Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Seventeen



4th February 1980

Fort Meade, Maryland

“All right everyone” Ritchie said as the Special Forces team he was instructing today entered the room and saw what was spread out on the table. “This is the actual gear that you might encounter in the field and as much as you might be tempted, we prefer it that you gather souvenirs out in the field as opposed to in here. So I am letting you know that we do inventory this stuff.”

There was chuckling about what Ritchie had just said. Most of these men were E-5s, the equivalent Specialist Rank, or greater. So they would have often encountered the propensity of sticky fingers among the Enlisted many times by now. It was said that there was only one thief in the US Army, everyone else was trying to get their stuff back. Ritchie also knew that any time you had a room full Sergeants, trouble was brewing. He didn’t mention what would happen if any of them were stupid enough to get caught were any of this gear on them in the field by its previous owners though. They would all be aware of that.

Getting their hands on a current German Soldier’s kit had proven difficult. After the Reichstag Bombing and 11 Messidor incident where a Neo-Jacobin terrorist had shot up a busy public street the German Military was understandably interested in keeping their equipment out of the wrong hands. There were the items that Ritchie was expecting considering that the Germans seldom abandoned anything that worked unless they came up with something better or better yet, snaked it from someone else and avoided the cost of developing it themselves.

The summer uniform that had hardly changed in decades in the four-color light grey, dark grey, and brown on tan Splittertarnmuster C pattern that had been used by them since the mid-40’s for example. The matching flak vest was made of the German version of Kevlar with ceramic plates between the layers of fabric that were held in place with aluminum rivets. The vest also had 6 pockets to hold rifle magazines. There was the belt and suspenders that held anything for immediate use. That included all manner of items starting with the straight handled entrenching tool and bayonet. The entrenching tool was the oldest item issued to German troops and it had not changed in over a century for rather disturbing reasons, it didn’t fold like the American equivalent and the wooden handle was riveted on in a socket joint. The simple construction made for a far better weapon. The bayonet was similar to the ones issued to the current generation’s grandfathers since prior to the First world War, but they had shortened the blade considerably over the decades to around 10 or so inches and the blade had a weird purple finish. There was a first aid kit and a canteen that were very similar to its American counterparts. They had a few G44 rifles in the Base Armory, but the familiarization with those wouldn’t start until tomorrow.

“Uhm… Chief, why is the left side of this shovel sharpened?” One of the men asked. That being the most noticeable field modification that the German Army performed on that particular piece of equipment.

“Because most people are right-handed” Ritchie replied and he got a lot of quizzical looks in return. It seemed that no one among this bunch was bloody minded enough to reach the obvious conclusion. Ritchie wasn’t if that was a good or bad thing considering.

The next thing that drew curiosity was the radio. It was probably one of the best examples that Ritchie had seen of trying to make something relatively complicated as soldier-proof as possible. Just a channel selection switch for preset frequencies and an on/off volume knob on a waterproofed plastic case. It was similar to the small transistor radios that had been sold in Department Stores by the millions. The only difference was that it was a two-way radio. It only had a broadcast range of a mile or so at most, but that was all that was needed. Richie had heard that the Germans had tried to use various earpiece and microphone combinations but had eventually settled on the throat transducer that was far less effected when the operator was in a loud environment than the other options they had tried. The earpiece was integrated into the helmet that the German’s used, with a cord running from it to the transducer and the radio itself which was kept in a pocket on the Flak vest. There had been attempts to create something similar for the US Army, but that project had been stymied by many Senior Officers assuming that Soldiers would either use it to listen to things other than what they were supposed to, such as ballgames or Rock Stations and those who backed the project but demanded too many bells and whistles. The same bells and whistles that those same Senior Officers thought would be misused. The last Ritchie had heard, the whole thing was caught up in the sort of procurement purgatory that made Defense Contractors money but provided everyone else with nothing.

“How does this work?” One of the men asked holding the nylon strap and the transducer.

“That goes around your neck?” Ritchie replied as he started emptying out the rucksack. He got the usual incredulous look and figured that he would need to show them. There were the spare skivvies, socks, and a change of clothes. The NBC suit that was identical to its American counterpart, except it was grey rather than green, was stored in the rain flap, the gas mask that went with it was in an aluminum container. The two boxed ration packs were lurking in the bottom. Each of those represented one day’s worth of food, but they did seem sort of small. Finally there was the shaving kit, Esbit stove, and other odd necessities.

The entire team he was showing these things to instantly took interest in the Soldatenmesser. It was basically a Swiss Army knife, having even been made by Victorinox, the same company. The only real difference was that the scales were green rather than red and it had the emblem of the German Army on it. Ritchie had heard that each of the German Service Branches had their own version. Regardless, he hoped that no one would try to steal it again. Those things were hard to replace.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight hundred and Eighteen



8th February 1980

Tempelhof, Berlin

New year, new decade, same old problems.

For the life of her, Sophie had no idea why the press always sought out the opinion of her mother whenever she was mentioned. This time it was the story about the winter program that her team had developed to keep in shape ahead of the Moscow Games in a few months. There was an air of excitement as Sophie’s team was expected to repeat their strong performance this year after their extraordinary showing in Montreal a few years earlier. Then bringing Sophie’s spirits crashing down was her mother telling a reporter all about how what they saw of Sophie in Cycling wasn’t the real her, instead she was actually selfish and conniving, having systematically ruined her mother’s life for years. It was noticeable that the reporters never seemed to ask exactly how Sophie was doing that despite not having spoken with her mother in years. If they had, they would know that Sophie’s mother had blamed Sophie for everything wrong with her life since the instant that she had found out that she was pregnant with her. Sophie would have thought that with her mother’s supposedly better life and family, she would have finally left her alone, or at least have better things to be doing. The reporter, apparently having grown tired of writing about what Sophie’s mother had said, started in on their other favorite topic whenever her name came up, baselessly speculating about her sex life. That was something that her mother had clearly given them permission to do with sort of comments that she had made in the past and Sophie sometimes wondered who would be embarrassed more if the reporters ever learned the truth.

Throwing that section of the newspaper aside in disgust, Sophie forced herself to eat a few more bites of her breakfast having totally lost her appetite. Looking down, she saw Sprocket sitting at her feet. Looking up at her, he gave a plaintive whine as if he had not eaten in weeks despite having wolfed down his own breakfast just minutes earlier. It was something that Sprocket had continued to do for the last seven years despite it never having worked. The irony was that Sophie had a lecture that morning in Nutrition at the Humanities Department of the University where she was studying Sport Science. One of the things that had been used as a practical example was how food meant for people was often extremely bad for dogs. It wasn’t that great for people either but that had seldom stopped anyone. Apparently, one of the things that Sophie had ahead of her over her career was the uphill, with a strong headwind, task of convincing people to change their habits. Sometimes, Sophie wondered exactly why she was going to University. She couldn’t even convince the so-called journalists that what her mother said about her was nonsense.



Fort Meade, Maryland

Sitting in the classroom looking out the window on a grey winter afternoon. Stevie just couldn’t keep his mind on what he was supposed to be working on. Instead he kept thinking about the latest stupid comment that Doud’s brother DJ had made.

“If you two were in caveman times, you’d both be dead by now” Was the latest bit of wisdom that Doud’s brother DJ had shared with them yesterday after school.

It had been one of the comic books that Stevie and Doud had been reading that had prompted DJ’s comment. It depicted people living in the last Ice Age trying to survive in someplace with mountains on the edge of plains. He had no idea if it was based on anything or why Doud had been interested in it. DJ had used it to make his own opinion about them known.

Stevie had not wasted his breath telling DJ something that he had overheard Grandma Cruz say after the six-month old daughter of his Aunt Abril, had unexpectedly died. “God used to take back a lot more of them” was what she had said. Mom and Dad had pointedly asked her not to say that within earshot of Abril. Grandma Crus had just shrugged, the fact that she could be so nonchalant about the death of a grandchild and her grieving daughter. Stevie had asked dad about that later and he had said that Grandma Cruz came from a different time and place and that if you went to the village in Sanora where she had been born, there was a corner of the graveyard by the church that was where they buried unbaptized infants and that the loss of children was a regular occurrence before modern medicine. Back in the Stone Age it could easily have been worse, so the odds were high that Stevie, Doud, and even DJ might not have seen their first birthday. That was just how it was.

Stevie had held his tongue though. Dad had once said that if you have to explain the joke it was stupid, Stevie had learned that insults worked exactly the same way. There was simply no way that someone like DJ would get it. If he had he wouldn’t have made the comment in the first place. Of course, Dad had told Stevie that DJ was in for a hard collision with reality when he got to West Point and found out that he could no longer skate on being a Colonel’s son.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Nineteen



28th March 1980

Dublin, Ireland

The evening news featured shots of a smoking crater that had opened up on the side of a mountain in America as the lead story. According to the expert they were interviewing this was a minor eruption and because the mountain was relatively remote, there was little danger to the public. Jackie remembered that her father had told her that she should always pay attention to news stories and try to figure out what they were not telling you.

“Now why do you think that they would make a volcano sound boring?” Jackie asked. A man appeared on the television wearing a too tight T-shirt over a massive beer-belly with words I lava our volcano spelled out across the front of it. That showed the problem right there. If the news coverage was anything to judge by, many of the people who lived around the mountain were not taking this thing seriously.

