Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Thirty-Four



11th February 1968

Warsaw, Poland

The Prime Minister was furious. For the last few years he had managed to keep the Emperor off their backs so that they could manage the country as they pleased, respecting the terms for the self-rule of Poland as laid out by the Treaty of Paris at the end of the First World War. Now, word had reached the Emperor of the revolt in Lesser Poland and he had been forced to cut short a State visit to Vietnam in order to deal with the matter. As soon as he had landed in Berlin, the Emperor had burned up the phonelines in a blistering call to the Prime Minister of Poland.

Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Defense Minister, had seethed with anger as Mieczysławm Moczar had attempted to place the blame for the events of the 6th of January entirely on him. Jaruzelski had turned around and said that if Moczar had better control over his men the rioting, burning, and looting that had occurred in Lwów on New Year’s Eve wouldn’t have kicked off this latest mess, not to mention his public statements… What no one dared to mention was the months earlier the subject had been how to keep the tax dollars from Lesser Poland flowing into State coffers while stymieing the rising political power of that same region. That meeting had not resulted in coming up with a plan and had devolved into the same argument that they had had for the last three decades. Many in the leadership of the Polish National Party had been present when a representative from the Soviet Union had promised not only the liberation of Poland but had suggested that a Greater Poland was a possibility. The Baltic seaports, the industrial centers to the south could be theirs if they had sided with Soviets. The older generation had sent that representative packing but not before the offer had caused a split within the party. Many among the present leadership had been among those who had felt that the offer should have been taken. Worse of all, the Germans had discovered evidence of that offer in the Soviet Archives. That was the reason why it was suspected that there were those within Bohemia and Silesia who were covertly supporting the worst of the agitators.

Now, they found themselves fighting against a rabble of students, assorted urbanites, and farmers. The entire time their neighbors were looking askance at what was happening within Poland. Word was that Lesser Poland was about to declare itself independent of Warsaw, this absurd notion of Galicia and Ruthenia made everyone in the room bristle with anger. The lines for the partition that they had fought against their entire adult lives were being laid out for all to see.



Tempelhof, Berlin

“You are retired for real this time?” Doug asked his father as he pulled the suitcases from the trunk of the car.

“I find that three acts over the course of my life is entirely enough” Sir Malcolm said he watched Boris carry the heavy suitcases into the house. “Having the time to see my son and grandchildren makes it worthwhile.”

Douglas opened the car door for his mother and Margot stepped out, the expression on her face suggesting what she thought of being a guest of her daughter-in-law for the next several weeks. It was noticeable that his parents had crossed some sort of line in recent years, becoming elderly. Him living on the far side of the Atlantic made that very evident in that he only saw them perhaps a few times a year. He could see that his mother looked tired and would probably want to get some sleep as soon as possible. It was just as well that Kat had business to attend to elsewhere this afternoon. While his mother had remained civil with her the last few times that Doug’s parents had visited, it was obvious that she was never going to even pretend that she didn’t dislike Kat.

“How are things here?” Sir Malcolm asked.

“I am not on assignment if that is what you are asking” Doug replied, “Last year’s assignments were bad, so I’ve been keeping closer to home for the last few months.”

“Is what happened in Albania really as bad as I’ve heard?” Sir Malcolm asked as he followed Doug into the house.

“It is unimaginably worse” Doug said, “Modern war with civilians considered targets by the belligerents. No one in their right mind would think that is a good thing. When I was in Tirana over the last days it had felt like the whole world was going mad.”

“I remember that feeling from the Somme when we were forced to break off the offensive and retreat as fast as we could manage” Sir Malcolm said as they walked up the stairs to the parlor floor with Doug holding his mother’s arm to steady her. “Our left flank left badly exposed by the collapse of the French at Verdun. The days that followed were really bad.”

That gave Doug pause. His father had never talked about the battle to hang onto the Channel ports that had been the lifeline of the BEF and how the Canadian Army had been credited with holding the line. That was until now. Some other line that Doug had crossed. That was when there was sound of running feet. Tatiana and Marie came in excitedly greeting Opa and Oma Blackwood. It couldn’t escape his notice that Marie was now almost as tall as he was. Marie being Marie, she was talking a thousand miles a minute while Tatiana was far more reserved. Jo and Suse were looking in from the stairwell out of curiosity.

“And just who is this?” Sir Malcolm asked when he saw Sophie peering around the door of Kat’s office.

“Our latest ward Sophie” Doug replied, “She’s a bit shy but will come around when she is ready.”

With that Sophie vanished into Kat’s office.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Thirty-Five



16th February 1968

Los Angeles, California

If it wasn’t already obvious, the First Special Forces Group, Fort Drum, and the countryside that surrounded it was hardly representative of America. Ritchie had heard it referred to as what would happen if the U.S. Army had built Disneyland only slightly less attached to reality. The Special Forces teams had to be exactly that, a team. The sources of tension in the larger society couldn’t exist within the team otherwise they wouldn’t be a team for long. Getting off the plane in Los Angeles had been a reminder of that for Ritchie and even before that when he had been at the airport in Rochester. While it wasn’t as bad as the violence that had roiled the country back in the 40’s and 50’s, there was a noticeable tension in the air. Coming home was a bit of a calculated risk, he knew that his old friends in the Detective Bureau would eventually come knocking and that he had better be on his way back to New York before they came in force.

Ritchie’s mother had gotten tired of him sitting around the house watching television with his nieces and nephews. So, she had told him that he had no choice but to go to an event at her church on Friday evening. “Go and spend time with other people your own age” was how she had put it as she had badgered him into going, and as was her nature, telling her no wasn’t an option. It was a bit of a misnomer that it would be with people his own age. The people at the event his mother had insisted he go to were mostly younger than he was, at twenty-seven he was hardly an old man by any means, but the reality of what his mother had been about was on full display in that it was a singles mixer. Oddly, the event was being thrown by the Church in the recreation room. Considering that it was the first time that Ritchie had been on Church grounds since he had last been in California and some of the things he had been up to in the meantime, he was half amazed that he didn’t burst into flames.

“Richard, your mother said you were coming” Father Martinez said as soon as he walked in.

Ritchie remembered him from two decades earlier and had a hard time squaring that with the stoop shouldered man he was talking to now.

“She apparently knew before I did” Ritchie replied.

Martinez smiled at that but then his expression darkened as he saw something across the room.

“Excuse me” Martinez said before crossing the room and arguing with a young woman who had been standing with her friends. They were too far away for Ritchie to make out the words, but the exchange grew heated and the young woman stormed out.

“What was that about?” Ritchie asked as Father Martinez came back.

“None of your concern and I am sorry that you had to see that” Martinez replied, “Tell me about what you’ve been doing, the Army if I understand correctly.”

As if what Ritchie was wearing didn’t already let the whole world know that was the career that he had made for himself.

“Staff Sergeant in the Army Airborne” Ritchie answered.

“That sounds wonderful” Martinez said as Ritchie wondered what had transpired just a few minutes earlier.



17th February 1968

Tempelhof, Berlin

Watching the rain drum on the pavement of the street far below from the window seat was a reminder that the damp climate of Berlin didn’t agree with Margot any more than staying in the same house where her son and daughter-in-law lived. At the same time, she was still embarrassed by the fact that years earlier she had stayed in a hotel room that must have had listening devices installed. She had made some comments about Katherine and the late Kaiserin, next thing she knew she was banned from Germany for a few years. Malcolm had been less than thrilled to learn what had prompted that. Unknown to either of them was that Katherine had been pregnant at the time and Margot should have paid heed to the stories about what happened when Katherine was backed into a corner. Malcolm had said that she had gotten off easy, but Margot hadn’t felt that way at the time.

Now, the better part of two decades later Katherine was the Fürstin of Berlin, whatever that was. Douglas and Katherine’s oldest children, Tatiana and Malcolm were about to turn seventeen. Margot couldn’t pretend to understand her grandchildren. She did appreciate that Douglas had named his son after his father and apparently young Malcolm had overcome his early difficulty in learning to read. Tatiana though, she seemed to be cut from the same cloth as Katherine. It was obvious that bothered Katherine somewhat. Margot had witnessed Tatiana needling her mother until she earned a sharp rebuke and afterwards the girl had the same smug look on her face that Margot had seen Katherine wear too often. Marie, the younger daughter seemed too frivolous to be real. She was always wearing various costumes and at nearly the age of twelve one would have thought that she had outgrown that sort of thing. Apparently, Marie had not.

Then there was the realization that the room that Malcolm and Margot shared was directly across the hallway from the room belonging to Asia Lawniczak. Far from being the quiet raven-haired girl who Margot had met years earlier, Asia was prematurely grey and had been locked in a battle with Heinrich, her four-year-old son. It seemed that it had been decided that he was old enough to have his own room and was having none of it. The three girls who Katherine had taken in were an odd bunch. Margot remembered Josefine, she had blossomed into a radiant beauty which was difficult to square with the plain child she had been a decade earlier. Margot had been surprised to learn that Suse was nearly twenty, she had assumed that she was younger than that. The joke had been flying around the house that Suse was finally turning five meaning that she was born on that odd 29th day in February that only came every four years. Sophie was harder to get a read on, she seemed to be scared of her own shadow and…

Marie poked her head through the door.

The shape of her face had changed over the last couple years and it was clear that she favored Douglas. Marie no longer looked like a little girl and it was clear that she was well on the way to becoming a young woman. The long red hair that framed her face left no doubt of who her mother was. As she stepped into the light from the window, Margot noticed a shocking detail. Marie bore an uncanny resemblance to what she had looked like six decades earlier.

“Why do you hate me?” Marie asked earnestly.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Thirty-Six



18th February 1968

Mitte, Berlin

Even in death Ernst Thälmann was being as annoying as he had ever managed be throughout his life. He had died a few days earlier at the age of eighty-one and despite the rancor that nearly everyone in the Reichstag felt towards him, Thälmann was still intitled to a State burial with full military honors. He had insisted on it knowing that everyone of note from Louis Ferdinand on down would be obligated to attend.

Having spent most of his early career attacking Augustus Lang from the left. Thälmann had not let the retirement and eventual death of the Chancellor get the way of continuing that pursuit. With his constituency in the urban core of Hamburg when it was fondly remembered that he had come up in the labor disputes with the dockworkers, it was considered nearly impossible to have removed him through electoral means. Mostly Thälmann had spent the last forty years at war with the Social Democratic Party and National Liberals as worthless sellouts for their association with Louis Ferdinand. Ironically, that was much to the delight of Monarchist/Nationalist Block. One would have thought that Thälmann would have been chagrinned by the opening of the Soviet archives. Finding out what Stalin and his henchmen really thought of him; A useful idiot who was extremely high on the list of those to be immediately liquidated if the Russians had made it into Berlin. If he had been, Louis had never seen a sign of it.

