Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Thirty-Six



8th August 1977

Beuthen, Silesia

“Can you tell me where Hauptmann Weiss is?” Einar Tann asked the first Kanoniers he saw when he walked into the depot.

“Why you asking Oberfeld?” The Kanonier asked in reply. It was obvious that this man could see that Einar had Waffenfarbe in the gold color of Recon/Cavalry which bordered his shoulder boards.

Einar wasn’t about to tell this stranger that he hoped that Christian would do him a favor for old time’s sake. They went way back, having survived Poland and the Patagonian War. It was the aftermath of Patagonia and the apocalyptic Battle of Paso de San Francisco that had led directly to Einar’s current predicament. He had caught a bullet in the chest during that final battle. It had somehow missed the ceramic plates of his armored vest and had nearly killed him. When he had eventually recovered months later, Einar had discovered that his old outfit had been restructured and his friends had been scattered throughout the Heer. Einar had bounced around over the last few years, not really fitting in anywhere and he was getting the impression that his time to find a reason to keep him around was running short. It had seemed like it was the end of the line for him, with few remaining options other than returning to Estonia and doing God only knew what when he had received a letter from Christian asking how he was. Perhaps there was a chance that his old Squad Leader was his means of side-stepping what seemed to be inevitable.

“Hauptmann Weiss is an old friend from before” Einar replied, knowing that held a great deal of meaning. It was also something that could get you into a whole lot of trouble if you couldn’t back it up.

“I see” The Kanonier said, though it was obvious that he didn’t trust Einar for even a second. “Try the office, if he isn’t there he’ll be around eventually.”

The Kanonier’s attitude was typical of the Artillerymen who Einar had encountered in the past. It took a certain type of personality to wrangle bagged charges of nitrocellulose while under fire. Christian had mentioned this attitude in the letter, that they needed to be absolutely fearless.

Walking through the depot, Einar saw the hulking self-propelled guns with tarps thrown over the barrels of the 15cm howitzers. Having been on the receiving end of guns like those was something that haunted his dreams, it was the sort of thing that stuck with you forever. There was a scattering of men around, but they must have had better things to do because he was ignored. Entering the small administrative office of the Battery, Einar found it empty. He was left with nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait.



Salamis Naval Shipyard, Salamis Island, Greece



Inventorying the armory was a necessary task. Considering that for men like Fotios Papadopoulos there really was no peace. Any second the current ceasefire could break down. Then he and his men would be sent to contain the situation, preferably with extreme prejudice. Still, the Hellenic Navy was still the Navy and if so much as a single rifle cartridge couldn’t be accounted for, then there would be consequences.

As Anthypaspistis and a Marine in the Greek Navy for almost thirty years, Fotios had certain expectations to meet. It was a position that he had held for more than a decade, so he understood exactly what was expected of him. Like most of the other “Raiding Squads” employed by the Hellenic Navy, the Officers knew to stay out of their way with Fotios himself allowed to maintain control of his men as he saw fit. The only thing that that the Naval Command in Constantinople cared about was the results. This was especially true after the fiasco in Finike last year, where the Hellenic Army had gotten a black eye when a single Company of German Marines had stood off against a force ten times their number. The Germans had only been fighting for time so that they could retreat to sea and taking the people evacuated from the hospital with them. Then the German Navy and Air Force had gotten involved, thoroughly wrecking Finike and then bouncing the rubble.

Yeah, they had made their point.

The Germans had been extremely lucky that Fotios had been busy elsewhere that day. He wasn’t as stupid as the typical Officer employed by the Army, apparently it had never occurred to them that the Company of Marines they had been tangling with would simply retreat to sea. As if the flotilla sitting just offshore wasn’t a major clue. In Fotios’ opinion, the Army had spent entirely too much time exclusively fighting the Turks and the Navies of other nations, even their own nation, played by a different set of rules. That had been made excruciatingly clear in Finike.

Looking at a rack containing dozens of Simonov carbines, the compact version of the standard rifle of the Hellenic Military, Fotios filled out the form saying that all of them had been accounted for. Next to it was the pair of Hotchkiss M1922 machineguns. Those had seen extensive use over the last several decades. Finally there were the half dozen Makrykano SMGs that were not as well regarded. They were the result of an attempt to reverse engineer the MP40s that had seen extensive service during the Soviet War with rather mixed results. Pyrkal had been promising that they were developing a replacement, but that was what they had been saying for years, so Fotios paid them little attention.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Thirty-Seven



14th August 1977

Youth Correctional Facility Neustrelitz

It was made to look more like university campus with a working farm than a prison. The stated goal was to have the inmates finish their education and learn skills which would help them succeed when they rejoined society. That was very laudable, but as Sepp had seen since he had started coming here to visit his brother Hagen a few years earlier, the people who ran this place knew that not every inmate was going to be successful. Hagen was at that top of the list of those expected to eventually be released only to end up right back in the system, just with far less comfortable surroundings.

It all stemmed from his total lack of remorse over what he had done, the players involved, and how he continued to remain silent as to who had ordered him to stab a complete stranger to death. For years, Sepp had been trying to talk some sense into Hagen over the matter. He wasn’t stupid and in case he hadn’t noticed, while he was stuck in Neustrelitz they were presumably out living their lives somewhere.

“How’re you Sepp?” Hagen said with a wide smile as soon as he saw Sepp and it was all he could do not to deck him. Wasting an entire day going to visit Hagen was not an enjoyable experience and he wouldn’t have done it unless he absolutely had to. The least Hagen could do would be to acknowledge that. “Spending a sunny afternoon visiting your long-lost brother?”

“How can you be lost if I always know exactly where you are?” Sepp asked in reply, probably with more heat than was warranted, but he had endured far too much of that attitude over the years and today he wasn’t about to stand for it. That comment punched though Hagen’s bullshit though. Sepp caught a glimpse of what was beneath, the seething rage and resentment that had always been a key part of who his brother was. Despite their mother’s efforts to move Heaven and Earth to get Hagen out of here, there were many in the State who felt that he was exactly where he belonged. Somewhere along the line, Sepp had come to share that perspective even if he didn’t dare say it aloud.

“I’m not here to have the same stupid arguments with you” Sepp said after a long awkward pause. “I’m here about Pop.”

“Did he buy his millionth liter from Bitburger, so they are giving him a plaque, and throwing a party in his honor?” Hagen asked with a smirk. He thought that was clever, which didn’t make what Sepp had to say any easier.

“Pop died last week” Sepp replied, “He collapsed on a job site, they said it was his heart…”

Of all the things that Sepp could have said, that was not what Hagen was expecting. The reaction of Hagen attacking Sepp should have been predictable though. Something that had not changed was that he was bigger than his brother, so it only took a few seconds for him to get the upper hand even before the guards intervened. It seemed that despite the pretensions they had at Neustrelitz, some things about an institution of its nature never changed. That was very apparent in the visiting area.



Constanța, Romania

It had taken a great deal of effort on the part of Louis Ferdinand Junior, but he had gotten the NMS Stefan cel Mare completed and put to sea joining her sistership, the NMS Vlad III Dracula. Having the two Cruisers available lent a great deal of firepower to the Romanian Fleet which had been sorely lacking in heavy units until now. That had been the talk throughout the seaport on the Black Sea until Margareta had arrived in Constanța with her entourage.

In addition to the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters and shipyards, Constanța boasted having oil terminals, railyards, and grain elevators as well. Even during the summer months it was bustling. It was that industry that was the source of the city’s wealth, but it had also gained it a reputation of being gritty and pedestrian. There were the beaches and the old casino on the waterfront that attracted tourism, however people talked about how things had once been different. Having the Crown Princess and her Prince Consort brought some real glamor to Constanța for the first time in decades.

It was when Amedeo Giovani, the Prince of Naples, came to Constanța in full view of the press and world that the Mayor and the City Council had decided that they were seeing nothing short of divine intervention on behalf of their city. The truth was that Amedeo had other concerns and Louis just happened to be one of the few people he considered an actual friend. That was why they were having a drink on the balcony of the apartment that Louis had leased which took up the entire top floor of an Old Town building overlooking the harbor. They talked about ships and the fun they’d had in the Caribbean until they got around to what Amedeo really wanted to talk about.

“You gave the Court gossips quite a bit to talk about at Kiki’s birthday party” Louis said with a smile.

“My father demanded that I introduce myself to your sister Antonia” Amedeo replied, “How was I supposed to know that I was talking to the wrong girl.”

“Nan said that you were quite charming” Louis said, “Nella found it funny and the two of them share everything.”

Amedeo was a bit embarrassed by the whole matter. He was Italian and everyone knew the stereotypes that he couldn’t be further from. Nella wasn’t the public figure that her older half-siblings were, and Nan had been adopted, so even less was known about her. The result had been a comedy of manners that even Shakespeare would have been proud of. The only damage had been to Amedeo’s dignity as he had learned the nature of his mistake in the following days.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Thirty-Eight



21st August 1977

Balderschwang, Bavaria

The tags that she had worn on a stainless-steel chain had been a part of who Kiki was for her entire adult life. Their presence was felt while eating, sleeping, even while bathing. Now that the end of that had a hard date set she found herself with them on her mind as she was looking at the tags as she had woken on a Sunday morning. In four months she would go on Maternity Leave and this time her formal request for separation at the end of that had been granted. That was why the tags were at the forefront of her thinking.

Part of the reforms implemented after the end of the Second World War had involved recordkeeping. The disk-shaped identity tags, which had been issued at the Company level, that had then been in use by the German Military had proven to be both inadequate and a major security risk. Showing the wearer’s unit and only using a single number within said unit had been the cause of many problems during the war. The new tags issued after the war had moved to providing information solely about the individual wearer; Name, Date of Birth, Blood Type, and the 12-digit Social Security Number were stamped on the new tags. The new tags were also less delicate than the old ones, the disk which had been designed to be broken in half was gone, replaced by two tags. The first was worn on a chain around the wears neck and by regulation the other was to be laced into their right boot while they were in the field. No one had any idea where the OKW had gotten the idea to make that a requirement.

For Kiki, in the field had meant a lot of things. She had been considered in the field while working in the Emergency Departments of various hospitals and while playing the role of Administrator. It was something that had gotten her a lot of curious looks in Berlin, Halle, and even in Sonthofen. It Ulm, it was expected, so no one batted an eye.

“Momma is in a melancholy mood today because she has to make a whole lot of changes to make room for you in her life” Ben said to Kiki’s mid-section, causing her to hit him over the head with her pillow.

“You know that I wanted out of the Medical Service before all this” Kiki said, “Albrecht and that mess with Ulm. Lasting less than a year in the most substantial posting of my career.”

“No” Ben replied, “You hate being in Ulm, as much as you try to tell everyone how important it is. I get the impression that you are happiest when you can come home to me and Nina every day.”

That was the truth, just not one that she had wanted to say to anyone. Getting posted to Ulm was supposed to be incredibly prestigious. The culmination of a long career with only Generaloberstabsarzt Artur Biermann, the Commander in Chief of the Medical Service, his Deputy, and the five Medical Inspectors of the various Service Branches outranking her. For Kiki it had not felt like a reward though. She had done what was expected of her but had not liked the long days followed by lonely nights living separately from her husband and daughter. Sure she saw Fianna and Lutz. However, it was painfully obvious that even then she hardly saw her son for more than a little bit during the evenings. The decision that Ben and Kiki had made to possibly have another baby had come as a profound relief to her. It gave her a way to bow out in a dignified manner.



