Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

Part 131, Chapter 2234
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Thirty-Four



    6th August 1973

    Belozersky Bypass Canal, Near Lake Beloye, Vologda Oblast, Russia

    It was not the fastest way to travel and most of the time that was a positive thing because it was a means to slow things down so that events could be digested. This time was different though. Kiki had grown restless watching the countryside roll past and wished that they were at their destination after they had been notified by radio that Gia was already back in her apartment in Moscow having flown back a full day after the Epione had departed from the city on the Gulf of Finland.

    It was nearly six days from Saint Petersburg to Moscow and she was almost hoping that some medical emergency would present itself in the region. And if she were being truly honest, it would be a chance to showcase the Epione, her own skills and generate some good will among the Russian people. It was also a terrible thought because someone would have to have been injured or suffering some sort of health crisis for that to happen.

    As it was, there were a few people on the banks of the canal every time they passed a village to watch the barge flying the Red, White, and Black of German Imperial Flag and the Blue and White Flag of the Medical Service pass as well as a glimpse of Kiki herself. It was mostly out of curiosity. However, there were a pair of Riverine Gunboats from the Russian Navy that were a few hundred meters ahead and trailing the Epione and that cast a bit of a pall on things. Kiki had discovered that distrust of the Military and the State remained strong in the Russian countryside. She understood the need for security but had not anticipated the reaction of these people towards it.

    Mostly from a need for something to do and to practice using the equipment aboard the Epione, Kiki was using Markus as a guinea pig of sorts. She felt that she had gotten off on the wrong foot with the boy and was hoping that some time spent explaining the mission they were on with some practical demonstrations. Kiki had been showing him the process of performing a blood count, how the process was automated, reading the results, and what she would be looking for. That led to them looking through a microscope at small smear from the blood sample that she had taken from him while they waited for the machine to spit out the results.

    “All of this had to be counted manually?” Markus asked.

    “Yes” Kiki replied, “And they had me do it in Medical School so that I would understand the basics, or in the event that I didn’t have a machine available to do it for me.”

    “But would you still have a microscope?”

    “You would be amazed what I could do with a cheap microscope that you would give a child to encourage them to get into the sciences” Kiki said, “Give me a few other things from around the department store and I can work miracles.”

    That was when the printer started running, Kiki tore off the page when it finished and started reading it. Markus looked at the sheet of paper, but the abbreviated words and numbers meant little to him.

    “This is showing all your levels within normal parameters” Kiki said, “You don’t seem to have any infections or abnormalities. Typical of a healthy young Homosapien male.”

    “That’s all?” Markus asked.

    “More or less” Kiki replied, “When I was your age, I would occasionally get anemic, but that had to do with being a young woman, menstrual bleeding. This is the test that detected it and my mentor, Doctor Berg insisted that I increase my intake of certain vegetables as a result.”

    “That’s all” Markus said.

    “Hardly” Kiki said, “If we detected elevated white blood cells, we would then need to find the source of the infection which would mean running more tests. Considering your age and professional aspirations, we would probably need to start with a test for Venereal diseases. Of course, you came from the Luftwaffe Academy, close quarters, and poor ventilation in the dormitories is expected, particularly in the wintertime. So respiratory infections would likely be near the top of the list…”

    Kiki noticed that Markus had looked away and he was a bit embarrassed. This tended to happen when she broached certain topics.

    “You would really run a test for Venereal diseases?” Markus asked.

    “That is routine Markus” Kiki said, “And in this context as your Doctor it would remain between us.”

    That was mostly true. Kiki would be required to report the diagnosis as she would with any other infectious disease as per protocol. However, there were safeguards to keep names from getting spread around.

    “No” Markus said, “You would do that even after what your friend said about me?”

    “What exactly are you referring to?” Kiki asked and Markus looked embarrassed again. “This is in strictest confidence, no secrets.”

    “No secrets?” Markus repeated, “I have sort of seen nearly every bit of you.”

    “That was inadvertent” Kiki said with a shrug, “And I know that Zella can be a bit much at times. We had been talking about how obvious it is that you haven’t been around women very much.”

    “I thought that she was talking about how I have never… Er, well… uhm, you know” Markus said, his face turning beet red.

    “I see” Kiki said. Suddenly aware of just how much Zella’s careless words had been hurtful to him with how he had interpreted them. “That is not something you need to be ashamed or embarrassed about.”

    Markus looked at Kiki in surprise. That was clearly not what he had expected to hear.
     
    Part 131, Chapter 2235
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Thirty-Five



    10th August 1973

    Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park

    “Momma will have a thing or three to say about this” Marie said as Sophie brought up her latest difficulty.

    A minor detail that had skipped Sophie mind until she realized that it was going to be a major factor at some point after she had ridden from Berlin. The inner tubes were slowly losing air and were going to be totally flat long before she would be going home. Somehow, having to walk her bicycle onto the train home felt like defeat, though she was planning on taking the train anyway. Sophie wanted that to be her choice though and already knew what Kat was going to say. It was one of Kat’s favorite expressions; Failure to plan on your part does not constitute a crisis on mine.

    “We both know what Kat is going to say” Sophie replied, “How will that help me find a bicycle pump?”

    “Or perhaps it is her hope that you will swallow your pride and ask for help” Marie said, she didn’t like it when Sophie called Kat by her name and wasn’t afraid of letting Sophie see her disapproval. “Ever thought of that?”

    Sophie frowned.

    That would be just like Kat, Sophie thought to herself. Wheels within wheels, no one aside from Kat being able to see the big picture and that was why she almost always won in the end. Sophie had learned over the last few years that her foster mother was always several moves ahead, having had a lifetime of practice as the Tigress of Pankow, the reigning Prefect of Berlin. At the same time, Sophie was supposed to be learning to be independent and resourceful. It was all so maddening.

    “You could just ask one of the staff. There are all sorts of things that are inflated around, including the regular inner-tubes that might have been used in the tires of a lorry, so there must be a pump somewhere” Marie said, “But that wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic, would it?”

    The fact that something so plainly obvious had needed to be pointed out was embarrassing. Anything that floated on the lake and wasn’t a boat of some kind was probably inflated.

    “Well, thank you for the help” Sophie said as she felt like her cheeks were burning up. “And please don’t tell Kat about this.”

    Marie just smirked at that. It seemed like Sophie had always had an impossible time reading Marie, who seemed to delight in being unorthodox. At the same time, it seemed like Sophie had an impossible time seeing what was right in front of her face. She had a feeling that Ziska was probably going to laugh her head off when she inevitably heard about this.



    Moscow, Russia

    Kiki had finally made it to the Capital City of Russia the day before and there were some things that could not be avoided. It had been dubbed the Monument to the Lost and it had been located in a park that had been built specially for it off Red Square. There were rumors that process of constructing the park had also played a role in sealing off the tunnels that the Hellcats had used to gain access to the Kremlin at the end of the Soviet War, but that had never been confirmed.

    The monument was a statue whose features were indistinct, but the figure radiated a painfully contorted pose, the face seemed to be forever howling in anguish to an uncaring universe. Just looking at it gave Kiki the creeps.

    It had been dedicated in 1960 to the millions of Russians who had died in the bloody Stalinist purges, in the Soviet War on the battlefield, in the famines and lawless chaotic years that had followed. The Russians were not exaggerating when they said that an entire generation had been lost. Kiki had seen the demographic reports and they were harrowing. There was a profound gender imbalance and not to put too fine a point on it, children born just before or during the war had faced long odds. Gia had known that when she had adopted Anya Maksimova from a Convent orphanage outside of Pskov. The girl had been aging out of the care of the Orthodox Church and Gia had realized that postwar Russia would eat her alive.

    Kiki only needed to look at Gia and Anya today to see that had worked out well for both of them. They had accompanied Kiki today, with Gia’s son Alexei, who they were keeping between them. No one wanted the rambunctious nine-year-old to run off and cause trouble. Gia usually was at her home near Lake Baikal during the Summertime. She had decided to return to Moscow early this year when she learned that Kiki was coming. Gia’s husband Fyodor was nowhere to be found. Kiki understood the role he played for the Russian Czar and would have preferred that he remain where she could see him.

    Nina was staring at the statue agape. She hated it when they put her in a pram but wasn’t up for walking too great a distance. That was why Ben was carrying her. It was clear that Nina got the exact message that it was meant to convey.

    The other two people present were Czar Mikhail II of Russia and his betrothed, Princess Eva of Greece and Denmark, the youngest sister of Emperor Constantine II of the Hellenic Empire. Though she knew that Eva was twenty-three years old, she looked to Kiki like she was much younger and was somewhat fragile. For the Russians Eva checked a lot of boxes in having the right religion and with the Greeks being considered among the most important allies. While dynastic marriages were largely considered a relic of the past, this was clearly an exception to that. The marriage would cement the alliance between the Russians and the Greeks like few other things.

    At the base of the statue there were dozens of candles along with hundreds of photographs and other mementos. All of this so that a people could mourn the decades that should have been prosperous but had nearly undone them as a nation. As per prior agreement, Kiki laid a bouquet of flowers at the foot of the monument as a gesture of respect. It had been said in the past that Kiki was Germany’s Russian Princess. She had her doubts about that, but it was figured that it would be better received coming from her as opposed to her brother. While Freddy frequently tried to ham things up, he knew that there were times he needed to be somber. This was clearly such an occasion.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 131, Chapter 2236
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Thirty-Six



    13th August 1973

    Washington D.C.

    The sudden appearance of the Lockheed Galaxy with its Curtis-Wright engines a year and a half earlier had drawn little attention at the time. The plane had been full of technology that had been in use for at least a decade by Junkers Aircraft across the Atlantic, but on the American Market they were nothing short of revolutionary in terms of efficiency and capability. Boeing, who had been enjoying a dominant market position, was unhappy with how their competition was taking advantage of overseas technology and expertise. This was at the same time Boeing was getting to the bottom of the icing issues that had plagued their latest designs.

    As the Representative from Washington’s 7th Congressional District, James M. Hendrix was receiving heated phone calls from the Executives of Boeing while his staff was getting calls from constituents that were decidedly less pleasant. Many of them were convinced that it was the Germans engineering a plot to take down the economy of the United States. If the Germans had done that, they had picked a very strange instrument to do it with. It was Howard Hughes who had brokered the entry of Lockheed into the international consortium that was eating Boeing’s lunch. Hughes had played a large role in placing Boeing into the lead that they had enjoyed in the 50’s and 60’s, something that they seemed to have forgotten to their peril. Hendrix knew full well that the people living in Southern California near the assembly plants of Curtis and Lockheed probably had a different perspective. Hendrix was headed home for the August recess, and it was a safe assumption that it was not going to be an enjoyable time.

    “Am I interrupting anything?” Bill Stoughton, the Speaker of the House, said as he let himself into Hendrix’s office. Upon seeing Hendrix sitting at his desk, shirtsleeves rolled up, handwritten memos everywhere, and with the two phones that Hendrix wasn’t currently talking on ringing, he just gave one of his infamous smiles as Hendrix hung up the phone, the other two phones oddly fell silent which Hendrix figured Bill Stoughton must have something to do with. “Now that is the picture that you want your constituents to see, you at your desk, working your butt off on their behalf.”

    “I think they might be interested in following the example of your ancestor and burning me at the stake when I get home” Hendrix replied.

    “I will have you know that William Stoughton never burnt any witches” Bill said as he looked through the cabinets of Hendrix’s office. “Hung plenty though.”

    “Does it bother you that they were innocent of any wrongdoing and the whole thing had to do with land and political power?” Hendrix asked.