Looking at the mirror, Louis straightened his tie and brushed a bit of lint off the black suit he wore to funerals. The way things had worked out, Thälmann was getting the last laugh wherever he was, because he had forced everyone to jump though one last hoop for no other reason than to spite them. Louis wasn’t coming in his capacity as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces though. Ernst Thälmann would face eternal judgement with that slight being the first word on the matter.

With that Louis put on his hat and told his Valet to check on Charlotte. They had a funeral to attend and normally you offer condolences to the family, Louis thought to himself.



Los Angeles, California

It had been snowing when Ritchie had left New York. Today he was trying to help his brother Bob keep his 1962 Chevy Nova 400 alive for another week in the driveway in front of their mother’s house wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans. The unbelievable part was listening to people complain about how cold it was. Presently, it was Ritchie working on the straight-six engine, though it was starting to feel like trying to raise the dead, while Bob was sitting in the driver’s seat drinking beer and listening to a basketball game on the radio. By some mystery that Ritchie could never understand, the radio always was the last thing to go in one of his brother’s cars. If only Bob took care of his things, Richie thought to himself. This car had been nice when he had bought it a couple years earlier. Then Bob had subjected it to LA traffic without proper maintenance, basically beating it to death.

Pulling a spark plug out of the engine, Richie saw that it was gummed up with what looked like motor oil.

“I think I found the problem!” Richie yelled, “You have bad rings on one of your pistons.”

Ritchie heard Bob cursing about that. Even with Ritchie was willing to do the work, that wasn’t going to be an easy or inexpensive thing to fix. He had been so focused on the engine he didn’t see anyone approach until a shadow fell across him.

Looking up, he saw the same woman from the Church mixer the other night.

“Mind telling me why you’ve been asking around about me?” Lucia asked.

“I only asked my mother who you were after I saw you get into that argument with Father Martinez the other night” Ritchie replied as he got out from under the hood.

“You might as well have asked the entire neighborhood their opinion of me” Lucia said sharply, “The golden boy home from the Army, that will give them something to talk about for weeks.”

“I’m sorry, but…” Ritchie started to say only to have Lucia glare at him.

“You, your mother, this neighborhood, and that goddamn fucking hypocrite Priest need to mind your own fucking business!” Lucia snapped before stomping off.

Using a rag to wipe the worst of the grease off his hands, Ritchie could see that Bob had watched that exchange with a great deal of amusement.

“Mind telling me what that was all about?” Ritchie asked as Bob handed him a beer.

“Old story with a twist” Bob said, “Girl gets knocked up and everyone pressures her to get married to her boyfriend. Except she tells them to go pound sand. Two years later, Lucia didn’t get married and she sure as hell doesn’t have a kid. Do I need to fill in the blanks?”

“No” Ritchie replied.

“Now, do I need to tell you what men in our family do about women like that?” Bob asked.

Ritchie could only imagine, knowing Bob’s personal history this was probably going to be a doozy.

“No, what?”

“We date ‘em” Bob said with a wicked grin.

Ritchie rolled his eyes.

“I doubt that will come up” Richie said, “You heard her tell me to mind my own business.”

“A girl like that, telling you off right to your face” Bob said, “She totally wants you to ask her out.”

“No means yes in your thinking?” Ritchie asked, “That explains a great deal. Mind telling how you’ve avoided getting sent to Chino?”

Bob just shrugged and laughed.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Thirty-Seven



22nd February 1968

Tempelhof, Berlin

There was a flurry of birthdays in the house. Tatiana and Malcolm on the 21st of February, then Suse on the 29th, and finally Marie Alexandra was turning twelve on the 15th of March. Sophie heard this with absolute terror. For years, her mother had told her that she would inevitably become something terrible when she turned twelve, completing the destruction that she had wrought on her mother’s life from the moment she had been born. When Sophie had been younger, she had resolved never to turn twelve and had thought that her mother would be happy with that. Instead, her mother had gotten furious and had accused Sophie of mocking her.

Marie though, she was the greatest, bravest, most amazing girl in the world. Sophie remembered that night in the castle when they had been scared by the storm and the window had blown open. Marie had gotten up and closed it as if there was nothing to be afraid of, she had then ordered Sophie along with Nella and Nan back to their own beds. They hadn’t listened and Marie had ended up sleeping in Nella’s bed. It was a reminder of how last summer had been so perfect. Even the chores around the castle had a lot of fun because of how they had done everything together, it really had all been a game. Then had come the crash back to the reality of Sophie’s life and everything that had followed since. Living in this house with Marie was vastly different than in the castle. Though she was a few years older than Sophie and that was a huge gulf there, still she got to watch as Marie did the most amazing things all the time. The thought that something horrible might happen to her was more than Sophie could bear.

Finally, on Friday afternoon it all came to a head when Katherine got a call from Sophie’s school. Her reaction was absolutely shocking to Sophie. She didn’t yell or hit her, instead she had mentioned that according to her teacher Sophie had said that she had seemed distracted and sad all week before hugging her and asked to know what was going on.

“Can you please tell me what is going on?” Katherine asked.

Sophie had been not expecting that at all. A simple question that complete disarmed her.

“When I was not much older than you, I had someone hurt me terribly” Katherine said, “I didn’t talk to anyone for nearly a year and the problems never went away until I dealt with them. Silence just made it worse.”

With that Katherine went back to looking at the papers on her desk. Sophie knew that there were things going on in the world that Katherine couldn’t talk about, important matters and she could see that this woman who had taken her in seemed to have the weight of the world on her shoulders, yet she had taken time from her day to find out what was going on. Sophie felt a stab of guilt over having done that and sitting there watching Katherine work turned out to be excruciating. Before she knew it, she had blurting out everything and Katherine just sat there listening.

“Your mother… is not well and is finally getting help” Katherine said, “Growing up can be horrible at times, but it is not something that you need to fear. As for you becoming something terrible, she was projecting her own past onto your future and I doubt that will occur. It is perfectly natural to be scared about what might happen to someone in your family, Marie will be alright and you as well.”

Sophie found that last part particularly jarring.



Los Angeles, California

“Where did you learn to do this?” Ritchie’s mother asked as she saw engine that was completely disassembled on a table in the garage. Ritchie had pulled the engine from Bob’s car and was rebuilding it. It was something that would need to be done if he was going to be replacing the piston rings anyway. There was the added bonus of Bob having to take the bus to work all week as well.

“John Casey, my original team leader insisted that everyone learn because it isn’t like if we can call road service when deployed” Ritchie replied.

“He sounds like a smart man” Concha said.

“He was” Ritchie replied, his mother gave him an odd look and he kicked himself. She had to have noticed that he had just referred to Jonny in the past tense. It was something that he had tried to avoid mentioning around her, how even at the best of times his job could be dangerous. Telling her that even someone like Jonny had gotten killed would upset her. Jonny had oozed cool and was tough as nails had ended up with a quiet burial at Arlington, that the details of his final mission would remain secret, probably forever, because to do otherwise might start a war. It wasn’t a big leap of logic to see that it could just as easily happen to Ritchie.

“Never mind that” Concha said, “Bobby said that Lucia Cruz came around the other day.”

So, Bob had figured out a way to get even with Ritchie for taking his time fixing his car.

“She told me to mind my own business” Ritchie said as he got back to work on the engine.

“You have a career, most men in the neighborhood cannot say that” Concha said, “Perhaps she will come around.”

“She will see the realities of my career and run the other way” Ritchie replied, the full truth was the best thing he could say here. “I can be deployed at a moment’s notice, be gone for weeks and not be able to breath a word about it afterwards. Pure poison if you want to have a relationship. Not many women put up with that.”

“Funny, except for the secrecy, you just described your father’s work” Concha said, “Ever thought that the problem is just that you’ve been fishing off the wrong pier?”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Thirty-Eight



28th February 1968

Halle, Anhalt

Kiki was at the FSR depot on the grounds of the Heer and Luftwaffe Signals School just south of the University Hospital to requalify on weapons. She didn’t have any objections because it meant that she wouldn’t get recalled to Laupheim over the following year baring national emergency. She already had a full plate with having been told that as soon as she completed the second State examination Kiki was to report to the Prussian Staff College in Berlin. That meant a few months away from what she wanted to be doing, much to her complete frustration. She was also to accept promotion to Oberstabsarzt/Major with the date of promotion being when it had first been deferred almost a year earlier without further protest. It seemed that someone in Koblenz had gotten fed up and decided that kicking her in that direction was in their interest. What she did object to was the stares that the new pistol she had been “issued” was getting her.

Then she had learned that the pistol she had been issued wasn’t at the FSR Depot in Halle and that she had needed to go to Walther’s factory in Zella-Mehlis a few days earlier. The pistol that she had gotten was the right serial number according to the records of the FSR and externally it looked like any other service weapon. However, their experts had completely reworked the internals to the point where it performed in a manner far beyond the usual service pistol. Kiki understood the reason why Walther had done that for her, why she had to thank them graciously even though she wished they hadn’t done it. Just down road from Zella-Mehlis in Suhl, Sauer & Sohn in partnership with a company called the Swiss Industrial Company that had made farming implements in the past. They made a pistol that was derivative of Browning Hi-Power that had joined the cz.60 as substitute standard for the German Military. While it was not the same quality as pistols made by Walther, the latest version of the P50 had a proven record with the Swiss Army and Police Forces. It had been modified to use the same 16-round magazines as the cz.60 and a relatively low unit cost. Walther had been experimenting with double-stack magazines for some time and the P66 was swiftly rushed from prototype to production when the phasing out of the P38 was announced. Putting one of their pistols in Kiki’s hands was a public relations coup for them at a time when they needed it and her father had suggested rather firmly that she do her part to help promote domestic industry.

The trouble was that the training course struck Kiki as being completely inadequate and she could hear Kat’s voice in her head saying that if she recognized a problem then it was her responsibility to do something about it. Though in this case, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot she could do. She spent the afternoon shooting paper targets, first with a rifle and then with a pistol. There were none of the real-world exercises that she had done with Kat ahead of the first time she went to Korea and had repeated in Laupheim a few times since. This time there had been a brief lecture on how disassemble, clean, and reassemble the pistol. The P66 looked and worked differently than the P38 had with the full-length slide and part of the barrel formed a steel plug that completely filled the ejection port when it was locked in battery making it difficult for debris to enter.

