Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Fourteen



10th July 1969

Tempelhof, Berlin

Aunt Marcella had moved into the flat near the University Hospital because she wanted to live near her family without living with them. Between the sale of the machining business and the house in Pankow-Heinersdorf, she was fairly well off. Just the difficulties of her age had started to pile up, like the real reason she had sold the house after discovering that she could no longer physically maintain it. Or today, when her grandniece had come to help with a project that would have been something that she would have handled with ease just a decade earlier. Still, Marcella was able to live independently, which was important to her own sense of self-worth.

It had been a bit surprising when Marie Alexandra had come to her door. Kat had warned Marcella that Marie was going through a difficult time and that much should have been obvious by the fact that she was dressed exactly like her mother might have thirty years earlier. Marcella knew that look all too well. Oversized, shapeless clothes that completely hid the figure of the anyone who wore them. When given a choice, Kat had worn clothes like that from her teens right up until around the time she had met Douglas. It was obvious why Marie was dressed that way, for the same reason her mother had. She was uncomfortable with the changes to her body and the attention those brought. It was something that would only get worse as Marie got older.

Mercifully, Kat understood and didn’t try to force her daughter to do anything different. That was a mistake that Marcella had made and had only succeeded in making things worse. Kat had also mentioned some of the more outlandish costumes that Marie had tried out. And while she had made most of them sound silly, there was no hiding just how out of sorts Marie must be feeling.

Watching Marie stitch the features onto the face of the rag doll that Marcella had been making for a friend’s infant great-granddaughter was a pleasure now that she had trouble getting her fingers to move so deftly. She had tried to teach all the girls who had passed through her life how to sew, but only Marie had ever wanted to learn beyond the basics, with Marcella teaching her how to alter and repair clothes a few years earlier.

“Was it you who named the doll I gave you Kora?” Marcella asked.

“No” Marie replied, “That was Tatiana, I named mine Noemi.”

“Noemi” Marcella said, “Such a strange name for a little girl to choose.”

“It was from a television show” Marie replied, “There was this character named Noemi who I wanted as a friend. It seems silly now.”

“Hardly” Marcella said as she got up to take care of the electric kettle on the countertop. Where Tatiana had always been outgoing, Marie had always been more refined, cerebral. That had made it difficult for her to make friends early on. It was sort of funny how Kat was at a loss when it came to dealing with her daughters, both of whom exhibited different aspects of her. Pouring hot water into the tea kettle to seep, Marcella turned to see that Marie was already there to help her carry the tea and biscuits to the table. Despite Kat’s worries, both Tatiana and Marie Alexandra were good girls. The same could be said about the rest of Kat’s unorthodox extended family as well. Like Kat herself, Marie would find a dear friend or two in time.

Once they were settled back at the table. Marcella asked, “Just who was this Noemi?”

Marie smiled at that as she resumed work on the doll. It was at that moment that Marcella had an insight that her grandniece would continue the tradition of making these dolls.



In transit, Eastern Pacific

The other Medical Staff aboard the ship said that this was probably the most restful leg of the journey, from Panama to Western Samoa. For Kiki, it was spent studying the varied missions of the SMS Antonia Marie and her role in them.

The three Princesses had been named for Kristina’s three sisters, SMS Marie Cecilie, SMS Victoria Augusta, and SMS Antonia Marie. There had once been SMS Prinzessin Kristina, but she had been renamed when Kiki had joined the Medical Service and stricken when her obsolescence could no longer be denied. All three ships were identical with the same purpose-built hull that was two hundred sixty meters in length, with a beam of thirty-three meters. The ten surgical suites, a radiological suite, intensive care unit, a dozen patient wards, laboratory facilities, quarantine bays, double helipads with hanger facilities, extensive freezers, and refrigerated storage. It was clear from looking at the lengthy list of supplies kept on board, stocking them must have been a real boon for the pharmaceutical industry back home because it looked as if they had delivered more than a bit of everything. The current setup was for one ship to be at sea, the second on standby, and the third in for refit. It all made Kiki’s head spin to think about it all.

Kiki was the Commanding Officer of the FSR Company based aboard the SMS Antonia as well as the Marine Infantry Platoon that saw to the ship’s security. That made her privy not just to the explicitly stated mission of the Antonia of providing medical services wherever they were needed, but the secret mission that she had been tasked with as well. The Antonia was a key part of the planning for the continuity of the German State in the event of a nuclear war. The mainframe computer aboard her held the digital backups of the medical files of every citizen of the German Empire and anyone who received services from the Joint Medical Service. In the event of war, the Antonia was to steam south into a remote corner of the Southern Ocean and await further instructions. The Antonia and her sister ships could remain at sea for months if they needed to.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Fifteen



18th July 1969

Western Samoa

The stated mission of the hospital ships was to help stitch the Empire together, to make even people living in the most distant portions of it feel like they were a part of something bigger. There was also a substantial amount of international goodwill that they generated by responding to disasters regardless of politics. It was said that SMS Antonia and her sisters were worth a thousand Divisions for the work that they did, more than paying for themselves. Kiki was reminded of that by how busy she had been since the Antonia had arrived in Western Samoa.

The patient was huge, two meters tall and a hundred and forty kilograms. That was the first thing that Kiki noticed as she introduced herself to him. His paper file had been transferred from the clinic on the island and a fresh X-ray had been conducted that morning. So, they had all information was up to date.

“You broke your hip last year in a fall and were treated aboard the Marie Cecilie?” Kiki asked.

“You’re really a Doctor?” The man said with a disbelieving smile.

“Yes, and it only took me a decade” Kiki replied, “It says that we are removing the screws that have held your femur together.”

With that she looked back at the X-Ray that had been taken that afternoon and saw a healed fracture with orthopedic screws that were dwarfed by the size of the patient set into it. This time, when the SMS Antonia arrived, he had come aboard with a letter from his regular physician saying that he had had persistent pain and a negative reaction to the screws set in the bone of his hip and that removal was recommended due to the risk of future infection. She couldn’t imagine the support structure required for a man this size to recover from such an injury, or what he would need in the coming days as the holes left by removing the screws would present a weakness until they were filled in with new bone growth. Cases like this were exactly the reason why she had wanted to go on the hospital ships in the first place though.

“Now, you’ve followed the instructions?” Kiki asked, “No food for the last twenty-four hours?”

The man’s smile vanished, and Kiki heard his stomach growl. Apparently, he had followed the instructions, but he didn’t seem so happy about it though.

“My brother is planning a feast for me when I get home in a couple of days” The man replied.

“Really?” Kiki asked, “What are we talking about here?”

The man seemed delighted to tell Kiki all about the spread of food that his family was preparing. Her understanding was that the people who lived on these islands considered even relatively minor surgery to be huge deal and that she needed to respect that. Keeping the man talking made getting him through the preparation easier until Kiki handed him off to the Anesthesiologist. It was her lot to prepare the patient because the Orthopedist she would be assisting said she was better at that sort of thing. It took a few minutes to thoroughly wash her hands and arms, but the nature of the SMS Antonia and her means of propulsion meant that hot water, electricity, and even the live steam that was used by the operating theater’s autoclaves were in abundant supply. So, Kiki understood that she wouldn’t need to act as if this were really in the field.



Tempelhof, Berlin

Both Sophie and Ziska smelled of chlorine when they came into Marie Alexandra’s bedroom. They had gone swimming after school and were chattering excitedly about how they were going to camp over the Summer Holiday this year. There had been a bit of disappointment when they had learned that they wouldn’t be spending the holiday at Hohenzollern Castle this year, but being at a lake high up in the Alps and living in a cabin was almost as good of an adventure. They were leaving in a few days and Marie wished that she were going with them, as strange as that sounded. Instead, she was going to Canada to spend August with her grandparents. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why her parents were making her go. Marie knew that Oma Blackwood hated her for some reason. The few times that she had met her paternal grandmother that much had been perfectly clear. Marie’s father said that was the exact reason why she needed to go, because his mother didn’t really know her and that needed to change. He also mentioned that both his parents were getting on in years and the time for petty nonsense was over. So, she was going to Canada for the summer and that was that.

What was proving to be the most difficult part for Marie so far was that her mother had said that she could only bring one suitcase. That was why she was trying to pack only the basics, or her idea of the basics anyway and her mother kept telling her to try again. It wasn’t as if her mother hadn’t offered to help, but the thought of excepting that help was infuriating. Marie wasn’t a little girl and didn’t want to be treated like one.

So, Marie was once again packing the suitcase as Sophie and Ziska messed about with her extensive wardrobe. They seemed to be rather delighted by the prospect.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Sixteen



20th July 1969

Montreal, Canada

The airplane landing woke Marie Alexandra. The sounds of the brakes and the big turboprop engines reversing their pitch filled the cabin. Marie felt as if she was about to be pitched out of her seat and the paperback book that had been sitting on her lap tumbled onto the floor by her feet. The businessman who was seated next to her gave Marie a look of annoyance. He had asked for a different seat when he had seen that he would be seated next to her but on the crowded flight from New York City to Montreal he had no luck. Not that it had mattered. As soon as the plane had taken off, she had fallen asleep and had not bothered him during the flight.

This was the second airplane that Marie had been on over the course of this journey. The first had been a big Lufthansa airliner that had crossed the Atlantic the night before. She had not understood the relative luxury that had represented until she had seen the Air Canada turboprop that would take her on the last leg to Montreal. It had looked like a creature from another era, rising from the tarpits to terrorize the local villagers or something. Looking out the window, Marie saw the plane was turning off the runway and was rolling towards what was presumably the main terminal building. It rolled to a stop and there was a wave of fresh air as the door at the back of the cabin was opened after the engines shut down.

Everyone else on the airplane seemed to get to their feet at once, eager to leave. As an unaccompanied minor, she just hated that term, Marie was to remain in her seat until the airline sent someone to retrieve her. That had not been fun in New York. She must have been one of the last people off the plane and a rather matronly agent from Lufthansa had practically held her hand as had she guided Marie to the Air Canada waiting area.

This was no different as Marie watched the other passengers file off the airplane and down the stairs to the tarmac. Eventually, a woman in her mid-thirties who had the same air as one of the Stewardesses that Marie had encountered came around with a pin and nametag that announced to the world that she was from Canada Air Customer Relations which Marie assumed meant that she was another agent from the airline. “Are you Marie Blackwood?” She asked in Canadian French with a smile, before repeating the question in English.

Marie was tired, having had hardly slept the night before. She just wanted off this plane and didn’t feel like answering obvious questions. She considered answering in Korean, but with her red hair no one would believe that she was Asian for a second.

“Yes” Marie replied as she retrieved her book from the floor.

“Well good morning then” The woman said, “I understand that I am to escort you to customs where your grandfather is waiting for you.”

