Chapter 2: The Class of ’35
“You did what?” Ditmar sat straight up at Astrid’s desk in the NESS office and looked to Hjalmar and Astrid for confirmation. “And you let him?”
“Do not blame me,” Hjalmar told him. “I was in the first car.”
“It is not a bad idea.” Astrid’s words were mild. “Also, Neustatter thinks he is in charge.”
Even Ditmar laughed at that. “All right, all right. But, Neustatter, three new employees?”
“Four, I think,” Neustatter told him.
Even Astrid looked wide-eyed now. “Who is the fourth? Neither Gebhard nor Hans was interested.”
“One more would allow four teams of four,” Neustatter explained. “Und, nein, I am not just picking a number. You know we have the contract at the messe this summer.”
Ditmar nodded. “Ja. You already had the National Guard leave us out of almost two weeks of train guard.”
Neustatter shrugged as he walked over to his own desk. “When I accepted the contract, I had no way of knowing the idiot Saxons would try to hijack a train. During the messe, we need six guards during the day and eight guards at night. Und Lukas is hurt. Und someone needs to run the office.”
“Und you will be there, but you are not part of the eight or part of the six,” Ditmar finished. He turned the chair to face Neustatter while Hjalmar pulled a pair of chairs over from the Franklin stove for Astrid and himself.
“Exactly.”
Hjalmar sat down. “I suppose the big question is who gets added to each team. But first, who is the fourth man?”
“I would like Seidelman or Staudt,” Neustatter stated. “But that is not going to happen.”
“Who is Staudt?” Ditmar asked.
“He is ‘the grizzled man’ on Schlinck’s roster,” Astrid answered. “The one who argued with Sergeant Widtman and had more situational awareness than the rest. Hauptmann Bretagne passed us his name after we gave them the dossiers on Schlinck’s Company. One of Bretagne’s other teams remembered Staudt from a convoy they guarded together and said he is okay.”
“Ja, I can see how hiring either one of them away from Schlinck’s Company could be a problem,” Ditmar acknowledged.
“But there are also the men Astrid hired for Operation Schale,” Neustatter continued. “A couple of them asked about more work with us. We should find out of either of them is still interested.”
“Sis, how are we going to arm them?” Hjalmar asked.
“I was hoping we could get by with a pair of pistols.”
Neustatter leaned back in his chair. “Nein, that will not do. Klaus’ team leader and I need to talk with him. I am fairly sure the SRG he carries came from the CoCs. There were reports the CoCs got them from the Army’s armory. If so, it needs to go back.” He spread his hands. “I have no problem with buying one from Struve-Reardon—as long as we can afford it.”
“We can definitely forget the Winchesters,” Astrid said. “Und it might have to be a flintlock. Friedrich and Krystal both need pistols.”
“Ja,” Neustatter agreed, “und the other new man will need something.”
“Another long arm,” Ditmar urged.
“Two SRGs?” Neustatter asked.
Astrid sighed. “They are category B weapons. New-time-made, but . . . call them B minus.”
Neustatter laughed. “Oh, that is good!”
“But they are still expensive,” Astrid finished. “Ditmar, hand me the ledger in the top drawer and the calendar, bitte.”
Her cousin passed them over. Astrid checked the bottom line and upcoming assignments, then shook her head. “We do not have enough money yet. A couple more months of train guard, and we might.”
“One SRG and two pistols?” Neustatter asked.
“Ja. Maybe.” Astrid passed the ledger and the calendar back to Ditmar. “It is not just the men and the weapons. It is the . . . ”
“Logistics,” all three men said.
“Exactly. Neustatter, last time you hired four men, you also hired Agathe Traudermännin. Do we need another cook, housekeeper, or seamstress? Do the von Kardorffs expect servants?”
Neustatter snorted. “If they do, they can pay for them themselves. But I see what you mean. Much of it depends on where everyone lives.”
Astrid sighed. “If we need an additional apartment . . . ”
“Presumably the fourth man already lives somewhere. If not, we have had seven in an apartment before. Klaus can live with us.” Neustatter looked at each of the Schaubs. “What do you think about the von Kardorffs living with you? Feel free to say no, or to tell me after some days it will not work.”
The Schaubs exchanged glances.
“I think it could work,” Hjalmar offered.
“I am okay with it,” Ditmar agreed.
Astrid frowned. “I suppose it depends on whether Krystal is another Frau Sophia, does it not?”
“True,” Neustatter acknowledged. “You had to deal with the adel longer than we did.”
“Well, they do need a place to live,” Astrid stated. “Another apartment would probably cost more than two SRGs. We should ask the other men if they want to move, too.”
Neustatter stood. “What we are saying, then, is the new man will carry Lukas’ rifle until we find something else for him. Miss Schäubin, while you are in the office this week, figure out if it is worth sending a team to the gunmaking towns to buy pistols. Let’s get everyone together.”
Ditmar and Astrid stood, but Hjalmar remained seated. “Neustatter, you said four teams. Who is leading the fourth?”
“I will, for now,” Neustatter said, “but I have my eye on someone.”
“Otto,” Hjalmar said.
“Ja,” Ditmar agreed.
“Otto,” Astrid said.
“Right,” Neustatter said. “Do not tell him yet. Everyone else should be getting back from the restaurant soon. Let’s make sure all our agents meet each other and then get the new men—and woman—settled in.”
* * *
Astrid watched carefully as the new agents met Ditmar’s team. Then she listened carefully. There was a little muttering—from Stefan, which was not surprising, and from Jakob, which was. Friedrich and Krystal were avoiding Klaus, which was understandable.
After a few minutes, Neustatter called out, “Assignments!” Once everyone was quiet, he continued. “I think we need one more man, just so no one’s team is short. Ditmar and I will handle it. Astrid and Otto, take the petty cash and stop at the bank if you need more. Give Miss von Kardorff, Ritter von Kardorff, and Klaus the grand tour. Start at the clinic, then the apartments and the town house, and show them Grantville. Buy anything they need for the next few days. Hjalmar, arrange for three additional beds. Most of the rest of you have a Saxon Run on Monday, so work through what we learned on this one.”
* * *
After a doctor had pronounced them healthy, Astrid and Otto took the new agents to the apartments.
“This is Hjalmar and Ditmar’s room,” Astrid told Friedrich. “Hjalmar will have a bed moved in for you.”
“Those aren’t beds,” Friedrich stated.
“They are very basic frames with stuffed mattresses,” Astrid acknowledged, “but they are clean. Krystal, my room—our room, now—is over here.”
Krystal von Kardorff sniffed. “This is just a stack of peasant hovels.”
“I assure you, this is much nicer than the peasant hovel I lived in until two years ago,” Astrid told her.
“Where are the servants going to sleep?”
“Are you bringing servants?”
Krystal stared at her, and Astrid saw her expression was one of honest confusion. “Who cooks? Who cleans? Who prepares food?”
“Let us go over to the townhouse,” Astrid suggested. “Stefan and Wolfram and their families live there. Stefan’s wife Ursula does most of the cooking. Wolfram’s wife Anna sews. Phillip’s wife Agathe comes over to help. They do much of the cleaning, too, although Neustatter makes sure we do our share.”
“Surely he does not expect us to clean!”
Astrid mentally added the high school to their upcoming tour. It was a great example of adel and commoners working together. More or less, she reminded herself.
Aloud she said, “We all do our part. I help with the cooking sometimes. So do Ditmar and Hjalmar. We all clean up afterwards.”
