Chapter 28 - No Loose Ends

There is always a Wolf, a Gustafson somewhere tidying up all the messes and leaving no loose ends.  Sophie commented that Anna reminded her of Stephan and would have made their father proud if she was one of their own.  It would be hard to believe with how Stephan was swayed so easily by Knut and the reason for father's despair and anguish at being bested by the Artesians with such little effort.

Stephan was Wolf's disciple and his heir.  His instrument of war and his ticket that he said to an early retirement much like the Colonel's.  But none of that passed and he died on the Island just as Stephan died in the arms of Knut.  None of was supposed to have happened, but this all left messes that various elements of the Politiburo, Commissariat and even the Artesian converts had to clean up and so a new generation like Anna took up the standard and did an excellent job.

Anna had her own private army known as the sisters.  She handpicked and trained them herself and one of them was the assassin that took the Major's life.  She had been a deep plant for years and he was none the wiser.  Many of the war orphans and castaways of society were her willing and capable recruits.  Anna Two was the exception and she was never made privy of her adoptive mother's true profession nor invited or allowed to join when she was old enough to hear her mother's secrets.  Anna was always honest with her family.

All of the sisters idolized Anna and were made in her own image.  Honest in their own adaptation and interpretation of a true master.  She wouldn't call it the same adulation that she had of Knut, but there were few comparisons that would make sense.

She genuinely loved each of them and called them sisters and considered them her own flesh and blood.  She never sent any on a mission without sufficient means of escape when things turned south.  She had to intervene a few times surreptitiously while she was a humble attache at the Central Administration and none were the wiser.

One of her favored sisters was somewhat incompetent and got herself stuck in a jam when attempting to divulge secrets from a military officer.  He knew she was an agent and had planned a trap.  There was no escape.  Anna always found a way and it was the Major who was made the fool of his own trap.  There is something about honesty, brutal openess and truth that seems to set people at ease in ways when they should really be cautious.  She and the sisters perfected this art.

But even with all old traditions and family business the value and importance of the sisters services were no longer necessary.  The world was in the image of Knut and an Artesian paradise.  They had planned a long game of generations and centuries of asymmetric warfare with the sisters helming the resistance.  Anna was transcribe battle doctrine and manuals to teach each subsequent generation of converts, she had no idea it would all be of little value before she was the age of thirty.  That the centuries of war would be compressed in barely a fraction of her lifetime and the outcome exactly as she would have wanted or intended.

It startled and tickled her, but not the same as being handed Knut's pen.

After the deaths of the Major and the Captain she handed me a list.  It was a very long list of enemies.  She then outed all of her sisters, about 14 of them, many stationed in high positions or even married to senior party officials.  She assured me she had given me everything and that there were 3 more sisters that she chose to not disclose who were in sensitive relationships and precarious situations, but they had been deactivated and would never pose a threat.  But if I asked she would divulged their existence.

The apparatus was dismantled and she felt it was the last thing she needed to accomplish and she became doting mother of Anna Two.  Going to soccer games and family picnics.  She waited for her retirement gift.  None came.

Karl Knutmudsen's pen now rests in the central hall of the Artesian capital city.  It is guarded by a hundred of the most elite guards armed to the teeth.  Penalty of thievery or any defacement of the creators work tantamount to hard labor and instant death.  All of Karl's work and a history of his life on public display and the crown jewel, his humble pen now rests as property of mankind.  Greta was offered curatorship, but she declined and instead released all of her brother's remaining things and knick knacks.  She had enough items to finally fill the massive auditorium of the central hall from end-to-end with the creator's closet and shoe box.