December 16, 2015.
When I woke up in the morning I knew that I was going to get the rest of von Ackerman’s story and then my book would be completed. I ate a small breakfast of toast and eggs with butter, took a shower, and got dressed in under twenty minutes. As I left my apartment to go to the train station I grabbed the manila envelope and my translator.
I met von Ackerman back at the grave of Marcus Miller. He shook my hand as he did before, I shook my hand after having it crushed, again, and I prepared my translator before he began to speak.
“How was your trip through the Chunnel?” he asks,” comfortable I hope.”
Before I am able to respond to the translation he begins to speak again,” I imagine that after you read my little story that you probably have some questions. I’m just going to tell you now that even though the war has been over for nearly twenty-five years, there are still things that must remain confidential; my full mission report is just one of those things. The fact that I showed you a story that I wrote about it from my perspective is closer to a crime than you could imagine, friend. I trust that you of all people would understand.”
I tell him that I do understand the risk he has taken by showing me a story about it. He nods apologetically to me.
“You can meet some of the people you’ve read about if you want to,” He says,” they’re on their way now.”
I tell him thanks, but I have to hear the rest of the story, and I didn’t have much time left to write it.
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CINC Hughes.
VIR Day -5.
Von Ackerman woke up in a room filled with light. He was dead. Or he thought he was which meant that he wasn’t dead because he could think. But he couldn’t move which meant that he was dead. But he could feel something in his left arm which meant that he wasn’t dead because he could feel something. The white fog around the edges of his vision disappeared slowly, revealing a hospital room with a window to his right and the lights turned off to let in the natural light. His brain began connecting to the rest of his body and he moved his right arm and found it lying across his chest.
He turned his head toward the window; it was overcast outside, just the way he would like it when he died or got married. His uniform was on a hangar draped over a chair by the window. There was a shoulder harness sitting on the chair too, a USP .45 in the actual holster.
He turned his head to the left. There was another window over there but it looked into the hospital and not to the outside. There were two uniformed figures outside the window, each of them with a large rifle across their backs and big pistols on their hips.
There were three seats under this window. Each one was occupied by a person, one of them reading, one sleeping, and the other listening to music from a Sony Walkman. The one who was reading was halfway through their book that was a fair deal thicker than most books von Ackerman himself typically would read for pleasure. She was SINC Leona F. Hughes, probably there to make sure he recovered from his injury, or to make sure no one tried to kill him after what he had just done; he was, after all, the most hated man in the world to anyone who was a communist.
The person next to her was CINC Alfred H. Hughes, the Commander in Chief of the German military and the father of the aforementioned SINC Hughes. Alfred was a big man like Johan, easily six feet eleven inches tall, three-hundred pounds, and he was quick to act when the safety of a woman was at stake. He was asleep, snoring slightly, his large whiskers twitching from the little girl who sat next to him.
Kani threw off her headphones and ran to his bedside with as much speed as she could muster. The five year old tried her best to climb up on to the bed, but a gentle, restraining hand held her shoulder and she stopped her mad dash. Her green eyes looked deeply into his.
“Daddy…” she said in her adorable five year old voice.
He moved his right arm further and cupped the little girl’s cheek tenderly, like the loving father he was, or was trying to be.
“Where’s mama, honey?”
Leona answered,” she went downstairs with Miller; she doesn’t like to see you hurt like this.”
Kani had a hold of his hand now, her black palms barely able to hold his pointer and index fingers. Kani was what he lived for; the little girl meant the world to him. She was about three feet tall to the top of her head with thick brown hair that she had inherited from her father. Her fur was all blue or white, a tuxedo scheme that was her mother’s, with the exception of her black palms and the bottoms of her feet along with the tip of her tail. Around her wrists and ankles were thin, dark blue bands that had formed only recently during her first year of school. With time had come her green eyes, which were not inherited from either of her parents, but were a nice touch of individuality in a world where conforming was a constant and progressing normality.
