He leaped from the branch and landed on the ground. The ice dulled the impact and any sound he could have made as he rolled into a stop. Unfortunately, his roll had sent some ice flying in the air. The man kneeling on the ground in front of him whirled around in an inhumanly quick movement and threw a knife at him with deadly precision. Only years of extensive training and lightning fast reflexes caused his hand to fly up and catch the knife in mid-air, inches away from his right eye.

"I almost had you" he said to the man.

"If it wasn't for the ice, you did have me. But it's a fuck-up nonetheless. You didn't mind the environment and if I were an enemy, I would be using a 45, not a knife" the man replied in a scornful voice.

"And if I were an enemy, I'd be dead. I'm not, though, so can we just move on? I thought I'd mess with you a little, clearly I shouldn't have. It's not like you could have actually become a cool person to hang out with right?" he shot back.

Muttering words like "undisciplined" and "sloppy" the man led him through the dark woods, their breaths puffing in the cold air.

"So, what's the urgency? I don't think you called me here to have a nice walk in the woods."

"No" the man replied.

"Wanna enlighten me Harley?"

Harley looked at him as if he were deciding whether or not to tell him. He walked on for a full minute peeking at his GPS before replying,

"My team's being watched somehow. I'm pretty sure it's not a mole but I'm not entirely sure it's not either. I took to the rooftops at the edge of the town to lose them. If anyone's following me, we'll lead them straight to a little clearing that's a mile ahead of us and set up an ambush. Also my team needs some firepower. We've got 2 AKs and an MP5, 3 Glocks and suppressors at the hideout. If a strike team has been watching us, it's not gonna be of much use. I need 2 high caliber sniper rifles, at least a dozen assault rifles with suppressors and around 2 dozen USP and Beretta handguns. If push comes to shove, my team will have to make a quick escape."

"Maybe you shouldn't have left your team then. I could have reached the hideout myself. Anyways, I almost managed to sneak a handgun in. They almost busted it so I ditched it in the last second though. Since when did railway security get so tight? I swear one of them was actually expecting to find something illegal in there. He was going through the luggage quite thoroughly. Which reminds me, I need a gun and a knife. I'm not carrying anything with me. And about your gun crisis, there's a dealer at the port who specializes in supplying high caliber weapons. I can hook you up with him if you want. You got cash? He only takes cash."

They reached a deserted, broken down church. "I've got some cash. It'll be enough, I think. Alright here we are. See the bell up there? It seems like a proper vantage point. I'll see if there's a way up to it inside the church, I don't wanna press my luck on the ladder, it seems worn out. Here – I don't have extra mags, but the gun's got 7 rounds, make em' count." Harley said as he passed him a Desert Eagle with a suppressor and made his way inside the church. He looked at Harley's figure disappear inside the church.

The church's entrance was broken down and the wooden door was lying on the ground, unhinged and rotting to pieces. He climbed up the stairs and entered the threshold. Harley was some 20 feet ahead, tapping some window sills to see if they would hold up his weight.

"So I heard Bill's back. What's he up to? Haven't heard from him in a long time. How is he anyway? Desmond's death put him down hard…."

"Bill's okay I guess. I haven't talked to him. I heard he's in Nepal, laying low for a while in the Himalayas, enjoying the air, you know…"

Harley seemed to be analyzing this info. "I wanted to talk to him privately. Any chance I can get a secure connection? You know his exact location?" he asked.

"Himalayas. That's all I know." he replied.

"The Templars are about to launch the Animus Omega console, we're treading on thin ice here. If you know his exact location, tell me." Harley persisted.

