust into, positively hated it in fact and he was a part of that as she made little effort to hide her disdain for him personally. When he had asked her about that, she had given him the only smile she had during the entire conversation. She said that normally if you ask around enough you will find someone willing to do anything, but she had been ordered by Louis Ferdinand to become the Prefect of Berlin as a reward for a lifetime of service and be gracious about it. Rockefeller was reminded of this the next day in Munich when meeting with King Albrecht. The Bavarian King was regaling him with a well-practiced sales pitch for the Kingdom of Bavaria and by extension the Munich Olympics that were going to start in just a couple weeks. Rockefeller had gotten the impression that what Katherine had said had been a backhanded slap at King Albrecht.

Finally, there was today’s event in the Province of Hohenzollern. There were a large number of minor German Royals present and Princess Kristine and her husband Benjamin were playing host. They came from places like Alsace-Lorraine to Estonia and points in between from Kingdoms, Principalities, and Duchies. There was a complex order that had to be observed with Princess Royal Kristine herself and her brother, King Michael of Bohemia at the top of it. That included where they sat at the table and which of the guest quarters they occupied. They had concerns that ranged from international trade and fishing rights to exactly what would happen if official Berlin ever made a hatchet job of foreign affairs. It seemed that memories ran long with this crowd and the issues raised by the two World Wars were at the forefront of their minds. There were also centuries of history that these people shared and that many of them had at one point or another had quite literally gone to war with each other was just beneath the surface.

Kristina had said little as things had progressed. Presiding over the meetings as the participants had frequently started shouting at each other. Rockefeller found that she was a tall, boyish woman with a face that was impossible to read, aspects that were not readily apparent when photographs of her appeared in the tabloids. He was reminded of how she was a Medical Doctor by training and a mother of a small child when she said that all the shouting that they did was healthy. If they were silent, it meant that were up to something that she might not like. She said that poison in wine glasses, daggers hidden up coat-sleeves and bloody duels had been fashionable up until fairly recently. At least far more recently than most people realized. These days, according to her, the Law made no allowances for the title that one was born with. While Rockefeller took her word for it, there was a pretext that she seemed to have missed. Fear of going to prison was the only thing keeping these people from killing each other over grudges whose origins were lost in antiquity.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Sixty-Six



15th August 1972

Los Angeles

Going to the Airport was always a slog, even if you were just there to meet someone. That was why Big Mike had ended up tagging along and they were getting odd looks as they were parked outside the Arrivals exit of the Airline Ritchie’s guests would be flying in on. Every few minutes, Airport Security passed by eyeballing Ritchie’s old Chevy Nova. He figured that it was only matter of time before they stopped. He just hoped that Manfred would hurry up and get here before that happened.

“So, Crispy has this guy pulled over on a Friday night a couple weeks ago, expired tags” Mike said as he was telling the story. “Then when Crispy asked the guy if he knew why he was being pulled over, he starts going off on how he is a Sovern Citizen and he doesn’t have to obey any law he doesn’t agree with.”

Ritchie tried to hide his annoyance with that. They had been warned about that crowd and the trouble they had caused up north over the last few years. He also knew Crispy wasn’t the sort who deserved the trouble that came whenever one of those idiots got arrested.

“How did Crispy play it?” Ritchie asked.

“When the guy wouldn’t produce identification, Crispy detained him as a suspected illegal alien and put him in County where they threw him into a holding cell with some of the more entrepreneurial citizens from South-Central who were being transferred upstate. They didn’t get around to processing his paperwork until Monday morning.”

It was one thing to say that you didn’t believe in laws. It was another to find yourself in a place where the only law was the Law of the Jungle, and you were the next meal.

“Is the guy still breathing?” Ritchie asked in disbelief. He figured that if Crispy was smart he was keeping very quiet over this matter. That was until it blew over, then Crispy would be telling this story in every Cop bar on Southern California.

“In the hospital” Mike replied, “I figure he now has a size twelve asshole to match the rest of him.”

“That is kind of messed up” Ritchie said, “No one deserves to spend the weekend getting cornholed.”

“I don’t agree” Mike said, “Guys like that have been pulling the same sort of crap for ages and usually get away with it. It doesn’t matter if they are wearing robes and burning crosses or saying that they don’t have to respect the laws of a State they don’t recognize. It is just more of the same old shit as it has been since at least 1860, watch and see.”

“I guess” Ritchie replied. That was a reminder that despite appearances, Big Mike was extremely well educated.

It was then that Ritchie saw that behind them, the car from Airport Security had stopped and they were getting out. Keeping his hands on the wheel he watched as the Security Guard approached on foot. “If I could see your license and registration?” The Security Guard asked, the tone of his voice inadvertently adding an exclamation point at the end of what Mike had just been talking about.

“Does this work for you?” Ritchie asked, showing the Guard his badge. The look on the man’s face changed when Mike did the same thing.

