AN: Credits to Vasilisa, perfect_shade, geo_113 and Sunny for feedback and revisions.

1953 August 26th, north of Grozny:

CSR's Minister of National Defense, Luo Ronghuan, flipped through Marshal Kutik's maps and plans for the fourth offensive into Grozny while maintaining a straight, unemotional look on his face.

"Your doctrine is very… traditional." Luo looked up. "It looks like it even predates the Russy Confederation's war against the Akinese."

"It has traditionally worked well, and it will prove itself in securing a victory when my predecessor failed three times with his overly complicated 'combined arms' strategy."

"I see…" Luo continued his unflinching face. "Please help me understand why you intentionally left out… tanks, armored personnel carriers, jet aircraft, rocket artillery trucks, mages, and… automatic rifles and submachine guns. Many of my colleagues would have been ecstatic to have a large quantity of them to utilize."

Kutik laughed. "Armored vehicles and jets are not suitable for supporting urban combat. Tanks and armored personnel carriers are useless when operating against anti-tank threats."

"As for the artillery and the rest?" Luo raised an eyebrow.

"Blind firing area saturation artillery is inferior to towed howitzers. Speaking of mages, I've never trusted them. They will eventually stop listening to lesser men and utilize their own magic power to take political power. They should have all been purged to ensure the security of the state."

"And your preference for small arms?…"

"Fully automatic rifles and submachine guns encourage wasteful ammunition usage. Soldiers should be carefully picking their targets with their semi-automatic and bolt action rifles instead of spraying bullets in a general direction. The only good use for those bullet spraying weapons is for cracking down on protester crowds."

"And what is your plan in the event that the traitors put up enough of a fight to demoralize your men?" Luo showed a hint of impatience.

"I forgot one other good use for fully automatic rifles. Blocking detachments to discourage the cowards from fleeing! Thank you for reminding me of that!"

"I'd imagine some of your comrades disagree with you on some of those topics."

"What are they going to do? They can complain to Mikhail Blokhin if they want me to shut up! He's the one who decides who's in charge!"

Luo nodded, turned to an aide and spoke in a Chinese dialect, "Have that mentioned nomenklatura arrested for promoting and protecting criminal incompetents."

While the Rus translators were making sense of what was just said, Luo withdrew his pistol, and shot Kutik repeatedly while softly reciting a poem.

You tell me to do this,

He tells me to do that.

You're all bastards,

Go fuck your mother.

Then he turned to the rest of the shocked people in the room.

"I have no tolerance for incompetence that is indistinguishable from an enemy spy, and I will be taking command of the entire Russy Confederation military."

"You can't do that! Vannikov is in charge of our military!" Another Rus general cried out as two Chinese guards restrained him.

"Then he is free to write a complaint to Chairman Gao," Luo loaded a new magazine into his pistol.

"Your chairman is just a puppet!"

"So who do you think is in charge? You can argue over what is 'legal' all you want, but you will get out of my way as I'm going to burn Grozny, Li and his army, and the locals that dared to rally around that extremist, all to the ground."

While Berun is hit by power outage from electric grid attacks, at a safehouse in Hambrück:

New Granada, controlled by US businesses and historically the "enforcer" of the US's South American policy. Brasilia clinging onto slavery. Platia being a puppet which the puppet masters Brasilia and Peru have been fighting over for possibly over a century. And then there's the unknown factor that is Peru which could tip the balance of a continent-wide war.

"Thoughts?" I asked, walking back from the kitchenette with a freshly brewed pot of coffee.

"If the Americans and Brasilians really are carrying out some sort of intergenerational vendetta, that gives us more leverage over President Taft," Dertinge observed. "We could tie future arms sales to Granada to better oil export conditions."

"But wouldn't that make the Americans and Granadians simply shift to a different supplier?" Adenaue rejoined. "Then we would lose all chance to make a profit in the upcoming war."

"But is there even going to be a war?" Visha pondered. "So far the Granadians have talked big, but neither side has made any provocative moves in quite a while after their previous border skirmishes. Maybe it's all bluster. Maybe they don't actually want to fight after all, and it's just an excuse to modernize their military on the Americans' dime?"

"They'll have to fight," I said confidently. "They've snookered themselves. New Granada took out massive loans from US banks to finance their new military-industrial base. Loans that have to be repaid. There's no chance the Americans will forgive all that debt. New Granada needs Brasilia's land, resources and industries, or large war reparations, to pay back the loans. And the longer a potential war drags on, the more expensive it gets for everyone."

Visha and I poured out the rich dark brew and began to pass the cups to our guests as I continued.

"On the Brasilians' part, they could be sticking to their closed-door ignore-the-world strategy. Or they're deliberately playing dead while quietly sharpening the blade. Or it could be as simple as trying to avoid doing anything that could antagonize the US: if Brasilia is a good little dormouse, there's a reasonable possibility New Granada goes bankrupt without them having to do much. But if they do somehow anger the American government, New Granada might be given 'limited debt relief' and so avoid going bankrupt, and live to fight another day."

