Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Six



3rd February 1978

Rome, Italy

Most girls would have been sorely disappointed by the gift that Nan had received on the day her family celebrated her birthday the prior June. She had no idea when her actual birthday was. The only one who might have known the date was the daughter of the monster who had held Nan’s mother prisoner and she had never shared that information. Her family had celebrated her birthday on the same as Nella’s shortly after they had adopted her, it had been a way to let her know that she belonged. Until they had done that for her, she’d had no idea what a birthday was. Her adopted mother had been afraid that she would find the party disappointing at a time when Nan was still having to get used to sleeping in a bed, so she had no expectations. Still though, Nan was thankful that Louis and Charlotte had made everything perfect.

Several years later during the celebration of Nella and Nan’s eighteenth birthday, Louis and Charlotte had given her nothing but a pair of sunglasses, Ray-Ban Aviators with polarized green lenes and polished gunmetal frame. For Nan, those sunglasses meant more than anything in the world. They implied her parent’s support for what she wanted to do with her life. A few months later, Nella had given her a custom-made Luftwaffe issue fight helmet. She was wearing both the helmet and sunglasses as she was flying into Rome Urbe Airport. The view out the front of the Kranich was commanding as followed the course of the River Tiber. She had seen the stepped arrangement preferred by British and American designers in similar aircraft, they had no idea what they were missing.

“You are cleared to land Hotel Juliette” Nan heard the Air Traffic Controller say through the headphones built into her helmet. He was referring to the Civil Registration of the Kranich when he said Hotel Juliette which was painted on the tail, D-CKHJ. She loved to hear them say that as they had guided her over the Alps that afternoon. The Kranich was not a small plane, the tower informed her that they expected it to make full use of the thousand-meter length of runway, as Nan descended she smiled as she throttled back the two Daimler-Benz Turboprop engines, pulled the levers that extended the leading-edge slats and the fowler flaps. The Kranich was flying directly into the wind, so it seemed to float as it settled onto the runway. The landing gear touched down softly and Nan hardly needed to roll out as she turned the plane off onto the taxiway. The tower scrambled to give her different directions to where she was supposed to park.

Shutting down the engines and setting the parking brakes, Nan ran down the checklist. Taking off her helmet, she enjoyed a moment of silence before leaving the Kranich through the forward hatch in the floor just behind the pilot’s seat. It was a sunny afternoon and compared to Berlin, where Nan had taken off from just a couple hours earlier, it was downright tropical.

By the time the car pulled up, she had tied the sleeves of her insulated coveralls around her waist.

“This is not at all what I was expecting” Amedeo Giovani, Prince of Naples, said as he got out of the car.

“When you invited me I warned you that I was coming on my terms” Nan said, “This is what that looks like.”

“Don’t you think you are a tad underdressed?” Amedeo asked, Nan knew that was an incredible understatement. The coveralls were an ugly grey and her hair was a mess from spending the last couple hours inside a helmet. Because she had needed to have the heat on north of the Alps, and glazed nose that cockpit of the Kranich was in looked like a greenhouse. It had also functioned like one once she was over Italy. So she probably smelled like she had been running laps. Finding someplace to take a shower and changing her clothes would probably be the first order of business.

“Do I need to remind you of our deal?” Nan asked in reply.

Amedeo frowned.

The deal was that if he didn’t comment about how she chose to live her life, she wouldn’t bring up his age. Amedeo was more than a decade older than she was, and that was something of a sore spot with him. Of course, Nan found him charming, and it was not as she had promised him anything. All she had done was come to Italy a few times to be seen in public with Amedeo. It was intended to keep his father off his back and Nan knew that she could never compete with the sea, which was the love of his life.

“We have another problem though” Amedeo said, “My father knew about you being the daughter of your former Kaiser, but he also learned that you were adopted.”

Nan just shrugged. “That is not a State secret” She said.

“But you being the only survivor of monstrous experiments carried out by a psychopath seems to be” Amedeo said, “Is any of that true?”

Nan had never had anyone outside her immediate family learn about that detail of her life. She was shocked to hear that Umberto II of Italy had seemed to have learned of it so quickly. At that moment she just realized that she was tired of hiding from her past.

“If you have seen one of those wretched documentaries about what happened on that farm, the kidnapped girls, corpses buried in the forest then you know the story” Nan replied. “Now you have the answer to what they always speculated about, what became of Child Six? Happy?”

Amedeo just stared at her agape. Apparently he had not expected her to just give him a straight answer.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Seven



11th February 1978

Richthofen Estate, Rural Silesia

The Heer had decided to make a few changes over the last few years. Mostly that came in the form of implementing what had worked in other countries without actually saying that they were stealing someone else’s ideas. The latest involved field rations and how that was sort of upsetting Army culture. For centuries there had been an agreement between the King of Prussia and the Soldaten that part of being a soldier meant at least one hot meal per day if it was at all possible. The Ministry of War and the Emperor had honored that tradition. The trouble was that the nature of battlefield had changed, many soldiers often found themselves well beyond the capabilities of conventional logistics. Bas’ father told horror stories about being in Vietnam and having to adopt the local diet, mostly of rice and fish. That had been the Marine Infantry, so they had considered themselves lucky to even have food.

In a somewhat belated attempt to address that problem the High Command had started issuing the One-Man Combat Ration Pack or EPa, Types A through E. The implications of the cardboard boxes they came in being perfectly sized to fit two or three in the bottom of a rucksack was not lost on anyone. Niko had tried to point out that much of it was just a repackaging of things that they were already all too familiar with. Namely the erbswurst, oatmeal, hard biscuits, and coarse ryebread that the Heer ordered by the boxcar had been included. The biggest change was that effort had been made to provide tinned entrées that only needed to be heated up. If there was one thing that no Army in the history of the world had ever needed to do, it was train soldiers how to set things on fire. There were also a number of goodies that had been added, but those seemed to have been ignored for now.

Still, Niko was forced to listen to a lot of grumbling from his Platoon about the food. They were reservists and as was pointed out to him, they were already serving the Emperor in their spare time so the least they could do is provide decent food. He had heard that the grumbling in the Ranks of the regular Army had been even more pronounced. Napoleon had supposedly once said that an Army marches on its stomach, and as Niko had discovered they didn’t like change when it came to what they put in it. But how much of it was because they didn’t like change versus the new items not being edible? Niko figured that he needed an objective opinion from someone with no previous expectations, and he knew exactly who to ask. His eight-year-old sister.

“What is this supposed to be?” Ingrid asked as she peered at what the can’s label said was Sauerbraten with Potatoes & Vegetables that was sitting in a dish on the table. Niko had heated it on the kitchen stove even if that was sort of cheating. He knew how to use the folding “pocket stoves” that the Heer issued, but in practice those were sort used if there were no better options available.

“I’m not sure” Niko said looking at the sheet of paper he had unfolded which had the contents of the EPa, along with ingredients and instructions printed on one side. Printed on the other side were The Soldier’s Rules of Conduct in the Field, AKA the Spanish Rules, which had supposedly saved the Heer a lot of trouble over the last forty years, along with some quotes by famous Generals and Bible verses that they were supposed to find edifying. “It says Beef, Pork, and Mutton, with potatoes, beets, and carrots in sauce.”

Ingrid was interested in everything that Niko did. It came from him being eleven years older than her if he had to guess. He had always been this heroic figure to Ingrid. Now though with him asking her opinions of military survival rations, her normal skepticism seemed to have made her wonder if he was putting one over on her. Of course, mystery meat was a joke that Armies of the world had been putting over on their own soldiers for as long as there had been Armies.

“You actually eat things like this” Ingrid said poking the Sauerbraten with her fork.

“You get really hungry, like haven’t eaten anything in a day or more, and you’ve been on the march” Niko said, “You eat whatever you can get.”

With that, Niko took a bite himself. It wasn’t as bad as some of the complaints he had heard made it out to be, that didn’t mean that it was necessarily Michelin rated either. Ingrid laughed at the look on his face as he chewed on the rubbery meat and vegetables before she tried it herself. They had fun poking fun at the entrée as Niko showed her how the liverwurst was spread on the ryebread, with the small containers of jam as an option. Ingrid though it was fun when Niko showed her how to use the tea and instant coffee with whitener to eat the hard biscuits without breaking your teeth. The oatmeal was just regular oatmeal, but Ingrid was intrigued by the dried fruit, mostly minced apples and raisins that were to be eaten with it. The citrus drink mix was well received, but Niko didn’t tell Ingrid about how it tended to react strangely with the water purification tablets. In the end, she kept the chocolate bar and the chewing gum for herself. Niko didn’t begrudge her for that, his little sister had been a good sport with this particular experiment.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Five Hundred Six Hundred Fifty-Eight



13th February 1978

Cuxhaven

The base was in an uproar as the 3rd Marine Infantry Division was preparing for movement. The 1st MID was rotating from overseas deployment and the 3rd was slated to replace them in Pusan. Erich was surprised by how excited everyone was at the prospect of deploying to the Far East. Karl Dunkel had told him that it was because the 3rd MID had its roots in III. Seebataillon based in Tsingtao and had even carried that name as they had been reconstituted as a Division just before being deployed to Vietnam during the Pacific War. It wasn’t that they were being deployed to Korea so much as they were being sent home because the East Asia was where they belonged. There was also the possibility of detached service at the Company and Platoon level, Boat Patrols in the Carolines and Marshals. Battling pirates and smugglers in the South China Sea or the Straits of Malacca. Exploration in the East Indies. In short, the Pacific was where the action was, and it was where reputations were made if there wasn’t a war going on.

For Erich Raeder, this could not have come at a better time. After Finike, his Platoon had made a big show of presenting him with the gold Marine Infantry Career Badge, two crossed rifles over an anchor. Oberfeld Muller had said that everyone had seen him step up and take his place on the line. Erich had told Muller that he hadn’t really been aiming at anything, and he had just fired his rifle because he felt he had to be seen doing it. The Oberfeld said he didn’t give a shit and no one else would either. The bullets that had been flying back at him had certainly been real and that was all anyone would remember. He didn’t know if he had actually shot anyone, welcome to the fucking club.

As it had turned out, the Oberfeld had been right about that, and things had gotten easier over the following months. Then two things had happened. Some of the men had gotten a look at his personnel file and there had been a few wisecracks about his full name and Courtly rank. Erich had brushed it off and told them that in the old days a Baron could have had them all flogged for insolence. Then Oberfeld Muller reminded him that as their Commanding Officer he still had that option. That had ended the whole “Yes, my Lord, no, my Lord” business rather quickly. Erich still found it annoying that he had needed to address that in the first place.

