Paris — The Weight of Arrival
Karl Wolff arrived without ceremony.
No banners. No announcements. Just a black staff car rolling through the gates of SS headquarters under a gray Paris sky, its engine still ticking as SS guards snapped to attention. Wolff stepped out, immaculate as ever, his presence instantly changing the temperature of the building. Men straightened. Voices dropped. Even Müller felt it—an invisible pressure, like a blade resting just close enough to the throat.
Imel watched from his office window as Wolff entered.
So Himmler had decided to stop waiting.
The knock came moments later.
"SS-Gruppenführer Müller," Imel said without turning, already knowing why he was there.
Müller entered, expression unreadable but tense beneath its practiced calm. "Karl Wolff has arrived."
"I know," Imel replied. "That's why you're late."
Müller hesitated. "There's something else."
Imel turned slowly. "Then speak."
Müller lowered his voice. "The Wehrmacht investigators have begun asking about Josef Mengele. Specifically why he was in Paris. They're connecting him to the banquet."
For the first time, Imel's composure cracked.
"Damn it," he hissed.
Müller continued carefully. "They're moving toward the boy. Reichenau ordered protection. A positive identification attempt."
Imel crossed the room and keyed a panel hidden behind a bookcase. Steel slid open, revealing a secured inner chamber—soundproofed, shielded, classified beyond classification.
"Inside," Imel said sharply.
Once sealed in, the air changed. No pretense. No measured language.
"Mengele was not in Paris for the Olympics," Imel said coldly. "He was there to go over sterilization experiments for the Japanese Pacific States."
Müller stiffened.
"Human wound material," Imel continued. "A living archive. New sterilization techniques—fake clinics administering cyanide, fentanyl exposure trials, even low-yield nuclear contamination modeling."
Müller's jaw tightened. "The child overheard this conversation?"
"Possibly," Imel snapped. "The child might've witnessed something he was never meant to hear."
Silence filled the room as Müller processed the implication.
"And Wolff?" Müller asked finally.
"Must not learn," Imel said flatly. "Not yet. If Wolff learns this operation existed with only Himmler's direct knowledge, it becomes leverage—or a purge."
Müller nodded once. "Then the boy must die."
"He must disappear," Imel corrected. "Before the Wehrmacht reaches him."
Müller's voice was steady. "I'll dispatch a clean unit."
"No," Imel said. "I want it personal. Quiet. No SS signature."
Müller understood immediately.
Loose ends were no longer theoretical.
London — Old Ghosts, New Wars
Emily Evanfields learned quickly that London resisted quietly.
The pub was louder than it needed to be. Laughter too forced. Smoke too thick. But beneath it—discipline. Eyes tracked entrances. Hands never far from weapons.
Her contact emerged from the crowd with a crooked grin.
"Emily bloody Evanfields," he said. "Still breathing."
"Barely," she replied.
Captain James Hawthorne, Royal Marines—older now, lines carved deep by wars that never made headlines. He listened without interruption as she told him everything. Yonkers. Auburn. The tracking device. Paris.
When she finished, he didn't offer comfort.
He offered purpose.
"We've got a U-boat supply hub," Hawthorne said. "Channel side. Quiet. Well-guarded. You want back in?"
Emily nodded. "I never left."
Elsewhere in the city, Reinhard Krüger's orders moved through the Nazi British Embassy like poison through veins.
A covert unit was assembled. No uniforms. No insignia.
Their target: Étienne Moreau.
Recover him. Alive.
Back in his hotel room, Étienne accepted a newspaper dropped at his feet by Agent C.
Inside, coded instructions.
Chaos was coming.
And he would be the match.
San Francisco — Morning of the Speech
The Hotel Pacific Crown stood across the open plaza from the Nazi Pacific Embassy, its cheap façade masking how many killers slept within its walls.
On the eighth floor, SS-Scharführer Klaus Kräusel assembled his rifle with reverence. Suppressor locked. Scope calibrated. Wind noted. The podium below sat empty, waiting.
On the third floor, Jack washed blood from his knuckles and stared at himself in the mirror.
Today was the day.
Across the city, Crown Prince Akihito adjusted his uniform while Princess Michiko straightened his collar.
"You don't trust them," she said softly.
"No," he replied. "But trust is a luxury."
They departed for the IJN carrier Amagi, escorted by Chief Inspector Sugiyama.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto greeted them aboard with restraint. The conversation that followed was tense.
"The resistance grows," Yamamoto said carefully.