I sat back in my chair. "Based on Lorenz's information, I have this niggling little feeling in the back of my mind that New Granada is going to end up fighting a far tougher and more determined enemy than they bargained for. Given the enormous troubles the Confederates caused for the US, and the Boers caused for the Albish, New Granada now feels like a riskier bet than we first imagined. The Confederados could be chomping at the bit for an excuse for a glorious war just like their forefathers, waiting to stick it to US-puppet New Granada."

"However strong the Brasilians' morale may be, it can't overcome the technology and industry gap with New Granada. Élan vital or willpower is no match for superior firepower, Albion more than proved that in the Anglish-Boer War," Lergen objected.

"Whatever the case, we have too little information to go on to make a reliable judgment," Elya said, accepting the cup of coffee I handed her. "The BND has no operatives in Latin America, and even if I started building a network today, it would take years before it could be of any use, especially after hearing about how Brasilia and Peru have been practicing influence operations in Platia for a long time. The government would also have to double our budget."

"Money again," I grumbled. "Everything wants our money. Isn't there any way to expand our revenue in the short term?"

"Churn out more plutonium from our nuclear power stations?" Adenaue proposed.

"They're already running at maximum safe capacity," Lergen replied.

"I suggest we allow South Bharat to supply military goods to Brasilia," Visha stated. "If the war is going to turn out as long and brutal as the president predicts, the demand for arms will skyrocket for a long period, and we should take advantage of the seller's market. Now that we're getting more oil from the Americans than before, we can afford to ramp up our arms production a bit. It would go some way to improving tax revenue and the unemployment rate. And I don't think Prime Minister Prasad will object to earning some extra cash on the side."

"Supply both sides of the war? Risky. What if the Americans find out? They won't be pleased we're acting against their interests." Adenaue said. "I've spoken with my South Bharatian counterpart and they viewed Brasilia as an export market for low cost industrial goods, and a valuable source of resources for South Bharat's own developing industry. They claimed that the export business would help develop their domestic military industrial complex, allowing them to stay ahead of North Bharat's military and whatever communist reinforcements that could be mustered to support North Bharat in the event of another war. They have also looked into expanding trade to Peru as well."

"Ah, but it's not us supplying the Brasilians," Visha retorted. "We're merely providing materiel to our close ally according to their purchase orders. If South Bharat decides to secretly on-sell the goods behind our backs to third parties at a mark-up, there's nothing we can do about it. After all, they're a sovereign state not our vassal; we can't dictate what they do with their own property."

"I can't see the US government buying that," Adenaue pursed his lips.

"So if we decide to do it, we'd need a plausible excuse to give the US as to why Brasilia chose South Bharat to approach instead of any other country, and why South Bharat has an incentive to aid them of its own accord. We could ask South Bharat to avoid directly shipping goods to Brasilia and instead use intermediaries such as Platia, for plausible deniability," I mused.

"I do worry Germania will become blinded by greed and back itself into a corner," Adenaue frowned. "We're already getting a lot of money from New Granada and the US as it is without needing to walk this risky path as well."

"You do have a point," I conceded. "We don't want to kill the golden goose. Provided the eggs are actually made of gold of course. Dertinge, how goes the Ministry of Finance's investigation into the US dollars we've received already?"

"The cash itself is fine," the Foreign Minister responded. "But a more pressing problem has been identified. My Ministry has expressed concern that New Granada at its current rate of borrowing will end up paying more in interest payments than their total taxation revenue. Not including the actual principal repayment."

"They're counting on a quick war where they can seize Brasilia's land and resources to pay off their massive debts. The American banks that loaned the money must have also expected that, and counted on Washington to pressure New Granada to make the payments." I tapped my chin. "And now that I think about it, I'm not comfortable about what would happen to the value of our dollar holdings if New Granada does declare bankruptcy and suddenly the American financial system gets hit with massive bad debts."

The safe option would be to start using up those dollars before their value becomes unpredictable. While giving some of the cheap loans to critical Germanian industries denominated in dollars is one way of using the dollars, it also opens up those borrowers to the risk of a fluctuating currency exchange rate. If the dollar devalues against the mark, the borrowers end up having to pay less on their debts. If the opposite happens, well the borrowers would be under more financial pressure, and then the Germanian government may have to step in if it got really bad.

Then there's our expected slow start of investing in American industries for them to expand their operations to OZEV, Malagasy, South Bharat, Formosa and Akitsushima Dominion for their supply chains to be integrated into the oversea industries. Aggressively investing without due diligence just invites suboptimal results or worse, outright fraud from the companies receiving the investments.

I could convert our leftover dollar holdings into gold. But the dollar is backed by the gold, and that would mean literally pulling gold from the US treasury. The Americans may be desperate for plutonium and nuclear reactor construction assistance, but they would not be happy to learn that would cost their gold reserves.

Maybe if I do it slowly, it wouldn't raise alarm from them until later, and they would have more time to find other ways to acquire gold. Perhaps I could redeem some of our sterling and franc for gold through the Americans. They would see that and get the message of where they could pull gold from. I don't mind kicking the Allied Kingdom and Francois Republic down, especially when they put all of us into this economic mess by invading Aegyptus in the first place.

