Berlin, Germany – Two Days Ago  

  Ryder stood, his mirrored glasses blocking eye contact with anyone as he stood at the gate.
 Subconsciously, he touched the pockets of his khakis, feeling for his cell phone.
 He pulled out the device casually and looked at the screen but there was no text, no missed call.
 Did I get the instructions wrong?
 It seemed highly unlikely; his name had been on the plane’s manifest as Riverville had said. He had flown from Seattle to Berlin non-stop.
 Yet there was no one there to meet him.
 Fuck, he thought caustically. Some asshole dropped the ball.
 Ryder had never known the Germans to be anything but precise and efficient. Stereotype possibly, but Germany was the last place in the world he would expect to be waiting for a contact.
 He decided to wait in the lounge but as he walked, he was once more overcome with the feeling that someone was watching him.
 Without attracting attention, Ryder glanced about, his sunglasses still firmly on his face as he looked, but nothing stood out to him.
 Am I getting paranoid?
 Ryder admitted he was annoyed at having to wait.
 The last thing he wanted to do was spend time alone with his thoughts.
 He wanted to get his prey, take him down and head off to the next one, wherever it might be.
 His father had been trying to reach him, but Ryder just couldn’t make himself answer. He wasn’t sure how he felt yet, but he did know that he couldn’t say all the right things to put his “parents” consciences at ease right now.
 He had turned the power for his cell off. No real use for that, after all, he thought. It’s not like I have any family or friends anyway.
 Plopping onto a plastic chair, he picked up an abandoned magazine and pretended to read it, his eyes still trained on the gate.
 In all his years of working for the government, he had never encountered a late operative. 
 Not even in Athens where time was apparently irrelevant to the Greeks.
 He would give the agent ten minutes and then find a hotel since there had been no other instructions to follow.
 Riverville would eventually touch base with him again and he could explain the situation when that happened.
 In the meantime, there were worse places to be stranded than Berlin.
 Ten minutes passed and there was still no sign of an operative.
 Reluctantly, Ryder rose and ambled toward the exit.
 He stood at the curb, signalling for a taxi.
 Instantly one appeared and he slid inside.
 “Can you recommend a good hotel? Nothing fancy but clean and near downtown, bitte?” Ryder asked in German.
 “Ja. The Stonehouse is comfortable,” the driver replied, eyeing him in the rear-view mirror. Ryder wracked his brain, trying to recall where that hotel would be.
 “It is central?”
 “Ja.”
 “Okay, that is fine,” Ryder replied.  “Danke.”
 The cabbie nodded, his dark eyes examining Ryder one last time before pulling away from the curb.
 It was then that Ryder saw the serpent tattoo on his neck.
 His heart racing, he reached for the handle as the car sped away from the airport but the locks secured and Ryder knew he was trapped.
 “Sit back and enjoy the ride, Freund,” the driver sneered. “We are going to the Stonehouse.”
 Suddenly, Ryder’s eyes grew heavy. He tried to grab for the driver, hoping to incapacitate him before he lost consciousness.
 Nitrous oxide filtered through the vents of the car and the man at the wheel stuck an oxygen mask around his own face so he did not inhale the sedative.
 “Gute Nacht, Freund. My boss is very eager to meet with Mr. Quinn.”