Madrid, Spain

After their rambling journey across northern Spain, Tatiana and Marie Alexandra had ended up at the home of Sigi and Jay in Muxía. They were friends of family who had lived in far western end of Spain on the Atlantic Coast for the last few years, mostly enjoying the fact that no one knew who they were. The few days they had spent resting in Muxía had been quite enjoyable, but it had also marked the conclusion of their holiday.

Walking down the jetway to the airplane, Marie was already starting to feel homesick. Tatiana had gotten on a train back to Berlin that morning, so there was not even anyone to see her off this time. Madrid to New York, then the connecting flight on to Montreal. That would make for an extremely long night and much of the following day spent traveling.

The Stewardess was pleasant enough as she directed Marie to her seat in coach, one that was mercifully next to a window. This particular airliner had two aisles and three rows of seats, spending the hours ahead with nothing to look at but the seat in front of her simply did not appeal to her. Despite having enough money for a first-class ticket, she had not wanted to draw that sort of attention to herself. Seeing the businessmen in the first-class seats as she had boarded already half drunk from the time they had waited in the airport lounge had validated that reasoning. Seriously, who would want to be around that?

Looking out the window, Marie saw the aircrew in the process of preparing the airplane for flight. There were two engines visible through her window and a big, swept-back wing. Though she wasn’t paying attention, Marie was aware of the dozens of other passengers finding their seats around her. Before she had boarded her train, Tatiana had joked about how Marie should enjoy the hours of listening to the screams of a small child in the hours ahead. She certainly hoped that her sister was wrong about that.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Thirty-Nine



22nd August 1977

Idlewild International Airport, New York

Marie Alexandra knew that she was being followed closely by a group of men who had done their best to remain unobtrusive. Fortunately for her, and perhaps unfortunately for them, Marie had become quite good at spotting them over the last few years. She had considered a number of ways that she could allude them, but the obvious bottleneck that was her reservation on the Air Canada flight to Montreal in an hour meant that not only were they ahead of her but knew exactly where she was going. The very act of attempting to allude them would only complicate matters. Marie realized that the best call in this situation was exactly like how her mother had described, if you couldn’t avoid coming under surveillance then you should be as boring as possible.

So, Marie was sitting in a sad attempt at a café in the airport concourse drinking what passed for coffee in America after she had decided that she wasn’t hungry after looking at was they were offering. Waiting a couple hours until she reached Montreal to find some proper food wasn’t that bad compared to having an upset stomach as a result of the massive amount of sugar that people in the United States seemed to like.

“Miss Blackwood” A man said in a Brooklyn accent as he approached the table. “You drop the other part when you travel with your Canadian passport? You’re just Marie Blackwood in Canada? I can see the advantages of that, especially when the alternative is Princess von Mischner.”

“It would be Prinzessin von Mischner” Marie replied, “If that were my title, which I do not have.”

“If you say so” The man said with a smile, “I have it on good authority that everyone seems to think that is who you are.”

Marie winced at that characterization of her.

“I have no control over what other people think” Marie replied, “My mother is the Prefect of Berlin, that is an appointed title that she holds at the pleasure of Kaiser Friedrich. Who are you anyway? I presume that you are with the men who have been following me since I got off the plane from Madrid.”

The man seemed to enjoy Marie confronting him directly. The only reason she was being this bold was because she was tired and had come to find that these stupid games had grown annoying.

“My youngest daughter is your age and I wish she could be that direct” The man said, “And those men are with me, after a fashion. The name is Pat Murphy and I happen to be the Director of the FBI these days, though up until a few years ago I was the Police Commissioner of New York City. My understanding is that the Bureau and your family go way back. I figured that a young woman of your prominence would prefer it if I acted directly to avoid any more misunderstandings.”

Marie understood that meant that Murphy was just as much a Politician as he was a Police Officer. To have occupied the top spots in a place like New York and now the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation required the ability of navigate in the some very high, and very corrupt circles. He was someone who could not be trusted, not even for a second.

“I would prefer to be left alone” Marie replied as the waitress walked up and offered her more coffee as Murphy motioned for a cup for himself. They sat in silence as the waitress poured Murphy a cup.

“My understanding is that your Grandfather was the head of Mounties’ Special Branch up in Canada” Murphy finally said, breaking the silence. “You understand that what he did is roughly the same job I do in the United States?”

“My other grandfather was Otto Mischner, Mister Murphy” Marie replied, “Are you aware of what he did in Germany, or any of the rumors about what he was before that? Before the First World War?”

“I’m not familiar” Murphy said.

“Obviously” Marie replied, “If you were, you wouldn’t have brought grandfathers up. My mother said that she knew her father loved her, that he would move Heaven and Earth for her. The truth though is that she had been forced to confront who he really was. There are monsters out there and they look like ordinary men. What do you want?”

“Funny that you mention monsters that look ordinary” Murphy said, “I saw plenty of that as a patrol officer. Things that would turn most people white if they only knew, but you are familiar with that aren’t you. Especially after your encounter with the Neo-Jacobin movement that arose in Berlin a few years ago, they kidnapped you didn’t they.”

Marie was suddenly filled with an urge to throw the coffee in Murphy’s face. That incident had given her nightmares for years and Kiki had nearly died in the process of helping her escape. That was something that she didn’t like to think about and the aspect of being used as a pawn for that creep’s ambitions… Nothing like that was ever going to happen again.

“You still haven’t told me what you want” Marie said.

“What if I told you that I don’t want anything?” Murphy asked, “Just wanted to get a feel for who you are after all the trouble your mother has caused over the years, learn if you are cut from the same cloth?”

Marie watched Murphy drinking his coffee, annoyed that she had played right into his hands just by talking to him.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Forty



24th August 1977

Staten Island, New York City

It was no surprise that Murphy had raised a lot of questions by dealing with the matter in Idlewild Airport himself. As Director he was supposed to delegate things like that. According to FBI Agents in the field, Marie’s older sister was suspected of having entered the United States with a fraudulently obtained passport. Making a case that could go to trial would be extremely difficult though and not just because she had apparently not left a paper trail, but because no jury would believe that a rich girl from Berlin would choose to wait tables in a Boston restaurant over summer vacation. There were many in the FBI who wanted to talk with Marie about that as well as many other topics. Murphy had ordered them not to go anywhere near her and had told them that he intended to conduct the interview himself. He had a couple of different reason for his course of action.

The first was simple enough. Many of those asking questions didn’t understand was that this wasn’t the first time Marie Blackwood had crossed the FBI’s radar. The first time, it had been during an informal investigation that had been trying to run down a rumor that Marie had not remained on her side of the Canadian border. James Grey, the Agent-in-Charge, had the car he and his partner were using commandeered by Marie so that the baby of a friend of Marie’s could be driven to the hospital. The destination had been fortunate because through a series of murky events, Grey had suffered a concussion bad enough to keep in the hospital under observation for the following three days. The Bureau had kept quiet as the entire incident had been blamed on the CIA.

The second was something that had come up due to the recent cooperation that President Nixon had forced on the Bureau and the Central Intelligence Agency. They were on the same side here and America had very real enemies out there in the world. While the CIA and FBI had clearly defined jurisdictions, it was long past time that they focused on those enemies who were most certainly not each other. The transcript of a recording that the CIA had gotten through a leak that they had in the German Government of a conversation between Katherine von Mischner, the Prefect of Berlin, and Marie’s mother, and Suga-no-miya, the Kaiserin of Germany had landed on Murphy’s desk. According to the transcript, Katherine was extremely concerned about her youngest daughter and how the girl had grown painfully shy. She worried that Marie had an undiagnosed anxiety disorder but had found it impossible to get it through to her daughter that she might have a problem. It seemed that Marie was a sworn friend and companion of the Kaiserin, so Suga was someone who Marie might be more inclined to listen to.

That transcript had revealed quite a few things when viewed in the context of the kidnapping that had occurred when she was eight years of age. The information about that incident had been readily available from public sources and it had led Murphy to believe that any attempt to detain her would end badly. At best, she would simply shut down and not say a word in the face of traditional interrogation tactics. While the Agents of the FBI were professionals, some of the attitudes that Murphy had been trying to stamp out were still prevalent. Among those was the tendency to assume that silence equaled insolence. With a young woman already petrified and not inclined to talk that already had the potential to be a disaster when whatever Attorney her mother hired showed up. If they were especially unlucky, Marie would have viewed the attempt to apprehend her like if it were another kidnapping. She had apparently taken a chunk out of the hand of man holding her the first time when she had bitten him. If Murphy had to guess, she had grown considerably more formidable in the years since. Having several of his men hurt, an international incident, and a torn-up airport was not in Murphy’s interest. So, Murphy had figured that he needed to approach Marie like if she were the survivor of a violent crime and he needed to let her tell her own story. After all, humans were social creatures who liked telling stories. Especially their own.

Watching Marie in Idlewild International had validated Murphy’s thinking. She was a surprisingly small woman, slightly below average in height and rail thin. They way she walked through the airport, looking around every corner and observing every detail. She seemed to have made every one of the surveillance teams but had made no effort to avoid them as she had walked from the Pan American Airlines arrivals to the gate where the Air Canada flight to Montreal was going to be boarding. That probably had something to do with her looking exhausted after having spent the night before on the long flight from Madrid to New York.

Murphy had found her in an Airport Café near the Air Canada gates of the sort that sold coffee, fruit juice, and what was essentially prepackaged food to passengers waiting for their plane to start boarding. Marie had turned her nose up at the food as Murphy watched, which was probably the reason she was so thin. All she had asked for was a cup of coffee, which she had been drinking black when Murphy had approached her. The conversation had been informative, Marie had told him far more than she had intended and that was something she had caught on to. She didn’t consider herself a Princess despite many people calling her that and this business with her grandfather… Murphy had looked up Otto Mischner and what he had learned was quite disturbing.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Forty-One



27th August 1977

Potsdam

They had drawn lots that morning during the breakfast banquet with Emperor Friedrich and his brother Michael of Bohemia hosting. The first drawing had been to determine the Squadrons they would be assigned to and the second had been for the order in which they would appear. Kurt Knispel, Marshal of Bohemia, who had played a key role in the revival of Horse Cavalry with the Berlin Raid that was still conducted annually had announced the results of the drawings.

The International Cavalry Open was a competition that had been developed to help maintain skills that had fallen into disuse as technology had advanced. The Heer had discovered that old tactics and customs had a way of suddenly becoming necessary again. They had sent out invitations to every Cavalry unit in the world as well as individuals who they figured might be interested in taking part. Niko couldn’t help but notice that the Johanniter Order and the Teutonic Order, two rival Chivalrous Orders that operated in Germany mostly as social clubs who fought their battles in the realm of public relations these days were making their presence felt at this event.

Niko had been invited to the Cavalry Open in Potsdam after spending the prior four weeks at the Platoon Command School in Wunsdorf-Zossen. It seemed that the Heer had decided that he would command a Platoon of Dragoon Infantry in the Panzer Corps as soon as he finished University. It was hard to think of a time when Opa had been happier with him.

