CHAPTER 17

Nothing had changed since the last time she walked by this particular section of fence. There was very little out here that actually could. The Military Police had cleared out this section of tarmac before the first choppers had even taken off this morning. The engineers had come in after that and began throwing up panel after panel of quick fence. They added a single coil of razor wire along the inside of this new compound that had only a single gate. There was nothing about this place that looked permanent with, maybe, one exception. Monika Frei came to realize that the exception was her unit which had been left behind to guard this fence, and the prisoners inside of it.

Most of the faces that Monika saw, inside the fence, still looked shocked. That was another thing that had not changed. They had looked that way since they were rounded up in that apartment complex. Monika had expected, even hoped, that some of them might act angry. She had wondered if any of these colonist would fight back. The prospect had scared Monika but, in a way, she had almost wished they would. There were a lot of reasons why but, most of all, Monika now realized it would make this entire exercise a lot easier. The look on that woman’s face was not helping Monika’s conscience, one little bit.

“What are you doing?”

The question made Monika snap back in to reality and she was almost shocked by it. Then relief quickly replaced her frightened surprise when she realized that Ritter Kuhn was the one who asked her that question. He was concerned but not exactly mad, “Monika? Are you stupid? Do you want Berg to come over here because you are goofing off?”

Their sergeant was not well loved by anyone in the squad. Monika knew that Ritter had a point but, she nodded towards the woman that was curled up, nearly fetal, and sobbing uncontrollably. Monika asked, “did you see that woman?”

One of the lessons drilled into every troopers head, about guarding prisoners, was to notice them, study them, make eye contact, and project strength. The training lessons never mentioned the word fear but, then again, did they really have too? The way they instructed a trooper to act was enough to instill such emotions in anyone. These rules also tended to be heavily enforced by men like Dieter Berg, who seemed to naturally be that way to begin with! Monika knew that the man scared the shit out of her! Almost as much as these colonists did.

Of course Monika was wondering now. The only thing she had really seen of the colonists before now was angry scowls and funny looks when they thought her back was turned. The hostility did not seem justified to her and it was frightening. On the day of the palace attack, that latent fear had turned into near panic and Monika had not even been there to see it! She wanted to do something and yet, her superiors did not. She wondered why and, judging from the gossip, Monika realized she was not alone. Even the sergeants, who would normally try and squash such talk, were discussing it amongst themselves when they thought no one was listening.

Now Monika found herself face to face with the obsession of her fear and it was not what she thought. It was a sobbing woman. Monika remembered seeing her at the apartments with three children. They were not here of course. The officers had trucked the children to another place, that supposedly looked like a nursery, and they were being cared for and not considered prisoners. That is what Monika had been told at any rate. It made her feel a little better but, looking at the face of that mother, it just made any comfort evaporate as if it had never even been there.

“Is there a problem?”

Monika’s head snapped around from the woman to Ritter. She wondered about that question, “are you planning on reporting me?”

Ritter became defensive, “of course not Monika! It’s just after all your bold talk I thought that you of all people would be happy about this.”

“Don’t you patronize me you little shit,” Monika snapped back. She was very firm when she pointed out, “Maria was my best friend and nothing can make her death right, nothing!” Then Monika deflated and nodded towards the prisoners, “and this won’t either, unfortunately.”

Ritter tried to sound stoic, “we are protecting ourselves.”

“Oh don’t hand me that crap,” Monika told him. Then she nodded back to the sobbing woman, “if the order comes down to shoot these prisoners, do you really think you can do it Ritter?” The boy hesitated and she pressed it home, “well? Do you?”

Ritter attempted another answer, “it is the duty of every German solider too follow…”

“Don’t’ hand me that crap either,” she told her fellow trooper. “It used to the be our duty to question orders and…”

Ritter grabbed the girls arm and squeezed. He was seriously fearful when he quietly told her, “and talk like that will get you fifteen days without pay. This isn’t the Bundeswehr girl!”

Monika snatched her arm back, “oh what do you know about the Bundeswehr, Ritter? We were barely old enough for school when that was disbanded. I’m not talking about that.”

“If an officer hears you,” Ritter still kept his voice down, “or even worse, if Berg hears you, they won’t care. Now just do your job!”

As if it were a bad omen, Ritter noticed Berg. He had been supervising the detail that was setting up the field operations here. He was apparently finished since the tent was now set up, the support trucks were parked in nice neat rows, and everything looked as if it were running. He was also approaching in that brisk and business like walk that he usually had.

Ritter groaned, “shit, here he comes.”