Marie, who had been silently on the couch only an arms span away just looked at her. “I don’t know” She replied, “Which volcano?”

Marie had apparently not been paying any attention at all despite being in the room.

As aggravating as Marie could be at times, questioning Jackie about why she did some of the things she did, or worse, steal the attention of the boys who came around at Jackie’s invitation. Jackie was starting to miss how she had been up until Marie’s mother called and told her that her cat had died last week. It was Jackie’s understanding that Cheshire had been extremely old for a cat, like twenty years. When someone has led a long life, you shouldn’t mourn for them per say. You should celebrate the mark that they would have left on their community and all the things that they had seen over a lifetime. That was saying something in a place like Ireland where outside of the big cities life changed at a glacial pace, you’d need to live to a hundred to see a whole lot of time. Marie had most certainly not done that, instead she had just seemed to shut down. While she had not missed anything that she felt obligated to attend, Marie had done nothing else for the last week.

“This would be Mount Saint Helens in Washington State” Jackie replied.

“I’ve never been there” Marie said.

Jackie knew that Marie had been to the United States a few different times. Mostly changing planes in New York. She had never been to the country of her father’s birth and thought that she might like to visit Boston one day. Neither Marie nor her father had ever seemed too impressed with it though.

The next story came on, this one had the French Army involved in a siege somewhere in the Sahara Desert. Jackie’s father had pointed out to her over Christmas that in all these stories about bushfire rebellions in former colonies it seemed like the rebels were using Russian weapons. Jackie’s father had fought in the Soviet War in the Irish International Regiment and he had told her that he had come away from the experience having learned a thing or two. The important was that no one could afford to ignore the Russians on the international stage. There was a reason why the German Army and their allies continued to be mainly focused east. Finally, there was a story about a children’s choir that was soliciting donations for their spring program.

The weather report came on. They predicted that over the weekend it was going to be cool, mostly cloudy and with a change of rain, in Ireland during this time year. Jackie wondered what the point of even broadcasting that. The sport report followed and Jackie watched two grown men argue about the current makeup of the National Side. Even she had heard about how unlike in the past, the Irish Football team was considered to be somewhat hapless, it just didn’t strike Jackie as being remotely as interesting as these two men seemed to think.



Mitte, Berlin

The publisher had been very interested in Lenz Shultz’s manuscript. With the spate of similar works that had flooded the market in recent years, it took a bit to interest them. In this case, it was the story about the Baku Bombing Campaign that Lenz had been involved in as a Fighter Pilot and the Black Sea Naval Campaign that had followed. He had tried not to include the things that he had learned after the war. When Lenz had spoken with Anri Vepkhia, his counterpart in the Red Airforce and what he had learned had shocked him.

The Luftwaffe Bomber Command had been on the verge of outright victory over Baku and that the Soviet Pilots had the NKVD circling in on them like sharks smelling blood, then they had been saved by the most unlikely of events. The Luftwaffe High Command had deemed the effort as less effective than anticipated and had allocated many of the resources elsewhere. It was not that the bombing campaign had ended entirely as Baku had remained a key target throughout the war, the intensity had gone down for a time. Anri had mentioned that all his efforts had been wasted in the end, because after the Battle of Stalingrad had basically cut the Soviet Union in half just eighteen months later the Red Airforce had been forced abandon Baku while their airplanes were still functional enough to let them fly out. Anri had considered himself lucky because many of the Red Army units who had been stranded in Azerbaijan and Georgia had not enjoyed a pleasant fate.

For Lenz, it was a bit surprising just how compressed that period of time had actually been. In his memory there were events that had seemed a thousand years apart. Apparently many of those had occurred within a few weeks of each other.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty



5th April 1980

Miranda de Ebro, Spain

The annual Spring Exercises of European Defense Pact nations was being hosted by Spain this year and the forces involved had their headquarters in the small town of Miranda de Ebro. Beyond seeing that the names of places were familiar due to them being where events in the Spanish War decades earlier had played out, Niko had figured that Spain presented a whole host of problems that he had not encountered elsewhere.

It was Easter Sunday and that was a huge deal in a place like Spain. So Niko thought that he had lucked out when he had discovered that the taverna was open the day before because it had seemed like the whole country had shut down this week, today his luck had run out though. Everything was closed today and as a Junior Officer he was expected to be available in case any of the Generals needed anything. So Niko had tried to figure something else out only to get stuck with a bag of field rations, because the men who normally served in the mess hall had vanished for reasons that remained murky, and several hours to kill. His presence in Spain had been requested by the General of the Infantry Adam Bachmeier, the Overall Commander of the Exercise after his success last year. This year had turned out to be a bit more complicated though. He might have been appointed to be an aide of General Bachmeier, however he could the number of times he had seen the General since he had arrived in Spain on one hand. Not that it was a particular hardship though. For Niko it was a much-needed break for the constant training that he had been enduring ahead of the Summer Games.

Uncle Hans had told him all about Miranda de Ebro, how he had stayed here for a time during the Spanish War as the 2nd Army order to hold in place as they had been leapfrogged by the 5th Army. Rain and mud had figured heavily in Hans’ accounting. Often had needed to contend with the mud and the Brass had not been content unless their orders somehow resulted in him having to stand out in the rain all day. It wasn’t raining today, but the afternoons had been much warmer than Niko was used to this time of year. Finding a patch of shade under a tree by the river near the old bridge that had a very convenient bench at hand had been easy enough.

Watching Zwei contentedly munching on the contents of his feedbag, Niko knew that anyone who had ever spent any time around horses understood that they were basically a stomach on four legs. Niko wished that he had it so easy as he was using the can opener on his pocketknife to open a tin of the entrée from one of his ration packs, which was labeled Rindereintopf in an extreme case of optimism triumphing over sensibility. What it actually was, was mystery meat in sauce with potatoes and carrots. A separate tin in the same pack was labeled Kimchi that he had not opened yet. In theory the two were supposed to complement each other, but Niko knew from bitter experience that tended to lead to ruin. He knew that as soon as Zwei had his fill, he would need to make sure that the horse got water as well.

“They told me you were down here” A voice with an accent that was extremely unusual for Spain said, there was the sound of boot heels and clop of horses hooves. Niko knew who it was before he turned to look. Lieutenant James “Slick” Acree of the US Army’s 6th Air Cavalry Regiment, here with the other International Observers. Niko knew that he had volunteered for this because he got to play the role of an actual Cavalryman as opposed to being in a helicopter, leading what was basically a Light Infantry Platoon in Fort Riley, Kansas. “What’s this business of them making you a 1st LT?” Slick asked as he led his horse under the tree next to Zwei.

“Oberleutnant der Reserve” Niko corrected, “And these things happen.”

The Third Army Command had seen fit to promote Niko based on his time in the field and they had been extremely interested in his Academic Schedule. When he completed his Diplom in Military History, they wanted him at the Field Command School in Lichterfelde as soon as it could be arranged. When Niko’s Commission went active, they wanted him leading a Dragoon Company in the Panzer Corps. Opa, wherever he was, would be proud of that.

“Sort of like the clap?” Slick asked.

“I guess that is one way to put it” Niko said as he dug into the bag and tossed Slick one of the ration packs.

Slick being Slick, he immediately tore it open and found the chocolate bar. Like he had in the past, Slick told Niko all about the differences between the German chocolate bars made of dark chocolate and the Hershey bars back in the United States. Niko only half listened as he finish the tin he was eating from and was opening the kimchi. Then Slick said something interesting.

“This place reminds me of Northern California” Slick said, “Up near Redding.”

“All I know of California is what is in the movies” Niko replied. “Sun and surf, Valley girls.”

“That is a different part of the State” Slick replied as two teenaged girls came walking down the path next to river, followed by matron who looked with disdain at Niko and Slick. Slick smiled at the two girls and tipped his hat. They giggled as the matron gave him a withering look. Slick was chuckling at that as they kept walking past.

“Now you’re here Niko, Bruce around at all?” Slick asked.

“He’s still in England” Niko replied, “Training with the hope of beating me in Moscow this July, Modern Pentathlon and Fencing.”

“Pentathlon?” Slick asked, “Care to explain that.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-One



18th May 1980

Fort Lewis, Washington State

The smell of disinfectant and bleach filled the air as Mario made his way through the bathroom towards the small common room with the sleeping bays on either side. Normally, Mario would have spent Sunday morning doing as little as possible. Unfortunately for him, Dog Company of the Second Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment had a new Captain with an Academy ring and a stick up his ass. Yesterday, the Captain announced to the Company Non-Commissioned Officers that he wanted the Company and the barracks presentable so that he could butter up the Brass who were said to be visiting from D.C on Sunday morning on a “surprise” inspection tour. That was about as unpleasant of a surprise as any that they might have received without someone getting hurt or killed.

As a Buck Sergeant, Mario was one of the men who had been tasked with carrying out that edict, which was something that did not make Mario popular with the men. That went double for the Specialist 4’s who made up much of Dog Company. They all remembered that he had been one of them not so long ago and were not shy about reminding him. Well, Mario’s older brother was a Chief Warrant Officer who had briefed the POTUS, so him being a terminal E-4 was never in the cards. Worse of all, Mario was starting to get an idea why Ritchie felt the need to be a total hardass at times.