    “No more than I am that the actual site of the hangings is now in someone’s backyard behind a pharmacy” Bill replied as he found a bottle of Bourbon that had been a gift from a constituent in a happier time and opening it, breaking the tax seal. “It just goes to show that things never really change. In uncertain times people follow the first person who seems to know where they are going and sometimes that is straight off a cliff.”

    “The trouble I have is that witches are typically not who people in America like to hang” Hendrix said.

    “You are just lucky that this isn’t happening during an election year” Bill said as he poured himself a generous glass. “You want one?”

    “I’ll pass” Hendrix replied.

    “Have it your way” Bill said, “There is an order to these things and your friends at Boeing know that they will have to figure something out now that they have some real competition. It is how we do things in this country. Someone is always trying to build a better mousetrap.”

    “If you say so” Hendrix replied.

    “I also say that you ought to knock off early” Bill said, “I’ve a dinner meeting with some individuals who have very deep pockets, and they were most impressed with the Hendrix Aviation Act. I have talked you up as a man with vision to them.”

    Hendrix was a bit annoyed that Bill Stoughton had done that. The moneyed interests he was talking about were a necessary evil. The have power in Washington you first needed to get elected and that required money. Bill knew all of them and was a master at the game.



    Moscow, Russia

    Reviewing the videotape, Zella was amazed by some of the footage that she and Yuri had captured over the last few days. Kiki placing the bouquet of flowers at the base of the Monument to the Lost was particularly good. While Zella had gotten a good angle of that, there had been other camera crews present and that had been widely broadcast throughout Russia. The whole purpose of this trip was reconciliation and efforts like that were key if this was going to be successful.

    Zella reached the end of the tape and put the next one in. It was of the table in saloon of the SMS Epione and a meal was being served. Kiki’s guests had included the Russian Czar and many high-ranking members of the Russian Government. It had been interesting, watching Kiki play the role of Hostess, though it was not the sort of thing that came naturally to her. She knew that Kiki had enjoyed herself far more when the Epione was underway and going someplace new.

    When Zella reached the end of that tape, she put one in of Kiki touring a hospital here in Moscow. It had been Yuri who had been filming and he had followed as Kiki had gone straight to the Emergency Department. This was not what the Hospital Administration had been expecting. If they had been paying attention, they would have noticed that Kiki was wearing her medal from the International Order of St. John. They took these things very seriously and would be overjoyed that Kiki was showing the flag as it were.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 131, Chapter 2237
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Thirty-Seven



    15th August 1973

    Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park

    They had just finished supper. The others were playing the game of Monopoly that they had been playing off and on for the last week in the brief period of time between supper and lights out. Sophie had not been interested in the game and had found a dogeared copy of a historical fiction novel in English that she had started reading because she had wanted to practice that language.

    The novel was set during the Soviet War and detailed the complex situation that the Americans who worked in the United States Embassy from the point of view of the Naval Attaché. It likened the situation to walking a tightrope and there was a great deal of intrigue as both German and Soviet agents were trying to draw them into the conflict. They were also trying to gather information about the state of the war itself. To her it rang a bit false and reminded Sophie of some of the commented that Kat’s older brother had made about the Americans practicing not so neutral neutrality across two World Wars. The Soviets would not have needed to have drawn the Americans into the conflict, they had already got what they wanted with the supplies shipped into Russia through Vladivostok or Murmansk. It seemed as if the author had made mistakes that might have been avoided if he had opened a history textbook.

    Sophie was far enough into the novel that she felt that she should at least try to get to the end. No one else would care if she didn’t finish it, but she would know and didn’t like the thought of not finishing it. Lina, Ziska, and Ilona were arguing about the rules of the game, with Ilona having been caught helping herself to the bank again. That was the reason why Sophie had not been interested in playing the game. It seemed like it devolved into arguments because it seemed like one of them would always try to find a way to cheat.

    That was when there was a thud as a rock hit the wall of the cabin just below the window frame. There wasn’t any glass, just a screen, and if it was cold, you closed the shutters. There were small, high windows in the back wall of the cabin that allowed a nice breeze on hot nights with the help of a fan that was in the doorway between the front and back rooms. The cabin had no heating and was clearly intended to be an entirely summer accommodation. The cabins were in different sizes with the smaller cabins going to the older girls. There were four of them in this cabin, the largest cabins, if you could still call them that, across the quadrangle were two floor affairs that had fifty on each floor. Sophie remembered how she had stayed in those on her first Summer Holiday at Schwielochsee.

    A minute later, there was a second thud.

    That was enough to draw everyone’s attention away from arguing over the game. In seconds, the three of them were at the window peering out into the night. “Think someone is out there?” Ilona asked, stating the obvious.

    Sophie sat up and swung her feet off her bunk. It was all she needed, to be subjected to some elaborate prank which was what she figured this was.

    “Is Zoe or Zoey, or something like that, here?” An unfamiliar, male, voice asked in a stage whisper.

    That caused the three other girls to start giggling.

    “You mean Sophie?” Ziska asked in reply.

    “Yeah, I guess” The voice replied.

    “Sophie, you have a visitor” Lena said, with a lot of mirth in her voice.

    With a great deal of annoyance Sophie got to her feet and entered the front room.

    “What do you want?” Sophie asked as she saw the boy with just his head looking into the cabin. Meaning that he must be sitting on the ground, clearly not wanting to be seen while seemingly unaware that he was probably visible to anyone in the quadrangle.

    “Hi” The boy said with a sheepish smile.

    He had risked getting in a lot of trouble, snuck over, under, or around the fence. Just to say that? The weird part was that she had seen him before, many times in fact. He had been the boy who had struck the canoe that Sophie and Ziska had been using with a barge pole the year before. What was his deal?

    “You need to go before…” Sophie started to say, just as a hand reached out and grabbed him. She recognized that it was the Head Councilor of the Girl’s Camp a formidable woman who took trespasses like this seriously and her husband. She suspected that he would be in a lot of trouble in his own camp, at first. Then he would be everyone’s hero because of where he had gone despite how silly the whole thing was.

    As the boy was led off by the husband, she looked at the four of them standing in the window. “Lights out is in five minutes” The Head Councilor said, “I am not going to have any trouble from you lot over this?”

    “No, Ma’am” Sophie said echoing what the others were saying.

    As soon as the Head Councilor walked off. The other three girls immediately rounded on Sophie.

    “I think he likes you” Lina said in a sing-song tone.

    “He has an odd way of showing it” Sophie replied, not liking that her friends had witnessed that. “I don’t even know his name.”

    “That is easy enough to find out” Ziska said as Ilona smirked.

    There was a great deal of illicit communication between the two camps. Sophie suspected that the adults knew about it but maintained the separation as a matter of tradition.
     
    Part 131, Chapter 2238
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Thirty-Eight



    17th August 1973

    Tempelhof, Berlin

    There were closed circuit television cameras on the exterior of the building that were cunningly concealed. They enabled Kat to see what was happening on the street out front and in the alleyway in the back. That was how she had known that the house had been watched for weeks, entirely because the watchers had been unaware of those cameras. Regardless, Kat understood that they wouldn’t have a plan as such. They would take her in a rush, using the weight of numbers to negate any advantages she might otherwise have had. It was exactly how she might have done it herself.

    Tonight, Kat could see that they were through watching and that there were at least twenty of them massing outside, probably a dozen more acting as lookouts. That was far more than she could have handled when she had been at her best two or three decades earlier. She had always known that this was going to happen eventually, that the enemies she had made along the way would find someone willing to do this. The timing was fortunate though, her children and those under her care were all elsewhere.

    Tatiana was off in Ireland, learning how to be someone else. As disappointing as Kat found her daughter’s career aspirations, Kat knew that Tatianna would always be her little girl and it had been her hope that one day they would be able to put their difficulties aside. Malcolm was in Bad Reichenhall in the Alpine Training Area. She had uncharacteristically pulled a lot of strings to get him into the Arctic Training Program. She understood that once it was offered to her son, he would be unable to turn it down. It was a dream come true for him. Marie, Sophie, and Angelica were all in the Spreewald. Far from danger and the practical consideration that the saferoom in the basement wasn’t going to be needed. Kat didn’t want any attention drawn to the vaults down there because that was where she kept the evidence of past actions and of her own culpability within them. It couldn’t be destroyed because that was her insurance against the factions of the Government that might move against her or her family. Even Douglas, who had put up with how difficult Kat could be at times for the last twenty-five years, was out on assignment in the far north photographing wildlife in Sweden’s Abisko National Park. He had wanted Kat to come with him, but she had too many pressing matters to attend too at home. A shame really, she would have missed out on tonight’s festivities.

    “Darya?” Kat asked as she saw the girl walk past her office door. “A moment please.”

    “Ma’am” Darya said entering the office. One of the choices that Kat had made that she would never regret was bringing Petia’s granddaughter into her household.

    “If you could do me a favor and take Sprocket up to your room” Kat said, “And lock the door to the servant quarters behind you. Tell the others to stay put, no matter what happens.”

    Darya looked at Kat with alarm, but after years of obeying Kat without question she swiftly took Sprocket and left the room. The dog, thinking it was a game tried to squirm out of her arms. Kat heard Darya running up the stairs. One less innocent in harm’s way, she thought to herself.

    Pulling her attention away from the monitors that were normally hidden away in their cabinet. Kat went to the decanter that she kept for guests and poured herself a measure of the whiskey. She had not had a drink in decades, not since a perforated ulcer had nearly killed her. If these were her last minutes, then she figured that she should at least see what she was paying for. As the sip she took burned down her throat, she figured that it tasted the same to her as the cheap spirits she had dunk during the Soviet War. That was a disappointment.

    Looking at the sub-machinegun and pistol by her desk, Kat knew that they would not be adequate for the task at hand, but this had to be her fight alone. If she involved others, then the blowback would land on them. Something that wouldn’t be right. When those gathering outside came into the house, Kat hoped that they would check to see if the doors were unlocked before they kicked them in. It would be a shame if they did any unnecessary damage.

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

    “This has got to be a trap” Czcibor said as the front door of the house swung open and Tom stepped through.

    “Shut up” Karlheinz growled as he pushed the Pole through the double front doors of the house. This was the domain of the Tigress, and their mission was simple, she was not supposed to see another sunrise. The Organization had been gathering forces for this hit for months and not one of them wasn’t a killer. Still there were those like Czcibor who allowed the reputation of Tigress to get the better of him. Karlheinz though, since he and Tom had been children coming up in the streets of postwar Berlin, he had never been scared of anything. That had made him and Tom an unstoppable team. Karlheinz as the muscle and Tom as the brains.

    As Tom saw the crew that had come in through the back coming up the stairs, he felt the hairs raise on the back of his neck. There had been no opposition so far and this was starting to feel wrong. Czcibor had to be right, this had to be a trap.

    “Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the forest, in the night” Tom muttered to himself. “What immortal hand or eye, could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

    “Enough of that” Karlheinz said sharply to Tom. “These assholes are about to piss themselves.”

    While Tom knew that Karlheinz could barely understand two words of English, the tone of that poem was unmistakable.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 131, Chapter 2239
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Thirty-Nine



    18th August 1973

    Tempelhof, Berlin

    “It was not your fight” Kat said, clearly annoyed that there had been such an intrusion into what she regarded as her business alone.

    “Fight, you think that was just a fight?” Petia asked, completely furious about Kat’s nonchalance over what had happened over the prior hours. “Have you completely lost your mind?”

    Darya had never seen her grandmother as angry as she was right now. She had followed Kat’s instructions, but when she had gotten up into the servant’s quarters, she had found them empty though. Her grandmother and her people had been down in the streets picking off the intruders along with several other of those called the Russian Sisters. There had also been a few men husbands and sons along with those who were supposedly workers at the Japanese Embassy who had helped. Unfortunately, Kat had not exactly been grateful afterwards.

