Part 61, Chapter 866
Chapter Eight Hundred Sixty-Six
5th November 1950
Berlin
She would have done it to protect Gia. It probably would have killed a part of her forever but there would have been no hesitation. Doug had listened as Kat had haltingly told him the entire story and her reasoning.
The court case had been going on for five years, getting appealed again and again, having to be reargued at each stage. The question was whether Jehane had standing to sue the American Corporations for breach of contract and for the US Government to release the funds frozen during the war. Kat had followed the case closely while feigning indifference. Then a month earlier the United States Supreme Court had ruled that Jehane and her cousin Georgy had standing for the case to proceed to trial. That had come at an extremely inconvenient time for Kat, she was pregnant and finding her resources drying up right when the OSS and US State Department were digging up every lead they could find in France and Germany to try to get dirt on the two Plaintiffs. The problem for Kat was that everyone associated with Gia was under as much scrutiny as the US Government could bring to bare on them here in Germany, or Austria as the case may be.
Kat had explained that if Nancy Jensen had turned, become a double agent she would get found out almost immediately because of that scrutiny. Nancy would then be used to leverage her friends, many of whom were also friends with Gia. That might not have worked with Kat, but she couldn’t be sure about the others. If Kat thought that was going to happen then she would follow her orders, protect Gia. The plan was for Kat to lure Nancy into an isolated part of the Tiergarten and kill her as swiftly and painlessly as possible. She would then call in a specialist who would have cleaned it up and made it look like the appropriate sort of accident. Kat had wept as if she really had betrayed her friend when Doug understood the truth, Kat been put in an impossible situation because, as he learned, what Gia’s great secret was, and it was a doozy. The sort of thing that would destroy her life if it ever got out and it was the sort of thing Kat would kill to keep the world from finding out.
“Perhaps she was just experimenting” Doug had said.
“When it goes on for almost a year that is not an experiment” Kat replied, “That is being in a relationship.”
Gia had apparently demonstrated herself to be bisexual which in Berlin, which was infamous for anything goes, would still have raised eyebrows. In the United States or Russia that would provoke a nasty backlash against her. Gia and Asia had been a couple for months, being as discrete as possible until Gia had been taken into custody by the House of Hohenzollern. When they had been on the lam in France and Canada, Gia and Asia had decided that they would only be able to remain friends. It had been when Kat had retrieved Asia after Gia had been sent on to the convent that she had grilled Asia about what had happened, and Asia had confessed the whole thing to Kat. Asia had still been heartbroken about the end of the relationship and didn’t understand what had happened or why. The two of them had still discussed the men they were attracted to even while in love with each other, which Asia had tried to say over and over meant something and it was just for fun. Kat was left with a difficult situation where she had no idea who else might have known, but she couldn’t risk that information getting out. Gia had no idea that Kat knew about any of it and Kat had been reluctant to speak with Gia about it.
Now it was the early morning hours and Kat had cried herself out and had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Doug was left awake worrying about her. What if next time events really did force her hand? Doug had no doubt that she would do it, what he doubted was that there would be enough left of her to pick up the pieces afterwards.
London, England
Fleming was watching the Director’s cut of the James Bond movie, it was the final scenes of the film. Bond and Andrea had separated from Zhanna in the previous scene with the German paratroopers to lead the Soviet agents away from her, only to watch as the plane that he had thought that they just put her on disintegrate into a ball of fire a few hundred yards away from the runway. The Russian Agents, who had been in retreat cheer at this turn of events. The leader of them who had been the primary villain of the film flips Bond and Andrea a salute, leaving the field with a smile on his face even while Andrea is still shooting at him.
A couple months later Bond is walking down the street in Berlin and knocks on a door. It’s answered by Zhanna who looks at him before running back into the apartment. Andrea takes her place.
“She’s looking well for a dead girl” Bond said sardonically.
Andrea just looked at him through narrowed eyes, clearly displeased to discover him on her doorstep.
“I’ll have you know that your secret is safe with me” Bond says with a smile.
Andrea just scowls and says “Never come back here” before slamming the door in his face.
James Bond walks off down the street whistling.
The camera though doesn’t follow Bond. Instead, it pans into the cluttered apartment where Zhanna in seen drawing in the parlor. Then down the hallway to the kitchen where Andrea is talking with a man whose face the audience can’t see. Instead, they can only see that he’s wearing the uniform of a Luftwaffe Colonel. They are discussing the merits of keeping Commander Bond alive or not and the Colonel hints that there is a wider game that he is playing. Earlier in the film, Andrea had sneered at the idea that there was a mastermind behind Abwehr. Well, there he was. Fleming had wondered if he was going too far by including that in the book and now the film. It was rumored that such a man existed. It was also rumored that J. Edger Hoover, the Head of the America FBI had gotten too close, finding proof of his existence and had died for it. Fleming hoped that the mysterious Oberst von Whatever liked the notoriety he was about to get because Fleming thought that the film had turned out brilliantly.
He lit a cigarette and took a drag only to have it explode in the holder with a loud POP! Fleming looked at the pack in his hand and saw a note stuck into it. Ever think of quitting Ian? Don’t you know smoking is bad for you? The note read. His invisible tormentors had struck one last time and had really outdone themselves. He put the pack of cigarettes aside and poured himself a drink as the credits rolled on the screen of the small theater in the film studio’s offices. He intended to include them in his next book, so he hoped they enjoyed their fun.
