Chapter 19

The palace had changed quite a bit since the last time that Amy had visited it. She had been in tenth grade at the time and it was on a high school field trip. There wasn’t scaffolding around it then. A lot of the marble facing and bricks had not been torn off and stacked, in man high rows, in walled off construction areas. Part of the building kind of reminded Amy of a man who had been stripped all the way down to his skeleton.

At least Amy knew that the construction was going on. What she had not anticipated were the hordes of German grenadiers who were all over the place. Normally the front grounds were wide open for anyone to wander on and off at their leisure. Amy had heard stories about how people used to picnic on the front lawn, walk their dogs, play catch, and all the kinds of things she remembered that people do in parks back on Earth. Amy had never actually seen anyone do those things here and now. They were too afraid of getting mugged.

That did not appear to be the problem today. The grounds were covered with people who were probably just starting to wander in from the parade route. Amy had hoped to get here earlier and miss the rush but, the parade itself had made her take another route and then, it took forever to find a parking place. She had to walk for nearly a mile after she got out of her car!

Then she wound up standing in a line that was, a line in theory only. A more accurate description might be long, constricting, snaking, crowd that did not follow any particular form of organization. It’s component parts, the people trying to get past the German security check point, were also pretty rude. They had no problem passing by others who had been standing in the same spot for a while.

Amy was one of the slow ones. She would take a step every now and then but, she found that, deep down, she had no great desire to get close to the Germans manning the security check point. Every step raised another hair on the back of her neck and then the hand that landed on her shoulder nearly gave her a heart attack. Amy almost screamed and the woman who had grabbed her did not even seem to notice how much turmoil she had just caused.

The woman was too intent on her own problems obviously, “you a taxi driver ain’t you?”

Still panting Amy gave the woman a bizarre look and asked, “why would you think that?”

The woman pointed to Amy’s uniform and said, “them taxi driver clothes right?”

Amy’s face turned red and she had to wonder which angered her the most, being scared out of her mind or being mistaken for a cabbie. She snapped at the woman, “NO!” It had little effect. The woman just gathered up her three kids, shot Amy a bird, and went wandering off into the crowd.

The encounter left Amy standing still as others passed her. Finally she took a deep breath and inched closer to the metal detectors. She fidgeted more with every step. Then there was only three in front of her. Amy noticed a particular German that was eyeing her. He was not one of the guys watching the little monitors or sweeping people with wands. Now there were two in front of her. This guy, and he had on sergeant stripes she thought, was not one of the guys with dogs either. Now there was only one in front of her.

There was a tent set up next to the check point. The sergeant was standing there with his arms crossed in front of him. Then Amy saw what was going on at the back of the tent. A few laughing German soldiers were leading some woman out. She was crying? Amy gulped. Now she stepped under the detector. It went off.

The German running the scanner was a young girl, probably not even Amy’s age. She simply looked up and said in halted English, “it will be all right miss. If you would just please step in that line.”

Amy shivered and asked, “why? What just happened?” Amy looked at the line in question and felt kind of relieved that all the other Germans were doing was running a wand over people. How bad could that be? Amy did as told and then the German sergeant went into action. He stepped up next to Amy and grabbed her arm with an iron grip. He told the girl at the monitor, “this one requires special attention.”

The girl grenadier did not seem to even give it a second thought when she replied, “jahol herr Feldwebel.”

Amy eyed the German, gave him a very nasty look, and twisted her arm, “let go of me.”

The sergeant laughed and then told her, “don’t make this difficult girl. You might even find you like some things.”

Another voice came from over near the tent. Amy knew that voice too. Her head snapped around and, sure enough, it was Kent. Surprisingly he was also in a uniform. He casually wandered over and told the sergeant, “this is Agent Hiller of the Colonial Government, sergeant. She also happens to be one of the guests of honor at this little thing.”

The German switched to his own lousy English and said, “who fuck you.”

Kent stopped in front of the guy and smiled. He politely said, “I’m the other guest of honor. Agent Hiller, here,” he gestured to Amy, “is late in arriving and the Governor and Major Hochstetter sent me to look for her. I thought she might have, unwisely, chose this gate.” Kent pretended to chastise Amy, “Miss Hiller, there is a VIP gate for a reason.”

The sergeant looked hard at Amy, then back at Kent, and finally he let go of her arm. He snarled at Kent and then went back to watching the line. Kent dropped his smile, sighed, and then took Amy by the hand. He led her towards the palace proper and away from the Germans just as fast as he could.

Amy was breathing heavy. Finally she asked, “there’s a VIP gate?”

“Most certainly Miss Hiller,” Kent stopped and looked her in the eye. He then crossed his arms. Amy wondered very seriously what was going on in his mind. Then he finally told her, “not your fault though. I don’t think anyone bothered to tell you this morning. Not with Barbara being like she is at the moment.”

They began walking again and Amy meekly asked, “what’s with all the Wehrmacht? I’ve never seen this many Germans in one place, at one time, outside of the airport.”

“I don’t really know,” Kent told her. “I suppose that car bombing, a couple of months ago, has got some people very nervous. That is people besides Agent Scoggins, who is normally paranoid at the best of times.”

Amy just shrugged as they waded through the crowd, “you sure?”

Kent stopped again and looked the girl in the eye, “do you have a different theory Miss Hiller. If you do, I am sure that I would love to hear it.”

Amy’s face scrunched up and she shrugged again, “not really?”

Kent smiled and took her hand once again, “that being the case, I think that maybe we should find Barbara.”