“Thank you” Marie said, for lack of anything better to say as she shoved her book into the satchel bag that she was using as a combination purse/bookbag and followed the woman off the plane.

“Your Grandfather is an important man” The woman said, “So, we don’t mind helping you out.”

Marie almost said that her mother was the Fürstin of Berlin, which was just as important. But thought better of it when she realized that would mean little here on this side of the Atlantic. Here in Canada, Marie’s Grandfather had recently retired for the last time from the Canadian Defense Ministry, having been an Officer in the Canadian Army and heading their Counterintelligence Agency. Collecting her suitcase went swiftly and Marie was briefly thankful that her mother had insisted that it not weigh a thousand kilograms as she carried it into the airport’s International Arrivals section where Customs was. Marie had two passports, but her mother had insisted that she travel with the Canadian passport if she was going to North America. She had said that it would save Marie a lot of bother. That much was clear when the Customs Agent asked her a few questions, welcomed her home, and waved her through. That all seemed very odd to Marie, the Borough of Tempelhof in Berlin had always been home for her. Yet as far as the Canadians were concerned, Marie was from Montreal because that was where her father had come from. They also thought of her as Marie Blackwood because they did things differently here. Back home, her father was the consort of her mother who was the one with the title. Here in Canada, Marie was the granddaughter of Sir Malcolm Blackwood. That effectively reversed things. Marie was a bit engrossed in her thoughts as she walked out of customs that wasn’t really paying a whole lot of attention to her surroundings.

“Marie Alexandra?” A voice asked in greeting and Marie was a bit startled. Sir Malcolm was standing there with a delighted smile on his face.

“Opa” Marie said returning the smile.

“If you let Simon take your suitcase, we’ve a lot to catch up on”

It was with a bit of embarrassment that Marie realized that her Grandfather’s aide was offering to take the suitcase.

“I’m terribly sorry” Marie said as she handed Simon the suitcase.

“Don’t be” Sir Malcolm said, “You look asleep on your feet. So, how are your parent’s.”

“They said that they were looking forward to having a child free house for the summer the last I saw of them when they dropped me off at the airport yesterday” Marie said, and Sir Malcolm laughed.

“As well they should” Malcolm said as they walked towards the waiting car.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Seventeen



25th July 1969

Mitte, Berlin

It had been some time since Zella had made it to the V8 Club on a Friday night, having come to dislike the crowds who came to see the headliners. But this was a band whose album she had recently reviewed, so Zella felt compelled to see them live. As of yet she wasn’t too impressed. Studio engineers were wizards when it came to making even mediocre dreck sound compelling and radio promotions departments could hype it beyond belief. The band itself, playing in front of a crowd while playing their own instruments was even more hazardous than a trapeze artist preforming without a net. The trapeze artist didn’t have to worry about the ground getting angry and start throwing verbal abuse and beer bottles at him. Some bands could kill during a live set, others like the one Zella was watching now, just died up there.

Mercifully, the set ended, and the sound of murmuring conversation was filling the room. It took Zella a minute to figure out what was going on. “There is a cruise, rally, or something happening on A10 and it sounds like a big deal” One of the other patrons said as he headed for the door, a small part of the mass exodus. A few minutes later, Zella found herself sitting alone at the bar unable to tell who looked more dismayed, the waitresses who had just seen all their customers leave or the band who had just found themselves playing for an empty room. Zella almost found herself feeling sorry for them.

“This is why we always get cash up front” Elis said chuckling, “And why are you still here Zee?”

“I’ve a job to do” Zella replied as she tilted her head towards the band.

“I’d say the real action is out there, wherever that crowd is going” Elis said with chuckle, “If you leave now you can still catch up.”

Even as Elis said it, Zella knew that he was probably right. Grabbing her bag and helmet, she ran for the door. The members of the band gave her sour looks as she passed them. Zella just shrugged, so as to say; “Better luck next time guys.”

She got outside just as the other stragglers were starting up. Buckling her helmet’s strap under her chin, Zella kicked her K3 motorcycle to life before pulling the goggles over her eyes. In the short time that the BMW K3 had been in production it had developed a reputation as a tire shredder, even with ones like the one Zella had, which had been modified into a café racer. That was why she didn’t open the throttle all the way as she took off in pursuit of the red taillights that she saw turning west at the end of the street onto B1. Picturing the likely course that everyone seemed to be taking in the mental map of the city that she had, Zella figured that they would only take B1 as far as B96, then it would be a straight shot south on B96 to A100, which would take them A13 and eventually A10, the orbital highway that circled the city.

Turning south, Zella raced down surface streets until she reached where Wilhelmstrasse ran into B96 just a few minutes before the others who had left V8 Club caught up with her. Zella took her place among the leaders as they proceeded south. At every crossing they were joined by more riders until they reached A100 in Tempelhof. As she reached the ramp that went from the surface streets up onto A100, Zella stopped and looked back up B96 and could see the headlights of hundreds of motorcycles coming down the avenue.

Not wanting to be eating the dust and exhaust of others, Zella took off after the leaders, her K3 quickly making up the distance as she chased them south through Schönefeld. She had been this way dozens of times, had even ridden all the way around all two hundred kilometers of the A10 just to say she had. This felt different though, something deeper, almost primal. The pace changed when they reached the exchange for A10, moving faster, racing through the night. Zella saw the cars of unsuspecting motorists, faces pale, looking out in shock as they saw that they were suddenly surrounded by dozens of motorcycles speeding past them. The A10 turned north and started the long curve to the west that would take it around the city outskirts. Eventually, Zella noticed that few taillights were visible ahead of her as she was among the leaders of this… Whatever this even was.

Zella was only dimly aware of the speed and distance as the interchange between A10 and A24 came and the pace slowed enough to make the turn south. What seemed like an absurdly short time later, they came to a filling station somewhere on the outskirts of Werder. It was a warm summer night and the air outside the city smelled of plants, looking up at the flood lights Zella could see that it was full of insects as well. She was glad that she remembered the goggles. The other leaders were parking at an all-night diner that looked to be the sort of establishment that catered to Lory Drivers.

“Who the Hell are you?” One of the other riders asked.

“A journalist of sorts” Zella replied, “I wanted to see what was going on is all.”

“That’s a girl?” One of the others asked having just heard Zella’s voice.

“Going for a cup of coffee” One of the men said, “Not a big deal, we just wanted to go the long way around for bragging rights. You know?”

Zella burst out laughing as she saw dozens of motorcycles passing by on the A10 unaware that the leaders were no longer out front. “Is the coffee here worth the ride?” She asked.

“One way to find out” The man who had said what this had actually been about replied and Zella realized that he was absolutely correct.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Eighteen



27th July 1969

Mitte, Berlin

Everyone was interested in the strange happening that had occurred the previous Friday. Zella had gotten the story because she been right in the middle of it, because of course she had, Maria thought sourly to herself knowing full well that she was thinking the same thoughts that her Editors must have thought about her decades earlier. Maria had lost count of the times she had told Zella not to become a part of the story, but there she was interviewing a handful of young men who had led what must have been every Rocker and Gear Freak in Berlin on wild ride around the city at speeds of upwards two-hundred kilometers per hour. The photograph that ran on the front page of the Berliner Tageblatt had been taken on the side of the road somewhere along Autobahn 10 was absolutely surreal. Headlights of dozens of motorcycles stretching back in the distance, in the foreground two riders raced past in a blur.

Zella had gotten the story and then raced back to the offices of the BT early Saturday morning, just in time to get it into the Sunday edition. All for a Cup of Coffee? the headline read, even if it was below the fold. The article detailed the strange sequence of events, from the clubs in the City Center emptying out to the race around the orbital highway and finally to an all-night diner near Werder. Despite Maria’s misgivings about her daughter, it was actually a beautifully written article. It seemed that all the hours that Maria had punished Zella by making her learn to type had paid off.

There was a profound irony in all of this though.

A few years earlier, Maria would have been overjoyed at seeing Zella applying herself and finally coming into her own professionally. That had been when Zella had been in her early twenties and showing no sign of putting aside her wild teenage behavior. Things had changed, but Maria was starting to quibble that perhaps it had come at too high a cost. Zella never talked about it, but she had been taken advantage of and that had hurt in ways that she had never gotten over.

Sure, Zella had gotten revenge in a way that had probably been particularly satisfying at least for that moment. Years later, she was still living at home and seeming content to be alone. Or was she afraid? One of Maria’s friends had used to term “arrested development” to describe Zella and had asked what she intended to do about her. Maria was at a bit of a loss.

Emil was still saying that Zella was fine and that she would sort it out eventually. Then he had pointed out that their daughter was about the age that Maria was when she had met him. Reminding her of the hairbrained stunt to sneak onto the airfield where he commanded the security and everything that had happened in Spain shortly after. It was rather easy for him to say that. His relationship with Zella had always been far simpler than for Maria.



Montreal, Canada

The previous days had been spent getting settled. Meals were what Marie Alexandra had the hardest time getting used to. They preferred to have the big meal of the day for supper and she had not liked eating that much at the end of the day. None of this was helped by Oma Blackwood looking at her like if she were a bomb that could go off at any second. Opa Blackwood had told Marie that she needed to be patient with her grandmother. Still, it was obvious that her actual reputation preceded her to Canada because when they had gone to church on Sunday morning, Sir Malcolm had made a point of making sure that she was seated between himself and Oma so that her causing any trouble was more or less impossible without getting caught.

It had been her mother’s idea to pretend to be Catholic and to get pointers from Aunt Ilse, that probably being the fastest way to win over Oma Blackwood. Ilse had grown up as an orphan after being abandoned on the steps of a church when she was only a few hours old, so she had years of experience of pretending to be Catholic before she had embraced Agnostic skepticism as an adult. That was why Marie was able to go through the motions in a way that kept Oma Blackwood happy for the moment. It was afterwards when Opa and Oma went to speak with the Priest that Marie caused a bit of trouble when her curiosity got the better of her.

There was a man handing out pamphlets to the parishioners as they left the church. He was tall, with dark skin and white hair denoting great age. He was wearing what was obviously a well-maintained suit, even if it looked rather old. Marie took one of his pamphlets and saw that a poem was printed on it.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the Sun?

Or fester like sore-

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over-

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Marie looked at the title, Harlem by Langston Hughes. On the back was a lengthy description of a meeting that was going to take place that Wednesday at a different church in Montreal, the subject being Civil Rights.

Looking at the man, Marie greeted him how she might have had she run into such a man in Berlin. “Habari gani?” She asked getting a quizzical look from the man.

“Pardon?” The man asked in French, though with an unmistakable American accent.

“How are you?” Marie replied, “In Swahili.”

“Exactly why would you assume I would know that?”

“Most of the Africans I know back home speak that” Marie replied.

“And you thought I would too?” The man asked.

“I was trying to be polite” Marie replied, “And I love languages, Swahili is one I need to practice in.”