Krystal and Friedrich were silent as they walked over to the townhouse. Klaus and Otto were talking quietly. Astrid knocked on the door.
Anna came to the door, holding Kristina, who was fussing.
“Anna Kräusin. Krystal von Kardorff, Ritter Friedrich von Kardorff, and Klaus Eggers of the Committees of Correspondence,” Astrid announced. “There was a standoff on the train. Neustatter hired both sides.”
Anna gave a mischievous smile. “Of course he did. Come in, come in. Agents?”
“All three,” Astrid confirmed.
“You will need uniforms,” Anna declared.
“Uniforms?” Krystal sounded suspicious. “You want me to wear that?” She pointed at Astrid’s skorts. “I will wear a proper dress.”
Anna’s face lit up. “Oh! You are going to be so much fun to sew for!”
Ursula and Agathe were in the kitchen area at the back of the single room of the ground floor.
“Krystal von Kardorff. Ursula Goschin and Agathe Traudermännin.”
“Guten Tag,” Ursula said.
“Guten Tag,” Krystal replied. She looked around the room. “You have babies!”
“Ja, Niklas and Margareta. They are almost nine months old.”
Astrid could hear both pride and more than a bit of a challenge in Ursula’s words.
“How does anything get done?” Krystal asked.
“We manage,” Agathe assured her.
Ursula glared.
But Astrid saw her small smile. Unless I miss my guess, there is another baby on the way.
“How many new agents?” Anna asked.
“Three so far,” Astrid told her, “and probably a fourth soon.”
“Did you remind Neustatter four more agents makes more work und more cooking und more cleaning?” Ursula demanded.
“I certainly did,” Astrid replied.
“Who are the others?”
“Miss Kardorff’s brother, Ritter von Kardorff. He is sixteen. Klaus Eggers is a member of the Committee of Correspondence and the leader of one of their Krystalnacht teams.”
“Hmmph. Well, if he is CoC, he can probably at least clean,” Ursula said.
Otto, Klaus, and Friedrich von Kardorff came over to the kitchen. Friedrich was introduced to each of the women. Astrid observed he was serious and attentive. It spoke well of him and suggested he’d had some good training.
She observed the same of Klaus, but he seemed to come from a similar village background, and the CoCs were nothing if not egalitarian. Astrid expected any friction between Klaus and NESS’ current agents would be tactical, not social.
After a few minutes, she spoke up. “Neustatter asked us to purchase anything you need. We can show you some of Grantville along the way. We should start with Calvert, er, Grantville High School.”
* * *
Astrid let Otto describe the battle at the high school. Both Friedrich and Klaus paid rapt attention. Krystal, however . . .
“This is a school?” she asked. “Surely it must be a university.”
Astrid pointed to the long wing of the building that extended toward Route 250. “That is now the State of Thuringia-Franconia Technical College. The two-story main building is Grantville High School. Over there is the separate auditorium building and then the athletic building.”
“And that?” Krystal pointed at the hill behind the high school.
“That is the Calvert Hill refugee housing. Many people live there when they first come to Grantville and then move out when they find a house or apartment. We lived there for a while. Some of it is now used for dormitories for students who live too far away to come to school each weekday morning and go home each weeknight.”
Krystal sniffed.
“Not all of us can afford to buy a schloss.” Astrid spoke mildly but was starting to get annoyed. She changed the subject. “We can buy lunch in the cafeteria and then talk to one of guidance counselors about placing Friedrich in a class. You, too, if you would like. There are adult education classes in the evenings.”
“I know how to read and write.”
“As do I,” Friedrich stated.
“I took the English class, then Citizenship and Library Research. I have also taken Math, Business, and Cooking,” Astrid told them. “Ja, I could read the Lutherbibel slowly and write a little, but we do not want to pay a researcher every time we need to look something up. Und accurate bookkeeping is very important.”
“Those are burghers’ skills,” Krystal stated. But from the way she said it, Astrid figured she might have just upgraded NESS from peasants to what the up-timers called middle class.
“Most of the windows are very large,” Friedrich observed, “but those are not. Those are the small panes we are used to.”
Astrid saw he was pointing at the cafeteria windows. She opened her mouth to answer, but Klaus beat her to it.
“That is where the Croats entered the school—und where Captain-General Gars entered it after them.” Once inside the front door, he turned to the left and quickly found the stairs to the second floor. “This is the staircase the Croats tried to force, is it not?”
“Ja,” Hjalmar answered.
“What do you mean?” Friedrich asked.
“When the Croats attacked Grantville, most of them came here to the high school,” Klaus stated. “The teachers moved as many students as possible upstairs and defended the stairs. Some students were in the gymnasium”—he pointed down the entrance corridor—“where Len Trout and Jeff Higgins made their stand.” His tone was that of an enthusiast examining the site of a legendary battle, like someone walking the Pelennor Fields or an up-timer at Normandy or Gettysburg.
The bell rang, and high school students poured into the hall from all directions, passing by the staircase.
“Do they know?” Klaus asked.
“It was almost three years ago,” Astrid said. “A few of these students were freshmen then and seniors now, so, ja, they know. But they are here every day during the school year. Komm, we need to get in line in the cafeteria.”
Some minutes later, Astrid was paying for five meals while the three new agents eyed their lunch with very dubious expressions. She and Krystal were on one side of the table. Otto, Klaus, and Friedrich were on the other side.
“What is this?” Krystal asked.
“Goulash, zucchini bread, and mixed vegetables.”
Friedrich poked at it with a spoon. “I think I see meat. What is the rest of it?”
“Noodles. Like spätzle but shaped differently. Tomato sauce.”
Friedrich and Krystal recoiled from the cafeteria table. Klaus, however, lifted a spoonful and examined it closely, then popped it in his mouth.
“This really is as good as the stories say!”
“Tomatoes are not poisonous,” Astrid explained. She saw the von Kardorffs’ expressions and added, “The up-timers have been eating them all their lives.”
Krystal looked very dubious.
“Astrid!”
Two girls approached, carrying their own trays.
“Fräuleins. Meet NESS’ new agents. Ritter Friedrich von Kardorff, Krystal von Kardorff, and Klaus Eggers. Katharina Meisnerin and Marta Engelsbergin.”
“Fräuleins?” Krystal asked quickly. “Of what house?”
“All girls are fräuleins here,” Marta answered.
Krystal von Kardorff sniffed.
Katharina looked to Otto. “Barbara is not here. We are taking extra Greek. She is at home, doing homework Herr Chief Richards gave her.”
Otto smiled. “Writing profiles, I think.”
“Ja.”
“You are all welcome to come to church with us on Sunday,” Katharina continued.
“It is a Lutheran church, ja?” Krystal asked.
“Mountain Top Baptist,” Katharina answered.
All three of the new agents looked startled.
Astrid spoke up. “You may have noticed Neustatter did not ask any of you what denomination you are.”
“Lutheran, I assure you,” Friedrich said.
Klaus’ response was only a split second later. “Lutheran.”
“Then you have something in common,” Astrid said. “Most of NESS’ agents are Lutheran, including Neustatter.”
She and Katharina exchanged glances.
“Congratulations, Astrid,” Katharina said. “Georg told me you are a team leader now.”
“Dank. Are the other fräuleins in school this summer?”
“Nein. Nona found a summer job. Alicia and Amalia talked their parents into visiting each other during the summer. They are spending a month with Amalia’s family and then a month with Alicia’s family. They say Alicia will learn German and Amalia English faster this way than in class.”