    “No” Kat replied, “I am thinking very clearly, and do you have any idea what you have done? There are what? Thirty or so bodies hidden around here? Do you honestly think that Strauss is going to let this go?”

    Darya knew that Kat was referring to Franz Josef Strauss, the State Prosecutor for the City of Berlin. He had been recruited from outside the City because he was not beholden to Kat or her family. The result was that they had taken on an adversarial role over the last decade. Everyone knew that he hated Kat and felt that she was little more than a criminal who happened to be a little smarter and more ruthless than her contemporaries who had ended up in prison, where Strauss was said to think Kat belonged. No one would put it past him to go after anyone close to Kat and the Russian sisters were the very definition of that.

    “They were here to kill you” Petia said flatly.

    “Do you think that I don’t know that?” Kat asked wearily.

    There was something odd about the way that Kat was responding to Petia, she just seemed incredibly tired. Darya had seen it in the days leading up to the attack on the house. If anything, this was making Petia livider, if that was even possible. Darya’s grandmother had warned her that when Kat went through times of depression and ennui. Were the events of the last few hours the direct result of that?

    “No, stupid girl, I think that you just found yourself a different bridge this time” Petia said coldly, “But it is no longer just about you, it hasn’t been for a long time. We saved you at considerable risk to ourselves because it serves us better than not doing it. As for Strauss, he can go fuck himself.”

    In all the time that Darya had working in Kat’s household, she had never seen Kat surprised. Her grandmother’s comment had the impact of a slap across the face. What did she mean by a different bridge?

    “You overstep your bounds” Kat said to Petia, every word dripping with rage.

    “I am one of few who knew you before became you had those boundaries, you once told me to always tell when you were acting stupid, and you are” Petia replied angerly, “All of this could have been avoided if you had made a simple phone call but didn’t.”

    Darya had never seen anything like this.

    That was when Kat threw up her hands in exasperation. It was clear that she didn’t want to continue this conversation.

    “Please tell me that you got all of them” Kat said.

    “About that” Petia replied, “We might have a problem.”

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

    The room was cold, which was shocking considering that it had been a relatively hot afternoon the day before. At least Tom thought it had been the day before. He had no idea how long he had been stuck in this room in pitch black, tied to a chair.

    As it had turned out, Czcibor had been correct about it being a trap. Not that the Pole had enjoyed the satisfaction. He had been being lead by Karlheinz when they had stumbled on the Tigress. Suppressed fire from an MP5 was unmistakable, especially it was chewing through human bodies. It was only then that they discovered that there was nowhere to run. The best streetfighters that the Organization had had been ruthlessly cut down by women who looked like Tom’s mother and they had never seen it coming. The absurdity of it was galling.

    There was sound of metal scraping on metal, then a click and overhead lights came on and three women entered the room. An elderly woman looked at Tom, disgust evident in her eyes. The woman standing next to her was instantly recognizably as the Tigress, whose cold eyes seemed to bore right through Tom. The two of them were talking to each other in what sounded like Russian. A third, much younger woman, looked scared.

    “You need to tell them what they want to know Thomas” The younger woman said, making evident that they already knew his name.

    “I would sooner die” Thomas said with more bravado than he actually felt.

    “There are worse things than that” The younger woman said, “My grandmother and the Kurfürstin are debating where to start.”

    “Exactly what is that supposed to mean?”

    “Feeding you your eyes or your balls” The younger woman replied.

    It was that instant that Tom realized that he had been unable to hear anything until these women had entered the room. This place was soundproofed to the extent that no one would hear the screams if they did that. According to the rumors, the Tigress had done what the younger woman was saying she would in the past. And Tom was helpless to stop her. No matter what the outcome was, the Boss was not going to like it.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 131, Chapter 2240
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty



    20th August 1973

    Mitte, Berlin

    When you strike at a King, you must kill him.

    Franz Josef Strauss was reminded of that quote by Emerson when he had returned from lunch to find a message left on his desk.

    I no longer like the terms of our deal. It is time to renegotiate things because you have got just as much to lose now seeing as to how your little plan seems to have gone sideways. I am sure that you are not interested in concluding business.

    Strauss had found that note have been dropped on his desk in his office. Of course, nobody had seen who had left it, but that was the nature of who he was dealing with. They had people everywhere and that poisoned this entire wretched city.

    Matters had not gone according to plan. Strauss had thought that he finally had a chance to kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of Katherine von Mischner permanently and leave the head of the shadowy so-called GS, the Society of Silence exposed. It hadn’t been difficult; the GS was very aware that Katherine von Mischner was the daughter of the former head of their organization and had maintained a special relationship with the Jarl Gunnarsson, the immediate predecessor of the current head. There were rumors that Katherine knew the whereabouts of the lost fortune of Otto Mischner and Strauss had leaked documents that implied that after decades of investigation it had been discovered that there was some truth in that, and that the money was long gone. That was far more than enough for the GS to write off the loss and to balance the ledger somewhat by making an example of someone. Usually that came in the form of a pool of blood and viscera left to be found to let people know that someone was very dead and would never been seen again.

    The previous Thursday, something had happened. Rumors had been flying all over that the house where the Tigress lived had been attacked. Then nothing more. Across the city, the police were reporting that certain known criminals had vanished, enough to create a power vacuum, and there was some debate about what exactly to do. Strauss had been told that the city sewers and storm drains would be checked, but the Tigress was well known to have a deep understanding of the undercity like few others. If she wanted somebody, or in this case a lot of somebodies, to vanish then it was likely that they never would be found.

    The scary part was that the Tigress herself, Katherine von Mischner zu Berlin, the Prefect of Berlin, had been seen at the Alexanderplatz Marketplace serenely talking to the people who indirectly rented the stalls within marketplace from her. With it getting into late summer the busiest time of the year was coming for such an establishment, first with the harvest and then the Christmas Market that would spring up there. It was only natural that Katherine would take a personal interest.

    That she was still alive then that meant that it was exactly like how the head of the GS had said in the note, the plan had gone sideways. His use of the words “little plan” also suggested that he knew that the whole thing had been contrived.

    If the head of the GS thought that Strauss had orchestrated this outcome… It was a chilling thought.



    Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park

    It was Marie’s contention that boys their age were a major disappointment. It felt like everything that Sophie learned about Sepp Deisler fell into that category. First, there had been the incident on the lake the year before when he had been banging on her canoe with a bargepole to get her attention. Then this year he had snuck into the Girl’s Camp to speak with Sophie only to have no idea what he was going to say once he found her. Still, that was nothing compared to Sophie’s annoyance with herself because even after all of that she had agreed to go to the hedge. Standing there in the hot sunlight, she was feeling very stupid as she could feel sweat soaking through her clothes. She had wondered why none of the adults seemed to care about these meetings during the day, this answered that question. If she stayed here for too long, then she was asking for heatstroke.

    “Are you there, Zoe?” Sophie heard a voice ask and she saw that Sepp was standing on something so that he was visible over the fence.

    “Yes” Sophie replied.

    “What?” Sepp asked, “You need to speak up.”

    “Yes, I am here!” Sophie said, practically yelling. “Do you want everyone to know our business?”

    Looking over her shoulder, Sophie knew that everyone would be talking about her doing this in a matter of minutes.

    “Who cares?” Sepp replied with a shrug.

    “I care” Sophie said.

    “But you still came.”

    And Sophie felt like an idiot for having done so.

    “What was so pressing that you got yourself into trouble to talk to me?” Sophie asked.

    “I don’t know” Sepp replied, “I just wanted to meet you is all and I didn’t get into too much trouble. Herr Fabel called my father and they told me that I wasn’t to do anything like that ever again. Then Poppa wanted to know if you were pretty, I told him you were.”

    There had been few times that Sophie had been presented with such a clear injustice. If she had crossed over to the other side of the fence and had gotten caught, Kat would come and collect her. She would then spend the rest of the Summer Holiday locked in her room if she were lucky.

    “What the fuck!” Sophie yelled, “There is no way in Hell that…”

    Sepp was clearly taken aback by Sophie’s swearing. Whatever image he had of her in his mind that was not a part of it. He didn’t get a chance to reply because Sophie heard what sounded like splintering wood as whatever he was standing on broke under his weight. Sepp had a surprised look on his face as he fell into the thorn bushes.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 131, Chapter 2241
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty-One



    21st August 1973

    Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park

    Frau Fabel’s demeanor tended to remind one of a neurotic toy poodle. This wasn’t helped by the fact that her hair had gone prematurely white and that she was Nurse in a Summer Camp that had a couple hundred boys between the ages of five and eighteen. Normally, she was a Nurse in a hospital in the city, but every summer she came with her husband who was the Camp Director as a sort of self-funded Summer Holiday, but from Sepp’s perspective it didn’t seem like much of a holiday.

    “There is always something” Frau Fabel said as she was using iodine to clean the puncture wounds and scratches on Sepp’s arms and chest from when he had landed in the thorn bushes the day before. At least she wasn’t digging thorns out of his skin like she had the day before. That didn’t stop the iodine from stinging as Frau Fabel painted it on though. “Please hold still Josef, you don’t want these to get infected. I swear, the things that you boys get up to.”

    “I had good reasons” Sepp replied defensively.

    “Talking to a girl while standing on a rickety chair that you took from your cabin” Frau Fabel said, “What happened next was very predictable.”

    “What’s wrong with that?” Sepp said, before he hissed in pain due to what Frau Fabel was doing.

    “You barely know this girl” Frau Fabel said, “She probably just wants to get on with her holiday and you are a complication.”

    “But I want to” Sepp said, “Get to know her that is.”

    Frau Fabel just gave Sepp a look. “Yeah, I bet you do” She said, “Fortunately for everyone, it will no longer be an issue next week.”

    That gave Sepp a moment of pause.

    He was going back to his life along with everyone else next week. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but it felt like everything here was brightly lit and in full color while home might as well have been in black and white.

    “Try to stay out of trouble until you go home” Frau Fabel said as she handed Sepp his shirt. “I know that will be a big lift for you.”

    “I don’t cause that much trouble” Sepp said and got a snort in reply as Frau Fabel tried not to laugh.

    Putting his shirt back on as he walked towards the door. The thought of going home kept rattling around in his head and what would greet him when he got there. His parents being absent much of the time because they had to work, him having to take care of his younger brothers, and the cramped house they lived in. Small wonder that he had only ever met Sophie here. It was said that she was one of the Gymnasia girls, already assured a place at a University. Back home they lived in entirely different worlds though separated by only a few kilometers.



    Near Bad Reichenhall

    It was snowing as Malcolm made his way from the lecture hall to the cabin which he shared with five other men. These weren’t the fluffy snowflakes of the wintertime in the lowlands. It was coming down as hard pellets of ice. Today’s lecture had been about the development of industrial lubricants that worked at temperatures far below freezing. How during the Soviet War that had been a matter of critical importance and that in the post-war period had proven invaluable in exploration.

    This high atop the mountains, the temperatures seldom were above freezing. The weather was also extremely unpredictable, with storms brewing up from the valleys and howling winds. The complex of buildings that made up the Arctic Training School clung to the side of the mountain like the lichen that was one of the only things that grew here. Because Malcolm was still an Officer Aspirant, he was regarded as Enlisted, and his accommodations were reflected in that. He had a couple hours until supper, and he knew from experience that getting a bit of extra sleep was almost always a wise choice considering where he presently was.

    To Malcolm’s personal disappointment, his time at the School was coming to an end. In a few days he would be returning to his home unit and a note would be added to his personnel file saying that he had completed the training course. He would then go on the list of potential volunteers for upcoming Artic and Antarctic expeditions. There was the upcoming joint expedition to Baffin Bay, but he wasn’t expecting to hear about that for weeks. He would be going back to watching his section, particularly Micha “Rook” Oberst and Michael “Stitch” Stein, misuse government equipment. At the rate that the two of them were going, when Malcolm finally went to Greenland those two would probably be on the same flight as a punishment assignment.