The quizzical look on the man’s face changed to one of amusement. “That is not something I was expecting to hear” He said, “Exactly where is home that you would meet actual Africans?”

“You’re not African?” Marie asked.

“History happened” The man said, “So, I am something a bit different.”

Before he could elaborate further, Sir Malcolm and Oma Blackwood walked past. “Don’t bother that gentleman Marie” Sir Malcolm said, it was in a tone that caused the man to look for safer conversations to have. A moment later, Marie heard Oma Blackwood mention that Marie had her mother’s impulsive nature, Sir Malcolm quietly pointed out that Douglas was the impulsive one. Either way, Marie didn’t see what the problem with that was.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Nineteen



29th July 1969

Český Krumlov, Bohemia

It had come as something of a shock to Michael when Birdie had come to Prague this year saying that she was going to the Český Krumlov International Music Festival to see the Baroque Opera and that he was going to be her date. His advisors had watched with a great deal of amusement. It seemed that the Lady had decided that she had enough of Bohemia having a bachelor for a King and was moving things along in her own way. The twenty-year-old Princess was about to start her fourth year at the University of Breslau, where she had been studying Environmental Sciences. The result was that Michael tended to see her on holidays as she was passing through on her way to Italy or Greece unless she had a pressing need to return to England.

The organizers of the Festival were ecstatic when they learned that Michael was coming along with his guest. They had been planning a performance of L’incoronazione di Poppea for months, but the presence of Michael had caused them to pull out all the stops. Tonight, as he watched, Michael wished that he shared the love of Opera that Birdie had. She sat beside him, holding his left arm while completely enraptured by the unfolding story on the stage in the simulated candlelight of the Castle Theater of Český Krumlov. Michael had been a bit disappointed that they had arrived too late in the day to see the castle’s famous bears, he personally would have found that a bit more interesting than the opera he was watching. Birdie was happy and that seemed most important. She was a lot like Michael’s sisters in that she tended to treasure anything that was genuine, especially if it was given without anything asked in return. Michael agreeing to take her to see this was exactly that.

Still, Michael’s mind kept drifting as he grew bored. The recent plebiscite in Galicia and Ruthenia was the first thing that came to mind. It had concluded in the anticlimax that everyone had been expecting. What had been unexpected was what Rea had done. She had traveled all over the nascent kingdom campaigning for the draft constitution. At the same time, it was the introduction of herself as the Queen of a diverse nation, but she had not mentioned that. Instead she had sold a staggering percentage of the population on a constitution that she said gave everyone a place in their nation. Michael had been one of the first to congratulate Rea when the returns had come in. She had certainly not expected that herself.

Then there were the 1972 Olympic Games coming up in Munich. Michael knew that he would need to put aside the time to start training if he was going to qualify for Equestrian and Shooting events again. That had proven difficult for him as there seemed to be a million different demands that needed to be addressed, usually all at once.



Montreal, Canada

“You are quite the little actress” Sir Malcolm said, “But what you are doing is ill advised because you are not as convincing as you think.”

“Excuse me?” Marie asked, trying to act innocent though she knew that there could be at least a dozen, if not more things he could be referring to.

Opa Blackwood had asked to speak with her, saying that it was a matter of some import. It seemed that she had been caught out over something. Just what though?

“Last Sunday, you were both polished and clumsy at different turns” Malcolm said, “The thing about ritual is that people doing it don’t often look like are trying to stay in character when they are doing it.”

“Oh” Marie replied, feeling deflated because she had done all that in an effort to try to keep the peace.

“Your grandmother will be extremely upset if she figures it out” Malcolm said, “So, I suggest that you do better next week.”

At that point Marie looked at Malcolm as if he had grown a second head.

“I understand the reasons for your actions” Malcolm said.

“How did she not notice if you did?” Marie asked.

“Margot expects you to behave in the way your mother does” Malcolm replied, “Both of them are extremely headstrong, determined women. So, it is hardly a surprise that they would clash with each other. Katherine has always been in the far stronger position, which makes Margot feel rather uncomfortable. That was why it was actually a great relief to her when you didn’t talk back to Father Comtois or something along those lines.”

“Oma was expecting me to do something like that?” Marie asked, slightly horrified that so little was thought of her.

“Just the fact that you use German terms to address us is a bit of a provocation, albeit not a deliberate one” Malcolm replied, “It is little things like that which remind us that there is just as much of your mother in you as there is of your father. You need to forgive all of us adults for not always acting the part.”

Marie didn’t quite understand all of that, so she just nodded and pretended in the same manner she did when her mother was lecturing her about her latest transgression.

“Good” Malcolm said, “The other thing I wanted to talk to you about was if you would be interested in being around people your own age? There is a social function coming up with Literary Society that Margot is a member of and there will be the children and grandchildren of the other members around. Introductions can be made.”

Marie just sat there staring at Sir Malcolm for a long moment. Unsure what to say about that. The sorts of introductions he was talking about were the sort of thing that she dreaded. It was always awkward, and she never seemed to say the right thing. Then there was the inevitable moment when whoever she was being introduced to decided that she was strange.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty



31st July 1969

Wuhan, China

The South had staged a mass uprising against the rule of Beijing late in the prior year. General Pan Yong’s advice to the Generalissimo had been to allow him to go down there and crush it before the cancerous sedition spread, which regrettably had not happened. Secretly, Pan also had a personal motive in that it was his rival turned nemesis, General Sun Li-jen who had emerged as the Commander of the Southern rebels. Throughout his entire career Pan had labored in the shadow of Sun, and he relished the thought of proving forever that he was the greater man. Instead, Chiang Kai-shek had ordered Pan to guard and maintain order in the capital. This was much to his great frustration as the National Army suffered a series of embarrassing reverses over the prior winter. Then when spring came, the Generalissimo had finally relented and sent Pan south at the head of an Army numbering almost a million men.

Thirty-one years earlier, during the Japanese War, a part of what would later come to be the far wider Pacific War, a series of battles had been fought around Wuhan. The result had been an unlikely strategic victory by the Chinese Army that had bought them time to reposition their supplies and forces in a way that enabled them to continue the war for the following seven years. Pan Yong had started his career in that battle as a Captain leading an Infantry Company and had swiftly rose in rank after that. So, as the Rebel Army had moved north intelligence had swiftly ascertained that the most likely route crossing the Yangtze River would take them through Wuhan. For Pan the symmetry was too much to be ignored. The same place that had been the site of his personal beginning becoming where his greatest triumph would occur being the neat bookends of his career, it seemed ordained by the Heavens. He would return to Beijing in victory and began anew, right after he finished disposing of a particular Generalissimo who had clearly outlived his usefulness.



Potsdam

Manny had little use for pistols. He couldn’t recall which Western film it had been, but there was a line about how they were only good for shooting people and snakes, either tended to cause trouble. Over his short career, that had been Manny’s experience. Still though, he had been told that as a Lieutenant in the First Foot he needed to qualify with a pistol. He had put it off for as long as he could, but here he was at the indoor shooting range today wasting an afternoon that could have been spent in a thousand other, far more productive ways.

That was also why Manny had been issued with a Mauser-Seidel P67 pistol. It was the latest iteration of the breach locking version of the HS with the rotating barrel, all so it could be chambered in 9mm Parabellum. The only real change that had been made in recent years was that it had been modified to accept the double-stack magazines that were now standard for the entire military. Like most other Officers who said that they had no need for pistols, Manny had been given it because most of those who actually cared to have a pistol preferred something else, but the M-S P67, like all other versions of the HS series looked nice, especially when it never had to be removed from the holster.

Loading into the magazine into the pistol, Manny pulled the slide back, thumbed off the safety and fired sixteen shots at the target ten meters away, shredding the center of the paper target. He did that with two more magazines in quick succession with the additional target posters at fifteen and twenty meters.

“There” Manny said knowing that he had got a qualifying score even if he didn’t care what it was. “You get that.”

The Range Officer gave him an annoyed look as he wrote down the score. “Yes” He replied, “But it doesn’t matter Lieutenant, you are among the group is slated to take the practical shooting course at the Signals School in Anhalt next week as of yesterday morning.”

“Is that a joke?” Manny asked.

“Hardly” The Range Officer said, “But you just got a bit of practice in, didn’t you?”

“And if I had done this last week?” Manny asked.

“You wouldn’t be looking forward to a field trip to Halle.”

Manny tried to hide his annoyance at that. He had not wanted to waste a couple hours. Now he was looking forward to having to spend a couple days standing around at the Signals School taking the course and as a Lieutenant he would be expected to set an example. That meant that he would be the first one to endure whatever tortures the Noncommissioned Officers who devised it had cooked up. Manny knew full well that those were the exact circumstances where he would need to defer to them and fully expected them to take advantage of every second of it.

That was why he was grumbling as he walked back towards the Administration Services building to file his latest range score. It being the Potsdam barracks, there were reminders everywhere that they were in the middle of a fairly large city. Even so he was a bit surprised when a wall a steel raced past the end of the alley he was walking down and he found himself engulfed in a cloud of diesel exhaust as the roar of the Panzer filled the air. Looking around the corner, Manny saw a Leopard driving towards a Transporter. Suse was standing in the Commander’s Cupola with a big grin on her face, she waved when she saw Manny standing there. He was wondering exactly what she was doing here and what was going on with the Panzer.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty-One



1st August 1969

Charlottenburg, Berlin

For Suse, this was like all of the Christmases and Birthdays rolled into one as she ignored the stares that she, along with the other Engineering students she was working with received through the open bay doors as they were looking at their latest project. They had an operational Panzer VIII “Leopard” in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Berlin Technical University. Rheinmetall and the Heer wanted fresh eyes on the next stage of the evolution of Leopard. Suse had been one of the students who had been invited to take part in the project and she had not needed to think about it, she had leapt at the opportunity because it exactly the sort of thing that she was studying Mechanical Engineering in order to do.

Suse had also gone with the team that had gone to pick up the Leopard from the 2nd Life Hussars in Potsdam. There had been a surprising moment when Manfred had walked past as they were about to load it onto the transporter to take it from Potsdam to Charlottenburg. He had been wondering what she was doing there and in the cupola of a Panzer. Suse had told him that it was where she belonged because her favorite childhood memories were of riding in her father’s Panzer.

Today was different though. The serious business of examining every centimeter of the Leopard and compiling a report on exactly what improvements could be made was starting. The other thing was that Rheinmetall had introduced them to the design team that was building an improved version of the 12.8 centimeter main gun and had hinted that whoever came up with a reliable autoloader for the thing would be well rewarded after the attempts made by the various corporations had proven less than satisfactory. Suse found herself in high demand because she knew the systems and her small size was a benefit for once because she had no issues in getting into the cramped interior.