The bored looking range officer recorded her score once she had finished firing a few magazines through the new pistol and noted the improvement over the last time she had needed to qualify. That was hardly a surprise, the new pistol didn’t have the heavy trigger of the old one and the alloy frame lightened it considerably, making it easier for Kiki to hold as she aimed. As much as she didn’t like being treated differently than others, this time it certainly made sense for her to just except it.

Leaving the shooting range, Kiki handed the earmuffs she had been using to the attendant and started to walk across the extensive military installation. The Administrative building was obnoxiously far away, and she would need to turn in the paperwork saying that she was qualified to use the weapons she had been issued in the field. It was an unfortunate necessity, as a Field Surgeon she was required to see to her personal safety and that of those under her care. The long walk gave her time think about things as well. What was coming, both good and bad.

Vicky was going through with that absurd wedding in April. Something had happened in Vietnam that had strengthened her resolve. While she hadn’t told Kiki what it was, she had said that it was the only way that she could be safe from those who would hurt Vicky for being who and what she was. Kiki remembered how carefree her younger sister had been when they had been traveling through the American Upper Mid-West. It was too bad that Vicky couldn’t be like that here. What that meant for Kiki was that Vicky was moving out of the house in Jena, so she was thinking that she didn’t need that much space. Kiki had been thinking that she might rent an apartment here in Halle. Not having the long commute to contend with would make things easier. Then she had gotten the orders sending her back to Berlin for an extended period, ruining her plans.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Thirty-Nine



1st March 1968

Falkensee, Brandenburg

When faced with a reality that is deemed unbearable the human mind will except, and often fabricate, that which it knows is not real to feel as ease…

Asia continued reading through the manuscript, it was fascinating, but it also chilled her to the bone because she understood the implications far better than most people. The Psychology Department of the University Clinic in Berlin had spent years researching how the brain worked, what happens when certain stimuli are applied or removed entirely. The draft report had been referred to the Falkensee School where Asia had been an Instructor in advanced fieldcraft since she had come back from convalescing following her imprisonment by the Americans with only gap being when she had taken maternity leave after Heinrich was born. Beaten, deprived of even the most basic of necessities, and finally they had electrocuted her repeatedly after pumping her full of drugs whose effects were not completely understood. The entire time they had been demanding information about the American Division of the BND that she didn’t possess. Gia had not mentioned it to her, but Asia had found out from others that the suggestion had been thrown around to send her back to Germany severely brain damaged as a warning to anyone who might follow. The man who Gia had shot had apparently been there to do exactly that on that last terrible day. Many felt that he had gotten his just deserts when the bullet that had scrambled his brain had left him effectively lobotomized.

Where the manuscript came in was that Asia remembered how easily she had slipped into fantasy during the hellish weeks she had spent in the Danvers State Hospital. It was either that or be driven completely insane by the situation that she had found herself in. The conclusions reached were the most unsettling aspect of the entire thing. The discoveries could be used to resist interrogation, conduct interrogations themselves or provide the most insidious means of getting inside people’s heads. The questions about how this information might be used needed to be asked, the problem for Asia was that she doubted that she was the right person to be asking them because she was unable to be objective in such a matter. If she thought that it would do any good, she would burn every copy of the manuscript because she felt that it represented the potential for the sort of evil she had been subjected to.



Washington D.C.

President Rockefeller was looking at what had come in with the latest diplomatic pouch from Berlin. It was something that the CIA had brought to his attention ahead of the wedding that was coming up next month in Bavaria that he had gotten an invitation to. There was speculation in the State Department that it was a political marriage, being done to shore up support for the House of Hohenzollern ahead of the transfer of power from Louis Ferdinand to his oldest son Friedrich. That was considered likely because King Albrecht of Bavaria was considered the one who could successfully challenge Friedrich for the mantle of Kaiser if it came down to it. The marriage put Albrecht firmly on the side of the Hohenzollerns. Victoria was considered completely vanilla and getting married to the Crown Prince of Bavaria was arguably going to be the most interesting thing that she had done during her twenty-three years of existence. That was in wild contradiction to her older, far more interesting, sisters. The sales pamphlet that the CIA had gotten was an excellent example of that. The present focus might be on Victoria, but the instant Kristina’s name got mentioned all eyes turned to her.

The photograph in the sales pamphlet was a bit odd when coupled with the latest personality profile that Analysts at the CIA had compiled over the last few years. Many might have wondered why the CIA was wasting resources on a Princess. However, they had been alarmed by how easily she had wooed Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. The company they recently founded, Integrated Electronics or Intel, was developing technology that was extremely promising and Kristina von Preussen had been one of their early investors. Apparently, it had been done with the understanding that they would locate their European production facility in the Principality that Kristina ruled within Germany.

The pamphlet had been put out by Carl Walther GmbH, an arms manufacturer who most Americans had only heard of because of the James Bond movies. In the photograph, Princess Kristina was seen wearing what was said to be the field uniform of the German Joint Medical Service’s elite Para Search and Rescue. A red coat with various patches on it that denoted the wearer being in the FSR and their Unit. Big white letters across the back proclaimed that she was a Field Surgeon, though according to the CIA she was still in Residency. She was seen in the photo accepting a new pistol from Fritz Walther as the pamphlet proudly implied that it was a tacit royal endorsement of their latest product.

The detail that struck Rockefeller as strange was that while companies like Walther took pride in their long histories and loudly proclaimed how their products were the best in the world, they were doing it in a country where firearms were strictly regulated as a result of the body of laws that were passed in the wake of the Reichstag bombing. If you wanted a gun over there you had to apply for a permit, those permits were subjected to rigorous review and God help you if you got caught with a gun without the proper paperwork. The alternative was to a join a hunting club or the military which were exempt under the law. The standards the hunting clubs maintained for their membership were exacting, they generally understood the special place they had been granted under the law and were rumored to be particularly vicious towards those who might rock the boat. Over the last few years CIA agents had been tripped up by Germany’s restrictive gun laws.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty



2nd March 1968

Los Angeles, California

Asking someone to go on a date because both your respective mothers are pressuring you to was hardly Ritchie’s idea of a good time. With his leave winding down, he understood that if he went back to New York without putting in a small amount of effort he would never hear the end of it. Calling up Lucia, he had said that they could go do something enjoyable for a few hours. There were plenty of things to do on a Saturday night in Los Angeles, right? The trouble was that once Ritchie picked up Lucia, they had been unable to agree on exactly what. So, they ended up sitting in a diner eating French fries and killing time by talking about inane things.

“You live in New York?” Lucia asked, “As in skyscrapers and subways.”

“Not that part of New York” Ritchie replied, “Fort Drum is upstate, so it is surrounded by a forest and it was snowing when I left.”

“Probably surrounded by rednecks as well” Lucia said.

“Yeah, but New York is a bit different than here though” Ritchie said, “People think you are Puerto Rican instead of Mexican. In Germany, I was stuck in rural Württemberg. People there thought I was Spanish and wanted to talk about Fútbol, even the Farmer John types I ran into.”

Lucia gave Ritchie a look of disbelief. “I’ve never been outside of California” She said.

“It seems like things are the same everywhere you go” Ritchie said, “Some places are better or worse than others. China is a mess and the parts of Italy I saw looked and felt like Old Mexico.”

Even as he said it, Ritchie realized that to Lucia, Old Mexico was nothing more than an abstraction. The place where her grandfather had come from. Italy might as well be on the moon. The furthest she had ever been from Los Angeles was working with her family in the Central Valley fields over the summer.

“So that is what the Army is all about? Like traveling around the world when you aren’t marching in lines?” Lucia asked.

“There are operations involved…” Ritchie started to say, knowing he had to be careful as to just how much he told Lucia. He was saved by the door of the diner opening and two men, plainclothes Detectives from LAPD Central Casting walked in. One of them made a show of ordering coffee while his partner made a V-line straight for the table that Ritchie and Lucia were seated at.

“We had heard that the Prodigal scum had come home for a visit” The Detective said, “Not planning on sticking around again, are you?”

Ritchie wondered exactly who it was in the neighborhood who was feeding the police this information. Every time he came home, they made an eventual appearance, if for no other reason than to make sure that he knew they were still looking for an excuse to mop the floor with him. To them, he was a punk from the neighborhood who had escaped what they saw as righteous justice at the street level, and they had extremely long memories. The fact that he was in the Green Beret made carrying that out politically fraught for them because a phone call from Special Forces Command to their Boss’ Boss would bring an avalanche of shit down on them.

“I’m going back to New York on Monday” Ritchie said.

“Are you here to provide an escort for a brave hero like Ritchie to the airport?” Lucia asked sweetly, suddenly the very picture of Barrio naivety.

“No, Miss…” The Detective said shuffling his feet before rushing after his partner who had two paper cups.

“Gabacho motherfuckers” Lucia said under her breath once the two detectives were out the door.

Ritchie heard that and started laughing.



3rd March 1968

Binz, Germany

The Krauts had set him up in this gray Hell that happened to be the last place on earth that anyone would actually expect him to have landed. George Bush had the rules explained to him by John Elis, the American expat who had been in a similar situation to his own for the last several decades. He was in a prison without bars because there were a whole lot of people out there who would pay an eye-watering sum of money to see him butchered alive. So long as he ran his business, didn’t draw attention to himself, and answered whatever questions the BND and BII had for him, they would allow him to continue to exist. In this case, it was managing a petrol station/year-round market in a resort town on Rügen Island. There had been two things that no one had told him before he had gotten sent here the prior summer. The first was that there was a reason why this place was known as the Jewish Riviera, the massive resort complex just up the road had catered to that particular population for the last several years and it was the reason why the market’s selection of Kosher foods was extensive. The second was that when Kat von Mischner had paid off his ex-wife, Barb had demanded only one thing in return for enough money not to bother tracking him down again…

“The shelves are faced and dusted Daddy” Robin said with a smile as she headed back to the front of the store to work the register while he tried to get the previous day’s paperwork straight. He had been forced to have his daughter live with him in the apartment behind the store and be one of his employees. They were in hiding and living a working-class existence, going to school in Bergen had been a massive adjustment but Robin didn’t care. In her mind, she got to be free of her mother and she even got to live near the beach.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty-One



20th March 1968

Halle, Anhalt

It was a cold afternoon and it felt like winter regardless of what the calendar said about today being the first day of spring.