    The odd part was that others saw his assignment as being rather choice. He was living rent free on the edge of a big city. Sure, he spent much of his time just trying to stay awake and battling boredom in a bunker complex that seemed designed to trigger any innate claustrophobia that one might have. The trouble was that the city in question was one which he had lived in his entire life, so it had few surprises for him.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 131, Chapter 2242
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two hundred Forty-Two



    23rd August 1973

    Tempelhof, Berlin

    “I could say that we need to stop meeting this way” Peter said as he entered Kat’s home office. “Some of the things that you have been up to have been disturbing according to those closest to you.”

    “I thought that you were retired” Kat replied, annoyed that someone had called Doctor Holz.

    “You are lucky that I am” Peter said as he seated himself. “If I were active in my field of expertise, I would be legally compelled to report a patient who has met certain conditions, which you have.”

    “Petia, Doug, now you” Kat muttered.

    “And everyone is wrong but you” Peter said almost looking amused. “Some things never change.”

    “I tried to make sure that everyone was out of the house before I dealt with the situation” Kat said angerly, “They refused to listen and made a mess of things.”

    “If your plan had worked out the way you intended, everyone in the world would have seen your house become an abattoir with you at the center of it” Peter said, “Not even you had a chance in that situation.”

    “Perhaps” Kat replied, “But it would have ended the cycle, my children wouldn’t have the curse that is following this family affect another generation.”

    “That is a load of manure.”

    “Is it though?” Kat said, “As we speak the man who sent those men into my house is not holding still. Care to guess what he will do if he gets another chance? Think that the house will be empty when that happens?”

    “I think that you will find a way out of this situation that doesn’t end with your death” Peter replied, “Speaking of that. Where are your children?”

    “Tatiana and Malcolm are off doing things that will advance them professionally” Kat answered, “Marie, Sophie, and Angelica are in a program I have sponsored for the last few years, getting disadvantaged children out of the City for the Summer Holiday. Sending them to live on the shore of a lake in the Spreewald and hopefully far away from the sort of trouble that they would get into on the streets. Sending my own children along with those of friends to be part of the program seemed like the right thing to do.”

    “I see” Peter said, “Well clear of whatever you get up to here.”

    They sat for a long moment in awkward silence.

    “What do you intend to do?” Kat asked, breaking the silence.

    “Me, nothing, provided that you actually do something for once” Peter replied.

    “What am I supposed to do?” Kat said a bit exasperated. Everyone was telling her to do something without elaborating exactly what they wanted.

    “Take a holiday in Switzerland” Peter replied, “Join the bored well-to-do housewives at one of the private clinics, except unlike them, take full advantage of the services offered as opposed to several weeks of drugged out bliss and extramarital affairs. That is far better than the alternative which ends with you being involuntarily committed here in Berlin and no one will think anything of it.”

    “You seem to have thought this through” Kat said aware that this wasn’t an idle threat this time. Apparently, she had frightened Petia and Douglas with her recent behavior. There were also many who would delight in seeing her locked away, regardless of how it happened. Her spies in Franz Josef Strauss’ office said that the Head of Society of Silence was leaning hard on him to do exactly that now that brute force had failed. She had sent a message back to him with Tom, the sole survivor the attempt on Kat’s life, telling him that killing her would bring the wrath of the House of Hohenzollern. Even if he had successful, he wouldn’t have enjoyed it for long and just who had told him that she had her father’s lost fortune? She knew that the head of any criminal enterprise feared being made to look the part of a rube and had played on exactly that fear. It was looking like Strauss would be reaping the whirlwind because she had suggested that the Head of the GS had been played. Kat couldn’t think of anyone more deserving. When those two moved against each other it would be the sort of thing that spilled out of the shadows and into the streets. Perhaps getting out Berlin for a few months might be a good idea.

    “Those who care about you do talk to each other” Peter said.

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



    Arkhangelsk, Russia

    On a whim, Kiki had redirected the SMS Epione up a different canal, to the White Sea. The whole idea of having the Epione was to explore the inland waterways and see exactly where they might take her. Oddly, it had been the Patriarch of Moscow who had given her the idea as he had been blessing the Epione. He had mentioned her continuing mission to bring healing and reconciliation to the corners of the globe.

    It seemed like a wonderful idea, just the waters that the Epione could ply were somewhat limited. That had gotten Kiki to thinking about just where the Epione could go. Looking at the charts had revealed that there was a canal that led to a series of lakes and rivers to the White Sea and the City of Archangel which was just south of the Artic Circle. It seemed like an amazing trip to make.

    Her arrival in Archangel was not what Kiki was expecting at all. She had been expecting it to be low key, like then she had been in Amsterdam or Prague. Instead, she had the City Mayor and the Local Council on the waterfront to greet her and they were treating it like it was a huge deal.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 131, Chapter 2243
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Three



    27th August 1973

    Lake Onega, Russia

    They were down to the last of the videotape and Kiki was still doing interesting things. It was an odd complaint to hear from Yuri as Zella was trying to concentrate on her book. The rain this afternoon had kept them inside the saloon as they had crossed a lake that felt more like a small sea. The book, one of hundreds that Kiki had on board. It was a convoluted and dense read, reflecting the country that it was set in as Zella had discovered on this trip. It felt as if they were living within the pages of such a novel after they had been informed by radio that their passengers were waiting for them in Saint Petersburg.

    The book was centered around a family trying to survive in Russia and Europe during the Second World War on both sides of the conflict and the decade or so that followed but featured multiple viewpoints from characters scattered from Paris to the Russian Far East. Some of the things Zella had a hard time wrapping her head around. Like how a young woman, an orphaned daughter of a dissident poet, could be living in Moscow under the protection of her Uncle, an NKVD Officer, at the beginning of the book other than as a plot contrivance to have the protector become the protected. Kiki told her that it made more sense if she had read the prior novel first because it would give her a great deal of context about who everyone was. It seemed that this book was published posthumously as a sequel of a book that was equally sprawling. Of course, Kiki didn’t have a copy of the first book aboard the barge, much to Zella’s complete annoyance.

    Looking out the window at the distant lakeshore, Zella wished that the Epione was a speedboat, and they could get to Saint Petersburg already. It seemed like this entire country was forested and flat where it wasn’t a lake or river. It was rather monotonous, which made Kiki’s choice to divert them to Archangel odd from Zella’s perspective.

    The passengers that they would be taking on board there were Vasily Dzhugashvili and Svetlana Alliluyeva, which was a bit of a surprise considering who they were and that the Epione was one of the slowest means of travel available. Kiki said that it was in keeping with the mission of the Epione, that they had an older brother who lived in Munich, and she felt obligated to help facilitate that reunion. Still, their father had been the monster under the bed for Kiki when she had been growing up and while Zella could understand Kiki helping Svetlana, who had ironically become a dear friend of Kiki’s cousin Gia, Vasily was a different story.

    Vasily Dzhugashvili had the dubious distinction of being the last General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Of course, that had been because Vasily had been in his apartment on a drunken bender while everyone with greater seniority had either killed each other or fled Moscow. When he had finally sobered up enough to figure out what had happened, he had discovered that he was leading a nation on the brink of defeat. Basically, all he had been able to do was surrender the City of Moscow to Field Marshal von Wolvogle, marking the conclusion of the Soviet War. He seemed like the sort of person who Kiki avoided if she could help it.

    For Zella, it was enough for her to get on the radio and try to get ARD to send additional supplies to them because that was going to be quite a story and her employers would be unhappy if she didn’t get film of it. Considering that it was an odd sort of game of telephone that they were playing, Zella had no idea if it would work. She was kicking herself for not taking up Kiki’s offer to have her motorcycle or car on the boat, because that had certainly been a possibility. The idea that Zella’s car could be lifted onto the roof behind the pilot house by a crane, as if it were parked there had been an interesting idea. She had remembered that the roads outside the major cities were a bit dodgy though and had decided that it would be an invitation to get stuck somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. Now, it seemed like it would have been nice to have had the option though Zella didn’t have the first clue as to where she might have found Sony video cassettes in Russia.

    It was one small disappointment on what had been a successful effort. The other one was that there had not been time for them to look too deeply into Yuri’s background. It seemed that the place his mother had come from was quite obscure and she had not been helpful before they had left Berlin. Whatever had happened three decades earlier still caused that much anger. So, that was going to have to wait for another time. One odd aspect of this trip though was that it had swiftly become clear to Yuri that as far as the Russians were concerned, he was German. That was totally contrary to how he knew he was seen in Germany, and it was probably the millionth example of how Yuri was a square peg in a world full of round holes.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 131, Chapter 2244
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Four



    31st August 1973

    Tempelhof, Berlin

    “Your mother needed a holiday herself after what has been a difficult summer” Marie Alexandra heard her father say as they carried their bags from the microbus into the house. “She is at a spa in Switzerland and doesn’t want to be bothered.”

    He had not elaborated further and had pointedly refused to answer any questions that Marie had. Sophie and Angelica had just shrugged in response. The two of them were a bit more inured to the unexpected if she had to guess.

    Angelica was excited about starting at a new school, it was simple enough for her. Sophie though, she angered Marie when she decided that then was the perfect time to ask Poppa if she could attend a Bicycle Repair Course at the nearby Folk School that was on the Humboldt Campus. It was an adult class, and they all knew full well that the odds were rather high that Momma would have said no, Poppa was a different story. The opportunistic nature of Sophie’s question was galling. That made what Marie said next extremely easy.

    “Did Sophie tell you about her boyfriend?” Marie asked with a smirk and Sophie gave Marie a dirty look.

    “Really?” Poppa asked in reply.

    “Sepp is a boy, but I would hardly call him a friend” Sophie said, “I hardly know him.”

    “She was out by the hedge talking to him all the time over the holiday” Angelica interjected in that odd sing-song way she said things. While Angelica could be absolutely infuriating when she did that, it was sort of fun to watch her happen to someone else.

    “What else should I know this Sepp?” Poppa asked, clearly amused.

    Sophie’s face turned beet red as she tried to find an answer.

    “I… I said I hardly know him” Sophie blurted out, “He didn’t tell me much about himself.”

    “Did you ask?” Poppa asked.

    “I tried” Sophie replied, “But he always just changed the subject.”

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

    Sepp’s father had told him that when the neighborhood had been being constructed on the land that the old Tempelhof Airport had been located on, he had gotten the small plot of land on the southern end of the project for a steal, and he had built a house on it. It was just a question of minding that the several extremely active railroad and S-Bahn lines passed within a few meters of the back fence and A100 was just beyond. As a child, Sepp had enjoyed watching the trains and lorries as they had sped by. That was before he had realized that there was a reason why his father’s house along with the others on the block were all rundown even though the neighborhood was less than two decades old. Anyone who lived here didn’t really care about appearances, if they could afford to move anywhere else, they did. The particulates that hung in the air and coated everything in crud certainly didn’t help matters. However, it did mean that Sepp didn’t have to walk far when he had gotten off the S-Bahn train that had taken him from the Central Station.

    Sepp’s father was a Carpenter, in theory, when he was employed. Most of the time he worked whatever job he could get but was hampered by having a terrible reputation. Usually, the odd jobs his father could get were with low pay and there was always the specter of his father blowing through his weekly pay packet before he made it home. Sepp’s mother worked, but the subject of money had been a source of contention between his parents.

    The television of blaring when Sepp opened the front door. The smell of something burning hung in the air as he walked back to the room that he shared with his brothers without being noticed. Dropping his duffel bag onto his bed, he steeled himself for what was ahead as he walked to the kitchen. His mother was going through the monthly bills on the kitchen table, Sepp was uncomfortably aware of how many red and yellow envelops there were. She looked at least a decade older than her actual age, something that Sepp had grown increasingly aware of lately.

