The chaos at Hotel Junkernschänke could not escape the ears of the surrounding districts. The news spread quickly: an international student had been brazenly kidnapped in one of the finest hotels in Göttingen. Shock turned into fear just as fast. Guests began canceling their stays, and within days the hotel started losing clients. After all, no one wanted to sleep in a place where one could vanish in the night. With such a precedent, Junkernschänke's future was suddenly uncertain.
Yet the greatest pressure did not fall upon the inn—but upon the soldiers.
Francisco was not merely a foreign student. He was the man who had developed an alternative to the Watt steam engine, effectively shattering Britain's industrial monopoly. The university pressed the military government relentlessly, but it wasn't alone. As word of the kidnapping spread beyond Hanover, foreign powers began to apply pressure of their own.