Munich

It was a bit of an odd visit. Elizabeth II of England was here in Munich to visit Vicky and Max Joseph after having gone to Berlin to meet with Louis Ferdinand a day earlier. There was also the aspect of her meeting with King Albrecht of Bavaria which was far more serious business. As strange as it sounded, there were still Jacobites out there who wanted a Stuart restoration and believed that the House of Windsor was illegitimate. The reason that made things complicated was that the current possible Stuart claimant to the British Throne just happened to be Albrecht himself, though he had never made an issue of it, mostly because he had never needed to. That was always at the forefront of everyone’s mind whenever a meeting like that took place.

Oddly, after meeting with Albrecht, Elizabeth seemed happy to listen to the latest Court gossip in Bavaria. Talking with Vicky over tea while sitting in the expansive garden of the Nymphenburg Palace. That was especially true where it concerned her eldest daughter Alberta and her campaign to convince the young King of Bohemia to marry her. In many ways that was a welcome change from Elizabeth’s concerns about her other daughter, nineteen-year-old Anne. Her other children, Eleanor and William were nine and six respectively, far too young to cause the sort of trouble that their much older siblings were very capable of.

“It is very simple” Vicky said, “Michael wants everyone to see him as being far more than just a warrior prince, he wants to be seen as a Renaissance man, a supporter of competitive sports and a Patron of the Arts.”

“That is laudable” Elizabeth replied.

“I love my big brother, but he is sort of a blunt object” Vicky said, “His horses probably know more about culture than he does and his taste in music is terrifying. When he attended the Winter Olympics in California, he developed a liking of American Country and Western music. Don’t get me started on his choice of clothes, that is even worse if you can believe it. Sports on the other hand are not a problem for him, he can bore you with that all day if you are foolish enough to bring that up with him.”

“And where does Alberta fit in to all of that?” Elizabeth asked.

“Michael needs her if he is ever going to sell people on what he has been trying to do in Prague” Vicky replied.

“Sell people what exactly?”

Vicky waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “He wants Prague to be one of the great centers of culture and learning” She said, “Mostly it is just to satisfy his own ego, but the Royal Tutor back when we were children drummed into his head that you cannot support a military machine without a vibrant society and industry. I don’t know if that is true or not, but he took that lesson to heart.”

“I see” Elizabeth said. Finding out what sort of man her daughter fancied was informative. Apparently, he was a man who listened to a sensible argument when he heard it. His sister might be completely dismissive of him, but that much was true. There was also this business of him being the one who told Alberta that she had choices in her life and her taking that to heart. It was something that Elizabeth herself had trouble communicating to her daughter.

“Birdie dragged Michael to the Opera a couple weeks ago and by some miracle he stayed awake for the whole thing” Vicky said, “That means that he cares about Birdie to some degree.” With that Max Joseph woke up and started fussing, so she pulled him out of the pram that he had been sleeping in. A nurse whose presence Elizabeth had been unaware of came out of nowhere and helped as Vicky began to unbutton her blouse. As if Elizabeth needed yet another example of the German attitudes about certain things.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty-Two



2nd August 1969

Nanjing, China

One of the oldest rules of warfare was that you should never do what your enemy thinks you should. It was one that General Sun Li-jen understood and was putting into practice by not having a battle when and where Pan Yong anticipated. The other side understood that there were few crossings of the Yangtze River that a modern Army could use, and that Pan was massing his forces at the most likely. Crossing at Nanjing was something of gamble because of the geography of the area with many potential chokepoints that were easily defended. That was why Sun had sent a token force to Wuhan to keep Pan’s forces occupied while the bulk of his army made the crossing.

The other part of the plan was to maintain room to maneuver because a set-piece battle would play into Pan’s strengths as a commander with a larger army. Sun had an ace in the hole that he was watching cross the Yangtse, dozens Lynx II tanks that had been refurbished by the Argentina and secretly transported to China via Hong Kong as a part of an arms deal brokered by a third party who the British Empire preferred to work with, John Kennedy. That had resulted in Sun’s army having the latest equipment to go along with the clandestine training that he had personally overseen. It was just proof that his rebellion had been years in the making, ever since Chiang Kai-shek had Sun reassigned to a meaningless position because he had come to be seen as an outsider shortly before the Korean debacle, which he had vocally opposed. There were just too many other world powers who had interests bound up in the Korean Peninsula for that operation to have ever been successful.

It had been that treatment as an outsider that had let Sun Li-jen see China clearly as for the first time. How they had been played again and again because they had not understood the rules of the game. How the stagnation and decay that had afflicted them for centuries hadn’t gone away despite Chiang Kai-shek’s assertions because the Generalissimo was just as much a part of it as anyone else because he valued loyalty over competence. Sun understood that eventually would become Chiang’s undoing as all of his favored underlings saw themselves as his replacement even if they lacked the wherewithal to act as yet, but not soon enough.



Cambridge, Massachusetts

The University had offered Hillary help in finding a roommate to split the cost of the apartment. She had accepted with the understanding that they would do their best to match her with someone who had shared interests and hopefully a personality that wouldn’t clash with hers. It had taken her all of five seconds to figure out that they had just looked at the names of the other first year Law Students and referred the first one to her.

“We are going to like, be the very best of friends” Velma Lloyd said as she entered the apartment carrying a potted fern and a cage containing a white ferret that stared banefully out at her. The way she talked with a California vocal fry and the things she said gave the impression that her IQ was somewhere around room temperature. As if the blond hair and blue sweatshirt with UCLA spelled across the front of it in yellow letters above a cartoon bear weren’t already big clues as to who and what she was. Hillary was dumbfounded that someone like this could possibly have gotten into Harvard Law.

Hillary heard Velma squeal in delight when saw the view out the window of her bedroom of the tree shaded backyard. “This is so much nicer than my Mom’s place in North Hollywood” Velma said as she put the fern and the ferret’s cage on the dresser.

“You didn’t say that you had a pet” Hillary said looking at the ferret as Velma walked back towards the front door. Presumably to get more stuff from her car, a red VW Rabbit with California plates that looked like it had about a million miles on it.

“Nigel is harmless” Velma said and then Hillary heard the front door close. She had the sinking feeling that she was going to be stuck with Surfer Barbie and her ferret for at least the next University term.



Montreal, Canada

The threatened meeting of the Ladies Montreal Literary Society was happening in Oma and Opa’s parlor. Marie had been ushered out of the room so that the women in the Literary Society could drink their chardonnay and argue about the books they pretended to read in peace. That was how she had found herself in the back garden with the children and grandchildren of the members as they did their best to play though there really wasn’t a whole lot to do. Mercifully, most of the children were far younger than she was, so Sir Malcolm’s suggestion that she spend time with people her own age hadn’t quite come to pass. There was a girl Marie’s age, but she gave her a sour look when tried to talk to her and pointedly went back to her book.

For lack of anything better to do, Marie tried to measure the concrete patio with her feet. It was easy to do in the ballet slippers that she was wearing. She was engrossed in that for a considerable period.

“Are you really a German Princess?” The girl asked.

“Hardly” Marie replied, “Who told you that?”

“No one” The girl said, and she went back to her book.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty-Three



3rd August 1969

Schwielochsee, Spreewald National Park

Laying in her bunk, Sophie was doing her level best to take a nap on a rainy Sunday afternoon. That was difficult with all the noise that the other three girls were making only a few meters away in the tiny cabin’s front room. How could working on a jigsaw puzzle be such a loud activity? It was a mystery that Sophie didn’t care to solve. Unable to sleep, she just listened to the rain drumming on the roof of the cabin and wished that were the only noise. It would be restful.

They had been informed that they were free to do whatever they liked on Sundays after breakfast and the daily chores were complete. There was also the promise of ice cream and cartoons the mess hall that evening after supper. Sophie had decided that she wanted to catch up on sleep because they had been woken up before sunrise every day and kept busy until late in the day when they had been too exhausted to do more than just fall into bed.

It had been nice to see how happy Ziska was here. For her entire life she had always been the odd one out, unable to do most of the things that the others around her did. In the Spreewald most of the exploring was done on punts and the small boats by pole just required a lot of upper body strength, so Ziska was in the same boat as everyone else as it were. Mostly that involved falling into the rivers or lakes a dozen or more times a day and Ziska had always liked swimming because her leg wasn’t a handicap in the water.

The other two girls were Lina Kauffmann, the daughter of Aunt Kat’s dear friend Anne and a newcomer by the name of Ilona Kirch who had been given the fourth bunk in the cabin. It seemed that the camp assigned bunks based on geography because all four of them lived within a few kilometers of each other and had even attended the same schools. It seemed as if someone had decided that they should all be in the same circle of friends, but Sophie thought that was absurd. Nothing in her life had ever been that contrived, instead it had always been a mess even at the best of times.

Recently Sophie had received the news that both her grandparents had died within a few hours of each other. Apparently, her grandfather had died of advanced emphysema. Her grandmother had suffered a stroke a few years earlier and had been left unable to speak or care for herself. It was a mercy that she had peacefully passed while efforts had been underway to figure out what to do with her. Sophie had returned to the apartment that had been her family’s home for the first time in nearly two years and it had seemed far smaller than she remembered. It was just a dingy collection of rooms with nicotine stained walls and broken-down furniture. Sophie’s mother had been seething in the kitchen, sitting there smoking a cigarette and giving Sophie a withering glare as she had taken a box of keepsakes that her grandmother had supposedly wanted her to have. Fortunately, the cashier’s check that was her grandparent’s meager savings had been given to her by the Solicitor handing what there was of their estate. Sophie had a feeling that if her mother would fly into a rage if she ever found out about where it had gone because her mother had always behaved strangely when it came to money. Claiming poverty and resenting how much Sophie was costing her every time Sophie needed something, while at the same time she had rarely spared any expense when it came to her appearance. Sophie had no clue as to what she had ever done to earn the hatred, abuse, and neglect she had received from her mother.

The entire time the Solicitor had seemed confused about what was going on. He had been informed that Sophie had not seen her mother since she had been removed from her custody. Still, it had felt like if he had expected it to be a different sort of reunion, bonding in a difficult time or some other deluded nonsense. There were several good reasons why Elke wasn’t allowed to be alone with her daughter. He should have watched the video taken by Kiki’s friend of some of the things that Sophie’s mother had done to her and would have known better.

That all seemed very distant as Sophie stared at the ceiling of the cabin. Out in the front, she could hear the others singing along with a pop song on that seemed to be everywhere this summer that was playing on Lina’s tape recorder. Like most other pop songs, it left her cold. She sometimes doubted that she liked music at all. Ziska told her that was nonsense and that she would eventually find something that was to her taste. The music playing on the tape recorder was decidedly not to Sophie’s taste.