“Sorry, Officers” The Security Guard said before beating a hasty retreat.

“Fuckers” Mike muttered as they watched the car speed away.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

That was when Manfred von Mischner walked through the automatic doors carrying two suitcases and a garment bag. A blond woman was walking with him who he towered over, he’d told Ritchie that he was traveling with his girlfriend. Both of them looked tired after having basically spent an entire day flying. Seeing Ritchie and Mike getting out of Ritchie’s car they turned and started to walk in their direction. It wasn’t until they got up close that Ritchie remembered Manfred from years earlier in Greece and Panama, how he was taller than most people. Not Mike though and Manfred’s reaction was one of surprise.

“This is Manfred von Mischner and Suse Knispel” Ritchie said to Mike before turning to them and saying. “This is Mike Washington.”

Suse muttered something in German as she followed Ritchie to the trunk of the Nova to put their luggage in. She was clearly not in the mood to socialize. Manfred on the other hand, was perfectly happy to introduce himself to Mike.

“It’s just as well that Ritchie invited us” Manfred said, “Suse got kicked out of her house last week after her Godmother said she wanted all the children out because of Nelson Rockefeller. She didn’t want to go home to her parent’s house in Prague and having her staying with me in Wunsdorf would have started too much talk.”

“Too much talk?” Mike asked.

Manfred looked like he was trying to remember the word.

“Gossip” Ritchie said as he pushed the seat forward so that Suse could climb into the back seat.

“Thank you” Manfred said.

“You two living together would be a scandal or something?” Mike asked.

Manfred shook his head.

“Manfred’s father is a retired Three Star General and Suse is the daughter of the Inspector of the Bohemian Military” Ritchie said, “Them moving in together would result in their respective families to start planning their wedding within five minutes.”

“Less than that” Suse said from the back seat as Manfred squeezed in beside her.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Sixty-Seven



16th August 1972

Silesia

“I think it looks wonderful” Ina said to Mathilda who was unhappy about what she was wearing. “Very practical.”

The girl gave Ina a look that said exactly what she thought of that.

A couple days earlier, Ilse and Ina had taken Mathilda into Breslau and she had bought the girl some clothes beyond what she had brought from Berlin. She had said that two peasant dresses and a pair of sandals were unacceptable. Mathilda had mentioned that she had been given a uniform to wear when she had been in Berlin at the State School, and that had included a pair of uncomfortable shoes that pinched her feet. It had been itchy and uncomfortable, so she had discarded it the first chance she got.

Ilse had not been happy to hear Mathilda had done that and she had frozen the girl in place with a withering glare.

“How do I know that you will not do the same thing with any clothes I get you?” Ilse had demanded sharply.

Ina knew there was a bit more to it than just having Mathilda throw away some clothes. If she had not liked spending a few days in the State School, she should try spending several years. Aunt Ilse had spent the first sixteen years of her life in various institutions like that one until her sister had found her as the result of an odd coincidence. Ilse had physically resembled Jehane Thomas-Romanova and was asked to play the role of body double. It was small wonder that Ilse was angered by Mathilda’s attitude.

Mathilda had sworn that she wouldn’t throw away anything that Ilse got for her. That had included a few dresses that she seemed comfortable in. Ilse had insisted that she get a pair of properly fitted shoes as well as some sets of clothes that were far better suited to roaming around in the forest like Mathilda had been doing. The pair of bib overalls and green flannel shirt that she was wearing today were a part of that. Ilse had suggested that the girl spend the morning assisting Ina. She was currently sulking in the passenger seat of the old VW Bergwind that Ina had bought at an estate auction a few years earlier.

“We are going to be treating a bad case of lumpy jaw on a Dairy” Ina said, “It is the sort of thing that I would think that someone your age would love to see, very gross.”

“My family has goats” Mathilda said, “I already know what that is.”

Then Mathilda fell silent for the next several minutes.

Ina just shrugged. If the girl didn’t want to talk then she wouldn’t force the issue. A few minutes later, she turned the Bergwind down a rutted lane. Eventually, they came to a ramshackle farmhouse and stopped in the yard out front.

Stepping out, Ina could smell the unmistakable scent of manure that filled the air. The Farmer was already waiting in the yard, so he watched as she pulled the duffle bag containing her tools and supplies, a galvanized bucket, and a hand pump with a rubber hose out the steel storage box bolted to the bed of the Bergwind. Like many of the farmers in this region, he was an older man with leathery skin and a beard that hung halfway down his chest.

“Good morning” The Farmer said, “Here for the cow?”

“Why else?” Ina said in reply.

“Your grandfather is well?”

“Yes”

“And you brought a helper” The Farmer said when he saw Mathilda get out of the car.

“The Lady felt that having Mathilda moping around that big house was bad for her, you know what they say about idle hands” Ina said, “Helping me would be edifying.”

“True” The Farmer replied as he started walking towards the barn. “I can see where she is coming from, my own grandchildren would do nothing but watch television all day if I let them.”