Opa had arranged to meet Niko in Potsdam with Zwei, so Niko was getting ready to head out the starting line in the first of the individual events on his own horse along with the lance and saber he had practiced with. Opa had arranged for Niko to have the Richthofen pennant on the light ash lance along with a black and grey Panzer Corps uniform modeled after the one he had worn during the early days of the First World War on the Eastern Front. Niko couldn’t help but notice that had included Leutnant’s boards on the should straps. It seemed that Opa had learned of Niko’s promotion before he had and had arranged for the uniform change as a surprise.

Bruce, the British member of Niko’s squadron who also happened to be the same age as he was, handed him his lance. “Thank you” Niko said to Bruce as he looked at Niko as if he were some sort of hero. Niko had learned that until now Bruce had never left his native England while Niko had traveled widely, served as a Cavalry Flag Ensign in the 3rd Hussars when they had been sent to Argentina, and had competed in the Montreal Olympics. He had never thought of anything he had done as being particularly interesting until he saw Bruce’s reaction.

Zwei had his ears perked up listening to everything going on around them as Niko guided him to the starting line. Niko sometimes wondered if Zwei found events like this fun. He knew that it was foolish to anthropomorphize a horse, it was not as if Zwei could tell Niko the answer to that. It was when the trumpet blared, signaling the event’s start that Zwei’s ears swept back, and his very posture seemed to say; “Let’s go!” Niko was certain that the horse loved the charge.

Zwei was off the line almost before Niko was aware that they were moving, and he fought to bring the lance into line with the first ring. The number of the rings and the course was meant to be random with the rider not knowing what it would be until he got off the starting line. Missing a ring resulted in a time penalty and if Niko managed to do all of it properly with the best time all he would win is bragging rights. Niko wasn’t stupid though. He had seen his grandfather among the gathered spectators and knew that there was no way that the great Manfred von Richthofen could attend an event like this without making it more interesting. There was probably going to be a great deal of money changing hands this afternoon and Niko just hoped that he beat the spread.

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

Manfred the Elder watched as Niko managed to spear all the rings including one that had required a sharp left-hand turn before hitting the target dummy square. The steel head of lance went right through it with Niko letting go before the weight could affect his balance in the saddle. Niko then drew his saber and blew through the target dummies. Crossing the finish line, Niko saluted the Emperor to the cheers of the crowd.

“Goddamn that boy is good!” Theodor Ferguson, who insisted that Manfred call him Ted, a Texas Oilman with an interest in Equestrianism exclaimed. He was seemingly unbothered by the fact that Niko’s actions had just considerably lightened his wallet.

“I should think so” Manfred replied, “I taught him to ride.”

Ted looked at the leader board as the score was posted and saw Niko’s full name.

“One of yours then?” Ted asked.

“Grandson” Manfred replied with a smile. For years he had been disappointed that none of his children and most of his grandchildren had not been interested in following in his footsteps. While Albrecht had eventually become a Pilot of note, the whole Naval Aviator aspect had cast a pall over the whole thing. While Niko had shown no interest in flying, he had proven himself beyond even Manfred’s expectations in other ways.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Forty-Two



5th September 1977

Tempelhof, Berlin

The wheezing voice of Professor Stenger as he introduced himself to the class reminded Sophie of fireplace bellows as he introduced himself to the class.

“I taught Classical Literature at this august institution for decades until I retired” Stenger said, before adding. “As I am sure that you have already ascertained, retirement did not agree with me. That also happens to mean that there is little you can say or do that will surprise me.”

He was an elderly man with mussed white hair and a face that looked like it was carved from the stone that the builder had refused, but only after several unsuccessful efforts. Kat had warned Sophie that many of the Professors who taught at the University of Berlin were not to be underestimated and Kord Stenger was one of them. The gold pin he wore on his lapel, a black enameled shield with the Roman numeral one on it was evidence of that. That probably meant nothing to the vast majority of students in this room, but Sophie knew that it the symbol of Abwehr Counterintelligence and it stated plainly what Stenger had been doing during the years that the secretive unit of the Military had been in existence.

“My purpose during this term is to prepare you for the rigors of University” Stenger said, “My fondest hope is that most of you will pass the entrance exam and I can help guide you into a rewarding course of study. The rest I am sure can avail themselves of the many opportunities that will be presented to you over the course of the term.”

Something about how he said that last part suggested just how much he thought about those who failed to advance from his class. It was then that the door at the back of the room opened and hit the wall with a clatter. Sophie heard someone out of breath running down the aisle of the lecture hall and taking a seat behind her.

“Sorry I am late, Sir” A voice all too familiar to Sophie said, “I had family business that ran long.”

“I understand your situation and will accept that excuse this once Herr Deisler” Professor Stenger said, “Never again, understand.”

“Thank you, Sir” Sepp said as Sophie tried her best to make herself invisible. Of all the places that she might have ended up, this had to be among the worst possible.

When she had been training to go to the Montreal Olympics Sophie had put every other consideration aside. Now it was painfully obvious that her neglecting her studies had come with a cost, and this was it. With that Professor Stenger started billowing again.

“Zoe?” Sepp whispered, when he noticed that she was sitting right in front of him.



Montreal, Canada

As Marie Alexandra leaned her green Schwinn Breeze bicycle against the garage wall and removed the panniers from the rear rack. She nearly fell over from the weight of the books that were required for this year’s courses that she had crammed into the bags. This was her Senior Year at University and the expectations had grown, especially because she was intending to further her education at the Post-Graduate level. Despite nothing having been made official yet, it seemed like all her professors knew that she had been accepted into Trinity College next year. The idea was that she would study International Law, but the reality was that Marie was still just as clueless about the rest of her life as she always had been.

Hauling the bags across the garden up the steps into the mudroom. Entering the kitchen, Marie could smell dinner cooking as she started rummaging around in the refrigerator for something to eat. She’d had toast and coffee as breakfast, but that had been ages ago.

“Mrs. Blackwood said that she doesn’t want you ruining your appetite” Olive said as Marie found an apple. Olive Lachance, the Cook who worked for Marie’s grandparents meant well but didn’t understand the complexities of the relationship between Marie and Margot. It shouldn’t have been a shock to Marie that her grandmother was back to disapproving of her. Oddly, it was because Marie had not lived down to her expectations when she had traveled though Spain. The prior Sunday, she had told the Parish Priest at the Church her grandparents attended all about the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption in Pamplona, how beautiful it was. Something about that had been entirely too forward for Margot’s liking.

Marie knew full well that it wasn’t about whatever Margot was complaining about. She would have to wait to get the whole story at some later time. That was just how it was.

“What does she care?” Marie asked, “She barely notices if I am even there most nights.”

“She said that there were certain introductions she wants to make” Olive replied.

Marie knew better than to take her annoyance out on Olive. The Cook was just passing along information and didn’t deserve to be mistreated.

Her grandmother tended to do this every few months. Much to Marie’s personal discomfort and annoyance.

“Did she say which well-connected knucklehead she wants to throw me at this time” Marie asked. Her grandmother tended to do this every few months. Introducing her to the eligible son of one of her friends in Montreal’s polite society. As if her studying Law or going to Ireland next year were not going to be almost certain dealbreakers. While her grandmother had never said anything, Marie had suspected for a long time that Margot thought that a woman attending University was only doing it to meet potential husbands.

“I don’t know” Olive replied.

Marie just shrugged as she ate her apple. Picking up the pannier and feeling the weight of the books, she was reminded of what was truly important to her as she went up the stairs to her bedroom.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Forty-Three



16th September 1977

Dublin, Ireland

The pub looked like dozens of others in this neighborhood, something about it though made it clear that anyone without the right sort of introductions would be made very unwelcome. That was probably why everyone aside from the most adventurous or foolhardy tourist stayed away. Ed had been invited here which was why the bartender had served him to keep up appearances. Because he was technically on duty, he had ordered a cup of coffee which was quite terrible.

At least they didn’t throw a brick through the window of the small apartment that Ed was renting. Considering that it was on the forth floor that would have taken some doing, though he wouldn’t have put past them. According to the Embassy Staff they had people, or at least those sympathetic to their cause, everywhere. So, it shouldn’t have been in the least bit surprising that a note requesting this meeting turned up in Ed’s postage inbox inside what was supposed to be a secure section of the U.S. Embassy. He would have raised a big stink, pointing out that this represented a major breech of security, but knew that he was going to hit a wall of official indifference. This was Dublin, if not for the Irish Diaspora resulting in a large portion of the American public having roots in this country and the resulting tourism it would be about as much a diplomatic backwater as say, the Embassy in Reykjavík, Iceland. The people who said that had clearly not been read into the Counterintelligence effort that was centered in Dublin.

Ed knew that if the Irish were aware of this little detail then there was no doubt that their German friends were as well. The English had found out about that relationship the hard way in an incident that the Irish still celebrated as evidenced by the heavy artillery pieces that were part of the monument in Saint Stephan’s Green. The tale was that the infamous Jacob von Schmidt had been behind the effort to smuggle the Brits own artillery to Ireland after it had been captured following the ruinous Battle of Somme. Anyone who believed that didn’t have enough sense to read a history book, von Schmidt would have been a very juror Officer in the German Navy at that point and would have lacked the clout to pull an operation like that off himself. There were clearly others who were just as clever and cunning enough to sneak those guns as well as tons of small arms into Ireland in the chaotic final days of the First World War. That just wasn’t as good a story though. Ed supposed that there were several lessons to be learned about Ireland and Germany in the manner of the retelling.

“Mister O’Neill” Patrick Berne, the man who had asked for this meeting said as he sat in the empty barstool next to Ed and signaled the bartender for a drink. Berne was well known to the Boston Field Office because whenever he came to Massachusetts trouble followed, but they had never been able to actually get him on anything.

“What is this?” Ed asked in reply.

“Two men with a thirst who just happen to be in the same pub” Berne replied, “Nothing more.”

Ed almost said bullshit to that but knew better than to antagonize Berne too much in a place like this. He had no doubt that there were a thousand eyes on them. As Berne got his pint, Ed heard him mutter a soft toast out of long habit whose words marked him for what he was. He didn’t care if Ed heard, which spoke volumes about the nature of his invitation.

“Still fighting a war that ended decades ago?” Ed asked.

“Only a Yank would think that the old wars are over” Berne said, “We have gotten to the hardest part. Where someone needs to stand atop the wall watching for the barbarians.”

There it was. In Ireland it didn’t matter what his surname was, Ed was an American through and through. That was sort of ironic considering some of the attitudes that endured in certain circles within the United States.

“You seriously think the British would ever want to come back?” Ed asked in disbelief.

“You weren’t there when the Reisimint Ilchríochach was sent to fight next to the Brits in Russia. The things that their Officers said to us” Berne replied, “They saw what happened in 1918 as a temporary setback and still think they own Ireland because they think the sun shines out of John Bull’s arse.”

“That is all well and good” Ed said, “But it doesn’t answer the first question. What do you want?”

“To have a drink” Berne replied before taking a long pull on the pint glass. Beer here in Ireland was very different from back home and Ed had not gained an appreciation of it during the months he had been in this country. Room temperature stout that was thick as soup had limited appeal. Ed found that it was like drinking motor oil. “Reminisce about the grand old times.”

