Long Live the Queen – Chapter 3

" – recovery operations were able to find most of the aircraft. The debris field was relatively compact, indicating the plane hit the water in a nose-down attitude. As I mentioned earlier, there was no indication of an explosion or fire or any other circumstance that could have destroyed the airplane. All damage was completely consistent and explainable by the crash into the water at high speed." She hesitated, then said, " – and the autopsies confirmed that the injuries were all consistent with the trauma of the crash. Nothing to indicate that the passengers and crew died from any cause other than the plane impacting the water."

Dr. Kjersti Offerdahl, Chief Scientist of the Arendelle Safety Directorate, waited a few minutes for her audience to absorb what they had just heard.

Finally, Anna looked up at the woman standing at the head of the table. "Doctor? I'm confused. I can't wrap my head around this. If I am hearing you correctly, there was nothing in the data from your analysis of this crash to indicate there was anything to cause it? The plane fell out of the sky for no good reason? That makes no sense!"

"Your Majesty, I agree. But there is one explanation for this catastrophe that fits the data we have."

"Well? Tell us, damn it!" Anna was losing her composure quickly.

"Your Majesty, I don't know how, but Crocus One was brought down deliberately by an act of sabotage. Nothing else explains this data." Offerdahl looked around the table with grave concern. "Queen Elsa and her entourage were murdered."

x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x

As the room exploded into an uproar, Anna slumped back into her chair, unable to make sense of what she had just been told. "Murder? MURDER? Oh my gods, Elsa, I lost you to a damned assassin?"

Anna wasn't sure what difference it made – Elsa was still gone. She pulled her attention back to the room when there was a loud 'thump' and a voice yelling, "NO! We are not going to put this out as the analysis of the accident cause!" The voice belonged to Admiral Haldorsen, who was standing and glaring at everyone else around the table. " – and this was not murder!"

One of his subordinates said, "But, Admiral – "

"I said NO, dammit!" Haldorsen repeated. "Don't you understand? We still don't know ANYTHING! If we were to put out an accident report with these facts and claimed it proved that Queen Elsa was murdered, we'd be laughingstocks!"

Dr. Offerdahl protested, "But Admiral, we have always been totally transparent with accident analyses. This goes against everything in our mission statement."

"Please, Doctor, be seated. I'll explain. Your Majesty? With your permission?" Haldorsen had recovered his equilibrium. He rubbed the reddened fist he had used to slam the table and get everyone's attention.

Anna nodded, she was still too shocked to speak.

Everyone settled back into their seats, including Dr. Offerdahl. The Admiral strode to the head of the table, made a hand signal to Bit. Bit nodded, got up, went to the door, opened it and spoke briefly to the two guards stationed there. Once he returned to his seat, he nodded at the Admiral and sat back with folded arms.

"Doctor Offerdahl, I require you to assemble every member of your team that has sufficient knowledge of the analysis you presented today to come to the same conclusion you just presented to us." The Admiral spoke with an intensity Anna had never seen from him before.

"Why?" Offerdahl looked stubborn. She didn't understand where this was going but she didn't like it.

"Because the Queen was not murdered – she was assassinated. There is a political scheme in play here." He paused to take a deep breath. "That puts an entirely different perspective on this, which is why I am going to swear them to total secrecy concerning all aspects of the accident that took Queen Elsa's life. I'm declaring this as 'Crown Secret Ultimate', and require their oaths. The breaking of those oaths will result in a star chamber trial for treason and imprisonment until the Crown decides that that the traitor can be released without further endangering Arendelle."

This declaration was met by stunned disbelief around the table. Even Anna was slow to absorb the significance of what the Admiral had just said.

"No, that goes against everything we're committed to in seeking the truth," replied Offerdahl. Her stubborn look had become angry.

"Doctor, either you bring them here or I will order them rounded up and confined in a very comfortable location with absolutely no contact with the outside world until this is resolved. Along with you, I might add." The Admiral was not taking no for an answer.

