<strong>Thursday, March 14th, 1946. Sometime just after dawn.</strong><br/><br/>Dany and Gordon arrive via the usual route, escorted in by Frau Meyer.<br/><br/>Wallace's time with Frau Meyer this morning started much earlier. The mysteries of talc and moisturizing cream. Undergarments and the mystery of fastening things in front then twisting them around. The British ATC uniform wasn't hard to find, and if Wallace insists even wool trousers can be found instead of the usual skirt. Breakfast in the canteen is hard boiled eggs and pork cracklin instead of bacon, with dark rye bread with a small pot of gooseberry or maybe elderberry jam. The room is packed with women in Berlin Air Control uniforms. More than one of them wrap pieces of bread or pork skin in wax paper and stuff them in their purses. Rationing is still a thing here.<br/><br/>In the briefing room there is the pot of terrible coffee, the creaking chairs, and the desk.<br/><br/>Comrade Androshenko arrives shortly after the last of you does. Same poor suit. Same educated British accent, free of any hint of his Russian origin. A new folder.<br/><br/>"Good morning. I've read the briefing from last night."<br/><br/>"We have an update for you. Willie Schmidt, our smuggler, doesn't remember anything from the point where the door opened. But he does remember meeting an American who kept trying to cut a deal with him. They had an argument, but it was the girlfriend Natalya Hesse who pointed Device No 00284, the Conch, at our American. She says she didn't mean to fire it. She meant just to stop the argument. However fire it did."<br/><br/>"Neither has discussed where they found the case. The Americans? I don't know. So start there. By the time you return our questioners may have more answers."<br/><br/>"Captain Burthold-Campbell. Our British coordinator flew home for the week. The birth of his son, I understand. It is my responsibility to wire him as soon as possible about the current situation."<br/><br/>He closes the file folder and taps it.<br/><br/>"Unfortunately I am very busy, and I may have sent the teletype operator home already."<br/><br/>"But despite my more egalitarian Soviet morals when it comes to matters of the sexes, I can only delay the message for so long."<br/><br/>