I realized some time had passed and people were looking at me. "For the dollars that we aren't using anytime soon, we should exchange them slowly. Over the span of about 5 years, or completed within 2 years after war in South America ignites, whichever comes first. I don't trust the Albish pound or Frankish frank an inch, which means the only option is to convert them to gold and silver as well."

Adenaue leaned forward and glared at me. "You do realize that the US dollar is backed by gold? Converting large quantities of dollars to gold could deplete their reserves and trigger the very financial crisis you're afraid of! If the US economy sneezes, we'll catch pneumonia!"

"If their reserve system becomes untenable even after giving them time to adjust from our slow redeeming, then they can simply abandon the gold standard," I glared back. "And a US currency crisis is almost certain anyway if New Granada fails to obtain war reparations and annexed territory with the resources on them to repay their enormous loans. I do not want Germania to be left holding the bag should the dollar collapse or there be a run on the US's gold reserve!"

"Those outcomes are pure speculation," he scoffed. "Have you considered the political consequences? There's no way to hide such an enormous exchange of bullion, even if spread out over the years. We'd essentially be declaring in front of the whole world that we have no confidence in the dollar nor in the US government's ability to manage its financial system. It would be foolhardy to publicly spit in America's eye like that! Didn't you yourself say not one hour ago that the Americans are a valuable trading partner and we need them to focus on the communist threat, instead of quarreling with us?"

"A man who wanted to cut off nuclear technology exports to the US for the sake of the semiconductor industry now worries that exchanging some dollars according to the Americans' own gold standard is a bridge too far?" I shot back.

"There's just no reasoning with you! What does everyone else think? Surely I can't be the only one who objects to such paranoid knee-jerk reactions?"

Visha, Lergen and Elya suddenly found the contents of their coffee cups fascinating, indicating their neutrality on the topic.

Dertinge was not so restrained. "The President has been right more often than not when it comes to mitigating financial risks! The party has already agreed to support her economic platform, why are you making such a big fuss now?"

"More than once I've protested this government's reckless so-called 'economic platform.' These policies will never combat inflation and unemployment! All they will achieve is to return us to the ruination of the 1920's! Only through tightening our monetary policy and at the same time increasing economic and political integration with the rest of Europe can we break ourselves free from our economic quagmire!"

"Hmpf," snorted Dertinge. "Every day that goes by you sound more and more unhinged. Sometimes I wonder if I'm talking to Adenaue or if I'm talking to Kirschmann!"

I'm starting to regret my "political opposition leader" disguise shenanigan. How do I back out of this mess of my own making, or do I keep playing along and hope it will somehow work out?

"How dare you!" Adenaue's nostrils flared and eyes flashed.

"How dare I? Physician, heal thyself! Your suggestions will split the GDU, you short-sighted fool! Especially since the party is filled with members who fully support president Degurechaff's economic platform! Are you out of your mind?!" Dertinge pointed his finger at Adenaue.

"Members? Mindless drones would be a more accurate description. But it doesn't have to be that way. Marie Kirschmann is living proof that new blood and fresh ideas are finally beginning to sprout in Germanian national politics. And even if Kirschmann is pressured by the BND to cease her activities, she has successfully encouraged the populace to start thinking for themselves." Adenaue took a defiant drink of his coffee.

"Ahem," Elya cleared her throat in embarrassment. "I'd like to assure the Chancellor that the BND has no intention of interfering with the election process nor any candidates of any party. Neither Fraulein Kirschmann nor any other political figure has anything to fear from us."

"If true that'll be a first," retorted Addenaue. "I'm pleased the BND has finally learned a little restraint."

"You can't seriously be considering adopting Kirschmann's crazy ideas –" Dertinge began.

"Not all of them are crazy," Adenaue snapped. "Here's the interesting part, I have repeatedly watched recordings of her speeches with a particular focus on the crowd's reactions, and that prompted me to go into the archives to find all of the information I could acquire on the president's early political campaigning years. When the GWP was still a minor party."

Oh, those days where I thought I could just coast by with just enough political presence to live comfortably. I almost forgot about that.

"Your point is?" Dertinge motioned Adenaue to continue.

"Whoever this Kirschmann is, she's blatantly copying from the president's original aggressive political campaign playbook. Point out the obvious problems, attack the incumbent government's handling of things, and whip up the crowd into a frenzy with big, simple promises."

"You noticed that, did you?" I murmured.

"Yes I did, Madame President," Adenaue nodded. "And it seems you have too. So much the better. Then you at least will appreciate my perspective. While our economy is nowhere close to what it was back in the 1920's, desperate voters will still flock to Kirschmann, not to mention the rest who will inevitably follow in her wake. We can either get on board early and guide this new political tide into reforms that will permanently benefit Germania, or resist the current and eventually be washed away by the flood of history."

"Kirschmann talks a good talk but that's all. You've been blinded by pretty words that have no basis in reality," Dertinge said loftily.

Adenaue was silent for a moment, then got up from his chair. "It's clear we cannot agree on this matter. I don't see any other way. I'm going to leave the GDU to establish a separate party."

Dertinge stared incredulously. "You can't be serious. You'll tear the GDU apart!"