5th November 1950
Berlin
She would have done it to protect Gia. It probably would have killed a part of her forever but there would have been no hesitation. Doug had listened as Kat had haltingly told him the entire story and her reasoning.
The court case had been going on for five years, getting appealed again and again, having to be reargued at each stage. The question was whether Jehane had standing to sue the American Corporations for breach of contract and for the US Government to release the funds frozen during the war. Kat had followed the case closely while feigning indifference. Then a month earlier the United States Supreme Court had ruled that Jehane and her cousin Georgy had standing for the case to proceed to trial. That had come at an extremely inconvenient time for Kat, she was pregnant and finding her resources drying up right when the OSS and US State Department were digging up every lead they could find in France and Germany to try to get dirt on the two Plaintiffs. The problem for Kat was that everyone associated with Gia was under as much scrutiny as the US Government could bring to bare on them here in Germany, or Austria as the case may be.
Kat had explained that if Nancy Jensen had turned, become a double agent she would get found out almost immediately because of that scrutiny. Nancy would then be used to leverage her friends, many of whom were also friends with Gia. That might not have worked with Kat, but she couldn’t be sure about the others. If Kat thought that was going to happen then she would follow her orders, protect Gia. The plan was for Kat to lure Nancy into an isolated part of the Tiergarten and kill her as swiftly and painlessly as possible. She would then call in a specialist who would have cleaned it up and made it look like the appropriate sort of accident. Kat had wept as if she really had betrayed her friend when Doug understood the truth, Kat been put in an impossible situation because, as he learned, what Gia’s great secret was, and it was a doozy. The sort of thing that would destroy her life if it ever got out and it was the sort of thing Kat would kill to keep the world from finding out.
“Perhaps she was just experimenting” Doug had said.
“When it goes on for almost a year that is not an experiment” Kat replied, “That is being in a relationship.”
Gia had apparently demonstrated herself to be bisexual which in Berlin, which was infamous for anything goes, would still have raised eyebrows. In the United States or Russia that would provoke a nasty backlash against her. Gia and Asia had been a couple for months, being as discrete as possible until Gia had been taken into custody by the House of Hohenzollern. When they had been on the lam in France and Canada, Gia and Asia had decided that they would only be able to remain friends. It had been when Kat had retrieved Asia after Gia had been sent on to the convent that she had grilled Asia about what had happened, and Asia had confessed the whole thing to Kat. Asia had still been heartbroken about the end of the relationship and didn’t understand what had happened or why. The two of them had still discussed the men they were attracted to even while in love with each other, which Asia had tried to say over and over meant something and it was just for fun. Kat was left with a difficult situation where she had no idea who else might have known, but she couldn’t risk that information getting out. Gia had no idea that Kat knew about any of it and Kat had been reluctant to speak with Gia about it.
Now it was the early morning hours and Kat had cried herself out and had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Doug was left awake worrying about her. What if next time events really did force her hand? Doug had no doubt that she would do it, what he doubted was that there would be enough left of her to pick up the pieces afterwards.
London, England
Fleming was watching the Director’s cut of the James Bond movie, it was the final scenes of the film. Bond and Andrea had separated from Zhanna in the previous scene with the German paratroopers to lead the Soviet agents away from her, only to watch as the plane that he had thought that they just put her on disintegrate into a ball of fire a few hundred yards away from the runway. The Russian Agents, who had been in retreat cheer at this turn of events. The leader of them who had been the primary villain of the film flips Bond and Andrea a salute, leaving the field with a smile on his face even while Andrea is still shooting at him.
A couple months later Bond is walking down the street in Berlin and knocks on a door. It’s answered by Zhanna who looks at him before running back into the apartment. Andrea takes her place.
“She’s looking well for a dead girl” Bond said sardonically.
Andrea just looked at him through narrowed eyes, clearly displeased to discover him on her doorstep.
“I’ll have you know that your secret is safe with me” Bond says with a smile.
Andrea just scowls and says “Never come back here” before slamming the door in his face.
James Bond walks off down the street whistling.
The camera though doesn’t follow Bond. Instead, it pans into the cluttered apartment where Zhanna in seen drawing in the parlor. Then down the hallway to the kitchen where Andrea is talking with a man whose face the audience can’t see. Instead, they can only see that he’s wearing the uniform of a Luftwaffe Colonel. They are discussing the merits of keeping Commander Bond alive or not and the Colonel hints that there is a wider game that he is playing. Earlier in the film, Andrea had sneered at the idea that there was a mastermind behind Abwehr. Well, there he was. Fleming had wondered if he was going too far by including that in the book and now the film. It was rumored that such a man existed. It was also rumored that J. Edger Hoover, the Head of the America FBI had gotten too close, finding proof of his existence and had died for it. Fleming hoped that the mysterious Oberst von Whatever liked the notoriety he was about to get because Fleming thought that the film had turned out brilliantly.
He lit a cigarette and took a drag only to have it explode in the holder with a loud POP! Fleming looked at the pack in his hand and saw a note stuck into it. Ever think of quitting Ian? Don’t you know smoking is bad for you? The note read. His invisible tormentors had struck one last time and had really outdone themselves. He put the pack of cigarettes aside and poured himself a drink as the credits rolled on the screen of the small theater in the film studio’s offices. He intended to include them in his next book, so he hoped they enjoyed their fun.
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