Astrid noticed Friedrich was paying close attention to Katharina and Marta. That was no surprise; they were a year older than he, reasonably attractive, and old Grantville hands. Nor was it surprising Krystal’s face held a stern expression. Astrid didn’t need Barbara’s expertise to figure out why.
* * *
They got Friedrich enrolled in night classes and then set off toward Grantville. She remembered walking this way two years ago when she first came to Grantville.
“Stay to the right,” she warned the new agents. “Grantville’s cars and trucks are very fast.”
The first one they saw was a blue pickup coming toward them. Everyone got off the road and watched it until it disappeared.
Where a road led off to the right, Astrid drew them aside. “This is Deborah Road. I do not mean to take you there now. But I do want you to see the stop sign here.” She pointed. “This instructs cars and trucks coming this way to stop until no traffic is coming on Route 250.”
As they walked toward Grantville, Astrid pointed out houses she had mistaken for schlösser. “Und that is a garage. It is where they store the cars and trucks, but often garages are rented out for people to live in now. Grantville is not as crowded as it once was, but many more people live here than did before it came to our time.
“On the other side of the road is Leahy Medical Center. Wolfram works here, und the only one of our men you have not met yet is a patient here. Lukas was wounded in the attack on the train in May.”
She led them down the driveway to Leahy. The nurse at the front desk pursed her lips but summoned an orderly to take them to Lukas’ room. The orderly stopped them in the hall and entered Lukas’ room. He emerged a few seconds later and reported, “He is awake. Do not tire him out, bitte.”
“Astrid! Otto!” Lukas exclaimed. He was sitting up in bed, braced with pillows. The bedsheet over his legs was covered with playing cards. “Do not listen to him. Wolfram brought these, but I am getting bored of Solitaire. But who are these?”
“New NESS agents,” Astrid told him. “Klaus Eggers. His Committees of Correspondence team was chasing Ritter von Kardorff and Krystal von Kardorff. There was a standoff on the train. Neustatter hired them.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Otto confirmed. “You should have seen the faces of the Mounted Constables who were waiting on the Schwarza platform.”
Lukas laughed, then stopped abruptly. “I have not laughed in a while. It still hurts. Do not get shot.”
“How are you doing?” Astrid asked.
“Better. Pastor Green came by. We had a good talk.”
“Good.”
“I have a couple things I need to take care of,” Lukas said. “I will tell you about them later. It would take too long now.”
Astrid nodded, although she had no idea what Lukas was talking about. If it would take too long to explain, either Lukas was tired or he didn’t want to explain in front of the new agents.
“We should let you get some sleep.”
“All right. Tell Wolfram to get me out of here soon.”
“We will.”
* * *
“How did he get shot?” Friedrich asked as they walked back up the driveway to Route 250.
“We were guarding clients on the train,” Astrid explained. “Some members of the Saxon adel put retainers aboard the train. They attempted to hijack it. Lukas had a rifle, so they knew he was armed. The man across the aisle shot him.”
“What happened then?”
“I shot him. Then I think Wolfram knocked him out. Neustatter shot the one at the front of the car. More retainers cut down a tree so it fell across the railroad tracks, and they were firing from behind it. We joined forces with the Saxon Ghost to defeat them.”
Astrid paused to work out how to say it. “Neustatter says sometimes you can do everything right, and someone still gets shot. Wolfram was able to keep Lukas alive until the train got us to Military Medical Service medics outside Halle.”
She looked back at the parking lot where they’d spent days guarding the riot investigation and where she’d been promoted.
“We have more stops to make,” she said.
The next stretch of road was longer and took them past the Downs neighborhood, the Trolley Street area from which NESS had watched the Ring of Fire Day parade a few weeks earlier. Once they’d crossed the bridge over Buffalo Creek, Astrid turned right, into a parking lot.
Friedrich gazed at the large arches outside. “What is this?”
Klaus made a beeline for the door.
“Freedom Arches,” Astrid answered.
“We will wait here,” Krystal stated.
“He may be a while,” Astrid pointed out. “But while we are waiting . . . If you come over here behind Freedom Arches, you can just see Blackshire Elementary School. It has kindergarten through fourth grade. Across Route 250 from Freedom Arches is Rainbow Plaza. Marcantonio’s Pizza is over there. The spaghetti and the pizza are both very good. They are the best things to make with tomato sauce.”
Klaus rejoined them. He looked pleased. “The Grantville CoC will follow up on the messages we sent this morning. They have welcomed me.”
Krystal sniffed.
“Gut,” Astrid said. “The Grantville CoC are good people, sober and level-headed.” She smiled. “Besides, they have fries. Those are fried potato slices cooked in oil. Or baked.”
She stopped and studied their expressions. “Okay, you can work your way up to tomatoes and potatoes. Let’s go on.”
They walked through Grantville, seeing downtown, the library, and several churches. Along the way, they bought changes of clothing, stopped at the drug store, and ended up at Garrett’s Super Market.
All three came to a stop not far inside the front door.
“Is this the market for the entire city?” Krystal asked.
“Nein. Three grocery stores existed before the Ring of Fire,” Astrid replied. “There are others, now, too, plus the outdoor farmer’s markets during the summer and early fall.”
Astrid pulled a shopping cart from the end of the row, and they wandered through the aisles.
“This cannot all be from here,” Krystal declared. “Anyone can see there is not room within the Ring of Fire to grow this much—especially not if the other two markets are like this. The food must be expensive.”
Klaus began examining shelves. “It is not. Well, more so than in my village, I suspect, but these vegetables would cost a bit more in Magdeburg.”
“What is that?” Friedrich asked when Astrid consulted her list.
“A list of food we need. Ursula handed it to me.” Astrid stopped at the grain counter.
“May I help you?” the clerk asked.
“Ja.” Astrid shucked off the pack she was wearing and pulled out a small grain bag. “Five pounds of rye, bitte.”
The clerk put her bag on one side of a balance, then put an identical bag and a five-pound weight on the other side. He used a scoop to fill Astrid’s bag with rye until the scales balanced. Then he pulled the bag’s drawstring tight and passed it over the counter to her.
“Here you go.”
“Dank.”
Astrid carefully placed the bag in the bottom of the shopping cart. The drawstring worked out fairly well, but you still couldn’t tip the bag over. Next, she turned down the bread aisle.
“You just bought rye,” Krystal pointed out.
“Ja, because Ursula knows it is cheaper to buy the ingredients and make your own bread. But Garrett’s has rugbrød.” Seeing looks of incomprehension, she explained. “It is a Danish bread. Sourdough with rye. My mother used to make it.”
Astrid added two loaves and turned the cart toward the meat counter. There she bought additional chicken and beef.
“That is a lot of meat,” Friedrich observed.
“The up-timers eat a lot of meat, especially beef. It is in many of the dishes Ursula has added to what she already knew. Und now there are sixteen agents, five adult family, and six children.”
Astrid smiled like a kid about to cause trouble. “I hear there are two ways to go about grocery shopping. Some people decide what they are going to make every meal for a week or even two. Then they buy just the ingredients for those meals. Others buy all the ingredients they think they might need and then assemble them on the spur of the moment. Some get very worked up about whether ‘menuing’ or ‘skortsing’ is the proper way of cooking.”
“What is ‘skortsing’?” Krystal asked.
Astrid gestured at her split skirts. “It is flying by the seat of your skorts, as the up-timers sort of say.”
Friedrich gave her a cockeyed look. “So which is right?”