Then Erich’s father had found out after more than year of ignoring what Erich was up to that he had joined the Marine Infantry. While that was still a part of the Navy, the Marines had an unsavory reputation in many circles, which Erich’s father just happened to be a part of. They were the unwanted castoffs of the Heer, whose Ranks were filled with the worst sort of criminals to have ever escaped the noose. To maintain control the Marine Officers had to be the worst of the entire lot. Now, Erich Johann Albert Freiherr von Raeder III had a son who was one of them and that had not gone over well. Erich had listened to his father’s extremely loud complaints the last time he had gone home and was actually looking forward to spending the next few years in the Pacific.



Montreal, Canada

Her desk might have faced the wall, but Marie Alexandra only needed to turn to the right to have an excellent view of the back alley and the building on the other side out the single window. That was perfect for when she didn’t feel up to continuing her studies and just wanted to let her mind wander.

Like many of the buildings in Montreal, the one straight across from hers had a steel staircase running up the side of the building and climbing it up to the fourth floor was not for the faint of heart during the winter. The building that Marie had found her studio apartment in had the stairwell inside the building, which was very welcome when it was icy.

Marie’s classes had kept her incredibly busy for the last several weeks. So much so that she had hardly had time to pay attention to anything else. Then today on the walk home she had noticed that the trees had tiny buds on the branches and that the sun had not set yet. She was set to graduate in May and that was only a few months away now. Marie remembered that when she had first started at McGill she had seen the banner welcoming the Class of 1978. That had seemed very far off at the time, but now that didn’t feel as if it had been that long. At the same time, events that had occurred only a week earlier seemed like they happened a thousand years ago.

Marie knew that if she wasn’t going to be studying, she had other, far more productive uses for her time. Her laundry wasn’t going to do itself and she needed to go to the market unless she wanted Cheerios for dinner, because there wasn’t really anything else. She could also swim laps in the indoor poor at the Ladies Athletic Club, something which would help her sleep that night. Still, looking out her window at the cold evening with the snow on the ground in the small gardens behind the buildings which were bathed in the golden light of the setting sun, Marie was finding that she was having trouble finding the motivation.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Nine



18th February 1978

Dublin, Ireland

The man who looked like death walked into the pub and ordered a drink. He wore a black coat and once he took off his hat Ed saw that his hair had gone prematurely white. From the way that his suit was tailored, it was clear that the man was cadaverously thin, and his sallow skin made him look like he had not ever been in direct sunlight. The thing that stood out to Ed was his cold eyes, looking around the room and appraising everything he saw. Seriously, Bela Lugosi had nothing on this guy.

“Good evening, Mister O’Neal” The man said with a strong German accent in greeting with his tongue sliding around syllables that were unfamiliar. As a Special Agent, Ed had been briefed about who the big players were in Europe. This man, Sven Werth, called himself an Inspector though his actual rank was much, much higher than that. He was the head of the Crimes Against Persons Division of German Federal Internal Intelligence. For such crimes to fall into his purview, they had to have occurred across State Lines which meant that Werth not only dealt with the worst sort of scumbags, but he had also written the book on how to go about doing it. Ed had heard many things about this man, but the thing that stuck out in his mind was the warning that it wasn’t just appearances. To even see this man was to court death. If Ed were caught in Germany doing something he ought not be doing, Sven Werth would likely be the man who would make the arrest.

“Guten tag to you I guess” Ed replied, and Werth winced as if something about that was a major faux pas on Ed’s part.

“Regardless” Werth said, “You seem to already know who I am, so I guess we can skip the formalities.”

“Like why is the equivalent of one of the Deputy Directors of the FBI is meeting with me?” Ed asked with it sounding far more sarcastic than he had intended.

The bartender sat a drink in front of Werth who sat there silent for a long moment.

“When you came to Berlin to interview the daughter of the Tigerin, er… I mean Tigress, you were carefully vetted before the Tigress spoke with you herself” Werth replied.

Ed remembered that uncomfortable conversation, right up until Katherine von Mischner had dismissed him and ordered him driven to the airport he had not been sure that he was getting out of it alive. This did raise a major question. Like just who had vetted him? The FBI suspected that John Aleshire wasn’t the only cuckoo in the nest since they had caught him. The idea that someone within the FBI may have been able to relay information that freely had disturbing implications.

“So that makes you think that I am someone you can work with?” Ed asked.

“Our understanding is that you are a man of principle, Edward, if I can call you that” Werth replied, “We won’t ask you for anything.”

“Just like you never asked Aleshire for anything?” Ed asked in reply. Just having the likes of Aleshire sitting the Director’s Chair alone had done staggering damage.

Werth’s expression changed to a slight smile. “That was my colleagues in the BND” He said, “If you have read my book then you would know that is not in either of our interests.”

Werth then took a sip of his drink while Ed waited to see what he would say next. He was correct about one thing. Werth’s book was required reading at Quantico. Taking down some of the most notorious killers in recent European history made his methods of great interest to the FBI.

“I am sure that your Agency has similar practices as my own” Werth said, “An exchange of information, nothing more. That is why it is my hope that your principles are the same as mine in that you find the idea galling that a murderer is escaping justice.”

“You are aware of such a man?” Ed asked.

“A man who killed two dozen people and injured scores more ten years ago is believed to be hiding in America, New York City to be exact.” Werth replied, “To use your terms, he would be an incredible collar for a young FBI Special Agent looking to make a name for himself.”

“You said that this would be an exchange?” Ed asked.

“You went to Berlin seeking answers in your investigation into the death of your former partner” Werth said, “An investigation that has hit several dead ends.”

The son of a bitch was using that as a bargaining chip, Ed thought to himself. That was information that Ed wanted; he just wasn’t going to pay the price that a man like Werth would demand.

“You ever see 3:10 to Yuma?” Ed asked, “Glen Ford and Van Heflin?

“No” Werth replied.

“You ought to” Ed said before he motioned to the bartender for his check.

“An American Cowboy in Ireland” Werth said, “Who would have thought?”

“A question of my own” Ed said, a bit annoyed by Werth’s characterization of him. “In your book you had Otto Mischner dead to rights, but you didn’t proceed until much later. Why?”

“In your career you will have cases where solving them comes at far too high a price” Werth replied, “This was one of those.”

“You know what I think” Ed said as he counted out the coins to pay for the beer he’d had earlier. “That you were in love with the girl even though she was taken and knew she would never forgive you if you turned her against her father.”

“That is certainly your opinion” Werth replied before reaching into his coat pocket. He removed an envelope from it that he set on the bar. Then he walked out the door.

“Don’t you need him to pay for that?” Ed asked the bartender noticing that Werth had left his glass on the bar.

The Bartender just shrugged, “That weird ‘un only wanted water.”

Despite his desire not to do so, curiosity got the better of Ed as he picked up the envelope. Inside was photograph with a name, Andreas Baader, and an address written on the back. There was a printout that detailed what this man was alleged to have done and that the German police considered him armed and extremely dangerous. Werth had known damn well that Ed would be unable to just let this go when he had left the envelope.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Sixty



19th February 1978

Near Oranienburg, Brandenburg

It looked like a university campus until you got closer and noticed that the concrete buildings had few doors or exterior windows. It was also ringed with chain-link fences topped with concertina wire. Despite it being a clear winter day, there was little warmth in the sunlight, and it felt as if despair was oozing out of the walls. Amedeo Giovanni pushed that out his mind as he walked into the Oranienburg Women’s Prison. Before the death of his brother he had served as a Ship’s Officer in the Italian Navy in one capacity or another his entire adult life and that had including commanding a Destroyer. A powerful winter gale on the North Atlantic was the most fearsome thing a man could face, and he had done that many times. So, Amedeo knew that he had little to fear in a place like this.

When he arrived in the visiting room Amedeo was a bit surprised by appearance of Gudrun Himmler. When Nan had told him what had happened to her as a child, she had made Gudrun sound like some kind of ogre. The woman he saw was not like that. She would have looked harmless except there was not like that. To Amedeo, she looked like a deflated balloon in human form until he saw the pinched look on her face. Something about it suggested that she was incredibly bitter about her predicament.

“Just who are you supposed to be?” Gudrun demanded when she saw Amedeo through the shatterproof glass that had been reinforced with what looked like chicken wire. They were able to talk through a staticky intercom that made private conversation impossible. That was probably by design if Amedeo had to guess.

“I wish I could say that I was pleased to make your acquaintance Signora, but I am not” Amedeo said, “I am Capitano Amedeo Giovanni di Sovioa of the Italian Regia Marina.”

Gudrun just stared at him through the glass.

This was no way to talk to someone, Amedeo thought to himself. He understood the reason for it, that didn’t mean that he had to like it though.

“What a complete load of shit” Gudrun muttered to herself.

“Regardless of your opinion of me, you possess certain information that would be of great help to an acquaintance of mine…” Amedeo before he noticed the expression on Gudrun’s face change. Like if he had just said something incredibly funny.

“So, that little skank found a catspaw to ask her questions?” Gudrun asked, “You are just the same as all the rest I’m sure, falling for the damsel in distress act while convincing yourself that you are the only one she spreads her legs for.”

Amedeo could see the smirk on Gudrun’s face. She found that quite funny and had a high opinion of her own cleverness. She had no idea that Amedeo had been expecting her to behave this way and had come prepared.

“You have been stuck in this hole, or one like it, for the last decade” Amedeo said as he opened his briefcase and looked through the papers before he found the envelope he wanted. “You clearly don’t really know Annett at all. She didn’t ask me to come here today, but I can see that filling in the blanks that exist in her past will help her get on with her life.”

“Why should I?” Gudrun asked smugly.

“Before I came here, I did a bit of looking myself” Amedeo replied, “Called in a favor or two that my family has in both high and low places. Do you want to know what I learned?”

Gudrun just gave him that mirthless, smug smirk in reply.

“I learned that there is one thing you actually care about” Amedeo said before opening the envelope.

Gudrun’s expression never changed, she thought that all of this was funny.

With that Amedeo held the letter up against the glass for Gudrun to read. Her smug satisfaction vanished in a heartbeat and her face turned white as a sheet.

“Is that a joke?” Gudrun asked, her former confidence shaken.

“I can assure you that this is very real” Amedeo replied, “I told you that I called in a few favors, that included with Paul VI. With what you were convicted of it wasn’t even a heavy lift to convince him that you were deserving. You continue with your refusal to cooperate, and your excommunication becomes official.”

Gudrun stared at him through the glass with a look of shock on her face. Of all the things that had been said to her to get her to divulge what she knew about her father’s experiments, no one had come at her at this angle. She had been adamant that her father had been a great man, ahead of his time. At the same time using her knowledge of the details to needle the only survivor, Annett Pfenning. Amedeo just wanted to free Nan of this madness because he had seen the effect that it still had on her. Finding out that Amedeo’s father had learned of her past had basically caused Nan to shut down. She had told Amedeo the truth, but it was said with total detachment which had been extremely disturbing.

