Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Fourteen



17th April 1973

Charlottenburg, Berlin

After having Sophie and Gabi in her apartment, Zella was happy for the quiet. There was a bit of inadvertent comedy in her trying to send Sophie home early and getting a second teenaged girl in her apartment for her troubles. It had worked out in the end though. The two girls were fun once you got past the obnoxious tendency of teenagers to make everything a large production with way too much drama. Zella’s original notion that they were sisters was confirmed by them, it seemed that they shared the same sperm donor, or at least that was how Kat had termed it after Sophie had witnessed a portion of one of Kat’s little talks which she had been having with the man. It seemed that Kat’s elevation had changed nothing about the manner in which she operated when it came to people who she felt needed to get what they deserved. Not that Zella objected too much. There was also the role that Jana had played.

The breakfast that Gabi’s mother had provided had turned out to not be entirely alien to her. She’d had similar meals in Poland, just this was Polish food that had been Americanized before those who had made it had come back to Berlin during the height of the “Kraut Scare.” That strange incident had seen the Americans chase a substantial number of their own citizens out of professions deemed too important to have someone with foreign connections occupy it. Many of those had been forced entirely out of the country just into survive. What was painfully obvious to Zella, and she was sure that it was to others as well, was that those who had been chased out first happened to be Jewish or Homosexual. Others followed who had direct connections to Germany, able to take advantage of the program that allowed those of German descent to return. There had been certain fields that had benefited mightily from that program, but there had been a lot of problems that had sprung up as a result. Zella herself had heard the term Crazy Americans thrown about to describe the behavior of those who couldn’t seem to figure out that they were no longer in the land of Big Cars, Cowboys, Gridiron Football, and Monkey Trials. It certainly made for an odd dynamic in parts of the cities where they had landed.

In the case of the shop that Jana had gone to, they made what they dubbed authentic New York bagels in a dozen different varieties. The family that owned to shop had run a similar establishment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan before they figured that it was better to jump rather than be pushed as a result of rising tensions within New York. While Zella had no way to know if it was truly authentic or not, one of their bagels with smoked salmon, cream cheese, a slice of fresh tomato that they had somehow found this time of year, and onion was something to behold.

Getting out of bed, Zella looked across the roof of the department store at the predawn skyline of the city. It was going to be a cold rainy day today and unlike yesterday, there was no way that she would be able to avoid her Supervisor. ARD was prepared to be quite generous with her, but that was dependent upon her producing material that they could air. Just playing the role of a News Reader alone wasn’t going to cut it, so Zella needed to produce something that she could pitch to her Supervisor who could then tell the Board of Directors what she was up to. The trouble was that Zella didn’t have anything just yet. This summer, Kiki was planning on going through with her long-delayed trip to Russia and Zella only needed to ask for a berth aboard the Epione. She would need a couple more projects to work on in the meantime and that was where the trouble started.

Pulling on an oversized sweatshirt, Zella padded on bare feet to the bathroom. Looking at herself, only half awake, Zella was happy to open the medicine cabinet so as not to see herself. There were three pills she was required to take daily. The first two were dietary supplements; iron and calcium which she had been advised to take. The third was an oral contraceptive pill that was packaged in thirty-one-day increments. As Zella swallowed the pills with a double handful of water from the sink, she thought about how Kiki had recently told her about Sigi, Kiki’s aunt who was oddly close to her in age and her little accident. Funny how that accident had worked out quite well for Sigi herself. If one were suspicious minded, they might think that particular accident wasn’t an accident at all. Kiki had replied that it was mean to suggest that Sigi might have done such a thing. Zella made sure that she was religious about taking this pill though. The only way that Zella was having an accident like that was over her dead body.

Still lacking for ideas, Zella went back to her bedroom knowing that she had a couple hours left before she would need to go into work. Opening a drawer on the nightstand, Zella removed a pack labeled goldener Drache Zigaretten followed by some Vietnamese script and a lighter. She had acquired these from a specialty shop that sold Vietnamese exports. They contained no tobacco which Zella found disgusting. Rather, they were made of the finest cannabis produced in South-East Asia.

A few minutes later, laying back on her bed, Zella allowed her mind to drift a little as she heard Yuri wake up. “Getting an early start aren’t you, Zee?” Yuri asked, having smelled what she was up to.

“It’s going to be one of those days” Zella replied.

“Anything I can do to improve it?”

“I don’t know” Zella said, aware of where he had just placed his hand, which she didn’t mind, not after last night when they had made the most of having the place to themselves. She had her boundaries, but Yuri was someone she trusted within them. “ARD wants to know what I am doing for my latest documentary.”

“What are you going to tell them?” Yuri asked.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Fifteen



21st April 1973

Plänterwald, Berlin

There were eight of them which meant that Rauchbier was hopelessly outnumbered. The trouble was that they were unable to coordinate their attack, so the result was pure anarchy. To Rauchbier’s credit, he feigned fear and went low to earth so that they wouldn’t have a difficult time getting at him. The Whippet puppies finally managed to swarm him and with a great deal of tolerance, Rauchbier lay there as his offspring were playfully tugging at his ears and climbing all over him. Blue, the Dam of these pups watched warily from a few meters away.

A mistake that people often made was to ascribe human emotions onto animals. Still, a mother’s behavior when it came to their children was the same regardless. For both Rauchbier and the pups, they saw each other as their own kind and extremely fun to play with. Of the eight of them, seven were black & white like their Sire while only one female was the rare blue of their Dam. Bianka, who owned Blue felt that was to be expected, she had told Kiki that a few of them were probably going to be good for show regardless. She had tried to explain all of that to Kiki, but Kiki had found the entire thing boring. In her mind, gawking at dogs who were bred to look pretty wasn’t as interesting as those who served a purpose. Rauchbier had spent considerable time in Swabia with the Kennel Master of the Hohenzollern Castle helping rid farm fields of pests and Kiki had felt that time was good for him. Still, regardless of Bianka’s intentions the pups needed to be properly socialized because Kiki knew that homes would eventually be found for most of them. Playing with Nina and Rauchbier was key to that. Not that Nina minded. She had been running around the field outside Kiki’s cottage with the puppies chasing after her until they had all fallen over from exhaustion.

For Kiki herself, it was a welcome distraction after working long hours in Emergency Department and out in the field. Ben had told her that she was getting the Epione out of storage just in time because it seemed to him that her job was starting to wear her down. She had originally wanted to go to Russia last year, but events had forced her to drop those plans. This year was different though. Zella had already offered to make the journey with Kiki and her family, something that Zella’s employers would doubtlessly be celebrating. Still, for Kiki knew that having Zella along would be just like when they had been teenagers, long summer days spent chasing their fancy. The difference was that Kiki would have Ben and Nina along as well. She had told Zella that Yuri could come along as well, but Zella’s reaction to that had been strange. It went far beyond Zella merely being Zella. She had also invited Aurora so it would be the three of them again and Aurora had declined the offer. She had told Kiki that even if she did not have a busy summer ahead of her, Russia was a rather unfriendly place for people like her these days. As soon as Aurora had said that Kiki had realized how thoughtless she had been and had tried to apologize. Aurora had told her not to worry about it and had thanked her for the invitation. Perhaps next year, Kiki could go to the South of France or Italy. That would be fun.



Washington D.C.

No offense, but you couldn’t pay me enough to go anywhere near the United States at this time. So, you should consider the business we were involved with when you worked with the ACLU a closed matter. You have an opportunity to change not just the United States, but the World for the better. I would suggest that you make the most of it.

That was how the letter which had been unsigned concluded. The man once known as Martin L. King had no interest in getting his life back though Nixon had the power to do so. King had been used as a scapegoat back in the Fifties, blamed for starting and continuing the tit for tat terrorism that had punctuated that decade. Oddly, Nixon had known full well that King had already fled the country when the vast majority of the violence had occurred when no one else did and he could prove it. He had said as much when he had reached out to King through back-channels weeks earlier. King’s response was to basically tell him not to bother. At this time, the truth was just too destructive. And did Nixon really think that he would live long enough to be exonerated if he stepped out of the shadows? No, he’d be killed before that was allowed to happen.

Nixon would have been tempted to call King’s letter cynical if he were not aware that it was probably a realistic take on the situation. Whatever King, or whatever he was calling himself, was doing these days, he was clearly in a position to stay informed.

Putting aside the letter, which had oddly been mailed from Toronto, Canada. Nixon looked with annoyance at a memo outlining the latest battle that was shaping up in the House. The prior Administration had left a number of headaches and landmines when they had left in January, not the least of which had been Nelson Rockefeller vetoing the Defense Appropriations Bill on his way out the door. That had been an entirely symbolic act, but it had thrown the process open again and Congress had seen the opportunity to engage in all manner of tomfoolery.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Sixteen



5th May 1973

Tempelhof, Berlin

Sprocket’s tongue was flopping in the breeze as he rode in the basket on the front of Sophie’s bicycle and Sophie smiled watching him. This was not how she had imagined that she would be spending the final weekend of Easter Break. It was strange to be riding on a closed course on the Humboldt Campus, but it was a lot of fun. Plus, she got to check out the place. Kat had told her that in a few years, she might attend University here unless she went elsewhere. According to Kat, one of her protégés had attended three separate Universities at different stages of her studies leading up to a Doctorate.

Doctorate?

Sophie hardly had any idea what that even was. How many times had her mother told her that she was a worthless burden? Was that what her mother said to her new family? It was such a farce. Sophie knew that she had two step siblings who she had absolutely no interest in knowing. her mother had said that there was another on the way and had the nerve to suggest that they had done some terrible things to each other. As if she had played a role beyond being a convenient punching bag. Now she was being told that that she was destined for higher education, it was as if any moment someone would yell “Cut!” and the walls would fall away revealing that she was inside some sort of elaborate situation comedy. If that were true, then they really needed better writers because Marie Alexandra was a totally implausible character. Kat had told her that she never had to see her mother again, Sophie intended to do exactly that.

Looking up, Sophie saw Zella and Yuri on the back of a flatbed lorry. A specially designed video camera on a tripod was pointed at her as she rode down the “street” as part of the background of the project that Zella was working on. Zella had decided to do one of her minidocumentaries on Sophie and Gabi with Gabi’s mother Jana and Ziska playing minor roles. For the most part, Zella had made it fun, with interviews where Sophie was supposed to ignore the camera. The questions were about Sophie’s life. What did she like doing? How serious was she about Cycling? Had she really ridden through a winter storm to the Royal Winter Residence? Was she into music, movies, or television? And the like. There had been dozens of questions and the interview had lasted a couple hours. There had been questions about how she had run into Gabi on the street and if Sophie had known that she was her half-sister. What did she think of Gabi now that they had known each other for the last year?