Still, Mario had managed to get the men moving after a whole lot of grumbling about having to get up before sunrise. It took a couple hours but they had managed to get the Company’s Enlisted barracks as pristine as it had probably ever been. Then at the appointed time when the Brass were supposed to arrive, only guy who had shown up was Corporal Pryor, the Company Clerk, to tell them that the Brass was running late and to pass along a message from the Captain that they had best make good use of whatever extra time they had. Pryor did his best to dodge whatever the men had on hand to throw him and it seemed that the men didn’t have a problem with killing the messenger as Mario checked his watch. It was a half past eight and he wondered if he ought to let the men in his bay get breakfast. Was there time for that? It would go a long way towards mending fences. He also understood that when you get a warning to use the time you had, you had better listen.

Minutes later, a Staff car with jeeps escorting it pulled up to the barracks and they were immediately ordered to fall out as if this were a typical Sunday morning and this was an honest to God surprise inspection. The Captain, doing his best to earn a Brownnoser Medal rushed up to the car as a General with a whole lot of fruit salad pinned to his uniform stepped out and gave the General a crisp salute. As if the General didn’t have enough sense to see what was going on. Mario wouldn’t have been in the least bit surprised to learn that the General didn’t care either way.

Rushing out, Mario took his place in the formation forming in front of the barracks. The General maintained a stern demeanor as he spoke with a few of the men as Mario couldn’t help but notice a large dark cloud growing in size off to the south and getting closer. “Sergeant” the General said in acknowledgement of Mario as he passed. If Mario was lucky the General wouldn’t take any other notice of him. Ritchie had once told him that to most high-ranking Officers the Noncoms and Enlisted rarely merited more notice than the furniture. If you were smart you did absolutely nothing to change that perception because it would probably end very badly for you if you did.

“I trust that everything is in order Captain Ashworth” The General said in a chipper voice as if he had not done this a dozen times already today.

“Yes, Sir” The Captain replied looking at the men, giving the men a look that held the promise of ruin if any of them so much as had the stray thought about messing this up.

“Uhm, Sir?” One of the men asked, “In the sky.”

The Captain looked as what the man was gesturing to. It was The same expanding cloud that Mario had noticed earlier. Only now it was a whole lot closer and it didn’t look like any storm cloud that Mario had ever seen. He couldn’t help but noticing that he had grit in his mouth, like after he had gotten a mouthful of sand after wiping out while surfing.

“What about it” The Captain said, just as the air raid sirens went off. What followed was a mad scramble to get back into the barracks as the cloud turned out not to be the weather but was volcanic ash. Everyone had heard about Mount Saint Helens, just no one had realized that the whole mountain would explode, but that was exactly what had happened. They also swiftly learned that none of their gear could handle the fine particulate of the ash and swiftly broke down. Nothing with an air-filter, not even their gas masks worked.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Two



21st May 1980

Neuquén, Argentina

Attendance to today’s presentation was mandatory for all members of the faculty as Neuquén’s General Hospital. It was stretching things a bit to say that Kiki was actually employed by the hospital, they had never actually paid her for her services. Instead she was considered a volunteer who also ran the Médecins Sans Frontières mission in Neuquén Province, who insisted on paying her a salary.

Hospital Administrations everywhere were seldom shy about using a distant crisis to drill their staff about the very real dangers that existed in the world. Kiki might have thought that it would be interesting, except what it looked like in practice was sitting in the hospital’s cafeteria as the Hospital Director droned on over a slide show. The only part that kept her attention was the mention that there was Lanín, a dormant stratovolcano much like the one that had exploded in Washington State a few days earlier was only three hundred kilometers west of Neuquén City. That was a detail that she had not been aware of.

The rest though, that was dry numbers and statistics that was about as exciting as watching paint dry. The fact that Kiki was all too aware of was the study that had been conducted by the Medical Service back home about the most likely result of a nuclear bomb going off in or near an urban center but could just as easily apply to a natural disaster if it were on a large enough scale. Hospital staff overwhelmed, supplies being finite with little hope of resupply, the breakdown of civil order exasperating the situation. It was the stuff of nightmares. Kiki had seen the news reports of the top of the mountain blown off, the clouds of billowing ash, and the rivers choked with debris. All of that had been bad enough, but apparently it could have been worse. The explosion had blown out the north face of the mountain and the blast had gone sideways, something that Geologists had not known was possible until the whole world had watched it happen. Fortunately, there wasn’t very much to the north of the mountain. If the blast had gone south or west, it easily could have been a different story. There was also concern about some of the other nearby mountains that were even closer to urban centers. The main danger in Neuquén was ashfall, which as Kiki had seen on the news, was not something that could be ignored.



Tempelhof, Berlin

It was unnerving how Elke was being made to wait. The hallway was dark with the only light being the dim lights, meaning that there probably was a rheostat somewhere but they had not bothered to turn up the lights due to her presence. That was not a good sign. The effect was made worse by the dark wallpaper that appeared blood red in this light and the framed photographs that were everywhere. It was too dim to study the photographs from where she was sitting and it had been suggested to Elke that it would be an extremely bad idea for her to get up from the uncomfortable chair that she had been deposited in. There were two rough looking men at the end of the hallway who wore ill-fitting suits of a shade of black that didn’t show all the little stains…

“The Prefect will see you now” A young man said with a smile, as if this were an appointment as opposed to her being brought here in the dead of night as a show of force. She couldn’t help but notice that he was wearing a military uniform. That woman, the one who called herself the Prefect of Berlin, had once been a General, so it should not have been a surprise that her aides would be from the military. Elke had a feeling that she didn’t want to know the sort of things that they would be learning in such a position.

“I figured that it was time we talked” The woman dubbed the Tigress said as Elke entered the room. There were rumors about how dangerous this room was, that no one left alive unless the Tigress willed it so.

What followed next was a long moment of excruciating silence, the sound of a ticking clock filled the room.

“Your comments to the press have caused quite a lot of distress for your daughter at a time when she needs to keep her focus on Moscow” Katherine said, “To the extent that I felt the need to treat you in the same manner that I was forced to use with the man who took advantage of you.”

“You were the one who chased him off” Elke snapped, “He told me that…”

“Shut up” Katherine snapped, “You are not the same naïve girl infatuated with the man who got her pregnant. Nor are you the only one who he made a whole lot of promises to. Promises that he had no intention of ever keeping, as evidenced by him coming on to a different woman within a few hours of having you booted out of the Medical Service.”

Elke had never heard it put that bluntly. It made her sound particularly idiotic, which was entirely wrong. She had joined the Medical Service to escape her Working-Class existence. Then Sophie had happened to her, Elke had never agreed to that.

“That is not how it happened” Elke replied.

“I don’t care” Katherine replied as she got up from the highbacked chair behind the desk that dominated the room. “Leave Sophie alone, stop giving those interviews, or else you will see this on the evening news.”

Katherine hit play on a VCR connected to a television set. What followed was a recording of Elke herself when she was much younger and in a rage, berating Sophie, punctuating her words by hitting her daughter who was too small to defend herself.

“You should be more concerned with your new family as opposed to the child you so clearly hate” Katherine said as she hit stop on the VCR.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Three



22nd May 1980

Tempelhof, Berlin

Quarles Kneipe, the name of the place being a reference to Edgar Allen Poe somehow, wasn’t well known outside of students from the Humboldt Campus of the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin. Built just off of Tempelhof’s high street, it was nestled in with the eclectic array of shops that catered to those same students just down a side street. Despite having been built at the same time as the rest of the neighborhood just a couple decades earlier, the pub had a comfortable, lived-in feel as if it had been there for far longer. The decorations and photographs on the walls along with the Rock & Roll music that was playing constantly on the jukebox whenever there wasn’t band playing live made it clear that the student ghetto that it was situated on the edge of was where most of its customers came from. The owners of Quarles had gone out of their way to make it the unofficial clubhouse of student activities, especially athletics.

That included a large banner for the Black Eagles Cycling Team and several photographs of members, including Sophie as she had won the gold medal on Montreal in 1976. As the Captain of the Black Eagle’s, Sophie was extremely welcome in Quarles. The rest of it was like hundreds of similar establishments that were around. Beer, inexpensive food, entertainment of the sort that didn’t require too much input from the staff was preferred. For the three of them it was a board game called Trivial Pursuit that revolved around questions on an array of subjects, Adi complained about how Sophie and Gabi had an unfair advantage on him because they were University girls. As it had turned out, he had more than held his own and when the game concluded they had just started talking about things. Sophie was of that opinion that Adi was just as smart as his two younger sisters, he just applied it differently. With it being a Thursday night, they mostly had the place to themselves.

Adolf “Adi” Gerst, Sophie’s brother had finally accepted the invitation to come here tonight after weeks of asking. From Sophie’s perspective, it was long past time that all three of them got together now that they were all living in Berlin and Gabi had never had the opportunity to introduce herself.