“Now, we are going to have a frank discussion” Amedeo said, “Simple things, like names, dates, and you are going to leave nothing out.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-One



20th February 1978

Mitte, Berlin

This wasn’t the first time that Annett had gotten upset by something beyond her control. A key part of her personality was that she needed to be in control of everything at all times in a world that was seldom obliging. That was probably the reason that she had been instantly in love with the idea of being an airplane pilot. Nan was always in control. With the rudder pedals, control yoke, and throttle quadrant she got instant results with every action.

Charlotte knew that her adopted daughter was a special case, it was something that she had understood from the instant that she had first seen Nan under the care of Katherine von Mischner. It had been Charlotte who had requested that Kat go to Bavaria because a small child who had no one else couldn’t ask for a more fierce or dedicated advocate. Charlotte had instantly recognized that what Nan needed was acceptance and stability after the nightmare that she had endured up until that point in her life. It had been Louis who had suggested that they take Nan in as a solution to that. Originally, it had been intended that Nan was to be their ward to sidestep the thorny legal questions that formal adoption arose because of who they were. Then as the years went by Charlotte saw how close that Nan and Nella became, and that horrid woman, who was more than likely Nan’s half-sister, became a growing threat even though she was locked away. Formally adopting Nan to shield her from Gudrun and the tabloid press who had been trying to find out what had happened to “Child 6” for years had been something that Louis and Charlotte had hardly needed to think about.

Charlotte had never regretted that they had done any of that. It hadn’t been perfect by any means though. At first, it had been Nan finding every hiding place she could find and showing fear towards men in general. It was a circumstance that was far less than ideal. Later, Nan had been troubled at times in many areas. Mostly that had been in the form of having difficulty in social situations. Basically she was fine with individual interactions, but group situations were entirely different. It was inevitable that Nan would say or do the wrong thing. Now, to Charlotte’s astonishment it was the Prince of Naples of all people who had caused Nan’s latest crisis.

It was not clear exactly how Amedeo Giovanni had done it, but according to Gudrun’s jailers, she had been reduced to a babbling, quivering wreck by the end of the conversation. This was a woman who had defied interrogators and needled Nan for the last twelve years. Apparently, Amedeo had known something that they did not. One of the pieces of information that he had pried out of Gudrun was Nan’s actual birthdate and it was not at all what Nan had been expecting.

Charlotte knew that most women would be overjoyed to learn that they were actually younger than they had thought. For years they had celebrated Nan’s birthday on the same day as Nella’s because as far as anyone could tell they were roughly the same age. Suddenly, Nan knew that had been born at the end of March, on the 30th or 31st, in 1960. Making her ten months younger than Nella. That was the exact opposite of what everyone might have assumed and for Nan it threw a major wrench in the works as she had been trying to move on with her life. Suddenly she was a month shy of her eighteenth birthday and while that meant nothing as far as her attending University Classes was concerned, there were other things. Her flying a multiengine airplane solo and her relationship Amedeo being the two big ones.

Charlotte was perfectly aware that the Italian Prince was considerably older than Nan. Amedeo had been a career Naval Officer and had spent his adult life at sea. Upon becoming heir to the Italian Throne, Umberto II, his father, had leaned on him to find a wife of the right background who was preferably young enough to be able to produce issue without any undue complications. That had resulted in Amedeo being sent to introduce himself to Nella on her birthday last year. While from the perspective of European history Nella would have been considered perfect, Charlotte knew that she was exactly the wrong sort of woman to play that role because as much as she hated to admit it, Nella had the personality of wet newspaper and would probably need to go through a whole lot of life before that changed. Amedeo must have realized that on some level because he had done no more than exchange pleasantries with her. Instead, he had been attracted to Nan. She had a past, well, so did Amedeo, and they had a great deal to talk about.

When Charlotte had asked what was going on, Nella and Nan had told her that Amedeo was incredibly charming and had not really asked them for anything. Nan had traveled to Rome a few times at his invitation, but that had mostly involved her wanting to have a bit of fun with someone else paying the check. Now in an effort to free Nan of her past, Amedeo had somehow put the fear of God into Gudrun Himmler. Charlotte was unsure how to react to this turn of events or Nan’s reaction to them. What she did understand that was her daughter had an important birthday coming up in a month, it would be the first one that she would celebrate on the right day and that should mean something.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-Two



24th February 1978

Rural Ukraine, near Pripyat

Ritchie had known on an intellectual level that Divisions from the German Panzer Corps rotated between training, garrison, and forward deployment. His understanding was that the 4th Panzer Division was something of a darling of the film studios in Potsdam, so they had been featured in several films and television series, especially the 8th Dragoon Brigade that made up the Infantry component of the Division. Just like with American Foreign Policy and the US Army and Navy, elements of the German Military tended to stay in places once they had fought there. The German Kaiserliche Marine was still in Argentina and Korea with long term leases from their hosts in those places.

Still Ritchie seeing the 4th Panzer Division in Ukraine still came as a bit of a surprise. They were bivouacked on the shore of a river near a city that was located just a few miles from the Russian border that had nothing else to recommend it. The US Embassy in Kyiv had told Ritchie that they split their time out here or else in more permanent barracks just outside the city. This was just one of several spots that whatever German Division assigned to be the tripwire force enforcing the treaty which had ended the Soviet War and formalized Ukrainian independence spent their time in the field.

The situation here reminded Ritchie that he had become a sort of go to Observer for the policy makers back in Washington and that included President Nixon. No sooner than he had gotten back from Turkey then he had been sent out to Ukraine. After he had learned about the presence of the 4th Division Ritchie had left Kyiv the night in what he had thought was the German equivalent of the American duce and a half, only to learn from the driver that it wasn’t an equivalent, it was the real deal, having been manufactured by Opel, a division of General Motors.

It had been a long slow trip with it snowing for much of the time. Now as the sun was coming up, Ritchie saw tents and a Raupenschlepper Ost, one of the newish RSO/7s with the bed piled with bags of potatoes being unloaded as the duce and a half parked in what looked like a field covered in equal parts rotten snow and ice, fortunately it was far too cold for mud of else they would be in the middle of a sea of it. The strange looking tracked vehicle had been built with this part of world in mind and the RSO/7 was the 7th version that the German Army and Pioneer Corps had used by the thousands over the last few decades.

After hours spent in the cab of the truck, the sudden cold was a shock. Ritchie wondered where this outfit’s headquarters was as he drew a lot curious looks. His Army winter uniform that was made of green wool and M-65 field coat. The Germans were all wearing the grey and white winter camouflage with layers of winter clothing on underneath. It was fortunate that he had remembered to bring a proper hat, a fleece-lined trappers cap that matched his uniform and kept his head warm even if the earflaps were a bit hokey. If he had only brought his beret these men would have known exactly who he was at the cost of his ears. There was a sudden reaction among the Germans as a bigwig came walking through the camp. Ritchie saw that he was wearing a slightly different uniform and he had the sleave insignia of a Light Colonel. Someone who he just happened to know.

“I had heard that an American had shown up” Manfred von Mischner said, “Why would they send you of all people?”

“Observer mission” Ritchie replied, “Tricky Dick wants to know if you are playing nice with the Russians.”

“Tricky Dick is the nickname of your President, yeah?” Manny asked as Ritchie fell into step with him.

“Yes, but I would not suggest calling him that in person” Ritchie replied.

“Better to be led by someone clever than the alternative I guess” Manny said, “Ask the Russians about that if you ever get the chance.”

Ritchie didn’t know what that was all about.

“Frostbite and boredom are about all that is happening out here at the moment” Manny said after a few minutes, “This is the Second Battalion of the 140th Regiment.”

“I came looking for the 4th Panzer” Ritchie said.

“You found it” Manny replied.

They came upon a small group of Officers and Manny introduced Ritchie what translated to Line Officer, and he heard something one of them asked, “Feldwebel-Leutnant or Feldwebel-Hauptmann?” Manny just shrugged. There had been some question about if the German Army had something like Warrant Officer ranks, Ritchie had just gotten an answer to that.

Eventually, they all drifted their different ways and Ritchie was told to get something to eat. He was slightly dreading what would be served up as breakfast having encountered creamed chipped beef on toast, the infamous shit on a shingle or spam & powdered eggs far too often. Instead, it was what Ritchie knew as nail soup, made from whatever was on hand, mostly the potatoes he had seen, along with peas, beans, and bits of sausage. It was being ladled out of large kettles on a stove that smelled like it was burning coal. To his complete astonishment he was given a large piece of rye bread that was still warm from the oven and there was as much fresh coffee as he wanted.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-Three



24th February 1978

Montreal

It was snowing as Marie Alexandra made her way home from the Main Campus of McGill walking north on Rue Milton. She had not been in a rush to get home that afternoon, so she had found a stack of magazines in the University Library’s collection of periodicals. It had been dark by the time she finally left the library and the feeling that she’d had for days that she was being followed was back. For the days following that French Agent introducing himself, that feeling had been gone. Marie had done her best to make herself as boring as possible in that time. It had not been difficult because the amount of studying and writing that she had needed to do in her coursework had basically monopolized her time. Then in recent days she had noticed that she was feeling like she was being watched. While Marie’s mother had warned her that she should never ignore that feeling, either she was just being paranoid, which was always a real possibility, or whoever it was following her was extremely good this time.

Big fluffy flakes that swallowed up all the noise of the city were falling in the golden light cast by the streetlights as Marie walked with the middle finger of her left hand against the brick wall on that side of the street, careful to avoid stepping into the light. She had felt like she was being watched from the instant she had left the library. There was a point that her mother had driven into her head again and again, how she was smaller and lighter than most people she would encounter. It was up to her to turn what should be profound disadvantages into strengths and to do that she needed to think about her next moves carefully.

Rue Milton was a one lane one-way street that didn’t run in a straight line. There were several doglegs and places where it hit a major cross street and it didn’t line up perfectly with the other side. When Marie came to one of these she turned to the right and from what she remembered about this street, there was a narrow alley that ran between two buildings again to her right about fifteen meters down the street. Walking as fast as she could without making noise, Marie ducked down the narrow alley and nearly had her feet slide out from under her on the paving stones that were covered in ice. Emerging on the other side, there was knee deep snow. Marie figured that her plan to double back and see if anyone was actually following her was a dismal failure when she stepped back onto Rue Milton. All she saw was an empty street.

Shoving her hands into the pockets of her coat, Marie turned and walked west on Durocher until she hit Prince Arthur Street West which ran parallel to Rue Milton and turned back north. She kept walking until she hit Rue Sante-Famille having gone a couple blocks out of her way, cursing under her breath about her own stupidity and paranoia using swearwords from every language she knew. It wasn’t until she reached her block that she saw a man walking the other direction wearing a long wool coat and a broad-brimmed hat. From what she could see in the streetlights, he looked like he had a fairly dark complexion, like the people she had seen in Spain last year. Still, something about the shape of his chin and nose were familiar to Marie even if she couldn’t place from where. She noticed the red sash around his waist and was about to comment on it when she saw the look of surprise and recognition cross his face. Marie knew in that instant that this was the man who had been following her from the library.