The team had spent the last couple hours climbing over and crawling under various obstacles before engaging targets in real world scenarios. That included the risk of weapons malfunctioning and plain bad luck. It was meant to be of sufficient difficulty to be just as hard as real combat. Though Kiki understood that the feeling that came when there were bullets flying back the other way was impossible to replicate. The members of one of the FSR teams based here was too professional to react in an untoward way, but Kiki could tell that they were angry with her for what she had said to the Oberst. She had told him about how she felt that the firearms training for the FSR was inadequate at the Signals School when he had asked her opinion. They were supposed to be the Jäger Corps of the Medical Service. The Oberst had just shrugged and put her in charge of training that she deemed adequate because she was the most knowledgeable having been trained by the Tigress herself. It wasn’t until later that Kiki had realized that she had never told him about that.

“That is all of them Ma’am” The Oberfeld who was assisting Kiki said with entirely too much satisfaction while looking at his clipboard. “The next team will be along in a few minutes.”

He had helped Kiki set up the course and had run it with her a few days before.

“I can tell they are sore with me” Kiki said as the team hustled off.

“This isn’t a popularity contest” The Oberfeld replied, “Besides, they needed a reminder as to what they are really all about, chasing after tourists lost in the woods if fine and all, but there is far more to this than that.”

As if Kiki wouldn’t be aware that this wasn’t a popularity contest. She wasn’t worried about popularity. It was what might happen in the field in the near future that bothered her. Having her orders followed less than enthusiastically could have consequences. With that the next team arrived at the course and were looking at it with a great deal of trepidation.

“You didn’t need to be quite so enthusiastic with the mud” Kiki said to the Oberfeld.

“I disagree Ma’am” The Oberfeld replied, “You said you wanted combat conditions and things always get fucked up on the battlefield.”

It wasn’t just on the battlefield though. It seemed to Kiki that things were getting fucked up pretty much everywhere. Vicky was neck deep in wedding preparations and had gotten upset when she had learned of Kiki’s increased involvement in Halle. She thought that Kiki had volunteered because she didn’t approve of what she was doing. The truth was that Kiki didn’t disapprove; she just was worried about Vicky in the long term. Just how long could her little sister maintain a sham like that? Earlier that week, Vicky had left for Munich in a huff because Kiki wasn’t going with her this time.

Kiki’s musing was interrupted by the sharp blast of a whistle as the Oberfeld started yelling instructions at the FSR team. The Noncoms that were working with her were enjoying this a bit too much. However, because this was her show, Kiki stood there and quietly observed as the team was forced to dive under the barbed wire into the icy mud.



Falkensee, Brandenburg

Because she had spent a great deal of time in the United States, Asia had been asked her opinion about the Primary Elections that were happening in America, the first of which had happened in New Hampshire a week prior. The North America Desk had figured that Bill Stoughton, the Speaker of the House of Representatives would have been the front runner, but he had declined to run for President. The truth was obvious to Asia.

“The incumbent President is considered a favorite to win reelection and Stoughton is not about to risk his current position on a longshot political bid” Asia said.

“What of the other candidates?” The Analyst from the NAA asked “Eugene McCarthy, George Smathers are the two front runners.”

“Eugene McCarthy is something of an also ran, he runs for President every four years and comes from a small state” Asia replied, “Who is Smathers?”

The Analyst flipped through several pages of paper. Just the fact that he needed to do that spoke volumes. “It says here that Smathers is a Senator from Florida.”

Asia had heard a bit about Florida politics while she was in New York. Apparently, there was something creepy in the water down there that did things to people… It was her understanding that whoever the Democratic Party nominated for President would most likely lose, the quality of the two candidates mentioned reflected that. There was also the aspect that Senators and Congressmen who had been there for a while seldom ran for higher office because they would have to explain their legislative record, the frequently contradictory votes that they had to take and the entire process of making sausages.

“What do you think of the candidate who came in third in New Hampshire?” The Analyst asked, “Richard Nixon, the pundits are suggesting that he might be a strong dark horse.”

Asia shrugged, “I remember him from California when I was there. To Washington D.C. the West Coast of America might as well be off the edge of the Earth. So, I doubt you’ll hear his name too much in the coming months.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty-Two



7th April 1968

la Drang Valley, Vietnam

When Tilo decided to revisit the journey, he had taken twenty-five years earlier across Vietnam, Nancy had told him that taking Sabastian would be a good idea. Today, he was watching as the boy was peering into fox holes and poking at the rusted bits of metal that were around. Once again Tilo had to tell him not to do that unless he wanted to leave one of his hands out here. The Vietnamese Army had said that they had cleared the site several years earlier, but the old habit of not trusting the official line until further information was available was hard to break.

Tilo was walking along the crest of Tsingtao Ridge, the jungle and climate had done a great deal to reclaim the area but here and there signs of the titanic battle remained. The pockmarks made by mortars, the larger craters left by larger artillery, hundreds of foxholes that had been dug by the 3rd MID as they had fortified this ridge to stand off against an entire Japanese army, and finally the rusted remains of a burnt out Luftpanzer guarded the 3rd MID’s right flank forever. The battle fought here had been where the Division’s real baptism of fire had occurred.

A few years earlier, a film depicting this battle had been made and the writers had focused on Tilo and Reier. That had been entirely because Tilo’s book had been a key piece of material that the film had been based on. Tilo had made it rather explicit when he had written about this battle that he had only been a bit player. The film however had made it seem like he had played a larger role than he had. On the other hand, Reier had reveled in his newfound celebrity by milking it for all it was worth. This had come at an opportune time for Reier, he had reached the highest rank possible for a Noncommissioned Officer and was unlikely to advance into the Warrant Officer Ranks due to his time as the Platoon yoyo and rather checkered past when he had been younger. The Division had been leaning on him to get out. Like everyone who actually knew Reier, Tilo understood that he would be dead in a year if he retired so Tilo had him appointed to the Mürwik Naval School as the Academy Drill Master. Reier wasn’t exactly a perfect fit and apparently Reier had discovered that he could have a lot of fun teaching the Cadets how to play the system. On the other side of the ledger the prior year had seen the largest percentage of the Class volunteer for the Marine Infantry. The insane stories that Reier told the Cadets about his adventures all around the world may have had a larger influence than anyone imagined was possible.

At the base of the ridge, Tilo and Sabastian came to the cemetery where the dead had been buried after the battle. Part of the ethos of the Marine Infantry was that Germany was whatever ground happened to be under their boots. That come to mean that they had tended to bury their dead in the places that they fallen. Tilo had heard about how years after the war the official bureaucracy had followed up at this location so that at the family’s request the remains of their loved ones could be repatriated. They had found that the local villagers had maintained the site and had even built a small Buddhist shrine. Sabastian looked curiously at it as the smell in incense filled the air. The Marine Infantry had been transformed by their experiences in this land and Tilo couldn’t think of a more fitting tribute to those who would remain here forever.

“Tomorrow we’re going to Hanoi and staying at Duc Phan’s house” Tilo said to Sabastian, “His family is excited to finally meet you.”

Sabastian just shrugged indifferently. He had caused a great deal of trouble over the last year, much to the aggravation of his parents. Tilo had managed to avoid legal entanglements, but that had not been without a substantial cost and the promise that Sabastian would be dealt with. The suggestion had been strongly made that he be sent to a school that suited his temperament and social standing. Tilo knew Nancy had been hoping that Sabastian would find his place in the world without the frequently painful process that his father, uncles, and cousins had endured. Unfortunately, those hopes had been dashed by a bit of vandalism. Tilo remembered his own mother warning him and his siblings that consequences tended to pile up over time and the older they got the bigger the pile grew. Ava’s disastrous marriage. Hanna getting pregnant while still in secondary school. Tilo landing in the Marine Infantry because he shot his mouth off too much. Inga being… well, Inga, and deciding that she preferred her life in Berlin. Jost and Lenz constantly getting into fights, with each other or against anyone who dared to interfere with whatever the latest beef was. All of those were examples of that.

Nancy was adamant that history should not repeat itself with her children and she already felt that she was failing her son. This had caused her to redouble her efforts with Anna and Gretchen, getting them involved in activities that would hopefully keep them out of trouble.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty-Three



14th April 1968

Munich

The whole thing was farcical.

There was simply no way to get around that. A couple days before, Vicky had met with Franz and they had completed the paperwork and had dropped it off at the courthouse, so they were already legally married. That had seemed very straight-forward as opposed to what was being staged while Vicky fretted in the foyer of the Frauenkirche.

It was all a far larger production with family, friends, and an extensive guest list that included everyone from Heads of State on down. There were thousands of people crowded into the Cathedral of Our Dear Lady and even more outside the brick church that dominated the center of Munich. Standing by the Devil’s step, she was waiting for her father and the ceremony to begin. Vicky knew that once she entered then she would need to see it through.

Her attendants were off to the side chattering among themselves, leaving Vicky to stew over what was happening. The thought raced through her mind; What if Kiki was right about this whole thing? What if all these people saw right through this charade? And the cameras, this was being broadcast around the world. She couldn’t possibly fool everyone. Finally, the last intrusive thought involved Rea. Her well meaning but ultimately bumbling twin sister. She had been totally absent during everything that had happened prior to this. Vicky had sent her several invitations but there had only been silence in return. Kiki said that Rea would come around, but so far that had not happened. More than anything, Vicky wanted…

“Aren’t you supposed to be happy?” An unexpected voice asked.

Startled, Vicky saw Rea step into the foyer from outside. She had cut her hair short and it really did look boyish, worst of all Rea being Rea, she was wearing the sort of dark blue suit that some women found fashionable as opposed to the bridesmaid’s dress that she should have been wearing. It was a small wonder that people thought what they did about her. They would eventually be in for quite a surprise.

“What are you doing here?” Vicky demanded.

“Sham weddings, nearly every notable from across several continents being played for saps, and free drinks at the reception afterwards” Rea replied in the private language that only the other would understand. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“And why are you wearing that?” Vicky demanded, realizing what a spectacle Rea was making of herself.

“I saw the puce dresses that you have Kiki, Anna and the rest of the women in your party wearing. Just seeing them made me feel like I was picking at a scab” Rea replied, “You’ve never had great taste. For a long time, I wondered if you were color blind.”

Then Rea gave Vicky’s dress an appraising look. “I always wondered what had become of our mother’s wedding dress” She said, “It does work for you though.”

“She didn’t think that either you or Kiki would ever need it” Vicky replied, “So, she gave it to me.”

Rea found that funny.

“If only she had known” Rea said, and Vicky felt a bit of heat on her cheeks. Vicky had realized that if her mother had ever figured out the truth, it was likely that she would have been sent to the same convent in Pskov that Gia had been exiled to after she had run off to Canada and she would have been a prisoner there for at least the remainder of her mother’s life.

Vicky decided that she needed to look past her sister’s antics and just take it at face value.

“I am glad you came” Vicky said.

“You know me” Ria replied, “I’m never one to miss a caper.”