For lack of anything better to do, Sophie put her pillow over her head and wished that she had a cabin all to herself. Perhaps even a tent pitched on the shore of the lake as a compromise. Though as soon as Sophie had the thought, she realized that a tent would be terrible on a rainy afternoon like this one.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty-Four



7th August 1969

Rural Brandenburg, near Nauen

For what must have been the thousandth time this hour, Zella cursed the clothes that she was wearing. Someone at ARD figured that it would be fun to send her out a replica of a Medieval farming village that had been built by the History Department of Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin. That had included a period correct costume that Zella was supposed to wear when on camera, an absurd Milkmaid getup that Zella wouldn’t otherwise be caught dead in. It was the little things like this that were the reason why she had a doll that looked a lot like the Production Manager at ARD’s Berlin affiliate with several pins shoved through it hidden in the bottom drawer of her desk.

How on Earth was it possible for a dress to be both suffocating and a bit too revealing at the same time? Zella wondered to herself as she tried to adjust the bodice that was tightly laced around her abdomen. It was pushing everything up and leaving her feeling like she was about to spill out of it at any second. If she found out that this had been selected for the purpose of driving up ratings, then she was going to do some extremely unpleasant things to whoever was responsible.

“This dress is awful” Zella muttered to herself as she and Yuri walked across the Common, a muddy field that reeked of cow manure. He was wearing ordinary street clothes and lugging the heavy camera equipment and had no clue as to how much she envied him at this moment.

“It looks perfect” Yuri said, “My mother would say that you are lucky to have the figure to wear it.”

“You would say that” Zella said sourly, “But it was made with someone different in mind.”

“How so?” Yuri asked.

“It was made for a woman with smaller…” Zella started to say only to pause when she noticed that Yuri was no longer looking her in the eye. “Would you mind looking at something else.”

“Sorry” Yuri said, his eyes snapping forward at something in the distance. As if Zella needed more proof that this stupid dress was an adolescent fantasy, and she was going to be interviewing University students. It was something she was not looking forward to.



Halle, Anhalt

Shooting with an elevated heartrate proved trickier than Manny had anticipated as he had relearned the day before. Considering all the years he had spent shooting various rifles, it was something that he should have known about innately. That was why shooting a paper target with a pistol proved difficult after running an obstacle course. And once he had finished that, there were the real-world scenarios that were part of the live fire drills that needed to be completed with passing scores. The minor detail that he was having to do this with a weapon that he had long regarded as basically useless didn’t help.

“This training course was developed by a woman!” The Feldwebel who was today’s Instructor yelled, “And here we are with a group of men who are supposed to be from one of the most elite Units in the Heer struggling with it. What a disgrace!”

Manny knew better than to mention that he personally knew the woman in question, Kristina von Preussen, and she was an Officer in the FSR. The Jäger Corps of the Joint Medical Service was as hard to get into as any other Special Forces Unit and she had done it. He also didn’t mention that Kristina had based this course on training that she had received early on from Manny’s Aunt Katherine, the Tigress herself. It was supposedly difficult by design because real life was unforgiving.

“Mischner, you are up” The Instructor said, “Four-man Squad, GO!”

That meant that he would be leading a Fireteam, something he had a great deal of experience in doing. Like always the exercise would be timed and scored. With any luck, today would go far better than the previous one had.



Montreal

Oma Blackwood had shooed Marie Alexandra out of the sunroom so that she could have afternoon tea with her good friends in peace. She said that they wanted to have an adult conversation and that Marie’s presence was not needed. That was why she was again out in the back garden with the same girl who she had given her nothing aside from sour looks a few days earlier. The only real difference was that Marie now knew her name, Henriette Lane. Like before, Henriette seemed interested in her book while pointedly ignoring Marie.

It was a warm afternoon and the Maid had promised them that as soon as the ladies in the house were situated, she would bring snacks and refreshments out to them. That didn’t bother her, she was fine with waiting. It gave her time to explore and the multitude of ways that she could go about doing that.

Taking off her shoes, Marie took the time to feel the differences between the parts of the concrete that were warmed by the sun and those that were cool in the shade. The feel of the moss between her toes was a bit of a pleasure.

“Everyone is talking about you” Henriette suddenly said, “Margot Blackwood’s beatnik granddaughter who is supposedly a Princess in Germany.”

“I told you the other day that I am not a Princess” Marie said, “And what is a beatnik?”

“You know, Bohemian” Henriette said, “Look at how you dress.”

Marie looked at the light blue sundress that she was wearing, nothing about it seemed out of the ordinary. It was perfectly seasonable. Compared to some of the other clothes she had worn, Oma Blackwood had found absolutely nothing objectionable about it.

“I’ve been to Prague” Marie replied, “It seemed like anywhere else I’ve been. What does that have to do with me?”

Henriette looked at Marie as if she had grown a second head. It was something that had been happening with increasing frequency over the last year or so.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty-Five



11th August 1969

In Transit, Central Pacific Ocean

The SMS Antonia Marie was proceeding on a north-westerly course at a leisurely pace with the Marshal Islands as the next destination. It was a welcome change after what had turned into weeks of frenetic activity when they had been moored in Western Samoa. Kiki had lost count of the surgeries she had assisted in and it had all been a reminder that as an Emergency Surgeon she needed to be able to handle whatever was thrown at her. The experience of working with Specialists was invaluable for that exact reason, it was the very reason she had been assigned to the Antonia in the first place. Kiki had a lot weighing on her though she knew that this should have been one of the easiest portions of her time aboard the Antonia. Remembering to eat meals with the other Doctors was something that she needed to remind herself to do because if she didn’t, it was likely that the Ship’s Medical Director would ask her why. To avoid that she was eating lunch quietly as the others watched television, shows and news programs from a few days earlier. Kiki’s mind kept going back to what she had been told earlier that day, things that seemed more important.

There had been briefings about the situation in China. There was an ongoing civil war along with a famine and a viral outbreak that might a lingering echo of Japanese experimentation during the Pacific War. This had resulted in opportunists coming out of the woodwork. Pirates and smugglers mostly, taking advantage of the Western Pacific region becoming unsettled. The Navies of the world couldn’t be everywhere, so all manner of illegal conduct was flourishing. Like always, the Chinese Government was deeply suspicious of outsiders which added an extra layer of complication. It was assumed that such groups would have little regard for International Law and might see the SMS Antonia Marie as a tempting target.

As the Commanding Officer of the FSR Company aboard the Antonia, Kiki played a key role in the security of the ship and had been present at every one of those briefings along with her counterpart who commanded the Marine Infantry who were aboard. That had been weighing on her because they were headed straight for the very region that was so unsettled and the hospital ship carried scores of items of incredible value, not to mention the people themselves who were aboard who had skills not easily found elsewhere. Basically, they had to be prepared for anything. Kiki knew there were enough weapons on board to outfit both the FSR and Marine Infantry Companies. When they had left Kiel that had seemed sort of excessive because supposedly, they were not in that sort of business. Now in retrospect she wondered if it would be enough if they really got into trouble. Doctor Berg had told Kiki many times that she was an idealist who was often disappointed when she collided with a less than ideal world. Was this another one of those times?

“You know her, right Kristina?” One of her colleagues asked and Kiki looked at the television screen that was playing news from home just in time to see Zella looking rather uncomfortable and trying hard to hide her irritation as she interviewed a somewhat oblivious University Professor about the replica of a Medieval farming village that he had constructed using historical accounts. Judging by the ridiculous looking clothes that Zella was wearing, her employers must have had another flash of the sort of brilliance that Kiki knew Zella hated. For all the efforts that Zella had made towards being taken seriously as a Journalist, the people she worked for just couldn’t seem to get past her being an attractive woman. Kiki felt bad for her whenever this sort of thing happened. This wasn’t the first time, not by a longshot.

“Yes” Kiki replied, leaving it at that.

“Is she anything like her public image?”

“What image is that?” Kiki asked in reply and the man looked away.



Cambridge, Massachusetts

Living with Velma took a lot of getting used to and that grew ever more apparent as she made a huge deal of preparations for the party she was throwing for her birthday next week when the term ahead should have been her primary focus. When Hillary brought that up with her, she had laughed and told her that she needed to live a little. Then there were the two boyfriends that Velma had somehow acquired, Bill and Brad. Bill lived a couple hours away in New Haven, Connecticut where he attended Yale, while Brad was a Graduate Student at WPI Upstate. The two of them were odd in that they were so alike that even Velma mixed them up at times. What Hillary seemed to find most odd about the two men was that they were perfectly aware of the other seeing Velma and seemed to be perfectly fine with the arrangement.

That left Hillary quietly making plans to spend the night at a friend’s house and anticipating the massive cleanup that would probably await her on Tuesday morning in the likely event of the apartment being trashed. She figured that she would also being kissing her deposit on the apartment goodbye at the same time. Perhaps some good would come of this if that were enough of an excuse to send Velma packing.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty-Six



19th August 1969

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Much to Hillary’s surprise, the apartment was mostly as she had left it the afternoon before. She had been expecting to find the place completely trashed, so not finding it a smoldering ruin was totally welcome. Velma was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and watching Nigel playing in a length of plastic tubing that she had found somewhere.

“I admit it, you were right, and I was wrong” Velma said as soon as she saw Hillary.

“About what?” Hillary asked.

“The party” Velma replied, “It was a stupid idea, but I just wanted to do something fun before next semester started and everyone got too busy.”

“What happened?” Hillary asked.

“I threw everyone out early” Velma said, “Things were just awful, and I wanted to be alone.”

“I’m surprised by that you were looking forward to the party for the last few weeks” Hillary said, “You invited your friends, those two men you liked.”

“Bill and Brad are not likely to come around here again anytime soon” Velma replied. Something about the way she said it put Hillary’s back up.

“Did they get into a fight over you?” Hillary asked.

“No” Velma said, “It seems that they were more interested in each other than they ever were in me. I walked in on them going at it.”

“It, as in…?” Hillary asked, half afraid of the answer.

“Brad screwing Bill” Velma said in an exasperated tone, “Anally.”

“I see” Hillary replied, not really caring for the visual that brought to mind. She didn’t care personally if someone was gay or not, but the two individuals involved though…

“I swear the East Coast is not what I was expecting” Velma said, “Being someone’s perspective beard was not what I thought I was dealing with.”

“You are from Los Angeles” Hillary said, “I understand that this sort of thing is not quite as hidden out there as it is here.”

“If you say so” Velma replied, “And you clearly don’t know much about Los Angeles.”

“You said you were from Hollywood” Hillary said, wondering what Velma meant.

“North Hollywood” Velma replied, “That is a world away from what people imagine California is like and I didn’t move there until I was five.”

“What is the difference?”

“Being dirt poor in L.A. is only somewhat better than being dirt poor elsewhere” Velma said, “As it was, I was only one of a handful of students at my high school who wasn’t Mexican.”

“You went to UCLA though” Hillary said. As much as she disliked it personally, she was acutely aware of how those without money tended not to advance into higher education. Which made Velma’s presence in Cambridge extremely unlikely.