Cut the crap, Ed thought to himself, but didn’t say aloud. He knew that someone in Berne’s position would rather shoot himself in the head than admit to working with Law Enforcement. Irish or American didn’t matter, still someone like him hadn’t avoided getting jammed up for years without friends in high and low places. That included the Bureau if Ed had to guess. Ed figured that if he waited long enough, Berne would get to the point.

“Your friend, Thorson Greyson, came to a bit of a sticky end” Berne said, “And it happened in my patch, which won’t do at all.”

“You know anything about that?” Ed asked. Not that he was expecting a straight answer.

“I know who didn’t do it” Berne replied, “Me and my lads don’t like drawing that sort of heat on ourselves. And that business with the drugs, that’s not our style.”

“As opposed to beatings and the occasional kneecapping” Ed said.

Berne held up his hand as if to tell him to cut it out.

“Greyson was up in the North asking questions about a girl living in a neighborhood that is a Unionist shithole” Berne said, “The same girl attends a Teaching College that only allowed a certain sort in until very recently. Do I need to connect the dots?”

“No” Ed replied, “But that is sort of self-serving, you telling me that and pointing at your enemies.”

Berne let out a cynical laugh.

“That is only the half of it” Berne said, “The coordination, to discredit someone like that after they are conveniently dead. That is beyond the Orangemen. There’s a State Actor involved.”

That was something that Ed had suspected for months but had not been stupid enough to tell anyone. The rumors that had been floating around must have suggested to Berne that suspicion was pointing to the IRA, and he had called this meeting.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Forty-Four



23rd September 1977

Langley, Virginia

“I have read the literature that has been provided through Swiss sources” Sidney Gottlieb said, “It seems that our past experiments were ineffective because we didn’t understand the medium.”

“Meaning that you broke people’s brains without realizing that you couldn’t replace what you had broken?” Frank Church asked, earning a scowl from Gottlieb in the process. There had also been an incident where one of the drugs that Gottlieb had researched had been used on a Federal Agent, supposedly in conjunction with torture.

The elephant in the room was that Gottlieb had refused to acknowledge the profound failure of the first program, just that he had never found a way to get the results that he wanted. With the current makeup of Congress and the Presidential Administration, if word got out that Gottlieb was overseeing a new round of experimentation there could be serious consequences. At the same time, the risks had not changed. There were rumors that Germans had made the sort of pharmacological discoveries that they had been concerned about two decades earlier, they needed to understand the process to counter it. The article which Gottlieb had mentioned regarded the discovery that certain drugs induced plasticity in the mind that was normally seen in children. While that was far from the ideas about mind control that had been feared in prior decades, it could not be ignored.

That was why as the Director of the CIA, Frank Church could not dismiss Gottlieb out of hand. Ironically, it was the German Kaiser along with the Imperial Military High Command who had spoken the unvarnished truth about matters like this after what had happened to the Japanese City of Kure. When the whole world had witnessed the horror of the Night of Whispers, they had taken full responsibility and had made the case as to why that action had been deemed necessary. Church found it hard to imagine that anyone would show nearly that much integrity these days and wished that Gottlieb remained in his lab doing the relatively harmless task of producing untraceable poisons.

“There is no need to be insulting” Gottlieb said, “Enforcement of protocols is always a priority.”

“I am sure that has been true in the past” Church said neutrally.

Church might have pointed out that when Gottlieb had been the one to establish those very protocols and had made them loose enough to pursue his own ends in the past. Instead, Church would let Gottlieb figure out that he was going to have to follow the rules this time without being the one who made them.



Montreal, Canada

The letter for Sir Malcolm had arrived in the post this afternoon which contained photographs of Tatiana, his namesake grandson Malcolm, and Marie Alexandra taken during the summer when the three of them had been at their Great Uncle’s house in Lower Silesia. Malcolm would have liked it if all three of them could have made it to Montreal over the summer at once like in the photographs as opposed to visiting on separate occasions. Douglas had taken these pictures and when Malcolm had asked about them he had sent copies. There were pictures of them doing fun things, Marie pointing a fencing foil at the camera with that shy smile of hers on her face was probably the best of those. In the background there were others. Malcolm recognized Nikolaus and Sabastian easily enough.

Looking at a photograph that was a close-up portrait of Tatiana and Marie together, Malcolm was struck at how the two of them had different aspects of their parents as part of their features. It was hardly a surprise that Tatiana heavily favored Katherine, she was truly her mother’s daughter in both personality and appearance. She had her hair cut short and while that might have seemed a bit avantgarde, it was still a feminine look. Marie on the other hand was clearly Doug’s daughter. That had manifested in a heart-shaped face and adventurous spirit. It was a real shame that Margot couldn’t seem to look past the long red hair. If Marie had been born with dark brown hair like her older siblings then she would be a dead-ringer for Margot when Malcolm had first met her. Of course, Malcolm knew that his wife would never admit it if she saw the truth for herself.

Lately, Margot had been trying to introduce Marie to eligible young men who she felt were promising. Mostly that meant that their families were wealthy, and it was incredibly obvious what she was angling for because this wasn’t the first time that Margot had tried doing this. Unfortunately, she neglected to realize a fundamental truth about their granddaughter. Marie Alexandra wasn’t the sort who wanted the sort of comfortable, safe existence that such a marriage would provide. Her choice to travel to Montreal to attend the Liberal Arts program at McGill had some risk involved, especially in light of how she could have easily gotten into the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin if that had been her choice. Marie had once told Malcolm that she preferred men who did real things as opposed to what she deemed to be stupid games. Men like her photojournalist father or Malcolm himself who had been a career Officer in the Canadian Army.

The sort of man whose success was guaranteed from the day he was born and had never had to work for anything in his life bored Marie. Malcolm had once suggested that perhaps Margot ought to introduce Marie to the son of one her friends in Montreal’s society who had rejected wealth and the life of privilege that came with it, just to see what would happen. That had not gone over well, and Malcolm had not repeated that mistake.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Forty-Five



1st October 1977

Tempelhof, Berlin

It had been a bit of a surprise when the package had arrived in the mail from Sakai, Japan. Shimano had heard that Sophie had used parts made by them on the bicycle she had ridden when she had won a gold medal in Montreal. They had sent her a prototype groupset, one far different from the 2x5 10-speed which she was used to. It wasn’t just having the option of seven speeds in the back, though the idea of having the extra gears in a steep climb was certainly enticing. The crankset was also a huge change. The big 54-tooth outer-ring and the smaller inner ring forged from a specialty aluminum alloy was similar enough to the crankset it had replaced. The bottom bracket with the hollow spindle was unlike anything else she had seen before. She had even needed special tools to install it on her red “No-Name” bicycle. In the letter included in the package, Shimano had mentioned that they had enjoyed brisk sales internationally due to the “Do It Yourself” revolution that Sophie had started. It seemed that there were others out there copying her experiments in getting ever greater speed out of off the shelf components. Group sets from Shimano, Continental Grand Prix tires, the frame that Sophie suspected had been made by Brennabor and sold to a wholesaler as a factory second, and dozens of other parts she had scrounged up, had all come together to create something special. The new groupset from Shimano had made it even better. It had never been her intention to create a movement, whatever that even meant.

None of that concerned her at the moment. It was just her trying to put distance between herself and her troubles. That had never actually worked and there had been an occasion a few years earlier where she had been on a ride like this, turning her anger and frustrations into distance, and she had suffered a spill that had landed her in the hospital with scrapes, bruises, and a concussion.

This was because of the University Preparatory Class and finding herself in it with Sepp Deisler. She had thought that she was past that, not having seen or heard from him in two years. Then she was around him every weekday and it brought everything back. She had tried to talk to her mentor Nora Berg honestly about everything that had happened figuring that the retired as Doctor who had specialized Women’s Health there was probably little that Sophie could say that would surprise her. How Sepp had kissed her, probably before she was ready to handle such a thing. How she had overreacted and started a row where a lot of hurtful things had been said. Nora had smiled and asked if Sophie had enjoyed that kiss? And that was the problem right there. She had enjoyed it. It had been excruciating, explaining to Nora what had happened when Sepp had kissed her and it had been this magical moment, only to have the words of Sophie’s mother intrude, telling her that it was inevitable that she was going to be this giant disgrace because that was what she was. Nora had told her that she had allowed her mother to be an uninvited guest in her head for long enough and an eviction was in order. Besides, as these things went, a kiss was pretty mild compared to what Sophie and Sepp might have been doing. Leave it to Nora to turn something like that into a teachable moment of the sort that left her flustered and red-faced. At the end of the conversation had come the one question that Sophie had not been prepared for. Did she still have feelings for Sepp? That was especially important because she had left their relationship completely unresolved.

That was enough to make Sophie want to smash something.

She had so many important things in her life. The University Entrance Exam, or because her gymnasia wanted her name attached to their institution they still wanted her to sit the Abitur when she was ready. Picking out a subject of study when she started University after that, Professor Stenger had told her all about the Sports Science and Rehabilitation Studies in the University of Berlin’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. How that dovetailed neatly with her experiences as an International Athlete. There was the Paris-Brest-Paris Audax, the most important of all the Randonneuring events coming up in 1979 and the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Not to mention dozens of races and championships in the meantime. She had too full of a plate for something like love.

Nora had looked Sophie in the eye and told that she would regret it for the rest of her life if she managed to convince herself of that. It was hard to be dishonest with Nora, especially when you were talking about yourself. She had nose for when people were trying to evade uncomfortable answers. It was part of being a Doctor, Nora had said. Try asking Kiki about how many times as an Emergency Surgeon she had to explain to a patient that things very rarely get stuck up there by accident. Talk about an uncomfortable and awkward conversation, with the Princess Royal of Germany no less. That reminded Nora that Kiki was going to be having another baby. It was Sophie’s understanding that Kiki was a surrogate daughter to Nora, who had never had a family of her own, which made Kiki’s children like her grandchildren.

Taking another turn at random, Sophie saw that she was on Kaiserin-Kira-Straße which ran through the Humboldt Campus of the University of Berlin and that meant that she wasn’t far from home. It being a Saturday, the campus was mostly empty. Having seen it with thousands of students, it felt strange. To be here or at the Urban Campus in the city center as a student for real, it was something which Sophie was having trouble wrapping her mind around.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Forty-Six



14th October 1977

Trieste, Austria

The stated reason for the visit of the NMS Vlad III Dracula was to show the flag in the port of an allied nation. The actual reason was a bit of skullduggery and corporate malfeasance that was supposed to be hush hush with supposedly only Louis Ferdinand Junior, Captain Ciobanu, and Locotenent-Comandor Alex Dumitru, the Ship’s Executive Officer being aware of what was going on. In the tradition of Navies since the age of sail there were no secrets aboard a ship, so the whole crew knew what was happening. Naturally, they were pleased as punch that they were in on the caper. If this worked, Louis who they obeyed solely because he was an Admiral in the Romanian Navy, would start to gain the sort of reputation he had enjoyed in the Kaiserliche Marine with them.