Astrid lowered her voice. “Almost everyone is really somewhere in the middle. But do not say so in front of them. It just upsets them.”
Krystal started laughing.
“What?” her brother demanded.
“I have heard the village women back in our village having this argument,” she got out. “Oh, they think I do not hear them, but I do. Und you say up-timers are the same way?”
“Ja, just like us.”
* * *
By the end of the day, everyone had clothes, personal necessities, and food. All of NESS gathered for dinner in the Kirchenbauers and Kuntzes’ townhouse. Ursula had prepared several meat pies of mixed beef and sausage.
“This is really good,” Stefan told her.
“Have some vegetables,” she told their son Johann.
He eyed them with a dubious look. Astrid thought she understood why. “Mixed vegetables” to an up-timer meant three or more mixed together in certain proportions. To Ursula, “mixed vegetables” meant whatever needed to be eaten now thrown together.
“Think of it as hot salad,” she suggested. At Johann’s frown, she added, “Salad is just cold mixed vegetables.”
“I do not eat fancy stuff like you do on your dates.”
“Salad is not fancy. It is all things we grow in our section of the Kimberly Heights garden.”
“What about the spaghetti?”
Astrid smiled. She’d really come to like Italian food. “All right, spaghetti is new to us, but it is something an up-time family might make for dinner every week or two.”
“What is dates?” Miss von Kardorff asked.
Astrid hesitated just long enough that Johann volunteered an answer. “It is when she walks out with Georg Meisner.”
“Is he a security agent, too?”
“Nein, he is a forensics investigator for the polizei.” Astrid briefly explained what that meant.
Miss von Kardorff smiled. “It feels good to talk about something like this. There is so much new to us in Grantville.” The smile disappeared. “Und it is so closed in. I do not like the cliffs.”
Astrid nodded. She appreciated Miss von Kardorff was willing to trust her with the information.
“I felt like that, too, at first. After a while, I stopped noticing.” It was Astrid’s turn to smile. “The first day we came to Grantville, I got so turned around. We were escorting salt wagons to the slaughterhouses south of the Ring of Fire. I thought we had gone up over the Ring Wall on the south, but we actually went west to Schwarzburg, then went around the Ring of Fire. I remember the road being so dark at night. I didn’t figure it out for days—und it did not help to talk to an up-timer about it, because the Ring of Fire spun them around. It is a little thing compared to a new time and a new place, but sometimes when you talk to them, they still think of Route 250 as a north/south road. It was, up-time, I suppose, but the part of it in the Ring of Fire is more east/west now.”
“How did you find your way around?”
“The men had been here for about six months before they came and got us,” Astrid explained. “They knew their way around fairly well. Und we have maps at the office. Of course, Neustatter will tell you ‘the map is not the territory.’”
Saturday, June 23, 1635
On Saturday morning, Neustatter stayed behind to help with the breakfast dishes. He waited until Ursula had gone upstairs.
“Anna, would you come over to the office with Astrid, bitte?”
Anna looked vaguely alarmed.
“Oh, there is nothing wrong, und I am not going to ask you to be the secretary.”
The two women exchanged glances. “Ja, he does that,” Astrid reminded Anna.
Anna’s eyes narrowed. “Nein, if there were a problem, you would have asked Wolfram to come, too. If it were uniforms for the new agents, you would ask me here. It must be something you do not want to say here.”
“Maybe I should make you an agent,” Neustatter said. “You are correct. I just want your advice.”
“Well, this sounds mysterious.”
* * *
Anna collected Kristina, now nine months old, and they went to the office.
Along the way, Anna looked to Astrid.
“I have no idea,” she told her friend. “It may be something from yesterday. I was with the new agents all day.”
When they arrived, Astrid unlocked the NESS office. Once the four of them were inside, Neustatter waved the women to chairs around the Franklin stove. They had no reason to light a fire in late June, but it was still a good place to sit. Evidently Neustatter thought this was going to take a while.
He began abruptly. “I asked Ditmar and Hjalmar to show the new agents the local area. Kimberly Heights and Porter Avenue. The Riverfront Park Loop. The Hauns’ Troll Bridge. Their place. Deborah Street and the back ways into the high school complex.” He took a breath. “They need to know their way around, of course, but I wanted to get rid of everyone for a little while.
“Yesterday, Ditmar and I interviewed Peter Johann Drehmann and Ernst Reisner.”
“Two of the men I hired for Operation Schale,” Astrid stated. “Both asked about working for NESS again.”
“Ja. Ernst has found steady work with the highway department. He is skilled driving the different tractors and other equipment. So, while he has nothing against us, he has a steady job that pays well and understandably does not want to give it up.”
Astrid and Anna both nodded. That only made sense.
“Peter Johann Drehmann has been working a series of jobs. Not quite day labor, but as what up-timers call a temp. He has been hiring on as a worker for a specific project, then moves on to the next one. He said he is still interested in NESS because sometimes weeks go by between projects, even in Grantville. He fills in with day labor, the way we understand it.
“He has a family. His wife could use work, too, and can help Ursula, Anna, and Agathe with cooking and cleaning. They have four children. Fourteen, ten, seven, and five.”
“Oh, Johann, Willi, and Elisabetha will like that!” Anna exclaimed.
Astrid was more restrained. “You say it like there is something wrong, Neustatter. What is the problem?”
“The fourteen-year-old’s name is Regina.” Neustatter shook his head. “I mean nothing against the girl, but do you remember Maria Ramcke’s sister Dorothea?”
Astrid’s eyes narrowed. “Ja, I do.”
“I liked Dorothea!” Anna objected.
Neustatter sighed. “Anna, you were on good terms with almost everyone in the village. You never saw Dorothea as a threat.”
Kristina squirmed, and Anna switched the baby to her other shoulder. “Dorothea was never a threat. Wolfram simply was not interested in her.”
Astrid thought back several years to before Dorothea had married a prosperous farmer from a nearby village, then spoke slowly. “I was young, but I do not remember Dorothea doing anything to encourage the young men.”
“I do not, either,” Neustatter agreed. “She simply . . . existed, and it was enough.”
Astrid pursed her lips. “Are you saying this Regina is like this?”
“Ja, but what do I know? I want you women’s opinion.”
“You did not bring Ursula or Agathe,” Anna pointed out.
Neustatter gave her a lopsided grin. “I suspect I already know Ursula’s opinion. Und Agathe we hired alongside Phillip. It is a similar situation. I think she would be inclined to extend the same to someone else.”
“Und you do not want to create tension between Ursula and Agathe,” Astrid finished. “Wise. But if you hire Drehmann, the girl will eventually be around NESS, and Ursula will say what she thinks.”
Anna’s face was unusually serious. “Astrid is right, Neustatter. We are friends, but Ursula is . . . ”
“Let us use the up-timer expression old-school.” Neustatter’s tone was almost grave. “I would prefer the men not notice the girl, but if they do, I do not want the women to blame her for it.”
“Neustatter,” Astrid said, “this is one of those psychology things. We need to ask Barbara Kellarmännin.”
“Why don’t you and Otto go find out if she will take a private case?”
* * *
“Of course I will come,” Barbara Kellarmännin assured them.
“Barbara!” her mother exclaimed.
“Mother, they are just asking me to people-watch. Person-watch. One specific person.”
“How dangerous is this?”
Astrid thought it over. “I estimate the worst-case scenario is Neustatter yelling at someone. Not at Barbara, of course,” she hastened to add.