Adi was a couple years older and had grown up in Bautzen, Saxony. Aside from the mostly intact Medieval Town Center, Bautzen was better known for the modern prison on the city’s outskirts. It had not come as a shock that Adi had gotten out of there as soon as he had finished school by joining the Luftwaffe in hopes of becoming a fighter pilot, only to learn that they actually needed mechanics and ground crew of all types a whole lot more. As a newly minted Flieger, Adi had trained as a Fire Protection Specialist, meaning that he had needed to learn the staggering number of ways an airplane, or worse, an airplane hanger, could go up in flames and how to put it out.

When Adi had gotten out Luftwaffe, he had decided that a good move would be to apply to the Fire Brigades of all the major cities to see if they might be interested in hiring a man with his skillset. His hope was that he would have gotten hired in Saxony, Dresden in particular, but Berlin had come through first. The Brigade had him go through the Fire and Rescue Academy in Reinickendorf and Medical training at the University Clinic in Tempelhof, it had been at the latter where Adi and Sophie had crossed paths. Sophie had been there at Kat’s request to meet with Doctor Nora Berg to see if she was interested in mentoring Sophie, who had been trying to decide if she wanted to continue her studies beyond Sports Science into the related field of Sport Medicine. Sophie had seen first-hand how women were treated by the Doctors who worked with the IOC and the NOK. To say that change was desperately needed was an understatement. She had learned Adi’s name at some point and as soon as she had seen him, she had recognized the features that he shared with her and Gabi, except it was all very different. Sophie was aware that she had another sister who lived in Munich by the name of Celine but had never had the opportunity to meet her.

“If you two will excuse me” Gabi said as she got up from the table. Sophie noticed that there were two men at the bar who gave Gabi an appraising look as she passed, Adi noticed and bristled.

“You only just met Gabi” Sophie said, “As you get to know her you’ll see that she can take care of herself, she hardly needs the protective big brother.”

“She just seems the sort” Adi replied, a touch embarrassed that Sophie had noticed.

“The sort of girl you would want take to meet your mother?” Sophie replied, “She hates that, by the way.”

“Where do you fit in?” Adi asked.

“I am considered far more likely to pick a fight in that situation” Sophie replied.

“The roles we end up playing” Adi said amusedly, “That would make you the odd sort of middle child, not much of a peacemaker though.”

“The picture above your right shoulder explains it all” Sophie said, pointing at the framed photograph on the wall. It was the famous picture at the Montreal Olympics taken in the seconds leading up the finish of the race. Sophie and Connie Carpenter had just collided and Sophie had been so focused on the finish line that she had hardly noticed. The front wheel of Connie’s bike was collapsing and there was a look of dismay on her face as she was about to go over the handlebars. While that incident had cemented her reputation as a fierce competitor, Sophie still wished that Connie had at least been able to finish the race. As opposed to having it end in mechanical failure and injury. That could just as easily have happened to Sophie. Every Cyclist had that experience. The instant where you knew that all control was gone and you had just enough time to have that thought before your body hit the pavement with bone crushing force. It was something that Sophie would not wish on anyone and she had not wanted to win that race that way.

“That was you?” Adi asked as he looked at the photograph. “I remember seeing that on television.”

“Yeah” Sophie replied, “I got a medal and everything.”

She said that last part with a bit more sarcasm than she intended.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Four



31st May 1980

Annapolis, Maryland

This was the conclusion of Commissioning Week and as Richard Nixon, the President of the United States spoke at the Commissioning Ceremony itself, Little Mike wished more than anything that he would finish the speech. It was said that he had been engineering an inconclusive Primary contest within the Democratic Party leading to his own selection as the solution. The way that things were working out with Pat Brown and Michael Dukakas, it wasn’t a shock that the Draft Nixon movement had been gaining steam and listing to his speech today, Mike had absolutely no doubt that things were going just swimmingly in the Nixon Campaign. Still, it was rather noticeable that the biggest round of applause that the President received was after he said the words “In conclusion.”

Then came the three cheers by the First Year Midshipmen for those about to depart as newly minted Ensigns. Most would be going directly to the Fleet, but a few, like Mike himself, had been asked to volunteer for further training. It would mean spending the summer at SWO school, learning about the advanced systems found aboard the latest ships of the US Navy with an emphasis on Anti-Submarine Warfare. This had less to do with the biggest rival of the US Navy being their German counterparts and more to do with secretive Submarine Arm of the Kaiserliche Marine being regarded as an existential threat to the United States. Why go through the bother and expense of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles when you can bring dozens of intermediate missiles fitted with nuclear warheads within easy range of most of the Continental United States? Mike’s main consideration was that the Navy was intent on enlarging their ASW capability to counter the threat. Ritchie had told Mike that neither country had the least bit of interest in going to war, just Politicians interested in getting votes and Defense Contractors wanting a steady supply of business loved to play up illusory international tensions for their own ends. For Mike, becoming an ASW Officer aboard a Destroyer or a Frigate would mean having an extremely bright future.

Once the three cheers ended, everyone threw their cover into the air. The hat toss held symbolic meaning, that they were discarding their identity as Midshipmen so that they could embrace their new identity. That done, Mike stood up to go find his family. They were not hard to find. Ritchie and Lucia were here as guests of the Washington family, Dad was here wearing the Class A Uniform of the LAPD. The other graduates would recognize that Ritchie was a Warrant Officer, with the Rank tabs being identical to those worn by Navy’s equivalent and the green uniform of the Army. It was Dad’s uniform with the stripes and rocker of a Detective III and an array of unfamiliar medals issued by the State of California and City of Los Angeles that probably raised a lot of questions. It was an open question as to whether Mike’s brother Derik or sister Keri looked more out of place here. Derik always looked like he was dressed as an unmade bed despite their mother’s best efforts over the years. On the opposite extreme was Keri, who had recently discovered the mind-blowing notion that people would pay her to shop for clothes and be up on the latest fashions. Like always she was dressed to the nines, just what was considered fashionable made absolutely no sense to Mike. It was fortunate that Keri had been convinced to attend college courses against the day that her current employment dried up.

It was Mike’s youngest sister Shauna who he was really looking for. He had discussed this with his parents and they had agreed with his reasons.

“A bit of help here?” Mike said to Shauna as he handed her the new Ensign’s shoulder boards. Shauna looked at him questioningly, this was a complete surprise for her. She was considerably shorter than him due to the health problems that she had been born with, that was just how it was. So he had to bend over pretty far so that she could reach. Their mother helped Shauna with it. It only then occurred to Mike that his mother must know this sort of thing inside and out because his father, Big Mike, had spent a lot of years in Patrol Division of the LAPD.

“I’m looking forward to attending the graduation ceremony at Stanford in a few years when you collect your diploma” Mike said to Shauna who smiled at that.

There was still one more thing to do.

Looking around, Mike saw the Senior Chief Petty Officer who was a well-known member of the Academy’s Staff prowling around. The crusty old Sailor taught aboard one of the school’s Yard Patrol Boats. Mike had spent plenty of time out on Chesapeake Bay getting yelled at by the Senior Chief. Mike could hear the coins rattling around in his pockets as the Senior Chief approached. He saluted Mike with a shit eating grin on his face and Mike returned it. Mike was reminded of all the warnings that he had received to never underestimate the Enlisted no matter how high he rose in the Navy as he tossed the Senior Chief a silver dollar per custom. The Senior Chief deftly caught it out of the air and it joined the dozens of other silver dollars in his pockets with a clank. “Thank you, Sir” The Senior Chief said before moving on to the next newly minted Ensign.

With that, Mike joined his family for the promised celebratory dinner that he had been looking forward to for weeks.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and twenty-Five



1st June 1980

Langeoog, East Frisian Islands

It was an unseasonably cold afternoon and it had started to rain. Meaning that Marie Alexandra had the perfect excuse to do nothing at all. So she was lying in bed listening to the rain hitting the roof. It rather suited the mood she was in.

The last several months had been awful for Marie. The public backlash against the lawsuit that Jack Kennedy had started right after New Year’s been fierce and most of the defendants had remembered that it had been Marie interviewing them as they had said all sorts of damning things that had been entered into the public record. Marie remembered how proud they had been of their actions, the greed, arrogance, and crass hypocrisy that had been on display. Now that they had been exposed nothing had changed, they were just saying that they had been tricked, or their words were getting taken out of context. They certainly changed their tune fast when Jack had released the transcripts and recordings in their entirety. Marie had spent her days going to lectures and hiding in her apartment. The problem was that her means of dodging the press coverage only worked when she had the means to disguise herself. Someone had figured out that she often swam laps in the pool at the Trinity Athletic Center. It was sort of hard to look like someone else when all you were wearing was a swimsuit and had reporters shouting questions at you while climbing out of the pool.

Then Cheshire died and Marie had learned that her grandfather had suffered a stroke. Sir Malcolm was in the hospital and was not considered likely to recover due to his age, Marie wasn’t in a position to just drop everything and go to Montreal. That was before she had even considered whether or not she would have the proper mindset to deal with Margot and not have it end with blood. So, for lack of anything better to do Marie had traveled to Langeoog and had been a bit surprised by the reaction she had gotten from the islanders. They had heard about much of what had happened and had proven to be protective of her, even running off the few journalists who had tracked her out to the East Frisian Islands.