It was Sophie’s understanding that Gabi had been interviewed and there was a bit of trepidation for Sophie in that. What if when given the chance to say exactly what she thought, Gabi said something appalling? That she didn’t really like Sophie but felt obligated to play nice? Kat had told Sophie that she was being a bit melodramatic. There was a reason why Kat was encouraging Zella and Sophie to work together, Zella wouldn’t hurt Sophie unnecessarily.

The lorry came to a stop and Zella hopped off, heading up to the cab to speak with the driver. Sophie coasted to a stop and Yuri was fiddling with the camera. He had told her all about how they had used this same setup to record motorcycles on the track. The main issue that they had was that system that stabilized the camera was temperamental and if one of the gyroscopes stopped spinning then every single bump or bit of gravel in the road would be reflected in the resulting footage.

Sophie wasn’t sure what to make of Yuri Kozlov. Her understanding was that he was ethnic Russian but had lived in Berlin his entire life. He seemed very intense about the things he cared about, while totally nonchalant about what he didn’t. She had seen him in Zella’s apartment on his own time and Gabi had told her that her mother was under the impression that he was Zella’s paramour. That was the sort of thing that Sophie had a hard time wrapping her head around. Kat had invited her to have a number of very frank conversations about what she was going through as a young woman after that embarrassing infatuation she’d had with Malcolm the year before. Sex had been a part of that conversation, that it was a natural part of life, Sophie needed to experience it on her own terms and only when she was ready. Kat had also mentioned that there was an extremely wide prism of human sexuality with no two people’s experiences being the same.

“I think we have everything we need” Yuri said to Sophie as she stood there with her foot on the ground, waiting to see what would happen next. Sprocket was trying to get their attention by whining.

“That’s good?” Sophie asked.

“It just is what it is” Yuri replied, “The editorial process comes next, where we get to cut it down into a coherent storyline that hopefully doesn’t give people any wrong ideas.”

“Zella interviewed me for hours” Sophie said, “That is what you want to cut?”

“Zella interviewed everyone for hours and now gets to try to make something out of it” Yuri said, “That is what she does.”

Sophie tried not to look too disappointed. As much as she hated to think it, this reminded her of Doug showing her how to palm coins and make them appear to vanish. Once you were aware of the mechanics of sleight of hand tricks, you could never watch magic shows the same way again. She felt like she was getting a look behind the curtain as it were.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Seventeen



18th May 1973

Mitte, Berlin

Kat knew that Zella had done several of these video documentaries over the last few years. While ARD still used them to fill otherwise empty time slots, the ones that had Zella’s name attached drew a guaranteed audience and her success had inspired a number of imitators. The fact that she had featured the Moondogs, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, and Andy Warhol before they had become famous had proven to be quite a feather in her cap. Today, what Kat was watching was footage from the latest documentary that Zella was in the process of editing. Like always, Zella was trying to edit a vast amount of material into something that would fill an hour.

Zella had agreed to let Kat watch it when she felt like she was close the final cut. Sitting in the alcove that Zella worked out of while she was in the Studios, various members of the staff shuffled by nervously. Zella had joked that the presence of an apex predator had that effect on people, earning a dirty look in the process. Kat really did hate it when people made those jokes about her. She had then handed Kat a pair of headphones and when back to updating her notes. As she did that, Kat realized that Zella had already watched this footage dozens of times and had recorded much of it.

Kat was required to watch with typewritten notes in her hands so that she would know who was being interviewed because the graphics explaining that to the audience hadn’t been added yet. There were occasionally odd jump cuts and Kat could tell that music for certain portions had not been added yet. There were things that emphasis was placed on. Sophie riding her bicycle with her little dog in the basket in front of the handlebars. Gabriele, or Gabi for short, playing the piano, or if she wanted to torture her mother, a bass guitar. Both girls were given an equal amount of time for the audience to get know who they were. Their keen intelligence and inquisitive natures were on full display. Exactly what Zella was driving at was unclear until about halfway through the documentary when it was revealed that Sophie and Gabi were half-sisters, having the same father. Mercifully, Zella had not delved into just who he was. That would be pointless to add, both Gabi and Sophie were good people despite that man having spent his life as little more than a waste of oxygen.

The interview turned to how the girls had chanced upon each other, how they had lived different neighborhoods of the same city only a few kilometers apart and what they thought of that. Sophie had told Kat that she was worried that Gabi didn’t really like her, which was something of a constant worry of hers. That wasn’t the case as Gabi had nothing but good things to say about Sophie who she found to be kind and accepting. There were also appearances by Gabi’s mother and Franziska Böttcher, talking about what their discovery had meant to their wider circle of friends and family.

“This is wonderful” Kat said as the show ended.

“I was afraid that you might consider it a bit too saccharin” Zella replied, “There is no great conflict here, just the story of Gabi Scharnhorst and Sophie Sommers.”

“They are teenaged girls, Marcella” Kat said, “If you want conflict just wait a few minutes.”

“My God, how on Earth have you been able to stand having so many girls through your house over the last thirty years?” Zella asked.

“I have found it rewarding” Kat replied, “Watching what all of you have made of yourselves has more than made up for the difficulties that each of you have presented.”

“I was only in your house often when Kiki lived there” Zella said, “So, I am hardly one of your girls.”

“Your parents would disagree” Kat replied, “I can recall many times that your mother called me, exasperated by some foolish thing that you had done and was asking for my intervention because you weren’t listening to her.”

Zella tried to unsuccessfully to hide her annoyance at that. The battles between Maria Acker and her daughter had dragged on for years, from the time she was a child right up the present. Everyone was hoping that now that Zella had moved into her own place, having a little bit of space between them would improve their relationship.

“It was something that I didn’t mind doing because, as I said, I got to see what you’ve made of yourselves” Kat finished with a smile.

“I think I would have turned out alright” Zella said. She always had been stubborn, just like Maria when came right down to it.

“With your propensity towards violence?” Kat asked, “And the poor judgement that you have displayed at times? The total wild child that you were as a teenager? I fear that you would have gotten into far worse trouble than you can imagine.”

“Next you’ll suggest that say Kiki would have gotten herself into trouble too” Zella said. The idea that Kiki was in many respects the ultimate good girl was something that she had made comments about for years. It just went to show that Kiki didn’t tell her best friend everything and that Zella was unaware of just what Kiki was capable of if she were pushed.

“The trouble that Kiki had was that she tends to withdraw into herself” Kat said, “Without my intervention she would have allowed her mother to push her into making some extremely poor choices.”

“You are suggesting that you encouraged Kiki to hit her mother?” Zella asked, “She was exiled to Japan for a year because that happened.”

“I didn’t encourage her to do that exact thing, but because she did, she has a life of her own, a career, and a loving family” Kat replied, “I only need to point you towards a tabloid newspaper featuring the latest antics of the Prince of Piedmont to show you what the alternative is.”

Zella didn’t have an answer for that last point.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Eighteen



1st June 1973

Alboran Sea, south of Gibraltar

Crossing through the Strait of Gibraltar was not exactly dangerous for a modern ship, the unpredictable currents and odd wave patterns could make it interesting though. There were also political considerations, the British and Spanish closely monitored just who was passing by. Louis Ferdinand Junior had been warned not to trust them, at the same time his orders were to proceed with all due dispatch to the disputed zone of the Western Sahara which Morocco and Mauritania had gone to war with each other over. As the Spanish and French had slowly retreated from their former colonies, old tensions that the Colonial Administrations had suppressed through bribery, violence, or merely by providing a common enemy had come back to the fore.

For reasons that Louis couldn’t began to comprehend, there were a number of European civilians in the region. The SMS K24 “Grindwal” was a part of a Multi-National that had been dispatched to try and get them out before they were targeted by whichever local warlord decided they had outlived their usefulness or would be more valuable as hostages. There were two Fleet Torpedo Boats, a Type 1939 SMS T35 “Estoc” and Type 1960 T85 “Jaguar” from the Mediterranean Fleet based in Triste were in close formation with the Grindwal. The Estoc was an old friend, having been the flotilla flagship while Louis had been in the Adriatic Sea. They were to rendezvous with other Fleet elements once they were out in the open Atlantic.

Looking through his binoculars, Louis saw that there were a dozen light units from the respective British and Italian Navies who were on a parallel course a few kilometers to the south. It was a bit odd in that these were likely the same ships that had shadowed the Grindwal for weeks as she had crossed the Mediterranean Sea. Now they were all serving a single purpose. The FN Duquesne, a Frigate flying the French Naval ensign was a few kilometers ahead of them, the large distinctive radome visible on the horizon. The Captain of Duquesne had invited Louis and his officers to dine as his guests aboard that ship when matters were less urgent. While the crew made jokes about what the shipboard cuisine would be like aboard a French vessel, he had not heard any of them comment on the diplomatic aspect. Memories tended to run long in certain respects, while not exactly friends, the French had been somewhat reluctant Allies since the Soviet War. It had long been rumored that Chancellor Lang had gone to Paris and told the French President that it was his choice as to whether or not his Government declared war on the Soviets. But did he want to make that choice before or after Germany was overrun and he had to depend on an Army with obsolescent weapons and the incomplete Maginot line to stop the Soviet advance? By then the Soviets had proven that they had little respect for neutral countries and international borders after what had happened in Finland. Stalin had made comments comparing himself to Tsar Alexander I of Russia and how he wished to exceed him. The meaning of that had not been lost on anyone in Paris or Madrid.

It really hadn’t been much of a choice at all.

Mostly though, Louis had been cautioned about slighting either the French or the Greeks because both were prickly about their status as Second Powers and aspired to greater things. As an Imperial Prince, everything that Louis did would carry far more weight than just that of the Captain of a Corvette. Being the guest of the Captain of a French Frigate would have all sorts of meaning tacked onto it by Officials in Berlin and Paris, so it was basically a mine field. At the same time, the offer was a courtesy that Louis could not decline without giving offense.



Tempelhof, Berlin

“You might need to be firm in this case” Kat said over the phone to Nancy who had called her for advice.

“Getting her out of the house and on the train back to Wahlstatt at the end of Easter vacation was a nightmare” Nancy replied, “I’m used to my children being obstinate shits, but Tilo having to pick her up and carry her out to the car seems a little extreme.”

“Gretchen isn’t really a great fit for where she ended up” Kat said, “That is hardly a secret.”

What Kat didn’t say was that the Wahlstatt Institute, with its ruthlessly enforced rules and harsh discipline probably would have been a good fit for Nancy’s oldest girl. If there were anyone who could use to be knocked down a peg or two, it was Anna. As much as Kat hated to say it, Anna had become something of a bully to her classmates.

“How did you manage things with Tatiana?” Nancy asked, “She was in a similar situation?”

“I found a different school, one that promised to challenge her in a progressive environment” Kat replied, “While she didn’t like being separated from Malcolm, with them being twins they spent nearly every moment together until they were adolescents.”