There was also the consideration that they would be gaining equipment that Louis felt the Dracula and her sistership, the NMS Stefan cel Mare, needed if things got dicey on the Black Sea. Louis had a feeling that if the balloon went up, the Russians were going to throw everything they had at the two Cruisers of the Romanian Navy. The idea for this had occurred to Louis when he had seen the latest edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships. He had wanted to see what the London based publisher knew about the Vlad III Dracula Class when he noticed that the SMS Königsberg (1968) the second ship of the Karlsruhe Class was a very similar to the Dracula. He saw how Königsberg had a quartet of the Vk30 autocannons that he had wanted since he had first seen the Romanian Cruisers.

Louis was relieved to see the SS Hallthurm in moored at the pier in Trieste. He had called in a lot of favors and talked to every contact he had known at Rheinmetall and Zuse AG, eventually just resorting to throwing money at the problem. He supposed that he should be happy that there had been those at the respective companies who had been willing to sell to him the equipment outright, export controls bedamned, there was still the thorny issue of getting it to Romania. That was where this latest subterfuge came in.

Gregor Kirchhoff, the Captain of the Hallthurm, was an old friend of Louis’ sister Kiki with him having been hired by her to help pilot her Motor Barges on the inland waterways of Europe. He had done quite well from that association and in the years since. Gregor owned the Hallthurm outright, she was a Hansa Type B with a steam turbine engine, meant to ply the long voyages to resupply troops fighting the Pacific War. Having been launched in 1944 she was no longer one of the largest or most up to date cargo ships. Still, Gregor had known how to make a profit with such a ship, and she had one key advantage that more modern vessels didn’t have. The Hansa B Type had been built to land cargo on undeveloped shorelines, having boom cranes and winches to facilitate that process. Which made moving the crates that held eight Vk30 cannons, their mounts, and the fire control systems needed to operate them from the cargo hold of the Hallthurm to the deck of the Dracula an easy process. There had also been a number of other items transferred from the cargo ship.

Louis knew that he would need to buy the silence of the crew and calm them down once they learned that they were not going to be spending any liberty in Trieste. Once they saw the casks from Schlitzer, a name that all of them would doubtlessly recognize, it would be amazing how fast all would be forgiven.



Montreal, Canada

Henriette was finding the adjustment to McGill to be difficult after spending the prior two years at Dawson College. She was a year behind Marie Alexandra because she had been forced to take time away from her education. Marie said that she should consider herself fortunate, if her circumstances had been different then her whole life would have been wrecked as opposed to merely suffering a setback.

Oddly, the class that Henriette was having the most trouble with was an elective that she had thought would be easy, Canadian Folklore. This was because the amount of information that they were covering over the term was just staggering. Marie just shrugged and told her that the expectations would be growing over the next few terms as she got closer to graduation. Marie would know because she was currently in her Senior Year and had been accepted into a prestigious school to continue her education next year. Unfortunately for Henriette, that was in Ireland and that was going to be another big adjustment.

“It says here that everyone has the potential to be a Wendigo” Henriette said, looking up from her book. “The winter madness starts, then the hunger comes.”

Marie smiled at the reference as she typed on the keyboard of her computer. That machine had proven to be a godsend whenever there was a paper with thousands of words due and it needed to be finished and proofread before it was turned in.

“My mother could have told you that” Marie replied, “She says that are those who appear normal at first glance you still need to be careful of. It’s like that author in Maine whose books have been bestsellers lately, the real monster might just be your neighbor or the boy up the street.”

Henriette looked at the name of the author whose work was referenced in the in the textbook. “Algernon Blackwood?” She asked, “Relative of yours?”

“No, probably not” Marie replied, “And that is not the side of my family you should worry about.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Forty-Seven



1st November 1977

Tempelhof, Berlin

Supposedly, wisdom came with age, but all Kat felt was exhausted. She had turned fifty-five the prior summer and despite everything that had happened, whatever her current joke of a title was, somewhere along the line she had become Aunt Marcella. She had noticed this when she had been talking at her seventeen-year-old niece Elke, who had been born with the bad combination of Mischner stubbornness and the tendency to never, ever back down from a fight which she had probably inherited from her grandfather, Walter Horst. Elke and Nizhoni had been coming to blows with Stefan stuck in the middle. At her wit’s end, Nizhoni had sent Elke to Kat’s house to give everyone time to cool down. Kat knew that the relationship between mothers and daughters was frequently a difficult one.

“This is not a holiday” Kat had said to Elke as she had arrived that afternoon as she had been taking her niece to task. “This is a weekday, and you have school tomorrow. I am not your mother so I will not tolerate any lip from you. Understand?”

“Yes, Aunt Katherine” Elke said in the tone of voice that suggested that she understood but had no intention of obeying.

“In the meantime, you can go ask Petia what you do to help around the household” Kat said and the look on Elke’s face turned to dismay. Elke understood what the implications of that were. Petia was a firm believer in the notion that hard work cured stupidity, and everyone knew that Elke had been acting stupid a lot lately.

As Kat had been saying that, she’d had the nagging feeling that she had been using words with a tone that had seemed very familiar. Perhaps the words had been different but replaying that conversation in her mind it was an echo of what she had heard Marcella say to her countless times.

This came at a time when Kat did not want to think about matters like that. She had had been notified that she was no longer subject to involuntary recall in the event of a national crisis and the result had been a reckoning of her life as summed up in a report by bureaucrats in Wunsdorf-Zossen. That had not been pleasant reading. There laid out in black and white were the awards she had received and Orders she had been inducted into, her final Rank after thirty-nine years of service. This had all been done to calculate her monthly pension and there had been a few problems that they had somehow sorted out before informing her.

Katherine Katja Präfekt von Mischner zu Berlin, General of Paratroopers, Inspector of the Military District of the City of Berlin. That actually sounded impressive, far more than the reality behind it. The truth was that the title of an appointed Prefect had been a compromise with Louis before he had retired. One that the city had readily embraced because while they had no need for an actual monarch, a neutral player to act as referee and perform the occasional head bashing if warranted, was perfect. The military aspect of Berlin was Luftwaffe Reserve Fighter-Bomber Wing and a Landwehr Division that was the butt of frequent jokes by late night comedians on television. Kat had seen the recuring gag, the Division’s entire purpose in the event of war was to gather in Königsplatz to stand in formation and sing the National Anthem one last time before the arrival of hydrogen bombs blew them all to atoms along with the rest of the city. Kat had taken on the role of Inspector entirely because no one had asked her to do much beyond signing off on quarterly readiness reports and conducting the odd inspection.

There had been issues like how they factored in Kat being the only full member of the Order of the Black Eagle with Chain and Cloak who was not one of the Hohenzollern Family. Or what exactly she had been doing prior to the formation of the Women’s Volunteer Auxiliary. Kat figured that telling them that she had been the Royal Assassin and an Agent of Empress Cecilie after washing out of Abwehr training seemed like not a great idea, especially because their records said that she had been in Abwehr as the leader of a Hunter-Killer team. That raised entirely too many questions.

Finally there had been their judgment about the extent of her service-related disability after the injuries she had sustained to her back and the treatment for traumatic stress that she had received on at least two occasions in terms of percentages. While she was glad that the Military bureaucracy was treating mental conditions like any other injury, seeing words like degenerative and chronic being used to describe her own condition was an entirely different story. Then seeing her whole career reduced to a mathematical formula to determine a pension that was a surprisingly large amount of money from the State every month seemed like it was moving into the realm of the absurd.

Kat already knew that most of that money would be going to charity going forward, if only for the sake of appearances. She was well known to have been doing quite well from her investments in property within Berlin that she had bought while it was relatively cheap during and after the war. There was also the money from her father’s illicit empire that had played a key role. The fact that much of that money had been laundered by her making bridge loans to the House of Hohenzollern when the Imperial family had faced a financial crisis made it so that no State Prosecutor would dare follow that particular paper trail.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Forty-Eight



24th November 1977

Washington D.C.

“In accordance with Section 6103 of Title 5 on the United States Code, I, Richard Milhouse Nixon, President of the United States, do hereby declare Thursday, November 24th, 1977, to be a day of Thanksgiving for all Americans…”

That was the meat of the public proclamation that Nixon had recorded a few days earlier that was being broadcast around the country. People seemed to like it when he stated the obvious like that. It was hard not to be cynical about rituals like this after having spent so many years in Washington D.C. and Sacramento before that. The Thanksgiving statement had included sections of a letter that had been written to the Whitehouse by a teenager who had written it as a part of a Civics Class. He had included a bit about himself, how he had a mixed background that was rather unique in America, mother with a largely Irish background and an absent father from Kenya. He had gone point by point on the things that he agreed and disagreed with Nixon about and even Nixon had to admit, the kid had a quite a way with words. What had struck Nixon was how there seemed to be an unlaying optimism in the letter, which was something that had become rare in his experience these days. Nixon wondered if getting mentioned by name by the President of the United States in a National broadcast would get the kid an “A” in the Civics.

Nixon understood that was the reason why every man who had occupied the Office of President never run for a third term in office. In fact, most of them had more or less fled as soon as their successor was sworn in and they could return home to reclaim their lives. More and more, Nixon found himself dreaming of walking on the beach in San Clemente, only to have the stresses of the job intrude on his imagination. The latest international crisis, the FBI catching another German Agent hiding in the woodwork, whatever tomfoolery the French or British were up to, usually pouring gasoline on the fires that were consuming portions of Africa, the Middle East and China. What were a few thousand dead natives when there was a whole lot of money to be had? The Greeks and Russians playing for all the marbles on the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean. All of this felt like it was just the latest version of the Great Game, and it seemed like they were careening into a blood-soaked collision with reality. The song might have changed, but it certainly seemed like everyone was still dancing to the same tune.



Off Larnaca, Cyprus

In many ways this felt to Fotios like if he had gone right back to where he had started. On the SS Lavráki, a boat that reeked of dead fish that was named after the Common Seabass found everywhere in Mediterranean. The Lavráki was a wooden hulled 16-meter Kaiki that was as common as her namesake, one of many of her type used by the Hellenic Navy because they were the next best thing to invisible. Perfectly suited to be a working boat on the Aegean or Eastern Mediterranean where speed was not a requirement but efficiency most certainly was. That had grown into a source of aggravation as British speedboat was speeding by the line of fishing boats that were approaching the main harbor. Fotios was all too aware of what would happen if the Gunner behind the twin Vickers fifties in the bow of that boat got an itch, he was also aware of how the Brits were unlikely to punish one of their own in such a situation.

The reason for the presence of so many Greek flagged fishing boats related to something that Fotios had listened to his older brothers complaining about the last time he had been home. The Government in Athens had implemented fishing quotas that were being enforced because what had once been unthinkable, that the fishery had been depleted to the point where that was necessary, had happened. Fotios had listened to a lot of grumbling on the subject. “How are we supposed to earn a living in the meantime?” Was a question that had been asked a lot. One of the responses had been to go further afield into waters controlled by the Italians and the British. Fotios had seen the writing on that particular wall as a teenager and had joined the Navy as soon as he was old enough. The situation had provided several perfect opportunities for the Navy though and they were making the most of it. That had included asking for volunteers who knew how to run a fishing boat and pass as fishermen if they got boarded by the British or the Italians.

That had seemed simple enough, the trouble was that Spyridon and Grigoris had started arguing with each other before they had even left Salamis Island. In the days since, they had discovered that the Lavráki was too small for them to cool off or at least not be stepping on each other’s toes constantly. A few days on Cyprus were going to be extremely welcome.