“More like Santa Monica City College for two years before transferring and I only got into UCLA because my mother got a job working at the Medical Center” Velma replied, “Scoring extremely high in the LSATs and having a nice sob story about dragging yourself up from poverty for the admissions board will do you wonders.”

Hillary had had no idea about any of that. Then again, she had never asked.

“Is there anything else I should know?”

“Nothing really” Velma replied, “You might want to consider buying new sheets for your bed though.”



Fort Drum, New York

As the last few days before Ritchie was going to depart for California passed, the more he noticed that everyone was talking about Major Parker. It seemed that Parker was being close mouthed with everyone about what was going on and there were rumors flying around as speculation ran wild. One was that he was planning on going back to Langley, another was that Parker was leaving for a woman from a country that no one in either the Military or the CIA were thrilled with. With their team having stood down pending restructuring, there was plenty of time to speculate about matters like that

Ritchie knew the truth though, mostly because he had asked Parker himself. Everyone else had not bothered to do that. They either lacked the courage to do it themselves or enjoyed gossiping. What Parker had to say seemed simple enough, he had gotten a better offer. MGM was making a new James Bond movie and he had been hired to be a Consultant by the Production Team to help lend an air of authenticity to the action sequences of the film. Parker could make more during a few weeks of filming than he could over the next decade in the Army and there was the prospect of other work as the other big-name studios would be looking to hire him. Of course, working for MGM in England would put him only a few hours away from a particular German Lady who Parker wanted to spend a lot more time with, in the future preferably without the Agency breathing down his neck.

For Ritchie, that opened a whole new realm of possibilities that he had not considered. Would having the cache from having been in the Green Beret open doors for him in Hollywood? Or was that just for Officers like Parker? He already knew that had opened a door into the highly questionable career move that was ahead of him, one that involved him going back to school as soon as he got back to L.A. If being in the Army had taught him anything, it was that having a plan B was always welcome.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty-Seven



20th August 1969

Montreal

The black and white vanes in the radiometer spun around inside the delicate glass globe that was sitting on the windowsill of Sir Malcolm’s office in the morning sun. Marie had been watching it for the last several minutes, fascinated by the seemingly miraculous movement and trying to figure out what the trick that made it work was.

“That has been sitting there for the last forty years” Sir Malcolm said as he saw what Marie was doing. “Your father put that there after he won it at a school event and I’ve never felt the need to move it.”

Marie did the math in her head and realized that her father would have been around Sophie’s age. It was hard to imagine that. “It still works?” She asked.

“There is no reason why it wouldn’t” Sir Malcolm replied, “It only has one moving part, and it is propelled by simple physics.”

“It seems magical” Marie said only to have Sir Malcolm chuckle.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Sir Malcolm replied, “It is one of Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws.”

Marie gave Sir Malcolm a quizzical look, she wasn’t familiar with that one.

“A Science-Fiction author”

“Like Aunt Annelise?” Marie asked.

“More like hard Science-Fiction” Sir Malcolm replied, “Ms. Frank deals in what could be described as Historical-Fiction bordering on Fantasy and the Feminist direction of her work is likely due to the influence of your mother.”

“You know who she is?”

“Of course, I would” Sir Malcolm said, “Just like your Aunt Elisabeth is your mother’s half-sister and Doctor in Environmental Science, or Magdalena is running the rare books section of the Berlin Public Library, Kristine is the Headmistress at the BND’s training School in Falkensee while Asia is an Instructor there as well as the current Mistress of Keys, and finally Judita works as an Administrator for the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin.”

It was also suspected that Kristine Lehrer and Asia Lawniczak were lovers, but Sir Malcolm doubted that Marie would understand that. While he knew his granddaughter had traveled extensively and was well read, she did reveal herself to be about as naïve as one would expect a rather sheltered thirteen-year-old to be over certain matters. From what Malcolm himself had observed, she also tended to live in a world that she embellished a bit to make an otherwise humdrum existence seem like something magical. Not that he blamed her.

“How do you know all that?” Marie asked.

“Would it surprise you to know that British Military Intelligence has been keeping tabs on your family for a long time?” Sir Malcolm asked in reply. “It comes from being considered important.”

“Oh” Marie said before she resumed watching the radioscope.

The primary source for that information had been Marie’s own father and Sir Malcolm figured that Douglas coordinated whatever he said to MI6 with his wife. Meaning that they knew exactly what Kat von Mischner wanted them to know, which had a few frightening implications. It was his sincerest hope that an innocent like Marie would not find herself getting a crash education in what was basically the family business.



Washington D.C.

“That ship is huge” Nelson Rockefeller said, “I’ll give them that much.”

After more than a month of speculation, the CIA had concluded that the presence of the SMS Antonia Marie in the Canal Zone over the 4th of July had just been a coincidence. The elephant in the room was that the mere presence of a nuclear-powered ship had symbolic meaning that could not be ignored. Especially one that was about as large as could fit through the locks of the Panama Canal. The detail that the entire ship was painted white with red crosses painted prominently on either side of the hull and the superstructure made its mission clear, the CIA just questioned if there was more to it than that.

There was another thing that could hardly be ignored either and that was a photograph that had been taken in Western Samoa a couple weeks earlier. A young woman in the tropical uniform of the German Medical Service. The whole thing was in the odd shades of yellow and brown that they used in the camouflage, but the effectiveness of that was negated by the blue beret with a silver pin with the familiar symbol of Caduceus inside a wreath. Her hair was tied back in a long braid and her glasses where working their way towards the tip of her nose as she talked to one of the Samoans. She was unmistakably Kristina, the Princess Royal of Germany. Rockefeller couldn’t help but notice that a part of the tropical uniform was the shorts that had been cut just above the knees, revealing a pair of shapely legs. This was the next thing the CIA had started speculating about.

“She is a Doctor” Rockefeller observed, “So, this is perfectly in keeping with that.”

“We understand that Sir” The CIA Analysist giving him the briefing replied, “Just not everything she has done is in keeping with her being a mere Medical Officer.”

“You mean the business investments and the odd forays into politics?”

“Yes, Sir” the Analysist replied, “She is also difficult to get anyone near, something of a recluse who prefers the company of a close-knit circle of friends.”

So, that was it. The CIA was suspicious of the Princess because they were having difficulty spying on her. Rockefeller knew that stupid little things like this would complicate matters when he attended an international conference in Switzerland next year. On the same trip, he was also supposed to visit the town where his ancestors had lived until they had emigrated to Upstate New York. Having the CIA with their back up because unable to get a read on a young woman he would doubtlessly come into contact with would be a nuisance.

That was when the thought occurred to him that the CIA might be the wrong people to be involved this time.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty-Eight



23rd August 1969

Majuro, Marshall Islands

This stop wasn’t planned to be as long as the one at Western Samoa had been. It was mostly due to the population being far smaller and more spread out in the Marshall Islands. That didn’t however mean that less was expected of Kiki as she found herself taking a turn working in the intake triage supervising the Nurses who were doing most of the work as she dealt with the most difficult or complicated cases until she could pass them along. It also meant that she found herself dealing with the cranks and the opportunists, many of whom were the result of her presence. The man she was presently dealing with seemed to be exactly that sort of thing, however in a case of just deserts it turned out that he really did have a few medical issues that needed to be addressed.

At first Kiki had thought that the name given by the American had been a joke. However, the credentials provided by him and his companions, bodyguards from the U.S. Secret Service actually, panned out after several messages were sent to and from the Offices of Auswärtiges Amt who had been able to get in touch with their counterparts in the U.S. State Department. The photograph that had been sent via teletype confirmed that Kiki was dealing with Doctor Michael Rockefeller, who had been in the South Seas as a part of an expedition. He had not allowed his father assuming the Office of President of the United States to get in the way of his career as an Anthropologist. AA had also warned Kiki that they had received word that Michael had been directed by his father to travel from the Bismarck Archipelago to the Marshal Islands. That meant that he had traveled thousands of kilometers out of his way which made them suspicious. It also meant that the BND or BII had been keeping tabs on the American President’s son while he had been inside German territory. None of that surprised Kiki in the least, mostly because she was used to witnessing the stupidity of International Politics after a lifetime of it. Especially because of what the lab had come back with when they had conducted his preliminary bloodwork. There was a fair amount of justice in that he had used his health to get aboard and from the looks of it, Michael would have a substantially harder time getting off the ship. It was all an unnecessary complication that Kiki would have liked to have avoided.

“Hello Doctor Rockefeller” Kiki said, not even trying to hide her annoyance at his presence.

He grinned as soon as he saw Kiki enter the open examination bay that he was sitting in. He wouldn’t be for long. He didn’t seem to notice that Kiki was wearing a surgical mask and had her hands in rubber gloves. There two Marines outside the bay were wearing protective suits that were probably overkill, but that was standard protocol over matters like these.

“Nice to finally meet you Kristina” Michael said, his voice full of the smug condescension that most of the wealthy Americans that Kiki had encountered seemed to have.

“It is Doctor von Preussen in this context” Kiki corrected, “Will you please open your shirt.”

It took a moment for him to do it and Kiki felt along his side until she heard him take a sharp intake of breath due to the pain in his liver. That along with the other symptoms he was exhibiting just confirmed what the bloodwork had suspected, the other thing would require close observation over the coming days in the quarantine bays.

“It looks like you have Fasciola Hepatica, a parasitic infection” Kiki said as she wrote down the drug he would need to be dosed with.

“Parasitic?”

“From contaminated food or water” Kiki replied, “I would suggest that you employ a bit more caution in the future.”

“I tend to get a warm welcome from the places I visit” Michael said, “Often, it would be considered rude not to join in the meal if you are the guest of honor.”

Kiki just shrugged. Some people needed to learn lessons the hard way, occasionally more than once too.

“Is that all” Michael said.

“No” Kiki replied, “Our lab also detected the antibodies for measles, the concern is that you are a carrier who is not yet symptomatic.”

“Is that a joke?” Michael asked.

“I wish it were” Kiki replied, “We are having difficulty tracking down everyone you might have come into contact with over the last few days. Those you were on the airplane with yesterday are especially ticked off.”

“I wasn’t aware of that” Michael said, “So, I’m sure that these people will be reasonable enough once I get a chance to…”

He started to leave only to see the two Marines were blocking the front of the bay. They were full chemical suits that were designed to protect them from nuclear and biological hazards as well. That and the weapons clearly visible made them incredibly intimidating. The fact that they were from Tilo’s cadre, the men he had personally sprung from the brig to fight the Chinese made them willing to follow Kiki’s command. It was one of the few times that being the Angel of Anju proved to be to her advantage.

“Doctor Rockefeller is going to be our guest for the next ten days” Kiki said as she peeled the gloves off her hands. “Please show him to his quarters and make sure he is comfortable.”