“This is my wedding” Vicky said, “That is hardly a caper.”

“If you saw what I got Poppa to agree to in order to keep me from disrupting this whole thing, you wouldn’t think so” Rea said with an impish smile.

“You would have disrupted my wedding?” Vicky asked slightly appalled.

“Of course, not” Rea replied, “But Poppa assumed that I might and was offering to pay me off before I had a chance to tell him that.”

“You are saying that you extorted Poppa?” Vicky asked.

“By accident” Rea replied, “But a lot of great causes were advanced, so it is sort of hard for me to feel bad about it.”

For a moment it felt like when they had been girls and it had been the two of them against the entire world and they had won far more than they had ever lost. Then Poppa stepped in and everything was serious again. He saw Vicky standing there and he smiled, despite what he knew about what was really going on, Poppa still tried to put a positive spin on things.

“It is almost time” Louis said before turning to Rea, “And do I need to remind you of our deal?”

“No, Poppa” Rea said, she was rather convincing which meant that Poppa wouldn’t buy it for a second. It was a reminder to Vicky just how great a team she and her sister had been. With that the sounds of the pipe organ changed, and Louis held out his arm for Vicky.

“We’ll give your sister a moment to find her seat, then we will get on with this” Louis said. Rea blew a raspberry at Vicky as she rushed into the church and the actual wedding party entered the foyer. Vicky laughed at that and it was her fondest hope that Rea would never change.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty-Four



19th April 1968

Mitte, Berlin

“Vicky is entirely too self-absorbed to realize what you’ve done for her” Japik said as they waited in the greenroom of DRI, German Radio International. “And having your hair cut that short is a terrible look for you.”

Rea just shrugged. She didn’t have control over what other people thought of her. That didn’t mean that she couldn’t take advantage of that fact, it was something that she did often with Japik as her only confidant as she planned her next moves. Most recently, the scandal rags had been apoplectic about her appearance during her sister’s wedding. They managed to prove that they didn’t understand who she was and just how shallow their understanding of human sexuality was. It never occurred to any of them that she had done it on purpose. So that all the speculation was about her as opposed to Vicky, who seemingly had no idea how little digging would be required to learn what she was hiding. All the smear merchants would ultimately find out about Rea was that she was straight. Then they would have egg on their face, which would serve them right. In the meantime, Rea found herself with a huge platform as the rebel Princess of Germany and she intended to advance her own interests. The invitation to go on a live interview with Moses Newton was too much to pass up. The internationally renowned Disk Jockey had recently arrived from Argentina, after agreeing to broadcast from Berlin over the summer.

“It will grow back” Rea replied, “Besides, summer is coming and having long hair is a bother when it gets hot. It is like wearing a fur hood.”

“Still you are giving people the wrong idea about who you are” Japik said, how he actually felt about the entire matter slipping through his normal composure.

“Yes” Rea said, “Giving me a just a taste of what you or Vicky must feel all the time, but I always have option of going back don’t I. So, it isn’t really real, is it?”

Japik just stared at her agape, like if she had just said something completely unexpected. In the background, the speakers in the greenroom were playing “Season of Madness” by the Moondogs, John Lennon was shouting over guitars riffs that sounded like shattering glass about being the last sane man in an insane world. It fit the moment perfectly and not just in the greenroom. Months after its quiet release, the Moondogs album had been discovered by listeners. It had given voice to what people around the world were feeling and had seemingly come out of nowhere to explode like an atomic bomb in the consciousnesses of people on both sides of the Atlantic.



Siplingerkopf, Bavaria

It was a perfect day to be high up in the mountains as the panoramic view was incredible as they reached the summit. There were still patches of snow on the ground revealing just how early in the season it still was. Rauchbier tugged at his leash as he had dozens of things along the trail that he needed to sniff out. Kiki kept him close because the ridge dropped away sharply on either side and Rauchbier had a terrible habit of following his nose into trouble. Ben was walking a few meters behind Kiki, unlike her he was a bit winded after the hike to get up here.

A consortium of Universities had leased Girenkopf, one of the other peaks on this ridge to build an observatory, which was more accessible than Siplingerkopf. A few days earlier there had been an elaborate groundbreaking ceremony to mark the beginning of construction, here anyway. The construction of the mirror that was to be used in the telescope had started years earlier, long before the site of the observatory had even been a consideration. Ben had asked Kiki to accompany him on this trip as he felt he needed a bit of moral support as he had needed to explain to the locals that several meters were going to need to be blasted off the top of the mountain.

Kiki had been staying with Ben in Balderschwang, which was spread out like a map in the valley below, as a guest of the Mayor. The Mayor’s wife had assumed that Kiki was Ben’s intended so she hadn’t objected to them staying under the same roof. It seemed that not correcting her was the easiest way to keep the peace. To the people of Balderschwang the City of Berlin was an abstraction and learning that Kiki was the daughter of the Emperor himself put an entirely different complexion on things. Ben was the Burggraf, a young man who had gone off to adventure, become relatively wealthy, and had even won the heart of a Princess at the end of it. That sounded like something from a fairytale. Kiki had pointed out that she had known Ben from before he had started adventuring, she had also been in Korea. The villagers had just given her a knowing smile.

“How can you not be tired?” Ben asked as he reached the summit.

“They don’t give this to just anyone” Kiki said pointing to the FSR patch on her coat.

“Then you will know exactly what to do when I fall over from exhaustion” Ben said as he sat down on the grass next to the large wooden crucifix that someone had constructed up here. Rauchbier immediately ran up and started licking his face.

“I think he is on top of it” Kiki said as she sat down on the grass next to Ben and took in the view.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty-Five



3rd May 1968

Munich, Bavaria

“I don’t care what excuses you have. I will shoot anyone without a legitimate excuse to be in here if they are not out of my sight in one minute” Kiki said flatly.

Anyone who knew Kiki understood that she wasn’t bluffing this time, and just how likely it was that she had a gun. Which resulted in a mass exodus for the door. Only King Albrecht stood there for a few seconds before giving her a tight smile.

“Your loyalty to your sister is admirable but I think that you are painting yourself into a corner Kristina” Albrecht said, “You might want to familiarize yourself with the legacy of Anton Chekhov.”

With that Albrecht left the room and Vicky let out a breath that she didn’t realize she was holding. This was all a personal matter that entirely too many people knew about and in a horrifying twist, were curious. The last two weeks had been awful and once again wished she could be half as assertive as her older sisters. She had been subjected to extensive medical testing and a series of injections that would facilitate the process. She had been on an emotional rollercoaster as a result. The pretense that they had put out for public consumption was that their presence in the clinic was due to the lingering effects of a wound that Franz had sustained in Korea causing them difficulties. That wasn’t entirely untrue, Franz had led a Bavarian Army Company in Korea and he had been wounded in action. That was enough to keep anyone from asking too many questions.

She had asked three people to stay in the room for this. Kiki, because she understood the medical terminology and could be trusted to always look out for Vicky’s personal interests. Anna was present as Vicky’s Courtly appointed friend and companion, what she jokingly called their Boston marriage in private. Franz was here of course, because of the role that he was in fact playing and more importantly to keep up appearances. He had been there holding her hand through the entire process and being a wonderful, supportive friend. The Doctor who was conducting this procedure was one of the foremost experts in the field. If he knew something was up, he was keeping quiet about it and regardless of that, he was being paid very handsomely for his discretion.

With a bit of trepidation Vicky got on the table and was staring at the ceiling as she tried to ignore just what was happening. She could hear Kiki and the Doctor talking in purely technical terms and couldn’t understand much of it. Kiki mentioned being present a month earlier for the birth of their niece, Alexandrine Nagako, Freddy and Suga’s newest daughter. It occurred to Vicky that how she was going about this was coldly clinical and impersonal, absurdly different from how her brother and sister-in-law went about things.

“You might feel a bit of discomfort but try to hold still, Ma’am” The Doctor said, and Vicky tried not think too much about how that was inevitably an understatement. She felt something cold…

“Try not to think too much about it” Franz said, he and Anna were smiling at her as she tried to focus on them as opposed to what was going on.

“That is all” The Doctor said after a few minutes, much to Vicky’s relief. “We will know more in a few weeks, won’t we.”

That was when the full implications of what was ahead hit Vicky.



4th May 1968

Tempelhof, Berlin

The scratching noise from the window of her bedroom scared Sophie when she had woken up to it. Then she saw movement in the darkness, followed by more noise and two glowing amber eyes. Fear left her paralyzed for an extremely long time, what felt like an eternity. Then it passed when Sophie realized that whatever was sitting outside the window wasn’t making any aggressive moves. Looking closer the silhouette of a familiar figure resolved itself, she saw two pointy ears perk up and additional scratching. Getting out of her bed, Sophie opened the window and the room filled with cool night air that smelled of spring, damp earth, blossoms, and growing things. It was still incredibly early, and the sleeping neighborhood was totally silent. Cheshire, Marie Alexandra’s tabby cat dropped through the window into the bedroom. Sophie had no idea how he had gotten so high up the side of the house to reach her window, or why he had picked her window. She was about to open the door to let him into the house when Cheshire jumped up on her bed and mewed at her.

“You aren’t supposed to be in here” Sophie said to the cat as she sat down on her bed. “You are supposed to be with Marie.”

Cheshire didn’t care, he started rubbing his face on Sophie’s hand and purring loudly. Doug had told Sophie that the cat had seldom been put down by Marie or Tatiana since he had been a kitten and tended to enjoy the company of his people. Serhiy, the Cook, had made a comment about how losing his balls had left Cheshire with little else to focus on. Sophie had asked Doug what that meant, and he had shot the Cook a dirty look.

Sophie gave in and scratched Cheshire behind the ear like she knew he enjoyed. Eventually, she fell asleep with the cat in her arms.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty-Six



17th May 1968

Kiel

“If you could excuse me early today, Sir?” Louis Junior asked as he concluded the morning’s business.

“I assume that you want to pay your respects like everyone else” Admiral Teichert said, “You didn’t need to ask.”

With that the Grand Admiral went back to his work. Since Louis had been assigned to Grand Admiral’s Staff, he’d had no idea where he had stood with the former U-Boat Commander despite having worked with him for the last several months. Every day new reports came in from around the world and all of them had to read, summarized, and then orders had to be sent back. The vast logistics network of the Fleet had to be kept moving and any hiccups sent a cascade of calls and recriminations up and down the chain of command. Then there were the hush-hush projects that needed to be handled the same way except Louis had frequently found himself having to talk around what was really happening to someone who wasn’t cleared to know about the projects in question. It all made for extremely long days.