"I'm deadly serious. I've been considering this move for a long time. I'm not going to stick around and wait for the GDU to share the same fate as the GWP. Filled with people of wildly different ideas of what to do, or no ideas of what to do, besides robotically following some messianic leader. It's better for the GDU to downsize and return to its original roots than to completely collapse. And if Kirschmann flops, then the GDU gets to loot the corpse of my new party for members like we did to the GWP's corpse."

"And what would this ridiculous new party be called?" Dertinge sneered.

"The European Democracy Coalition." Adenaue grinned widely. "That'll get the 'European Federation' supporters interested. Although I'm going to opt for renaming the OZEV's would-be successor as the 'European Union' for a softer image."

He turned to me with a bitter tone. "Under the circumstances, I don't feel I can continue working in a government that operates in violation of my own principles. I think it best I tender my resignation as Chancellor. I will clear out my desk and be gone from the office at the end of the week. See you on the campaign trail."

"You're quitting now?" Dertinge demanded. "Very mature of you. So just like a spoiled child, because a decision is made that's different from your own opinions, you've decided to take your ball and go home?"

I fell into thought as the two men continued to bicker like children. That was unexpected: I never imagined I'd witness the GDU tear itself apart before my very eyes. Apparently Marie's speech, followed by Millie's multiple publications of my interview, and some other talks has ended up contributing to this.

Not that I intended to try and patch up the rift. The GDU was far too politically powerful in its current manifestation. It was better for democracy to have two major parties vying for votes than for a single party to dominate the Diet with a super-majority.

Eventually Adenaue exhausted his last shred of patience. Packing away his papers into his briefcase he stormed out of the safehouse without a word of farewell.

Lergen rose. "I'd better escort the outgoing Chancellor back to Berun," he sighed. "Somebody needs to keep an eye on him while he's in this state of mind." And in a flash he was gone too.

"Well, Herr Foreign Minister," I said. "It seems you've finally fulfilled your long-cherished wish of becoming leader of the GDU. Congratulations."

"Uh … thank you …" The man seemed to be in a daze as he gathered his own belongings and drifted out of the room.

There was a moment of stunned silence in their wake.

"I don't understand, I thought the idea of furthering integration of OZEV in the style of that proposed 'European Federation' was unpopular," I eventually complained to Elya as I swirled my cup of coffee.

"No-one thought of polling that sort of question due to other ongoing demands, nor did we see a need to poll a foregone conclusion," Elya shrugged. "I was surprised to see a significant uptick in the popularity of socialism. A lot of people are rallying around Marie Kirschmann; or at least the idea of her. You should know that some of the secretaries have become alarmed at her rapid rise in popularity, and are now busy investigating the mysterious Marie's background. I can't call them off without risking spilling the beans about your false identity."

I couldn't believe it. Were my extremist ideas actually mainstream all along, or was Germania still awash in extremism right under my nose, even after all my decades of effort? I shot a look at Visha, who shrugged helplessly.

I put my face in my hands. "Someone explain to me how the political opposition's platform is so popular, and how socialist ideas are also popular. At least one of those things shouldn't be possible to happen."

"Not just socialism," Visha muttered. "Aggressive foreign policies such as taking a harder stance against the Allied Kingdom and Francois Republic by sending forces directly to Aegyptus are also popular."

"Oh that's even better, militant socialists… How am I going to undo this mess?" I let out a groan.

But my whinging was doomed to be in vain as the door burst open and a secretary hurried over to Elya and whispered urgently into her ear.

Elya stood. "I'm afraid a serious incident has just occurred in Berun; and there's a chance this location has been compromised. We need to evacuate immediately!"

Meanwhile, in Berun at the Presidential Palace:

As the lights flickered out in the building and the rest of Berun, a floor in the basement gave away and a team poured out of the tunnel they had carefully excavated, using infrared night-sighting devices to see in the dark to avoid using magic until absolutely necessary.

Mitterrand took steady, deep breaths, fighting off the nightmares of being locked for months in a small room with no light and subjected to occasional torture by the Vietnamese. He had accepted his death in quiet darkness until one day when the SCE stormed the rebels' prison. And after a lengthy recovery, when the SCE needed his deep infiltration operation experience for a mission to neutralize the Devil of the Rhine, he wasn't going to say no to his saviors.

"Door is locked," the commander called out. Another SCE agent stepped up and opened their lockpicking tool bag to start their work.

A few minutes later, Mitterrand cocked his head at a faint incoming noise. "I hear someone approaching," Mitterrand whispered, while the lockpicker stopped their work and everyone moved away from the door.

The unlocking noises of the door could be heard, and then the door opened with an unsuspecting guard shining their flashlight into the room, and straight into two dozen people wearing their bulky infrared night-sighting devices.

"These are not the rats I was looking for…" the guard stammered.

The guard was pulled into the room, and soon the team moved out into the basement hallway while closing the door again to conceal the hole in the floor and a corpse. They silently took down two more guards before making their way up a side stairwell to the first floor and then the second floor. The commander then motioned for half of the team to keep overwatch on the main stairway down the hallway, while the other team slowly made their way towards the presidential suite.

The lockpicker went to work again and after a few tense minutes, the lock clicked open. Mitterrand and another agent kept an overwatch of the hallway as the rest of the team moved into the bedroom.

And that was when all hell broke loose.

