A lone figure ambled his way through the dark gloomy streets of Hammelburg, It was Christmas Eve and even so, no decorations had been strung up in the street and celebrate the festive season. Germany was at war and all expenses had to be reduced and sacrifices made to pay for the war effort. Nonetheless, shop windows still displayed their stock and visitors still came to buy them. But customers were few. Germany was losing the war and Christmas of 1944 was a dull one.

As he approached the local cemetery, he passed it by nonchalantly, not thinking to pay his respects to his dead brother. Fritz had been dead for seven years at not once had he lamented the death. He neither paid for the funeral nor mourned the loss. The Gestapo was not known for their humanity. He continued his journey home. But arriving at the door, he stood petrified, unable to bring himself to reach for the door knob. For on the door knob he saw, or thought he saw Fritz's face. 'Bah!', he said, not wanting to believe it was so. The vision subsided and he confidently entered his house, running upstairs to his bedroom.

Then suddenly, he heard a clanking noise approaching him like a person dragging heavy chains along the floor with them. The door flew open with a resonating sound and the clanking noise grew louder and more horrifying.

'Bah!', he said,'my ears must be playing tricks on me.'

His demeanour change when Fritz appeared before him. The ghost of Fritz at least. He wore the Gestapo uniform, and around it chains were wound. The chains was long and made up of vials of poison, guns, whips and his uniform was stained with blood. He looked at phantom and saw it standing defiantly before him, feeling the intimidating influence of it's angry eyes.

'What do you want with me?', he asked coldly

'Much! In life I was your brother, Fritz' Hochstetter. You don't believe in me, Wolfgang.', the shade replied.

'Why should I. You could be a nightmare?'

At this point, the spectre shock its chain with such appalling sound that Wolfgang cringed in his chair. He had never shown such weakness to anyone before for the preservation of his honour but this time, he swallowed his pride and begged the monstrous apparition to trouble him no longer.

'It is required of every man, that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men and travel far and wide and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world and witness what is cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness. I wear the chains I forged in life. I made it link by link and yard by yard. I girded it on of my own free will and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? The weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself. It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain!'

Wolfgang trembled even more and the phantom spoke that had misused its life's opportunity.

'You were always good at your business.'

'Business! Mankind was my business. Mercy, benevolence, were all, my business. The dealings of my profession, of doing my duty to the Fuhrer, were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! At this time of the rolling year, I suffer most. I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. You will be haunted by three spirits. Without their visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.'

The ghost walked back the way it came and left Wolfgang Hochstetter exhausted from the confrontation of his unworldly visitor. 'Bah!', he tried to say, but stopped at the first syllable.

Hogan, clad in his disguise walked along the corridor, noisily dragging the chains with him. He had relished at the look on Hochstetter's face. LeBeau was waiting for him to return to the room they had occupied. Hogan smiled. Newkirk had thought of a wonderful Christmas present for Major Hochstetter – a haunting. He had suggested they use Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol and change the lines of the spirits to suit their needs. Hopefully, the evil man could be changed. Kinch had originally doubted the plan, thinking it would be too hard to show scenes of the past, present and future but Carter had thought they could just speak to Hochstetter about it. Hogan thought this had to be the most hair brained schemes ever in the history of the operation but went through with it nonetheless. Everyone had memorised their lines, and contributed to research into Hochstter's past, determined to scare the hell out of their adversary.

LeBeau was dressed as the Ghost of Christmas Past. He walked up the stairs to Hochstetter's bedroom. As he entered, he saw a terrified Hochstetter still slumped unceremoniously in his chair by the fireplace.

'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past', he declared in the best German accent he could muster, 'your past. Hear what I have to say. When you attended bording school, you never received any presents at Christmas. The other children looked upon you with disdain, wondereing why your parents did not love you. You, too ashamed to tell them that you had no parents and was raised by a step aunt, would hide in the dormitory, sitting alone. What were you thinking then?'

'I wished that everyone would suffer as I did. I resented the happiness the other children felt when they received presents and were picked up from school.'

'When you turned twenty, you sought apprenticeship at a small shop. Do you remember that Christmas?'

'Nein.'

'Your boss, Herr Dunn, threw a Christmas Party for all the workers and apprentices. You met a beautiful fraulein too, I believe, Heidi Gruen.

'Ja. She was a goddess.'

'And six years later she left you. That was when she received news that you were actively involved in the Gestapo. You never married. Do you wonder why? It is because no-one wants a cold blooded murderer and a ruthless man with a heart made of stone.

Hochstetter felt those words hit home. He staggered backwards, as if the words were alive and and pushed him. When he regained his balance, the Ghost was no longer present. 'Bah! I will not believe it!'

'How did it go Le Beau?'

'Unsuccessful, mon colonel.'

'Carter, your turn. Let see if we can't knock some sense into that man.'

'Yes sir.'