A few minutes later, they were riding back down the mountain. Otto and Barbara carried on an animated conversation all the way back to NESS. Astrid stayed out of it and tried not to be too disappointed she hadn’t had time enough to call on Georg Meisner.
* * *
When they arrived back at the NESS office, they unsaddled the three horses and put them in the day stable at one end of the building. All of NESS’ agents were present. Ditmar and Hjalmar were running their teams through an exercise in the parking lot while Klaus, Friedrich, and Krystal watched. Stefan and Ursula’s son Johann and Phillip and Agathe’s children Willi and Elisabetha were playing nearby under Anna’s watchful eye. Phillip himself was casually leaning against the building. Astrid suspected Neustatter had stationed him there to watch for the Drehmanns. She, Otto, and Barbara went inside.
Barbara greeted the man seated at the far desk. “Neustatter.”
“Miss Kellarmännin.”
“I understand you have some concerns about the daughter of a prospective agent?”
“Ja.”
“Tell me nothing, bitte.”
Neustatter cocked his head to one side. “Not ‘tell me everything’?”
“Nein. I would rather not know until later what everyone else thinks.”
“Your call.”
They settled into chairs. It wasn’t long before the door opened and Phillip stepped in. “Family of six coming out Route 250. The man matches your description of Drehmann.”
“I would like to see them approach.” Barbara stood and headed for the door.
Neustatter followed suit. “Otto, I expect a few of us will talk to Drehmann inside. Sit in with us, bitte.”
Astrid followed her boss out the door. She recognized Peter Johann Drehmann at once; she’d hired him for Operation Schale eight months before. His wife was attractive. She was carrying a girl who looked about five years old. An elementary school-aged boy and girl followed their parents, and the older girl brought up the rear.
Astrid immediately saw why Neustatter was concerned. Regina was gorgeous. The kerchief she wore accented her long hair instead of hiding it. The dark ringlets surrounding her face reminded Astrid of a crown. She was surprised to see the girl wore a heavy button-down shirt which wasn’t all that different from a NESS uniform, along with down-time-made jeans and sturdy boots. Astrid watched her face light up as she took in the office building with its wooden sidewalk and hitching bar out front. One of the horses in the day stable whinnied, and the girl’s head snapped around.
“Locked on target, the up-timers say,” Neustatter murmured.
“Oh . . . her . . . ” Barbara’s voice was equally quiet.
“Problem?” Neustatter asked.
“Nein. I have seen her at school. I think it was the day the eighth graders came over from the middle school.”
Neustatter advanced to meet Drehmann and his wife. “Hans Peter. Frau Stengerin.”
She laughed. “I understand why everyone is Herr and Frau, but it is still funny. Especially after cleaning two or three houses a day.”
Astrid couldn’t help smiling in response.
Neustatter introduced them. “Astrid Schäubin, our secretary and Team Three leader. Peter Johann Drehmann, Maria Stengerin, and their children.”
The children recognized their cue and lined up.
“Regina, Peter, Cecilia, and Theobald.”
Astrid nodded politely to them, while thinking about those names.
“‘I will introduce you to the rest of our agents,” Neustatter said.
Within minutes, the Drehmanns’ Cecilia and Theobald were playing with Johann Kirchenbauer and Willi and Elisabetha Pfeffer. Peter was older enough that he was watching the NESS agents with rapt attention. Regina had wandered off toward the stable.
After a few minutes, Astrid stepped back on the wooden walkway in front of the office to observe how her team was reacting to the Drehmann girl. Well enough. Of course, Wolfram and Phillip were both married. Astrid turned her attention to the other teams. Some of the men were sneaking looks, which was hardly surprising. Friedrich was the most obvious about it. Since he was just a couple years older than the girl, Astrid hadn’t expected anything else.
Barbara drifted up alongside her. “You are watching your men instead of her.”
Astrid smiled briefly. “Ja.”
“I like that. A lot of girls blame a pretty younger girl for getting all the attention instead of trying to help her deal with it. Up-timers and down-timers both.”
Astrid shifted uncomfortably.
“She reminds me of Judy Wendell or Denise Beasley,” Barbara went on. “Beautiful but not caring about it.”
“Hmm. Dank.” Astrid maneuvered toward the stable where Regina was edging closer to the horses. “Do you know how to be safe around them?” she called.
Regina turned, a startled expression on her face. “Oh, ja,” she answered. At Astrid’s nod, she held out her hand. A minute later, she was best friends with the mare Astrid had ridden up to the Brethren settlement.
“You are good with horses,” Astrid said. “Like Anna.”
“I love horses.” Regina looked around. “This place is straight out of the Wild West. May I work here? I will have to find a job soon.”
“Neustatter will insist you go to school,” Astrid said.
“Really?” Regina tipped her head in Friedrich’s direction. “What about him?”
“Him, too. Everyone takes the citizenship class. I take other classes.”
“My parents said I will probably have to drop out as soon as I can. Or apprentice.”
“What do you want to do?” Astrid asked.
“I want to ride.”
Astrid studied Regina for a minute. “Can you ride? For real?”
“Ja. I’m good.”
Astrid turned and cupped her hands. “Neustatter! We are going riding!”
It took a few minutes, because Astrid watched Regina saddle her horse. She did so expertly, and Astrid was satisfied she knew what she was doing. Then Astrid began saddling one of the other horses.
“Do you mind one more?”
Astrid and Regina both turned to see Barbara.
“Of course not,” Regina said.
A few minutes later, they were riding down Route 250. It wasn’t far at all to the Ring Wall. They rode up a hill and into the “eastern lobe.” The area had voted to join West Virginia County and was about the same size as the Ring of Fire itself.
On the way to and from the Anabaptist settlement, the mare had tested Astrid a few times. She tried again now. Astrid opened her mouth to shout a warning, but Regina was already demonstrating to the horse who was actually in charge. That settled, she gave the mare her head, and the horse accelerated to a steady canter.
“Should we go after her?” Barbara shouted to Astrid.
“Nein! The horse is doing exactly what Regina lets her!” Astrid shouted back. “She’s good!”
“Maybe you should hire her!”
Astrid started to laugh. Then she stopped. Why not? Someone had to exercise the horses. She’d have to check and see if NESS could afford to hire Regina part-time.
* * *
Astrid signaled Neustatter when NESS broke for lunch.
“Miss Schäubin, Miss Kellarmännin, and I will catch up!” Neustatter called to the others.
Ditmar waved a hand in acknowledgment as everyone else headed for the townhouse.
Neustatter led Astrid and Barbara to the chairs in front of the Franklin stove and waited for them to sit down. Then he looked at Barbara.
“Regina is not a problem,” the young profiler stated. “She is not disruptive, and she does not try to draw attention. It just happens.”
Neustatter nodded. “Other people—men—being around her could be a problem. Und she is only fourteen. I think we can assume she will draw even more attention when she is eighteen.”
Barbara nodded in turn. “Ja.”
“If her parents leave her in school, und she is not around NESS much . . . ” Neustatter mused. “But Peter Johann was talking about how she may need to get a job.”
“She should stay in school,” Barbara said.
“She is a very good rider,” Astrid put in. “The horses need to be exercised, ja? Suppose we hire her part-time.”
“Can we afford to? I thought hiring Peter Johann and his wife was going to use up just about all of our cashflow.”
“It is,” Astrid agree. “So it would be just a half-salary, nothing else. Und not a big one.” She sat up straighter. “Nein, a quarter salary because Mestermann should pay the other half.”
“Mestermann will make her muck out the stalls like any other employee.”
