Chapter Two Thousand Five Hundred Sixty-Five
12th June 1976
Tempelhof, Berlin
It might have been a mistake for Kat to have her office facing the back garden. If it had overlooked the street, perhaps she could have seen trouble coming before it darkened her doorstep. Not that it would have helped, because it seemed like if most of the trouble that entered her house had an appointment these days. Today’s trouble was the direct result of her sneaking away from the SAS Training Camp in Brecon, Wales on Christmas Eve way back in 1943 and coming home. Then Major David Sterling had been forced to take the blame for Kat’s disappearance. Today, thirty years later, she had been forced to make room in her schedule for Brigadier Sterling because he felt that she owed him a favor after all the trouble Kat had caused him during the war.
This had come at a bad time for Kat. Charlotte had asked for her help with Annett, or Nan as she preferred to be called, who she felt was making questionable decisions. The girl had apparently made the choice to shorten her education, which was a bit of surprise for everyone. Kat was aware that it was possible to skip ahead in grades, but that was difficult to do, and she had only seen it successfully done once and that had been done with the stated intention of joining the Military. Nan had not done that. Instead she had taken advantage of the bureaucratic nightmare that had resulted from her childhood. To put it simply, no one knew exactly how old Nan really was. When she had first been rescued, a medical examination had only been able to determine that Nan was between five and seven years in age. Louis Ferdinand and Charlotte had just celebrated her birthday on the same day as their biological daughter Antonia’s to make her feel like she belonged. Eleven years later, Nan had told the Gymnasia’s Headmistress that she was eighteen and that made her eligible to sit the Abitur. While that wasn’t technically a lie, Kat understood that Nan could just as easily be sixteen as well.
There had also been Nan’s conversation with Gudrun Himmler. She had pulled no punches from what Kat could tell by reading the transcript from the recording that the Prison’s Administration had taken from one of the hidden microphones in the visitor’s area. “Admit it, you threw your life away for a madman’s ambitions” Nan had said, matter or fact. Apparently, her much older half-sister had refused to continue the conversation.
Kat understood exactly how Charlotte felt about having a daughter who was asserting herself into the wider world in such a manner. Being torn between feeling proud of what they were trying to do and wanting to strangle them for being so pigheaded in how they were going about doing it.
“Herr Sterling is here” Gunther von Something or the other, Kat’s latest aide whose name she couldn’t be bothered to remember said as David Sterling himself walked in behind him.
“Prefect von Mischner, mind if I call you Katherine?” Sterling asked with a smile that one would normally associate with Used Car Salesmen or shady Politicians. “Still looking lovely after all these years.”
“What do you want?” Kat asked in reply as Sterling looked at the photographs on the wall.
“Where was this taken?” Sterling asked, tapping on a picture frame.
“That’s my nephew Manfred in Argentina” Kat replied, “He was with the Panzer Corps during the Patagonian War.”
The picture was of Manny sitting in the passenger seat of a VW Iltis that had been modified for use by the 7th Reconnaissance Battalion of the 4th Panzer Division. It was instantly obvious why that picture had caught Sterling’s eye.
“Ripping a page from my book” Sterling said with a devil may care grin.
“The Motorized Cavalry Units borrowed heavily from the tactics you perfected in Ukraine and Russia” Kat said, she was not about to tell him that the Panzer Cavalry she had mentioned had taken great effort to fix the most glaring flaws in Sterling’s tactics when he had attacked Russian Airfields and Logistics hubs during the Soviet War. Mostly that was in form of the latest incarnation of the 8-RAD armored car, the Luftpanzer V, and vastly improved radios.
“These were also a brilliant idea” Sterling said picking up one of the last of the original scare cats which Kat kept as a souvenir. “The Russians would piss themselves at the mere sight of them.”
Now Kat knew that Sterling wanted something from her. Why else would be paying her a compliment like that? It was just that she would need to wait for him to get around to it in his own sweet time.
“That was sort of the idea” Kat replied as Sterling sat down in the chair across from Kat’s desk.
“I remember when you arrived in Brecon” Sterling said, “We had just finished with the Sevastopol Campaign and Fleming springs this girl on us. We thought we knew everything, so we weren’t interested in listening. Then you disappeared and we learned that you were in Wales because you had killed five men while putting down a palace coup. You should have seen Paddy’s face when he heard that.”
Kat knew that Sterling was talking about his subordinate during the Soviet War, Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne. Even by the extremely loose standards of the Special Forces Community, Mayne had been regarded as being completely insane. David Sterling had been able to keep him pushing in the right direction right up until Mayne had taken on impossible odds once too often during the final days of the war. Winning the Victoria Cross in the process if winning was even the right word to use.
“It was all such a lark back then” Sterling said, “Youth wasted on the young and all that.”
Kat waited patiently for him to get to the point.
“I’m sure that you’ve heard about the latest dust up between the Greeks and the Turks?” Sterling asked, “The Russians are behind it, the whole stubborn, vindictive lot of them.”
“I am aware” Kat replied.
“They are after all the marbles” Sterling said, “It’s just the last few decades have taught them a thing or three about how to play the game and while your Chancellor is reluctant to involve the German Army in foreign entanglements, they decided now is the time to act.”
“Why aren’t you speaking with your own Government?” Kat asked.
“That is the rub” Sterling replied, and Kat had a sinking feeling about where this was going.