“It was really that simple?” Nancy asked.

“There was some adjustment” Kat replied, “Tatiana saw it as her growing up, going away to school. Then it didn’t work out and had to come home.”

“Oh” Nancy replied. Kat knew that Nancy and Tilo both led extremely busy lives. Having their children growing old enough to go away to school was something of a godsend for them both. Now it was looking like Gretchen was throwing a spanner in the works.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Nineteen



4th June 1973

Atlantic Ocean off El Marsa, Western Sahara (Disputed Region)

“The situation is fluid and there have been substantial difficulties” The BND Officer who had been assigned to Laayoune had said. As if Louis Ferdinand Junior couldn’t see that for himself just by looking around El Marsa or Laayoune. For decades, there had been jokes about Wilhelm Station in Antarctica being the dumping ground of the various service branches of those who were incompetent, stupid, or unlucky, but not to the extent that they should have been cashiered. That was true to an extent, but that was only if the High Command wanted someone kept far from the press so they wouldn’t create an embarrassing scene. What was far more likely to happen was the offending individual would be sent off to a lovely garden spot like the disputed territories in the Western Sahara. It was a place that few nations were actually interested in, but trouble here tended to spill into other regions of far greater importance.

That fed directly into the second problem, which was that many of those from the outside who did business in the Western Sahara were either wildly optimistic or absolutely insane. Either way, they were not sort who were too likely to heed an evacuation order. Into this Louis found that an old friend, Major Ehud “Udi” Brog from the Marine Infantry had been tasked with tracking as many of them down as he could. He also couldn’t help but notice that there was a palatable tension in the air when he came ashore. It didn’t take a genius to understand that things were about to take a real bad turn.

Leaning on the rail outside the bridge of the Grindwal, Louis looked at the few electric lights in El Marsa. There were more lights among the ships from the various Naval powers gathered in these waters offshore. It was telling that the Fleet had sent Louis orders telling him that he needed to maintain double watches and to employ the Sperber devices that he had aboard. It was easy to read between the lines when Louis received orders like that. The High Command was concerned that someone on the other side of whatever this was, would engage in some sort of guerrilla warfare. It was hardly a surprise, there was no way that anyone ashore could take on the gathered flotilla directly.

Increasingly, Louis was reminded of something he had read at the Naval Academy but couldn’t remember the author. How there were difficult tasks which were not glorious, no medals or orders would be awarded, and the history books would hardly record what had happened. All that was left was duty. He figured that this was going to be one of those tasks, it just remained to be seen just how difficult this was going to be.



Los Angeles, California

The weather was mild as they drove down the freeway, the fact that all the midday traffic was slowing down as Frankenstein came into view behind them was a bit of an annoyance. Normally, people drove as fast as they could get away with, at least eighty, even in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The thing was that Ritchie wasn’t in the least bit interested in doing any traffic stops, not after the morning that he had just had. Spending the day in Court while under oath, fending off questions from an over-zealous Defense Attorney who Daddy could afford.

“The Defense was trying to argue that you coerced his client?” Mike asked, by a happy coincidence, Big Mike had been in the hospital dealing with one of his daughter’s bouts with what had turned out to be Sickle Cell Anemia on the day in question and had missed all the fun. There was particular concern in that Mike’s daughter had apparently been born with this condition though neither Mike nor his wife Clair had a family history of that disease.

“It was the best he could do because the defendant is such a flaming moron” Ritchie said as he pulled off the freeway.

It was one of those stories that people didn’t think happened in real life. The moron had called in reporting a burglary and Ritchie had gotten dispatched to take the report. When he got there, he found that he had the moron telling him all about the large amounts of various narcotics that he had had stashed in his apartment, and he knew exactly who had broken into the place. With considerable disbelief, Ritchie had taken his statement and then applied for a search warrant based on the statement to toss the home of the man who he said had broken into his apartment. Sure enough, he had found the drugs in question and arrested the resident for burglary and possession. Where it had taken a turn to the absurd, was that the moron had demanded his property be returned to him. He had even gone so far as to sign an affidavit saying that the drugs belonged to him.

Ritchie had done everything he could to warn the moron off, but he was determined to get his drugs back and had ended up getting himself arrested too. His drugs had remained in the evidence locker. Later, when Ritchie had tried to explain exactly what had happened, the Captain had told him to just write it up as plainly as possible and had concluded with just one simple turn a phrase; “Why do you think they call it dope?”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Twenty



6th June 1973

Atlantic Ocean off El Marsa, Western Sahara (Disputed Region)

It should have come as no surprise, but Udi Brog had gotten himself into trouble and was in a running gun battle on the road between Laayoune and El Marsa. Brog’s Radio Operator was calling in Naval Fire Support which showed just how dire things had gotten in just a matter of minutes. As Louis listened to unfolding events in the Command-and-Control Room aboard the Grindwal, he was left wondering just where any indigenous groups in the Western Sahara had come up with the weapons that would be needed to take on a Platoon of Marine Infantry. Unable to get a clear read on what was going on, Louis stepped out to the rail and was looking at the shoreline with his binoculars. The 12.8cm and 40mm guns were firing, and he could see shells as they arched high over El Marsa.

He was just about to take the ladder up to the Bridge when he had a feeling that something wasn’t right. He had been warned to never ignore it when he had a feeling like this by his instructors and mentors over the years, it was just a question of figuring out what was off. Turning, he strode aft towards the fantail, the gunners manning the 40mm Bofors Guns nodded towards him as he passed. Despite the idea that the place of the Ship’s Captain was on the Bridge being drilled into him since he had been a Cadet, the crew seeing him around the ship while a minor action such as this was taking place meant that he wasn’t remote from them.

Reaching the fantail, Louis spotted what it was that was bothering him. The fishing boats that plied these waters were mostly headed for the horizon as fast as they could. They wouldn’t want to risk getting caught in the crossfire or worse if the combined flotilla decided that they were a threat. One of the boats was lingering in the vicinity of the Grindwal and that had been what had caught Louis’ attention. Looking at the boat with his binoculars, Louis saw that the man in the fishing boats cockpit was staring back at him, the intent look on his face made the hairs on the back of Louis’ neck stand on end. Louis realized that with ships of the flotilla focused on what was happening on land, it was likely that he was the only one looking at this.

Looking around for something to change course of the boat, Louis saw that one of the Grindwal’s ASW “Water Bomb” Mortars was in line with the approaching boat. Turning the range handle, he swiftly set what he hoped was the proper distance ahead of the boat. Whatever he was up to, Louis figured that having something like that go off in front of him would dissuade him like few other things. Kicking the pedal, the mortar fired, and Louis missed his intended target. The two-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram water bomb hit the foredeck of the fishing boat instead, smashing right through the wooden deck and the hull beneath. The bomb had not yet armed, having to descend at least four meters before it did. That happened as it rapidly sunk towards the seabed. The device, also known as a depth charge, was meant to sink to a preset depth unless it his something solid first at which point it detonated, which was exactly what happened in these shallow waters. The fishing boat which was only a few meters above was instantly crushed by the expanding bubble of gas as the explosive mixture ignited.

A large secondary explosion caused bits of wood from the fishing boat to rain down on the Grindwal. Louis noticed that he had just gotten the attention of everyone who was aft of the super-structure. As he made his way up to the bridge, the same question seemed to be on everyone’s lips.

“What had just happened?”

“Some crazy jackasses in a fishing boat stuffed full of explosives tried to sneak up on us” Louis said as he paced around the tight space of the bridge.

“How exactly did you know about that?” Lehr asked.

Louis almost told his XO to piss off but thought better of it. Oberleutnant zur See Isaak Lehr was supposed to be learning from Louis and chewing him out for asking questions wouldn’t be productive.

“Intelligence in Wunsdorf sent a warning about this very thing a few days ago” Louis replied.

“I didn’t see that in the briefings” Lehr said.

“You have to see how it all fits together” Louis said, “If you can’t do that you have no business being Captain.”

“I see Sir” Lehr replied, the wind going out of his sails.

“I must say, Hell of a shot Sir” Borchardt said with a wicked smile. The two of them went back to when Louis was in command of a Fast Gunboat and Borchardt didn’t mind seeing Lehr, who he thought was a stuffed shirt, being told that he didn’t know everything. “Which is all well and good, but we are getting messages from around the flotilla, they want to know what just happened.”

Louis his annoyance. He might be the Master and Commander of SMS K24 “Grindwal”, but he still had people he answered to. This was one of those times where he suspected that the language to describe what had just happened didn’t exist yet.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-One



9th June 1973

Plänterwald, Berlin

Kiki had worked overnight at the Hospital and now that she was home, she was finding sleep elusive though she was exhausted. Her mind kept running about everything that was happening. There was all so much, both good and bad. She had been waking up after periods of sleep and this time of the year it was always sunny, so it was difficult to tell how long she had been asleep.

News had come that there had been a coordinated attack on the ship that her younger brother commanded off the coast of Africa. He was unhurt, but there were rumors coming back that Louis Ferdinand Junior himself had played a greater role in thwarting the attack then he otherwise should have. That was a reminder of how it seemed like everyone in her family was completely insane. Every single day, Kiki found herself in the hospital or out in the field trying to save the lives of those who thought that they could beat the odds and had miscalculated. A few days earlier there had been a motorcyclist who had managed to crush the entire left side of his body. While Kiki had worked to stabilize him for transport, she kept having the intrusive thought that this could be Lou, Zella, or someone else she loved who liked motorcycles. How long could they keep beating the odds like they had been for years? A reporter had recently asked Kiki what she had to say about those who felt she was inordinately lucky. She had said nothing, if someone thought that she had been lucky over the last few years then they probably were either totally uninformed or else completely insane.

At home, Kiki had been dealing with Nina who had not taken to the puppies leaving to go to their new homes well. They had become dear friends to her. When Kiki and Bianka had found themselves interviewing perspective buyers, the question of how the pups behaved around children had often come up. A photograph that had been taken of Nina in the corner of common room of the Kiki’s cottage with eight whippet puppies sleeping on her had instantly put those questions to rest. Kiki had spoken with Ben, and they thought it was time to think about finding Nina human companions her own age. The last thing on earth that Kiki wanted was for Nina to have a lonely childhood.

Pushing the covers off, Kiki got up and threw open her bedroom door. One of three bedrooms on the upstairs portion of the cottage, Kiki’s father had intended this place to be a bomb shelter of sorts, somewhere that she could go when the world got too much for her. Ironically, it had become the place where Kiki’s life tended to happen. The two extra bedrooms were intended for when she was entertaining, at least that had been what she had been told at the time. It was the sort of thing that made her wonder exactly what people expected from her. Now one of the bedrooms was Nina’s and the other was set up as a seldom used home office with both Kiki and Ben preferring to work downstairs if they were home. Fianna had said that if they were in Ireland that would be the boy’s room once in an unguarded moment and that had caused Kiki to stop everything for a moment as it had felt like her head had filled with static. Her ending up with a second child while the first was still a toddler was unthinkable. That had prompted Kiki to make sure that couldn’t happen with an appointment to Doctor Berg who had listened to her with a bemused look on her face. Now it was months later, and Berg had retired so Kiki had one less person nearby to lean on during one of her more difficult days.