During the fall and spring Kani’s fur turned darker than normal like her mothers and her hands a feet turned white while maintaining her black palms and bottoms of her feet. Her tail went from plain white with a black tip to a trifecta of a light blue on top, two broad strokes of dark blue on either side, white on the bottom, and her black tip. Around each of her eyes was a broadly drawn white patch in the rough shape of a bell and her eye lids were both a blue color that could have made a good camouflage for navy fighters back in World War II. But for everything her mother had given to her Johan had given her something too.
Kani was built like a wolf. She was bigger than most kids her age by a substantial amount in most cases. For her age she was extremely alert and very attentive to everything around her going as far as counting the number of brush strokes she made when it was time to go to art at school. She was very strong for her size, which had the tendency to scare her teachers, friends, most other kids at the school she attended, and the insurmountably nosey neighbors that lived across the street from Johan and his Foxee.
He suddenly began to feel very sleepy and took his hand away from his little girl, laying back down flat. Above him was his IV drip-bag, swaying back and forth in the circulating air. Something was written on it in black ink. He reached out his hand and turned it around to get a better look.
Morphine.
“Shit,” he said.
Kani stretched herself upwards and kissed him on the cheek.
“I love you, daddy,” she said.
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“So, Luftennant von Ackerman,” said CINC Hughes,” I’m very proud of what you’ve just done for your country, recent recon birds and satellite intelligence shows that the front lines have been pushed back.”
He was eating a tray of some God-awful hospital food in his bed. It was truly horrid stuff that never would have been served to a patient if he was in the kitchen for Holly. He had pressed the call button for the nurse and asked for something more pleasing both to his palette and aesthetically. The menu girl, a cute raccoon between nineteen and twenty-three, had taken the tray away and came back a few minutes later with a new tray full of new food with a look on her face that said she hadn’t been too convincing with the chef. He told her not to worry about it and that he would be sure to give the guy a swift kick in the ass when he felt better.
“Breakdowns of enemy advances, supply lines, and their leadership is causing them great territorial losses that even I hadn’t forecasted,” said Hughes,” and all of this is thanks to your shot.”
Von Ackerman swallowed a mouthful of food,” what about Cherrie?”
“She’ll be fine,” Hughes said,” she’s already told us that she wants to defect, and that she’ll help us in anyway as long as she is able to fly her own bird when we were done.”
“And?” he asked,” will she, or won’t she?”
“Oh, she will, Luftennant,” Hughes said, reassuringly,” Major Lena from the 15th FH is all over her already. She will make a great asset in future wars with formerly Soviet-backed countries. She’s talked a great deal about the ‘Hind’ and ‘Havoc’ types and how they work in conjunction with their armor and infantry; she knows a hell of a lot of stuff about it. You made a good call when you decided to bring her back.”
Von Ackerman nodded. Alfred H. Hughes was the Commander in Chief because he was firm but fair and the man before him had been vastly incompetent in the ways of the German people… and he had been human. Furs respected Hughes not only because of who he was as a person and a former soldier, but because he was an average man, born in Berlin after the Second World War had ended. He wasn’t trying to be a big macho character in the eyes of the ones he commanded or the rest of civilian Germany and Europe, he was brutally honest, he admitted his faults and his mistakes, he had bad days and good days, he had children, three triplet daughters and a son, and he wasn’t afraid to tell people what he thought of them. He was a person who everyone could relate to.
“When will my debriefing be taking place, sir?” von Ackerman asked,” I would like to get it over within a reasonable time frame, preferably before I go into therapy for my leg.”
“There will be a debriefing in,” Hughes looked at his watch,” well,… there will never be a debriefing, Luftennant. This is too high profile for there to be any sort of debriefing at any time… at least not for the next several decades. So you have time to mull things over.”
“Very well, sir. I trust your judgment and respect your decision.”
“I knew you would understand, Luftennant.”
Foxee laid her head down on Johan’s chest. He set his tray down on a rolling cart and rested his hand on her back, gently stroking up and down. She was five feet tall and barely eighty-five pounds. She had no hair on her head, but when she had it was long, wispy, and white as snow. Her eyes were big, bright, and orange, with white fur making broad lines around them. The main color of her fur was blue, currently lighter than in the summer and spring, and she had a neat white tuxedo going down the middle. Her hands and feet were white, but getting ready to change back to blue for the summer. She was coming off her heat cycle.