Approaching the pier, Fotios could see a harried looking Customs Officer working his way up through the boats that were tying up. They were just arriving on Cyprus, so they had no catch aboard. The Officer would be looking for contraband or weapons. Fotios had no intention of lying to the man. There was an old Mannlicher rifle and Colt Police revolver that were kept secure in a locker in the pilothouse. Every boat in these waters had weapons like that because corsairs taking advantage of the frequent breakdowns of Greco-Turkish relations were not unheard of. What the Customs Officer would never suspect was that the only things that Fotios and his men were smuggling onto Cyprus were themselves.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Forty-Nine



9th December 1977

Potsdam

They had done the exterior shots at the Altes Museum and the Friedrich III Museum the week prior. The Curators of the various Museums had been absolutely horrified by the notion that George Lucas might want to do any filming inside the buildings themselves. They had doubled down on that when they had found out about the scene where the hero of the film, Doctor Henry “Indiana” Jones, was depicted inadvertently driving a lorry into the River Spree.

Instead, they had created an approximation of a museum interior using mostly chipboard, chicken wire, plaster, and a whole lot of paint in a Babelsburg warehouse. Jost could see that it was hardly perfect, but it didn’t need to be. It only needed to look right on film and not cause much trouble tearing it all down once they finished shooting.

Jost was cast as one of the antagonists in the film, Oberst Arnold Toht. Like always, he was also playing the role of Military Consultant and trying to get University Art Students to play at being soldiers convincingly. Fortunately he had some real help this time in the form of his nephew Sabastian and Nikolaus who might as well be. The two of them had come up through the Prussian Institution in Wahlstatt and had even spent some time in the field. Jost had gotten bit roles for them to play. Niko’s equestrianism had landed him in hot water when they had been filming in Tunisia, it seemed that he had shown up the stuntman posing as Indiana Jones during a chase through the desert. Though Niko had gotten yelled at by everyone including Jost himself for taking stupid chances, the scene had been kept in the film. Spielberg, the Director of the film had been surprised that Niko was the Prince of Breslau and, yes, he was a Richthofen for real. Who else was practically raised in the saddle these days? They were getting ready to shoot the scene where Indiana Jones was forced to eat his words about how artifact belonged in museums as he was trying to convince the Curator of whatever museum was supposed to be not to open the Ark of the Covenant. Jost had read the script and knew that the museum staff, the gathered officials, and other assorted witnesses were going to be depicted as having a monumentally bad day.

Harrison Ford, the Actor who George Lucas had cast as Indiana was wandering around. He had heard that the actor had played a role in a movie that Lucas had worked on a few years earlier. It seemed that most of the crew knew Ford from other films where he had been a Carpenter with a thriving side business selling cannabis. Lucas had said that he wanted a relative unknown to play the role of Indiana, and Ford was supposedly the perfect fit. To Jost’s surprise, Ford had seen Der letzte Befehl, The last Command, the Science-Fiction German language gorefest about an alien invasion by hostile forces that Jost had costarred in after The Black Shuck. The Director, this Canadian madman, had encouraged them to use live ammunition which had included everything up to and including anti-tank rockets. Jost knew how to safely conduct a live fire exercise and make it look good. So, the blood-soaked production had a great deal of actual blood even if it had mostly come from an abattoir. However, the over-the-top violence and gore had shocked audiences around the world with it being banned in several countries including the United States. Apparently, the few theaters in that country that showed that movie couldn’t play it often enough.

Jost saw Sabastian walking through the area where the crew had gathered and he was carrying Alice, the young daughter of Henriette who Sabastian had met during the Montreal Olympics last year. Henriette had come to Berlin to visit over the Christmas Holiday. Alice, or Allie as everyone was calling her had a look of bliss as she hugged Sabastian as he introduced her to the cast and crew. Jost’s mother was worried that Sabastian would give up his life in Germany and run off to Canada to be with Henriette. From the look of things, that was a battle that was already over.



11th December 1977

Montreal

The crude graffiti done in hot pink spray paint that had appeared on a wall across from the Church was exactly the sort of thing that would set Margot off.

Le gode de la responsabilité est rarement lubrifié.

Marie Alexandra understood full well what that meant and why it had appeared there. The sex abuse scandals that had rocked the Catholic Church for as long as she could remember had come to Montreal and to say that Margot couldn’t wrap her mind around what was going on was an understatement. Perhaps things would have smoothed out if Marie had not found that writing on the wall to be funny. Whoever had done that certainly had a very particular idea of what justice would look like.

While Marie had not laughed aloud, Margot must have picked up on something from her because on the car ride home she went off on Marie, at length how depraved and ungrateful she was. How it was not a surprise because the fruit never fell far from the tree that they all knew what Marie’s mother was. Because Marie was in the front seat next to the driver she was unable to effectively refute what her grandmother was saying. Marie had realized that Margot had done this by design and had grown angrier over the long minutes before they were dropped off by the town car. Over Marie’s life, she had very seldom wanted to hurt anyone. As the car pulled away, she wanted more than anything to punch her grandmother’s lights out. Her grandfather just stood there quietly. Marie didn’t blame him even if she was disappointed, after decades of living with Margot all he could do was take the path of least resistance.

As Margot saw the look on Marie’s face, she belatedly realized that she really had gone too far this time. It was then that she said exactly the wrong thing in that moment. Marie had no idea what possessed her to say it.

“I don’t want to be around you if you are going to be that way.”

Marie had no idea how long she stood on the sidewalk as it started snowing, repeating the words that her grandmother had said to her. Long enough to start shivering and feeling the pain in the palms of her hands where she had dug her fingernails in. It was in that moment that she resolved to move out before Margot caused her own funeral to come early.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty



17th December 1977

Mitte, Berlin

The Alexanderplatz Marketplace was brightly lit as it was every year during the annual Christmas Market. Ben fought his way through the crowds while making sure that Nina kept ahold of his hand long after he had given up trying to keep track of his wife’s younger sisters and their friends, Sophie, Ziska, and Gabi. Nella and Nan were legally adults, even if they didn’t act like it most of the time, so Ben figured that they could take care of themselves even if they didn’t have two men from the First Foot as well as an unknown number of Katherine von Mischner’s people guarding them. That thought was a reminder to Ben that this was one of “Aunt Kat’s” places within the City of Berlin and only the most foolhardy or insane would cause too much trouble here. Still though, it was crowded and anytime there were this many people there were always going to be issues.

For Nina it was different. She was pulling on Ben’s arm, always wanting to see what waiting around the next turn and there was so much to see. According to Kiki, products from all across Europe were sold here and Artisans came here to do a bit more than just sell things. They came here to show off as well with displays of products being made. Most days the market was dizzying in its scale, but during the Christmas season it was like a fever dream with the addition of colored lights and music.

Though she had wanted to come with them, Kiki had been forced to sit out the trip to the Marketplace out this year. Like always, Kiki had a habit of neglecting her personal health. Which was why Ben was happy to have Ermintrude Aue and Nora Berg back in the picture. They had more success then most in getting her to listen, far more than he did. So when Kiki had woken up this morning with a Low-Grade Fever, she had those two along with her stepmother Charlotte making sure that she remained in bed with the threat of taking her to the hospital if she wasn’t prepared to take their suggestions seriously. Ben had asked why they were keeping such a close on her this time. Hadn’t she had walked halfway across when South America when she was pregnant with Nina? He had been told that it was because Kiki was thirty-six and the risks tended to increase with age. When she had been pregnant with Louis Bernhard there had been problems with high blood pressure.

Stopping to watch as a man he was running a printing press that looked like something out of the Renaissance with a hand-cranked screw, Ben saw that Nina had a smile on her face. The Printer was explaining what he was doing as he used a brush to spread ink on the type that he had set up in a metal frame. Frau Aue had made a point of including Nina in everything involved with Kiki, when asked why she had told Ben that she was old enough to start to learn about these things. He had pointed out that she was six years old, and Frau Aue had given him a toothless grin and told him that if they waited until she absolutely had to know then it may already be too late.

That was a delightful thought, Ben thought sourly.

He liked to think that he was open minded, but the instant the things that might happen when Nina got older got mentioned, it turned him into every stereotype of the protective father. Frau Aue had just patted him on the cheek and told him that complications come with all children. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that according to Specialist who had been conducting the last scan he and Kiki likely had another daughter coming.



Camp Angell, Yachats, Oregon

After completing Ranger School, Mario had been expecting to get sent back to Alaska. Then he had gotten orders it had been to travel to a remote location on the Oregon Coast for further training instead. Unlike Alaska there wasn’t months of darkness and thirty bellow temperatures to look forward to. Admittedly it was a beautiful place. However, there was rain. Lots and lots of rain. It was also just across the 101 from the beach. It sort of blew Mario’s mind that the two-lane road that he could just walk across was the same Highway 101 that ran through the San Fernando Valley not far from where he had grown up.

When Mario had first arrived at Camp Angell he had asked some of the other what the surfing was like in the area, and they had looked at him like if he was nuts. The one time he had gone down to the beach there had been drizzly rain and the weather report had said that there was a chance of snow, the ocean though… There was a big North Pacific storm coming in and the waves were incredible. Mario didn’t have his board or wetsuit with him, and hypothermia had limited appeal, so he gave it a raincheck.

The days since had been filled with lessons in fieldcraft and walks in the Oregon Coast Range. Basically, it was about learning to do small team tactics. What he had heard referred to as “Partisan training.” Somewhere along the line, Mario had lost track of the days with there not really being anything to reference what day of the week it was. Then today, after given a chance to sleep in that morning, Mario had been told that it was Saturday and there was going to be a movie that night. After such frenetic activity for so long, a day with nothing to do had left him at totally loose ends. Mario had just ended up hanging around the barracks until dinner had been served.

The movie had turned out to be one of the “Know your enemy” sort of presentations that Ritchie had warned him about. First came the mandatory anti-drunk driving, VD warning clips, and news that Army insisted that everyone watch, then came the feature film. There was a bit of added spice in that this was one had been banned from general theatrical release in the United States. Film itself was a paint by numbers Sci-Fi/War picture with the green Lieutenant leading a veteran Platoon of Dragoons in the Panzer Corps with a grizzled tough as iron Noncom keeping him out of trouble. There were parts where the men were saying things that seemed like they were jokes or wisecracks, but the context was lacking. The movie really started rolling once the aliens had landed. They found themselves in a situation where they were the only thing between a large civilian population that needed them to buy time to evacuate and hostile forces that saw people as little more than convenient sources of protein. Mario saw that there was a staggering amount of firepower being dished out on the screen. He was reminded of something that his brother had once told him about why Special Forces teams avoided Armored Infantry units. The weight of fire they could throw at you was absolutely insane. Following the film, there was a lecture by one of the Intelligence Officers about what they had just seen, but Mario tuned that out.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-One



24th December 1977

Montreal

Looking out the single window of her apartment, Marie Alexandra could see that it was snowing again. The flakes were falling down into the back alley down below, dancing in the lights on the building across the way. Earlier that day the bare branches of the trees against the grey of the both the sky and streets had done nothing to help her already terrible mood. It being after dark lent the streets a bit of beauty.