He just shrugged as if to ask, what can you do?

“I need you to fill this with water from the pump over there” Ina said to Mathilda who knew how to do that much.

The Farmer walked off and a few minutes later was guiding a large milk cow into the wooden crush that was set up for exactly this purpose. It was a cunning device that pinned the cow into place to keep her from moving so that Ina could work on her. The Farmer cinched the ropes tight, so that the cow was squeezed between the plywood walls. A yoke was placed around the cow’s neck to further isolate her head. Ina could see that the lump on the cow’s jaw was badly distended, which was why the Farmer had called Ina’s employer and they had sent her out because they knew that she lived nearby.

Putting on a pair of rubber gloves, Ina used a syringe needle to check if this really was an infection or something else. It was no surprise that it was an infection. Taking a scalpel with an extra-large blade. She cut into the lump and then stepped back quickly as the cow thrashed around. Watery pus sprayed out of the cow’s jaw. Mathilda made a face as she caught a whiff of the foul smell, Ida had long grown inured to this sort of thing. Reaching into the wound, she pulled dead tissue that was hanging out of the cow’s jaw away.

“I bet that Niko and Bas will be envious that you got to be here for this later” Ina said as she pulled a large bottle of iodine from her bag of supplies. From the look on Mathilda’s face, it was clear that this was incredibly gross even by farmgirl standards. Pouring the contents of the bottle into the bucket and placing the handpump into it, she looked at Mathilda.

“The wound is now going to be flushed out” Ina said with a smile, “You get to work the pump.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Sixty-Eight



18th August 1972

Breslau, Silesia

The statue in the center of Breslau was of a soldier, he was standing with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Even before Mathilda saw the face, she could see that the man’s posture radiated exhaustion. The face was blank, expressionless. That seemed very eerie to her.

“That is a monument to a battle that was fought here thirty years ago” Ina said when Mathilda asked about it. “Opa burned down the house to keep the Russians from capturing it.”

“Oh” Mathilda replied, as she followed Ina to the car.

“My father was here, or at least he must have been because his Unit was” Ina said, “Of course, it is one of those things that he never talks about.”

With that, Ina unlocked the door to her car. It was a VW Bergwind, the strange vehicle that was the size of a compact car but had a cargo bed like a lorry. They were fairly common out in the countryside, here in the city it got them weird looks. Not that Ina cared though. She had come into the city to submit the week’s paperwork and Mathilda had come along. There also had been an errand that Ina had needed to run in the University’s Administration Center. Both those things had been outside Mathilda’s experience. The first had involved a large veterinary clinic and she had been amazed that so much effort was going into caring for animals. The second involved a massive building that was empty for the most part. Ina had told Mathilda that she ought to see what the University buildings and the streets that surrounded them looked like during the school term when everyone was not off on holiday. Mathilda figured that she would just need to take her word for it. Though after seeing Berlin, she already had a good idea of what the crush of humanity felt like when there were thousands of people in one place. Ina had told her that she was currently a Veterinary Technician and was studying to become a Veterinarian. Mathilda wasn’t sure exactly what that meant but was happy to take her word for it.

Minutes later, they were on the road out of Breslau. There was music playing on the radio that was being sung in a language that Mathilda didn’t understand. Ina seemed to love the song though and was batting her thumbs on the steering wheel in time with the drums. Instead, she just looked out the window as the houses grew more and more scattered as they passed out of the ring of suburbs that surrounded the city. Mathilda was looking forward to getting back to the Richthofen Estate, playing with Freyja and her puppies was a big part of her day, no matter what had happened over the previous hours that made it all seem to go away. According to Ina, part of the long-term project involving the Akita bloodlines involved Freyja because they figured that another Spitz breed like the Siberian Husky was the best choice. The Japanese had attempted to use German Shepherd or Saint Bernard dogs for that purpose in the past, but the results had not been great.

“Christian asked how you are doing” Ina said, “I told him that you were assisting me and being a big help.”

“You talked to Christian?” Mathilda asked, “Why?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Ina asked in reply, “I talk to him on the phone every couple of days if he remembers. They keep him pretty busy in Potsdam.”

This was news to Mathilda. She had met Christian Weise weeks earlier when he had come with Wulfstan to talk their father out of some sort of idiocy. Later she had snuck into the Potsdam Barracks, much to everyone’s consternation, Christian had been one of the people arguing on her behalf. He was Wulfstan’s Koryonos, though Opa had told Mathilda that the term Feldwebel was used these days. It meant more or less the same thing. If he was talking to Ina all the time, then that meant…

“Christian is your suitor?” Mathilda asked.

Ina heard that and laughed.

“I think he would like to be” Ina said, “But like most men he is a bit scared of Opa.”

“He should be” Mathilda replied.