What Mitterrand didn't see was that when the commander and another agent stabbed what they thought was the Devil of the Rhine and her lover sleeping under the blankets, their knives went into two decoys. And there were remote controlled bombs under the bed. Normally a mage would be able to limp away from such an explosion, but none of them had their shields up to maintain stealth.

The next thing Mitterrand heard was a loud explosion and he spun around to see a shredded and burnt corpse of the commander being blown out of the bedroom doorway and into the hallway, splattering face first against the wall. Mitterrand and his partner powered up their shield spells while tearing the cumbersome infrared vision devices off their faces and stormed into the bedroom to see the ruined, smoking bed and that everyone else was dead or severely wounded.

"It's a trap!" Mitterrand hissed over voice spell to the other team as he heard an exchange of gunfire down the hallway. "Degurechaff is not in the bedroom. She knew."

"She ambushed us from the hallway where your team is! Jean and Camila are down! Pierre lost an arm!" The other team shouted back, prompting Mitterrand and his partner to sprint down the hallway, only for them to stop when they saw a glimpse of the Devil disappear into a room and shut the door. His partner was about to run after her into the room when Mitterrand held him back.

"Doors and corners, kid. That's where they get you."

Mitterrand casted a small explosive spell to blast a hole in the wall and fired a few shots into the room, ducking from the return fire as his partner blasted a second hole to throw grenades into the room. Right after the explosions, Mitterrand charged through his hole while letting out a long burst of fire into the room.

And there was no mage to be found. All he saw was a broken firearm lying on the floor.

'Something isn't right, her shield spell should have activated from the explosions, or she found a very good cover. Don't be fooled, she has to be using an illusion spell. Check the corners, and the ceiling…'

He speculatively fired shots at suspected spots while skipping around to avoid a potential surprise return fire, then heard gunfire from the hallway that he was just in. Simultaneously, he also heard the voice spells from the team about them being pinned down by arriving security mages, indicating that he had minimal time left. Silently cursing himself, he burst through the door back into the hallway and saw his partner gurgling from a slashed throat, and another door down the hallway being closed.

'You want to play games? Okay, I can do that.'

Mitterrand charged up a volley and unleashed a barrage of magic casted armor-piercing bullets to tear through the wall and into the other room, then frowned when there was no signs of any effect.

'Nothing? She had to have her shield spell up to avoid being hit. Or she's hiding, waiting for me to come in. Maybe I could put the night vision device back on my face, but that will severely limit my vision with no guarantee that it will help me. No, I'm going to trust my instincts on this."

Mitterrand then held a grenade in one hand, blasted a hole into the wall and charged through while spraying bullets. Upon seeing nothing in the room, he immediately dropped his grenade and dashed to the side just as he felt something land on the floor at where he was just at, even if he couldn't see the Devil or hear her.

The grenade went off at her feet before she could reposition herself.

'I can't sense any magic emissions from her shield. Stealth shields?!'

Mitterrand saw her shield barely hold up from the explosion as he emptied the remainder of his magazine into her to finally break her shield. Breathing hard, he reloaded his rifle as the bleeding woman slumped to the ground.

'It seems strange. The Devil of the Rhine, the ace of aces multiple times over, played this cat and mouse game instead of obliterating half of this building like how she erased a mountain range to obliterate Mary Sue… oh well, a kill is a kill.'

He aimed his rifle at her head with the intention of dumping the entire magazine into her brain to guarantee that she would be dead for good instead of being brought back alive by some God's miracle. A messy job, but a necessary one.

Suddenly a shot rang out from outside and an armor piercing bullet smashed through the window and almost broke his shield. He casted decoys and burst through the door to escape into the hallway as more gunfire from outside tore into the room.

"The Devil is dead, evac now!" Mitterrand broadcasted his voice spell.

"We took heavy losses and are heading back down to escape!"

Then multiple doors in the hallway burst open, prompting Mitterrand to charge into another room to avoid the incoming enemy mages. He shot a circular pattern into the floor with armor piercing spell, flew up to the ceiling and propelled off of it to smash through the sawed circle, then the next floor's sawed circle, finally crashing into a basement room. Powering up his reflex enhancement and pain suppression spells, he dashed away from where he just was and barreled through the door into the hallway as grenades dropped down the hole from the 1st and 2nd floors. He activated his flight spell and rockted down the hallway as the deafening explosions disintegrated the hallway wall adjacent to the room that he was just in.

"I'm in the basement. Heading towards the escape room," he broadcasted his voice spell.

"Good thing you made it, I was just about to activate the trip mines," he heard from the team.

Upon entering the room that had the hole, he could see that there were only two of them left, and they all had various levels of injuries. In total, only three out of the original squad of 24 had made it.

"What a shitshow," Mitterrand muttered as they activated the trip mines as a parting gift for the Germanians and piled through the hole.

—-

A few hours later:

'This isn't what I was expecting…'

Mitterrand and the three of them were staring at Calvar sitting at a table, pouring a drink for himself.

"What the hell is this?" Mitterrand sputtered as Calvar pushed the wine bottle and a set of glasses towards them.

"I know, it's been a while since we've seen each other."

"You left me for dead!"