    “Good, you’re back” Sepp’s mother said as soon as she saw him. “Didi was using the toaster again. Please, keep an eye on him.”

    Sepp tried not to groan when he heard that. His youngest brother Dieter, who everyone called Didi, was a seven-year-old terror who liked to put slices of bread into the toaster with jam already spread on. It was a wonder that he had not managed to burn down the house or destroy the toaster by doing that. Didi gave him a look, that basically was a dare for Sepp to try and stop him from doing anything. Hagen, the middle brother was nowhere to be seen, but Sepp had the knowledge from a lifetime’s experience that with was not cause for comfort. Hagen’s behavior had always been such that Sepp didn’t dare turn his back to him. It didn’t matter that Sepp was three years older than Hagen. Hagen had always been pure evil, something that his parents had never done anything about.

    “Is that Sepp?” Sepp’s father bellowed from the parlor.

    “Yeah!” Sepp’s mother yelled back.

    What followed was like a car wreck. You wanted to look away, but with sickening inevitability, you had to watch as the collision occurred. Sepp’s father, walked into the kitchen wearing a stained undershirt that might have once been white and trousers that badly needed washing. It suggested that Sepp’s father was digging ditches again. His father usually was surly when he was just home from work. Today was different though.

    “Our boy has been a hit with the girls” Sepp’s father said with a grin, “Like a chip off the ol’ block.”

    Sepp knew better than to disagree with his father. It was so rare that his father was happy with him. It was then that he became aware that he could smell the alcohol on his father’s breath and the death glare that his mother was giving his father.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 131, Chapter 2245
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Five



    3rd September 1973

    Lenk im Simmental, Switzerland

    It was a spa town and the private clinic advertised itself for its complete discretion. Even so, pains had been made to keep Kat’s presence and identity secret even from the clinic staff. Because she was here on a voluntary basis Kat could leave at any time. She was aware that she would pay a very high personal price if she left early though.

    “My children are preparing for a new academic year at this very moment” Kat said, “And I am here doing nothing.”

    “My understanding is that your children are mostly older, as in teenagers or in their twenties” Doctor Cremonesi replied, “Not much point in getting too excited Frau Müller.”

    That was a reminder that Kat was here as Mia Müller, an anonymous housewife from Berlin who was here for nervous exhaustion and suicidal ideation. It was because of that last part that anything that could possibly be used as a weapon or to harm herself had been taken away from her when she had arrived. Peter Holz had not told Doctor Cremonesi who she was or what she was capable of. Otherwise, the Swiss Doctor might have handled things differently.

    “Angelica isn’t” Kat replied.

    “Your youngest foster daughter?” Cremonesi asked, “She is what? Eleven?”

    “Yes” Kat said, “And starting at a new school.”

    Cremonesi spent a minute scribbling on his notepad before asking, “You think that is important?”

    “I made promises to her father, that I would give her the sort of stable home that she lacked before.”

    “That bothers you?”

    “It should.”

    “Wouldn’t you have broken those promises” Cremonesi asked, “If your plan had worked as intended.”

    “I don’t know what exactly Doctor Holz told you, but it wasn’t a plan the way you think it was” Kat replied, “It is a game that requires sacrifices, the kind I am tired of making.”

    That caused Cremonesi to scribble some more. In that moment Kat wanted more than anything to knock the notepad out of his hands but thought better of it.

    “We’ll get back to what you call a game later” Cremonesi said, “I am curious about your children, I understand that you have three of your own as well as three who you have fostered? You mentioned them yesterday. That you think your oldest biological daughter is making the same mistakes you are.”

    The first few days here Kat had not left her room, hardly noticing that there was always someone around to keep a close eye on her. They had spoken to her about mostly inane things, but she had inadvertently revealed more than she had thought she had. Something that she probably knew better than anyone was that among the best methods of interrogation was just listening. Most people wanted to tell their stories and Kat was no better than anyone else in that regard.

    “I had a great deal of experience with those who Tatiana has fallen in with, before and during the war” Kat replied, “They have no value of Tatiana as an individual, most certainly not as my daughter. They see her as a potential asset, nothing more.”

    Cremonesi didn’t start writing in his notepad that time. He didn’t ask just who Tatiana might have fallen in with either. That suggested that none of that was new information to him. Kat had no idea what the name of the equivalent of the BND was in Switzerland but wouldn’t be shocked if Cremonesi was connected. Or was she being paranoid? It was the reason why she had hated Schultz and continued to dislike his successors. There was no way of knowing what was real when you had dealings with them.

    “You also said you have no worries about your son” Cremonesi said, “While your youngest biological daughter seems reluctant to grow up, and…”

    “Is this leading somewhere?” Kat asked.

    “I notice that your children are growing older and don’t need you as much” Cremonesi said, “Do you think that your present problems might be the result of no longer being consumed with the pressures of your family?”

    “I also have a career” Kat replied, practically daring him to say something stupid.

    “That is a hypothesis” Cremonesi said, “I take it that you were an Auxiliary during the Soviet War.”

    “I was in the Fallschirmjäger” Kat replied, “And I wasn’t an Auxiliary.”

    Cremonesi gave her a look and Kat knew that once again she had said more than she wanted. There were very few women who had had been active combatants in the Soviet War on the Allied side. If Cremonesi didn’t know who she was, it would only take about five minutes in a library to look that up. And that was if he didn’t find her biography.

    “You mentioned you were treated for Traumatic Stress back the 40’s” Cremonesi said flipping through his notes, “Psychedelic therapy, which was experimental at the time. Do you remember how effective it was?”

    “It helped me process a few things” Kat replied, “My problems didn’t go away though.”

    “I don’t imagine they would” Cremonesi said as he started scribbling again. “These things are a process.”

    “Do you say that to all your patients” Kat asked, “You do know the reputation of places like this?”

    “I like to think that my patients get from this place what they put into it, Mia” Cremonesi replied, “If they are just here for a vacation escape or a bit of experimentation in a controlled environment, then that is what they will get. If they actually want help, then we shall do our best.”

    “Nothing is ever that simple” Kat said.

    Cremonesi just gave Kat a bemused look.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 132, Chapter 2246
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Six



    6th September 1973

    Oder River, near Schöneberg

    It seemed like a thousand years had passed since Kiki had been this way. It was the final leg of the journey that had seen the Epione go all the way to Moscow and the White Sea. That had been her intention all along, the adventure. The diplomatic aspect had been a secondary concern. When Nancy Jensen had come aboard in Stettin, she had told Kiki that this trip was being considered a wild success. It was something that Kiki found that completely absurd. She had a lot of time to think about that as she watched the lights of the towns on the Oder pass by as she sat in the saloon, her book forgotten. The others were around the table playing a card game or watching the television, which had the Evening News on.

    “Strange that your family has an American minding your public image” Vasily said, interrupting her thoughts. She had agreed to take Svetlana and Vasily aboard in Saint Petersburg, part of the olive branch that was being extended in an effort to try and repair some of the lingering animosity after the Soviet War decades earlier. Having two of the children of one of the worst despots in history as her guests was a part of that.

    “Nancy is extremely good at what she does” Kiki replied, “And there are times when she can be objective where few others would be. Like telling my brother that he is full of shit.”

    That caused Vasily to raise his eyebrows. Despite the reforms that had been put in place in Russia, few would dare to tell someone in a leadership position such a thing. Since the end of the Soviet War and the death of his father, when he had been thrust into an unlikely leadership position, Vasily had avoided politics. Instead, totally involving himself in Ice Hockey as a Coach of all things despite having little talent in the sport himself. For the Russian Government that must have seemed like a simple way to have him do something harmless out of the public eye. They had not anticipated that the Russian National Side would become dominate in the 60’s earning Olympic Gold in the process. Somehow, Vasily had gotten there from being little more than a mascot a couple of decades earlier.

    “I don’t know if the current Czar has anyone like that” Vasily replied.

    “That would be a problem” Kiki said, “As a Physician, I find that people being too scared to tell you the truth causes a lot of problems.”

    “You really are a Physician, that isn’t just for public consumption, is it?” Vasily asked.

    “I work every day in a Teaching Hospital’s Emergency Department” Kiki replied, “People are often surprised when they see that I am the one treating them and the surgical suite aboard this boat isn’t just for show.”

    Vasily sat for a long moment in silence, clearly thinking about something troubling.

    “I guess that much of what was said about you and your family was incorrect” He finally said, “During the war that is.”

    Kiki was aware of how she along with her brothers were demonized by Soviet propaganda. Labeled as Romanov adjacent parasites who would suck blood from the people of Germany their entire lives unless they were stopped. The way that they had lived their lives in the years since had proven it to be completely wrong. They had grown up to be a Lawyer, a Soldier, an Emergency Physician, a Sailor, an Activist, and a soon to be Phycologist. Though Nella and Nan were still students, they were shaping up to be far more than that.

    “The funny part is that I knew that I wanted to be a Doctor or a Nurse from the moment I was given a picture book as a small child about the workings of a hospital” Kiki said, “The war was still going at that point.”

    “I see” Vasily replied, “It must have been nice to have that sort of certainty. I was ignored and shuffled from school to school, with no real expectations when I was a child.”

    “That sounds bleak” Kiki said.

    “Being my father’s son was hardly a picnic” Vasily said, “I likely would have drunk myself into an early grave if your Hellcats hadn’t grabbed my father and he had remained in charge. I was well on my way there at the time. Then he was hung, and I was free of him.”

    That was something that Kiki had not expected. She had always assumed that Vasily had lived a privileged existence and echoed his father’s beliefs to a degree. How else could he have he inadvertently ended up in charge of the Soviet State? However briefly that had been.

    “You aren’t still drinking, are you?” Kiki asked, wondering if she needed to be testing his liver function. He was on her boat and that made him her responsibility.

    “I haven’t had a drink in almost thirty years” Vasily said, “On the day that I surrendered Moscow, I was sitting there hung over and feeling like shit when I had Field Marshal von Wolvogle look me in the eye and say that I no longer had anything to prove to anyone, having made an impossible choice in a shitty situation. Then he ordered me not to have another drink.”

    “And that stuck?” Kiki asked in disbelief.

    “I wouldn’t believe it either” Vasily said, “But that is sort of what happened.”

    Kiki had heard stories about how reality tended to warp around the old General and found them increasingly farcical. Many of the stories had built Manfred von Wolvogle up to being almost super-human with retelling. The truth was that Vasily had probably wanted an excuse to quit and was provided a great story.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 132, Chapter 2247
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Seven



    7th September 1973

    Lenk im Simmental, Switzerland

    Things had been going as well as could be expected in a place like this. Then Victoria, Consort of the Crown Prince of Bavaria showed up and that upset the apple cart.

    “I cannot say that I am surprised to see you here, Mia” Vicky said with a little too much glee. Of course, Vicky knew instantly that the name was fake, but was going along with that after Kat had hastily told her the reasons why she was here under an assumed name. As she was reading Kat’s medical file.

    Kat knew that Vicky was studying for a Doctorate of Philosophy at the University of Basel. It was the Alma Mater of Karl Jung, so studying there was a dream come true for her and had been part of her deal with King Albrecht of Bavaria. The other part of that deal was obvious in that Vicky looked like she was about six months pregnant. It was something that she wasn’t letting get in the way of her studies as she toured the private clinics of Switzerland looking for interesting cases for her thesis.

    “It says here that you are on an experimental drug that is used to treat depression” Vicky said, “It is also supposed to alleviate hot flashes, but I suppose that you are past that by now.”

    “I trust you in that I have known you since you were born” Kat said, “But that trust has limits.”