That had surprised Marie at first. She had been born in Berlin, only spending a couple months a year on Langeoog at most. Then it had occurred to her that she had been doing that her whole life with playing on the beach among her earliest memories. There were still hundreds of seashells marking the boundaries of the front walk of the house that had been gathered by Marie, Tatiana, and Malcolm. How many times had the members of her family had joked that the islands were her actual home? That if she could, Marie would live out here year-round with a dozen cats? That silly part about having that many cats was the only part that was wrong. Her childhood memories had often revolved around the presence of Cheshire and Fleur, the terrier mix who had been the family dog. Marie would love nothing more than that. Thinking about her family was a reminder that Malcolm had left for India and wouldn’t be back for months and Tatiana was in Washington D.C. Marie remembered how much fun it had been with Tatiana when they had traveled across Northern Spain a few years ago. It sucked that she was kept too busy by the Foreign Office to do anything like that this year.



Richthofen Estate, Silesia

Henriette being appointed to be the Amanuensis of the Royal Household of Silesia certainly demonstrated that someone had been creative. It involved a mixture of things beyond merely being a typist though she was able to take dictation. While Ilse already had a Personal Secretary, which was expected of a Queen, Henriette had the authority to do business on Ilse’s behalf as needed.

It seemed that a key part of Henriette’s job was keeping people away from Ilse who would just waste her time but were too important to simply ignore because it was well known that Henriette was the future Markgräfin of Oppeln. The thing was that the number of people who Ilse felt wouldn’t waste her time was extremely small. Of the people who Ilse always had time for was Izabela Lis, one of the Maids was apparently Ilse’s confidante and was widely regarded as in the running to eventually become the Housekeeper of the Richthofen Estate. When Henriette had asked about that relationship, she had been told by Ilse that when you find someone who you can trust implicitly, you owed them a whole lot in return.

Henriette had also seen the sort of medical intervention that Ilse was subjected to. Ilse had said that she had suffered from maternal cardiac arrest when Nikolaus had been born and there had been further complications in the years since. She’d had no idea that Ilse’s health was that precarious. Then she remembered Ilse’s comments about trust. Ilse was watching Henriette, looking to see just how far she could trust her.

The funny part was that Marie Alexandra had warned her about this sort of thing. That the families old families like the Hohenzollerns or the Richthofens were cautious about their position within society and that she had best be prepared for having to deal with their machinations. Marie’s own family and Sabastian’s were of a different sort and they also happened to be the very people that the old families were so cautious of.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Six



2nd June 1980

Richthofen Estate, Silesia

When Niko had received his Diplom in Military History, he understood that it was hardly the end of his education. He would be going back to school in September, the Field Command School in Lichterfelde as his Officer’s Commission would be active. That was following everything that was planned for the summer, Moscow next month and then he had his marriage to Monique to contend with. As was tradition, Piers Sjostedt, Monique’s grandfather had arranged to post the banns in Flensburg and Breslau with it seeming like every newspaper picking up the story as it had appeared in the weekly bulletin in the Lutheran Cathedrals of those respective cities.

Both Niko and Monique had complicated relationships with religion after what had happened to their respective mothers. The reaction had been different though. Niko had considered religion as a box to check if necessary, the whole bit about there being no Atheists in foxholes had been a bit too on the nose. Monique’s response had been to study Theology at University and in the process, completely rejecting the Catholic beliefs of the odd corner of France she had been born in. The result was that Monique had understood the implications while Niko had been a bit slower on the uptake. That had changed in a hurry when Monique had snuck out from the main house out to the guesthouse where Niko had lived since he had started attending the University of Breslau. What followed was the sort of thing that he was unlikely to forget with everyone, including his parents, very likely turning a blind eye because it was only a matter of weeks before they finished with the formal part. It was afterwards that they had a chance to talk. Of course, Monique had a question despite there being little about Niko that was out of the ordinary.

“Did the Heer do this to you?” Monique asked looking at the tattoo on Niko’s arm, stretching the skin of his arm out so she could see it better. He had the AB+ in letters that had once been black but had oxidized to blue, tattooed on the inside of his arm about twenty centimeters above his elbow.

“No, I was still going to Wahlstatt at the time, it is optional but strongly suggested” Niko replied, “It is considered a life saving measure because that is where the Medics know to look, but that wasn’t my consideration at the time though.”

“What was your consideration?” Monique asked.

“My entire class had been taken to Münsingen, mostly as free labor to clean up the place” Niko replied, “We were told that for administrative purposes we were considered Soldaten while we were there and one of the Feldwebels asked if anyone wanted to make it official like, prove we were men as it were and most of us stepped up.”

“Just how old were you?” Monique asked.

“Far too young” Niko said, “No one was asking how old I was though and I am quite certain that it was all incredibly illegal. I spent the next several months dreading that my mother might see it.”

“And that is your blood type?”

“Yes” Niko replied, “Me, along with a good portion of the Mischners. That makes us among the few universal recipients.”

Monique looked at him, a bit quizzically before asking. “You would have inherited that from your mother? Did Ingrid?”

Niko considered the unclothed state they were in and realized that there were no secrets between them anymore. It wasn’t just being physically naked here; it was being open where he might not have been inclined to be in the past.

“I don’t know” Niko replied, “My mother nearly died when I was born and the Doctors said that she should not attempt to have another, she still wanted another though and Ingrid needed a family. She is my little sister though; she always has been. Technically, she is my second cousin.”

Monique was clearly surprised by that answer. “She doesn’t know, does she?” She asked.

“My mother said that she will tell her when she is ready” Niko replied, “She is afraid that it will turn Ingrid’s world upside down.”

“Ingrid has no idea how lucky she is” Monique said, “Everyone in Fossoy knew my history and weren’t afraid to rub my face in it.”

Niko had heard Monique talk about that place before. He couldn’t imagine what that must have been like, having almost everyone in your community despise you because of a war had had ended long before you were even born. Niko remembered that Opa had always said that he ought to consider himself fortunate and to never forget that his success in life had more or less been guaranteed from the day he had been born. Most people, including his mother or Monique had nowhere near that sort of guarantee by any stretch of the imagination. How did you succeed when every hand was against you? Niko had no idea.

“Well, this isn’t Fossoy” Niko said.

Apparently, that was not the right response.

Monique rolled away from Niko, wrapping the sheet from his bed around herself in the process. “No, this place is exactly the same as Fossoy, you’re just on the other end of it” She replied.

Niko had thought that he had understood. It seemed that he had been mistaken on that score and didn’t know correct thing to do in this situation. Even as he had that thought, he realized that Fossoy was a key part of the lens that Monique looked at the world through. It was always with her.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty—Seven



3rd June 1980

Richthofen Estate, Silesia

The concern all along had been that when two young people just happened to be in proximity that life would happen to them. That was sort of inevitable, it took many different forms though. Ilse supposed it was a good thing that she had pulled Monique aside just before she had left for Argentina with Nikolaus to let the girl know that Ilse and Albrecht were not ready to be grandparents, that it was in her interest to learn how to avoid that eventuality. Ilse certainly remembered how badly she had messed things up before Nikolaus had been born and had not wanted history to repeat itself. Ilse also wasn’t so foolish as to assume that the two of them would remain chaste until they got married, so it had been a good thing that they had been attending different Universities for the last couple of years. Now, that time had passed and they had not exactly been discrete on Sunday night. Afterwards, Nikolaus had apparently said too much as he tended to do. He and Monique had been bickering ever since.

As much as Ilse wanted to defend her son, it was obvious that he had inherited a few of his grandfather’s worst traits. Ilse remembered Käte’s perspective about Manfred the Elder’s narrow world view. Unless he was in the cockpit of an airplane or looking through the sights of his rifle he often couldn’t see what was going on right in front of him. It seemed that what Nikolaus had said showed that lack of understanding and Monique was not happy about it.

Ilse wished that she could say that she was surprised about what had happened but she wasn’t. She had always liked Monique and had been pleased that she was the one who Nikolaus had fallen for. No one lived in a vacuum though and Monique had once told Ilse that Silesia reminded her of Picardy, the Region of France that she had lived in. It was clear from the way she had said that it was not exactly complementary. In Fossoy, Monique had been despised because she was considered to be an ethnic German because of who her grandfather was. She would eventually learn that her background was far different than that but that didn’t mean that she was ever planning on going back. In Silesia, Monique had seen that there was a similar dynamic at play with Poles and Germans often at odds while Nikolaus was too close to see it.



Seattle, Washington

“Did you see page five of Sunday’s Washington Post James?” Bill Stoughton asked, presumably from his home district in Massachusetts as soon as Hendrix got the phone to his ear.

“I am not in D.C. this week, so if you could give me a minute to find a copy” Hendrix replied as he motioned one of his aides over. Getting the latest edition of the Post was not an easy thing to do in Seattle, which was about as far from Washington D.C. as you could get in the United States without a ship or airplane involved. Stoughton had a hard time wrapping his mind around the vast distances involved once you got west of Chicago. That was hardly unique to the Speaker of the House, many of the people Hendrix had encountered who lived on the East Coast tended to have that perspective. He scratched out Sunday’s Washington Post now on a memo pad before handing it to the aide.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out” Stoughton said, “What’s the weather like there out west?”

“Rainy” Hendrix replied.

“Isn’t Seattle known for that?” Stoughton asked.