Marie’s reaction was instinctive, as she reached for the karambit hidden in the small of back under her coat.

“Whichever Government’s agency you are from, go tell them that I am through playing these stupid games” Marie said.

“What are you talking about?” The man replied, and Marie knew that he wasn’t the usual agency lacky who fancied themselves to be James Bond who was bothering her from the way that he said it. That did not help matters, in theory spies had rules and just being found out was enough to get them to scurry off. Random men following her was an entirely different matter.

“You need to stay back” Marie said firmly as she slid the karambit from its sheath and had it hidden at her side.

“Do what she says, Jacques, before she guts you with that knife she has in her hand” A woman’s voice said, “I warned you not to get too close to Doug’s girls, they’re dangerous.”

“Sorry, wasn’t trying to scare you” The man, Jacques said as he stepped back.

Marie turned to see that the woman was elderly, but not feeble by any means. She shot Marie an appraising look before she said, “That was a neat piece of work back there, doubling around like that. Jacky doesn’t know the city, so he thought he had fallen behind and raced to catch up. We weren’t trying to frighten you, but we had heard that you had left the nest and we had to be sure that none of Colonel Blackwood’s people were about before we talked. He wouldn’t be very happy if he knew.”

“Oh” Marie said as she slide the karambit back into the sheath. “Who are you?”

“Margot’s dirty little secret” The woman said and as she stepped closer, and Marie saw the family resemblance. The features she had noticed in Jacque’s face were ones she saw in the mirror every day.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-Four



25th February 1978

Montreal

“We are both blessed and cursed with memory” Julie said, “What makes that especially true considering that according to many historians we supposedly don’t exist. Yet here we are.”

Julie Pelletier, Marie Alexandra’s great aunt and her grandmother’s youngest sister and her grandson Jacques had been talking with Marie since she had met them the prior evening and it was now getting into the early morning hours.

They had gone to a 24-hour café near the McGill Campus which mostly catered to the students. The food was questionable, but coffee was a different story. It seemed that Julie had wanted to talk to Marie for a long time. Her living in the Blackwood house had been a deterrent though. Julie had referred to herself as “Margot’s dirty little secret.” Aside from spying on Marie when they had been trying to figure out how to approach her, they didn’t seem like they were bad people. There were many details that they had told her about their lives. That included the telling Marie that she had dozens of cousins on that side of her family that she had never heard about until that moment, far beyond Aunt Emma’s family who lived on Vancouver Island in distant British Columbia.

Then when Marie had asked about what Julie knew about their family story she got far more than she had bargained for.

“Our great, great however many generations ago grandmother… It would be nine or ten for you if I had to guess Marie, was named by Madeleine Charron” Julie said, “She was among the handful of the so-called Correction Girls who survived the journey from France to Louisiana in 1719 after being exiled by order of King Louis of France, I’m not sure which one. They called them that to differentiate them from the King’s Daughters and Pelican Girls. Considering how the whole lot of them were lumped together as women of ill repute, there is a bit of ironic justice for those who didn’t get a whole lot of it during their lifetimes I suppose.”

“Louisiana?” Marie asked, “How did Madeleine end up in Canada?”

“Up the Mississippi River when that was still a real wilderness” Julie replied, “Everything from Louisiana to Labrador was all New France in those days.”

What followed was Julie telling her about the generations that followed. Minor triumphs and greater tragedies. Marie could tell that Julie liked telling these stories. They were a version of Canadian history that had only existed in the margins of the textbooks without a whole lot of detail. That did leave her with one major question though.

“How come my grandmother wants nothing to do with any of this?” Marie eventually asked, “Most of my mother’s family is working class, so that doesn’t seem like something that most people would hold against her.”

Jacques said something in a language that Marie didn’t recognize, which was odd for her and instantly got her attention.

“That was a terrible thing to say about anyone, even your great aunt, Jacky” Julie said to Jacques.

“Pardon?” Marie asked.

“All I said was the truth” Jacques replied. He seemed incredibly amused by what he had just said, so it must have been something delightfully bad. That it had been in an unfamiliar language was something that she was extremely curious about.

“When we were young…” Julie said before pausing and thinking about what she was going to say next. “Things got bad for us, and we all did what we had to do. Your grandmother learned all the wrong lessons. Whoever her father was, she got that fair complexion from him, our mother told me that meant trouble from the day she was born.”

That was completely unbelievable. Margot had known that about herself when she had frozen out the Lane family over Henriette getting pregnant. There was also how she had treated Aunt Emma and Marie’s mother.

“When it comes being taught to hate everything you are, Margot was a star pupil” Jacques said, “Then Colonel Blackwood entered the picture.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve said something like that” Marie said in reply, “When you introduced yourself you said that you didn’t come near because of my grandfather.”

“I am sure that he cares about you as his granddaughter, but he was the head of the Mounted Police’s Special Branch” Julie said, “There are many among us who think that he is the Devil himself because he was extremely good at that job.”

“Making the Mounties more inclusive to better spy on the First Nations” Jacques said sarcastically.

Marie knew from having watched her mother that there were often several sides of the people you knew. The woman who had loved and encouraged her from the time she was a child had a side that was incredibly dark if even a small portion of the rumors about her were true, there was a reason why she was called the Tigress. She had solved problems for the House of Hohenzollern, made them go away. Often the solution involved disposing of the people who caused them. Marie’s mother had been extremely well rewarded for that, but the price she had paid had been staggering. It was regretfully not a shock that her grandfather had done similar things.

“In a truly just world that sort of thing wouldn’t happen” Marie said.

Julie smiled when Marie said that, like if Marie had just passed some sort of test. Though Marie’s reasons were probably not the same as those of her great aunt or cousin.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six hundred Sixty-Five



27th February 1978

Rural Ukraine, near Pripyat

It was cold this morning as Manny stepped out of the caravan and made his way to the mess tent. Suse Rosa had found his living situation hilarious the last time she had visited. Sort of hard to escape the office when you are living in it, she said. Of course, at the end of the day she went back to the Kyiv apartment they has leased which had amenities that every single man in this outfit, including Manny, would cheerfully kill for about now. They were all waiting for the order to move again, hopefully before the Rasputitsa came with the spring thaw and turned the roads into soup. Getting the caravan, or any other wheeled vehicle, anywhere would turn into an absolute nightmare if they were still here.

If he’d had his way Manny would have slept in a tent like the men, but as an Oberstleutnant he needed the single-axle caravan for the administration end of running the Battalion when it was in the field. It wasn’t very much, just enough space for him to have a desk along with the filing cabinets bolted to the walls. It also had a bed, a small kitchen, and bathroom with a shower he had been advised never to use. Ritchie had told him that it reminded him of the Airstream Caravans that were fairly popular in the United States, albeit without the polished aluminum. Instead, it was painted matte brown like every other support vehicle the Heer used.

It was Ritchie’s presence over the last few days that had resulted in Manny spending most of the morning typing the report for the interested Government Agencies and compiling similar reports from everyone who the American had been in contact with. It was a real bother that Manny had the cursed BND to thank for. There were aspects of the organization and equipment of the 4th Panzer that they wanted Warrant Officer 1 Richard Valenzuela to see. Mostly Ritchie had seemed interested in the Field Kitchens of the 2nd Battalion, the versatile “Goulash Cannon” that every branch of the German Military used and had taken around the world with them. Yes, they were useful for feeding a lot of men quickly with whatever happened to be available in the way of either food or fuel. However, not to the extent that it would explain Ritchie’s interest.

Manny wasn’t stupid, he knew that Ritchie’s real intent had been to get a read on the Battalion’s logistics. Numbers of men and vehicles, the logistics train, and any other things that might be of interest. When Manny had been in the 7th Recon Battalion that had been his job. Ritchie’s job was also to get to know the personalities of the men leading the 4th Panzer Division. He supposed that he ought to be flattered that Ritchie had come to his outfit, because it meant that their rivals across the Atlantic saw him as an up-and-coming Officer. At least that was what Generalmajor Schier had told him. That was the entire point, they wanted the Americans to see them as rivals rather than enemies.

They already had enough trouble here in Ukraine, so they simply didn’t need belligerence from the Americans on top of it. With the revanchists in Russia spouting off about how Belarus and Ukraine were Russian territory that had been stolen by Germany during the Soviet War. Manny’s father had told him a different story. Of how Stalin deliberately starved the people in those regions to create a humanitarian crisis and that those people had greeted them as liberators, the ones who were still alive. Still, there was a threat that if the wrong sort of Government came to power in Moscow, Ukraine and Belarus would have the Russian Army on their borders. Manny suspected that there were many in Ukraine who would welcome the chance to get even, but a whole lot of innocents would get caught in the crossfire.

That was why the 4th was here in scenic Pripyat, located on the Pripyat River. It wasn’t a bad place per say, it was just isolated and its location in proximity to the Russian Frontier made it so that no one came here unless they had to. In the event of the Russians coming across the border this was considered a likely avenue of advance. Manny had seen the village of Chornobyl which was the only other community of note in the area. If anything, it was smaller and poorer than Pripyat.

“Morning, Sir” one of the Soldaten who was setting down a stack of metal trays said sullenly. One of the means of enforcing discipline in the Ranks was assigning jobs to the men, the greater the infraction the worse the job. While “Kitchen Patrol” wasn’t the worst thing that the Noncommissioned Officers could inflict on the enlisted it involved extremely long days and backbreaking work. That also resulted in situations like this one.

“Thank you” Manny replied awkwardly as he took a tray. The soldier just kept his face blank and stood there without replying. This was considered in the field, and it was an informal setting. So the business of saluting wasn’t something he needed to worry about.

Manny went down the line. A scoop of the soup of the day, mostly potatoes and cabbage that was a part of every meal of the day. Then a scoop of oatmeal. A largish piece of fresh rye bread which was one of the advantages of having the field kitchens. A scoop of sauerkraut, which wasn’t as well regarded. And finally a tinned pears and apricots to finish it off. Getting a cup of coffee, Manny found a seat at one of the tables that was empty.

Complaining about the food had been a pastime of soldiers since the dawn of time. Mostly because it was monotonous with the same things every day. Still, the thought changing that situation had everyone up in arms when some wise guy thought it would be funny to start a rumor that the field kitchens were going away when the new ration packs had been introduced a few weeks earlier. Manny wouldn’t put it past the Noncoms to send that particular jokester to work KP, they loved that sort of ironic justice.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-Six



4th March 1978

Mitte, Berlin



When Kat had come up with the criteria necessary to receive the Orden der Tigerin, or Tiger depending on just who the inductee was because some men got touchy over that, she had deliberately made them nearly impossible for any inductee to achieve so that she would never have to award it to anyone. Conspicuous gallantry without regard to personal safety while attempting to save the life of another. Unlike every other Medal or Order with the exception of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, posthumous nomination was allowed. At the time she had not intended to give it anyone other than Tatiana Nikolaevna who’s actions at Tumbler Ridge certainly warranted that sort of recognition.

