The city was a different kind of beast. Not the sprawling, neon-drenched metropolis of his past, but an ancient European capital, a labyrinth of cobblestone streets and shadowed courtyards where history slept in every stone. The air smelled of baking bread, diesel, and the damp chill of a river, a constant reminder of the distance he'd travelled.
He'd arrived by train, then bus, then on foot, a circuitous route that would baffle any but the most dedicated tracker. The documents he now carried identified him as Matthias Vogel, a freelance technical writer from Austria. The photo showed a man with shorter, lighter hair, frameless glasses, and a faint, unassuming smile. The face in the mirror was learning to match it—slowly, painstakingly, as if sculpting a new mask from clay.
His new home was a two-room apartment on the top floor of a centuries-old building. The stairs groaned underfoot, their age evident in every creak and groan. The plumbing sang a discordant opera at all hours, a soundtrack to the quiet isolation he craved. But the windows looked out over a jumble of terracotta rooftops and offered three separate escape routes onto adjoining roofs—a fact he'd verified within an hour of securing the lease with a cash deposit and no questions asked.
The first day was spent enacting a new liturgy of security. He swept the rooms for devices, a meticulous, almost obsessive process. He applied a film of dark tint to the inside of the windows, the act both practical and symbolic. He installed a new lock on the door, a sturdy German-made deadbolt, and reinforced the strike plate with long steel screws driven deep into the frame. The SIG, disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled, rested within easy reach of the bed, a silent sentinel.
The second day was for building the routine. Matthias Vogel was a creature of quiet habit. He woke at six, the precise time a foreign clock ticked, a constant in this new world. He did thirty minutes of bodyweight exercises on a thin mat in the main room, his movements deliberate, calculated. He showered, shaved with deliberate care, and dressed in the uniform of the anonymous: dark trousers, a simple sweater, a functional jacket.
At eight, he descended the stairs and walked two blocks to a small café called Konditorei Schmidt. He took the same small table in the corner, his back to the wall, with a view of the door and the street. He ordered a black coffee and a plain croissant, the simple act grounding him in this new existence. He ate slowly, methodically, his eyes never still, constantly scanning, assessing, filing away the faces of the other patrons, the rhythm of the street outside.
The waitress, a woman in her fifties with kind eyes and a tired smile, began to recognize him. "Guten Morgen, Herr Vogel," she would say, already bringing his coffee.
"Guten Morgen, Frauke," he would reply, his German accent flawless, cultivated over years of operation in the region. The small courtesies, the subtle nods, the quiet exchanges - these were the threads he wove into his new life.
He was a ghost, yes, but a ghost that had learned to blend into the fabric of this unfamiliar city. A man who was seen, but not noticed. Remembered, but not memorable.
In the afternoons, he would walk, slowly mapping the city, and making a mental note of escape routes, hidden alleys, and potential threats. He purchased groceries from different stores, never buying too much, never establishing a pattern. He cooked simple meals in his small kitchen, eating alone at a fold-out table while listening to classical music on a cheap radio.
The nights were the hardest, the quiet solitude amplified by the foreign city. The adrenaline of the hunt was gone, replaced by the weary vigilance of the hunted. He'd lie in the narrow bed, the pistol on the nightstand, the silence echoing with the phantom of Anya, and the weight of choices he'd made.
But Matthias Vogel did not dwell. Karl Vorlender allowed himself those quiet, private moments. Matthias had to be the vessel, without a past, without desire, without rage. A man who wrote technical manuals and drank coffee and went to bed early.
He was settling in. The new skin was fitting, albeit tightly. The Ghost was buried deep, sleeping, waiting. And in that quiet apartment, in this foreign city, a new life, fragile and meticulously constructed, had begun. It was a life of profound isolation, but it was a life. And for now, that was enough.