Calvar sighed deeply before taking a drink. "Did you ever look into what happened to your battle brothers after your rescue?"

"No, why?"

"We were all dishonorably discharged and everything was swept under the rug to minimize publicity," Calvar's wine glass cracked in his tightly gripped hand. "Senior brass didn't explain why our promised evacuation and backup support was missing from the prearranged time and location. We were supposed to have ships and mages waiting for us so that we could mount a counterattack to come back to pick up those that fell into the jungle, and we got- nothing... No, the survivors that flew a long distance over the open ocean looking for help while taking losses along the way were court-martialed for 'revealing the secret location of our fleet by drawing enemy mages towards it'."

Calvar then pushed his broken wine glass aside. "But I am sorry that you were imprisoned by the Vietnamese rats. You can blame me all you want, but my anger is at the higher ups who used us all as disposal tools so they could keep racking up medals on their chest."

"Why are you here?" one of the SCE agents narrowed their eyes, their bandaged head concealing much of his facial expressions.

"It is not wise to share certain secrets even within the SCE," Calvar smiled as he poured the wine in the glasses. "Vive la république françoise! Vive la main bleue!"

"Vive la republique francoise! Vive la main bleue!" the agent smiled in return as he took one of the glasses and drank it, followed by another agent who also drank.

"Have you seen others stop by here?" Mitterrand smelled the wine before drinking it.

"No," Calvar frowned. "If you were expecting others and they aren't here yet, that makes me worried. We should probably get moving soon."

"Alright, we'll grab the supplies we need and all head out," Mitterrand put the glass down.

Thud!

Elya dropped her illusion spell and coldly observed the three unconscious SCE agents sprawled out on the floor. Calvar lit a cigarette.

"Impressive work with quickly getting the safehouse information out of the electrical grid attackers and pulling a trap on these three before they arrived. I was worried we would have to resort to other means," Elya nodded as the front door was opened and BND agents entered the room to take away the SCE agents.

"That was the easy part," Calvar sighed. "Now we have to pry the information out of them to learn more about LMB's other operations and put the mad dogs out of their misery."

"Including your friend Mitterrand?"

"I hate having to put him through this, but when my homeland is facing annihilation, I don't have much choice if he is uncooperative. This job makes us all monsters."

"So what should we do with the information of Degurechaff's death?"

"All the more reason to act quickly," Calvar got up from his chair. "We both, and the LMB, know the Germanian public will demand war when they learn of her death and who did it, and the rest of OZEV will follow. So I need to know who gave them the information of where to exactly strike because I'm assuming they can't just go to the nearest coffee shop and ask for details of the Presidential Palace and its security forces, why the LMB tried to ignite a war in which the Francois Republic would be crushed, and what follow-up plans they have."

As Calvar was about to step outside, he looked at Elya. "It's strange that this Marie Kirschmann suddenly burst onto the political scene to directly challenge Degurechaff in the upcoming elections with a very aggressive foreign policy directed at the Francois Republic, and only a short time later, the LMB went after Degurechaff."

"You think they are working together?" Elya raised an eyebrow.

"Who knows? Another day, another confusing shit-show for the intel folks like us to clean up," Calvar shrugged before stubbing out his cigarette.

1953 August 27th, very early morning, Berun:

I floated high above Berun and gazed down at the destruction wrought on my capital city. A cold rage flowed through my veins. Far below me, fire-fighters were struggling to quench the flames that engulfed the Presidential Palace.

"They were looking for me, weren't they?" I said aloud to nobody in particular, my eyes still affixed to the scene below. Visha and Johanna floated a short distance behind me.

"That would be an understatement, Madame President," replied Johanna drily. "They were dead-set on trying to kill your doppelgänger even after taking over a dozen casualties from fighting her. A sniper watched one of them try to execute her after she was taken down. The surviving assailants we apprehended at the Presidential Palace sustained varying levels of injuries, but we will get additional information from them eventually. We induced vomiting in them just to be sure that they don't repeat the suicide bombing via swallowed orbs. Director Müller is busy tracking down their accomplices as we speak."

"What's the damage?"

"The Palace is a write-off; the remains will need to be demolished and a new building constructed from scratch."

"That's probably for the best, considering the current Palace's security systems and layout have been completely compromised. What about the electrical grid?"

"Two nuclear power plants were forced to shut down out of security precautions due to nearby grid attacks and the fact that their electricity can't be transmitted over the broken grid. Other power plants and the rest of critical grid locations were bolstered by the civil defense deployments."

"How long can we expect the two plants to remain offline?" Visha asked.

"Still waiting on an estimate. But for the near term we can expect rolling blackouts in Berun due to disruptions of the electrical grid."

"What a mess," I grumbled. "Germania just lost a big chunk of its electricity generation, in the middle of an oil crisis no less. But what really hurts is the fact that this attack will impact our plutonium production, which means less of it can be sold to the US. Combined with the reconstruction costs, our budget has just taken another hit. I might just have to approve the sale of military goods to Brasilia to try and offset some of the expenses …"

We stared down, each lost in our own thoughts for a while.

"And how is she doing?" Visha didn't need to elaborate on who she was referring to.