She stared at him for so long Anna was sure Haldorsen was about to summon a squad of Marines, but Offerdahl took a deep breath, shook her head, then said, "Okay. Okay, I don't like it but there is obviously something going on here beyond the surface. Let me go get them. The entire team worked in this building, they are all upstairs in the labs." She rose and started toward the door.

"Mr. Lockhart, if you would have someone accompany Dr. Offerdahl?" instructed the Admiral.

She whirled and looked at him in astonishment. "Don't you trust me?" she demanded.

The Admiral suddenly looked weary. "It's not a matter of trust, Doctor. Frankly, it's for your own safety." He waved her off.

While they waited for Bit and Offerdahl to return with the rest of the team in tow, Haldorsen looked at the people still seated at the conference table. There were a few who weren't part of the military. "In the meantime, I will administer the oath to all of you, then dismiss those of you who do not have a Need To Know of the rest of this investigation. You will be curious. I urge you to stifle that curiosity and suppress the memory of what you have heard today."

It took about ten minutes to administer the oaths and send the people who weren't going to be part of the investigation away. It went faster because Anna was physically present and could actually take the oaths directly. It was a nit to pick, but …

After all the oaths had been taken and the dire instructions about the consequences of breaking the oath were explained in bloody detail, the staff of the Safety Directorate was dismissed.

"You're on leave as of now, people. You have a week off. Tell everyone it was compensation for the long hours you've put in on this investigation. If anyone asks about it, your response is that there was a catastrophic mechanical failure that we are going to review with the manufacturer, and that any further details are classified for obvious reasons." Admiral Haldorsen looked dour, then shrugged. "And, technically, that is actually true."

"Not you, Doctor." He stopped Offerdahl from leaving. She stood impatiently tapping her foot until the room was down to Anna, Bit, the Admiral, and three other members of Arendelle's General Staff.

Once the door was closed, the Admiral said to the scientist, "You are officially declared read in on this matter, which is classified Crown Secret Ultimate. We'll come up with a code word name for it later. I'll need your technical expertise going forward." He looked around and continued, "Your Majesty, with your permission, I need us to move this meeting to a SCIF at the Arendelle Foreign Ministry Building."

Anna nodded, she knew what a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility was, she had even attended briefings in an American SCIF during one of her deployments. "What in the hell is going on? I get it that an act of sabotage isn't something we want the snoopies blabbing all over the airwaves, but this … "

The little group left the conference room and went out to the cars for the drive back to the city.

0~0~0~0~0~0~0

Anna was crawling through the mud and decaying vegetation of the jungle, trying to be as silent as possible. The stench made her gag, she clamped her jaw shut and swallowed the foul bile at the back of her throat. "Bit's dead, so's Vasilek, now they're looking for me and they won't give up – "

She stopped at the sound of someone ahead. Very slowly, she brought her weapon to the ready, got a good sight picture on the outline of the man obscured by the brush, took a deep breath, held it, and fired. A scream, the sound of thrashing, then silence.

Anna waited a few minutes, in case her stalker had friends. Finally, she cautiously stood up and moved carefully to where her victim lay sprawled in the mud of the trail. Anna looked down to see the man's wide frightened eyes and flinched when he grabbed at her trouser leg. She tried to pull back but his grip was too strong.

"Oh my God, he's just a kid!" He couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old. Her shot had hit him in the throat, and he was choking on his own blood. She watched in horror as he took a last rattling breath before his hand fell away, his big brown eyes blank and unseeing.

0~0~0~0~0~0~0

"NO!" Anna screamed and flailed and fell out of bed.

She lay tangled in her blanket on the floor, sweat pouring down her face, her breath heaving like she had just run a marathon, her head pounding like Thor was practicing his best hammer symphony on it. "Dammit, Anna, that's the third time in the last fucking month!" The repugnant ghastliness of the accident briefing yesterday had struck deep into her psyche, dredging up more memories she had tried to convince herself that she had managed to bury and ignore.