Leaving the Admiral’s office, Louis was putting on his coat and hat when he was joined by a dozen other Junior Officers from Teichert’s staff. As a Kapitänleutnant with an array of medals, Louis was among the most senior of them. He had also held Command of a Flotilla in a foreign port and overwintered in Antarctica. Those were things that put him head and shoulders above his peers, it also put a considerable distance between himself and them even before they learned his name. Today felt different though as they made their way to the waterfront of the old Naval Arsenal where the last of the Fleet’s battleships were moored.

After her name had been stricken from the registry, the SMS Preussen, the leading ship of her Class and the Flag Ship of the Pacific Fleet during the Second World War, was being towed out of port one last time. She was bound for Danzig along with her sister ship SMS Rhineland, where what remained of her would be cut up for scrap. There had been talk of preserving her as a museum ship, but for a variety of reasons that had not been possible. The ongoing effort to save the SMS Brandenburg had been deemed far more likely to succeed, she was far newer, requiring less in the way of repair and maintenance. The Preussen had served in the Pacific War from the very start and it showed.

Standing on the concrete embankment, Louis took off his hat in a sign of respect as the tugboats pulled the Preussen slowly past. Across the water, he could see thousands of people on the waterfront and atop buildings, standing anywhere they could get a view.

“Those fucking jackals, like bringing a whore to a funeral” Louis heard a man next to him say and he saw what the man was looking at. Some distance away, a small group of foreign naval observers were making sure the Preussen was truly going to the breakers. Battleships were still seen as strategic assets and one being disposed of had to be well documented to maintain the balance of world power. Even as the man said that, Louis could feel the crowd growing angry and knew that something needed to be done before anyone did anything stupid. Even as that thought occurred to him, he had another. This was the Navy, what was a funeral if the men couldn’t give the departed a proper send off?

Pushing his way through the crowd, Louis reached one of the tall lampposts that held the floodlights that lit up the Naval Armory at night. Climbing up it as far as he could, Louis was facing thousands of sailors who were suddenly focused on him.

“Three cheers for the Grand Empress of the High Seas Fleet!” Louis yelled.

At first, he was unsure of anyone had heard him. Then he heard that call being repeated up and down the waterfront. Then someone started hurrahing, which was taken up by others. It was ragged at first, but the men started coordinating it through long practice. It was a lot more than just three cheers for the Preussen. Then ships started blasting their horns in the harbor and matters took a life of their own. Louis could see the observers fretting over the about face that things had taken. They were here for the funeral, by God they were getting to witness the starting of the wake. Sliding back down the lamppost, Louis was handed his hat, which he hadn’t even noticed that he had dropped. Others were slapping him on the back.

“Thank you for that, Sir” One of the Sailors said, Louis just shrugged. Keeping the crews out of the wrong sort of trouble was his job.

The next day, the Grand Admiral asked him exactly what had happened. Louis told him the truth; the men had cheered in celebration of grand ship as she passed into history. Teichert had just looked at him suspiciously and let him go. Everyone knew that the Grand Admiral knew far more about what happened in Kiel than he let on. It wasn’t like the prior era that the old salts talked about, where Admiral von Schmidt knew what you had for breakfast and what tune you were whistling when you came back from three days liberty the month before. Still, it was clear that he kept his ear to the ground.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty-Seven



11th May 1968

Tempelhof, Berlin

Part of Kat’s job with the KSK was to be aware of the mindsets of people in other parts of the world. It helped to understand that whenever someone somewhere inevitably did something stupid. Today that involved a feature length cartoon that had been produced by a studio in Japan. Kat had watched it a few weeks earlier. The Japanese had turned to art, particularly animation, to process the national trauma they had endured a generation earlier. Unfortunately for Kat, someone doing something stupid had happened a lot closer to home than she would have liked.

“How was I supposed to know?” Tatiana kept asking Kat who really wanted to slap her oldest daughter at that moment but understood that it would solve nothing.

What was supposed to have been a fun afternoon of ice cream and cinema for the girls had turned into a traumatic experience for Marie and Sophie. The movie that they had wanted to see was a feature length animated film from Japan whose name translated loosely as Dragons in the night, named for a crackling noise that bombs make when they are dropped from the Stratosphere and the distant thrum of turboprop engines. The older of the two characters lies to her little brother by telling him that it is the noise that dragons make as they shelter in the forest and a nearby marshalling yard is being carpet bombed.

If Tatiana had known the history and geography depicted in the film, she would have understood the difficult topics it addressed. It was set in the closing months of the Pacific War depicted teenaged girl and her younger brother who lived in Korea until they were forced to flee south in a harrowing journey to Pusan and eventually to the safety of Japan across the Korean Strait. The twist at the end of the film was that at the point where any other movie would have rolled credits at the happy ending, most people in the audience were left silently screaming at them that the safety is just an illusion when the uncle who takes them in lives just a few kilometers from the Kure Naval Arsenal. The result was a gut punch that came at the end of the film with about as graphic a depiction of the Night of Whispers as had ever been made.

Kat probably knew the details of Operation Quartum better than anyone else. How Louis Ferdinand and Augustus Lang had signed off on the operation along with the relevant heads of the various service branches. They had understood that in doing so they had condemned thousands to die with the stroke of a pen. Louis Ferdinand had made it clear that he understood the ultimate responsibility was his alone and that he would eventually have to answer for it. Lang had said almost the exact same thing in the public statement announcing to the world what had taken place. Kat remembered watching that and thinking about how the tyrants they had defeated in that war would have used those terrible weapons and not felt a twinge of conscience in doing so.

Now decades later, Kat was forced to have to explain the realities of war to two children as gently and possible because their older sister had failed to make an informed choice. She hoped that Tatiana would learn something from this incident, but she doubted that it would. It seemed like nothing short of a sledgehammer between the eyes got through to Tatiana these days.



Near the Ecuador-Peruvian Frontier

The situation was complicated. Beyond the usual territorial beef that the Ecuadorians and the Peruvians had been having with each other since time out of mind, the Chileans and the Argentinians had each taken a side in this conflict with the Brazilians staying neutral. The Bolivians stated position was that they were neutral, but they were ignoring a lot of men and supplies from Argentina that were crossing their country.

The Chileans had long been suspicious of their eastern neighbor but had never wanted to take them on directly. Then Ecuador decided to press their territorial claims in Northern Peru and that had escalated into war of words. The sort of thing that swiftly turned into shooting war in South America. Chile and the United States had immediately seen the opportunity that represented. They just had to keep the Argentine backed Peruvians from rolling over Ecuadorian Army in the meantime.

That was where Ritchie came into the picture. The 1st SFG had been deployed to Quito to act as military advisors. Because he was fluent in Spanish, Ritchie had been thrust to the fore on this mission and he had found himself talking directly with José María Velasco Ibarra, the President of Ecuador acting as a go between for Parker as they had explained the exact mission of the 1st SFG in his country and the Rules of Engagement. Later that night the President had told Ritchie that a man of his experience could be a Colonel inside a year in Ecuador. Later, he had talked with Parker about what had happened, and Parker had just laughed. He said that it was hardly a surprise. Of all the Green Beret presently in Ecuador, he looked the most like what was considered a proper soldier south of the Rio Grande. Parker had told him that he needed to keep his retirement options open, he wasn’t going to be in the U.S. Special Forces forever and living like a king in South America had its appeal. To Ritchie the most shocking part had been when he had realized that Major Parker wasn’t joking.

To escape the politics of the Capital, Ritchie had decided that he needed to get a feel for the frontier. What he found was mountains and jungle in the middle of fucking nowhere. He had once read an account of the Gallipoli Campaign that referred to the landscape as Bastard Country. He knew that was what he was looking at when he saw it.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty-Eight



25th May 1968

Lindau

When Kiki arrived at the hotel where the Royal entourage was taking an extended holiday on the island that was situated near Austrian border, she found Anna in the hotel lounge having an animated conversation with Princess Alberta “Birdie” Charlotte of England. At the same time, Vicky may have been present physically but she looked like she was barely able to stay awake.

The British Princess was studying Environmental Science at the Royal University of Breslau. She had accepted Vicky’s invitation to visit her here a couple weeks earlier, which was before Vicky’s latest crisis. It was the same crisis that had prompted Kiki to travel by train overnight, with an extended layover in Munich, to get here this morning. Birdie had always been a dear friend of Vicky’s and she had been hoping to get some advice on how to win over Vicky and Kiki’s brother Michael, who she had been crushing on for years. Kiki understood what the problem was. Michael still saw Birdie as the nine-year-old girl he had first met years earlier as opposed to the young woman she had grown into, albeit a somewhat socially awkward young woman who wasn’t exactly conventionally attractive. It was something that Birdie more than made up for with her intelligence and wit, though she remained rather naïve about the real nature of Vicky and Anna’s relationship. There was also the aspect of the people of Bohemia loving her when she came to visit that further complicated matters.

“Not adding much to the conversation, Sleepy?” Kiki asked Vicky as she sat down on the couch beside her younger sister.

Vicky turned her head and stared at Kiki for a few seconds before hugging her. “You came?” She asked, whispering into Kiki’s ear.

“Why wouldn’t I” Kiki said, “I agreed to help you.”

Weeks earlier, Kiki had an in-depth conversation with the expert that Franz and Vicky had been seeing and he had explained the entire process to her. After a series of examinations, he had determined just how receptive Vicky would be and the best technique to use. While Kiki had no interest in that particular specialty, she had observed as the Doctor had shown her the process in the lab where sperm from Franz were processed in preparation for later when they were injected into Vicky’s uterus. It was all experimental, having only been attempted on humans a handful of times. The Doctor had said that the hormone injections that had been given to Vicky would make her body particularly receptive while she was ovulating. Now, a few weeks later upon Vicky realizing that she was likely pregnant and had called Kiki for help, though exactly what she expected Kiki to do wasn’t exactly clear.

“Where is Franz?” Kiki asked, “He probably ought to know, even if confirmation won’t be until we can arrange it.”

“He went with some friends to go to Konstanz, something about a casino they wanted to see” Vicky replied, “He won’t be back until tomorrow.”

Despite the need to keep up appearances, Franz and Vicky led separate lives. That complicated moments like these.

“What’s going on?” Birdie asked.

“Vicky thinks she might be pregnant” Kiki replied.

The look on Birdie’s face instantly became one of pure joy. “You and Franz will be the most wonderful parents, filling your child’s life with art and music” She said, “Not like Franz’s stuffy father, he might as well have grown up in the Army.”

Considering just how sheltered she was, there were times when Birdie was amazingly perceptive. Even if she failed to reach the right conclusions most of the time.