What Kat had not factored in was she lived in an Empire with a hundred and fifty million people. The odds of someone doing something completely insane at any particular time was higher than most people would believe and who most of those people tended to be… Kat’s offices had been flooded with stories of the actions of Paramedics, Firefighters, Police Officers, all sorts of Medical Professionals, and even ordinary people whose actions in extraordinary circumstances met, or even exceeded the criteria set. She had been forced to hire a team to investigate the nominees and a few times a year, usually on a Saturday or Sunday near the end of the quarter, Kat awarded the Order along with the City of Berlin’s Order of Merit. Freddy had pointed out that Kat had inadvertently created a new Service Order that by its very nature would be equivalent to the Pour-le-Mérite and would fall in precedence right after the Red Eagle.

Kat had not considered any of that, and to drive the point home the Navy had nominated FSR Combat Medic Kris v. Fischer, called the Angel of Anju for her actions in Korea. Kat knew full well who she really was and fortunately there was a backlog of several years on those nominations. So, Kat had been able to duck that particular issue, but the Marine Infantry were not going to be deterred by that forever and Kat didn’t know how Kristina would react.

Today, Kat was looking at the man who was the first of this quarter’s nominees. He was wearing the blue formal uniform of Berlin’s Fire Service and walked stiffly, it was Kat’s understanding that he had suffered severe burns almost two years earlier as he had literally run through a wall of fire to save workers trapped in a burning factory. Then while still recovering he had done almost the exact same thing in an apartment fire just a few months later under similar circumstances. This man’s actions had saved the lives of several people and the fact was that he had been willing to do it a second time knowing the cost and hadn’t cared. The Fire Service had kept him in an administrative job since then.

He stood there as the citation inducting him into the Order of the Tiger was read aloud. Kat knew what he was thinking. That the actions described sounded like they had been done by someone else entirely. She had told her team to be very cautious of who they gave their final recommendations for. The last thing they needed was to have one being worn by a braggart or a fraud.

As Kat pinned the medal of the Order on his chest, she leaned in and whispered “Thank you for all of that” to him. There was a lot of speculation about what exactly she said.

He looked at the round bronze medal that was hanging from the gold and black ribbon. Kat knew it quite well as it had what had become her personal crest with the tiger on the front and the words SERVITIUM, DEDICATIO AD ALIOS engraved on the back.

There was polite applause as Kat waited for the next man to take the stage. He was a recipient of the Berlin Order of Merit, which was nowhere near as prestigious.



Los Angeles, California

Ritchie was starting to wish all sorts of terrible things on the mechanics that the LAPD employed. The more disgusting and painful the better. There was a growing list of parts he was going to need to find and things he would need to do if he wanted to restore Frankenstein back to working order.

When he had found out that Frankenstein, the car that he had driven when he had been full time in the Department had been about to be put up for auction Ritchie had called in a few favors to buy the car outright, or at least what was left of it, directly. It seemed that Frankenstein had been used for parts before the Department had finally had enough and decided to sell it along with a large number of other cars with too much milage.

“The least you can do is help” Ritchie said to Mario who was watching him work.

“I know better than that” Mario replied, “If I get in your way you’ll just kick my ass up and down the street.”

A few years ago, Ritchie would have just assumed that his little brother was being flip. These days he knew better, and his youngest brother seemed to have learned a thing or two. Through the grapevine, Ritchie had heard that the Army had Mario at a camp up in Oregon where they trained and assembled LRRP teams. With Mario having completed Ranger School, they had been left with a few different options for what to do with him. Sending him on leave for a couple weeks in Southern California wasn’t something that they had done out of the goodness of their hearts. It meant that action, likely of the unofficial sort, was about to happen and they wanted him focused on the mission rather than thinking about home.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-Seven



8th March 1978

Beijing, China

May you live in interesting times. That turn of phrase was actually the work of an Englishman who had attributed to the Chinese. Both as a blessing and a curse. These were certainly interesting times, as much as Pan Yong hated to admit that was the way things had panned out.

First, the thrice damned Emperor of China had died without issue a few weeks earlier and had been followed into the grave only days later by Generalissimo Chiang kai Shek. That left Pan in a position he had coveted for decades, as basically the Dictator of Northern China but in a manner that was undoubtedly seen by most objective observers as being a poison chalice. He knew that the only thing saving his neck was the failing health of Sun Li-gen, the brilliant General who had led the forces of Southern China. There had not been a ready replacement, so the South was holding to the current ceasefire for now. Pan knew all too well that if General Sun had remained in good health, he would have led an army across the Yangtze River as soon as weather permitted. It was fortunate that the South lacked another General of Sun’s acumen.

Where did that leave Pan though?

Pan knew that he wasn’t respected as a General because he had been dealt a bad hand and later had been used as scapegoat by his so-called superiors. No one doubted his ability at scheming and coming out on top in the brutal palace politics that occurred in Beijing. What he lacked was having an Emperor ensconced in the Forbidden City. Before the late, rather unlamented, Emperor had died of renal failure that was the result of advanced cancer he had been useless, apparently not even being capable of doing the one thing that had been asked of him in his entire life. There was one major exception though, whoever held his leash had automatic authority over a vast swath of the country. With the Emperor gone, Pan’s legitimacy had been called into question and he had been forced to resort to the method that had worked since time out of mind to maintain control at least temporarily, brute force.

In the old days, a situation like this would have been easier to solve. The General who took the capital would marry the widow of the old Emperor and declare himself the first Emperor of the new dynasty. Pan knew that sort of thing didn’t work in this era of mass communication and burgeoning republican movement. He would need to find a malleable figurehead to play Emperor, who the people would fall into line behind. Even as Pan had that thought, it occurred to him that someone in the south must have had the same thought and if they found one before he did then his position would grow fatally precarious.



Balderschwang, Bavaria

When Kiki had planned on going on maternity leave this time she’d had something completely different than the reality that greeted her. It had been her hope of finally having the time to take stock of her life and plan out what the next steps would be now that she had finally put the Medical Service behind her. Instead, she found that life wasn’t necessarily going to accommodate her this time. Nina and Louis Bernhard, probably sensing on some level that the status quo in their family was about to be irrevocably disrupted and were being wretched little shits when Kiki was looking at getting Fianna some help managing them. Fianna had said that all she needed was a cattle prod and a pair of steamer trunks. Kiki had seen over the years that Fianna used humor to vent when she was angry. Though Lutz was still too young to give a talking to, Kiki was able to tell Nina that if she kept it then she was going to regret it. While Kiki had never raised a hand against her daughter, there had been times when Nina had seriously tested the limits of her patience. Her understanding was that it was far better to be creative in situations like that and her time in the FSR had been informative.

At the same time, Kiki had been unavailable for most of the last year due to professional obligations. Suddenly, everyone had seemed to be aware of that detail and Steffi had been flooded with requests for Kiki’s time, interviews and the like. There was also a large team of Stonemasons, Metal and Woodworkers, and General Builders who had been working for Kiki for the last six months after a routine survey had revealed that Hohenzollern Castle needed to have its structure repaired and upgraded. It was a massive pile of unsupported masonry that mostly dated from the Nineteenth Century, so Kiki had absolutely no excuses not to do the work even if it was costing her a great deal of money, even by her standards.

Finally, Kiki had received an excited phone call from Ria telling her that she wasn’t the only woman in her family expecting. Then Ria revealed a real bombshell, during her first scan they had discovered that Ria was carrying twins. Of course, Ria and Vicky were identical twins, so the odds of Ria having that happen to her were actually quite good. Kiki had advised Ria to be recording the expressions on the faces of the members of the Landtag of Galicia-Ruthenia in Krakow when she announced that. Many of them had backed her on the basis of their mistaken belief that she was a lesbian and that they would only need to put up with Galicia being a Kingdom during her lifetime. Now this… Kiki figured that she would be able to hear the crying and wailing from her home in Bavaria. Ria had laughed at that and had asked Kiki if she remembered what her due date was. Kiki had reminded her that it was an inexact science, more of a window of time. Kiki had been told early to mid-March and Ria pointed out that they were right in that window of time, that gave Kiki a bit of pause. Looking out the window of her office, she saw that it was a beautiful spring day with the mountains in the distance having the sort of crystal clarity that only seemed to exist in the Alps. With how busy Kiki had been, she had lost track of the date. Doctor Berg and Frau Auer had been hovering around her a lot lately…

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-Eight



10th March 1978

Sonthofen, Bavaria

After months of deliberation, Kiki and Ben had settled on Elene Stella to be their daughter’s name. It would have been Friedrich Eugen in the off chance that she had been born a boy. Elene because Kiki had liked the name with Stella, Latin for Star being Ben’s contribution. It would have been Stella-Polaris, but the Registrar had baulked at that. Apparently, it wasn’t on the approved list. Ben had said that everyone knew that the Registrars and Clerks who recorded the Births and Deaths in the local municipalities considered themselves to be the last bastion preserving German culture. So, it was best not to cross him. Kiki had told him to stop making fun of the man who was just trying to do his job.

With the additions of names that Kiki and Ben had added for personal reasons, her full name was Elene Stella Cecilie Aurora von Hirsch. The newspaper announcement had included mention that Elene was the daughter of the Graf of Oberallgäu with only passing mention of Kiki as the Princess Royal of Germany, which meant that she wouldn’t have to carry the burden of being a Princess from birth. That was something that Kiki was happy about.

Elene, presently in Kiki’s arms, was looking around with unfocused eyes in the manner of all babies. According to a book on early childhood development that Kiki had read had suggested that they saw world as a blur, not having the ability interpret what they were seeing yet. The one thing that Elene was able to focus on was the pendent on a gold chain that Kiki had around her neck. With her left hand, Kiki did her best to take off the necklace before Elene decided she needed to grab ahold of it.

In what had become something of a tradition, a ring or pendent as a gift for a new mother. The births of additional children would result in a new setting. That was why Kiki now had third stone added to her pendent. This one was aquamarine for her youngest daughter, while the bloodstone and jasper were for Nina and Louis that went along with the lapis lazuli for Kiki herself. Because all three of her children had been born in March the Jewelers had simply looked at the literature about which months of the year the stones symbolized and their various alternates.

Ben had told Kiki all about this as she had been in the Hospital in Sonthofen. He had also given her the pendant as they had talked about it and how they were going to introduce Elene to her older siblings. Kiki had also mentioned her conversation with Rea, how it felt as if Elene had been merely waiting for permission to enter the world. That was a key reason why Kiki had made part of Rea’s actual name of Marie Cecilie part Elene’s. She had wanted to include the names of both her closest friends, but though Zella had been touched that she had offered, she had asked her not to. So, Aurora had gotten the mention.