“Yes, Ma’am” One of the Marines said as they dragged Michael away.

A few minutes later, Kiki had to explain what was going on to the four Secret Service Agents aboard. How the man they were guarding wasn’t going anywhere off the ship for the next several days. To her surprise, they didn’t seem to mind too much.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Twenty-Nine



25th August 1969

Prague, Bohemia

It seemed like the entire kingdom was allied against him as the final days of summer arrived. Everywhere Michael looked he was reminded that they were very much in love with Alberta Charlette of England. Unfortunately, there were a huge number of jokes along the lines of Michael himself being so stubborn that she would need to marry him when he wasn’t looking, whatever that even meant.

When Michael had discussed the matter with his father he had been subjected to wry amusement. “I don’t see very many other respectable young women courting you” His father had said, “So, your choices are rather limited son. Are you going to wait for her to ask you?” Michael could tell that he was trying not burst out laughing the entire time he said that. He knew that his father had taken a hands-off approach towards his children’s personal lives after his mother’s machinations with his oldest sister had proven somewhat disastrous. The way that things had developed in the years since her death would probably have killed her several times over. It was Rea who had oddly become the only voice of reason with Vicky’s odd arrangement, Freddy’s weird ambitions and Kiki taking Rea’s place as the family crusader, most recently made International headlines when she placed the son of the President of the United States in quarantine.

Rea had always been Michael’s flighty little sister, with her odd causes and constant tilting at windmills. Then she had basically created an entire Kingdom out of whole cloth even if it was quickly becoming one of the strangest places in the Empire. She had said that he had the same set of choices that he had given Birdie years earlier, just he needed do two things. The first was to get their mother out of that otherwise empty head of his. The second was to bite the bullet and give Birdie a definitive answer so that either way the two of them could get on with their lives. Rea’s opinions about his intelligence aside, she had been talking sense.

Today, Birdie was coming back from Italy and Michael knew that they would need to have a talk about the future. They needed to be objective and determine the best course of action, preferably without any romance involved which he knew he was quite terrible at. That was why he wanted to put his best foot forward, so he was at the entrance of Prague Castle to greet Birdie as her car drove in through the gates. As soon as it came to a stop, Birdie opened the door and stepped out, not waiting for the Footman.

“Michael!” Birdie called out excitedly as she walked up to him all smiles. “You didn’t need to be out here waiting for me.”

“Actually, I wanted…” Michael started to say only to see a child get out who gave him a different sort of grin. This one was gap-toothed and full of mischief.

“You know my younger brother Billy?” Birdie asked.

“I’m familiar with who he is, but I’ve never been introduced” Michael replied tersely. Billy’s reputation as Hellspawn preceded him.

“Good” Birdie said, “I promised Mother that I would take him with me so that he could see how wonderful Bohemia was. And you, of course.”

At that moment, Michael was reminded about the old maxim about how no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Whoever Helmuth von Moltke the Elder had been referring to as the enemy couldn’t hold a candle to women in that regard.



Los Angeles, California

It had been strange leaving Fort Drum knowing that it would probably be for the last time. The 40th Infantry Division was expecting Ritchie, but he had been given a few days before he had to report to the Headquarters of the 160th Infantry Regiment in Inglewood. He had been warned that the California National Guard Unit had a decidedly different culture than the 1st SFG, or even the 82nd Airborne. While he was sort of expecting the worst, Ritchie had a few things going for him, namely the second rocker that had been given to him a few days before he had left Fort Drum with his promotion to Sergeant First-Class. Sean Destrehan had pointed out that whichever outfit they stuck him in with, he would have the clout to kick everyone’s ass into line.

Baring National emergency that would only be part-time though. Instead, in what was probably the most absurd turn in Ritchie’s life he was supposed to start at the Los Angeles Police Academy starting on the 1st of September. Considering that he had fled Los Angeles a decade earlier because a substantial portion of the LAPD had been looking to stomp him into paste, the irony of him having that as a career choice wasn’t lost on him. All anyone seemed to care about was that Ritchie was coming home after years of what had basically been exile. When he had arrived at his mother’s house in Pacoima, he had found that a party greeting him home was happening and that everyone he knew in the Los Angeles area had been invited.

His reunion with Lucia had been a joyous occasion, but in the back of his mind Ritchie knew that their respective families could already hear wedding bells in the near future. Not that he had a problem with that, but it seemed like now that he was home life was happening to him in a sudden rush.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Thirty



29th August 1969

Charlottenburg, Berlin

Shortly after Manny had arrived back from Halle, he had asked Suse why she was so delighted to work over the Summer Holiday. Why wouldn’t she be though? Suse was doing exactly the sort of work that she had applied to Berlin Technical University to do. If she couldn’t be a Panzer Commander, then she would be content to have played a role in the design of every single Panzer that rolled off the assembly line in the future. The fact that the University was delighted with the students who had volunteered after Rheinmetall and Krupp had both given considerable grants to influence the design process sweetened the deal. The University was already building a new satellite campus in Tegel and this would speed that process along.

There was also the auto-loader proposal that Suse and her team had been working on since they had finished mapping every square centimeter of the Panzer VIII Leopard that had been lent to them. Over the prior weeks they had reached the consensus that every other attempt so far had gotten it wrong because they were trying to work within the current design of the Panzer VIII’s turret. The question had eventually been asked; Why were they doing that?

That had been when Suse had remembered the Military’s largely forgotten experience of the Luftpanzer I which had used a circular magazine around a fifty-millimeter autocannon. While such an arrangement would be impossible with a twelve-point-eight-centimeter gun, it did have important lessons going forward about how it could be done.

There was also something that she had read about the Luftpanzer I years earlier. During the Second World War there had been complaints from the crews about how the lockers containing the fifty-millimeter shells blew up when they were hit by enemy anti-tank fire. At the time Suse had been astonished that the minor detail that they had survived an ammunition explosion aboard an armored vehicle seemed to have escaped them. It had everything to do with the nature of the auto-loading gun used by the Luftpanzer I in that beyond the twenty-one shots in the magazine, the rest of the ammunition was kept in lockers at the back of the vehicle. That placed the six-cylinder diesel engine, transmission, and a steel bulkhead between the crew and the exploding shells. The doors of the hatches blowing off before the rest of the vehicle was affected.

That had resulted in a drawing of a redesigned turret that had literally been done on a napkin with ballpoint pen over lunch at an eatery in Charlottenburg frequented by Students from the Mechanical Engineering Department. Different types of shells and cased propellent charges in an automatic magazine that was computer controlled. The Commander and the Gunner would be seated on either side of the gun breech with an armor bulkhead between the crew and the magazine. The shells and charges passing through an automated hatch and the case was ejected out of the vehicle after every shot. “Having the doors blow off” was sort of the point of the new design. There was however the question of selling it to the Heer. At that point, Suse discovered the real reason why she had been selected for the project in the first place.



Mitte, Berlin

The photograph on Kat’s desk confirmed her worst fears. Taken by an Agent of the BII of a door less than a kilometer from where she was sitting, an eye and a dagger in red paint with the letters “NuN” spelled out below, meaning Night and Fog, the signature of her father’s organization. She might have taken it as a copycat except the door was to an apartment whose occupant had vanished in a manner that suggested that he was very dead that was consistent with the previous incarnations of the organization. She had already tried to kill it once and failed badly. The problem was that Jarl Gunnarsson’s hold on power was slipping and these things were starting to slip out of the shadows. One of his lieutenants was proving to be particularly ruthless and had gone back to the worst of the old tactics. It was only a matter of time before he made a play for the top spot.

It felt to Kat like the end of a horror movie where just when the people think the beast is dead, it rises from the grave to go off and terrorize the village just in time for the sequel. The good thing was that Josefine was safe and would remain that way, her connection to him was something that Jarl would die before he gave up. Exactly what Kat would do once Jarl was out of the picture was an open question though. The deal with him had been to keep exactly this from happening, as much as that annoyed Kat.

Ordinary people wanted to go about their lives oblivious to this sort of thing. They never connected the dots about little things like untaxed cigarettes, a snort of something illicit, or a game of cards in a backroom somewhere. They created the shadow economy and the vast fortunes it generated. The struggle for money and power that resulted was bound to eventually interrupt those lives. Then just who would they complain to? The Agencies of the State that might be just as compromised as they were, or someone like the Fürstin of Berlin who had a reputation of dealing harshly with those who crossed certain lines. It was enough to make Kat want to scream in frustration.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Thirty-One



30th August 1969

Montreal, Canada

Riding in the back of the car with Opa and Oma Blackwood was a bit tense as they made their way to the airport. That was why Marie Alexandra kept her silence for the trip. She had decidedly mixed feelings about spending her holiday in Canada. The entire purpose was to get to know her Paternal Grandparents and she had been successful in that regard and she had learned a great deal about her father’s childhood. However, Oma had never warmed to her and that was a real disappointment. Opa said that it was because Marie reminded Oma too much of her mother. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of all was the things that Marie’s mother had done that Oma Blackwood objected to the most had apparently occurred years before they had met, when she had been Marie’s age. It was unclear as to exactly what that had been, but everyone changed the subject whenever it came up, saying that it was something that Marie would have difficulty understanding.

Once at the airport, they insisted on waiting with Marie until the time came for her to board the airplane that would fly directly back to Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport without changing airplanes in New York. Something about the Airline’s regulations regarding unaccompanied Minors had been the reason for that. As soon as they reached the waiting area Sir Malcolm took a seat next to Marie and Oma Blackwood said that she wanted to find some refreshments while they waited.

“I wish things were different” Marie said to Malcolm as she watched Oma walk up to the newsstand. “She still doesn’t like me.”

“You have to take your victories when and where you can find them” Malcolm said, “Nothing untoward happened during your visit, that was far better than what was expected.”

“Expected?” Marie asked.

Malcolm shook his head before he answered. “For years there has been an expectation that Margot and your mother would come to blows, fortunately that didn’t happen” He said, “I was worried that the two of you would have the same personality conflict. It didn’t work out that way despite some of your actions being rather provocative. However, your grandmother is loath to admit that she may have been wrong, so you will just need to give her time.”

It was then that Oma came back, and she handed Marie a bottle of raspberry tea. Looking at bottle in her hand, Marie thought she understood, but still wished that things were different.



Prague, Bohemia

The whole thing was a giant mess.

Michael had been counting down the hours for when he could send Billy packing. The boy had proven every bit as troublesome as his reputation especially after he got bored. A castle full of priceless antiques, a thousand years’ worth of accumulated weaponry, and a bloody minded six-year-old spoiled brat. What was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t until Billy kicked a ball through a stained-glass window and tried to deny it that Michael had finally reached his limit.