"Critical condition," Johanna shook her head sadly. "If she survives, at best she will only be able to do office work and light instructor training duty for new recruits."

"When it's safe, I'll like to pay her a visit at the hospital. In fact, I'll need to find my Silver Wings Assault Medal from what is left of my bedroom so I can give it to her in person. She earned it."

"I'll ask someone to look for it," Visha nodded. "What will be our public messaging? The destruction of the palace can't be simply covered up, especially with the media interviewing people who claimed they heard gunfire."

"I'm not sure yet. Are we certain about the identity of the terrorists?"

"No doubt about it. They're definitely Frankish operatives. They tried passing off as NKVD agents, but we know too much about the NKVD for that trick to work. And the advanced infrared vision devices that the operatives brought with them is a dead giveaway because those are far more advanced compared to the NKVD equipment that we are aware of. Even more complex that the ones we have." Johanna stated.

"Do you think the SCE found a counter to our illusion spells?" Visha was deeply concerned.

"We tested their infrared devices and confirmed that most of our illusion spells look distorted in them. Mages who have a basic understanding of illusion spells would know right away that they are being deceived. That might be how they were able to defeat our dopenganger agent who was one of the best at the illusion spells," Johanna hissed. "Our scientists are going to have to scramble to find quick solutions to our advantage being nullified."

"Dr. Schugel isn't going to be happy to hear about the Franks finding a way around our superior computational orb technology," Visha nervously added.

"Has there been any reaction from the Frankish government?" I clenched my fists.

"I'm not even sure if they're aware of what is going on. Minister Dertinge reported that the Frankish ambassador seemed alarmed by the news about what happened to the Palace, but stated that they have not received any information from Parisee on the matter."

"I wonder if I should just remain silent and stay out of the public view," I rubbed my chin. "Give the impression that I am severely wounded and in critical condition, or actually dead, just to see how things turn out."

"Perhaps this would be a way to bait out the responses from the SCE's factions. We could issue a press release that you're convalescing at a certain hospital…?" Johanna suggested.

"Pretend to lie there critically wounded and see if they launch an all-out attack on the hospital?" I chuckled, then frowned. "No, that would just invite too much collateral damage, we'll have to keep them guessing even if I pretend to be hurt…"

"True; they'd probably drive a truck-bomb into the hospital or something." Visha rolled her eyes.

"Should we publicly disclose who launched the attack, or are we also keeping quiet on that?" I turned to Johanna.

"Director Müller has strongly recommended that, until our investigations are fully complete, we shouldn't go public. That could prompt unnecessary geopolitical chaos and coverups from the Frankish government, when it looks like our true enemy is one particular SCE faction. There's been chatter of a large-scale movement of SCE agents from overseas to return to their homeland. The phrase 'execute Order 33' keeps coming up in intercepted communication chatter. Calvar claimed that emergency order is for oversea SCE agents to immediately return to the homeland and for inactive agents to report to their stations, but if that's true, we have no information on what would happen after the agents all arrive back in Francois Republic. If they were going to use the amassed agents to attack us, they should have assembled them before the attack in Berun. Which leaves me confused of what they might do."

"And what would 'Marie' be doing during all of this?" Visha pondered.

"Business as usual. Pay lip service to my supposed injury or death, then carry on with her political campaigning. I'll only reveal that I'm perfectly fine when the time is right." My voice became colder than the wind around us. "One thing that won't be business as usual is a comprehensive security review. Somebody just slapped me, and all Germania, in the face, very publicly. I want the mastermind found!"

"It's too early to know how they got the information to even plan their attack," Johanna sighed. "They wouldn't have tunneled under the Palace and into a particular basement without detailed blueprints. Right now we have to assume that they have moles somewhere in our government. Hopefully Director Müller and her team have made some headway."

"Whatever support she needs on this operation, she's got it. As for public messaging, since I and Visha will be staying out of public view to keep the Francois Republic and others guessing,-"

"And keeping you comfortable in bed," Visha smirked, to which I coughed in response.

"-I won't be able to issue any statements myself. Lergen can't be our frontman, the citizenry might think the government has been overthrown in a military coup. It wouldn't make any sense for any of the other Cabinet members to take the lead, which leaves only Adenaue."

"But he's resigned," Visha objected.

"His resignation doesn't take effect until the end of the week," I scoffed. "Until then he's the by-God Chancellor of Germania, and he's going to damn well act like it! I'll draft a script for him to follow. Visha, advise the TV stations and newspapers that Adenaue will be addressing the nation shortly."

"Will do. But what are you going to have him say?"

I considered it. "We can't reveal who was really responsible. So I need a scapegoat to take the fall. Preferably one that will also affect the Franks indirectly. Hmmm, I think I have the perfect candidate…"

AN:

Context for the "Rus incompetence" scene, a general who opposed T-34s (and when they did enter mass production, sabotaged them by causing tank ammunition shortages), Katyusha rocket launcher trucks (in favor of horse towed artillery), PPSh-41 submachine guns, minefields (was unwilling to admit that the USSR needed to fight a defensive war during the start of the German invasion) and so on. He lived until 1950, never facing any major consequences for sabotaging USSR's early WW2 efforts, and was only executed when someone reported him for privately complaining about politicians stealing credit for the war effort.

wiki/Grigory_Kulik

wiki/Nomenklatura

The US Army Ordnance Department in the 1950's-1960's was staunchly opposed to "low caliber" assault rifles and preferred heavy caliber semi-automatic rifles that could not be safely fired in full auto, even for jungle/urban close quarters combat. A lot of political infighting ensued, with the weapons controversy reaching President Kennedy's desk.