Descending the stairs, Kiki saw that Zella was chatting amicably with Fianna in English. Nina was scribbling on a sheet of paper with a purple crayon. Zella was wearing her full rocker getup, leather jacket, blue jeans, and those absurd cowboy boots. That usually meant that she was riding her motorcycle. Kiki was a bit surprised that she had not heard her come in, that heavily modified BMW K3 Café Racer of hers was anything but quiet. There was also an odd effect that Zella had. Like muscle memory from decades earlier. Zella spoke English with what Kiki had realized was an Australian accent.

“Hey sleepyhead” Zella said, “About time you joined us.”

Nina being a small child, only existed in that very instant. She dropped her crayon and completely forgot the paper she had been scribbling on. “Momma!” She yelled with a wide smile.

“You slept through lunch again” Fianna said as Kiki picked Nina up out the highchair which she had been contained in. She was getting noticeably heavier. Nadine had told her that Ben had been the same way he would gain weight and then would suddenly be centimeters taller. It was nice that her mother-in-law had been putting in the effort to get along with Kiki lately. Of course, with Ben putting in the hours at the University to get Habilitation she didn’t have a whole lot to be unhappy with Kiki about. She had her son securing his future and a beautiful granddaughter, her son’s wife having a somewhat questionable character from her perspective was of considerably less importance.

“I haven’t been hungry” Kiki replied.

“Nonsense” Fianna said as she sat a bowl of soup down on the table. “I’ll take Nina while you eat and catch up with your friend.”

With that Fianna took Nina from Kiki and she found herself staring at the soup, it smelled of potatoes, onions, and pepper. Kiki heard her stomach growl and realized that she was in fact hungry. All she needed was for Berg to catch wind that she wasn’t taking care of herself again. Now that she was retired, getting after Kiki might just be a full-time job that she would be happy to do.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-Two



15th June 1973

Gibraltar

Standing on the bridge of the Grindwal, Louis Ferdinand Junior paced to relieve his impatience at being in this British port oddly placed at the southern end of Spain. He wanted to be gone from this place and back to somewhere friendlier.

With the mission complete there was little more to do than to just head back to civilization. The French and Spanish were up to their eyeballs in what had become a colossal mess and they didn’t want anyone else meddling in what they saw as being in their respective spheres of interest. You came in, collected your people, now get the Hell out. In school, Louis had learned about how the British and French had seen the permanent removal of Germany from Africa at the end of the First World War as one of the positives of the inconclusive ending of that conflict. He was starting to see why many in the Foreign Service now regarded the loss of those colonies as a blessing.

A ship like the Grindwal had major issues due to how advanced her systems were after several months’ worth of wear and tear. The nearest port that would meet her needs happened to be run by the British. While the High Command had told Louis to do what he needed in order to get the ship back into service quickly, the BND and their counterparts in Naval Intelligence were far less sanguine about the matter. While the gas turbine powerplants held few secrets for the British, they were basically modified versions of the Daimler-Benz engines found on airliners, the various electric systems were a different story. When it came to the computers, ASW, radar, and fire control systems, it was believed that they had a lead on the British that they wanted to maintain.

That was why Louis had ordered the Command-and-Control Room sealed and armed guards posted at the entrance at all times. He wasn’t stupid though. The British were not about to board the Grindwal, not when a few liters of cheap alcohol and a tape recorder in a bar that the British Navy controlled could just as thoroughly compromise the ship’s security with far less risk. That the crew was unhappy about the measures that Louis was taking to prevent that from happening was beside the point. They were here to refuel, make necessary repairs and then put to sea again, this was not a liberty port. The presence of tanker lories delivering aviation kerosine as opposed to the usual bunker fuel/oil alone was enough to let everyone here know that the Grindwal was not an ordinary ship.

Borchardt was bemused by the grumbling of the crew. They knew who was in charge on this ship, especially after what had happened off the Western Sahara. “The crew like having a fighting Captain, especially one who can use every weapon on this tub” Borchardt said, “They know better than to complain too much.”

Louis just wished that he had the luxury of the simplistic way that Borchardt could see the world. He had needed to do a considerable amount of paperwork describing just what had happened. He had fired on a civilian vessel, and it was his neck on the line if he couldn’t justify it. The Fleet prided itself on how egalitarian it was when it came to matters of Law. An Imperial Prince was hung from the yardarm just as easily as a Matrose once the matter was properly adjudicated, to use terms from the days when ships used sails. It might seem ironic to the peace campaigners out there, but the deaths of noncombatants happened to be something that couldn’t be ignored.

Into this, Louis saw two men, one wearing the summer uniform of a Konteradmiral and the other wearing a black wool suit in defiance of the climate, getting out of a car on the pier. The sentries standing guard at the gangplank snapped to attention as they made their way aboard. Louis knew exactly who they were long before they found their way to the bridge.

“Captain” The Admiral said shaking Louis’ hand as soon as he came aboard. “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Admiral Salz.”

“Sir” Louis said warily. He was all too aware of how men who were smarter than he was had ended their careers by saying the wrong thing in situations like this.

“My companion here, Herr Blau, decided that you needed to be debriefed as soon as you get back to Kiel” Salz said with a smile. “We are here to go over what you are going to tell them when you get there.”

Louis knew who these two men were. Herr Blau had long been the alias of the Deputy Director of the BND who dealt with Naval affairs and Salz was the alias of the Commander of Naval Intelligence. Blue and Salt. They couldn’t have made it more obvious, but those names were things that came with the Appointments they held.

“You are saying that a conclusion has already been reached, before the Board of Inquiry meets?” Louis asked, “Is this because of who I am.”

“Hardly” Blau said, the tone he used suggested that he was a harsh man. “The problem is that the Board might delve into areas that are not for public consumption.”

“Not yet anyway” Salz said, “Ordinary people like to go about their lives with as little interference as possible, this matter is a minor piece of a larger picture that has the power to inconvenience everyone.”

This was not what Louis had been expecting.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-Three



21st June 1973

Operations Command of the Armed Forces, Near Potsdam, Germany

It was with great annoyance that Malcolm put aside the book he had been reading, a biography of Ernest Shackleton that had been published a year earlier. Everyone assumed that he was reading it and rereading it, but the truth was that he was slowly, painstakingly reading each page, so he didn’t miss anything as he tended to do if he attempted to read too fast. It was the best he could do considering his circumstances, living in a world that didn’t seem to have a great need of explorers, not anymore. One of the computers was acting up again and Malcolm started hitting it on spot marked on the side in permanent marker until it stopped making weird noises. It was hard not to be annoyed with what his life had come to.

Cartographers and navigators had strived for centuries to map the world until there were few corners of the globe that were uncharted. Malcolm remembered school trips to a museum every year where there was an old map that was from the days when such a drawing would involve the imagination of the artist just as much as any actual cartography. Jerusalem was at the center of the world, with the Mediterranean Sea and Europe oddly shaped. Germany had been on the edge of what had been labeled Terra Incognita. There were drawings animals that were equal parts mythology and reality, with unicorns, dragons, and griffins living alongside lions, giraffes, and elephants. Malcolm’s teacher at time had pointed out to him that the artist had no way of knowing if any of those creatures were real or not. At that moment, Malcolm had envied the time in which the artist had lived. A big open world that no one even knew the shape of, which had a lot of “Terra Incognita” to venture off into.

That didn’t mean that Malcolm hadn’t tried. This was despite him being drawn into Computer Science, which was exactly the opposite of what he wanted to be doing. Ultimately it had been watching the Space Program unfolding on television had proven to be his undoing. He had seen that actual exploration was going on and wanted in on it. It was only later in retrospect that he had realized just how stupid that he had been. The Luftwaffe Reserves which were the mainstay of the Berlin’s Air Defense were always happy to tell someone like Malcolm exactly what he wanted to hear. It was only upon reading the fine print that one might learn that they were not bound by any promises that they might make to a perspective sucker/recruit. This had come at a particularly low point for Malcolm, his girlfriend Cora had grown increasingly fed up with what she saw as his lack of ambition.

Things had gotten totally unraveled after he had stupidly put his name down on the dotted line. The Luftwaffe didn’t have a pressing need for pilots, so they only accepted the best recruits for flight training. Malcolm’s Superiors somehow learned of his dyslexia though he had not breathed a word about it and that was a deal breaker as far as pilot training was concerned. They were more than happy to point him towards other rewarding career paths though, because of course they were. The most galling part was that Cora had dumped him shortly after that anyway.

Now, months later, Malcolm was a Fähnrich theoretically in charge of an Intelligence and Analysis section within the Operations Command Center on the outskirts of Potsdam. It sounded interesting, but what it involved was keeping the half dozen Radio Technicians who monitored observation satellites on task. His assistant, Oberfunker Micha Oberst, better known as Rook, had a reputation for using the satellites in ways that no one had ever intended, which couldn’t exactly be called innovative either.

The first night that Malcolm had been in the bunker, he had caught Rook and Stitch ogling a woman in a swimsuit laying on an isolated beach halfway around the world. He had failed to see what the big deal was. Rook had told him that in America the people were a bunch of prudes who frowned on nudity. In the months since, the two sharp-eyed Technicians had proven that they had memorized the locations of certain beaches on the California coast and rivers where they were most likely to get an eyeful. The two of them saw the bodies of American women as some sort of forbidden fruit and Malcolm wished that they would stop it before they got caught. This was exactly the sort of thing that everyone throughout all the shifts in the bunker and beyond would be snickering about for weeks.

Of course, Malcolm had a way out if the boredom and inactivity got too much for him. The Fallschirmjäger were always looking for warm bodies with University educations who were interested in becoming Platoon Leaders. The thing was that Malcolm had a better understanding than most of what that would involve. It was basically suicide, not just because jumping out of airplanes was inherently dangerous, but because his mother would kill him if he did that. Especially after what Tatiana had been up to over the last few years. She apparently liked the idea that he was cooling his heels in a bunker five stories underground as a Reserve Officer babysitting six adult sized children.

