United States operatives, guests on foreign soil working without the cooperation of their local hosts, required invisibility more than he did. They’d need to come in close, clean and quiet, with no witnesses, no collateral damage.

Human shields deprived them of opportunity.

That was why he’d gone from terminal to public transportation to Frankfurt’s central station. That and he needed an alternate route to the old capital.

Holden turned down a track, boarded a train, destination Berlin, and hurried the aisle from car to car. The woman kept pace along the platform.

The Asian guy had gotten on the train ahead.

The hipster boarded behind, boxing him in the middle.

Holden’s walk became a run. The cars were still near empty, not enough witnesses to prevent a bullet in his back. Distance ticked out inside his head, distance and speed and the rate at which they closed in.

A vestibule loomed ahead, the space between cars where a metal floor and an accordion of thick rubber were all that separated passengers from the tracks. He tugged a hairpiece from his sleeve, slid the door open, shut it behind him, and off to the side of its small window, he shrugged out of the jacket, flipped it inside itself, stuffed his hat down into the mix, and pulled tight.

Jacket and hat became canvas bag.

Backpack went into bag.

Short black hair became straggly blond.

Glasses went from pocket to face.

Ripped fingerless wool gloves went on both hands, and a spritz of au de garbage across his chest. Shoulders slumped, focus to the floor, he pulled the door open and lurched back the way he’d come, moving slowly, drunkenly, searching seats and picking up stray newspapers and magazines.

The hipster dude caught a whiff, stepped aside to let him pass.

Holden dropped steak knife into palm and, with the same feral will that had consumed his thirteen-year-old self in Calamar, sent the knife plunging, stab after stab, in a train-car version of the prison-yard rush. He gripped the hipster’s arms to steady him, dropped him into the empty seat at his knees, rolled him over to drift into forever sleep, and continued on.

He took no pleasure in the kill and felt no pain.

They were a tactical team doing a job, just as he’d done similar jobs. He’d have been content to walk away if they’d been willing to leave him alone.

A life for a life.

It didn’t have to be this way.

He limped to the end of the car, hobbled down to the platform, and shuffled back to the concourse. Inside his head the clock ticked down.

Three minutes until departure to Bonn.

He still had half the tracks to cross.

The inexperienced would be tempted to hurry.

He’d been surviving longer than the hipster had been alive.

He limped steadily forward, consistent, never breaking character.

Far behind him, the woman shouted.