    “I am not making light of your issues, especially with what it says here” Vicky said ignoring Kat’s implied threat. “Did you really try to harm yourself?”

    “I didn’t stop men who were looking to do me harm” Kat replied, “There is a difference, even if no one seems to see that the same way I do.”

    Vicky gave Kat a look. “Look Mia, I know better than anyone just how you can be a stubborn, uncompromising bitch” She said, “That is a big part of being who you are. It is key to the influence that you have had on me and Kiki. Not so much Rea, I’m not sure what to make of her.”

    “What is Rea doing these days?” Kat asked in reply. Vicky delighted in playing the role of Princess Consort. She and Crown Prince Franz of Bavaria were often seen in public with their four-year-old son Max. From the outside they looked like the perfect family, but both Vicky and Franz hid the fact that they were little more than dear friends in a mutual lavender marriage, their personal affections laying elsewhere.

    “Getting the University of Krakow International recognition was her main project over the last few years” Vicky said, “I can understand that, but her personal life is going to cause a scandal. She seems to have gotten involved with the son of this this Danish madman, the whole thing makes a mockery of who we are.”

    “You forget that I was the one who chased off Lars Vangsgaard the last few times he visited Berlin” Kat said, “Knowing how unconventional she is, do you really think that would be attracted to just anyone who isn’t as strange as she can be?”

    “Still” Vicky said, “That is nutty even for Rea.”

    It had always been the same. Rea had always been wild and unconventional while Vicky was more conservative and reserved. It was part of the yen and yang that had defined their existence since they had been infants. When they had been children, they had been an unbeatable team, but they had been wrenched apart by circumstances when they had been teenagers. The rift that had resulted between them had never fully healed. Even so, as they had approached adulthood, Rea had cut her hair and had started wearing mannish clothes. That had drawn all suspicion away from Vicky with everyone assuming that it was Rea who was a lesbian. Kat suspected that Vicky was worried that Rea revealing that she had been straight all along would result in renewed focus on her. It was part and parcel with a complaint that Vicky had had when they were teenagers. That if Rea stepped into a rainstorm, it was almost always Vicky who got soaked.

    “Your sister will do what is right for her” Kat replied, “I think we can be confident of that.”

    Vicky frowned. Over her childhood she had lived in a world of absolutes. The wicked got their just deserts and the good were rewarded. Adolescence had thrown her for a loop, especially when she had realized that she was attracted to the likes of Asia Lawniczak, one of Kat’s protégées and the present Mistress of the Keys, who had quite a reputation around the Imperial Court after her son Heinrich had been legitimized by Royal Decree so that the House of Hesse would not go extinct. Vicky’s attraction had been something that Asia had found both alarming and flattering, but that was nothing compared to how Vicky had taken it. That wasn’t a part of where Vicky had imagined her life going until she had been forced to deal with it. Rea threatening to out her in a fit of pique had been a part of that. That had resulted in a physical altercation between Rea and Kiki, with Kiki hampered by the fact that she had not actually wanted to hurt her sister.

    “Enough about that” Kat said, “Tell me about this one.”

    Kat gestured towards Vicky’s expanded belly.

    “The scans say that she is healthy” Vicky said, it was obviously a much happier subject. “Unlike the last time.”

    Kat remembered that Vicky’s last baby had died just minutes after being born having not developed properly. It had been a terrible thing for her to have gone though.

    “So, you already know that it is going to be a little girl?” Kat asked.

    “That is what the technician who conducted the scan said” Vicky replied, “Please, don’t tell anyone else, it is just supposed to be me and Franz who know.”

    Which probably meant that Anna, Vicky’s actual partner, and King Albrecht already knew.

    “You know that I can keep secrets” Kat replied.
     
    Part 132, Chapter 2248
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Eight



    8th September 1973

    North Sea,

    The SMS K24 “Grindwal” was headed North at flank speed, seven smaller boats, six S-Boats and a newer Gunboat, following. While few craft could keep up with the fast boats in calm seas, they lacked the seakeeping ability of the Corvette. So, in these seas they struggled to keep pace with the Grindwal.

    Standing on the bridge, Louis Ferdinand Junior stood peering into the squall and the gathering gloom, his binoculars hanging useless around his neck as rain splattered against the windscreen. Every few minutes, the Radar Operator called out the course and bearing of the contact that they were trying to reach as the Helmsman fought to keep the Grindwal on course.

    As the Grindwal crested a swell, Louis heard the sound of the propellers racing as they were clear of the water for a heartbeat. Seconds later, the Corvette dropped into a trough and for a few seconds wallowed sickeningly before she started climbing the next wave. They were heading at the best possible speed towards a Ferry that plied the waters of the North Sea, delivering cargo, passengers, and their cars to various points on the North Sea and the Baltic.

    It was an orange glow on the horizon first, a worrying sign for Louis. It reminded him of the last time he had sped to the rescue on the Windhund, it had been too late and the fishing boat that had called for help had already gone under. He was hoping for a different outcome this time.

    “For you, Sir” The Ship’s Steward said. Louis had been so absorbed with what was going on elsewhere he had not noticed the man’s approach. He was carrying a tray, meaning that he had just come from the galley. “Compliments of the Cook.”

    It was expected that the Ship’s Captain would remain on the bridge for the duration of a crisis. That meant that it fell on the crew members of the Crew whose job it was to see to it that he didn’t fall over in the meantime. That included trying to get him to eat something.

    “Tell the Cook that he has my gratitude” Louis replied as the tray was sat down within his reach. With that the Steward scuttled off on some other errand. From the looks of it, it was the stew that the Cook made with whatever he had on hand served with coffee. Louis could tell from the smell that he must have gone heavy with the kimchee, which had been popular with the Navy since the Sino-Korean War. That was to hide the taste of the potted meat that wasn’t as well regarded. Louis didn’t care as he ate his meal while hardly taking the time to taste it. Still, it was a hot meal, rather welcome at the moment.

    “Sound General Quarters” Louis ordered as the Corvette drew closer to the Ferry, “And tell the men to form damage control parties, volunteers only.”

    He doubted that anyone aboard the Grindwal was asleep, but sounding General Quarters let them know that he, along with them, meant business. He also knew that no one among the crew was a shirker by now. When word got around that that he had said that he only wanted volunteers, he figured that few would decline to do so. They would sooner cut off their left arm than be called a coward, it was stain that never washed out.

    As the Corvette drew closer, Louis could read the words Rose of Inverness painted on the bow. What he saw aboard the stricken Ferry instantly reminded Louis of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. The aft quarter was completely engulfed in fire and dozens of passengers were huddled in the bow section in whatever shelter they could find. There was an effort underway to launch the lifeboats, but the sea and weather conspired to make that difficult.

    “Radio the other boats and tell them to prepare to aid in evacuating the civilians” Louis said as he prepared a message for Wilhelmshaven. He requested all available assistance to be sent. Additionally, he ordered the Ship’s Radio Operator to broadcast the same message in the clear. That was a massive breach of protocol in that it gave the location of the Grindwal and her small flotilla, but he felt that it was the correct thing to do. That choice was vindicated minutes later when the MF Stord out of Norway responded, saying that they would be on the scene in a couple hours.

    Louis watched as his men tied the Grindwal to the Rose, more than he had asked of them. There were a lot of risks in what they were doing, but he would accept no less. Those that didn’t go to fight the fires themselves helped the civilians board the Grindwal. He lost track of how long it had been until a white ship appeared alongside and he saw that it was the Stord.

    “On the radio, for you, Sir” One of the men on the bridge said handing Louis the headset. He immediately heard Borchardt’s voice over the radio. The Oberdeckoffizer was yelling at the men, presumably aboard the Ferry before Borchardt turned his attention back to the radio.

    “We got a situation over here Captain” Borchardt said, “And only you can untangle it.”

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

    “We got the fire out” Borchardt said as they climbed the stairs to the bridge of the Rose, “But she is taking on water faster than the pumps can keep up with and we are too far from the shore to beach her.”

    Louis understood that meant that this was going to be an expensive day for the line that owned the Rose of Inverness. He had seen the whole of the situation as he had passed from the bridge of the Grindwal to the Rose. There had been civilians crammed into every available space. The arrival of the Stord had enabled them to evacuate the rest of the passengers and the crew of the Rose. The Captain of the Rose was proving a bit difficult though. He didn’t want to leave his ship. Louis understood, he wouldn’t want to leave the Grindwal if the situation was reversed.

    “Good morning” Louis said when he saw Captain McPherson looking out the window at the ships and boats that had responded to his distress call.

    “Your men already tried to talk me into leaving” McPherson said.

    “Then Borchardt told you that we cannot save your ship” Louis replied, “The passengers and your men are safe, you’ve completed your duty. So, its time, Sir.”

    “For what?” McPherson asked.

    “To let her go” Louis replied, and he saw the heartbreak on McPherson’s face.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 132, Chapter 2249
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Forty-Nine



    10th September 1973

    Tempelhof, Berlin

    They were walking as a group, enjoying a beautiful early autumn afternoon. Looking out for Angelica as she started at the same school was what was expected of Sophie. She had been hearing about that for months, but unexpectedly found herself doing that for Gretchen Schultz as well.

    It seemed that there was an explosion of sorts that had happened in the Schultz household. Though Gretchen had been vague about exactly what had happened. Just before the ceremony where her father was ennobled by Opa von Richthofen, Gretchen’s brother found out that she had no real reason to attend the Wahlstatt Institution and that her entire reason for being there was to avoid Anna, her older sister. The shocking part was that Sabastian had gone to the wall in order to see to it that his youngest sister didn’t have to make the sort of compromises that Wahlstatt forced its students to make. Gretchen said that for years she had thought of her brother as being extremely affable, but not particularly bright. Him going toe to toe with their father and explaining exactly why he felt that Wahlstatt was no place for her, and not just because she was a girl, was rather unexpected.

    It seemed that Gretchen’s parents had been looking to make different arrangements for her anyway but were happy that Sabastian had stood up for her. Like always, Anna didn’t fail to be a disappointment. As her parents were telling Gretchen about their discissions, Anna had pretended that she was retching behind their backs. Gretchen said that she was glad that Mathilda, that strange girl who was often a guest of the Richthofen family, had been driving Anna nuts over the prior academic year and would probably continue to do so in the future.

    That was all well and good, but it was very noticeable that Kat had not been there to see them off to their first day back at school like she had in previous years. Douglas said that even adults need a holiday themselves occasionally, which he had said several times before. Sophie was starting to have her doubts though. If Kat had gone on holiday like he had said, why had he remained in Berlin? She had overheard Petia and Darya talking in Russian, a language that she had picked up enough of by living in Kat’s household to get the gist of the conversation. It sounded like Kat had done something crazy, even by the loose standards that Sophie applied to what had happened around Kat in the past. They mentioned that Kat had in fact gone on a holiday, but to someplace discrete where she could regain her bearings.

    Sophie absolutely hated that idea the instant she heard it.

    There was nothing wrong with Kat. She saw the world how it really was with no illusions and had always told Sophie that she was nothing like the monster that her mother had described her as. That Sophie would do amazing things with her life. If Kat really didn’t have all her cups in the cupboard, then did that mean that what she said to Sophie was a part of that? Needless to say, Sophie didn’t accept that, not for an instant. Whatever was actually going on, Petia had to be mistaken.



    Lenk im Simmental, Switzerland

    Kat knew that privacy was wishful thinking in the clinic, especially when she considered what had landed her here. Still, she had to fight the urge to thump Doctor Cremonesi when he appeared suddenly as she was getting dressed as it were. She had been soaking in the one of the thermal baths that were supposed to be curative, it was what had made this region renowned before winter sports had become a thing over the last few decades. The constant presence of the attendants was getting to be trying though.