Ina found that amusing. Even Mathilda had heard much said about Manfred von Richthofen, though he insisted that all the children on the estate refer to him as Opa, a term for Grandfather, regardless of if they were of his blood. A great warrior and hunter in his youth, he certainly deserved to be given all respect due to him. Trying to measure up to a man like that by courting his granddaughter would be daunting.

“If Opa didn’t approve of Christian then he would have sent him packing the times he has come to visit” Ina said, “There is also the House Order medal that Opa gave him, that was as close to an endorsement as that old goat would give anyone.”

Mathilda’s mother had told her about the complex dance that went on between men and women as they progressed from introductions, to courtship, and eventually to marriage. She had said that one day Mathilda would experience that for herself. Living in an obscure corner of the Baltic Coast where she saw the same people every day and all of them were far older than her that had been little more than an abstraction.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Sixty-Nine



18th August 1972

Washington DC

A Friday afternoon was usually the most boring time of the week. Everyone knew that hardly anyone read the Saturday Editions, so whenever the movers and shakers in DC had something that they knew they were obligated to release in a statement they typically did it on Friday evenings to limit public response. Things could not have been more different this week at the Washington Post as Bob Woodward was still trying to figure out exactly what he had just witnessed. He had tried to explain it to his Editor but had been met with disbelief. His source for the story he had been working on over the last week had been gunned down by the Director of the Goddamned FBI in cold blood. At the suggestion of his source, he had brought along photographer to a place where he could watch the meeting unseen. The photographer had captured the shooting and what had followed. What they had was nothing less than John Aleshire planting a gun on the body of Woodward’s source.

They had the who and what. Both of those were bombshells. What they didn’t have though, was why this had happened and if they went to press with just what they had, they were in danger of getting scooped by whoever got the rest of the story first.

That was when Woodward noticed the package on his desk. A note attached simply read; This is the rest of it, have fun.

It only took a few seconds after opening the damned thing that Woodward discovered the shocking identity of his mysterious source, but it was the photographs and documentation that caused the blood to run from his face. This wasn’t simply a case of one cold blooded murder. There were names, dates, and financial records that spelled out exactly what had happened and why. This wasn’t just any bombshell; it was a fucking atomic bomb…



A few hours earlier.

For his entire life, John Dillinger had known that a Death Sentence was inevitable. He just figured that it wouldn’t play out the way that it did. His Doctor had called him at the V8 Club as he had been preparing for what was expected to be a wild evening as an up-and-coming American band was scheduled to appear that night. They had been expecting a packed house, Electrola was there to record the show and there was even a team there to broadcast the event live. Something about how the Doctor had told him that he needed to drop everything and come in immediately had raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

At least the Doctor had the decency to tell him to his face what the verdict had been. Pancreatic Cancer, inoperable and there were few treatment options available. He had been told very matter of fact that he had at best a few weeks to put his affairs in order. For Dillinger, that simply wasn’t good enough. To die quietly in a corner of Berlin, with a Jazz funeral and no one knowing that it was a prison that he had been trapped in for decades. He wanted the story known and some measure of justice for himself. The trouble was that most of his jailers were dead or had long retired. In America, they had figured that he had drowned in the San Francisco Bay years earlier. That thought gave him a sudden idea. It wasn’t the people he needed to go after, but the institutions that they had built. For years, he had been the fly on the wall at the meetings of “Imperial Shipping” and had half-heartedly maintained an “insurance policy” against a rainy day. Well, it was pouring.

He had all the evidence of what Johann Schultz considered his proudest achievement. It wasn’t until he had asked about the man in question that he had realized just how releasing that information the right way would blow apart both the BND in Germany and the FBI in America. Both were institutions he had reasons to dislike after so many decades. Booking a flight to New York had been simple enough. He had burned his passport and anything else that connected him to his life in Germany shortly after landing. John Ellis had ceased to exist at that moment and for the first time in years he was back to who he had once been.

Traveling to Washington DC had been simple enough. He had spent the following week passing information off to that kid Woodward, who had eagerly eaten up whatever he had fed him. Finally, he had passed a bit of information to John Aleshire of the sort that he couldn’t afford to ignore. Sitting on a park bench in the National Mall near the Washington Monument, Dillinger couldn’t help but notice that it was a nice day. Normally this time of year, Washington DC was uncomfortably humid. Today, wasn’t so bad. There was a bit of something in the air that suggested that Autumn was just around the corner.

“You have a lot of nerve” Dillinger heard a voice growl. Looking up he saw John Aleshire, AKA Johann Alscher. Dillinger had sent him a copy of a document that spelled out exactly how Aleshire had worked to stymie the investigation into the murders of J. Edger Hoover and Clyde Tolson.

“No one likes to learn just how short the leash they are on is” Dillinger said as he stood up to look Aleshire right in the eye. “You think that your friends over there will like hearing this conversation?”

There were a pair of G-Men standing just out of earshot. Dillinger had been out of the country for decades, but those pricks still looked exactly the same.