Sitting back in his chair, he resumed reading his book. Even as he did that, he noticed that Stitch kept glancing his direction. He knew that meant that Rook and Stitch were up to something that they didn’t want Malcolm to know about. Normally that made this no different than any other day, but Malcolm was not in the mood to deal whatever trouble those two were cooking up.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-Four



30th June 1973

Tiergarten, Berlin

It was cloudy and threatening rain, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind because it was a warm afternoon. Zella’s mind was a bit blown when she had walked out onto the main stage before the Moondogs were about to start their set and was greeted by the sight of a sea of people as far as the eye could see, attendance was later estimated to be around one and a half million. That made it second only to the March Revolution decades earlier. She was to introduce the band and officially start the show, she and Yuri had been filming the scene on the way in. However, they had no idea how massive this thing had grown until they had emerged onto the stage and were shocked by what had greeted them.

John and Paul had promised that today they had something special that they had been working on for years and this was going to the public debut. It was going to largely be material from an album that was going to be released in a couple months anyway. Zella’s connections with the bands who were going to play this afternoon had gotten her exclusive access to this event along with a few other teams from ARD who were posted around the venue. That included the interviews she had gotten over the prior days and the footage of the concert. ARD was just overjoyed with her at the moment and were planning on broadcasting it the instant the edited cut was produced tomorrow afternoon. This time there was an entire team ready who were going to help, and Zella had been told that this broadcast would probably have an international reach. Despite everything that Zella’s mother had ever said about her not becoming a part of the story, the chance to go in front of the camera and introduce a band whose members were all old friends to the world was too much to pass up.

As Zella approached the microphone, she saw a photograph of John Elis had been projected onto the screen at the back of the stage. Everyone knew the whole story now, who he had been, how he had hidden successfully for decades. Then when he had nothing left to lose, John Elis had taken one last devastating whack at those who had sent him into hiding. Today’s show was in his honor. The American outlaw who had provided the legendary venue where the careers of dozens of artists had been launched. The bands who were taking to the main stage and the second stage in the coming hours reflected that. The Moondogs, Napkinwaffe, Metro, Molly Fryer, Skorpions, Mythology, and those were just the headliners. There were a number of less well-known acts led by the American band Big Star as well. They had difficulties in their home country but had done well in Germany last year. They were hoping to repeat their success and playing in one of the largest festivals ever put on certainly would help get their name out there. The grand finale would be a set by the Reinhardt Orchestra with Django Reinhardt himself having come out of retirement to conduct the ensemble.

Stepping up to the mike, Zella saw John in the corner of her eye. He had his guitar turned down and was tuning it, making sure everything was perfect before they started. Paul had his bass ready and was nervously fidgeting. George was just nonchalantly waiting, a few minutes earlier as they had been coming from backstage, he had jokingly told Zella to not dally about and just get on with it.

“Good morning, Berlin!” Zella yelled into the microphone, and she was nearly bowled over by the roar of the crowd. “Today we honor a man who came to Berlin and made it his own, who contributed to the fabric of the city. Whatever he did before that…”

Zella just shrugged; she had no answers.

John Elis, formally known as John Dillinger had robbed banks, conducted daring prison escapes, and left a trail of mayhem across the United State back in the 30’s. Zella, like everyone else had agreed that while they might acknowledge it, bringing it up directly would be in poor taste. Even if many found that to be the most Rock & Roll thing ever.

“Without further ado, I give you the Moondogs!” Zella yelled in conclusion as Ringo had already started drumming and the crowd went wild.

“We want to thank Marchioness Marcella for the delightful introduction” Paul said into the mike as Zella backed away. “May she always walk in the sunshine.”

As the rest of the band launched into the first song, Zella retreated to where Yuri had been recording the proceedings. The comment by Paul was referring to a song that he and John had written about her when she had been younger. That had been before the world had dealt Zella a few kicks and she’d had a rather high opinion of herself in those days.

“Who is Sergeant Pepper?” Yuri whispered to Zella as the first song concluded. She had no idea, but with the Moondogs it was often difficult to tell if something was based on events or locations from their childhood or something that they had just made up on the spot.

“I’ve no clue” Zella replied. They didn’t need to worry about what they were saying finding its way onto the finished recording this time. They had a Sound Engineer running tape that came directly off the mixing board. Yuri was whispering out of long habit from all the times it was just them alone recording.

With that Yuri went on recording the show as Zella watched.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-Five



7th July 1973

Neukölln, Berlin

Sophie had no idea where exactly she was, she had just been riding in random directions in an effort to outrun her frustrations. The trouble was that she was now in an unfamiliar neighborhood on a residential street, and it was starting to get dark. This was not how she had wanted to spend her Saturday. Yes, she had wanted to ride her bicycle if the weather was nice, but to ride aimlessly around because she was upset was not a part of the plan.

It had started with an argument with Kat over a matter so petty that Sophie could hardly remember the details of what had started it. Unfortunately, it had started an avalanche with everything coming out. The resentment over her feeling that she had never really belonged, how every time she thought that she was making progress she slammed into another barrier, all of it and everything. Eventually, she had realized that she was just yelling for the sake of making noise and Kat was simply staring at her waiting for to stop. It was horrifying, this woman who she owed everything too and Sophie had been just yelling incoherently at her. Was she trying to get herself kicked out?

When Sophie had realized what she was doing, she had fled.

Down the stairs, out the back door, through the garden to the shed and onto her bicycle. She had ridden several kilometers before she had been thinking clear enough to process what had happened and was understandably horrified.

Rounding a corner, Sophie heard the sound of an S-Bahn train and knew that she had found one of the lines that passed in and out of the city center. Even with everything else that had happened, she still had her student transit pass in her pocket. It would be simple enough to find out exactly where she was and getting on a train that would get her close to home.

Thinking about the train and in the gathering darkness, Sophie failed to notice a grate on the street. The narrow 700 x 25c tire which enabled the Bianchi bicycle’s fast speed had a serious weakness when the tire dropped into the slot and the handlebars were wrenched from Sophie’s hands. The clips on the pedals kept her from flying over the handlebars, so instead she landed hard on the pavement. She heard the clatter of the bike’s frame hitting the street just before…

Next thing Sophie knew she was on the pavement being talked at and was trying to make sense of what was being asked.

“Look here” Sophie could hear a woman’s voice asking as she had a pen light shown in her eyes. The voice was familiar, but Sophie’s mind wasn’t working right that moment.

“Stop it” Sophie said, and the light clicked off. She was aware of a flashing red light in the background. Her head felt like it was full of cotton batting, she was having trouble breathing and her right knee felt like it was burning.

“I need you to hold still for me, Sophie” The familiar voice said.

Who was this and how did she know her name?

“You told me your name, home address and phone number a few minutes ago when we arrived, remember?” The woman asked, “It was helpful even if I didn’t already know you.”

Sophie realized that she had asked that question out loud, that wasn’t good.

“I need to go home” Sophie said, and she tried to get up only to find that a hand was on her shoulder preventing that.

“You are disorientated and probably have a concussion. Your bicycle needs attention as well” The woman said. That was when Sophie saw the front wheel of her bicycle was visibly bent out of true. “When we get you to the Emergency Department, we can…”

“No” Sophie said as she tried to escape this woman’s grasp.

“You don’t get a choice in this” The woman said as Sophie realized just who the woman was and just how much trouble she was in.



Tempelhof, Berlin

Kat and Douglas had entered the Emergency Department to find Kiki wearing the red coat of a Notarzt as she apparently volunteered to do whenever the University needed someone with her skills out in the field. It had just been the luck of the draw that she had been working in that capacity when the call came in of a Cyclist having taken a bad spill that had left them unconscious. She had gotten Sophie back to the University Hospital and then called Kat.

“She has a concussion, a skinned knee, and some bruising on her ribs” Kiki said, “Mostly I would say that it was her dignity that has taken a real beating.”

“Shouldn’t she be awake then?” Kat asked, a touch worried about what she was seeing.

“I sedated her before someone got it in their head to order a Psychiatric Evaluation which she doesn’t need. That was a bit risky considering that she has a concussion, but I didn’t like the alternative and she is being closely monitored” Kiki replied, “She was working herself into a panic when she figured out that you were going to be called. She is desperate for your approval and is scared that you might kick her out.”

“We got into an argument this afternoon” Kat said as she was looking at the still form of Sophie. She couldn’t help but notice a livid bruise over the cheekbone on one side of Sophie’s face. “Over a trifling matter, but with Sophie anything less than perfect is the end of the world.”

“Isn’t that part of being a fourteen-year-old?” Kiki asked.

“If only it were that simple” Kat replied, “Unlike most girls her age, Sophie has already endured many of the worst things that could happen, so consequences are never far from her mind. She probably thinks that she will be punished for running off.”

“Will she be?” Kiki asked, “Punished that is?”

“Do I need to?” Kat asked in reply, “There is no way that I would be that cruel.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-Six



14th July 1973

Mitte, Berlin

The concrete path in the Tiergarten was smooth under the wheels of her bicycle, Sophie was taking no chances though. She was scanning the path ahead for evil things like manhole covers, another grate, tram rail, or anything else lurking out there that would cause the bike to go out from underneath her. She also had Sprocket with her this time as well. While she was willing to take risks when she was by herself the though of her dog getting hurt was not something she would ever want to see.

This side of the park was near the Zoo, the opposite end from the Great Field where the vast crowds had congregated for the free Rock & Roll festival just a couple weeks earlier. Here the park was the carefully tended artificial forest which had been cultivated for decades to be an oasis of peace in the center of a chaotic city. She was here to meet someone by the lake who Kat had said would help put things in perspective and hopefully try to be less reckless going forward.

That was in keeping with everything that Sophie had gone through during her period of non-punishment punishment. It was the sort of confusing thing that happened in Kat’s household. Waking up in the hospital with Kat and Doug at her bedside had been unexpected. They had treated her the same as if she one of their actual children. Sophie had not had enough time to figure the meaning of that when Malcolm had shown up with Marie and Angelica. No one had any idea where Tatiana was, something that was fairly typical these days. Kat said that while she was disappointed in her oldest daughter’s behavior at times, she understood that there were things that Tatiana needed to work out.

In the days since, Sophie had found that the bruises she had were impossible to hide. That had resulted in stares and whispers at school while they were going into the final examinations of the Spring Term. That was the last thing she had needed at the moment. The exams were always a fraught time for Sophie with her usual paranoia becoming unbearable. At least unlike in the past, this time she had been in an actual accident as opposed to years earlier when she had gone to school looking like that.

Slowing to a stop, Sophie got off her bicycle and rested it on the kickstand. Lifting Sprocket out of the basket and placing him on the ground, she looked down the shore of the lake within the park. Almost immediately, Sprocket’s priority was sniffing towards nearby bushes.

“Sprocket, heel!” Sophie called out. She knew that while he would stay close to her, he also tended to follow his nose into trouble if she didn’t pay attention to what he was up to. It was up to her to see to it that eventuality didn’t happen. She knew that she should have brought a leash but had not though things through. It seemed like that was something that Sophie had done a lot lately.

Walking her bicycle along the shore, Sophie saw Doctor Berg wearing a broadbrimmed hat and working on a painting.