The two soldiers tried to part ways and continue the endless circle they were making around their one little section of fence. It did them no good as Berg called out to them and had them stop. When he had both troopers standing with stiff spines in front of him, he looked them over with those cold eyes that always made the hair on the back of Monika’s neck stand up. Then, surprisingly, he only pointed to Monika and then to the tent, “Frei, go help them. The Corporal will tell you what to do.”

Monika felt relief when she sat down in front of a small field computer, on a fold out table, in the tent. As others rolled up the sides of the tent, she unsnapped her helmet and took it off. The missing weight was as much a relief on her neck as the breeze from outside was. Neither was as comforting as the fact that Berg was, now, nowhere to be seen. Monika cracked her knuckles and began the job of organizing files which, to her way of thinking, was a lot less disturbing than guarding the prisoners. That relief did not last very long.

As Monika scrolled down the column of pictures on the left, she began to organize the prisoners by vital statistics. After that, they would have to be sorted by name and Monika supposed that’s why she got picked for this detail. She spoke passing English and would have less trouble with their names because of that. She had not even gotten that far in the process when she noticed that one of the categories, in a box that she was not supposed to use, was simply listed as critical prisoners.

Monika raised her hand until the Corporal came over. She asked him about the box on the screen and he told her simply, “don’t worry about that one. The officers will make selections for that box.”

Officers? The idea of an officer doing this kind of work was almost enough to make Monika want to laugh. A quick chuckle did escape her lips and the Corporal noticed. Surprisingly, he not only let the laugh go without rebuke but, he even did it himself. Then the corporal’s attitude soured as he told her, “don’t laugh too hard trooper. That box is for the prisoners that they are going to shoot first.”

The corporal walked off without another word. Monika gulped and then looked back at her screen. She looked at that empty box with an almost morbid fascination. She realized that she was literally looking at death itself. It made her want to minimize the box so she did not have to see it any longer. She had to concentrate to make her finger touch the screen when she tried. The box would not go away. Almost in a frenzied panic, Monica looked around the table until she saw a pad of sticky notes. She grabbed it, tore off several sheets, and plastered them over the box. Then as an afterthought she drew a skull and crossbones on another sheet and put it on top of the others.

Before Monika could get back to work, a staff vehicle drove up and parked right next to the tent. Monika snapped out of her chair and became stiff and erect when the Corporal called the entire detail to the position of attention. The Corporal saluted as Horst got out of the vehicle with some little dark woman that Monika had never seen before. The colonel was completely oblivious to the detail under the cover of the tent. It was a staff officer, who followed Horst, that actually returned the salute and told them, “as you were Corporal.”

Only then did Monika dare sit down and go back to work. She found that she could not do the working part of that because, as it was, Colonel Horst and the dark woman had chosen to stop just outside of the tent and talk. They were close enough for Monika to hear every single word. They must have thought their conversation private enough since they were speaking in English. Monika could follow it well enough. Her command of English might be bad and rusty but, it was fluent. Her cousin was from England and Monika had spent time there growing up.

Of course, neither Horst nor the dark woman spoke the kind of English that was common around Manchester. The big portrait of the commandant, at his headquarters, had an unusually large plaque under it and, if it was too be believed, then one of the things it stated was that Horst was educated in the United States. It had taken awhile before Monika had realized that since she had no idea what a Georgia Tech was. Still, it left the man with an impeccable command of the language that he seemed to use with no effort at all. This was the first time Monika had ever had a chance to hear him do it and it was surprising.

The real surprise was when Monika caught the name of the little dark woman in the business suit. Her name was Keitel? How did she get a German name? Monika had heard that, at one time, Germany was flooded with people form the middle east. That was a long time ago and most of them were gone now. They had chosen to leave, in mass, long before Monika was born and she never cared about finding out why. At best it was an insignificant footnote in a dull history class. Now Monika was wishing that she had listened better. Who was this woman?

As the conversation rolled on, Monika began to realize that this woman was with the UN. Then Horst made that very plane when he told her, “I notice that none of the actual commissioners chose to visit.”

The Keitel woman replied, “and I speak for them colonel, and the United Nations, at least on this matter.”

“And as I have explained Miss Keitel,” Horst replied without hesitation, “the United Nations has no grounds to cease operations.”

“You are IFOR, colonel,” Keitel protested, “you are bound by our authority and I am telling you right now, Commissioner D’Marco is livid. The United Nations does not take hostages.”

That seemed to amuse Horst. He replied with some levity, “and what of Commissioner Chin? Has he commented on my operations?”

