HIS nightstick tapped gently on each lamp post. His shoes clicked on the sidewalk with each step. Tap. Click. Tap. Click. It was the beat he kept on his nightly route. He puffed softly on a dimly lit cigar. He scratched his mustache. A street light flickered and went out. It was quiet. He passed a diner where a few people were sitting and decided to stop. After drinking his coffee, he reached for his pocket. He was tired. “Don’t worry bout it sug, always happy to help the folks in blue.” Said the waitress. He nodded his thanks, left a tip and walked away. He was almost at the point where he would turn around when he heard a noise down an alley. He turned to look and was promptly shot in the head. The gunman slipped quietly back into the night. A dimly lit cigar rolled into the street and burned out.

    Somewhere a dog barked. Somewhere the sun rose.

    Life had not been good to Wolfram Weiss, and neither had New York. Although his sister in Munich wrote occasionally, he had no other family to speak of and not much else to his name. The immigration papers folded tightly in his jacket and the seven cents in his front pocket were all that he had to call his own. Luckily he had been able to find odd jobs here and there but serious work was hard to come by with a name like his in a place where he was often rejected as soon as people heard his accent. Life was hard in this new country, so proud of its recent defeat of his own.

     Wolfram sat down on a park bench and picked up a newspaper that someone had left. He was able to pick out that a bank had been robbed, that it was storming in Boston (im Boston es regnet), that a cop had been shot a few blocks away last night, and that the princess of someplace he had never heard of would be in the city for a while. After struggling with the rest of the paper, he decided to give up and continue on his walk. It was cold. He was tired.

     Wolfram, müsst du mir versprechen, nie zu Ihrem Deutschland vergessen. Wenn alles getan ist, ist er alles, was du hast. Sieh mich an, Wolfram. Versprich mir.

     The thoughts never truly left Wolfram’s head, during the day he was able to put them out of mind but every sleepless night they returned, never any easier to bear.

     Wenn er stolpert, müsst du hinter ihm stehst.

     Jack Ryan scratched his beard. He took a final, long draw on his cigarette before flicking it aside and running his fingers through his sandy hair. The waitress had been of no help. Judging by the size of the wound, it had been a very large round, and he sighed deeply when he saw the powder burns around the edges. Point-blank. The only footprints on the ground belonged to the dead officer, the shooter hadn’t left a single trace, there was no hint that anyone else had ever been there. Jack drew a short breath, took out his notepad, and pulled his scarf tight. It was cold.

     The gunman slowly took apart his gun, piece by piece, and cleaned them methodically. Even in this low light he did it without fail. It was a procedure his hands had done many times. He was used to it. Soon he was finished. Soon he was ready.

     Wenn er kaputt ist und besiegt, müsst du ihn abholen.