“What the Hell do you want?” Aleshire demanded. It was clear from the look in his eye that he was basically a trapped animal. Which was exactly what Dillinger wanted.

“A man who I had the unfortunate privilege of having as my jailor was fond of saying that even criminals can be patriots” Dillinger said, “I might be an old crook, but at least I am not one of worst traitors in history. Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold ain’t got nothing on you.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about” Aleshire lied.

“Oh, bullshit” Dillinger replied, “You have spent your entire career looking over your shoulder, waiting for this day.”

That was when Aleshire changed tact. “If you are so smart and if I am what you are accusing me of. What does any foreign actor gain from having me in this position?” He asked, pretending that Dillinger didn’t know exactly what he was.

“Just having your butt in the Director’s chair is a triumph for your old friend Johann Schultz” Dillinger said, and Aleshire’s face had the blood drain from it. “Did you know that the Kaiser knighted him for his service? What do you think that you are going get? The gas chamber or the electric chair?”

Dillinger could see that he had really gotten under Aleshire’s skin with that last comment.

“Think about it” Dillinger said leaning forward and the tone of his voice needling Aleshire. “Everyone else gets to have their legacies and reputations intact. You get shit because that it all you are and ever will be.”

Dillinger laughed at that as Aleshire face grew red, eyes filled with rage.

“Do your wife and children know?” Dillinger asked poking Aleshire in the chest. “Or will it come as a surprise when they have to change their names and move far away. Perhaps your friends in the BND will offer to relocate them to…”

The shot came as a surprise, but it shouldn’t have. Dillinger felt himself crumple to the ground. He caught a glimpse of a reflection where he had told Woodward to wait. Looking up, he looked down the barrel of Aleshire’s gun and the finger that was tightening on the trigger. If Aleshire were smart he would have turned that gun on himself, Dillinger thought to himself just before the gun went off.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Seventy.



22nd August 1972

Sacramento, California

At the Presidential Campaign Headquarters for Richard Nixon, no one was quite sure what to make of everything that had happened. Was this good or bad for them? Nixon himself said that he was preparing a statement that he was going to make later than evening, just in time for the National Broadcasters to pick up, of course. He told his staff that now was the time for leadership and that now was the time to strike while the opposition was divided.

One might have gotten whiplash with how fast things had developed over the last few days. At first John Aleshire, the Director of the FBI, was lauded as a hero, he had shot none other than John Dillinger, the man who had topped the FBI’s most wanted list for decades after he claimed that he had been accosted by him in the National Mall. Then a day later, the Washington Post story had dropped and that placed a vastly different spin on the matter. It revealed, complete with photographic evidence, what had really happened. Complete with Aleshire shooting an unarmed man and then planting a weapon on that man. That single action called into question nearly every single case the FBI had ever referred to the US Justice Department during his tenure as Director.

That wasn’t even the meat of the story though.

Dillinger had furnished the Washington Post with verifiable information that proved conclusively that Aleshire had been a deep cover mole for German Military Intelligence for the entirety of his career at the FBI. No one knew how Dillinger could have gotten his hands on that information, or where he had been for the prior decades. He wasn’t in a position to answer any questions. Aleshire shooting him when confronted over the matter had made it so that every bit of that evidence now had far more veracity than if he had just told the Washington Post to take his word for it. The consensus was that Aleshire was completely screwed seven ways.

That this was taking place during the run-up to the 1972 General Election was lost on no one. As President Truman had famously stated when talking about the Office of the President; The Buck stops here. Nelson Rockefeller had had all of this go down on his watch, there was no escaping that. Then to add insult to injury, Spiro Agnew had delivered a particularly tone-deaf acceptance speech when he had accepted the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention. He had gone on at length about those with mixed loyalties lurking among them and had denounced the long reach of the German Monarchy in America due to the refusal to assimilate that they had all witnessed. This was after Nelson Rockefeller, a descendent of German immigrants had spoken to the convention just minutes earlier. Agnew himself, whose father was Greek, should have known better. Besides that, if they had learned anything during the Kraut Scare back in the forties and fifties it was that by alienating a third or more of the country you were providing those very forces you wanted to keep out thousands of potential recruits. Nixon suspected that when they drilled down into the matter, that would very likely be the origins of how the BND got their hooks into Aleshire.



Los Angeles

They had been planning on leaving anyway, but the situation had turned on a dime and it wasn’t the best of circumstances. When Manny and Suse had arrived at the airport, they found that what looked like half the State National Guard had taken up residence. Supposedly, almost every airport in the United States looked like this and according to Ritchie, the border with Mexico was even worse. Manny had spent much of the last week hashing out what could make that movie script halfway workable. The rest of the time he had gone with Suse to various tourist spots. It had been fun. Then something that neither of them had any control over happened. Ritchie had gotten a phone call the previous Saturday calling him in. He had called earlier in the day warning Manny and Suse that it would probably be best if they got on the flight to New York with the connection to Berlin-Brandenburg with as little fuss as possible.