The one room apartment that Marie had found in the Milton Parc neighborhood that was a stone’s throw away from the McGill Campus was a terrible place to spend Christmas. She was glad that she didn’t have a television considering the sort of dross they sold this time of the year. The radio was bad enough when she had made the mistake of turning it on earlier. It was something that no one thought about until they were already feeling lonely, namely that almost all of the songs were about loneliness and heartbreak. As much as Marie hated to admit it, she knew little about heartbreak, it was something that Henriette had poked fun at her about from time to time. It was sort of hard to have anyone break your heart if you kept yourself so guarded. Loneliness though, Marie probably knew too much about that. Then the DJ had played a novelty song that had been about how terrible it was to work on Christmas and Marie had turned the radio off before she threw it out the window. Whoever had written that had no clue. If she had a job that required her to go there tonight, at least she wouldn’t be alone.

When Marie had moved out of her grandparent’s house she had needed to say goodbye to Porthos. Or any one of several other names that the cat had acquired in that neighborhood in Westmont. She had thought that he was a stray when she had spotted him in the back garden and befriended him. The truth was that he had split his time between whatever family gave him food and attention. That didn’t stop her from missing having a cat though. Marie found that cats were good company in that they always listened and if they judged, they were at least quiet about it.

Debating whether or not she should just go to bed, Marie heard a knock on the door. Walking to the door, pushing aside the copper shutter on the peephole, she peered out into the hallway with the fisheye lens giving her a distorted view. Regretfully, she knew exactly who it was who had just knocked on her door, her siblings who she had no idea were in Montreal. With a heavy sigh, she drew the heavy bolt that shot into the floor and opened the bolt on the deadlock to open the door. Her mother had warned her that it was a necessity for a woman living on her own to have a solid door with good locks.

“Mialexa” Tatiana said in greeting with a smile as she and Kol entered the apartment. Marie looked with trepidation as her brother looked at the sparce collection books on the bookshelf set into the wall. Compared to her room back in Tempelhof there wasn’t a whole lot here, just what she had brought from her grandparent’s house or had found in various thrift stores. Most of the books she had were assigned reading in the various Classes she had taken. Tatiana took an interest in what was on Marie’s desk, which in many respects was far worse.

“Opa Blackwood gave us directions to this place when we asked where you were” Kol said.

“Did he tell you what happened?” Marie asked. She had spoken with their grandfather on a few occasions since she had moved out, mostly to let him know that she didn’t blame him for what happened.

“He didn’t need to” Tatiana replied, “You lasted about three years longer than I would have. This business of trying to conform to Oma Blackwood’s expectations of what you should be, you should have known that effort would fail, sooner or later.”

Marie was a bit annoyed that it seemed like everyone had known that, except for her.

“We figured that you would be here moping around after Opa said that you turned down the Lane’s invitation” Kol said.

Bert and Patricia Lane had invited her to have Christmas dinner at their house. It was a kind thing for them to have done but Marie had turned that offer down. Henriette was out of town so it would probably be incredibly awkward to spend the holiday with her parents without her there.

That was when Tatiana found Marie’s sketchbook. She could only watch with mortification as her sister looked at the studies of the human body that she had done over the previous term in a Life Drawing Class.

“These are really good” Tatiana said as she looked at the detailed drawings.

Kol looked and saw the drawing of a male body that Tatiana was looking at. He just shrugged, unlike many of the men who Marie had met over the last few years he wasn’t to concerned about things like that. Then Tatiana flipped to the next page, this one was an incomplete drawing of the female form.

“You?” Tatiana asked.

“No” Marie replied, “The models in the class are all volunteers and my situation until a couple weeks ago made that basically impossible.”

“I understand completely” Tatiana said, and she sounded a bit disappointed. When they had been in Spain last summer she had encouraged Marie to be a bit more daring.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Two



31st December 1977

Prague, Bohemia

There was so much to do in the last hours of 1977 so that New Year’s Eve would be perfect. Of course, Alois was being absolutely impossible. When Gerta had invited her son to the annual party that she threw every year he had insisted that the food be done to his exacting standards. Unfortunately, he was a perfectionist when it came to these matters, and he wasn’t shy about loudly taking corrective measures. Not only wasn’t the household staff up to the challenge, but they also found their domain had been invaded by the dozens of strangers who worked with Gerta’s son.

Admittedly, this was a monster of Gerta’s own creation.

It had been to Gerta’s complete astonishment that Alois had been accepted into the Culinary Arts Program at the Louis Ferdinand University of Bohemia-Monrovia. Until Alois had told her of his plans, she had no idea that there was such a University, and it had a Culinary Arts Program. Apparently, it had been founded just after the end of the Soviet War as part of the Government Economic initiative that had been happening at the time. That had been all well and good, but the real trouble had been when he had gotten out of University and Gerta had helped him pursue his dreams by getting him on television.

Curiously, it had been a silly sketch on the show Saturday Night where a comedian dressed like Julia Child had made a big show partaking in massive amounts of cooking sherry before accidentally inflicting a deep cut on their hand and trying to minimize it. Gerta understood that it was making fun of the Cooking shows that were popular in the US and UK, albeit the spurting blood, implied alcoholism and marital discord were not a part of those shows. Gerta had seen that Alois was young, handsome, and ambitious, and had instantly recognized the possibilities. What she had not considered was the somewhat bullheaded nature of both her children. The key difference though was that Suse Rosa had always been so small that she had been forced to find workarounds whenever she ran into the difficulties that imposed on her. Alois didn’t have the same sort of limitations.

The sudden fame and success had gone straight to Alios’ head. The result was that Gerta found herself telling the much of the kitchen staff of her household to take the night off. Not that they had too many objections. They got New Year’s Eve off, and they got to escape Alois. Gerta already knew that she would need to have a word with her son about how he treated the people who worked for her when the next crisis erupted.

It seemed that Alois had attempted to have that same attitude with Suse when she arrived with Manny and Johannes. Whatever else Suse was, no one with an ounce of sanity had ever accused her of not being formidable, especially when she was angry. Gerta figured that spending time with her grandson would be far more preferable to taking her son to task. Naturally, she figured that what was left of her son would be far more agreeable after her daughter got through with him.



Montreal, Canada

The party had been going so well, right up until Margot’s grandchildren decided to crash the party. Marie Alexandra would have been a bother because her moving out of Margot’s house and into an apartment in the student ghetto near the McGill Campus had generated a great deal of gossip. It was bad enough with the girl’s untoward behavior and how she had commanded the attention of Montreal’s Society. The events of the year before, having the German Imperial Court descend on her house and having to be gracious about it had been absolutely mortifying.

Didn’t anyone remember that these were the same murderous Huns who had decimated the Canadian Army in places like the Somme, Wancourt, and Barlin?

As Margot watched, Tatiana approached her. The girl had cut her hair short, which was fine if it was your goal to start rumors that you were sexually deviant. Though if what Margot understood about Berlin, where Tatiana had grown up, was true then no one would care. None of that was helped by the fact that the girl looked a lot like her mother. She said something in greeting with a smile in German which grated on Margot’s ears. It sounded harsh, which was why Tatiana had made a point of greeting her this way.

“I beg your pardon?” Margot asked, unsure what else to say.

“I said Happy New Year, Oma” Tatiana said as she snatched a glass of Champagne off one of the waiters trays. He almost dropped it.

“I should have you thrown out” Margot said sharply. Looking around, she saw that Malcolm, her husband was talking to their grandson who was named for him and Marie.

“You won’t” Tatiana replied with a sweet smile. “That would look really bad, and appearances are all you really care about.”

As Tatiana took a sip of Champagne and Margot wanted to slap her hard across the face. The thing that checked her was that Tatiana was the sort who would hit back, and it wouldn’t be in the form of a slap.

“How much to get you to leave?” Margot asked.

“Keep your money” Tatiana replied, “I’m here to tell you exactly what I think of you. Trying to marry Marie off to one of the complete bores who only you seem to like. Only being nice to her when you want something? She lasted three years longer than I would have.”

“I tried to provide a good example” Margot said only to have Tatiana laugh.

“Mialexa changed everything about herself in a foolish effort to make peace with you, gain your approval” Tatiana said, “Scratch the surface and she is just the little girl who was rejected by her grandmother and doesn’t understand why.”

“Mialexa?” Margot asked, only to get a disgusted look from Tatiana in return.

“My God” Tatiana muttered before walking off. “Totally clueless.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Three



2nd January 1978

In transit, Over the North Atlantic

“I already miss him too you know” Henriette said to Alice who was busy being a little pill since she had figured out what going home meant. She was sitting in the seat beside Henriette refusing to respond. She had been this way since the final boarding call and Henriette really did hope that she would not be like this when the plane landed in New York.

One of the flight attendants smiled as she walked past. They clearly saw things differently than Henriette did because for them a small child sulking quietly was far better than the alternative. Alice’s reaction to the holiday in Germany had been unexpected with her discovery that the chaotic Schultz house in Wunsdorf-Zossen was full of children her own age. Grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the family Matriarch. Despite whatever personal misgivings Momma Schultz might have had with Henriette, she had greeted Alice warmly. When they had been there, Sabastian’s cousin Karl was back from whatever he had been doing in what Henriette had learned was the German Marines and that had been one more wrinkle. Especially because he and Erik, one of Sabastian’s other cousins tended to fight with each other. Fortunately, her stay in the Schultz house had not been a long one.

She had learned that Sabastian had been involved with a movie production of all things with his best friend Nikolaus after his Uncle Jost had recommended them for bit parts. They had just gotten back from Tunisia when Henriette had arrived. Everyone had been talking about a truck chase through the desert involving German Hussars. It seemed that Niko had given quite a show to the camera crew as he had leaped from a galloping horse onto the back of a moving truck. Though Niko and Sabastian had been cast as Cavalry Officer #3 and Soldier 8# respectively, they had made the most of their roles.

That was in keeping with Marie Alexandra’s warning to Henriette that Niko was a Hussar, like for real. What that meant in practice was that he could be completely insane at times and would always be at the center of the action. He had been encouraged to be that way from the cradle by his Grandfather, Manfred von Richthofen, famously known as a Fighter Ace in his youth. There had also been the warning that Sabastian could be just as bad, if not worse. That was especially true if Niko and Bas were working together. Considering that Marie was their cousin, she was probably as close to an expert in these matters as anyone.

Regardless of that there had been what had happened when Henriette had taken Alice to the film set in Potsdam at Sabastian’s invitation. He had carried Alice around and introduced her to the other members of the cast and crew. Despite what many men seemed to believe, including most advertisers and Hollywood, it wasn’t things like flashy clothes, nice cars, or conspicuous wealth that she found attractive. It was seeing Sabastian playing the role of protective father, introducing Alice to people she normally would have been a bit frightened of.

By the end of the holiday Alice was not keen on leaving Sabastian. While she wasn’t the sort to have a total meltdown like most other children would, the sort of total noncooperation she engaged in was if anything far more effective. Alice becoming thirty odd pounds of dead weight on top of everything else Henriette had to carry aboard the airplane had made things barely manageable.