“Katherine told me you would be along today, Fraulein Sommers” Berg said, “She said if I have the time to try to talk some sense to you because she hasn’t had a whole lot of luck.”

“She ordered me to come here” Sophie said, “Do you understand that? She said it was nonnegotiable.”

“That isn’t a surprise” Berg said, “Katherine is used to getting her way.”

“I wish she hadn’t done that though” Sophie said as she looked around for somewhere to sit down. There was nothing.

“Would you have asked for help on your own?” Berg asked, not looking away from the painting.

“Are you supposed to be the one who would help me?” Sophie asked.

“Me, hardly” Berg replied, “I’m a retired Doctor who happens to be an objective observer in this case. I just happen to have time to talk today.”

“You look like you are busy painting” Sophie observed.

Berg snorted at that. “I am only doing this because I was told that I should take up a hobby now that I don’t have all my hours filled with work” She said, “The truth is that your dog is probably better at this than I am.”

Sophie looked at the painting and saw that it was an attempt to paint the lake with the rowboats and the trees beyond. At least that was what she thought it was. The painting could have just as easily been some sort of abstract piece for all she knew. She had just not wanted to be the one who said that to Berg in case she got it wrong.

“Then why are you doing it?” Sophie asked.

“Because it is the only real way to get better” Berg replied, “Plus it is nicer to meet with a patient here rather than in impersonal office.”

“I thought you said that you were retired?”

“Damnedest thing” Berg replied, “Retirement means that you get to do the things that you want to do, and no one gets to question it.”

Doctor Berg said that last part rather smugly. Like if she were doing Sophie a huge favor just by talking to her… Then it occurred to Sophie that Berg was in fact doing her a huge favor.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-Seven



16th July 1973

Tempelhof, Berlin

It seemed like everywhere one looked in Tempelhof these days, there was a reminder that the land the neighborhood had been built on had once been an airport. The café near the hospital that Kiki was meeting Nora Berg at was an example of that. The owners had not only gone with an aviation theme but lately had started with the “Air Rescue” artifacts provided by those who worked in the hospital who were in the FSR or Air Ambulance Service. It was a reminder to Kiki that she was inevitably going to get called to Laupheim or Judenbach to renew her field certification. It was not something that she was looking forward to and had tried to get her superiors to move it up to before the trip to Russia this summer, but silence was all she got in reply. It seemed that she had pushed things to the limit of their tolerance of her antics and they didn’t want to get seen as playing favorites. She wasn’t looking forward to that because neither of those places were vacation spots in the wintertime.

While the owner was happy to have her as a customer, he didn’t like that she always came with a pair of bodyguards from the First Foot. They tended to scare off anyone who was not used to their presence. Berg was reading a newspaper as Kiki entered the café, she might have thought that the headline was a joke unless she knew that it was over an extremely serious matter. Berlin and Paris to London, Drop Dead. It seemed that historical memories were alive and well as the “Grand Europa” project had progressed. As the economic benefits of project started to be felt, the United Kingdom had wanted in only to be rebuffed by the block of countries. That this had come only weeks after the entry of Ireland was an unmistakable message that no one in England, or whoever had written that headline could possibly have missed.

“You look tired” Berg said as Kiki sat down across the table from her. Berg had already ordered the way she always did, except this café didn’t have a menu as such. You got whatever they happened to be serving.

“Something about the summertime makes people stupid” Kiki replied, “You wouldn’t believe some of what I had to deal with over the last couple of days.”

“I did what you are doing now for decades” Berg said, “The only thing I miss are the little moments like telling a man what my specialty happened to be when I was working on something else entirely.”

“You took entirely too much enjoyment in that.”

“And you never did know how to take care of yourself” Berg said to Kiki with a smile. “It’s just as well that you are a Princess and a Doctor, otherwise I can’t imagine what your life would look like.”

“Anonymity?” Kiki asked in reply, “The ability to go out in public without being recognized? Never having to worry about a photographer catching me in a compromising position. Taking Nina to the park or beach, like an ordinary family? That would just be awful.”

“That isn’t what I mean” Berg replied, “I had the most interesting encounter in the park the other day, a young woman who reminds me a lot of a young Kristina von Preussen without as many advantages. A bit more self-reliant though.”

Kiki had wondered how long it would be before she would be hearing about this matter from Berg. She had discussed Sophie’s self-destructive tendencies with Kat and what exactly to do about them. The idea of having Nora Berg playing to role of mentor and role model had come up. She had been a huge help to Kiki years earlier.

“You know full well that it wasn’t a chance encounter” Kiki said, “Was that your impression, that she is self-reliant?”

“That and she seemed to spend every moment of her life like she is scared of something.”

“You once told me that you shouldn’t ask questions if you were unable handle the answers” Kiki said before she took a bite of the sweet roll that was her breakfast and thought about what exactly she was going to say.

“I’m trying to understand this girl” Berg replied.

“Sophie is terrified of going back” Kiki replied, “When I first saw her, she was malnourished and jumped at her own shadow. Her mother made her life a living Hell, to the point where she was removed and placed in a different household. In the years since it has been her attempting to get perfect grades, maintain perfect behavior, and avoiding the sorts of minor mistakes that got her beaten and starved. The trouble is that we live in a world that is far from perfect and Sophie is far from perfect. That is why passing score that is not one hundred percent is enough to cause her to despair and she treats an argument with her foster mother like if it were the end of everything.”

“I see” Berg replied, “At least there isn’t a sexual component this time. Those mess women up forever, there is no undoing it.”

“How can you be so nonchalant?” Kiki asked.

“Would you prefer that it be something that we just don’t talk about” Berg replied, “Especially since you see the result quite often professionally.”

Kiki looked at her roll, her appetite gone. She had always admired Berg’s blunt manner, but there were times when it felt like she was getting beat over the head with obvious truths she didn’t want to deal with.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-Eight



19th July 1973

Fritz von Below Barracks, Wunsdorf-Zossen

Life within the vast military base was very much dictated by the seasons. The first half of the summer was dedicated to practice and that the second for maintenance. It was during this time of the year that the barracks were entirely opened up, cleaned, and any outstanding repair work was handled. The thing was that this resulted in a blizzard of paperwork that needed to be done in triplicate and submitted to the Administrative Services Battalion. That was what Manny’s desk was currently buried under and he figured that he would see the surface of it again about the time requisitions for supplies for winterization, fuel, firewood, and winter gear buried it again.

Just the fact that Headquarters needed a battalion sized unit to handle the clerical aspect of running the 4th Division spoke volumes. Manny knew better than to complain too much about any of that. His Uncle Stefan had commanded Admin. Services for a while before he had gotten promoted to command the 8th Panzer Dragoons and eventually the entire Division.

Unfortunately for Manny, the tasks required for fixing up the barracks were deemed perfect for teaching Cadets in the final years from the various Prussian Institutes the art of soldiering. It was more like them learning shirking, evasion, and goldbricking from the pros. That was why he was not at his desk doing his job but talking at a group of Cadets, including two of his cousins, as they were covered in yellow paint that should have been on the interior walls. They had done a rather sloppy job the day before and the Feldwebels had given them an early lesson in just who you don’t mess with, ever. They had redone the job today, properly this time.

Into this, a familiar face decided to make an appearance.

“The face of the German Army, Captain von Mischner?” Captain North asked in English with a laugh as he saw the gathered Cadets. “The yellow stripes are a nice touch.”

“God help us” Manny muttered. North was the last man on Earth he wanted to deal with. He saw Sabastian Schultz give North a dirty look, at sixteen Bas stood taller than most men, knew how to fight, understood English and contrary to the impression he gave of being easy going, had a volcanic temper. U.S. Special Forces or not, North would find Bas to be more than a match if he picked a fight.

“Who is that?” Niko asked, stepping around Bas. He had grown into the leadership role that he had been thrust into by the academy. Preventing Bas from getting into too much trouble seemed to be a key part of that.

“He’s a visitor from the U.S. Embassy” Manny said, “An observer who we are supposed to extend every courtesy to.”

“Who came up with that bullshit, Sir?” One of the Cadets asked as they started moving in a group towards the Mess Hall. It seemed like food was one of the few things that truly motivated them.

“They seem like a bunch of smart-alecks” North said.

“The two who did most of the talking are relatives of mine” Manny said, “They can speak to me out of turn in an informal setting. Besides, they have spent the last several days getting yelled at by Sergeants. So, I took a bit of mercy on them.”

North chuckled at that.

For some odd reason, North thought that they were friends. The truth was that Manny found him to be arrogant and pigheaded. There had also been some of the comments he had made regarding what could only be termed American Exceptionalism that made Manny’s skin crawl.

“Exactly what do you want, Captain North?” Manny asked.

“You were in La-La Land last year?” North asked.

“Because script writing is an obnoxious process” Manny replied, “I needed to go there to straighten out a mess of my own creation.”

“You have friends there though?”

“Hardly” Manny replied, “I was staying in the house of a man who owed me a favor.”

Manny didn’t want to jam up Ritchie, so they had both agreed to the story about a favor being owed. Everyone involved was Special Forces in some capacity, so the idea of a debt being cashed in was a concept that would be understood instantly.

“Oh” North said, “I was hoping that you knew who I could sell a script to.”

“You wrote a script?” Manny asked. He had once heard a comedian joking about seeing a wreck coming, but not being able to look away. Captain North writing anything had that same feeling.



Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park

It had taken all morning, but Sophie had covered the distance between Tempelhof and Schwielochsee. She had reached the camp in the early afternoon and found that she was the first one there. Oddly, this had been Doctor Berg’s idea and Kat had agreed to it. It was figured that she was old enough to find her own means to get to the camp where she had spent the last few Summer Holidays. It being a Thursday, the rest of the campers would not arrive until Saturday. The adult staff had been a bit put out that Sophie had shown up a couple days early, but the Head Councilor had figured that if she wanted to help with the finishing touches of the set up then the more the marrier.

The truth was that Sophie had found the silence in the cabin a welcome relief as she enjoyed the first afternoon alone. Especially after how noisy her life had become in recent days. The best part was that the staff had seen that she had brought everything on the list of required clothes and equipment in her panier bags they had not thought to check further. She had smuggled all sorts of goodies into the camp in the basket in the front of the bicycle. It almost made up for having to leave Sprocket behind for the holiday. She had considered smuggling him in but figured that would have taken things a bit too far.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Twenty-Nine



23rd July 1973

Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park

It was a warm afternoon and Sophie was sitting in the sun. She had been swimming earlier that afternoon and was currently letting the sun dry her before she would change for supper. Doctor Berg had told her that over the Summer Holiday that she could have what adults secretly wanted, having few responsibilities and several weeks to spend doing as little as possible. What Sophie was supposed to do over this holiday was to act like a fourteen-year-old girl who lived in Tempelhof. It was far easier said than done. Sophie’s mind kept going back to everything that had happened over the first few days on holiday.