Manny understood that these were the equivalent to the Landwehr back home. Probably not the most formidable Division he might have faced if he had the 2nd Army at his back, but for him alone with Suse it was potentially the worst possible threat. It was all because they were not necessarily professionals. They might be store clerks or barbers most of the time, but they played the role of soldiers occasionally and that was the capacity in which they were here.

For years, there had been talk of putting metal detectors in airports. Part of an effort to keep someone from sneaking something very stupid onto an airplane. That had been argued against by people who feared that they would end up with something like the scene that greeted Manny and Suse when they reached the security checkpoint. It looked like something from a movie depicting Soviet era Russia, complete with heavily armed men and attack dogs.

“ID and boarding pass” The Agent from the Airline said. He had no reason to be polite today and made no effort to be. With a bit of reluctance Manny handed over the relevant documentation and got a dirty look in return. “Your flight will soon be boarding” he said in a tone that suggested that he wanted to say don’t ever come back.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One-Hundred Seventy-One



27th August 1972

Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park

Waking up this morning, Sophie had realized that summer was finally coming to an end. That was even before everyone had been assembled and told that as they knew arrangements had already been made for them to go home and they wanted for things to remain orderly as they boarded the buses that were going to take them to the train station. She remembered walking between the cabin she shared with Franziska along a few other girls their age and the Dining Hall for breakfast. The air had had an odd feel, particulates hung in the air giving it a soft feel.

Sophie knew as soon as she saw it that summer had passed into autumn. Though the trees were still a riot of green, it had taken on air of fragility, here and there were a few leaves that had already taken on fall colors. She couldn’t help but feel a bit sad. The summer had passed like a beautiful dream. Just like that, it was over. Going back to the cabin, Sophie took her time packing her bags. Ziska joined her and they started talking about the upcoming school term, all the things that they would be doing and what they hoped their families overlooked. Still, there would be the early mornings and awkward social interactions that neither of them was looking forward to. Like always, Ziska finished packing before Sophie and was sitting on a chair watching her finish packing.

“It would be grand if we could live out here year-round” Ziska said as Sophie put the metal loop through the eyelets on the canvas bag and throwing it on her bed. It had been stripped like all the others in the cabin, so it was just a bare mattress. “Watching the seasons pass. I bet autumn is spectacular here and during the winter, on the lake…”

“Where you wouldn’t be able to keep warm” Sophie finished, “Once everyone else went home you would be bored out of your mind inside a week.”

“Poor cynical Sophie” Ziska said, “Not every silver lining is attached to a coal black cloud.”

“Call it experience” Sophie replied. She knew that Ziska’s family lived a comfortable existence. Sophie on the other hand owed her present lot in life entirely to Kurfürstin Katherine. While she knew that Kat would never chuck her out on the street, what Sophie would do as an adult was totally unknown to her. While she was told at her school that the students were all considered bound for University, beyond that was Terra Incognita complete with signs that read; Here there be Dragons.

“What about one of those vacation houses across the lake?” Ziska asked, “When we are adults, a few years from now.”

“You think you will be able to afford a vacation house as a student?” Sophie asked. Most of those houses were second homes of people who lived in the City. They had explored around them and found that they were occupied for no more than a few weeks out of the year. Others were rentals that had a rotating roster of guests over the course of the summer.

“Me, no” Ziska replied, “But Poppa certainly could swing it.”

“Then it would be your father’s vacation house” Sophie said as she peered under the bed to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything.

“Yes” Ziska said, “But I would be free to use it, Astrid wouldn’t be allowed to set foot in it though. That is nonnegotiable.”

Sophie did find that last part funny. Ziska’s older sister had been especially cruel to her over the last year so it was no surprise that she would want to exclude her.



Silesia

Opa had left with the boys for the Summer Games in Munich a couple days earlier. The sudden quiet around the estate had been almost jarring. At the same time, Ilse had been joined Nancy, Bas, Anna, and Gretchen’s mother and they were intent upon preparing them to go to school next week. That had included Mathilda, who had never experienced formal education before, so she was equal parts scared and excited.

There was also the return of Albrecht, or the Admiral as Mathilda thought of him. He was Opa’s son, Ilse’s Husband, as well as Niko and Ingrid’s father. Mathilda had no idea what he would be like but was curious about him. On a Sunday morning, she spied on him playing with Ingrid. The little girl was just growing out of being a toddler and seemed to love everyone she came into contact with including the other people, horses, dogs, and cats on the estate. It was noticeable that the cats in particular didn’t love her back and fled as soon as they saw her. Mathilda’s observation post must not have been too good because after a few minutes, the Admiral asked her if she was planning on being social or would like to hide in the bushes all afternoon.

“Ilse told me a lot about you” Albrecht said as Mathilda crawled out from under the bushes. “Do you go by something like Mattie or Tillie, Tilda? Mathilda sounds so formal.”