Camp Angell, Yachats, Oregon

Last year, Mario had been at Fort Wainwright in Alaska at this time. In addition to being home to the 11th Airborne Division Fort Wainwright was also well known as having the most alcohol related incidents of any post in the U.S. Army. That may have had something to do with the long, dark Alaskan winters where the temperature never rose above zero for weeks at a time.

Camp Angell was different, for starters the Oregon Coast had a damp cold which was surprisingly worse. It was either pouring down rain or else it was cold drizzle. Every once in a while the sun broke through the clouds and Mario saw a vivid blue sky. That didn’t happen often. Most of all though, it was the realization how isolated Camp Angell was. The nearest sizable city was Portland, and that was three hours away by car on incredibly questionable roads through the mountains. Newport was far closer, but the few times Mario had gone there he had seen that like most places dependent on tourism there wasn’t much open during the off months. Just how far the rest of the world was away had been driven in as Mario had joined some of the others to watch Football on Sunday and Monday nights and there was only two channels that they had been able to pick up after some heroic efforts with the antenna.

Recent weeks had seen Mario involved in what were called team building exercises. They struck him as a colossal waste of time and were complete hokum on top of that. The idea was that a team would function best if the individual members of the team could implicitly trust the guy next to them. Mario was left with the question as to who had come up with that and why it was felt it was needed. Wasn’t that something that was already implied just by being in the same outfit as someone? Still, Mario had taken part because there simply wasn’t much else to do.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Four



7th January 1978

Ankara, Turkey

Being sent to observe and report about an ongoing conflict was exactly what Ritchie was supposed to be doing. Instead, he was being driven around by the Turkish Government hearing a carefully prepared litany about Greek atrocities with the corresponding actions of the Turks completely ignored wherever possible. The State Department and Department of Defense wanted to know about the capabilities of the Turkish Military and if the U.S. should provide aid to them. From what Ritchie had seen from the situation reports he had read, the last time the Turks had been given direct military aid the result had been a new round of the Greco-Turkish War that had culminated in the destruction of the very city he was standing in now.

Ankara had once been the capital of Turkey, but that was before the Greeks had burnt it to the ground with chemical weapons. After that, the Turks had moved the capital to Kayseri and there wasn’t much point in rebuilding. Now, it was just as much a blasted ruin as any of the others that dotted the Anatolian Peninsula from earlier empires. The story of how the Ottomans had been successively pushed back over the last few decades was not a new one. Political corruption, imperial overreach, and for lack of a better term, time itself had conspired to bring them down. As things had fallen apart, angry neighbors and the countries they had invaded had seen the excellent opportunity that presented. The Greeks had been propelled by a flood of weapons from the Austro-Hungarian Empire as it too had disintegrated. These days, the weapons the Greeks used were coming from Russia while the Turks were fighting with whatever weapons they had from decades past or could buy on the world market, often those were obsolescent leftovers from the First and Second World Wars that were sold to them at inflated prices.

There were many who felt that the ghosts of the Hittites, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, and everyone else who had occupied these lands were laughing at the Turks for thinking that they were immune from the forces of History. Ritchie didn’t necessarily believe in that, but what was undeniable was that there was a definite sense of history here. Not like back in Los Angeles where people thought an old building was one that had been built prior to about fifty or sixty years earlier. It was that history that was driving the ongoing conflict. The Greeks felt they were pushing out invaders. That the invasion in question had occurred centuries earlier was immaterial.

The Greeks didn’t seem to care about the portions of Turkey that the Syrians and Kurds had grabbed, they saw that as a problem for another day if Ritchie had to guess. They regarded the Armenians as long-lost brothers, so whatever the Armenians took was right as rain as far as the Greeks were concerned, so long as it was from a Turk. Ritchie had concluded that the Greeks were complete assholes, but then, so were the Turks because they openly boasted that they wanted to pay the Greeks back in kind for Ankara by blowing up Athens. He didn’t know what State or the DOD’s angle was in all of this, but Ritchie was getting the impression that giving the Turks anything more than old bolt action rifles would be like passing out shotguns at the California Youth Authority’s Preston Castle.



Balderschwang, Bavaria

Nan dreamed of being an airline pilot and that involved her getting hours flying multiengine airplanes. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, she had her adopted father’s Fieseler Kranich Twin-Turboprop. She was more than happy to fly it south to Bavaria so that she could visit Kiki as well as her niece and nephew. Kiki was also aware that Nan was checking on her at the direction of her father and stepmother.

“Seriously?” Kiki asked as she read through the pamphlet that had clearly been written by someone who didn’t have the first clue as to what they were going on at length about.

“I figured that you would have that reaction” Nan said, “Nella and I had a laugh about it when we first saw it.”

“In a vacuum this would be funny” Kiki said, “But this individual is in a powerful position, and he is proposing laws that will affect us all.”

“I didn’t think of that” Nan said and that was a reminder of just how young she still was. Despite her difficult early childhood, Nan still tended to think and act like any other teenager. That included not really thinking things through or looking beyond her immediate circle.

The Pamphlet had been authored by a member of one of the minor right-wing parties that currently made up the Government and it proposed nothing less than trying to undo decades of social progress within the German Empire. Take them back to an imagined glorious past that supposedly existed decades earlier when they still had the African Colonies and women were seen but not heard. Kiki would have pointed out that they only needed to look at the British and French experiences in Africa to see how that would have worked out. And if he thought that women were going to back to limiting themselves to the church and the kitchen, then he was in for an ugly surprise with Kiki herself leading the charge.

If Kiki had to guess, idiots like the one who had produced the pamphlet had found themselves increasingly impowered in recent days as the Kissinger Government’s popularity waned and the calls for new elections were growing louder. Heinz Kissinger was increasingly turning to the fringes of his coalition to hold power. Aurora found it extremely annoying that a Jew was making common cause with people who were well known to be Antisemitic in a bid to stay in power. “We have spent centuries being subject to those sorts of stereotypes and that man seems to personify them” Aurora had said the last time Kiki had talked to her. “He should just call the election already.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Five



23rd January 1978

Rural Silesia

Christian Weise had told his superiors that Einar Tann was a wizard with a radio in order to get him assigned to the Artillery Battery. Unfortunately, that had some rather unfortunate consequences because Christian had a bit too good of a job talking up Einar. Just minutes earlier, 15-centimeter shells had churned up the landscape a few hundred meters away. The goal had been to keep the dispersion low, and the Battery had mostly managed to do that.

“You don’t hear it coming Sir, but you certainly know when it arrives” Einar said nervously to Manfred von Richthofen. The König didn’t really respond, he just handed his binoculars back to an aide before giving Einar a slight nod. That was plenty of notice as far as Einar was concerned.

Einar had heard the African expression about how when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. The men who had accompanied him today certainly counted as elephants as far as these things go. Manfred von Richthofen, König of Silesia, and the grandfather of Christian’s wife Katherine, accompanied by the Marshal of Silesia, Tilo Schultz. The men who surrounded them were all Brass of one sort or another and as an Oberfeldwebel, Einar understood all too well how easy it would be to paint himself into a corner with such a crowd. Richthofen and Schultz might have been careerists in the Luftwaffe and Marine Infantry respectively, but they had a reputation of giving a bit of latitude to the Soldaten. Einar wasn’t sure about the others. He had already gotten a second chance though his friendship with Christian, one he intended not to jeopardize. Presently, he was explaining how the radio with the built in encoder worked and how in his capacity as a Forward Artillery Observer, he could call down 15-centimeter shells from over the horizon with surprising accuracy for weapons that were not known for finesse.

When Christian had recommended him for this job, it had brought back uncomfortable memories. The crash of the shells as they hit the ground and the sound that made as they sliced through the air that you only heard after they had passed. Einar had been there when Manny von Mischner had called down an artillery strike on their own position when they had been being overrun by the Chilean Army. That had almost worked, but they had briefly been captured by the Chileans anyway. Einar might have been able to live with that, but the idiotic conscript who had insisted that he leave the hole he had been sheltering in had shot him in a case of nerves. He remembered the horrified look on that boy’s face when he realized what he had done. That was small comfort for Einar when it had taken more than a year to recover. For better or worse, Einar had needed to get over all of that in a hurry.



Montreal, Canada

The Barista smiled when Marie Alexandra paid for a cup of coffee and mumbled the words “Thank you.”

Going straight back to her table, Marie gave an exasperated sigh as she looked at the pile of dry material that was a mere fraction of what she would need to get through by the end of the Spring Term. Books, notes from lectures and her own research. While she was set to graduate with the rest of her class in May, there was a staggering amount of work needing to be done between now and then. She had also seen the multitude of devious ways her Professors used to catch students who attempted to sidestep the process, the old line about how you have no idea what was going to be on the test until it got asked certainly applied. So you either knew the subject or you didn’t, and there were no shortcuts. There were days when she worried that she was going to wear out the keyboard of the personal computer that had been a gift from her mother last year because she had needed to type out papers that ran into the tens of thousands of words and others where if she had to look at one more word printed on a page she would lose her mind…

“Can I sit here?” A voice asked. Marie noticed the accent, Metropolitan French. Much to her annoyance.

Marie looked up and saw a man with an easy grin and a wool hat that he was wearing at a jaunty angle. She had seen the same man a few too many times over the last couple months in several different locations. That meant that his presence wasn’t a coincidence. Marie had known two distinct types of spies who had followed her around over the last few years. The most common were those who were basically faceless bureaucrats tasked with merely watching. Then there was the other kind, those who seemed to think that she would just swoon if they presented themselves with a sort of devil-may-care attitude and brash demeanor that was as fake as this man’s smile. For her it was plain to see that his grin did not extend to his eyes.

“I would prefer that you didn’t” Marie replied as the man sat down there anyway. “As you can see, I’ve a lot to do.”

The man looked at the spines of the books that Marie had stacked on the table. “I can see that” He said, “John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes? Those are not two names I would expect to see together.”

“That not your concern” Marie replied, glaring at the man.

“How rude of me not to introduce myself” The man said, “Thomas Lachapelle, of course, you are the beautiful Marie Alexandra Prinzessin von Mischner-Blackwood zu Berlin.”

He then held out his hand, which Marie just stared at.

“What are you doing here?” Marie demanded.

“I won’t insult your intelligence by lying to you” Thomas replied, “I think you already know who I am.”

“I know perfectly well what you are” Marie replied, Thomas just smiled. “Isn’t this exceeding your orders or something? Won’t you get in trouble.”

“My employer gives me rather wide latitude in how I approach matters like this one” Thomas said, “After you eluded my team in this city’s Chinatown a few days ago I figured more direct action was necessary.”

Funny how actually knowing Chinese had helped her vanish in that particular instance, Marie thought to herself. Thomas had also just accidentally revealed who he worked for. She had doubled back and had eavesdropped on some of his team discovering they were French DGSE.

“Just what were you expecting to come of this?” Marie asked, “Bothering me in public.”

Thomas just shrugged, “You never know” He replied.

“You are not my type” Marie stated flatly.

Before Thomas could respond to that, the Barista placed Marie’s coffee on the table. Again she smiled when Marie thanked her before her expression hardened when she saw Thomas as she went back behind the counter.

“I might not be your type” Thomas said with a nod towards the Barista, “But I suspect that you are probably hers.”

That was not what Marie was expecting to hear and she could feel her cheeks burning as she tried to look back to the book she had been reading. Only for Thomas to find her reaction amusing.