“We have sunny days” Hendrix replied. It rained almost as much in Boston as it did in Seattle, just for much of the year it snowed there. Not that he expected Stoughton to know or even acknowledge it if he did. Fortunately, that was when the aide returned with the copy of the Washington Post.

“Someone did the crossword already, Sir” The aide said, before Hendrix waved him off. He didn’t care about the crossword puzzle. Opening it to page five, he instantly saw the article that Stoughton had mentioned.

The first thing that Hendrix noticed was the largish photograph of President Nixon with two men who were half a head taller than he was at the Naval Academy Commissioning/Graduation Ceremony a few days earlier. That said something because the President was not a short man. Scanning the article, he saw that they were LAPD Detective 3 Michael Tarver Washington, Age 48 and newly commissioned USN Ensign Michael Tarver Washington Junior, age 22. There were additional photographs of the graduation and the President giving his speech.

“I got the article on page five of the Post here in front of me” Hendrix said into the phone.

“Are you seeing what I am?” Stoughton asked, “As if you needed more proof that he is planning on making another run at the Whitehouse. National Defense, Civil Rights, and being tough on crime, this story has it all. Plus, if you read the article, you’ll see that Junior turned down a chance to play pro-ball to join the Navy, so you have National Service thrown in. The public will eat this up.”

“Not everyone is thrilled about the prospect of Nixon being in for another four years” Hendrix replied. It was more like there was a large segment of the population that was outraged by the idea that Nixon was bucking tradition to the extent that they were talking Constitutional Amendment.

“Granted” Stoughton said, “But this is all about finding out where the parade is going and getting in front of it.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Eight



20th June 1980

Oxhöft Naval Base, Gdingen, West Prussia

When Erich had returned from Italy, he had no idea where his small unit would be sent next. Taking what they had learned in Italy, adapting it for the cold waters of the Baltic Sea, and being the nucleus of a training program at Oxhöft was not what he had in mind. There he was though, spending nearly every day on the Bay of Puck or out further in the Gulf of Danzig. He had written at length about it to Gretchen, how he had explored some of the wrecks that were around. What Erich had not been able to mention was that the Naval High Command was very interest in the potential to conduct underwater sabotage and he was starting to wonder if Field Marshal von Schultz, Gretchen’s father, was trying to get him killed without getting his hands dirty.

Still, as Erich picked up this week’s stack of letters, there were a couple from Gretchen. Mostly she was lamenting how her dear friends, Mathilda and Edmée were not coming back to Tzschocha that autumn and were going to be starting University. She was faced with having a remaining academic year where she would be alone and wasn’t looking forward to it. At the same time, her sister was also going to be gone and that was going to be a profound a relief. Erich had never actually met Anna but after reading about the scene that she had caused at the Wahlstatt Institute’s Spring Formal, he was in no hurry to. Apparently Gretchen’s parents were able to smooth things out, but Erich had attended a different campus of the Prussian Institute so he understood that had probably not been an inexpensive fix. As it was the Tzschocha School had allowed Anna to finish her Upper Prima year, but then they wanted her gone for good the instant she completed her Abitur.

Gretchen was vague about what had happened, but she had said that seeing Anna finally having her comeuppance was an early birthday present. Erich remembered her mentioning having had a birthday a few weeks earlier. In the next letter he had apologized and promised to make it up to her. In her reply Gretchen had said that she understood what he was doing was important and that she would look forward to whatever he had in mind. So Erich figured that he had better think of something good but didn’t have the foggiest notion as to what.

The next letter was from his mother and it was the sort of thing that he had gotten used to. It seemed that his father had found out the hard way that any attempt to disown him would come with a substantial public backlash that he couldn’t afford and he had been forced to drop that, so it was probably a good thing that he wasn’t going to be there for the Regatta this year. Erich remembered the reception he had received at the Imperial Yacht Club last year, how the Komondor had praised Erich and humiliated his father. The last thing that he needed was for that to happen again. He remembered that he had received an invitation in the mail to attend the Gala that marked the end of Kiel Week at the Yacht Club, which he had totally forgotten about until that moment, and that was on the 29th, a week from Sunday. Perhaps it was because he was tired of his father’s nonsense, his mother’s more subtle condescension, or the whole Devil may care ethos of the Marine Infantry getting to him but Erich had a mad thought that could just be workable. Something that would kill two birds with one stone.

Pulling the portable typewriter off the shelf on the bookcase of his room in the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters that he had bought from a secondhand store in Danzig he opened the integral case, writing letters this way had just become habit at this point considering that Tilo von Schultz had not actually killed him yet rather than trying to keep them impersonal. Rolling a page of paper into the typewriter, Erich started to type a letter…

To Gretchen

Seeing that I managed to completely miss your birthday this year and had promised to make it up to you. I was wondering if you might be interested in accompanying me to the Annual Gala of the Imperial Yacht Club marking the end of the Kiel Week Regatta. This is a formal event and I understand that this is very short notice. I figure that we will probably be the youngest people in attendance, so despite this being a somewhat stodgy event you might enjoy being the Belle of the Ball for a few hours. I also do have to warn you that my parents being long-standing members of the Club and will probably be in attendance, so there will be some fireworks beyond the ones that they shoot over Kiel Fjord every year. So, if you are not interested or cannot reach me by telephone, you will not hurt my feelings by declining this invitation.

Sincerely,

Erich reread the letter, checking for the errors, and not seeing any he rolled the page out of the typewriter. He was certain that he would probably miss one or two and that Gretchen would inevitably point them out. After several minutes of looking through his desk, Erich found a pen that worked and signed his name on the bottom of the page. Filling out the envelope and putting a stamp on it, he figured that he had enough time to get it on the last mail pickup out of Oxhöft. Which meant Gretchen would be getting the letter on Monday or Tuesday.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Nine



26th June 1980

Langeoog, East Frisian Islands

Jack had heard plenty about this place, but had never actually come here until now, and instantly understood why Marie liked it here. Langeoog was a bit difficult to get to and once you were on the island everything moved at a much slower pace. This was certainly helped by a ban on automobiles aside from some commercial and emergency vehicles. He had figured this out as he had first been delayed while waiting for the ferry to leave the mainland and then waiting for the narrow-gauge train that let him off in the center of the Town of Langeoog. It was a bit annoying that he had to walk from the train station to the house and that it was way out on the eastern end of town. He had noticed that he was getting dirty looks from the locals the whole time. It wasn’t quite holiday season yet, it was a weekday, and he wasn’t dressed like a tourist. Jack had heard about what had happened to a few journalists who had come looking for Marie on Langeoog, so it was easy to assume what their assumptions were.

The house itself was unassuming, looking the same as nearly every other house that Jack had seen on the island. He knew that the house had been built in 1953 after the old one had been heavily damaged by a storm. Katherine’s vacation home had been located on this spot since she had been granted it along the rest of East Frisia when she had been made a Freiherrin, meaning Baroness in English, the first of several courtly promotions. That was the result of saving the lives of several members of the German Royal family from an NKVD assassination team. Despite that incident being well documented and there even having been a film made, there were some people who questioned if it had happened the way depicted or even if it had happened at all. Despite the whole thing seeming far-fetched, Jack knew better than most Katherine von Mischner’s propensity towards violence and ruthless nature. He had absolutely no doubt that the Russian agents had been real and that Kat had not hesitated when she got the drop on them. Kat had told Jack that she still had the Italian made submachinegun she had used that day, he wasn’t in the least bit surprised.

These days, with her role as the Prefect of Berlin consuming so much of her time, Kat seldom came to Langeoog these days. Instead it was her daughter Marie Alexandra who spent much of the summer because she liked the quiet and relative isolation. Kat had discussed with Jack the idea that perhaps she should give Marie the patent of Nobility, making Marie the Gräfin of East Fresia. Jack knew that if that happened then Marie would be under pressure to drop her studies in Ireland and he would lose her services as an investigator, while he doubted that she would ever be any sort of trial lawyer, Marie was good at doing the sort of one-on-one interviews that were key in gathering evidence. Beyond that, Jack wondered what the consequences of that would be. It was an insular region that had its own dialect of German, it was also of huge strategic and economic importance to the German Empire. How would the Reichstag in Berlin or the Landtag in Hanover react to that? Jack had no idea. He had advised Kat to hold off until she had a better feel for what the reaction would be. He just hoped that she listened…

Jack stopped musing as he got to the door. Knocking on it, he was met with silence. It was early afternoon, so Marie had to be awake. After a few minutes, Marie opened the door a crack and peeked out.

“Don’t you have better places to be?” Marie asked as she opened the door.

“Actually no” Jack replied as he stepped into the house. “There was a development in the case and I…”

Jack saw the sword that Marie was holding in her hand. It looked like the fencing foil that was used in sport. The blade with a triangular profile and needlelike point though suggested that it was not intended for that purpose though.

“Expecting trouble?” Jack asked. He had a good idea of what Marie was capable of and wasn’t eager to find out if she was as ruthless as her mother when push came to shove.

“There have been threats” Marie said as she slid the sword back into the sheath that was hanging on the coatrack next to the door. “The smallsword was a birthday present from my mother. She said that if I insist that I be alone that I should be able to protect myself.”

