MISC: The Girl Who Saved The World Part 11

[George Phillies]

and here are some good and bad guys:

Chapter Three
Secure Chamber Alpha
The Palace of Peace
Geneva, Switzerland
Morning
January 12, 2018

League Chancellor Lars Holmgren tapped his walnut gavel twice on its 
bloodwood sounding block. “Good morning! Gentlemen?  Ladies?  I know it 
has been a very long night.  May we have order, please? This meeting of 
the League of Nations Special Peace Executive is now in session, Prince 
Wang taking any needed notes.  Thank you, Prince Wang. I believe we have 
all reviewed the recordings of Wednesday’s events. I have circulated an 
agenda. Under the non-emergency rules, we begin by naming ourselves.”

“For the American Republic, Thaddeus Buncombe.” Buncombe, wearing a 
classic pinstripe three-piece suit with broad red, white, and blue 
vertical-striped tie, leaned back in his chair.  Now, he thought, there 
would be the foreign kings and princes, their representatives, and their 
  pompous titles. He looked around the room.  The Peace Executive sat at 
a horseshoe-shaped white marble table, with Holmgren in the middle and 
Buncombe at the heel of the horseshoe’s right branch.  The walls and 
floor were the same brilliant white marble, carved and inlaid with what 
the European founders of the League viewed as scenes showing the triumph 
of civilization.  To Buncombe’s eyes those scenes mostly represented 
Europeans trampling other parts of the world under foot. Curiously, 
images of King George the Mad attempting to trample America were 
conspicuous for their absence.

“For Austria-Hungary,  Count Karl-Michael Ferencz .” Buncombe nodded 
respectfully.  King-Emperor Joseph III had spent forty years requiring 
that his representatives be highly competent. The Count might have a 
title, but he had surely earned his post.

“The Brazilian Empire, Amanda Rafaela Mascarenhas da Silva.” The speaker 
was a woman in her early fifties, hair a deep black, her blouse, vest, 
and long dress a brilliant royal blue fringed in gold.

“For the Queen-Empress Victoria, the Third of her Name, Lord Reginald 
Featherstonehaugh.” The current Featherstonehaugh, Buncombe considered 
was considerably less arrogant than his father, who Americans could 
readily imagine as one of the crown officials who cheered on King George 
III, George the Mad, as he launched the 1774 British invasion of America.