Los Angeles, California

The State Department, Department of Defense, Army Intelligence, CIA, and a whole host of alphabet soup Agencies that most people had never heard of wanted to know what Ritchie found out while he had been in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. That was sort of expected when you get sent on a fact-finding mission by the President. While there had been a formal debriefing when he had gotten off the plane in New York, they wanted it all in writing. That was why Ritchie was sitting in the sunlight basement of his house with a typewriter wishing that typing was something that he was actually good at. He had dozens of pages of handwritten notes that needed to be transcribed and his procrastination had not helped matters.

He had spent the last few days working on Frankenstein with varying degrees of help from his brothers Bobby and Mario, as well his former partner Big Mike. Bobby had been surprisingly helpful, helping locate parts from some friends of his. Ritchie had accepted that help with the knowledge that he should probably make a point of never running the serial numbers. He figured that he wouldn’t be happy with the result. It was similar situation with the other friends that Bobby had down in Tijuana who could do anything that Ritchie wanted as far as paint, or interior work for a song. What would the San Diego Police have to say about Bobby’s friends if Ritchie asked? He figured that Bobby’s friends would probably be greatly amused by the irony of finding themselves working on an old cop car.

Pushing that aside, Ritchie thought about how he had been tasked with finding the 4th Panzer Division in Northern Ukraine. It wasn’t just the 4th Panzer though. Ritchie had seen elements other Divisions that comprised the German 2nd Army Corps as well. That alone was a huge part of Germany’s peacetime military strength. What else was going on in Belarus and the Baltics? Ritchie knew it wasn’t his job to speculate but it looked to him like the Germans were moving pieces into place so that…

“Keep quiet Kristie, Popa is working!” Ritchie heard Stevie yell at Kristie, defeating the purpose. It sounded like Kristie was smashing something plastic into the concrete wall of the basement. Lucia liked it when he was home because he was able to watch the kids while she was at work. There were two small problems with that. With a bit of annoyance he got up to deal with whatever his kids had gotten into.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-Nine



28th March 1978

Richthofen Estate, Rural Silesia

All of us are finite.

That was a hard truth about all people as far as he was aware. In his eight and a half decades, Manfred von Richthofen had seen death in all of its many forms. From quick due to accidents or in combat, to dying by inches over the course of several years. He certainly knew which he would prefer if given a choice and if he had found himself facing the latter he would rather put a bullet into his brain than face a lingering death. It was a bit ironic in that was sort of what had happened.

Decades earlier, when Manfred had been a young man he had led what would come to be called JG1, but at the time had been a collection of Squadrons dubbed the Flying Circus. They had regularly flown patrols above six thousand meters long before ideas such as cabin pressurization or oxygen masks were thought of. The cumulative effects of hypoxia on the blood vessels and tissues of the brain had been largely unknown. Of course, back then Manfred, along with all of his comrades would have laughed at the idea. What did it matter that you were hurting yourself in a way that you barely noticed at the time when any one of you could easily be dead this time tomorrow. At least with a cerebral hemorrhage the end came quickly.

Like how he had lived his life, Manfred went out more or less on his own terms. Mathilda was home on Easter Holiday, so she and Ingrid had agreed to take a walk with him to the margins of the forest that surrounded his home. The care of that forest had been the work of his lifetime and it was what he regarded as one of his proudest accomplishments. There were his children who had all left a mark in different ways. He did have the regret of his oldest son Lothar who had never been able to measure up to what he had believed Manfred had demanded of him. If he could do that again, he would have told Lothar that it was unnecessary to do that to himself. Lothar had flown what were now regarded as pioneering airline routes during a time when those had been critical when that was a truly dangerous undertaking. The problem was that was when the Soviet War had been happening. Lothar thought that Manfred had thought that he was sitting it out. The drinking and womanizing had been separate issues. That was what Manfred had actually disapproved of. Helene with her politics. Albrecht might have joined the Navy, but he had exceeded Manfred in every way that was important despite that. Even Sonje Louise and Cecilie had made their own contributions.

It had been during the walk on the margin of the forest. He had been listening to Mathilda and Ingrid singing to the trees waking from winter to be reborn in the springtime, feeling the sun on his face. Then…

Mathilda must have had some inkling of what was going on when she sent Ingrid to get help from the two bodyguards who were accompanying them. One of them was a trained medic. Of course, it was already too late by then. Manfred watched as Mathilda searched his pockets until she found his penknife and gently placed it into his hand.

“Her way of looking out for you?” Käte asked.

“It is what she was raised to believe” Manfred replied, “Feast Hall of the Gods and whatnot.”

They watched as the medic went about his best efforts. Mathilda tried her best to shield Ingrid from what had happened, but the younger girl wasn’t stupid.

“Despite of us our grandchildren turned out to be such lovely people” Käte observed.

“These two are Ilse’s foundlings” Manfred said.

“You try to tell them that” Käte said with a smile. “They are hers, and yours, in every way that counts.”

“Yes” Manfred replied, “I have been accused of indulging them.”

“I would prefer to think that you learned from your mistakes” Käte said.

“I tried” Manfred said.

“And they will never forget you doing that” Käte replied, “In the end, all we are is ideas and memories.”

Manfred looked at the two girls who had been special to him over the last few years. They had their whole lives ahead of them, it was too bad he hadn’t had the chance to tell them farewell…

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

Ilse knew the instant she saw the look on the face of one of the men she had tasked with watching over her father-in-law that the news was going to be bad. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. The old buzzard had been nearly eighty-six years old. Still, he was the closest thing to a father that Ilse had ever had. It wasn’t really real for her until she saw Manfred being loaded onto a stretcher while surrounded by several members of the Staff who had come to either help or see what was going on.

Looking to the girls, Ilse found that Ingrid was in quite a state while Mathilda was playing the role of big sister hugging the younger girl to try to comfort her. She could see that Mathilda herself was barely holding things together and that as soon as Ilse took control of the situation Mathilda would allow herself to fall apart. This was the sort of thing that no one mentioned was part of motherhood. There were also the things that were going to have to be done after a man of Manfred’s stature died. Ilse would need to call the Emperor himself and tell Friedrich what had happened. Albrecht would need to drop everything return from Danzig where had gone today on business so that he could…

“Where do you want us to take him Ma’am?” One of the men asked Ilse.

“The cooler in the kitchens until the Medical Examiner arrives” Ilse replied. At least Manfred had planned that much.

Then Ilse heard people talking to each other in hushed tones. “Of course, she would know, she’s now the Königin” Ilse overheard and until she heard that, that little detail had not occurred to her.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Seventy



1st April 1978

Breslau, Silesia

Looking through the viewfinder of the video camera, Zella looked at the people packed into Saint Elizabeth’s Church in Central Breslau, the principle Lutheran and Protestant Church in Silesia best known for the 130-meter-tall spire that was visible throughout the city. She had been gathering material that would be rushed back to Berlin so that it could be edited into a documentary about the life of Manfred von Richthofen that would air tomorrow night. For years, there had been jokes about how the most dangerous place was between certain people and a camera. Manfred von Richthofen had been one of those people, so ARD had no shortage of materials in the archives. Everything from his opinions about politics, conservation efforts, or hunting expeditions were all there. If anything they had too much to go through in a very short period of time. Tributes had come in from all over the world and there was a whole lot of Military Brass present, so it was no surprise that ARD wanted footage of this.

It was figured by her Director at ARD that Zella’s title as Markgräfin and her family having been invited to the funeral would give her access where no one else would be allowed. As soon as Zella had arrived she had found that her ears getting filled with all the juicy gossip. With this being the largest gathering of notables in one place in decades, the gossips were going to have a lot to talk about.

When all of this had been thrown together, no one had noticed what day the funeral had just happened to fall on. Zella understood that must have been an oversight, but she wasn’t quite sure. Having met Manfred the Elder on a few different occasions, she suspected that having it be on April Fool’s Day was giving the occasion exactly the sort of gravity he would have felt it deserved. According to Aunt Kat and Aunt Ilse, he had never been one for too much formality. According to them, if they had really honored his actual wishes it would have been along the lines of dragging him out back and burning him with the rest of the trash, with many in his inner circle including a few of his own children and grandchildren perfectly prepared to carry that out even if they had to steal the corpse. Apparently opting for a Military Funeral, which was his right as a retired Field Marshal had been a compromise.

Manfred’s two youngest daughters, unrepentant social climbers who had inadvertently married into downwardly mobile Old Junker families had wanted an elaborate funeral. Presumably so that they could preen before the press. Ilse had vetoed that, stating that they would stick to the original plan. Then Sonje Louise and Cecilie had made the mistake of demanding to know who Ilse was other than a guttersnipe who had lucked out by marrying their brother. They had gotten a rather harsh lesson in just who Elisabeth “Ilse” Mischner really was. Yes, she was a guttersnipe and damn proud of it. She had endured years in Berlin’s Care System before the postwar reforms and neglect had reigned. Only the strongest and most vicious survived in that sort of environment. She had demonstrated exactly why those two wouldn’t have lasted a day. Ilse might not have picked the fight, but she had certainly finished it.

So, Ilse had gotten her way. Cecilie had ended up in the hospital getting treated for a concussion and Sonje had been told explicitly that everything in the Richthofen House had already been thoroughly inventoried, so if she had any ideas, Ilse was perfectly willing to have her arrested if anything turned up missing. Probably most shocking for them, Albrecht publicly took Ilse’s side. She was now the Queen Consort of Silesia, Sonje and Cecilie could either get used to that, or else they could get the Hell out. It was only then that the two of them got a belated glimpse of public opinion. Namely that the support that their father had enjoyed from the Silesian public, which involved the largely Urban Germans and Rural Poles, had been extended to Albrecht and Ilse. It didn’t take too much imagination to figure out which part of that equation had been ignored. Now they had discovered that many of the friends they thought they had, had suddenly gotten very scarce.

Handing the camera to Yuri when Zella saw Kiki get out of a car with Benjamin. Both were in uniform out of respect and Zella had heard that Ben had been one of Luftwaffe Officers invited to be a pallbearer. It was considered an honor. Zella and Kiki exchanged greetings while she did her best to keep things civil with Ben who still regarded her as a psychopath.