“Foxee, my love,” Johan said,” why don’t you go take a walk with Kani and Dominique? You’ve been stuck up here in this room with me all day, I think you could use the fresh air.”
“Okay,” Foxee said, eyes closed, smiling.
Kani went out the door first, five years old, bored with her father’s injury. Foxee chased after her and Dominique followed.
“I wish I was that clueless,” she said.
They all watched the three girls leave. Leona was the first to say what most everyone was probably thinking at that very second.
“Cute butt,” she said, almost turning around to look at her own.
Kani was blazing a path straight ahead, almost tipping over two nurses at a water cooler, Foxee chasing after her as fast as she could, almost tipping over when taking the corner. Dominique was keeping up while not necessarily running. She looked back at them when she took the corner and blew a kiss.
“Sweet girl,” said Hughes,” reminds me of someone I knew.”
Leona smiled as Dom disappeared around the corner,” She reminds me of Lena,” she said,” I think they would like each other if I introduced them to each other.”
Johan Chimed in,” I don’t think so ma’am. Lena is in the Heer; Dominique is with the Marinesoldaten. Old rivalry. I don’t think you could get either of them in the same room together; it’s a miracle that I even met her, Dominique I mean. I think as soon as they got to the ‘name/rank’ part they would tear each other to pieces.”
He looked around the room.
“Being frank,” he said,” I’m amazed you and your father talk to each other. He was a pilot for the Luftwaffe, and you are a pilot for the Kreigsmarine, ma’am. Flyers have a hell of a rivalry too. So do the captains in our coast guard and Kreigsmarine. The fact that any military can function with all of these rivalries is beyond me, we need to work to make it so that these rivalries are as minimal as possible to eliminate the friction between branches.”
“Pretty big ideas for a mere First Luftennant,” said Hughes.
“Very big ideas that we could use to ensure the survival of our military prowess,” Leona said, directly to Hughes.
“Indeed,” Hughes responded,” and our First Luftennant is about to go straight to Major as soon as his leg is healed up.”
He suddenly began to feel sleepy again. His head got heavy and he laid it back on the pillow, his vision blurring around the edges of his eyes. His IV drip-bag was above his head, swaying in the circulating air in a small circle the size of a softball. There was something written on it in black pen. He reached up and turned it towards his eyes and peered at the word scrawled there.
Morphine.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
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His leg was in a solid cast that ran from his hip down to his toes. It was signed by the nurses and doctors who had fastened it and had bonded his tibia and ankle back together. He stood in his uniform on the drill pad at Steinherring Sniper School, his hat drawn low over his eyes, the wind whipping around him. There were three-hundred pairs of eyes on him, one of those sets belonged to Miller, one set to SINC Leona F. Hughes, and another set to CINC Alfred H. Hughes. He was facing them, head on into the wind, a soldier.
Two months had passed since the mission, which was now classified above top secret, had ended and six weeks had passed since the civil war had ended in Russia. The small medals and their accompanying ribbons had all been pinned on to his chest by SINC, CINC, and Miller over the course of about ten minutes, which was a little longer than usual but nothing that a group of fine soldiers like the 425th couldn’t handle. One was a distinguished service medal, for killing Chekov and basically ending the war; Miller had pinned this on to one of the special bars for medals, of which von Ackerman had a neat row and a half. The next was the equivalent of a purple heart, awarded by the big-hearted Leona for his wounded led. The last medal was what was called the ‘angel’ medal, awarded, by Hughes, for saving someone’s life; friend or foe. It was something usually reserved for medics.
He saluted them all smartly as they came up to pin the medals on. Miller had also slipped something into the left hand pocket of Johan’s BDU bottoms. When he looked later there were two small oak-leaves in a small, velvet lined box and the two soft ranks for his collar. He smiled as he pinned them on. He’d have to see Miller later to get his hard ranks and his large soft ranks for his arms and then take the guy out for a beer. He had just been promoted to Major, Grade-One.