Warsaw, Poland

At least it was now springtime.

Bogdan Gajos figured it would probably be a nice day if he were in a position to enjoy it. Instead, he was standing sentry next to a railroad track on the edge of Warsaw as the Government endlessly debated their next course of action. Rumor had it that the Emperor had told them to fix this mess or else he would, and they would not like how that played out.

Bogdan’s father had once said that Government was something that you had to pay attention to, otherwise it would happen to you. That had been during one of his more sober moments. For years, Bogdan’s father had been working towards the somewhat dubious distinction of going from Hetman to Village Drunk. He had been well on his way there when Bogdan had run off to join the Army. Bogdan had not been home in the two years since then, mostly because there wasn’t much to go back to in a flyspeck farming village near the border with Lithuania.

The reason why Bogdan was presently guarding a stretch of railroad track was because of rumors that the rebels in Lesser Poland were going to come north and sabotage the railway infrastructure. It was sort of absurd because the rebels seemed to have no interest in operating outside their own turf and they were just as dependent on the railway as the Polish Army. The real problem as Bogdan saw was that the High Command lacked imagination. Why sabotage the tracks when you could use them? And why build a bomb when what was loaded in boxcars and especially in tanker cars would be more than adequate.

Highjack the train, set the throttles, and jump off. It would be in the heart of Warsaw before it jumped the track, and no one could stop it. So far, no one had thought of that except Bogdan. He didn’t know if he should be disappointed or relieved.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Forty-Nine



3rd June 1968

Tempelhof, Berlin

Kat was supposed to be working, instead she was fretting over the latest wrinkle with Sophie after she had met with her Teacher earlier that afternoon.

Getting called in to meet with one of her children’s teachers was not a new experience for Kat. Normally, it was because of a childish prank, speaking out of turn, or one of a thousand other things that children do. There had been some issues with Tatiana being the “popular girl” or Marie Alexandra getting teased at times for her wild flights of fancy and odd way she had dressed until she had started attending a school that enforced a dress code. Now, Kat was having to contend with Sophie, whose problems were of an entirely different nature.

“Sophie is a good student” The Teacher had said, “The problem is that she keeps having these emotional episodes.”

That was it in a nutshell. While Sophie wasn’t intending to disrupt the class, whenever something upset her, she would huddle behind her desk and silently weep. Not only was the Teacher at a complete loss, but some of the other students had made sport of making Sophie cry because they thought it was funny. Kat had not needed the Teacher to tell her how that was a dangerous game. While Sophie tended to direct things inward, she could lash out in rage if she were pushed a little too far. It was something that Kat understood all too well.

The difference was that where she had always fought back by whatever means she had. Sophie tended to just accept things though. Kat understood why Sophie was like this, her Mother had spent years beating the idea that she was absolutely worthless into her head and it was going to be extremely difficult to teach her otherwise. That was also why Kat was reluctant to tell Sophie that her mother was unwilling to do even the most basic things required to get her back. The last thing that Sophie needed was to learn that she had been completely abandoned by the one person who should have cared about her the most.

The situation with Sophie’s father was even worse. After his release from prison, he had been cashiered from the Heer and left mostly unemployable. It was unknown where he had gotten the money from to do it, but Kat’s Investigators had discovered that relocated to Wisconsin in the United States where no one would be able to easily find out about his past and was living under an assumed name. Kat could have changed all of that with a single phone call, letting the U.S. State Department and Immigration & Naturalization Service know exactly who he was. A man who had been convicted of numerous crimes, of which Assault and Gross Indecency against the Princess Royal of Germany were not even the worst. However, Kat didn’t do that because she figured that the best thing for Sophie would be Reiner Blum remaining on the far side of the Atlantic forever.

Still, Kat had arranged for Germany’s own Foreign Service to be notified that in the highly likely event that the Americans booted Blum out of their country, he was to be considered persona non grata German Empire. They were not to accept his repatriation without first gaining approval of the appropriate Government Ministries. The people in question tended to move at a glacial pace anyway, Kat figured that one look at Blum’s record would cause the entire process to grind to a halt. In the meantime, Blum would languish in whatever hole the Americans stuck him in.

Where did that leave Sophie though?

It was a question that had troubled Kat for months. She had realized that the situation was similar to what she had dealt with in the past, except she was on the other side of the equation this time. Kat was starting to understand some of the things that Aunt Marcella had said and done when she had been at her worst in her early teens. Anything to have gotten Kat out of the tight little bubble she had enclosed herself in. Who knew how long that would have persisted if she hadn’t met Helene by accident?

Like Kat had been, it was clear that Sophie was not completely hopeless by any means. Kat had noticed that she had bonded with Cheshire, one of the household pets. Originally the brown and black tabby had been inseparable from Marie, but as Kat’s daughter had gotten older her interests had started to shift. Beyond her past need to play at dressing up as her literary heroes, Marie had realized that the same talent could be used to make her appear how she wanted at any given moment. The results had been somewhat comical at times, but it was clear the direction she was headed in. Kat also was aware that Marie was becoming aware that boys existed other than the frivolous games she occasionally got her cousins to grudgingly play along with. The result was that she had been mostly ignoring Cheshire and the cat had decided that Sophie giving him loads of attention was far more to his liking.

Perhaps like Kat years earlier, Sophie needed a human friend to help pull her out of the protective space she had built around her.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Fifty



10th June 1968

Hohenzollern Castle

When Kiki came back to the castle this time, she brought everything from her house in Jena with her. When she had arrived in Hechingen, she had seen that the Imperial flag and blue streamer were already flying over the north tower. Word had somehow reached here ahead of her. The people in this town still liked her though she had sort of upended their lives over the last few years. It was something that Kiki had difficulty understanding.

Kiki had passed the second State Examination, which had been her getting grilled over the decisions that she had made in actual cases. Why she had reached the conclusions she had, exactly what courses of action she had taken and what she had learned. For her that had made for an exhausting afternoon and she had spent the rest of the day with Rauchbier, because the dog was the only company she could stand after something like that. It did however mean that she was only a matter of months away from finally getting her Medical License.

With Vicky having moved out, there was really nothing keeping her in Jena anymore beyond Doctor Holz being her Doctoral Advisor. She had Staff School to contend with starting at the end of the Summer Holiday, Doctor Holz had told her that meant that the Medical Service was intending that she go on to bigger things. Kiki had a feeling that she was going to inevitably disappoint them because her ambition had always been to become a Doctor so that she could help people. Being buried in administration somewhere in Berlin or Koblenz was not at all what she wanted, quite the opposite. When she had discussed the matter with Ben, he had said that she might need to resign her Commission if it came right down to it. That had sounded drastic, but it wouldn’t be the first time that she had made a hard choice in order to retake control of her life.

A stack of neglected correspondence greeted her as soon as she entered her chambers. There was a letter from the charitable foundation started by her mother letting Kiki know exactly how many guests she would be having over the summer. The thought of a bunch of boys and girls from various cities doing work like scrubbing floors or weeding gardens, all while having a good time because it was an authentic experience was amusing. Kiki knew full well that if their mothers asked them to do work like that at home, they would probably put up a fight. It was also something that had grown in popularity over the years and determining just who would be allowed to take part had become an issue. The foundation made their selections to make sure that the girls came from a variety of backgrounds. Once again, Nella and Nan were coming. Hardly a surprise really and Kiki always enjoyed the presence of her youngest sisters. If Sophie Sommer wasn’t coming, then Kiki would have felt compelled to learn why. The three girls had grown close over the prior summer when they had shared a room with Kat’s youngest daughter. Marie Alexandra was going to be returning as well, but she would find that things had changed because of her age. She would have a room to herself and would be in a position of responsibility. Welcome to being a grownup Marie, Kiki thought to herself.

Tossing that aside, Kiki opened the next letter. It was from the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen regarding their lease of the Schloss Lindich coming up for renewal. Kiki had never been to the pleasure palace/hunting lodge that had been built a couple hundred years earlier by a member of the Swabian branch of her family. She just knew that that her father had leased it to the University forty years earlier because he was tired of paying for the upkeep of the grounds of a country estate that he had never set foot on. The University had located their botanical garden there and the old palace had become faculty housing. Kiki was perfectly prepared to give them whatever they wanted, so long as it didn’t become an out of pocket expense for her. Still, she wanted to see what their offer was before she agreed to anything.

Next was a letter from the Johanniter Order that was identical to the one that had arrived in Jena a few days earlier. They were inviting her to their Saint John’s Day Feast, and they made a point of mentioning that they had missed her last year. It was clear that they meant business this time and that Kiki couldn’t exactly blow them off again. Still, that would give her a chance to go to Berlin and meet with Doctor Berg, after recent events Kiki had a lot to discuss with her former mentor. After helping Suga and now Vicky negotiate the issues surrounding pregnancy and/or childbirth, Kiki had been left with a lot of questions and Berg was an expert in that field. Like how anyone managed to be conceived much less born in the first place? She had heard from the Doctor who had specialized in fertility some of the problems he had encountered in his practice and that had been vastly different from reading about it in a textbook. Immune responses, viral infections, and a huge number of other problems that came up.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Fifty-One



16th June 1968

Lichtenburg, Berlin

There came a time when the past had to be let go of, no matter how hard the act of letting it go was. The cemetery had contacted Kat and had told her that with her father now being deceased, no one had paid to renew the lease on her mother’s grave. They had wanted to know if she was interested in renewing it herself? Or if not, what did she want done with her mother’s remains if there were any? It had caused her a great deal of grief, but in the end, Kat had to admit to herself that she need to let go of the events that had occurred in the hours after she had been born. Still, she had wanted to be present for this and for some odd reason, Tatiana and Marie Alexandra had insisted that they should come. If Kat had to guess, she figured that they wanted a connection to the grandmother they had never known. Suse Rosa was curious about her namesake. Jo said that she was coming along to offer moral support and Sophie had nodded in agreement to that.

When Aunt Marcella met them at the gates of the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery. She looked at them and said, “Suse always did end up making everything a big production.”

When they got to the plot, workers were already digging up the grave. After nearly four and a half decades buried here things were about to change. Kat stood watching as one of the workers shovels hit the rotten pinewood of Suse’s coffin. Looking down, Kat saw that there simply wasn’t much left to see besides a few scraps of decayed wood and bone fragments. For the life of her, Kat didn’t know what she had expected. Some part of her was still the little girl yearning for what she could never have.

“Probably just as well” The retired Groundskeeper who Kat had had many dealings with over the years said. “There have been a few disturbing findings when graves are opened up.”