As Lawyer, Jack knew that there were all sorts of things wrong with that and that had landed Kat in legal hot water in the past. However, as a father he had a different perspective. He doubted that his daughter Jacqueline would have the wherewithal, of course when last he had seen her she had been asleep in the same bedroom she’d had since she was a baby. Marie had offered to let Jackie come with her, but she had declined. He suspected that Jackie was embarrassed by the idea of what she had heard about beaches on the Continent but had realized that she would be even more embarrassed if he brought that up with her.

“I came here to tell you that there has been a break in the case” Jack said.

Marie gave him a quizzical look. When she had left Ireland they had still been in midst of pretrial negotiations which had been expected to drag on for months.

“It seemed that the defendant’s lawyers had an epiphany of sorts, I suspect that there were few angry calls from Rome about being made to look bad on television and newspapers as well” Jack said, “Things are moving in a different direction now.”

“Oh” Marie replied, as if she were sorry to hear that.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty



29th June 1980

Kiel, Germany

Erich had been a bit embarrassed when Gretchen had first seen his car, a VW Passat Sedan that had seen better days. The truth was that she didn’t care as she looked out the passenger side window at the street going past. Just being here was enough for her. She had thought that it would need a whole lot of effort to convince her mother to let her come, only to be told that she was old enough to make her own mistakes. At the moment her parents were up to their neck in dealing with the mess that Anna had caused, the exasperation from that had carried over to Gretchen to the extent that they had let her go to Kiel.

Gretchen had no idea what might have motived her sister, but this time, she had been caught red-handed, or blue considering the color of indelible ink that had sprayed all over Anna when she had pulled the fire alarm. The present student body at the Wahlstatt Institute was around 90% male, so there was no way that had been the first time that someone had thought about doing that and the school had taken measures to catch the culprit. Gretchen remember that everyone had been having so much fun right up until the alarm had gone off. When Gretchen had asked her mother why Anna had done something so stupid, she had gotten an exasperated look and had been told that she and Anna needed to start acting like sisters as opposed the constant sniping at each other, which was unacceptable.

From there, it had been all about figuring out what to wear to a gala at a Yacht Club that was doubtlessly going to have a nautical theme. Gretchen had been at a bit of a loss, so she had worn what she thought looked nice. The white sundress she was wearing was perfectly in keeping with the season and she hoped that it would not be too informal for the event. When Erich picked her up from the apartment that her parents lived in due to her father’s role in the Kaiserliche Marine and Marine Infantry, that was when he had been a bit embarrassed by his car. She saw that he was wearing the summer dress uniform of the Marine Infantry and looked like he had stepped out of a recruiting poster. He had clearly been hoping to impress Gretchen’s parents. The car was not in keeping with that and he was all too aware of the fact that Gretchen’s father could squash him like a bug if he stepped out of line.

The drive to the Imperial Yacht Club had been pleasant enough, now though as Gretchen got out of the car she noticed that she could see both the white building that housed the Club and just across the water was the large grey office building that she knew housed the High Command of the KM, where her father as the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Navy often spent his days. She didn’t know why that had slipped her mind until that moment, but it did explain a whole lot about her mother’s reaction when she had asked to come to the gala. The close proximity to the OKM meant that the Yacht Club would inevitably be a hotbed of Navy politics. Being greeted by Kapitan-zur-See von Feldt buttressed that opinion. Gretchen remembered that he had commanded the SMS Mackensen in the Pacific War, a Battlecruiser that had sustained a staggering amount of damage in the Battle of the South China Sea. He had managed to get the Mackensen back to port, only to oversee her being stripped of everything useful before being written off and sent to the breakers. He had gone on to command the SMS Adrian Baier, the last Battlecruiser to join the German Fleet and whose namesake had overshadowed von Feldt’s career in a case of perverse irony. These days von Feldt was the Kommodore of Imperial Yacht Club in Kiel, the instant that Gretchen had walked in with Erich he had taken one look at them and she could just see the wheels turning.

“What a lovely surprise to have you here Markgräfin” von Feldt said, “If you could tell your father that my invitation still stands.” He then shot Erich an approving look before going to greet someone else.

“What was that?” Gretchen asked in a stage whisper.

“Just roll with it” Erich replied, he clearly had his back up.

As it turned out, Erich had been correct that they were among the youngest people present at this event. What he had not anticipated was the shocking amount of brass and gold braid that was on full display. This was the very institution of the High Seas Fleet with its various factions and politics. Gretchen realized that just her presence was as had been stated in Star Wars, a disturbance in the force. Then she saw two people, an older couple, the man looked at Erich with complete disdain and the woman looked embarrassed, the look on Erich’s face grew strained.

“Gretchen, this is my mother and father” Erich said, his words guarded.

Erich’s father glowered at him; he had said that his father had not approved of his career choices. Namely taking a direct Commission in the Marine Infantry out of the Naval Academy as opposed to going to University with the intention of joining the Naval Command Track.

“It is lovely to finally meet you Gretchen” Erich’s mother said, trying to keep the peace and clearly unhappy with her husband. “Erich was a bit vague about who you are. Did I hear the Kommodore called you a Markgräfin?”

“It is a silly title” Gretchen replied, “My father received it when he was appointed to be the Marshal of Silesia.”

“Claudia, her father is Dietrich von Schultz” Erich’s father said, as Gretchen saw his face switch from beet red to a sudden white pallor. With that Erich’s mother, Claudia, led his father over to one of the tables where she sat him down as she tried to deal whatever sort of attack he was having.

“That actually went better than I had hoped” Erich said, much to Gretchen’s shock. How could that have gone worse?

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-One



5th July 1980

Berlin

For Inga to have one of the teenagers that she worked with being her niece was not a surprise. Most of her nieces and nephews had gone through similar things and some of them had even spent time with Inga, it was what she did.

The other students in the Youth Center had gone home for the day, leaving Inga with her niece who she had taken for the weekend as a favor to Tilo and Nancy. Cleaning up was going to take awhile so Inga was happy to have the help even if Anna wanted to do nothing but pout. All the students who had been referred to Inga were considered at risk and/or troubled, so Anna didn’t stand out in the least. The others had simply recognized that she was going through some things and left her alone. Inga had heard all about Anna’s behavior over the last few years, playing the Queen Bee and the bullying. The trouble was that her peers had outgrown that sort of behavior and had fallen away from her clique. Anna, who had already been lonely and insecure throughout adolescence had found herself living in fear of being surrounded by those who would have loved nothing better than to expose her deepest secrets out of revenge. Anna had reacted by doing what any member of their family would have done by going on the offensive. It had not gone well, only succeeding in making things worse.

Anna had managed to get a passing score when she had sat her Abitur. This was after having to convince her school that she would get that passing score because they had felt that her failure would make the school look bad. Inga understood that was part of the curse of having high profile parents. At the moment, Nancy and Anna had hardly been able to spend more than a few minutes around each other without it turning into a fight. Inga had offered to let her niece stay with her for a few days until tempers cooled. Besides, if Anna was going to be living in Berlin in a few months it would probably be a good idea for her to get to know the city.

“You are starting university this autumn” Inga said, “It’s an opportunity to start anew, I think it will be good for you.”

Anna didn’t respond, she just continued stacking chairs. Nancy had told Inga all about what had happened at Wahlstatt, how Anna had pulled the fire alarm in a fit of jealousy and like always, it amazed her just how her sister-in-law could reach the right conclusions while approaching the matter from the entirely wrong angle. Nancy thought that it was because the boys at the Wahlstatt Institute had lavished attention on Mathilda Auer instead of her. She had told Inga that she didn’t understand the animosity that her daughter felt towards Mathilda, who had come from a difficult situation and had accomplished so much at Tzschocha. Nancy felt that the two girls should have been friends as opposed to bitter rivals and didn’t understand. That was hardly a surprise considering.

“We cannot control these things” Inga said once she was certain that no one could overhear, “Your crush unknowingly rejected you, so is this how you are planning on spending the summer?”

Anna just stared at her, having gone from sulking to livid in a heartbeat. She still didn’t say anything though.

“When you told me what your little secret was back when you were thirteen, I kept my end of the bargain and didn’t tell anyone” Inga said, “Do you remember what I asked in return?”

“I hate you” Anna snapped before stomping off. A few minutes later she came back with a broom and was began attacking the floor with it. As strange as it might have sounded, that was actually progress.



Kashmir, North-West India

The region had been a battlefield in the recently concluded civil war that had wracked India for much of the last three decades. It had been a bitter conflict that had been fought along not just political lines, but sectarian as well. Malcolm had once heard a line about the Thirty-Years War in a television show; that it was hard to find a negotiated peace when both sides were convinced that God was on their side. Of course, the next line was about how convincing them of that was a delightful bit of the Devil’s handiwork. That perfectly described the situation that the expedition had found in Kashmir when they had arrived in India with the heavy presence of the Indian Army after the losing side of the recent conflict had turned to banditry. The representative of Indian Government had warned them that it was suspected that the other side was gearing up for another round, but currently lacked the resources. That had been a delightful thing to hear, shades of the Greco-Turkish mess with aspects of the Chinese conflict thrown in. Perhaps it was understandable that the Indian Government had responded to the presence of the expedition by burying them in red tape and insisting that a large contingent of the Indian Army escort them to the base camp. All of the expedition’s gear had needed to be accounted for and God help them if it fell into the wrong hands.