Sophie had thought that she had put one over on the camp staff, but it seemed that they understood a few things that she had not thought through. Once the three other girls arrived in the small cabin, she was left with the choice of sharing the contraband with them or the rather likely possibility of having them snitch on her. The chocolate covered coffee beans were gone in only a few hours and the rest was gone by Sunday afternoon. Ziska had found the entire thing amusing and had asked her “Just what exactly did you expect was going to happen?” when she saw Sophie’s dismay. Lina Kauffmann and Ilona Kirch were old friends though. If Sophie had to share with anyone, it would be them. Angelica who was in a cabin with other younger girls wasn’t happy to learn that everyone in Sophie’s cabin had gotten a treat while she had been excluded. When the rumors did reach the staff, Sophie had denied everything. As it had turned out no one could prove anything because the evidence had been eaten.

The other thing that happened was that everyone was amazed that she had ridden her bicycle the hundred kilometers from Berlin. After having done it, Sophie didn’t think that it was that big of a deal. She had memorized the route and had made good time, so it had only taken her about six hours to make the journey. It had resulted in her being a bit of a heroine for a couple hours before everyone moved on to other things.

Then Sophie heard a commotion as a boat passed from the Boy’s camp. Everyone knew that the other camp was there, just a few meters away. A hedge of thorn bushes and a tall fence separated the two camps and woe be unto anyone who dared to contact anyone on the other side unless it was an expressly sanctioned event. Marie Alexandra had gotten into a lot of trouble a few years earlier when she gotten caught after lights-out speaking with some boys through the fence. Sophie had realized that if she attended a co-educational school then these boys would probably be her classmates and the strict rules separating them seemed archaic and pointless.

The rules were the rules, and it was just a coincidence that whenever boats left the boy’s camp, they just happened to almost always pass close to the beach of girl’s camp. Marie Alexandra, who was seventeen this year and was regarded as being more like one of the staff than just another camper was standing there, glaring at the boys who were bending the rules. Some of the things they were saying were directed at Marie. Sophie knew that they were going over the line with what they were saying, and Kat had warned her that any group was only as smart as the stupidest person within it.

After a few minutes they passed out of earshot and were paddling away, across the lake. Marie just shook her head and muttered something about “Idiots.” When Sophie asked her about that later, Marie said that the way that boys their age acted was a real disappointment for her. Sophie realized that she really didn’t have the experience as to whether or not Marie was correct about that.



Silesia

“You must make sure that you have a weapon in your hand when you die” Mathilda said solemnly, “That way the Gods understand that you are truly a warrior.”

“I have few doubts about what the Gods would think of me” Manfred the Elder said with a smile. “And I know that I have the most important and dangerous weapon that a man could possibly have with me at all times.”

Mathilda gave Manfred a puzzled look and he tapped the side of his head.

“The Japanese believe that intention is what makes something a weapon” Manfred said, “It is something that I have found to be true.”

Mathilda nodded, understanding what he was telling her.

He found talking with Mathilda to be interesting. She had lived the first decade of her life living and breathing beliefs that were old when the Romans crossed the Rhine into what would become Germany and had discovered the limits of their empire in the Teutoburg Forest. Oddly, the girl was concerned about Manfred who she felt deserved a seat in the Feast Hall of the Gods but might be denied that honor because against all odds he had lived into old age.

It was a nice distraction.

Manfred the Younger had written a letter asking his advice in handling a particularly thorny issue. It seemed that he had an American Officer who was something of a clod causing trouble, the sort of trouble that involved young Sabastian Schultz and the sort of fight that everyone would lose if it ever happened. Manfred the Elder knew that Sabastian was a hothead and it seemed that this American had made a joke that implied that an up-and-coming Class from the Wahlstatt Institution was a bunch of cowards. If anyone had reacted it would have been an International Incident regardless of the outcome.

Not that Manfred the Elder didn’t think that Sabastian didn’t need a bit of sense knocked into him, he just didn’t want it to destroy the boy’s future in the process. He really needed to get Tilo Schultz up to Silesia as well. Johann Schultz had been Manfred’s friend and business partner. The two families had been closely associated for decades and it was long past time that more formal arrangements were made.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Thirty



25th July 1973

Near Bad Reichenhall

When Malcolm had been given a chance to leave the bunker on the outskirts of Potsdam for a few weeks, he had leapt for the opportunity. It was something that he had forgotten that he had even applied for, Arctic training in the Heer’s prestigious Alpine Training area and the chance to go to parts of the globe that he had only read about or seen in movies. He had only told his family a couple days before he had left. Of course, his parents had understood. They had been the ones who had bought all the books about arctic exploration when he had been a child and had needed the encouragement to not give up on reading after his early struggles. Tatiana, whose opinion mattered a great deal to Malcolm due to her being his twin sister had been completely unimpressed. They had once shared in everything, but adolescence had created a gulf between them that they had been unable to bridge in the years since. Marie Alexandra had seen the romantic angle and Angelica had a whole lot of questions. Sophie had been absent, having already departed for the Summer Holiday a couple days earlier.

Upon his arrival to the collection of buildings on top of a mountain high above the tree line, Malcolm knew that he was finally doing something closer to what he wanted to be doing with his life. There were no guarantees in this. If he managed to complete the course over the Summer, there was a chance that he could go to one of Polar regions if a slot opened that fit his skillset. He would need to suspend his studies at University if that happened and Malcolm suspected that he was the only one who had no objections to that. The Luftwaffe wanted him continuing with Computer Science and his mother preferred that he remain going to University regardless of his field of study.

The last few days, Malcolm had mostly spent most getting acclimated and reading the syllabus. Beyond basic survival there was a considerable amount of training that involved skills that the Heer might have otherwise lost as technology had grown in importance that was taught here. Using equipment that was largely obsolescent but worked far better in icy climates as opposed to more modern gear that would become inoperable if it froze was a major part of that. There was also Celestial Navigation, Malcolm was not aware if the Heer taught people how to use a sextant anywhere else.

Everyone assumed that he knew what was expected of him, which was a nice change. He had figured that he would stand out, seeing that he had Luftwaffe patches on his coat. To Malcolm’s surprise, he didn’t. There were people here from all the Service Branches and there was talk about a joint expedition with Denmark and Canada to Baffin Bay. The instant Malcolm heard that he realized that it had not been an accident that he had been recruited.

Malcolm had thought that he might be able to finagle a trip to Antarctica. That would have to wait. Greenland or the High Canadian Arctic were almost as good by his measure.



Bodega Bay, California

It had been Lucia who had pointed out that they had not gone on an actual vacation in ages. Between work, school, starting a family, there had always been too much going on for them to think about anything other than what was in front of them at right that second. Lucia had far more in mind than just vegetating on the couch for a week or so. She wanted out of Los Angeles for a couple weeks, someplace they had never been before.

Years earlier, John Cassey had told Ritchie about Bodega Bay, a small fishing village north of San Francisco as a place to go if the goal was to escape from the world. With Ritchie’s mother watching Steven while they were out of town; he and Lucia had bid the heat, smog and traffic of Los Angeles farewell and had flown far to the north, to Santa Rosa and then a swift drive to the coast in a rental car.

While Ritchie had no expectations as to what they would find when they arrived in Bodega Bay, it was difficult to believe that they were in the same State as Los Angeles in the middle of the summer. It was a rugged coastline with rocky beaches, cliffs and windswept hills that were shrouded in low clouds. Lucia loved it though and that was good enough him.

Exploring Bodega Bay’s waterfront, it was impossible not to notice thousands of gulls and the smell of fish. T-shirts, refrigerator magnets, smoked salmon, and saltwater taffy were on sale in the touristy shops. It was odd seeing places like that open next door to shops geared to sell equipment to the fishing fleet that was based here.

As they worked their way down the waterfront, Ritchie noticed a man giving him a hard stare.

“Can I help you?” Ritchie asked.

“You got some nerve” The man said, something about the way that he talked was familiar, but Ritchie couldn’t place where he may have known him from. “A Dodgers cap.”

Ritchie had worn his ballcap without any thought. He had heard stories about how this was Giants’ territory.

“You don’t remember me Valenzuela?” The man asked with a smile, “Do you?”

That was when the man got into a pickup truck. He was laughing as he closed the door, started up the engine and drove off. It was only then that Ritchie remembered he was someone who he had not thought about in years.

“Who was that?” Lucia asked.

“Before I got into the Green Beret, I was in the 82nd” Ritchie replied. “He was a Sergeant in my Platoon back then.”

“Small world, I guess” Lucia said.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Thirty-One



28th July 1973

Kiel

“I knew that the whole thing was cooked when I found out that Admiral Hase was leading the Board of Inquiry” Louis Junior said to the Grindwal’s Officers. That led to a bit of snickering around the table of the ship’s small wardroom. The truth was that Louis had an idea of what the Board’s findings were going to be when he had been briefed by Blau and Salz. That was why Louis had busied himself reprovisioning and refurbishing the Grindwal.

As it stood, he was credited with acting in the finest traditions of the Imperial Navy. The press releases were vague about what exactly had happened with Naval Intelligence not wanting that to be public information. It seemed that they were trying to avoid there being a panic if people learned that there were religious fanatics out there who thought that they would be guaranteed a place in Heaven if they died taking out those who they deemed infidels. When considering the history of religion in Germany, it was hardly a surprise.

According to Naval Intelligence, this was the direct result of the latest Turkish War and what was seen as indifference by European powers as Albanians and Bosnians were being exterminated in the Balkans by the Greeks along with their Serbian allies. It didn’t seem to matter that it had been the Turks who had started the war and had left their own allies swinging in the wind at the end of that conflict. When Louis had asked what any of that had to do with a regional conflict in the Western Sahara, he had been told there were opportunists who were able to make local grievances part of a larger whole.

Logic need not apply.

Actually, this was something that Louis had heard discussed before when he had been attending the Naval Academy in a different context. The unification of the German Empire had occurred during the Franco-Prussian War, and it was widely believed that it had been motivated by a desire to shove a thumb into the eye of the French. His Professor had said that “Fuck those guys over there” was one of the most unifying forces in human history.

The key takeaway that Louis had gotten from the findings of the Board of Inquiry was that while they had stopped short of giving him a medal for what had happened, it was clear that all of them were in uncharted territory, and they were still trying to figure out how to react. Apparently, Intelligence was somewhat miffed that the fishing boat had been blown into matchsticks. That made getting anything of value from the wreck nearly impossible. Louis was left with a few questions of his own and doubted that even he could get any answers. Like how Naval Intelligence had known that it had not been the Grindwal specifically that had been targeted? They had also backed up Louis’ claim that the fishing boat had been loaded with explosives. If Louis didn’t know any better, he might suspect that Naval Intelligence had agents on the inside. He also might suspect that they were willing to let a ship of the High Seas Fleet be damaged or destroyed, risking the lives of the crew in order to preserve the operation. Louis just hoped that Naval Intelligence remembered that they worked for the Fleet, not the other way around.