A multi-part series blog on the M-16 vs M-14 chaos: .co/tag/schv/

One of the articles in that blog: .co/musings/infantry-board-ar-15/

All throughout the year, the Infantry Board ran the AR-15 through tests. Many of which were possibly sabotaged by other elements of the army. Yet, it outperformed the M-14 in nearly every way inside of 500 yards. This was inconvenient for the Army staff.

You see, the Ordnance Department had more or less ordained the M-14 since 1952. It pushed the standardized 7.62 NATO on our allies, and did everything it could to ensure that all roads led to the M-14.

An article from 1981 on the same topic: magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/

A Reddit comment I saw that nitpicked at the article:

While Ordnance did make decisions to try and fuck over the M16, the way some of the changes to the rifle's design are written about comes across as someone trying to ascribe bad intent to decisions that in several cases didn't even fuck over the rifle.

The author talks about the Army changing the twist rate over flight stability in arctic conditions as sabotage because the rifles were going to Vietnam. Okay, so is the Army supposed to issue a completely different rifle to troops in other areas? Also there's the implication that by doing so the bullet is suddenly not going to kill people as good. Please ignore how the M16A1 killed scores of NVA and VC troops throughout the war.

The forward assist, or "manual bolt actuator" as it's called in the article isn't sabotage so much as the Army insisting on a safeguard they felt worked. While its effectiveness is one of those divisive topics among firearms enthusiasts, it has a niche purpose and its use in the Army's manual of arms for malfunctions is one where if your rifle is fucked up after hitting it, your rifle was fucked anyways.

The powder issue is the strongest point in his argument as the change is commonly recognized as being a major part of the issues the rifle had early on in Vietnam. But in harping on it he just kinda brushes over one of the biggest acts of trying to fuck over the rifle, the fact that they didn't issue any cleaning kits for the damn thing. The fact that nothing was issued to remedy the increased fouling I feel is an equally important indication of Ordnance trying to sabotage the rifle.

A third one that specifically looked at the jamming aftermath: .

The rifles were delivered to troops in Vietnam in 1965 without cleaning kits or manuals on how to clean them. The rifles stopped working in the middle of firefights, spent cartridges were not extracted automatically and American soldiers and Marines were found dead next to disassembled rifles.

It wasn't just the rifle's engineering that hurt its ability in combat. The new 5.56 round used a dirtier kind of powder as a propellant. It made the weapon more likely to jam.

Reference to the Rus politician: wiki/Vasily_Blokhin

Source of the "Poem about bastards": wiki/Zhang_Zongchang

Élan vital meaning: wiki/_vital

Gold withdraw reference: wiki/London_Gold_Pool#Collapse

wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

wiki/Panic_of_1893

The Panic of 1893 has been traced to many causes, one of them pointing to Argentina; investment was encouraged by the Argentine agent bank, Baring Brothers. However, the 1890 wheat crop failure and a failed coup in Buenos Aires ended further investments. In addition, speculations in South African and Australian properties also collapsed. Because European investors were concerned that these problems might spread, they started a run on gold in the U.S. Treasury. Specie was considered more valuable than paper money; when people were uncertain about the future, they hoarded specie and rejected paper notes.[2][3]

A financial panic in London combined with a drop in continental European trade caused foreign investors to sell American stocks to obtain American funds backed by gold.[9]

Gold reserves stored in the U.S. Treasury fell to a dangerously low level. This forced President Cleveland to borrow $65 million in gold from Wall Street banker J.P. Morgan and the Rothschild banking family of England, through what was known as the Morgan-Belmont Syndicate[15]

The persistent balance of payments deficit in the 1890s which drained the Treasury gold reserves, caused concern from both domestic and foreign investors that the U.S. would abandon the gold standard. This prompted further gold withdrawals and bond liquidations which exacerbated the deficit. By February 2, 1895, the Treasury's gold reserves fell to approximately $42 million, well below the $100 million level required by the Resumption Act of 1875. After a series of failed attempts to restore reserves by issuing bonds and depreciating specie issued for legal tender, the Treasury negotiated a contract with the Morgan-Belmont Syndicate to restore confidence in the government's ability to maintain the convertibility of legal tender into gold.

Reference to the infrared night-sighting devices: wiki/Night-vision_device#History

The M1 and M3 infrared night-sighting devices, also known as the "sniperscope" or "snooperscope", saw limited service with the US Army in World War II[10] and in the Korean War, to assist snipers.[5] These were active devices, using a large infrared light source to illuminate targets.

wiki/Night_vision#/media/File:M3_

Inspiration for the room-to-room fighting scene was from the Gmod's "The Hidden" mod gameplay: watch?v=AlflRSO1Ssg

A remake of "The Hidden" with VR mode: watch?v=JJamGiKnO1o