Despite all of that, the expedition had managed to leave Lahore by train with only manageable delays. What Malcolm had not mentioned to anyone was that he had hidden in the bottom of his pack the high-resolution maps of K2 and the surrounding region. The Indian Government would be extremely upset if they knew those existed. That was a small thing though as the expedition was going to have to figure out how to get tons of equipment and supplies from the railhead to the base camp across hundreds of kilometers of rugged territory. Oddly, Malcolm felt that he was doing exactly what he was meant to.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Two



6th July 1980

Tempelhof, Berlin

Sophie looked at the frame of her bicycle and wished that the paint would dry faster. All the parts were in boxes scattered about the shed and she needed to have it reassembled and tuned before she left for Moscow. Fortunately she had Doug helping her.

“I thought that you said that red bicycles go faster” Sophie said, unhappy about what they were doing. Giving a bicycle a rattle can finish that looked good had been something that Doug had taught her when they panted it. She had painted several other bicycles since then but had never wanted to touch the paint on this one.

“Yes, I said that” Doug said, “But I figure that whatever bike you happen to be riding is going faster, under the paint it will still be the same bicycle.”

They had stripped the red paint off Sophie’s favorite bicycle and were replacing it with the black, white, and silver, the team colors of the Black Eagles. They had already sprayed on the flat-black primer coat. Sophie had been advised that her no-name bicycle, with its bright red paint which had become famous after she won a gold medal riding it in Montreal, was considered a likely target of sabotage. This was as the team on a whole had been warned that cheating was expected to be rife at the Summer Games in Moscow despite the best efforts of the IOC and a small army of officials they had hired. Sophie was really starting to understand why so many of her elders had an almost pathological hatred of all things Russian.

Sophie sorted through the cans of gloss black that would go on the next layer. Then the rolls of masking tape, along with the cans of white and silver to finish it. They were going to do the three-color paint-scheme that was popular with racing bikes everywhere. Alida Baruch, the Head Coach of Women’s Cycling team would probably be happy to see that she had done this. It didn’t matter that Sophie was the Captain of the Black Eagles, Alida had been pressuring her to show more solidarity with the team because she was hoping that they would do better this time in team events.

“I figure that steel is a lot easier to paint than fiberglass” Doug said with a smile. He was referring to the incident last year where Sophie had helped her friend Ziska paint her prosthetic leg in bright stripes, much to the horror of Ziska’s mother. When Ziska had explained the idea to Sophie she had explained that she was tired of hiding that her right leg ended just below her knee. So why not make a statement? The trouble was that the process of painting the fiberglass was rather different from painting a bicycle frame.

“Yeah” Sophie replied.



Near Tyson, Vermont

This had not been Stevie’s idea, if anything he would have run the other way if he had been given a choice. His parents had heard that as the child of an Army Officer he was eligible to attend Camp Laconia in distant Vermont with Uncle Sam footing the bill and Dad was a Chief Warrant Officer. It would be fun they said, he would spend most of summer vacation doing all sorts of fun things as opposed to moping around Fort Meade like he had last year.

Of course, Stevie wasn’t stupid. He had lost count of how often he had to listen to his father talking about how the first rule in every Army throughout all of history was to never volunteer. And the second rule; always get cash up front because nothing was free. Doud had found all of that hilarious, because he was on the same bus that had left Fort Meade with fifty other kids back in June. The part that had been left unsaid, the thing that Stevie had been volunteered for and the real cost had been on full display from pretty much the instant they got off the bus.

As it turned out Camp Laconia was far worse than Stevie had imagined. The name said it all, Laconia. The Camp’s Staff had made a point of telling them that the name had its origins in Ancient Sparta and while throwing boys who didn’t measure up off a cliff wasn’t an option they had other means… That had something to do with him being too exhausted to do more than fall into bed each night and not wake up until they were rudely awakened just before sunrise. The days had been filled with long hikes through the woods, mostly up steep hills, followed by what were deemed practical lessons. Even things that should have been fun like swimming became grueling trials with a whole lot of yelling involved. Admittedly, the Camp Counselors teaching them target shooting with real guns had been a whole lot of fun. Stevie had never seen a .22 rifle before he had gotten here, but he had earned a marksman’s badge which he had been happy about for a few minutes.

What confounded Stevie though was Doud. At first glance, Doud would be extremely unlikely to do well in Camp Laconia. Instead, he seemed to know how to do everything that was asked of them backwards and forwards. Doud had told Stevie that it wasn’t that different from what his father demanded of him anyway. Still, Doud figured out a way to subvert the whole thing by keeping a set of D&D dice in his pocket, something that he had told no one else.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Three



11th July 1980

Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island

When Mike had arrived at Surface Warfare School in Newport, he had been told that he would spend most of his time studying. What no one had told was that beyond learning systems in the classroom, there was a good chance that those studies would take him in some odd directions.

Perhaps it was morbid curiosity, but after Little Mike had read a few reports about the German U-Boat Flotilla he had found a copy of Janes Fighting Ships, 1978-79 that had provided him with additional information. He had also discovered the alphabet soup of German Boat-types that served alongside the larger, better-known ships of the High Seas Fleet. That had led Mike down a rabbit hole comparing the ship of various Navies to that of the United States Navy and what he had figured out much of what he had believed about the international situation was wrong.

The British Navy was a shadow of what it had been decades earlier, barely able to meet its obligations under the European Mutual Defense Treaty much less police what was left of the British Empire. While not as badly off, the French Navy wasn’t exactly up to snuff either. The Italians and Germans had been forced to take up the slack, especially since oil and gas in the North Sea had become a strategic consideration. Curiously, for all the hype that the German High Seas Fleet got, a large part of their Navy was comprised of boats that were geared to operate in Littoral waters namely the Baltic and much of the North Sea. The small R-Boats, originally intended to be Minesweepers, with their shallow draft and Voith-Schneider Propellers were actually the most common vessel in German service and that was their main area of operation. The R-boats were joined in that region by the remaining S-Boats leftover from WW2 and the newer SK-Boats that were meant to replace the S-Boats.

The US Navy didn’t have anything quite like that. There were boats that the Navy operated in the Sacramento and Mississippi River Deltas, and the harbor patrol boats that anyone who had attended Annapolis would be familiar with. Nothing on the same scale though. When Mike had brought that up with one of his Instructors, he had it pointed out to him that area of operation was normally taken up by the US Coast Guard, enabling the US Navy to take a wider view. Mike wasn’t quite certain if that was correct or not so he had held his tongue. The Instructor’s response had been to give Mike a paperback book to read over the weekend titled The Greyhound by Louis Ferdinand Prinz von Preussen Jr. It had looked like a dense read when Mike had started it the prior Friday evening, but he had finished it over the weekend. It was the story of SMS Fast Gunboat (SK)12 “Windhund” of the Kaiserliche Marine from the perspective of Louis von Preussen when he had commanded her, first in the North Sea and later in the Adriatic as a Flotilla leader. While it was obvious that von Preussen had a high opinion of himself, he really had done the things mentioned in the book. Pursuing pirates and smugglers off Dalmatia were featured along with the cloak and dagger activity that had gone into the hunt for two Turkish Q-ships that had been preying on shipping were mentioned. Finally there was mention of an odd incident where German and American Special Forces had gone after an elusive Arms Kingpin in a joint operation. Mike had asked around about that and discovered the mission that had been mentioned in Louis von Preussen’s book was still considered classified from the American side. At the conclusion was mention of an encounter with American Navy Captain James Carter and a brief talk they had while watching an Austrian Destroyer get cut up in the breaker’s yard. Mike realized that was Rear Admiral Carter, the Deputy Commander at Naval Command Norfolk.

When Mike had asked why no one on either side of the Atlantic seemed to have an issue with Louis von Preussen including all that in his book, he had gotten an odd look. Did he really have no idea who the author of the book was? It was not as if Mike had had the time to pay much attention to supermarket tabloids over the last few years.



Tehachapi, California

Stanley’s mother had always said that his father had taken a bad turn after they had broken up shortly after he had been born. Stanley’s grandfather had a different take, namely that Stanley’s father had always been a piece of shit, just his daughter had been unable to see it until she had come to her senses and gave him the boot. Both of those things were certainly plausible, Stanley tried to live in the now, so he didn’t really care about that. The rub was that now was probably far worse than the then. It was sort of hard to argue that the Maximum-Security Wing of the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi was basically Hell on Earth was the present now.

It was only by some weird twist of fate that this meeting was taking place in the Guard’s break room as opposed to the prison’s visiting area.

“Good to see you, Stan” Stanley’s father said as he sat a scoped rifle down on the table in front of him. Stanley had once heard that the only difference between the prisoners and the guards was that they wore different colored uniforms. His father was proof of that considering some of the things that Stanley knew he had done. These days he spent his days atop the prison’s walls watching for the sort of trouble that would swiftly be fixed by putting a bullet through someone’s head.

“Just what do you want Dad?” Stanley asked.

“I can’t catch up with my boy?” Stanley’s father asked in reply.

“You only call when you want something” Stan said.

Stanley’s father just sat there with a fixed smile on his face and Stanley just knew that whatever it was, he wasn’t going to like it.