Kat knew from a lifetime of experience just how true that was. It wasn’t something that she needed to be reminded of at this moment. The loss of the woman whose grave this had been had played a profound role in why Kat had become who she was. How much had that in turn led to Kat’s relationship with several other women starting with Gia and ending with Sophie, for now. There was also Marcella to consider. Marcella had lost her little sister at the same time she had found herself raising her sister’s children, something that no one could possibly have been prepared for.

“Goodbye Suse” Marcella said, “Dust to dust and all that.”

It was a reminder to Kat that nothing was ever truly static, not even in death.



Quito, Ecuador

The good news was that the mail had caught up with them. There was a problem that created though. Everyone in the team had seen that Ritchie had a few letters from Lucia among the usual stack he got from his mother. The result was that everyone in the team had seen the letters and they had a lot of questions. Like just who this mystery lady was and the all too expected crude questions regarding if he had done more than just go on a date with her? Ritchie had blown off the questions. The guys didn’t need to know about how he was planning on having Lucia come to visit Fort Drum when they got back to New York in a few weeks. They also had far more pressing problems in Ecuador to contend with, Parker had told them that they needed to focus on that.

On the frontier with Peru, they had been hearing alarming things. Mostly the clank and squeal that was the signature of German Panzers. Partially the result of cutting corners in wartime, there were rumors that the Germans had discovered that the noise scared the Hell out of opposing Infantry and had deliberately engineered that sound into their armored vehicles. That was especially true if the other side didn’t have tanks of their own. Ritchie had led a scouting mission across the frontier and had photographed several old Panther II tanks that must have been left over from the Second World War. The Peruvian Government would have been able to get those at fire sale prices because the Germans had sold thousands of them after the Pacific War had concluded and it was cheaper to just sell them rather than trying to take them home. It didn’t matter if they were considered obsolescent nearly everywhere else in the world if the other side didn’t exactly have effective means of countering them. They also represented just how quantitatively superior the Peruvian Army was from a material perspective. Meaning that everyone was expecting that the Ecuadorian Army would likely get overrun in the first hours of any conflict.

With any luck, the Ecuadorians and Peruvians would refrain from doing something stupid before Ritchie’s team rotated back to the States. However, the had entered the relatively cool, dry season that was considered the prime time of the year for exactly the sort of stupidity.

Into this, Parker had received one of the letters that he got through back channels. It had gone with how he had disappeared when he had gone on leave. There were rumors that he crossed into Canada or had flown down to Cuba to meet a woman. Was anyone really surprised? There had been talk for years that Parker had been Agency before he had gotten into the 1st SFG. Didn’t cloak and dagger come with the territory?

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Fifty-Two



23rd June 1968

Sonnenberg

Like always, Kiki felt absurd when she wore the uniform of the Johanniter Order. The red tunic, white skirt, black cloak, and matching hat were absurd. She had joined the other Knights in the Order that afternoon as they had conducted the procession from the hospital to the castle. Because all members of the Order were equal, Kiki had found herself walking beside her father. He had smiled at her and told her that he was happy that that she had come.

The Renaissance castle that was the Seat of the Order’s Brandenburg Bailiwick and was probably the last place on Earth Kiki wanted to be this evening. However, she had run out of excuses for not coming to the Neumark for Saint John’s Eve. Presently, she was the only Dame of Honor in the Order and by far the youngest member. Her cousin had said that would change in the future, but Kiki wasn’t so sure about that. It seemed that the public reputation of the Order tended to proceed it. When the subject of the Order had come up when she had gone on the rounds with Doctor Berg on Friday afternoon. Berg had seen the pin of the Order on Kiki’s white lab coat and had been rather cynical when Kiki had tried to explain what it was about.

“A bunch of rich old men parading around in funny costumes trying to buy their way into Heaven with money as opposed to deeds” Was how Berg had put it. That was perfectly in keeping with what Kiki knew about Berg’s opinion of hypocrisy. The thing was, that described most of the chivalrous Orders when it came right down to it. Kiki also knew that Berg, along with the entire University Hospital’s administration, had never turned away anyone who wanted to donate money to it. Berg had also seen fit to mention that the Order’s Patron Saint had probably been a Paranoid Schizophrenic who had spent much of his life deep in the throes of religious mania.

Berg had dropped it when she had started talking to her patient, an unfortunate woman who’d had one child too many and had paid a heavy price. Berg had told Kiki that it was a long recovery further complicated by the woman being rendered surgically menopausal. It was in keeping with the questions that Kiki had for Berg anyway and they had talked afterwards. Berg had said that she should come to the hospital in the afternoons and evenings to work in her department. She felt that Kiki could learn a lot and it would probably be a welcome change from what she will have to endure in the mornings.

With that, the prayer concluded, and everyone seated themselves. As a Dame of Honor, Kiki was seated at the far end of the room, out of earshot of the Grandmaster who was leading this whole thing. She still had the ritualized “feast” to get through and then a hundred odd kilometers back to Berlin to look forward to.



Near Arenillas, Ecuador

The problem of Peruvian tanks would have been easily solved if the pencil pushers back in Washington D.C. could have pulled their heads out of their asses for five minutes. Instead, Parker had sent increasingly terse telegrams back to the States and he kept getting the same answers back. A Special Forces Team like the one he was heading had a specific Table of Organization and Equipment for good reason. That basically said that the US Government didn’t trust their Ecuadorian counterparts and they didn’t want to give them a weapon that might be turned on American forces if the political winds changed. His requests for more of the type of anti-tank rockets currently issued to the US Army had been rebuffed. His team had the only M-20 Super Bazooka in all of Ecuador and only a dozen rockets for it while intelligence said that the Peruvians had a hundred tanks. From long experience, Parker doubled the number of tanks he could expect if the balloon went up and according to Ritchie these were Panther II tanks they would be dealing with. The handful of M-9 Bazookas that the Ecuadorians had would probably just piss off the crews of those tanks and they would return the favor with interest in the form of high-explosive shells.

Into this, Parker had received a letter from Sigi. Just her letting him know that she was well. Pomerania was boring during the winter, so she was happy that summer was finally here. The issue was that the letter had been routed through Langley before it had been redirected to him. It was the CIA’s way of letting Parker know that they were watching him and his personal relationships very carefully.

Meeting Sigi in Nova Scotia and Cuba had been nice. Mostly they had been able to enjoy themselves without the politics of their home countries interfering with matters. The CIA had not been pleased with Parker having done that. During the latest debrief that he had been subjected to upon his return from Cuba, he had been asked if he was trying to turn Sigi. It had been all he could do not to show his annoyance. The CIA saw her as a potential asset, nothing more. Apparently, the CIA’s counterparts in the BND were leaning on Sigi in the exact same way. Sigi had told him that if a couple of meteors took out Langley and Falkensee both of them would be happier for it.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Fifty-Three



28th June 1968

Mitte, Berlin

There were two people beyond her family who Kiki made a point of seeing while she was in Berlin. The first was Nora Berg, who had been Kiki’s mentor when she had been younger. While the caustic Doctor was opinionated and judgmental, she had a lifetime navigating the professional shoals that Kiki found herself contending with now. The other was Magdalena Foerstner, Leni to those who knew her personally. Kiki had first met the Librarian when she had come to help archive the private library of the Hohenzollern family. The collection had included many rare editions including an original Gutenberg Bible. Kiki had not understood the significance of it until Leni had told her that it wasn’t just among the rarest and most valuable of books. It was the first book printed on movable type, so in many respects the entire modern word could be traced back to its publication.

“I’ve already seen this sort of thing too often in my life” As she pushed the book across the table, away from her. It was a history book about the First World War that was filled with beautiful illustrations, that were also terribly graphic. It reminded her of the idea that an accurate depiction of war becomes anti-war by its never nature.

Leni looked at her sadly.

“There are times when I think this nation has done a great disservice to your generation” Leni said, “Korea didn’t need to happen, and you got caught up in that tragedy.”

“No one wants an expansionist China” Kiki replied, realizing that it was a rote response even as she said it, a rationalization. “Especially the Koreans and Vietnamese.”

“As well as the Indians, Tibetans, or anyone else in a neighboring country, which we are not” Leni said, clearly seeing what Kiki had just said for exactly what it was. “You were there simply for the sake of national interest.”

“That is a bit cynical.”

“I have seen a lot myself” Leni replied, “Being orphaned gives you a perspective that is tragically not unique in this day and age.”

Kiki glanced at the pale scars on Leni’s wrists and reminded herself that the bookish Librarian had not led an easy life. She had been one of thousands of war orphans, eventually being taken from State Care only because she had the dubious fortune of sharing a physical resemblance to Jehane Thomas-Romanova when she had been a teenager. Her own struggles were trifling by comparison.

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is help people” Kiki said, “Unfortunately, it is not all puppies and rainbows in the places where people need help the most.”

“An honest answer” Leni said before taking a sip of the cup of tea that Kiki had brought her.

They sat there for a long awkward moment, neither of them wanting to discuss this matter further.

“Tell me about these children who you’ve opened your family’s castle to” Leni said.

That was a much easier topic to discuss and Kiki was happy to have it.

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With another election coming up Helene realized that she was less concerned the voters than things closer to home. Considering the fickle whims of the voters, thinking about something else was probably less aggravating.

Helene was happy to have her son back and had been encouraging him to go to University in every way she could. She had pulled a lot of strings to get Manny appointed to Imperial War Museum and First Foot Guard Regiment in coming months. Both those things would keep him in either Berlin or Potsdam for the next few years. With any luck, his course of study would eventually lead him either out of the military or into a role similar to the one his Uncle Stefan played in Administrative Services.

Presently, it was Ina who was worrying Helene for a change. Her daughter was all heart and she had gotten into Veterinary Medicine because she loved animals, the difficulty was that field was particularly hard on those who loved animals. More than once Helene had found Ina beside herself over something that had happened over the course of the day. It had also revealed that despite how warm, fuzzy, generous to a fault Ina was, she was very much a member of her father’s family. It true Mischner fashion she had dealt with whatever she needed to and then once no one could see her, she completely fell apart. A few days before, Ina had told Helene that she was starting to think that she needed to find something else to do but had no idea what. For the first time in her life, Ina seemed completely lost.

Fortunately, things had gotten better between her and Hans. When Manny had joined the Heer, Helene had blamed Hans and Kat. Now, that seemed to be misplaced. It had been Manny who had made his choices, Helene had to allow her children to make their own choices and mistakes. That did not make it easy to watch though and Helene had lashed out at her husband and sister-in-law. She had also not been pleased with her father, though he had kept quiet this time and had focused on his longtime quest to advance family prestige. Much to the horror of his children. Helene thought that her father’s pushing ahead with this Kurfürst madness was taking things way too far.