The little woman backed down, “no he has not.”

“I did not think so Miss Keitel,” Horst replied. He then pressed his position home, “and do not lecture me about what the UN does and does not do. You forget that certain, um, past incidents, in Africa, on Ardhem, and even Beta Canaan, have not been forgotten in the security council. They have certainly not been forgotten in Berlin.”

Keitel tried to regroup, “does the General Staff wish Germany to be expelled from the United Nations? Do they wish to risk another war with the Americans because that would be a certainty if Germany found itself cast out of the family of nations.”

The idea seemed to amuse Horst even more, “and that would never happen. Not over this. Not when we are the aggrieved party.”

“It may look that way from here Colonel,” Keitel told him in no uncertain terms, “but when was the last time you were on Earth? I have only just recently returned home. I can tell you that by the time news of this gets back to New York, it will certainly be twisted beyond recognition, to fit the needs of those on Earth.”

“That might be true,” Horst admitted, “and I have no doubt you will also point out that Germany is not on the security council and, hence, we cannot stop a vote to expel us.” When Idhitri Keitel did not respond Horst went on, “and then I will remind you that China would never let that happen. So may we skip all of this pointless banter and get to the real reason why you are here.”

Monika wanted to grunt in frustration but, kept it to herself. Horst and his guest walked off at that point and she did not get to hear the end of the conversation! Real reason? It made Monika wonder what was really going on. In the end she just shrugged it off and went back to work. That meant she had to look at her sticky notes and the big skull and crossbones on it. She could not ignore it as hard as she tried. Instead, she thought about something else.

Was there anyway she could arrange this list so that someone would not get shot? Could she, maybe, even loose a few files? More important than all of that, could she do it without getting caught? Ultimately, Monika realized that the idea was an academic exercise in futility. If she so much as slid a file over to the trash bin icon then it would probably not delete it. It would also be tracked and, with very little doubt, someone from the intelligence unit would show up, not long after, and want to ask her some rather pointed questions. Monika sighed in frustration.

Even if she realized she was powerless to do anything here, she still looked for ways to subtly organize her plot that she could never really do. She started by looking for the picture of the woman who was crying. It should have been easy to find but, Monika discovered otherwise. She even ran a search by vital statistics and only got twenty seven files. That should have made manually looking for the woman easy and yet, Monika could still not find her. Not only was that wrong but, Monika realized something else. The number of files was wrong too.

Monika looked up over her computer screen and at the compound. There were easily more than twenty-seven blond haired women, under the age of thirty, within sight. The computer had to be wrong yet, if there was one thing that Monika knew about the Wehrmacht, it was that they were meticulous about keeping records. Sometimes Monika wondered if it were a bigger sin to get data entry wrong than flee in combat. If you listened to the sergeants it certainly seemed that way.

Monika raised her hand again and the corporal strolled over. Before she could tell him about the problem he asked his own question, “you’re Frei right?”

What did Monika say to that? She did not know this corporal. He was from some other unit and Monika was not even sure if she had ever even seen the guy before. How did he know who she was? It was enough to make Monika nervous because the last thing you wanted in the army was for someone to notice you.

When she answered him he relaxed a bit and told her, “don’t worry trooper, you’re not in trouble. This is between us.”

Why did that not help matters any? Monika suddenly realized that the kind of attention she was drawing from him was not the military kind and, that kind of noticing, came with it’s own set of problems. She got even more nervous.

Where the conversation went, after that, kind of surprised her though. Instead of saying something leading, this Corporal asked another question, “someone told me you speak English.”

How did anyone know that besides her personal friends? Monika did not exactly advertise that fact. Still, what could she say to this Corporal, “yes Corporal. I’m not good but, I’m adequate enough. Is there a job you wish of me?”

The corporal looked around and checked who was in the immediate area. He then used English as well, “what did the colonel say to that woman?”

Monika was almost shocked but, she worked hard to keep it hidden. She then replied in the best English that she could muster, “politics? I think?”

The corporal straightened up and went back to speaking German. He had a lot more volume when he said, “thank you trooper. You’re doing a thorough job.”

As the man turned to walk away, Monika asked for permission to speak and was granted it. She then asked, “if I may ask the corporal, what is your name?”

He acted as if it were of no consequence at all, “Hiller.” He really walked off this time and only after that did Monika realize she forgot to mention why she had called him over in the first place. She thought about doing it again but, this was just too much. They were about to start shooting people and who knew where that might end. If there was ever a time to dig deeper and be even less visible than normal, then this was it. She went back to work and left the numbers alone.