“She likes the Old West, Neustatter.”
“Really?” A smile spread across Neustatter’s face.
“You do not even care she is a girl anymore,” Barbara observed. “Much less a pretty one. She is a fellow conspirator.”
“Find out if she can shoot already.”
* * *
They left the office, walked a very short distance toward Grantville, and turned left on Porter Avenue. As far as Astrid was concerned, Porter Avenue was the place within the Ring of Fire that summed up the differences between up-time and down-time society. It looked like somebody had dropped a village, and all the parts had scattered across the landscape.
Porter Avenue looked like it had been paved a long time ago, and the road was wide enough for one up-time car at a time. Trees lined the left side, while a grass-covered hill rose on the right. It was straight for a ways, with four houses along it. At the first intersection, all rhyme and reason departed. On the east was a driveway. The house it led to was right next to two houses on Sunkist Lane. Sunkist Lane was a similar side road off Route 250, but east of the NESS office. The driveway off Porter and the driveway off Sunkist “connected” by the simple expedient of someone driving cars or trucks across the grass between them.
On the right of the Porter Avenue intersection, a road angled back at what the math teachers called an obtuse angle. It immediately split into two parallel roads, and a trailer home sat in the grassy strip between them. The one on the right was called Limestone Road, and it led to a single house mere feet from the left branch—which was still called Porter Avenue. There were four more houses and trailers along this section of Porter, with the last next door to the last house on Freeman Street—but those two roads didn’t connect at all. Freeman Street started directly across the road from the high school driveway, so it had an actual stoplight. Then it turned ninety degrees left—east—and continued along for several houses before not connecting to Porter Avenue.
Neustatter, Astrid, and Barbara took the left branch and then turned left again onto what had been a long driveway up until a year ago. Sommersburg and Carstairs Construction had arranged for an extension of this stretch of road. Astrid didn’t know if they had purchased the land or just a right-of-way or if they were paying rent. But it now continued west and connected to Kimberly Heights, forming a continuous street two blocks south of Route 250. Freeman Street formed the first “block” although it didn’t connect to the rest of the neighborhood.
Sommersburg and Carstairs Construction had leveled the top of the heights. The wood from the trees had gone right back into the new apartment buildings and townhouses. They’d built retaining walls where necessary and promptly replanted seedlings, so there would be trees again in a few years.
“I have not been in this area before,” Barbara remarked. “What was the building with all the metal and wires?” Barbara asked.
“Some sort of electrical station, I think,” Neustatter answered.
“What is beyond it?”
Astrid had studied the map and walked the ground. “The intersection on the other side of the electrical station is Small Street, which is accurate enough. It has one or two houses on each side. Then there is a driveway to the left with a single house. It has no name but is almost as long as Small Street. Porter Avenue—yes, it is still Porter Avenue even though the part we turned onto is also Porter Avenue—makes an S-curve through the woods. There are three houses on the right with a shared driveway. Then Porter Avenue curves down a hill and meets East Run Road at East Run Church. I have heard before the Ring of Fire the last stretch could be crossed only with a four-wheel drive or a dirt bike, but it has been improved since.”
“East Run Church,” Neustatter mused. “It was in your Operation Schale report. One of the squads found a couple who were sneaking off into the woods.”
“I have heard of East Run Church, too.” Barbara thought for a minute. “I know! Mattheus Beimler did his senior project on the churches of Grantville. He had pictures or sketches of each church building in town as well as the Lutheran church buildings outside the Ring of Fire, along with a description of each denomination. He put in all the other church buildings within the Ring of Fire.”
“What kind of churches are they?” Astrid asked.
“Different kinds, but he found almost all of them were abandoned or semi-abandoned when the Ring of Fire happened. Many were used for refugee housing soon after the Ring of Fire.” She shuddered. “Ask Marta sometime.”
The three of them were late to lunch. Most of the children and mothers were at the table, while many of the agents stood, plate in one hand. Amid sausage rolls, sauerkraut, and mixed vegetables (Astrid overheard Johann telling the younger Drehmann children about “hot salad”), Neustatter circulated around the room, quietly speaking with the men. At his nod, Astrid checked with her team members.
“What do you think of Drehmann, Phillip?”
Phillip’s specialty was being the “invisible man.” He’d learned from Otto.
“I had a chance to stand back and watch a bit,” he said. “Drehmann seems like good people. I think he is right where I was a year ago, but he has been doing individual construction projects rather than farming.” Phillip smiled. “Willi and Elisabetha like the kids. Ours are like little up-timers, you know. It will be good to have someone around with older children. Maybe we can learn from them.”
Astrid hadn’t considered that angle. “Maria?”
“I think she will fit in. Is Neustatter going to hire her to help Agathe, Ursula, and Anna?”
“Ja. What about Regina?”
“The older girl?” Philip shrugged at her nod. “If I were Drehmann, I would not mind having a bunch of agents around to scare off the boys.”
“Dank.”
Wolfram’s assessment was much the same. “Anna likes Maria.”
Astrid felt compelled to say it. “Anna likes everyone.”
Wolfram grinned. “Ja, she does, but she thinks Maria will be fun to be around.”
“Dank.” Although a first impression, it was a pretty good endorsement, Astrid reflected.
She approached the von Kardorffs.
“How was training?”
“Different from a rittersakademie,” Friedrich answered at once. “I was not expecting the men to bring their families.”
But his sister had a knowing look in her eye. “I have seen the gemeinde do this in our village when someone visits. But I do not remember anyone moving to our village. That is what this man Drehmann is doing, is it not? Joining NESS.”
Astrid gave Krystal points for the acronym and for figuring out what Neustatter was up to. She should have anticipated it. While Krystal was brand new to NESS, she had been prepared to help her brother administer a village. Or just as likely, to help a future husband administer his village.
“Ja.”
“Aber dieses Mädchen,” Krystal muttered. That girl, though . . .
Astrid murmured something noncommittal. Age and authority are concerned. Young and friendly are not. She thought back to what Barbara had said earlier about young, attractive women getting blamed for, well, being young and attractive. And there was the part in the Smaller Catechism about explaining everything in the kindest way. . . . I think Anna and Barbara are right.
She caught Neustatter’s eye and gave him the V sign.
He acknowledged it with a sharp nod. “Listen up.”
Everyone gave him their attention at once.
“In case anyone missed it, NESS is hiring the class of ’35.” Several people chuckled. “You know we do not hire just agents. Just like the army, we need support personnel, too. So I am extending an offer . . . Peter Johann . . . Maria . . . Regina.”
The girl’s head jerked up.
“I can offer you only a quarter share for now, for two reasons. First, because you cannot do a full day’s work while you are in school. Second, because Astrid thinks she can get Herr Mestermann at the livery stable to put up a quarter share of his own, because what we’d like you to do is make sure our horses are exercised and taken care of.”
The girl’s eyes shone, and Astrid figured Neustatter had just made a friend for life.
“NESS does not do basic training like the Army and the National Guard,” Neustatter stated. “We do what the up-timers call on-the-job training. The rest of us need the practice, too, so we train in the teams we use on assignments.
“Our last Saxon Run before the messe is Monday, returning Wednesday. Teams One and Two are guarding the train, but Klaus needs to return an SRG, and he and the von Kardorffs need to pick up whatever personal items they left in Magdeburg. I will come along and make it an even dozen.
