But he had caused heartache at every turn.
He had to do better in this world.
He began by being a better father to Alina, taking care of her, and by being as studiously kind to Flicka as she would allow him to be. Finding out that Alina had been conceived less than a month after he’d left London had hurt her more, and again, he wished he had found a way to tell her about Alina earlier.
At suppers with Yoshi, he discussed the topic of the night carefully with him and Flicka, trying to support her arguments wherever he could. It warmed his heart to see that her subversive, anarchist view of the world hadn’t dulled one bit. If anything, her arguments became more honed during their discussions. He tried not to revel in them too obviously. Still, he loved seeing that she still wanted to burn down the world.
Over wine and time and the excellent food that Wulf’s chefs prepared, her sharpness toward him smoothed out.
He tried harder to make it up to her.
If he ever got another chance to be with her, he would give anything—his heart, his soul, his body—to do it right.
But it was unlikely. Flicka had married Pierre Grimaldi, a man with the stature and resources to literally give her the world, as she should have.
So he tried to make it right in other ways.
The lawyers found Gretchen and Hans wretchedly shacked up in a cabin in a forest, trying to live on love. His lawyers showed them Dieter’s offer of a hundred thousand dollars in exchange for all the frozen funds restored to Dieter, a final divorce, and his full custody of Alina. Gretchen signed the divorce papers. Dieter counter-signed the paperwork just under a month after he had found her note and his child abandoned with a neighbor.
His scrawl on the line was unrecognizable, but the name below was one he hadn’t seen in a long time. He stared at it for a while before he put the paperwork away.
Dieter was drinking coffee in theWelfenlegionstaff office in Wulfram’s house, working on an organizational chart for Wulf’s security team. Since Dieter had resigned from Wulf’s employ,ad hocpositions and teams had cropped up, leading to confusion. The wide paper spread on the desk looked like Europe in 1917, with German names and acronyms scribbled over an arrow-graffitied map.
He shook his head. Wulfram was some kind of mathematical genius, but Einstein didn’t have to run a small army while he was working on relativity. Wulf didn’t have time to manage theWelfenlegion, and it showed.
His phone rang, and he flipped it over to look at the screen before he answered it.
His pulse jumped when he saw the word on his phone screen:Durchlauchtig.
He should probably change that. Flicka would be angry if she saw it, and he understood why.
Yet he liked seeing it.
He swiped the screen. “Yes, Flicka?”
“The placenta previa problem has fixed itself,” Flicka told him. “We have six days to pull this wedding together. Ceremony and reception will be this Saturday.”
Dieter said, “I’m on it.”
“And Dieter?”
“Yes, Flicka.”
“I—” a pause stopped his heart, “I’m flying to Montreux in a few hours to begin the arrangements there. Do you want to leave for Montreux, so soon? Essentially, it’s the advance team.”
“Yes,” he breathed.
“It’s just for expediency and their security. I don’t want anything to happen to them. I want you to have every opportunity to surveil the sites and put the appropriate security in place.”
“I understand,” he said, “and I don’t want anything to happen to them, either. Even a few extra hours on the ground might make a difference. I appreciate it, and I think it’s a good idea.”
“Okay,” Flicka said.
“If there isn’t room on your plane,” he said, giving her an out, “I could head to the airport and hop a commercial flight.”
“No need,” Flicka said. “There’s more than enough room on Pierre’s little jet.”
“Right, and thank you again.”
