USED TO BE THE BÄRENGRABEN WERE ACTUAL GRABEN, which is to say pits. There were three of them like circular stone holes in the ground each maybe fifteen meters across and dressed with sad little tree stumps and scratching posts. You went to a kiosk and you bought figs and threw them to the bears in the bottom of the pit and they would stand up and dance for you. You also could buy carrots and the bears would dance also for carrots but not with much enthusiasm because who wants a fucking carrot when you can have figs? I do not know what the interior accommodations looked like but I am guessing they were not the ursine Ritz either. The whole thing looked like medieval because it was medieval it was a reminder of the honored past but a few years back the cantonal government took a long look at itself and decided that actual bear pits were not how you honored your heraldic animal in the era of climate change and Miley Cyrus, so they built a garden for bears, which is like a terraced park with panoramic views on the far side of the river from the old site. It is wide and public and there is absolutely no way anyone can know they are not in the crosshairs of a Dragunov. I am pretty sure I am in the crosshairs of one thing or another but I am used to that. Professional soldiers have rules about not getting into those situations so I am guessing Frankie Leclerc is not loving sitting in row three with a bucket of mineral-enriched bear kibble, which is what the bears get now instead of figs.

I guess some you win some you lose.

I can see some of the G-Wagen guys dotted around the viewing platform and they have little scratches and boo-boos from all the flying glass of their kidnap attempt the other day and I am guessing they are real sore that they got dinged up and a bunch of their buddies got arrested or shot to death by Swiss grocers with automatic weapons training. I guess they probably also do not love having to feed the bears instead of break me in half so I feed the bears a bit.

Then I sit down and say “hi” and Leclerc says we have nothing to talk about.

“Yeah we do.”

“I think not.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Perhaps I just like to see the dawning acknowledgment of death.”

“…Wow that is some fucking Gitanes black polo Jules et Jim gangsterism right there. Excuse me while I get my chessboard out.”

“You are a tedious man Mr. Price. Offer me your deal.”

I think about it. I think about the job and about Volodya and about my people.

The people who are mine.