He looked at Harley for a while. And then he gave him the co-ordinates. Harley nodded and turned around, making a note perhaps, on his phone. He stowed the phone in his pocket, whipped out a Colt Anaconda and turned around to draw the gun on him – only he wasn't there anymore. Harley pressed himself to the back of the church wall and focused his mind. Like a trigger going off, his Eagle vision activated. He was a foot away from his right – the man he once saw as a friend, an ally, now unmistakably an enemy, highlighted in Red. Too late. Even as Harley turned around to get good aim, he was disarmed. The revolver flew several feet into the air and landed just a foot from the threshold. He dodged the next punch and sidestepped, running across the church towards his gun. Only his assassin training helped him dodge the tackle that followed. His path was blocked, Harley had no option but to fight. He lunged with grace at his opponent, fists out. He blocked his punch, feigned right and kneed him in the abdomen. Before Harley recovered, he kicked him on his face. Nose bleeding, Harley scrambled up to his feet, but he was dazed. A hand-to-hand combat would surely leave him dead, his opponent was known to have been trained in extremely rare form of martial arts. He dodged as his opponent tried to grab him, shoved him against a bench which he toppled over and lunged towards the gun, 5 feet away.

"Stop!"

Harley laughed as he heard him put off the safety lock.

"It's full of dummy bullets." He laughed as he turned around, the revolver in his hand.

A single gunshot exploded in the still night. Harley's smile froze as the bullet pierced his abdomen. He dropped the gun.

"But-but….. I…..the bullets were…they" he gasped through pain.

"You should have known better than to hand me a gun with dummy bullets. I've carried a Desert Eagle for years, you think I wouldn't have known that the gun weighed lighter? In any case, I wasn't convinced with your act. I knew you were leading me to the church for a reason." He replied, a SIG Sauer in hand, aimed straight at Harley.

"Little Kyle Praetor. You've actually outsmarted me. How did you know?" Harley asked, kneeling on the ground, clutching the gunshot wound.

Kyle walked up to him, picked up the Colt revolver and stowed his SIG inside his jacket.

"Well the train station was a dead giveaway. I told no one but you that I was coming via train. You told security was tight. So I hacked into the server and looked through some old security camera tapes of the station. It was clear that you were about to set me up since I never saw security like you described. I decided train travel was too risky. So I stole a car and got in through the highway. When I met you, you already seemed nervous. One of the advantages of having Eagle sense is it is evolved above Eagle vision, unlike you, I can see people's heartbeats, not just friend or foe. You are a good liar, but you slipped up in places, I saw the irregular ups and downs in your heart." Kyle replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"But that's not conclusive, you couldn't have known, not so easily…." Harley struggled to understand.

"I didn't. You checked your GPS and said the clearing was a mile ahead. So I mentioned that I wasn't carrying any weapons. You were so relieved that you decided to end me as soon as possible. We hadn't walked 20 feet when you said the church was it. You slipped up on your own words. Like that weren't obvious enough, you asked me for Bill's exact location. Amateur work Harley. I was packing the gun in case I ran into a situation like this, I just never expected you as a mole." Kyle explained

"Well, I had you all fooled hadn't I? The Templars promised me power when the assassins couldn't. They had a lot to offer… in any case, I dedicated myself to this cause and in the end I was stuck chaperoning a bunch of amateurs and historians while kids like you rose to power, controlling entire branches of the order. What was I to do? Just roll over and play nanny? I'm not made that way… doesn't matter now…." Harley replied.

"No, it doesn't. You would have thrown your friends under the bus instead of reaching out. We can't guarantee a private island to spend retirement in or private hangars and stuff like that, but we had freedom, we were fighting the good cause. You just couldn't see past yourself. Now it's brought your demise. Rest in Peace." And then he raised the gun again, pointed it on Harley's forehead. Before Harley could protest he pulled the trigger.

As Harley crumpled, he bent down and closed his eyes.

An hour later, with Harley's body safely buried in the woods, Kyle picked up the phone Harley had. He had simply noted the location. He would have a hacker look through it later just in case, but he wasn't worried. The location was a fake one, a dead end. Kyle looked at the sky, wondering about the loyalties of men and their greed for power.

Slowly, he made his way down the icy hill, humming a song.