“My Mum calls me Tilda” Mathilda replied, “No one else does.”

Of course, Mathilda hadn’t known too many other people. In the small community she had grown up in, she had thought that “Girl” said sharply was a nickname for the first six years of her life. Wulfstan had often called her different things that revolved around the word “Snot.”

“Well, I am pleased to belatedly welcome you as my family’s guest Tilda” Albrecht said as Ingrid hugged his legs.

The manner was similar, yet totally unlike Opa. The delivery though, that was what made it different. Despite herself, Mathilda smiled at that introduction.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Seventy-Two



31st August 1972

Munich, Bavaria

King Albrecht of Bavaria had given a brief speech during the Opening Ceremonies of the 1972 Munich Games. He had talked about how in the Ancient Games the City States of Greece had put aside all their differences during the Games. All warfare ceased for the duration. They had even gone so far as to sanction their own countrymen for continuing a war against a foreign adversary during the Games. Albrecht had said the need for that was just as true now as it had been then.

The Olympic Games were far more than either Niko or Bas had imagined when Opa had told them they were going. This was especially true because Opa liked congratulating every medalist regardless of nationality or meeting with the various competitors. Of course, many of them also wanted to meet the legendary, or infamous depending on one’s perspective, “Red Barron.” The result was that they found themselves meeting dozens of athletes from around the world. There had been an African Marathon Runner who had been surprised to discover that Opa knew some of the language of his home country or the bubbly Russian Gymnast who had spoken incredibly fast, she was incredibly happy just to be in Munich who stood out in Niko’s mind. It was a dizzying kaleidoscope of people and events that they were shuttled between.

There had been some concern that recent events would cast a pall over the Munich Games, what Opa said was the result of skullduggery and Bas’ late paternal grandfather being a bit too good at his job. That was news to Bas, what he knew about his grandfather was the side of him that his grandmother preferred to remember. The fact that he was a spymaster who had orchestrated the insertion of an agent into the very highest levels of the US Government was amazing. Opa had said that it wasn’t something should necessarily be celebrated. He said that organizations like the BND and BII necessary evils. Their very existence was a threat to the honor of individual men and States alike by offering simple solutions to complex problems. The idea that a crisis could be solved with a single rifle shot, a knife in someone’s back, or a bit of poison in the right cup was enticing. All one had to do was look at the current mess with the Americans collectively huddled in fearful crouch and basically taking an meataxe to their own institutions because Johann Schultz and Jacob Schmidt had been a bit too clever a few decades earlier. Everyone knew that this wouldn’t result in a war, but the resulting distrust was going to linger for the next several years.

That was why Niko had taken particular interest in the Men’s 300 Meter Rifle Three-Position competition. An American had dominated the event and was running up a record-breaking score in the process. When Opa talked to him after the event concluded for the day, he had happily shaken his hand and spoke with an accent that Niko had only ever heard before in movies. Apparently, he was from a place in Arkansas, but taught Marksmanship for the US Navy and Marine Corps in Virginia these days. That was what he told Opa.

“I think that Manny could have beat you” Bas said to the American.

“Who exactly is that?” The American asked.

“Manfred the Younger” Opa replied, “My oldest grandson and namesake. These two have idolized him since they were old enough to walk.”

“Can he really shoot the way your boy says he can?”

“Probably better than you can imagine” Opa said, “It has been said that he is possibly the best living shooter in the Heer, comparable to Heinz Thorwald.”

“Interesting” The American replied, “Tell him that if things ever get straightened out between Washington and Berlin, Ol’ Carlos would be happy to put that to the test in a friendly match.”

With that, the American walked off.

“Let that be a lesson to both of you” Opa said.



Silesia

Laying in her bed, the events of the day kept replaying in Mathilda’s head. That was keeping her awake, even before the storm had blown in with the wind and drumming rain.

Everyone assumed that Mathilda was supposed to be great friends with Anna and Gretchen because she fit neatly in age between the two of them. That had turned out not to be the case. Anna had told Mathilda that she was embarrassing. On the other hand, Gretchen lived to be oppositional to every expectation that was given to her, so she had given Mathilda the cold shoulder. That was why Anna was unhappy to learn that Mathilda would be starting at her school a year behind her.

“She worships trees” Anna had wailed in a rather poor understanding of what Mathilda believed. “Do you have any idea what a laughingstock that will make me?”

And all at once, Mathilda knew exactly why Gretchen had opted to go to the Prussian Institute. There she would only have to put up with harsh rules and the awkward position of being one of only a handful of girls there. As opposed constantly having to fight the urge to bludgeon Anna to death with the first heavy object that she could lay her hands on.