“The new agents are going to need firearms. Klaus, we will see if we can get you another SRG in Magdeburg. If the Committees of Correspondence assign you the same one, it is fine with me. I just want to make sure if that serial number needs to be somewhere, it gets there. Wolfram, are you scheduled for any hearts and minds visits to those villages on the road to Suhl?”
Wolfram looked surprised. “Ja, I was hoping to get out there one more time before the messe. Anna and I—and Kristina—along with a couple experienced nurses and some of the new nursing students.”
“Exzellent! Can you take Phillip along and continue on to one of the gunmaking cities to buy a pair of pistols? Some of us will go out to the range this afternoon. By the end of the day, I hope to be able to tell you which models.”
“Ja.”
“Astrid, this leaves you running the office and helping the Drehmanns get settled in. Und check on Lukas.”
Astrid nodded. While she wanted to be in the field since she was now a team leader, Phillip could handle the Suhl mission just fine, and he would be a lot less conspicuous than she would be. And with Anna in the field with Wolfram, she suspected Regina might need a friend in the townhouse.
Sunday, June 24, 1635
Astrid slept in. When she got up, Krystal was already dressed.
“Are you not going to church?”
“I am going to the German service at First Baptist. It is after noon.”
Krystal frowned in disapproval. “Why?”
“Some theological questions came up in connection to a case back in March. So Team Two and Neustatter and I went to the Schwertler Anabaptist service and then to First Baptist. Otto and I have continued to go there.”
“Because you are walking out with that boy. Anabaptists are anarchists. Everyone knows it.”
“An anarchist would not work for the polizei. Georg is a forensics technician.”
“Hmmph.”
Krystal, Friedrich, Hjalmar, and Ditmar left a few minutes later. Astrid wondered if she should ask the Bibelgesellschaft girls to talk to Krystal, or if it would just make matters worse. She showered and dressed and went back to her room to brush her hair. She met Otto outside, and they set out for downtown Grantville.
Georg brought her home before dinner.
“Where have you been?” Krystal blurted out.
Astrid was amused by the role reversal. As the senior agent—and probably Krystal’s team leader—it was her place to ask. However, since she was in charge, amusement wasn’t the right approach to take.
Her reply was cool. “Church. Dr. Green preached on John 8, Jesus is the light of the world. What did Pastor Kastenmayer preach on?”
“The Gospel reading, of course.”
“Then Georg and I went to Marcantonio’s Pizza. We had lasagna.”
Monday, June 25, 1635
Astrid and Peter Johann Drehmann saw the others off, then opened the office.
“Have you used a telephone before?” Astrid asked.
“Ja.”
“If we have any trouble with Schlinck’s Company, call the polizei, the townhouse, and Bretagne’s Company, in that order.”
“Why would I call instead of you?”
“You have Lukas’ caplock, and I have a revolver.”
Peter Johann nodded slowly. Neustatter had briefed the new agents on NESS’ good relations with Bretagne’s Company and their history with Schlinck’s Company.
“I have not seen Sergeant Wolfe or his squad around in a while,” Astrid said, “but I am sure Hauptmann Bretagne would send someone. Lead a couple squads himself, probably.”
When the door opened mid-afternoon, both agents reached for their weapons.
But the person who came through the door had nothing to do with either mercenary company. The woman was pretty-but-aging, definitely a down-timer, and heavily made up. Astrid’s first thought was the woman was—at best—a tavern server. But she seemed somehow familiar.
“Ich heisse Gertrude Groenewold. I am looking for Lukas Heidenfelder.”
“Erfurt. You are from Erfurt.”
“Close. I worked in Erfurt. You are the girl who was with Lukas and his guys there. He has not died yet, has he?”
She looks truly concerned, Astrid thought. “He is in the hospital, recovering well. Why?”
“I just heard. A few days ago, I mean. I came as soon as I could. I want to see him.”
Astrid considered the possibility this was a trap. While it would be easy to establish most of NESS was on a mission—either by learning the train guard schedule or by staking out the office—such knowledge would make a ruse unnecessary. Still . . .
“Peter Johann, grab your rifle. We are closing the office. I will take . . . ”
“Trudi Groenewold.”
“I will take Frau Groenewold to Leahy,” Astrid continued. “Cover us until we pass the wooded area along Route 250, and then drop back to the townhouse.”
Peter Johann did not ask questions, which she really appreciated since she was making this up as she went.
They reached Leahy Medical Center without incident, and the receptionist summoned an orderly to take them to Lukas’ room. Lukas was awake and playing Solitaire, with some of the cards precariously balanced on his legs.
“Lukas!”
“Trudi?” He looked a little dumbfounded, Astrid noted. “You came! I was not expecting you to . . . ”
“Shh.” Trudi surveyed him. “You do not look shot.”
Lukas tapped his chest, but very gingerly. “I assure you, I got shot. No infection, though, and the doctors say I will recover.”
Trudi’s whole body stiffened. “You are not dying?”
“Sure hope not.”
“Then we need to talk.”
Astrid wasn’t sure what was going on, but she could recognize a cue. “I should get back to the office. Lukas, have someone call me there, okay?”
“Ja.”
* * *
Astrid retrieved Peter Johann from the townhouse and reopened the office. She didn’t say anything to him about Trudi. Partly, she didn’t want to explain that one of their agents visited a prostitute. The rest of it was wondering why this particular prostitute had come to see Lukas. It suggested more than just a . . . business arrangement.
Business was slow today, and the regular school year was over. Astrid had not enrolled in any adult education classes for the summer because she knew how busy NESS was likely to be. By the time she and Peter Johann returned to the townhouse for lunch, she was bored.
Regina was busy preparing lunch under the watchful eyes of Maria and Ursula. Agathe, with some “help” from seven-year-old Cecilia Drehmännin and five-year-olds Elisabetha Pfefferin and Theobald Drehmann, was watching Greta and Claus, who were crawling around and occasionally venturing into standing up. The three older boys had apparently made themselves scarce.
Everyone appeared for lunch, however. Astrid reminded herself they really needed a couple more tables. If they could be stored upright against a wall, all the better. Maybe she could get Karl to work with Arne Helgerson on it.
Johann Kirchenbauer looked up from his lunch and asked, “May Peter come to baseball practice with us?”
Astrid saw some looks of consternation and realized the question was more properly, could any of the children go to baseball practice? Could any of the adults be spared?
“I think not.” Maria spoke quietly. She rose to begin cleaning up.
Astrid caught Agathe’s eye and nodded toward Maria. She tried to convey, “You should tell her they will be able to afford it.”
Ursula sniffed. “We need to clean up.” She sent Regina a meaningful look.
“Nein. Not you,” Astrid told the girl. “You have a job, ja? Und we need to talk to Herr Mestermann about you having more of a job.”
Regina flashed a grateful smile. Astrid sensed she was going to hear about this later, certainly from Ursula and maybe from Maria. Well, too bad. She was in charge of NESS until Neustatter returned, and NESS had made Regina a job offer.
In the end, Astrid, Peter Johann and Maria, Regina, and the three older boys set out, leaving Anna, Ursula, and Agathe with three toddlers and three kids. They stopped at the livery stable first.
No one was at the front desk, but Astrid could hear someone in the office. She started toward it to knock on the door when one of the stable hands stuck his head in the back door.
“Herr Mestermann is out in the ring,” he said. “His daughter is in there.”
“Dank,” Astrid said. “I think we should see her.”
Someone called “Komm herein” as soon as she knocked. Astrid pushed the door open and saw a down-time woman about her own age seated at a table with a ledger and other papers spread across the surface. Astrid smiled in recognition of someone else who kept the books.