    “There is a major story in today’s papers that I thought you might be interested in” Cremonesi said as they walked from the changing room back to the cafeteria in the main building of the clinic.

    “I have been trying to ignore the outside world” Kat replied as she sat down at one of the tables. She couldn’t help but notice a small group of the other women huddled around a table across the room, occasionally they would giggle over something they were looking at. They were exactly as Peter Holz had suggested that they would be. Bored housewives who had come to the clinic for a bit of excitement in a controlled setting. To try the LSD/MDMA cocktail that Kat had done years earlier, or any number of other drugs such as cannabis. There were rumors about sexual experimentation that went on as well. Kat was decidedly not here for any of that. Paying attention for the potentially dangerous side effects of the experimental drug, Fluoxetine, that they had her on was bad enough. The drug would supposedly make her occasional black moods manageable, but Kat was skeptical about that. What wasn’t lost on Kat was that those women were the wives of Government Officials, Intelligencia, and the Captains of industry. The potential for mischief by an intelligence agency was extremely high in a place like this.

    “Still, you mentioned that you are a part of the Imperial Court of Germany” Cremonesi said as he handed her a stack of newspapers. The first was the New York Times, the headlines read Daring Rescue on the High Seas, German Prince in Command and the story that followed was about how Louis Ferdinand Junior had rescued the passengers and crew off a sinking British Ferry on the North Sea. The other papers were the familiar Berliner Tageblatt, Manchester Guardian, and Times of London that all echoed the headlines of the New York Times.

    “It looks like Louis is going to get a lot of medals awarded to him for this” Kat said.

    “You know Prince Louis personally” Cremonesi asked.

    “I was there when he was born” Kat replied, but didn’t elaborate further.
     
    Part 132, Chapter 2250
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Fifty



    16th September 1973

    Flensburg

    Walking from the cottage he lived out into the garden, Peers Sjostedt was troubled as he often was these days. It had been raining the night before, so the air smelled of damp and mold. It was the sort of thing that he associated with autumn, more proof the seasons progressed and would continue to do so. He had encountered people who were so narcissistic that they acted as if all of it would stop when they did, but the truth was there in the seasons. No one was so important that the world would stop spinning on its axis.

    Sjostedt felt like the world was going mad and he was reminded of the cynical take on the line; Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. With the additional line, Those who learn from history get to sit and helplessly watch as others make the same stupid mistakes. This was because he had made the mistake of looking at a newspaper and had seen how all the things that he had worked against his entire life were all still there in full blossom. Saber rattling between powers, crime, poverty, and malice at all levels. In the Reichstag, the Politicians spoke a good game but at the end of the day, no one heard about the Military being denied the money to purchase the latest means of blowing things up. It was hard not to feel that all that had sacrificed over the last several decades had all been for naught. That the start of the Twentieth Century had been in a muddy trench, and it seemed like it was doomed to end there. It was hard not to feel disappointed.

    Being retired gave him a whole lot of time to think about these things as he went about his weekly routine. It being a Sunday, he felt like he needed to be somewhere else. It came from decades spent in the Lutheran Clergy. Frequently, he considered how the world was when Martin Luther had nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the All-Saints Church in Wittenberg, how even as things had changed radically, the world remained the same. Of course, it was easy to see how Martin Luther would probably be horrified and outraged by today’s society for all the wrong reasons. Considering the actual Witch Hunts that he had engaged in it was really no surprise. When Sjostedt compared an opinionated woman who had drawn the ire of her neighbors or the sort of trash that regularly appeared on television with the sheer potential crime that a nuclear bomb represented, it was truly no contest.

    Sitting down on the bench in the garden, Sjostedt felt the ache in his chest that had been there since he had gotten shot in France a lifetime earlier. His Doctor said that the efforts to save his life had done damage to his lungs and it was something that he would have to continue to live with…

    What felt like the crushing weight that suddenly landed on his chest was a bit different though? His left arm went numb, so he was unable to stop himself from falling over as darkness consumed his vision…

    “I expected better from you” An all too familiar voice said, “Becoming embittered in your old age, such a waste of limited time.”

    Sjostedt stood on a seashore not far from his home in Flensburg. The figure he recognized as Coyote, unlike in his past encounter, Coyote was in the guise of a young Diné warrior in the field gray uniform that the Heer wore prior to the Soviet War. Basically, Sjostedt himself from decades earlier.

    “This isn’t your usual place” Sjostedt replied, this should have been the Mesa Desert of the Four Corners region of America.

    “There have been too many Westerns” Coyote replied, “It became a cliché and the Diné being the toughest and smartest managed to colonize Europe with the Europeans being none the wiser. So, this is just as much my place as anywhere.”

    “And it could be argued that you are a devil sent to torment me” Sjostedt said angrily.

    Coyote gave him a yipping laugh.

    “I thought you had a better imagination than that” Coyote said, “Being an old man who sees devils under every rock, talk about clichés.”

    “Regardless” Sjostedt said, “None of this is real, you are a hallucination like before now that I am at the end.”

    “No need to be so dramatic” Coyote said, “And who said that this was the end?”

    “It isn’t obvious to you?” Sjostedt replied, “It is to me.”

    “Fuck that” Coyote said, “You’ve unfinished business at the place where it all began.”

    “Where what began?” Sjostedt asked bewildered.

    “Where do you think?” Coyote said with a laugh, and Sjostedt was slammed back into… well, everything.

    “We were afraid we lost you for a minute there, Pastor Sjostedt” An unfamiliar young man in the red coat of a Field Surgeon said with the sort of fake confident smile you gave someone to put them at ease. Sjostedt had given it to enough people over the years to know what it looked like.

    Sjostedt was laying on the concrete path of his back garden, too weak to move, one of the newfangled plastic IV bags was hanging from the Surgeon’s hand. That had been the means by which a drug had been administered that had brought him back. Sjostedt couldn’t pretend to understand how that worked.

    As he was being loaded onto a stretcher, Sjostedt saw that his housekeeper was standing there looking horrified. She must had been the one who had found him. His mind kept going back to his brief conversation with Coyote. It didn’t matter who the messenger was. Apparently, he unfinished business. But where was the beginning?
     
    Last edited:
    Part 132, Chapter 2251
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Fifty-One



    19th September 1973

    Tempelhof, Berlin

    Of all the insane things that Sjostedt had imagined happening, having the Medical Service sending a helicopter to transport him from Flensburg to Berlin was not high on the list of probabilities. The fact that they had conducted major surgery on him soon after the helicopter had landed on the roof of the University Hospital wasn’t particularly high either. Now, having been cut open and having had his insides rearranged, he was laying in his hospital room with more wires and tubes coming out of him than he had thought possible.

    “It just goes to show how important you are Uncle Piers” Nizhoni had said. She was still living with her husband and daughters in Wunsdorf-Zossen so coming here wasn’t too far of a trip. Nizhoni’s daughters wanted to visit him in the hospital and as even with as much as he cared for his grandnieces, their presence would be daunting. Nizhoni being here was also a reminder that her mother, Sjostedt’s sister Nina, had returned to Flensburg after the death of Walter Horst. It was a painful memory for Sjostedt, Horst had been like a brother to him long before he became his brother-in-law. Walter Horst had died relatively young at the age of sixty and that was after they had lost Augustus Lang a decade earlier. Though they had not set out to do so, the boys who had survived the meat grinder of Verdun had gone on to conquer the world. Getting old and dying one by one had come much later.

    Had that been the beginning where Coyote told him that he had unfinished business? Sjostedt didn’t know and it hardly mattered because he could hardly move. The most rational theory was that it was his own subconscious, which took the form of Coyote, who felt that way. If so, what was he forgetting about Verdun? It seemed impossible because everything about that Hellscape from the smells to the feeling of rats crawling across him in his sleep was blasted into his memory in such a way that he couldn’t forget if he wanted to…

    That was when a woman who seemed impossibly young to be wearing the white lab coat of a Physician, entered the room. That was somewhat offset by her hair having wide curls and pulled back into a messy looking ponytail. She started looking at the chart and the television monitor that showed his heartbeat and blood oxygen. Nizhoni had told him all about it, having apparently questioned the Nurse during the hours that had followed his surgery while they had waited for him to wake up.

    “My best friend and little sister both asked me to look in on you” The woman said, she spoke in an aristocratic manner, which was hardly a surprise and she seemed very familiar to Sjostedt though he had never met her before. “I took the liberty in speaking to Doctor Favaloro and he told me you were an excellent patient. He expects that you will make a full recovery, eventually.”

    All Sjostedt could do was stare at her and wonder it that was a demented joke. Excellent patient? He had just suffered a heart attack and had little choice in the matter. He supposed that he should be thankful to this Doctor Favaloro, but his earlier melancholy had returned.

    “I am of course, Doctor von Preussen” The woman said with a smile.

    Then Sjostedt knew who she was, Princess Kristina. That meant that Marie Cecilie of Galicia-Ruthenia and Marcella, Emil Holz’s daughter must have asked her to look in on him.

    “You can tell your sister… Emil… and this Doctor Favaloro… That they have my heartfelt gratitude” Sjostedt managed to get out.

    “They will be happy to hear that” Kristina said, “I knew that getting my father to convince René to come here from Argentina was a good idea.”

    With that, Kristina left the room and Sjostedt wondered exactly that was all about. Argentina?

    “See” Nizhoni said, “I told you that you were getting the very best of care.”

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

    Ziska insisted that they try something new today and go out for lunch. It was so that they could also go about doing their studies without the distraction of the younger girls. Sophie had tried to suggest that going to Ziska’s house was a viable option, but she had not been interested. Sophie had no doubt that Petia would have a few choice words about her doing this. The Russian woman had made it clear that any food that wasn’t prepared in a proper kitchen, usually meaning her own, wasn’t worth eating.

    “Why are we here?” Sophie asked as they were waiting in line.

    “I’ve wanted to try this place since it opened” Ziska replied.

    It was an American style fast-food restaurant that promised the sandwiches absurdly called hamburgers, and what were referred to as french-fries served with Coca-Cola. The place smelled of hot grease, which didn’t seem particularly appetizing to Sophie. Certainly not worth waiting in line for. Soon enough, they made it to the front of the line and Sophie ordered a burger with cheese and fries, no tomatoes.

    “No tomatoes, but you don’t mind ketchup?” Ziska asked as they carried the plastic trays to an empty table.

    “I’ve always hated the feel of raw tomatoes in my mouth” Sophie replied as they sat down.

    “Whatever works for you” Ziska said before she removed a copy of the book that was their assigned reading from her satchel bag. A boy started collecting trays off of a different table and throwing the paper that the food came wrapped in into a plastic bin. As he turned to face them Sophie saw that he was Sepp Deisler, and a look of recognition crossed his face.

    “I am going to kill you” Sophie said to Ziska who gave her a smirk in reply.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 132, Chapter 2252
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Fifty-Two



    21st September 1973

    Tempelhof, Berlin

    “It will help keep the lights on Josef” Sepp’s mother said, “So thank you, I guess.”

    Was that all? Sepp thought to himself as he walked from the kitchen into the parlor.

    He had gotten the afterschool job at Benno’s Burgers with the understanding that his marks wouldn’t slip at the Realschule he attended. The intention from the start was to help out his family, but it all seemed very anticlimactic when he gave his mother the money. What exactly had he expected to happen? His mother had taken the money in the weary manner in which she had gone about doing everything for the last several years. The only thing that had animated her was when she had told him that regardless of what he did, he was to stay in school. Unless he wanted to live in this neighborhood his whole life, he had to get into the next level of education, the one that was preparatory for getting into University. She had warned him that a job and girls could derail that entire thing, he only needed to look at his father to see where that could land him. There was also the example he was setting for his youngest brother Dieter to consider.