It was Mathilda who would go with Anna to the Tzschocha Gymnasia, considered the Sister Institution to the Wahlstatt Institute. When Ilse and Ina had taken Mathilda to visit the place a few days earlier, the Headmistress had made it very clear that academic rigor were what the school stressed and that any excuses for failing to live up to the school’s high standards would not be accepted. The Headmistress had also known that the Emperor himself was Mathilda’s patron. In her thinking that meant that she had an even higher standard to live up to, because Mathilda’s personal failures would reflect on him. She had made that very clear to Mathilda.

There was flash of light, and Mathilda counted down the seconds until there came the crash of thunder. She had always loved the idea that it was Thor riding his chariot across the sky through the storm clouds and the flashes were from Mjölnir. Perhaps he should be so kind to spare a bolt of lightning or two for Anna, Mathilda thought to herself. Not to hurt her, but just to knock some sense into Anna’s head.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand One Hundred Seventy-Three



2nd August 1972

Tempelhof, Berlin

The entire household was in mourning after Fleur, the elderly Rat Terrier mix had needed to be put down after she had suffered something that had caused a neurological deficit that had left her partially paralyzed. She had been a part of the family for last seventeen years so everyone was upset.

For Kat, it felt like everything was happening all at once. The girls were back from camp, and they were supposed to be preparing for school tomorrow. Instead, they were in the back garden as Douglas and Malcolm were digging a small grave for Fleur's ashes, debating about exactly how deep it needed to be. Having Tatiana and Malcolm home was a constant reminder of the difficulties that she was having with her oldest children.

Tatianna had spent the summer in Ireland, though Kat had no idea exactly why she had been sent there. Tatiana refused to say why, and Kat didn’t want to force the issue because she was afraid of what the most likely answer would be. Malcolm had progressed with his studies in Computer Science had progressed from the classroom into applied research. The Computer Research Department in the Friedrich Wilhelm University did a lot of work for Military Intelligence. Malcolm hadn’t said anything, but he was working on projects that he wasn’t allowed to discuss with anyone below a certain level of clearance. This was difficult for Kat. She had woken up one day and discovered that both of her oldest children were going into fields that she didn’t approve of, yet if she tried to forbid them from doing so then she feared that she would lose them.

Marie Alexandra and Sophie were understandably upset. Fleur had been Marie’s companion for her entire life. There were several photographs of how Marie had included Fleur in her games. Kat’s favorite was of Marie dressed like Robin Hood engaged in a comical attempt to dress Fleur and Cheshire, the family’s big tabby cat, up as her Merry Men. It worked about as well as anyone other than Marie at that age could have predicted with the dog and cat not inclined to cooperate with each other or with Marie. Douglas had photographed the scene of chaos with Marie at her wits end. The look on her face suggesting that she might have been dismayed that her idea hadn’t worked but there was going to be another idea at any second.

Sophie had delighted in watching the antics of the old terrier as she had carried on her low-key war against Petia’s desire for a well-ordered house. She had never had any pets when she had lived with her mother and grandparents. When Sophie had first moved in with Kat’s family, she had found the ready acceptance that she received from Fleur and Cheshire to be a comfort.



Washington DC

The Capital was in turmoil.

With the real nature of the FBI Director having been discovered there were calls for an investigation and Congressional hearings. If for no other reason than to ensure that something like this never happens again. A lot of heads were going to roll because of this. The trouble was that Dillinger was dead and all they knew was the two pieces of information he had left. The first was the shocking detail that John Aleshire had been in on the murders of J. Edger Hoover and Clyde Tolson that had been left on the desk of FBI Director to draw him out. That alone would have been enough to bury Aleshire, but Dillinger had clearly not been satisfied with that alone. He had confronted Aleshire alone after dropping off a folder containing proof of Aleshire’s duplicity at the Washington Post knowing full well that he was unlikely to walk away from that meeting.

After what had happened, Aleshire remained in Federal custody not having realized that he needed to flee until it was already too late. He had tried to make a deal, but had discovered that all his contacts had evaporated, so he was left swinging in the wind. President Rockefeller was left pondering if that had been Dillinger’s intention all along.

“This has been confirmed?” Rockefeller asked in disbelief.

“Yes” James J. Humes, the Navy Pathologist who had been asked to perform the autopsy on the man who the Washington Post claimed was John Dillinger replied. “The fingerprints and scars bear out the man’s identity.”

“Anything else?” Rockefeller asked.

“He had advanced cancer” Humes replied, “That might explain his actions. A man with nothing to lose.”

“I guess” Rockefeller said. He was aware of the real reason that Humes had been asked to take this case. In light of Dillinger coming out of hiding and sacrificing his life to expose what was turning out to be one of the worst intelligence failures in American history, the US Navy was reexamining the Dishonorable Discharge that Dillinger had been given back in the 20’s. At first, he had thought that was a joke, until the Secretary of the Navy told him otherwise. There was also public pressure to do more than that. It was very possible that the man dubbed Public Enemy Number One might have been the hero that America had been looking for. It was preposterous. What the autopsy had not shed any light on was where Dillinger had been for the last forty years. It wasn’t as if he could answer that question himself.