River Oder near Lebus

The Motor Barge Epione was considered an Auxiliary Hospital Ship by the Navy, so she was considered “His Majesty’s Ship” as opposed to a mere motor barge of the sort that plied these same waters hauling passengers and all manner of cargo. Optimized for travel on rivers and canals, she was relatively slow, but excelled in carrying her passengers and crew in comfort. That was what Ben kept in mind as he dealt with his latest Aide who had discovered the hard way that Markgräfin Marcella von Holz, his wife’s closest friend and confidant excelled at being outrageous.

“I might have warned you Zella can be difficult if provoked” Ben said as Markus Schlosser removed the icepack from his left eye which was nearly swollen shut. He was going to be left with quite a black eye from this. He had been sent from the Luftwaffe Academy to learn from Ben, he was an academic who was studying Meteorology, so Ben was at something of a loss about what exactly he was supposed to be learning.

“The Lady said that it was an accident” Markus replied.

“Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t” Ben said. “With her you never can tell.”

Somehow, Markus had caught Zella’s elbow to the face when he had stepped a little too close for comfort in the tight confines of the passageway that ran from the bow to stern on the port side of the lower deck. Ben remembered the difficulties presented by Bram Erdmann, his former Aide, who had turned out to be a bit too ambitious for the role he found himself in. Markus was the exact opposite though. He didn’t strike Ben as being particularly ambitious, he had told Ben that he had gotten into Meteorology because he liked looking at clouds. He also had not spent much time around women, particularly one like Zella who seemed to embody the reasons why hurricanes were named after them.

“I would never accuse the Lady of lying” Markus said.

“And you would be wise not to” Ben replied, “I have a lot of experience with her including the time she drove a motorcycle over one of my feet.”

“My God” Markus said looking suitably horrified. “Why does the Princess keep her around?”

“In Zella’s defense I had inadvertently cornered her, and she reacts in terribly when she gets scared” Ben replied, “I also know for a fact that she would do anything for Kristina or Nina.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Thirty-Two



30th July 1973

Baltic Sea off Pomerania

After it had taken a couple days to get from Berlin to the sea, it finally felt like they were on their way to Russia. Even Zella had noticed that Kiki could barely hide her excitement. This was a trip that she had wanted to take for ages. That morning, she had made a point of piloting the Epione as they passed through the mouth of the Oder at Swinemünde.

Unfortunately, that was where there was a bit of difficulty because the Baltic wasn’t the natural home of the flatbottomed Epione, even in good weather and she was pressed back into the role of Ship’s Surgeon. Kiki immediately felt bad because those unaccustomed to the motion got seasick. She had made sure that there was plenty of dimenhydrinate in the ship’s stores having foreseen this eventually, but Yuri had an adverse reaction to it. So, he was in the cabin he was sharing with Zella feeling extremely ill. Kiki had told him that he would feel better a bit sooner if he was up on the fore or aft decks. He had declined, saying that he didn’t want the others to see him throwing up over the rail. That was a bit of an annoyance for Kiki, but this wasn’t the first time that she had seen pride get in the way of a patient’s recovery.

“For Yuri, this whole trip is filled with trepidation” Zella said as they were laying in the sun on the foredeck. Kiki joined her this time after several hours helming the Epione and then being a Physician, she felt that she deserved some time taking care of herself. Not before she found the zinc oxide cream, which was something else she had made a point to have on hand. It was part of an old argument that Kiki had been having with Zella for years. How it was fine to be out in the sun, but risking a sunburn was not. Zella joked about how Nina must spend the entire summer completely covered in the stuff. Kiki didn’t find that in the least bit funny because it wasn’t far from the truth.

“I would think that this trip would be important for him” Kiki said as she tried to reorient her thoughts toward the conversation.

“As you well know, he’s ethnic Russian” Zella replied, “His mother was one of those who found they couldn’t go home after the Soviet War.”

Kiki was aware that it was a bit more complicated than that. Yuri’s mother had been widely denounced, first by the State and then by her family when her name had appeared on a list of Prisoners of War. They had done this because the alternative involved getting denounced themselves. Then when Yuri had been born, she had been labelled a collaborator as well because there was no way to prove who Yuri’s father had been. Kiki didn’t need much help to fill in the blanks and found the whole thing to be sickening. It was nearly three decades later, and the scars left by that were still present. Yuri would be seeing a country where he had never been, but it had defined his entire life. All of that had come up when Kiki had been planning this trip and settling on who would be accompanying her.

“Doesn’t that break your mother’s rule about the Journalists becoming part of the story?” Kiki asked.

“Not really” Zella replied, “Yuri is mostly invisible to the public because of which side of the camera he is normally on. This adds an interesting angle that people will like.”

“You’re the expert” Kiki said before laying back, just enjoying the afternoon sunlight and a few hours without worries or responsibilities. It was something that happened so rarely these days. There had been an agreement earlier in the day that Ben and Fianna would watch Nina so that she could just enjoy this time.

Kiki was unaware of how long it had been until heard Markus trying nervously getting their attention. She must have been dozing. Opening her eyes, she sat up and looked at the boy whose face was turning a dozen shades of red. It stood as an odd counterpoint to the purple-black colored bruise around his right eye. Kiki had gotten the full truth about what had happened with that. Zella’s preference was that she be thought of as violent or crazy as opposed to clumsy. And Markus hadn’t been too mindful of boundaries. He had been standing right behind Zella when she had lost her balance.

“What do you need Markus?” Kiki asked sitting up. Zella was ignoring him, but obviously found the entire scene amusing.

He gulped and kept his eyes focused on Kiki’s face. “F-Frau Dunn wanted me to tell you that supper will be in a little bit” He stammered before retreating back into the saloon.

“Do you think he couldn’t make it more obvious?” Zella asked as Kiki found her shirt that she was pulling over her head.

“Don’t be mean” Kiki said, “Not everyone is inured to your antics.”

“He was looking at you” Zella said, with a snicker.

Earlier, Zella had been talking about angles. That was one that Kiki had not really considered.

“That hardly matters” Kiki replied, “Once we are past Saint Petersburg then we will all have to be on our best behavior.”

“Which is something that I am not looking forward to” Zella said as Kiki opened the hatch that led down into the master’s cabin.

She figured that she had time to take a shower before the evening meal. It was one of the advantages of traveling by a means in which all the comforts of home came with her.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Thirty-Three



3rd August 1973

Saint Petersburg, Russia

“Keep close” was the standing instruction to Markus as he stood and watched as Princess Kristina warmly greeted her cousin, Imperial Grand Duchess Jehane Alexandra and her son. The two of them were chatting in Russian and as the Grand Duchess entered the saloon with Yuri recording with a video camera and Markgräfin Marcella waited to begin asking questions.

It was fortunate that so far, the Grand Duchess seemed to be what Markus understood she was. The Princess and Markgräfin had been a somewhat rude surprise for him. He had thought that he knew them from seeing them on television, but as it turned out they were very different from their public personas. Princess Kristina wasn’t necessarily the wholesome, pious woman who had dedicated herself to medicine that she was depicted as. She very direct, even rude at times when she finally spoke which wasn’t very often. Markgräfin Marcella presented herself as a fun adventuress on television, but Markus had learned that she was actually extremely prickly with anyone she didn’t know. There was also the black eye that she had given him. He found that both women were scary in different turns.

Everyone else on the barge just seemed to either ignore whatever they were doing or just rolled with it. Markus had spent his entire life on either his family’s farm on the outskirts of Frankendorf, or at the Luftwaffe Academy which he had gotten into due to his father being considered a hero in the Soviet War. So, he had never encountered anything like them before. A few days earlier, Frau Dunn had sent him to tell Kristina and Marcella that it was almost time for the evening meal and found them sunning themselves on the foredeck. Sure, he remembered the snickering comments back in the Academy about how the women on beaches, especially in France, went about doing that. To actually see it up close, in real life…

All he could do was focus on Kristina’s face while trying to ignore what else was plainly visible. He had overheard then Marcella’s comment about him making it obvious, in many ways that had been more embarrassing than his own reaction upon seeing Kristina and Marcella laying in the sun while they were essentially naked. It was the sort of thing that he never would admit to anyone.

Since then, he had done his level best to avoid them, which was not easy on a craft the size of the SMS Epione. Oberstleutnant von Hirsch had told Markus that Kiki and Zella, the names he used for them, engaged in wild behavior from time to time and it would take some getting used to.

Frau Dunn was a bit more useful. She had told him that those two girls behaved the way they did because they were young and didn’t see the harm so long as it was in a private setting. Markus was a bit befuddled by that. They were what? Thirty? That was hardly young from Markus’ perspective. When he had said that; Frau Dunn had just smiled and said that when he was her age, thirty would seem rather young. She was the reason why Princess Kristina had inadvertently picked up an odd accent when she spoke English because she had been present through Princess’ infancy and early childhood.

That had made the four days it had taken to get around the Baltic Sea, hugging the coast so that they were never far from a port in case the weather turned. Their arrival in Saint Petersburg had greeted with considerable fanfare, but Markus had been warned that they would need to be extremely cautious around their hosts. It was figured that Markus didn’t really know anything useful, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be targeted. Not for the first time, did he wonder what exactly he had gotten himself into. When Markus had first learned that he was being appointed to be a part of the Staff of the Consort of the Princess Royal, who was considered an up-and-coming Luftwaffe Officer with an incredible record even without who he was married to factored in, he had been overjoyed. He should have known that he would need to change his perspective when he was told that this appointment was dependent entirely upon his discretion. Markus had been informed that the House of Hohenzollern would be very generous to him for that, but there had been a warning about spending a lot of time counting penguins if he chose the path of indiscretion.

As it was, Markus was going to be stuck on the barge for the next several weeks and it seemed like every moment there was something else odd going on. Nothing that was illegal per say. Just sort of low key odd. He suspected that Marcella and Yuri smoked cannabis for example, but that was supposedly no worse than alcohol. The Americans disagreed though and he had been told that avoiding things that fell into legal grey areas was probably the wisest choice. That had to do with the issues the Heer had with Amphetamines during the Second World War and afterwards. The weapons locker on the ship that only the Captain Kirchhoff and Kristina had the keys to was shockingly comprehensive.

As Markus stood there watching the Princess and the Grand Duchess chatting over tea, he became aware that Nina, Kristina’s little girl was peering around his legs. Rauchbier the dog busy sniffing at his feet. One more odd little incident to add to the ever-growing list. He was supposed to be getting an education while he was doing this year-long appointment and he was, just this was probably not the sort of education that his Professors would have imagined.