“How can I help you?” the woman asked.
“I heiss Astrid Schäubin from Neustatter’s European Security Services—”
The other woman was already rising. “I bin Hippolyta Mestermann. NESS co-owns a couple pools of horses.”
“Ja. This is Regina Drehmännin.”
Hippolyta was already smiling. Astrid figured she knew what was coming.
“You look like a horsewoman,” Hippolyta told Regina.
“Ja. I want to work with horses.”
“It is a lot of work. Mucking stalls, feeding them . . . ” She gestured at her table. “Huge amounts of paperwork.”
“I understand,” Regina said.
Hippolyta gazed at her for a minute. “All right. Let us go find my father. He tests new stable hands himself.” The look she then gave Astrid conveyed, “And we will negotiate the terms.”
A few minutes later, Astrid found herself telling Hippolyta about NESS.
“It sounds like you will be using the horses less and the trains more,” Hippolyta observed.
“For the next few months, I think,” Astrid agreed. “If the invasion of Saxony goes well, the railroad line may no longer need train guards.” She shrugged. “We will still ride horses for many missions to the east or west.”
“We see the same thing,” Hippolyta agreed. “Trains when traveling north, horses east, west, and south. Once the railroad reaches Bamberg, though, we will lose the southern traffic. At least the two-way traffic. One-way riders do pass through, but we do not rent them horses from any of the groups. If we want a particular horse back, we have to send someone else to go get it.” She smiled. “I suspect Regina would enjoy it—except I would never send a girl so young out on her own.”
“I think Neustatter needs to teach her how to shoot,” Astrid murmured.
Just then, Herr Mestermann stepped in. “I left her mucking a stall.” He exchanged looks with his daughter. “She is excited now, but we have to see if it lasts.”
“I will have to see if we can afford another stable hand,” Hippolyta cautioned.
“What about one-quarter of a stable hand?” Astrid asked. “NESS will pay a quarter. She will be in school the other half of the time.”
“We can probably do it,” Hippolyta declared. “If she works out.”
“Give her two weeks,” Herr Mestermann said.
“Her parents are out front,” Astrid said.
Hippolyta raised an eyebrow. “You approached us instead of the parents?”
“NESS is hiring the Drehmanns. Peter Johann as an agent, Maria to cook and clean, and Regina to help take care of our horses. Two and a quarter shares—not apprenticing. NESS’ responsibility.”
“The parents will want to talk to us,” Herr Mestermann pointed out.
“Of course,” Astrid agreed.
Peter Johann, Maria, Herr Mestermann, and Hippolyta had a long conversation. It started out front and ended alongside the ring. Astrid stayed out of it, but listened to the parts about safety. She understood there were lots of ways to get injured or killed around horses—kicked, thrown, stepped on, squashed against something—but she was mostly concerned with a pretty girl being isolated in the stables.
She definitely wanted Neustatter to teach Regina how to shoot. But she didn’t know how NESS could afford another weapon, and she wasn’t sure about a fourteen-year-old wearing iron. And she had a sinking feeling part of the solution was martial arts, and she was most likely to be Regina’s sparring partner.
Herr Mestermann provided another part of the solution. “I will keep an eye on her this afternoon.”
Peter Johann’s U.S. Waffenfabrik rifle probably didn’t hurt, either. He seemed willing enough to let Regina work for the afternoon, but Maria seemed uneasy.
“We should go to the ball field,” Astrid prompted.
“Ja,” Johann chimed in. “We don’t want to be late.”
As soon as they arrived at the baseball diamond and saw kids running around in uniforms, carrying bats, balls, and gloves, Maria murmured, “We cannot afford this.”
“But Peter has to play,” Willi Pfeffer insisted.
“Ja,” Johann agreed. “Und it is not expensive.”
“Boys,” Astrid warned.
“It is expensive for us,” Maria told her.
“The children share the equipment,” Astrid pointed out. “All they really need is a shirt. If you had the cloth, Anna and Agathe could make the shirt.”
“Truly?”
The boys persuaded their coach that Peter could practice with the NESS Agents and if he picked up the game quickly enough, play the second season of the summer with them.
Two down, Astrid thought. That leaves just Trudi.
Once baseball practice was over, they retraced their steps. Regina was reluctant to leave Mestermann’s livery stable, but they got everyone back to the townhouse. Astrid headed back out, first to the office, and then to Leahy.
“Trudi found a room to rent,” Lukas explained. “She said she will come see me in the morning.”
Astrid raised an eyebrow. “Not refugee housing?”
“Nein. She said she did not want to be a burden.”
Thursday, June 28, 1635
Teams One and Two, Neustatter, and the new agents who’d had business in Magdeburg returned Wednesday evening. NESS had a late dinner. Neustatter gave them the next day off, but met with the team leaders in the morning. Neustatter and Astrid were at their desks, while Ditmar and Hjalmar pulled chairs over.
After they updated one another on the last three days, Neustatter asked, “When do we expect Wolfram, Anna, Kristina, and Phillip to return?”
“Today, I hope,” Astrid answered.
“Gut. Our contract with the tech fair begins tonight. They will be setting up booths today, so they’ll need eight guards tonight and then six during the day tomorrow. Twelve-hour shifts through Sunday, July 8. We will take Monday off, and then Teams One and Two have a Saxon Run on Tuesday, July 10.”
“It beats not having enough work,” Ditmar observed. “Teams One and Two at night?”
“Ja,” Neustatter said. “Astrid, I want Otto and Phillip on during the days as plainclothesmen. They get Wolfram, because a medic is more likely to be needed when lots of people are there during the day. Also Friedrich, Krystal, and Peter Johann. Hjalmar, I am putting Klaus on your team. Astrid, if Wolfram and Phillip have not returned yet, you and I will fill in. Und I may put us there anyway if having three new agents there means we need more than six during the day.”
Astrid nodded but felt she ought to bring something up. “Do you want to switch up the shifts?”
“Nein,” Neustatter replied. “We do not have enough agents to make a third shift. It will work best if we stick to the same pattern for all ten days.”
“All right,” Astrid agreed.
“Now, tell me about Lukas and . . . Trudi?”
* * *
The phone rang just as Astrid was about to eat lunch.
“Neustatter’s European Security Services. Astrid Schäubin speaking.”
“Astrid, it is Wolfram. Anna, Kristina, Phillip, and I are back. We are at Leahy.”
“Gut. How was the mission?”
“We brought two patients in for a doctor to see. We bought what Neustatter wanted. I checked on Lukas. There’s a woman here, Trudi. The doctors are willing to send him home if I monitor him like I did Ditmar and Hans. She can help, but she needs a place.”
“One moment, Wolfram.” Astrid covered the receiver. “Neustatter, it is Wolfram. They are back, and the hospital is willing to release Lukas if Wolfram and Trudi take care of him.”
“Let me talk to Wolfram, bitte.”
Astrid listened to Neustatter’s side of the conversation.
“I would want to get out of the hospital, too . . . I see . . . Okay . . . Ja, someone needs to stay with Lukas . . . Nein, we should have Lukas with us. If Trudi is going to help . . . We do not have anyone else . . . What if I moved to Otto and Karl’s room? And we put Trudi with Lukas? . . . Okay. We will do it.”
Neustatter shot Astrid a look somewhere between warning and apology. “Trudi is offering to help Lukas. It is . . . not the best, but . . . ”
Astrid nodded. “As long as I do not have to explain it to Ursula.”
Neustatter grimaced.