---

  The voice was in his head, floating mellifluously through his conscious and subconscious simultaneously.
 “Welcome to the Stonehouse, Mr. Quinn. I am so excited to have you here! You are a legend amongst us as I am sure you know.”
 Franz Kaiser.
 Ryder was not sure why he knew who it was as they had never met face to face, but somehow, Ryder was certain that it was Franz who held him captive.
 Why didn’t Riverville warn me it was Franz?
 No one had seen nor heard from the assassin in almost a decade. Had the “Find Kaiser” mission grown too relaxed? More than likely, but Ryder was not involved in that level. He was simply a tracker. He went where he was told in order to smoke out his prey.
 “Mr. Quinn, can you hear me?” His German accent was singsong and taunting. Ryder struggled to focus on the man’s aristocratic face.
 He did not look the part of one of the most dangerous men in the world and yet Franz Kaiser was wanted for crimes against humanity in sixteen countries.
 “Can you hear me, Mr. Quinn?”
 The slap came suddenly, ruthlessly across Ryder’s face and he blinked. It was precisely what the American needed.
 His focus became sharper and he took in his surroundings with acute detail, despite the grogginess overtaking his brain.
 Two men. Franz Kaiser and a soldier.
   A soldier. How interesting. A German soldier.
 A bristle of nervousness touched the back of Ryder’s neck.
 Soldiers meant military involvement.
 This goes deeper than I thought.
 Ryder was secured to a chair, not unlike the one he had left Morcan in, in Turkey.
 Torture practices are the same universally, he thought grimly. He knew he had to muster his strength.
 Ryder’s eyes flittered over toward the table and he inhaled sharply. There was a tool belt open, shining instruments ready to be used to pluck, pick and stab him into submission.
 This man just made the biggest mistake of his life, Ryder thought but he knew he would have to clear the fog from his mind before he could efficiently overtake Kaiser and his soldier.
 “Herr Kaiser,” Ryder said in Kaiser’s native tongue, his voice hoarse with dryness. “I have also heard much about you.”
 Kaiser’s green eyes widened with pleasure.
 “You speak German!” he announced, clapping his hands as if he had found a fellow countryman abroad. “How wonderful! And I had always been taught to believe that Americans are barbaric cretins without an ounce of culture. I am humbly impressed.”
 Ryder offered him a wry smile.
 “I imagine you would know a barbaric cretin when you saw one, wouldn’t you?” Ryder replied.
 Franz lost his genial smile, his face suddenly inches from his captive’s face.
 “You know nothing about me!” he hissed, spit spraying from his mouth. His eyes seemed to emit emerald sparks of rage.
 “You know nothing and yet you continue to hunt me like a dog!” he continued to rant.
 Ryder shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.
 “I know nothing about that,” he replied. “I am simply here to take in the sights of this lovely country.”
 Franz turned his back and reached for a scalpel, holding it up to the dim light of the single naked bulb hanging from the ceiling.
 “Ah I wish that was true, Mr. Quinn but you must know that there is a reason I know you are here. How else would I know where to find you?”
 Ryder did not respond but he knew that there was only one-way Kaiser could have known.
 Riverville sold me out? But why? Why would he do it now? And with Kaiser?
 It didn’t make sense and yet Ryder could think of no other way that Franz could know where to find him.
 Kaiser approached him, rolling the scalpel between his palms.
 “Now you must not be concerned,” Franz said conversationally as he slipped off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt.
 Again, Ryder was struck at how handsome the hired killer was.
 “I have orders not to kill you,” Franz continued, smiling a dazzling white grin.
  Ryder bit his lip to steel himself from asking the man any questions despite the fact that his brain was screaming out things inside of his head.
 Orders from whom? And who the hell gives Franz Kaiser orders?
 The scenario was so strange, Ryder was sure he was dreaming.
 He had always known Kaiser to work alone over the years. It seemed unfathomable that the man would listen to anyone. He was unpredictable at best, a freelance assassin with ties to no one.
 He had evaded capture for decades, wreaking havoc on almost every continent of the world.
 “But that does not mean we can’t have some fun, right?”
 The blade lashed out, slicing at Ryder’s face but the operative’s reflexes were shockingly responsive considering his state of mind. His head bobbed expertly to the side as he avoided the jab.
 Franz seemed stunned that the scalpel did not contact its target and he stared at Ryder, bemused.
 “Would you like to dance with me?” he teased, again reaching out to stab into Ryder’s cheek.
 Franz’s eyes exploded in their sockets then, a flowing mass of blood and brain matter seeping down his cheeks as Ryder watched impassively.
 Time seemed to freeze for everyone and then suddenly, Franz began to scream in high, feral shrieks.
 The soldier raised his weapon uncomprehendingly and began to fire around the room, believing they were under attack by an unseen force.
 Ryder tried to drop out of the line of fire as Franz fell to his knees, his hands pressed against his oozing face as if he was trying to reconnect his eyeballs.
 The soldier shot out randomly, bullets flying into the sides of the walls, ceiling and floor impartially.
 Ryder was struck once in the shoulder by a ricochet as he tried to steady his focus on the hysterical man with the firearm.
 Concentrating, he forced the soldier’s heart to implode, causing the gun to fall from his hands, but not before the weapon discharged one more time into Ryder’s belly. Fuck! He began to lose consciousness as he bled out, musing at the cruel irony that he could not heal himself. Before him, Franz finally dropped dead to the floor, but Ryder was not there. His mind had flashed him back to a big house in New Haven, Connecticut, almost thirty years ago where men in black were swarming in to attack him, his brothers and his parents.
 He was watching his mother die.
   He was watching his father take bullet after bullet.
 He was hearing his brothers screaming in terror.
 A voice in his head screamed out to him.
 Don’t stop fighting! Don’t let them take you! They are Oculus and you must fight against them!
 As the world went black, Ryder suddenly remembered everything.
 My name is Ryder Conway and Oculus is looking for me and my brothers.