Billy found himself yanked off his feet and thrust into the corner of Michael’s office where he could stare at the walls until Hell froze over. It was at that point the Michael found himself channeling his Drill Instructor from years earlier when he had been attending the Berlin War Academy as a Fahnenjunker. It was obvious that Billy had never had anyone yell at him like that before, especially when it included the promise of a lot of pain that Michael would be perfectly happy to inflict on him if he continued to misbehave. It hadn’t been until he had finished that he noticed that Birdie had watched a great deal of that display. She was staring at him with an astonished look on her face and Michael realized that he had probably gone too far.

“I am terribly sorry that happened” Michael said as he shooed Birdie out into the corridor outside of his office, Billy was too petrified to move from his spot in the corner. Michael was already starting to regret his rash course of action. “You must think that I am some kind of ogre.”

To Michael’s astonishment, Birdie started laughing.

“It’s about time someone did that” Birdie said, “Billy has gotten away with being a little shit for too long.”

“Is that a joke?” Michael asked in disbelief.

“Hardly” Birdie replied, “There are a lot of people back in England who would give anything to have done what you just did.”

“Really?” Michael asked. Though when he thought about it, he realized that should not have been a surprise. For Billy to have the reputation he did, there had to be a long trail of bad behavior behind him. Just then he caught Billy in the corner of his eye starting to drift away from the corner he was standing in. “Did I say you could move?” He asked sharply.

“No” Billy said, his voice starting to take on a bit of his usual insolence.

“THAT IS NO SIR, TO YOU!” Michael roared at Billy and the boy got as far into the corner as he could get.

“N…No Sir” Billy stammered.

Birdie looked at him bemusedly. “I also think that our mother will thank you” Birdie said, “This is the only time that I’ve seen someone really put the fear of God into him.”

“None of this was my intention for this weekend” Michael said, “There was an important matter I wanted to discuss with you before you went back to Breslau and the presence of Billy sort of threw a wrench into the works.”

“What was so important?” Birdie asked.

Michael probably would not have told her except his blood was still up and he didn’t feel like being anything other than direct.

“I wanted to talk about whether or not we should get married” Michael said and saw a dumbfounded look on Birdie’s face. In that instant he knew that he had probably just made another mistake.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Thirty-Two



1st September 1969

In transit, Caroline Islands

At last Kiki was on her way back to Pohnpei after receiving a handful of messages over the prior days. It seemed that her brother Michael had finally came to his senses regarding Birdie. About time was her only thought regarding that matter. The wedding was being planned for that winter and it was hoped that the Medical Service would grant Kiki a couple weeks of leave so that she would be able to attend. The next message was regarding how Benjamin had arranged to meet her in Pohnpei. While it would be nice to see him, this embarrassingly reminded her of how she had hidden in the closet of her father’s office at his vacation house when Ben had come around after his involvement with the Taxidiotis Program had brought him to the islands. It had been because she had suddenly been terrified of what would happen next. With any luck, things would go far better this time.

Then there was the message regarding her unexpected guest from his parents, it seemed that they had no real objection to him being held in quarantine if he really did have measles. They apologized for the somewhat hyperbolic reaction by the U.S. State Department and understood that she was a professional. That said, Mary Clark, Nelson Rockefeller’s ex-wife and the mother of Doctor Michael Rockefeller was traveling to Pohnpei to collect her son and bring him home as soon as he was medically cleared. It had been suggested that Kiki entertain her for a few days as a goodwill at the compound where her father’s vacation home was located. It was as if everyone had forgotten just how awful Kiki was at that sort of thing. In the past she had been able to smooth things over by having her guests being somewhat awed by their surroundings at the Hohenzollern Castle. Despite that she regarded it as something of a minor miracle that she had not killed of her guests by accident, that was how bad she was. The fact that Michael was stuck in the quarantine bay was perfectly in keeping with that.

The quarantine bay was in the aft section of the ship, wedged between the hanger and the lab which enabled it to be isolated from the rest of the ship. It was also a few decks above the steam turbines resulting in a low level of constant noise that was something of an irritant. Kiki noted this as she made her way back to that portion of the ship, she was starting to think that it had been located here because no one among the Ship’s compliment wanted to spend much time here anyway.

When Kiki got to the occupied quarantine bay, she pressed the button activating the intercom.

“How are you today Doctor Rockefeller?” Kiki asked, getting a baneful glare through the glass.

“I’m still not sick if that is what you are asking” Michael said, “Any word about me getting out of here?”

“Tomorrow if you still haven’t shown any symptoms” Kiki replied.

“Where are we?” Michael asked, “The ship that is, I can tell its been moving but the people who have been coming around haven’t told me anything.”

It was because Kiki had explicitly ordered them not to, mostly because she had good reason to be suspicious of him. These were Nurses and Medics, people whose mission had little to do with International intrigue. They would talk like they normally did and reveal a great deal in the process.

“We are in the Caroline Islands” Kiki replied, “We are letting you off in Pohnpei and your mother has already made arrangements for you to go home. New York, I would presume.”

“You are exactly how Jamison Parker described you” Michael said, “An officious bitch who twists rules into a pretzel to suit yourself.”

Kiki just smiled sweetly at that. This was just more proof that Parker didn’t know anything about her. “Nice to know that I made an impression on someone assigned to assist the FBI in spying on me when I was a guest of your country” She replied, “I didn’t have to have to put you in quarantine. I could have just alerted the authorities in the Marshall Islands and sailed off into the sunset. With the history of these islands, what exactly do you think would have happened next?”

Michael sobered at that thought. Just being stuck in a small cabin on a ship for ten days with air-conditioning, a full library and a television was the height of luxury compared to where the Marshallese would have put him. It would have been a jail cell if he were lucky.



Tempelhof, Berlin

“Don’t ask questions if you cannot handle the answers.”

Marie Alexandra had been told that by her mother when she had asked what had happened that had caused so much trouble between her mother and Oma Blackwood. Though Marie only had a day to prepare for her return to school after the Summer Holiday, she had taken the time to find the copy of her mother’s biography where it had been sitting unopened on the shelf in the library of her parent’s house. The chapter only mentioned what had happened in passing, but what was there was indeed terrible, and it didn’t provide her any enlightenment towards what Oma’s problem was. Marie was left with more questions than answers and she had the terrible feeling that this was one of those times when the adults around her would say that she wouldn’t understand. This time they were correct in that she didn’t understand.

The next day, she was sitting in class. It being the first day the Teachers were mostly concerned with laying out what they would be doing over the next term and like all the other girls in the classroom Marie had more or less tuned her out. Her mind kept drifting back to what she had read, the words had laid it all out very starkly and it was obvious that her mother had little choice in the matter. Someone had hurt her in a way intended to keep hurting her, to hurt those who loved her and to be on receiving end of harsh judgement from those inclined to do so. Was that where Oma Blackwood came in?

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Thirty-Three



6th September 1969

Mitte, Berlin

The plan had been to meet Helene and Gerta for breakfast at a place Helene knew in the center of Berlin. Unfortunately, Gerta had been called away at the last minute because a young Film Maker had asked for her financial backing for a project that he was working on and it was something that she was excited about. She had told that Kat and Helene that she needed to attend the pitch meeting and that she was sending her love.

“A Western set in Outer Space that is based on a Japanese film?” Kat asked when Helene told her the details. “That had got to be the most Gerta-like thing that Gerta has decided to involve herself with.”

“She said that it sounds like it will be a lot of fun” Helene replied, “You know that is how she decides what she works on.”

Kat smiled and said, “As flighty as Gerta can be at times, she does have good instincts about what will or will not work as entertainment.”

“In the past, yes” Helene said, “But this sounds pretty ambitious and Science-Fiction is not exactly known for having a wide audience.”

“There was that Stanley Kubrick film last year, the one with the monkeys and Jupiter” Kat said before taking a sit of her tea.

“I thought you said you fell asleep partway through that one?” Helene asked.

“Doug said that it was good” Kat replied, as if that answered everything.

Helene just shook her head in response. As if she would have expected any other answer from Kat, a few hours away from the people who were constantly making demands of her time must have been like paradise. Of course, Kat had fallen asleep, that was just a given.

“What’s it like having the children back?” Helene asked, changing the subject.

“Josefine, Tatiana, and Malcolm are all attending University, so they don’t have time to cause too much trouble” Kat said, “Marie made it back from Canada in time, though that was the result of poor planning on my part and Sophie is now at the same school which is an adjustment for both of them.”

That was something that Helene didn’t understand about Kat. She apparently liked to have a big, noisy household. That had included several girls who were not her own who she had welcomed into the family with open arms. Helene figured that she would be slowly driven insane if she had to live with that.

“Marie presents a bit of a problem though” Kat continued, “Since she got back from Canada, she has been full of questions.”

“How is that different from normal?” Helene asked.

“Marie has always been inquisitive, but she is asking the right questions this time” Kat replied, “When she reaches a conclusion, Marie might try to act on it and that poses a serious problem.”

That caused Helene to give Kat a somewhat bewildered look. She didn’t seem to realize that the terms she had just used to describe her daughter could have applied her countless times in the past.



London, England

In the back of Elizabeth’s mind, this was something that she had never thought that she would live to see. Her oldest daughter, Alberta, being fitted for a wedding dress. It wasn’t that Alberta was necessarily hideous or totally antisocial, it was that with all her insecurities and foibles there was a serious question as to whether or not she would end up as the family’s Maiden Aunt, a recluse, or both. The years she had spent as the designated heir had not been easy Alberta, especially when it seemed like the entire country had been hung up on how plain she was as she had entered adolescence. She had been terrified at the prospect of inheriting the throne. Now though, she was marrying Michael of Bohemia and didn’t seem to put out by the implications of that. However, there was a large difference between being Queen of the British Commonwealth and that of a small Kingdom in Eastern Europe like Bohemia. Of course, the people in Bohemia she had interacted with seemed to like her which meant a lot to Alberta.

Oddly, it had been that moment when Alberta had walked in on Michael upbraiding William that she had realized that she had made the right choice. She had seen exactly the sort of husband and father that Michael would be. He had given the boy a well-deserved tongue lashing and made him stand in the corner staring at the walls for several hours but had not raised a hand in anger. None of that was a surprise, Michael was a product of a Prussian military education and William had no idea of the sort of bullet he had dodged. If Michael were the stereotypical “Hun” then William would still be feeling the sort of thrashing that he would have received. That had also been when the subject of Michael’s original plans for the weekend had come up, plans that had been ruined by the presence of William. Not the most romantic of marriage proposals, but perfectly in keeping with who Michael and Alberta were.

It wasn’t that Elizabeth was thrilled with how William was turning out. Despite her and Philip’s best efforts, their son had swiftly learned the art of behaving very differently when he knew he was being watched. Philip had reacted in wry amusement when he learned what had happened. “About time” was all he said about Alberta, which seemed to be everyone else’s reaction and when he was told about what had happened to William he had said “What did he think was going to happen.”