The night before, when Zella had spoken with John Lennon over the phone he had joked about coming to Silesia to witness this. According to him the church service part of the funeral was all about the collective snobbery of Europe being seen mourning the death of a man who they had always seen as an upstart. The same man who had ruthlessly bribed, blackmailed, and backstabbed his way to the top. Inside they would all be seething, having the knowledge that their grandchildren were going to be stuck calling his grandchildren “Sir.” Though that seemed incredibly cynical, it seemed to be one of the better reads on the situation that she had heard.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-One



1st April 1978

Richthofen Estate, Rural Silesia

The procession went from the church to the Estate where Opa was going to be laid to rest in the small family graveyard next to his wife Käte who had died more than a decade earlier. His brother Lothar who had died in the First World War was there along with the son who had the same name who had been in a car accident. Generations of the Richthofen family were buried here going back to when they had first conquered this land in 1742.

Earlier, there had been the funeral service in a Church in Breslau which had bored Mathilda to tears. That wasn’t helped by the itchy black wool dress she had been given to wear. Ilse had told her to stop fidgeting. Then she had mentioned how phony she felt the whole service was, that most of those present were only there because they thought that they had to be, at least those who weren’t there to see if Opa was really dead. Ilse had told Mathilda that was enough and that she needed to maintain respectful silence as Emperor Friedrich himself delivered one of eulogies. To Mathilda, the Emperor looked more like a Lawyer from television than what she had always imagined the Emperor would look. Opa had fit the part, he looked like a King should. His personal office which was full of mementos from expeditions, weapons, trophies from battles and hunting had shown that he had lived that role. Albrecht had told Mathilda that most of that was going to the Imperial War Museum in Berlin along with Opa’s medals & service orders, writings, and personal correspondence. This was because Opa had been an important man, Historians wanted to examine those things so that they could gain a clearer picture of his life. That said it was Albrecht’s intention to claim the office as his own. He intended to replace the trophies with books and curios, items from his time in the Navy and Space Program. That included a rock that he said had come from the Moon. Ilse had a lot of ideas for what she intended to do with the rest of house, and it occurred to Mathilda that when she returned for the Summer Holiday it was going to be a radically different place. For her all of these things just kept coming at her and she just wished it would stop.

The flyby that the Luftwaffe had arranged came as they had been carrying the coffin out to the waiting hearse. First a number of the old clattering Fokker Triplanes that Opa had made famous, then a formation of the later Albatros D.XVI biplanes from the Russo-Polish War where he had run up a score that wouldn’t be equaled until the Soviet War decades later. Then the modern jets from JG1 had arrived. As per tradition, that Airwing painted a plane in brilliant crimson in case their Commander ever returned. That plane flew with three other planes in tight formation until it rocketed skyward out of sight. The other planes maintained their position in what was called the missing man formation. While Mathilda understood that it was being done in tribute, it left her cold.

Those were just machines, artifacts made by human hands.

In the old epics, when a great warrior died there was some sort of sign that the Gods had welcomed him. She knew that it was childish to be looking for it, but she wanted to believe that. It was like that thing with the knife found in Opa’s hand. There was some question as to how it had ended up there and Mathilda had kept quiet on the subject despite getting some rather hard looks from Ilse, who definitely suspected something. She had seen what Ilse had done to Cecilie and up until that moment she had forgotten that the woman who had been her primary Guardian since she had left the State School for Girls in Berlin six years earlier had come through the same system. The difference was that Mathilda had only been there for a few days while Ilse had spent her whole childhood and most of her teenaged years in places like that. The girls at that school had been fast talking and tough as nails, being around them had horrified Mathilda who had only been eleven at the time. That had been a reason why the Social Worker had recommended that Mathilda be placed with a family in a rural or at least suburban home and because the Emperor took a personal interest in her case she had ended up with Richthofens. She remembered that when she had seen Ilse thump Cecilie and tell off Sonje.

Mathilda just felt numb as she got out of the car she had been riding in and took her place in the line of people walking towards the graveyard, this was a smaller event that was limited to just family and those who had been close the Manfred von Richthofen in life. A Military Chaplain said a few words about Opa, how he had ably served his Nation, first in the Cavalry and later in the Luftwaffe before returning home and spending the rest of his life serving Silesia. He concluded with the familiar words from the Common Book of Prayer then said, “Manfred von Richthofen’s Ward, Mathilda Brunhild Auer has offered to sing the first elegy.”

Mathilda knew now as there were dozens of eyes on her that making that offer hours earlier had been a profound mistake. She started to sing a song she knew by heart, the song about the seasons that Opa had liked. In the back her head the meaning of the song, the metaphor became too much as she was standing only a couple meters from an open grave. Her voice faltered during the last verse, and she found that she couldn’t sing another word. Looking at the sky, vast blue and empty on a cold spring afternoon. She had never felt more alone in her life.

“He would have loved it” Ilse said as she led Mathilda back to her chair. Despite thinking that she was beyond such things, she sat there weeping uncontrollably. With that, those present started singing The Good Comrade as they lowered the coffin into the ground as they saluted.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-Two



3rd April 1978

Washington D.C.

It was clearly an election year. The voters were fickle as ever. All they seemed to know was that Nixon had been in power for the last six years and shouldn’t someone else have a turn? As if having knowledge of how the Government worked was a bad thing and that it was far better to be represented by a Freshman Congressman or Senator who would be led around by the nose by this or that Lobbyist. Not that people thought on those terms, it was more like the belief that new was better than the stogy old. It was particularly ironic that many of the new faces just happened to be pushing very old ideas that had never worked in the first place.

It was the understanding of James Hendrix that while the House wasn’t in play this year, the Senate map was difficult for the Democratic Party. All the first term Senators who rode Nixon’s coattails in 1972 were up for reelection. The result was that Hendrix had a full schedule between now and November as he had been invited to campaign for various candidates. He was Representative from a cobalt blue Urban Congressional District with strong backing from the Unions since he had strengthened Boeing’s position in Aerospace and was credited with bringing an auto assembly plant to the Seattle Region.

Presently, Hendrix was sitting in his office returning phone calls from earlier in the day. He had discovered over the last several months that his staff had needed to grow along with his perceived stature. Somewhere along the way, he had learned to play the game in Washington, and that was a culmination of everything he had been working towards since Grade School.

“Busy?” Bill Stoughton asked as he let himself in.

“I was” Hendrix replied. He had heard Speaker Stoughton referred to as an alley cat. He came and went as he pleased, no one could tell him what to do, and being a paunchy man in his sixties didn’t stop him from hitting on every woman in the room.

“I got something that you got to see, Jimmy” Stoughton said as he turned on the television in Hendrix’s office, shoved a video cassette into the slot in the front of the VCR, and hit play. The image that appeared on the screen was one that the whole world had been watching for the last few days.

“This isn’t exactly news” Hendrix replied.

“Yes and no” Stoughton said, “A friend of mine at WGBH in Boston was able to get the stuff that didn’t get initially get released by the Kaiser’s Press Office from someone they know who works for their German counterparts.”

Hendrix knew how Stoughton worked, there were always friends of friends who could seem to get damn near anything. He had yet to see exactly where the limits of that was. Hendrix watched as Stoughton fast forwarded through what he had already seen.

“This is it” Stoughton said as the tape played.

This was video of the burial and it was much smaller than the Church Service which must have been a complete circus from what Hendrix had seen. Even so it was still a fairly substantial production. A number of different colored military uniforms were seen representing all the various Service Branches of the German Military. Some of them were seldom seen by Americans. A man wearing a dark blue tunic, white trousers, and a large numbers of medals pinned to his chest was in the center of the screen.

“That is Field Marshal Dietrich Schultz from the German Marines” Stoughton said, “His father was the SOB who caused so many headaches for us over the years.”

The camera panned over to a young man who was either a teenager or his early twenties. He was wearing a blue tunic and grey trousers that were the dress uniform of the German Army and was leading a horse with backwards facing boots sewn into stirrups.

“That is Prince Nikolaus von Richthofen” Stoughton said as a striking young woman with shoulder length black hair and grey-blue eyes was walking next to him. “And Monique Chanson, they are rumored to be an item.”

“This is all well and good” Hendrix said, “But that last thing was the sort of thing that you might see in the sort of trashy magazine you see in the supermarket check stand.”

“Wait for it” Stoughton replied as a girl with long blond hair was introduced as Manfred von Richthofen’s ward, Mah-Tilda Broon-Hilt Ouwer-something or the other. She started singing in a language that didn’t sound like anything that Hendrix was familiar with. It was beautiful in an otherworldly way.

“What language is she singing in?” Hendrix asked.

“German, if you would believe that, just in a rare dialect” Stoughton replied, “I talked to several Linguists at Harvard and the one who recognized it said that it hasn’t seen common use in centuries. There are perhaps a few dozen of people in the world who can speak that language. Here is a girl who can sing in it.”

Hendrix was really wondering what Stoughton was getting at as he watched as the girl was unable to finish a verse of the song. She seemed then to collapse in on herself as Hendrix realized he was watching an emotional breakdown playing out.

“Manfred von Richthofen was a tyrant in the classic sense” Stoughton said, “There is a reason why he was able to forge strategic alliances with the Mischner and Schultz families. He was just as ruthless and cunning as they are. They might have just buried him, but his political machinations are still playing out. That girl singing and how it ended is the sort of thing that sticks with people. The woman who is comforting her is Elisabeth von Mischner, now the Queen of Silesia.”

If what Stoughton was saying was correct, he was seeing the sort of political manipulation that was conducted by a master.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-Three



7th April 1978

Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada

Two things happened in quick succession. Word reached Marie Alexandra about Opa von Richthofen. Then Margot found out that Marie had been in contact with her younger half-sister somehow. Marie’s grandmother really didn’t want anyone to know the full details of her early life and background, so to say that Margot had not taken that well was a bit of an understatement. Fortunately Marie wasn’t living under the same roof, but from what she had heard from her grandfather, it had gotten really bad. Margot was really going to lose it when she learned that the subject of Marie’s Senior Thesis was going to be Madeleine Charron and her descendants. That was only going to be after Marie submitted it and would be leaving for Ireland.

Marie tried to get the first available seat back to Europe, but she had been unable to make the arrangements in time to make it to the funeral because she had already booked trips to New Orleans and Saskatchewan over the Easter Holiday for research. Instead she had talked Aunt Ilse briefly on the phone. Ilse had said that she understood that Marie would have been there if it were possible and so did everyone else. In the meantime, she needed to stay in Montreal and get her degree because that is what the old buzzard would have wanted. Marie had smiled at that in despite the situation, Ilse had called Opa “The old buzzard” for years and there was a great deal of affection in it.

It hadn’t been Marie’s intention to have Madeleine be the subject of her thesis. Then she had discovered Madeleine’s grave in the Cemetery of the Poor near the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec. There had been far more to the story than Julie had told her as well. According to the records of the Hospital called the Hostel of God, Madeleine had died there in 1750 at the age of forty-five of Peste Blanche, one of the terms used for Tuberculosis at the time. It noted that she was survived by five children, one of whom would have been Marie’s ancestor. Marie had done the math and realized that Madeleine would have been fourteen or fifteen when she had been one of the “Correction Girls” who had been forcibly exiled to Louisiana. There had been a gap of decades there that Marie had felt needed to be filled in and that had led her to ignore her mother’s advice about not travelling into the United States and had booked a flight to New Orleans with plans to spend the Easter Holiday following what she imagined Madeleine’s journey would have been up the Mississippi River by train to Chicago.

