Prologue
A man sat in a darkened room, the only light emitting from the desk lamp that flickered from the poor connection to the wall socket, the flashes casting his hunched over shadow upon the cracked apartment wall. A smoking cigar rested in a tray beside a stack of intelligence papers, each one detailing reports of disappearances, assassinations, and other nefarious schemes. Beside the cigar was a glass of whiskey, untouched since the man had poured it out several hours prior. The man picked his pen up from a table and circled a photograph taken four months ago in Paris, the red ink marring the still image. John was finally beginning to get somewhere.
It had been a year and a half since Eric Blair had asked of this favor, a year and half of searching through documents of events that never occurred. It all began at the night of the Grand Ball, when an assassin quite nearly took the life of John's dear friend, if it had not been for the quick thinking of Eric's present adjutant Welrod Mk II. This event was swept under the rug as nothing more than a security exercise. Not but a few days later, Echelon 3 reported the presence of an unknown entity tracking their progress, a report that never became an official statement.
John opened his metallic desk, and fingered through several tabs of files, until he curled his fingers around that report and once again removed it from its resting place. He scanned through the entity's monologue, still a bit perturbed at how well informed it seemed to be, more so than even himself. If nothing else, this voice or the organization it represented was professional: not a sentence nor even a mere word revealed anything about the speaker, meaning either this operative was unique, or this shadow organization was even more well trained than initially thought.
The man picked up his cigar and took a puff, the smoke exhuming from his half-opened mouth and slamming into the document, dispersing into the still air.
Too many coincidences… all in such a short time.
Whispers of an uprising in Russia, followed by Sangvis Ferri seemingly abandoning its hold in England, to civil unrest in mainland Europe, events playing out one after another, as pieces moving about a chess board, preparing for a grand finale. The question was: who is playing the game, and for what purpose? The world was slowly unraveling itself, just as it was beginning to come back together, and one city stood out amongst the throng of civilizations under distress: Antwerp, Belgium.
John picked up his cellphone, and thumbed through his list of contacts, before coming to a stop at "The Duke." The man pressed down on his phone and brought the device to his ear, listening to the phone ring once… twice…
"John, my good man! It is a pleasure to speak to you again. I assume you are in good spirits, Miss Welrod and I- "a friendly voice spoke over the phone, the voice of a man with an incredibly stereotypical English accent.
"Eric, your side project has reached its conclusion," John replied, silencing the other end of the phone.
"...I see. When should I expect you?"
"Soon. We have much to discuss. Wish Miss Welrod my best," with that John hung up the phone and let out a sigh, placing the device into his back pocket.
John glanced at a wooden picture frame on his desk, holding the still image of two men jovially sharing a drink in a bar in South London, and smiled, before turning to the map on his wall, covered in thumb tacks and string, all pointing to one place.
I look forward to seeing you again, Clark, although I had hoped it would have been under more pleasant circumstances.