Trying to untangle herself and get to her feet, she nearly twisted an ankle on the empty Brennevin bottle she had tried to crawl into. The liquor dulled the pain, at least until she blacked out. But the payback was a bitch.

Finally managing to get off the floor, she stumbled to the bathroom and emptied her stomach. When she was sure it was all out, she rinsed out her mouth, turned on the shower, threw off the t-shirt and boy shorts she slept in, then stepped under the showerhead and let the cold water flush the toxins out of her as best it could.

Anna returned to her bedroom with a towel wrapped around her hair and rummaged in the dresser. Sweat pants and a ratty "Arendelle Fighting Reindeer" t-shirt completed the ensemble. Not bothering with slippers, she managed to stagger into the little kitchenette of the Queen's Chambers, put on a teapot with three or four chamomile tea bags in it, then sat and waited for her tea to heat up.

"I hate this place. I hate they made me move in here. At least Elsa had three years to get used to missing Mama and Papa before she had to move their stuff out and move her stuff in. They gave me less than a month, damn them." Anna's thoughts were resentful, furious at having to displace Elsa's belongings while the wound was still raw, before even the smallest amount of healing could take place. She was so overwhelmed by her grief that she had 'delegated' (dumped, her conscience whispered.) the task of packing up Elsa's things to Gerda. The suite was still rather sparsely furnished, Anna's possessions looking forlorn and lonely.

She was sitting in the window well sipping the tea and brooding when there was a quiet knock on the doorframe and a voice asked, "Anna?" It was Gerda, wearing a robe over her nightgown.

"Yeah." Anna took a sip of her tea. "Needs more honey," she thought.

She moved as though to go to the counter, but Gerda stepped up and said, "I'll get it."

Anna slumped back in the window well and watched Gerda refill the mug and add enough honey to help Anna rehydrate. She brought it to the young woman and said, "I'll make another pot."

Guilt stabbed Anna at the imposition she was putting on the older woman. Gerda had been on the castle staff since before either of the two princesses had been born, and had been the personal maidservant to Elsa since she was eight. She had been close to Anna as well, and now that Anna was the Queen it seemed sometimes that Gerda had a psychic sense of what her young charge was doing and feeling.

"It's 3 am, why aren't you asleep?" mumbled Anna. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"You didn't. I was reading." The lie came easily to Gerda.

"Yeah, right … " Anna snorted and took a drink of the tea. It did soothe her stomach and she felt herself nodding off.

"Come now, you little pagan! Let's get you back to bed!" Gerda's brisk tone convinced Anna to come along. She took the empty mug from Anna's hand, ignoring the tremors, placed it on the counter, then shooed the young woman into the bedroom.

Anna noticed that the damp towels were gone, the bed had been made, and she suspected the bathroom had been tidied. She crawled into the bed and let Gerda tuck her in. "Tired. I'm so … damn … tired." She was asleep before Gerda turned out the lights and left the room.

Kai was waiting for Gerda in the hallway, a ratty old robe over his pajamas. "How is she?"

"Not good, Kai. These … episodes … seem to be coming more frequently. The nightmares, the drinking." Gerda sighed in frustration. "And the things she heard yesterday, the visualization of what happened to Elsa …" Gerda had to choke back a sob, she had loved the young Queen like her own child.

Kai reached over to pat his colleague's arm in a small attempt to comfort her. "You know Elsa was worried that Anna had unresolved PTSD from her combat tours. And that Anna refused to even accept there was such a thing. Now?" The Royal Chamberlain shook his head. "Losing Elsa, and like this? I think we're lucky she's still sane at all."

"Outwardly sane. This is hardly healthy coping behavior." Gerda was very worried, Kai could tell.

"Well, what can we do about it? Who bells the cat? Or, rather, who gets to be stern with the Queen?" Kai asked.

Gerda's silence was the only answer.