What Marie was not prepared for was what she found in New Orleans. It was a story of cruelty on an epic scale. Women who were petty criminals, prostitutes, orphans, or just having the misfortune to be destitute were rounded up mostly in Paris with the intent of sending them to bolster the numbers of colonists in New France. Before that, they were made to do a forced march in chains to Brest during a cold winter in a public display meant to deter would be criminals. It would hardly have been a surprise that many had died along the way during a journey they were ill prepared for, and due to the additional mistreatment they endured that was what happened to the majority of them. Only a relative handful perhaps one out of six made it to Louisiana.

When Marie had been researching this in New Orleans, the Librarian she had worked with had been surprised that she claimed to be a descendant of one of the Correction Girls. Apparently, no one had made such a claim in the past with most people saying that they were descended from the far better regarded Cassette Girls or Pelican Girls as they were called when logic argued against many of those claims. The truth was that Marie saw that the Correction Girls who had survived were like her mother or Aunt Ilse, tough, smart, and iron willed. So she was proud to claim Madeleine as her ancestor. Finding out that Madeleine had run away from a forced marriage to start the journey that would eventually take her to Canada had buttressed her opinion.

By the time Marie had left New Orleans, she had filled several spiral notebooks with her notes, and she realized that she had the makings of the thesis whose subject she had been debating for months. She had learned of Opa von Richthofen had died on the evening news in Chicago and had made the call to Aunt Ilse with great difficulty. Finally, a couple days later she had arrived at Aunt Julie’s house in Battleford, Saskatchewan. She was aware that she had been subjected to intense surveillance right until the instant she had crossed the border into Canada. It was Marie’s fondest hope that whatever bean counters the FBI employed would be suitably aghast at the needless expense. It had also been in Chicago that she had called Opa Blackwood and he had told Marie about what was going on with Margot.

Oddly, it had not just been Julie who was interested in what Marie had found in what she had found in New Orleans. She found herself in Aunt Julie’s kitchen surrounded by people who were introduced as distant cousins, aunts, and uncles. All of them had additional information that Marie would need to find the records in support of and had filled another two spiral notebooks with notes.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-Four



10th April 1978

Pusan, Korea

“You’re inability to control your men is not my problem Leutnant” The Luftwaffe Supply Officer said to Erich who wanted more than anything to wipe the smug grin off his face. The man was a Major though, so giving him the ass-kicking he so clearly deserved would result in far more trouble than it was worth.

It was odd, the Marine Infantry had the bad reputation but as Erich had discovered since he had landed in Pusan, it was the Luftwaffe who had caused most of the trouble in the German enclave. This was because while most of the logistics were handled by the Navy, the Luftwaffe’s planes were used to transport items that were both high value and in constant demand. Depending on the situation, they tended to cause one of the things most likely to cause fighting to break out among the ranks of the Marines. Namely, artificial scarcity. When added to an already fraught relationship with the field manual which hadn’t seen enough in the way of updates over the last few years and the result was a massive headache for all involved.

There had been nothing out of the ordinary about the plane that had landed a few days earlier. Just one of the regular flights to and from Kiel or Berlin-Brandenburg that occurred once or twice every single day. This one had been loaded with crates of the “One-Man, 24-hour Combat Ration” packs, or EPa, that the Heer had recently introduced. The Navy was following suit, but the Marine Field Manual regarded them as being the same as the old Iron Rations, which were never to be opened without the express permission of the Company Commander. That had never been really been an issue with the Iron Rations because they had mostly been leftover from the Second World War and had been extremely questionable at best. Typically, outside of a truly desperate situation the only way that anyone ate one of the Iron Rations was on a dare.

The sudden arrival of the waxed paper packages, filled with all sorts of goodies, had resulted in the barracks being in an instant uproar. Those packages contained good food from home in the tins, there was also bread, coffee, and chocolate bars, which had always been rather scarce in the Far East. Trying to tell the Marines to keep those sealed was asking for trouble, so Erich had not even tried to get in the way of that.

As Erich had discovered months earlier, a Marine Officer had to pick his battles carefully. Erich had seen that if he enforced good order with the backing of the Noncoms, most of the men would fall in behind him. Punishing anyone over food because of what were seen as outdated regulations would result in him doing the one thing he couldn’t afford to do, namely giving the entire Platoon a common enemy.

Then word had gotten around that not only was the Luftwaffe sitting on a warehouses of the damned things that were being saved for whatever crisis inevitably hit the Korean Peninsula next, but that afternoon chocolate bars, chewing gum, and tinned food that could have only come from the EPa packs had turned up in the local black market. Oberfeld Muller had told him that this was a situation that he needed to get ahead of before someone did something stupid. And if they were extremely lucky, they would be dealing with the Commanding Officer of the Luftwaffe Detachment before anyone else.

The Oberfeld had also reminded him that he was a Marine Officer, so he needed to act the part sometimes especially when he was dealing with an officious prick. He was an Academy Graduate and an Aristocrat, Erich needed to use those things on behalf of his men.

“You can have it your way Major, but my men are not the ones you need to be worried about” Erich said mildly, tapping his Academy ring on the edge of the man’s desk. He almost never wore the thing, not liking the image of the Ring tapping snob he was pretending to be. “I cannot speak for all of the eleven thousand men you seem intent on pissing off though. Violent men with access to guns and explosives.”

The Major saw the ring on Erich’s hand and saw his manner, and then looked over his shoulder at Oberfeld Muller and Gefreiter Dresdner who were standing behind him. At that moment Erich knew that the Major was doing the fast mental mathematics as it must have dawned on him how screwed he was if someone like Erich wasn’t standing in the way of calamity.

Erich understood how the Marine Infantry were widely regarded by the public and the rest of the Military as a bunch of complete savages. The Officers were considered worse because they did what was necessary to maintain control of said savages. There were also other considerations apparent. The Pusan Enclave was dominated by the Navy and a Luftwaffe Major like this one was extremely far out on the line. That meant that the Marines he encountered were not even a part of the same chain of command. If he got himself stomped then there was a good chance that there would be a lot of official foot-dragging over the matter while his own conduct was examined under a microscope anyway. The Academy ring and Erich’s aristocratic bearing suggested that he was someone connected to the powers that be. Erich also hadn’t noticed anyone other than Luftwaffe personnel around this particular warehouse. With supplies that were coveted, but not particularly valuable, it was common to see muscle around to make sure they went where they were supposed to go and in Pusan that muscle was almost always the Marines.

“There might be a chance that we could reach an accommodation” The Major said.

“Glad you figured that out” Erich said with a smile, relieved that the Major had not called his bluff.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-Five



14th April 1978

Montreal, Canada

Sir Malcolm finding Marie Alexandra busy at that computer of hers on a Friday night wasn’t a surprise. That was where she was found most nights as the University Term was entering its final days. Perhaps if she were the sort of spend a night out of the town, Marie would not be so exasperating at times. Looking around the small studio apartment, Malcolm couldn’t help but notice that Marie had almost perfectly recreated the bedroom she had when she had lived in his house. That too had been a recreation of the bedroom of her parent’s house in Berlin that she had lived in from when she was baby right until she left for University. It was a truly odd quirk of her personality, one that Malcolm wasn’t sure she was aware of.

Like always, Marie went and sat on her bed once she let Malcolm in. Presumably this was to leave the chair at her desk, the only other place to sit in the room, open. From experience, Malcolm knew that would make the angles weird and make it difficult to talk to her. He knew that it was something that she did on purpose whenever there was an intruder in her personal space. It didn’t matter who it was.

Taped to the wall above Marie’s desk was a complete genealogy going back to the dawn of the Eighteenth Century on Margot’s side of the family. Malcolm couldn’t help but notice that many of the names had marks that denoted if they were Cree and Métis as well as the deep connections to the first families of Quebec. He also understood that if Margot saw this it would make her absolutely apoplectic. It wasn’t a shock though that Marie saw things differently. Where Margot saw something to be ashamed of, hidden away, Marie saw a story of triumphant survival. As she put it, they were a family line that wasn’t meant to survive or even exist for that matter with a Correction Girl at the start who had been sent to New France to dispose of her. Marie had also discovered that they had thousands of distant relatives across Francophone Canada.

There was considerable irony in the fact that Margot’s main complaint all along was that Marie was too German. Now much to her complete mortification, Marie had embraced the portion of her background that was French Canadian and had revealed a whole host of relatives who Margot regarded as problematic. Malcolm also saw evidence that Marie had been researching the Blackwood family, but her being in Ireland next year would facilitate her exploration of her Scottish ancestors if she was still interested. Sir Malcolm had only one request though.

“Would you at least be a bit more discrete Marie?” Malcolm asked, “I know that Margot started this latest battle, but the things you’ve been doing are like lobbing hydrogen bombs. The relatives in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, you posing as a model in an art class, and God only knows what else.”

“The thing about posing as a model, that is something that everyone in the class is encouraged to volunteer for. I am also wearing dresses that expose my ankles, chewing gum, and riding a bicycle” Marie replied. Clearly she wasn’t prepared to live and let live with her grandmother yet. Especially after what had happened last Christmas.

“This is serious Marie” Malcolm said, “You removing yourself from my house didn’t change the fact that you still reflect upon the rest of your family.”

Then Malcolm saw the tiny flagpole with a blue flag with a white infinity symbol on it, presumably a gift from one of her cousins.

“You might also be encountering situations that you might not fully understand out west” Malcolm said.

“You should give me a bit more credit” Marie said, “They really don’t like you very much out there because of your role in the Mounted Police. The truth is that you were a lot like my mother in that regard, you had someone telling to do something and you went about it to the best of your ability. A lot of innocent people got hurt though.”

As soon as Sir Malcolm heard Marie say that he realized a little too late that she was correct about him not giving her enough credit. It was something that Malcolm, along with most people tended to do. Her understanding of politics, not to mention knowing the difference between those who set the policy from those ordered to carry it out. That shouldn’t have been a surprise.

It was incredibly easy to see Marie as a somewhat naïve university student because that was exactly what she presented herself as. The reality was that at the age of twenty-two Marie had traveled widely, was the confidante of the Queen of England and the Kaiserin of Germany, spoke a dozen languages, and was skilled in the art of disguise. The detail that needed to be remembered most of all was that with Marie you only saw what she wanted you to see. There had been incidents where Malcolm had witnessed Marie basically present herself as a completely different person and that had been disconcerting. Especially the time when she had been on the Evening News. Occasionally, he had seen what was hidden behind the artifice and it wasn’t at all what Marie seemed to think it was.