    His mother had not mentioned Hagen. It was a shocking omission for her to have made, but even though he was eleven Sepp assumed that it was inevitable that Hagen would be lost to the streets. He was extremely surprised that his mother apparently thought along the same lines. Never once had Sepp had the impression that his father cared one way or another about him going to school.

    Into this, Sophie and her friend Franziska had shown up at Benno’s for lunch that week. The two of them had eaten and then started working on their studies, that had included topics that Sepp couldn’t have imagined being taught at their level. That was something that Sepp himself already knew on some level, so he didn’t make a big deal of it. It was the presence of Sophie herself that caused the most trouble. After he screwed up enough courage to talk to her, he had stood there, tongue tied, unable to ask more than “How are you doing?” with a sheepish grin. Then Sophie had answered by talking about all sorts of things. Her dog, the bicycle club she had joined so that she could race competitively, her school and that she was struggling in English and that she found it harder than Latin, how Doug, whoever that was, had decided that she was a bit too young to take an adult course of bicycle repair…

    Then Sepp’s boss had told him that he needed to stop flirting with the girls and get back to work or else he would be wearing the Benno the Bear costume out front for the rest of his shift. Considering how hot it was in that thing, no one who worked at Benno’s wanted to wear it, but the owner thought that it helped promote the business. When Sophie and Franziska heard Sepp’s boss say that; they had asked about the mascot costume and like everyone else who didn’t have to wear it, they thought it was funny.

    “Is anything on?” Sepp asked Hagen who was watching television on the couch while their father was snoring in his chair.

    “Still reruns” Didi said, “We’re watching Berlin Emergency though.”

    Sepp looked just as the face of Doctor Noah Bauer appeared on the television. He remembered watching reruns of the long running medical drama with Hagen and Didi over the summer a couple years earlier because the hospital it was supposedly set in was just a few kilometers away. The earliest episodes had Bauer as a Doctor crusading against the hidebound Hospital Administration. These days he was the Director of the Emergency Department, one of the hidebound Administrators and that was a source of a lot of angst. Too bad they were not doing reruns of the story arc that had supposedly been set in Argentina but had been filmed in Lower Saxony and later in Bavaria. Today, the story of the week revolved around a man who had been brought into the Emergency Department who was symptomatic for smallpox and the Hospital’s response was swift and massive.

    “Do you think that the hospital would really react that way?” Hagen asked.

    “I think that it is understated” Sepp replied. He remembered how his grandmother had told him about how when she was a Nurse during the Soviet War, she had seen extreme measures that had been taken to contain certain diseases and smallpox had been one of them. Entire towns and villages burnt to the ground and the inhabitants forcibly quarantined.

    “Oh” Hagen said before sitting quietly.

    That was typical of Hagen. For as long as Sepp could remember, everything was a battle with him. Didi was the opposite though, the hopeless optimist of the sort who risked burning down the house because something should have worked though it hadn’t the prior times he had tried.

    “The Doctors will save the day though” Didi said cheerfully, “They always do.”

    Sepp wished that real life worked the way it was depicted on television. With every problem wrapped up neatly by the end of the hour. The truth was that real life was far messier. Where simple things like talking to a girl he liked proved very difficult.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 132, Chapter 2253
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Fifty-Three



    1st October 1973

    Mitte, Berlin

    Franz Josef Strauss was worried. The fullness of his mistakes was growing more evident by the hour and that had led him to present situation in a hotel room near the center of Berlin. The building was as secure as could be arranged and the room itself was heavily guarded. For all the good that ultimately did him when the door swung open.

    Strauss remembered a Science Fiction film he had watched a few months earlier that depicted a man living within a black steel suit whose function was essentially a mobile iron lung. His voice was a low rasp between gasping breaths. The entire presentation had been disconcerting. That had nothing on Birsha Bleier, if that was his real name, who entered Strauss’ hotel room in dead silence. It felt as if his presence was a hole in the fabric of reality.

    “My guards had orders not to let you in here” Strauss said, projecting far more confidence than he actually felt.

    “Your guards?” Bleier asked, his words seemed hang in the air like an oily pall. “I am afraid you will need to find new ones. A small price for you to pay after thirty of my best people vanished in August.”

    Strauss didn’t like the implications of that. This time there would be questions asked, it couldn’t be helped, and he knew there wasn’t a chance in Hell that Bleier would lift a finger to help him. This was entirely a show of strength, for Bleier to show that he was above any Law that Strauss might try to impose on him. Bleier had murdered his way to the top of Berlin’s underground and had proven far smarter than Strauss had thought.

    “There is no way that you can blame me for that” Strauss said, “How was I supposed to know that it was bad information?”

    Bleier gave him a cold smile. “Because that is your job, Franz” He replied, and Strauss wondered how on Earth he had thought that Birsha Bleier was the lesser evil when compared to Katherine von Mischner. Bleier had never elaborated as to why it had been in his interest to eliminate the Tigress, now it was an open question as to if that had really been the goal. Strauss had had a suspicion that many of the people killed in the attempted raid on Katherine’s house had been those he had deemed potential rivals, slated for elimination one way or another. Pawns to be sacrificed before they became a danger to him?

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

    Their efforts had grown increasingly frantic as the hours ticked down ahead of tomorrow’s broadcast. Normally Zella’s approach of using a small team, often just herself and Yuri, enabled her to quickly, and cheaply, put a story together. This time was different though. They had a massive story of international importance with hundreds of hours of video that needed to be reviewed and edited into something useable. The Board of Directors at ARD had sensed that it would be a story that would define the Network for years to come and had promoted it, giving Zella a hard deadline. Come Hell or high water, the story was going to be broadcast on Sunday, the 2nd of October in a two-hour special and not just on the ARD affiliates.

    Central Radio Television Radio, ZFF, and the Bavarian Broadcasting Service, BR, ARD’s two major rivals in public broadcasting had decided to air the special on their networks simultaneously. While it was no surprise that ZFF, the network that specialized in Financial and Business coverage, out of Frankfurt had expressed interest. That network was mostly interested in the eyeballs that the special would bring on a night when their normal viewership’s interests were elsewhere. BR out of Munich was different though. Zella had been persona non grata on that network since she had parodied their habit of signing out of every night’s programing with a video of King Albrecht on a horse imitating Napoleon Bonaparte. Even before that, the BR had not been shy about how the existence of Zella herself wasn’t in keeping with the values of their network.

    So, Zella found herself heading a team that was trying to put together the documentary as the pressure increased. It would feature Kiki’s trip to Russia. How Kiki had facilitated Vasily Jughashvili and Svetlana Alliluyeva’s travel west and then their reunion with Yakov Svanidze, the older half-brother who had lived in exile in Germany for the last thirty years. Things were finally starting to come together when Zella received a call from the bigwigs at ARD. They had secured a deal with the two big private television networks out of Berlin, Universelles, the television division of UFA and their chief rival, Metropolis-Rundfunk. That meant that Zella’s special could easily become the most watched program since the Moon Landing several years earlier. That put things beyond merely being under the pressure of a hard deadline, they were coal being ground between tectonic plates and Zella had better be able to produce diamonds.

    Typing frantically, Zella was incorporating the final revisions of script of the voiceover that she would be recording in the coming hours. Yuri walked past with a smile on his face. Like everyone else, he had faith that Zella would stick the landing on this one when the truth was that she felt that she was about to land flat on her face.
     
    Last edited:
    Part 132, Chapter 2254
  • Chapter Two Thousand Two Hundred Fifty-Four



    5th October 1973

    Wilhelmshaven

    The Grindwal was putting to sea again, not for a patrol. It seemed that the Foreign Service had talked the Naval High Command into lending the ship to their diplomatic efforts. This was all because of the successful effort to save the passengers and crew of the Rose of Inverness. Louis Ferdinand Junior had even gone so far as to write a letter to the Board of Inquiry that was investigating the matter regarding his own observations and lauding the conduct of Captain Samuel McPherson, how he had been the last man off the Rose before she sank. The truth was that Louis had given the Scottish Captain little choice, he would have either left of his own accord or be dragged off his sinking ship. Letting McPherson keep his dignity, even look heroic, was the least that Louis could do.

    There had been people from a dozen different countries aboard the Rose of Inverness and the Governments of their respective countries had made a big show of rewarding the crew of SMS K24 “Grindwal” mostly in the form of letters of Commendation which Louis had made a point of having matted and framed, then hung on the bulkheads in the Enlisted Mess. In their own country, the Naval High Command in Kiel had sent a dispatch to the Reichstag in which detailed the heroic actions of His Majesty’s Ship, 1970 Class Corvette, Pennant Number K024, henceforth known as SMS K24 Grindwal. While every member of the crew had received the Federal Merit Cross in Silver for that, it was the Fleet’s official acknowledgement of the Grindwal’s name that had meant more. It had happened in an extraordinarily short period of time, and they had done it in peacetime. The ship’s Officers had all received Life Saving Medals. Kiki had enjoyed a good laugh over that last part. It was a medal that she had been awarded years earlier and she said that it was a good thing that he was finally catching up.

    The British though, they were not content to just let it go with that. They suddenly remembered that Louis was the great, great grandson of Queen Victoria of England, his younger sister having that same name as a part of family tradition. There was apparently, some debate as to what exactly was going to happen next. Just that the Grindwal had been commandeered by the Foreign Service and it was looking like she was going to be bound for London, much to Louis’ personal discomfort.



    Lány Castle, Bohemia

    “I think that they are interesting, Mister Elam” Birdie said, “They have a whole lot of character unlike the dairy cows I have seen.”

    By now Birdie was used to her husband’s eccentricities. That included a large number of guests; athletes, Hollywood actors, and a wide range of others who Michael had befriended in his travels. There were also things that were a part of his varied interests. That included a small herd of half-wild Heck Cattle that Michael had acquired. This was as a direct result of his support of the efforts of the Heck brothers to back breed domestic Cattle to the extinct Aurochs. Elam was just looking at the cow through the fence that was giving him an evil glare right back.

    “If you say so Ma’am” Elam replied, “It seems to me that these fellas are a whole lot of trouble just waiting to happen.”

    Jack Elam, an actor known for playing in Cowboy movies. In that genre he had discovered that his less than handsome face and lazy left eye were actually advantages when he was cast as either the villain or the town drunk. While he was in Europe on vacation, he and his wife had come to Bohemia on Michael’s invitation. The night before the conversation had turned to the Heck Cattle mostly because that was what had been for lunch the day before, how they were larger and more aggressive than regular cattle. Elam had wanted to see them himself.

    “Waiting?” Michael asked, “We have found that keeping them contained is the most difficult part of having them. So, waiting is not exactly a factor.”

    Elam gave them a disbelieving look. It was the sort of thing happened often when people were asking about Michael’s projects. This was usually followed by questions abut why the Bohemian Landtag was willing to humor his ideas. As Birdie had discovered, there was a method to Michael’s madness. He had gone to great lengths to protect Bohemian Industry and make Prague a center for the Arts. When it came to film and television production in the German Empire, Bohemia was second only to Berlin-Brandenburg. That wasn’t even including the Czech language program, which had shocked everyone with its growth. Who knew that historical dramas set in Medieval Bohemia would interest people throughout Eastern Europe? That was where the Heck Cattle had come into the picture. They had needed them for a production set in the Twelfth-Century and after it had wrapped, Michael had agreed to take them from a very grateful Film Director who had been ecstatic to see them gone. His interest in the cattle was due to a conversation he’d had with Heinz Heck to restore the forests of Europe to their original fauna. Where it became surreal was how critics complained that the Heck Cattle were small and mild compared to the Aurochs. That was what Birdie, who had actual experience with them, found hard to believe.
     
    Last edited:
    Top