"So does repression," Akihito replied. "Which feeds it."
Yamamoto's eyes hardened. "And yet they kill civilians."
"They were taught by empires," Akihito said.
No one smiled.
The Plaza — Seconds to Collapse
The plaza outside the Nazi Embassy in San Francisco shimmered under harsh floodlights and a forest of flags. Rows of black-uniformed SS guards stood shoulder to shoulder with Japanese Kempeitai, forming a lattice of authority around the temporary stage where Crown Prince Akihito prepared to address the crowd.
Metal detectors. Patrol dogs. Snipers on rooftops. The strongest joint security presence the Pacific States had seen in months.
And yet Jack slipped through it.
Not easily—never easily. His heart hammered so violently he thought the guards could hear it. From the moment he stepped out of the hotel lobby across the street, every uniform looked like a threat, every shouted order like a spotlight aimed straight at him.
He kept his head down and moved with the flow of civilians, badge tucked into his sleeve, hands trembling. His breath fogged in front of him.
He wasn't ready.
But he was here.
By the time he reached the center of the plaza, the Crown Prince was already at the lectern, giving soft, ceremonial words about unity, reconstruction, and friendship between empires. His voice floated through the cool night easily, amplified by perfect acoustics.
Jack barely heard any of it.
His pulse drowned everything out.
He slipped a hand inside his coat.
Wrapped it around the pistol.
His fingers shook uncontrollably.
Jack cried.
A little Japanese girl looked up at him.
She saw the pistol.
She said nothing.
She was simply watching him.
Watching his tears gather.
Jack froze.
His throat closed.
But his arm still rose—slowly, mechanically—pistol trembling as he tried to steady it, tried to remember every justification he had whispered to himself for weeks.
The girl's gaze didn't leave him.
And suddenly Jack saw his sister's face in hers.
Fragile. Gentle. Trusting.
His vision blurred as he whispered, "I'm sorry."
Above them—far above them—on the hotel eighth floor the same hotel Jack had just left minutes earlier…
Kräusel inhaled.
Exhaled.
And fired.
Three shots—crisp, precise cracks that sliced the night.
Crown Prince Akihito jerked violently and collapsed.
The plaza descended into chaos.
Screams tore through the crowd. Kempeitai lunged toward the stage. SS soldiers raised rifles pushing the massive crowds back. People shoved and trampled over each other and the metal gates as panic surged outward in every direction.
The little girl's father whipped his head around——and saw the pistol in Jack's hand.
Jack froze, realization hitting him like ice water.
He hadn't fired.
Someone else had.
Someone better. Someone hidden. Someone who probably wanted jack to carry the blame.
He shoved the pistol back inside his coat immediately.
The father's face twisted from shock to terror to fury—but before he could speak, the crowd surged and pulled him away, dragging his daughter with him as he shielded her from the stampede.
Jack turned and ran.
Everyone ran.
Kräusel left the hotel while everyone was in panic the SS and Kempeitai was rounding everyone up but Kräusel boarded a bus—then detonated the eighth floor causing more panic and damage.
The city ignited.
Resistance bombs detonated across San Francisco as well.
Sirens. Smoke. Screams.
ON THE STAGE
Admiral Yamamoto lunged to cover the fallen Crown Prince, shielding him with his own body as blood soaked the polished platform.
"GET HIM INSIDE! NOW!" Yamamoto roared.
Kempeitai officers formed a protective ring as medics sprinted up the steps. Crown Princess Michiko screamed her husband's name, reaching for him before officers forced her back for her own safety.
"LOCK DOWN THE PLAZA!" Yamamoto barked, voice cracking the air like lightning. "NOBODY LEAVES! NOBODY!"
Japanese soldiers slammed barricades shut.
SS officers shouted competing orders.
Gun barrels swept the rooftops and windows, searching for a ghost no one had seen.
A city of millions suddenly felt trapped inside a single square.
Admiral Yamamoto gave commands while on the way to the hospital.
"Lock it down," he roared. "Everything. Everyone."
Princess Michiko wept with blood on her hands over Tōgō after arriving at the hospital as surgeons fought for Akihito's life.
Tanks sealed the streets.
Anti-aircraft guns rose.
No one left.
Not even Nazis.
San Francisco became a battlefield in seconds.
THE WORLD SHRINKS
Jack pushed through the stampede, lungs burning, tears streaking his face.
Not from guilt—
—but from terror.
He knew what this looked like.
He knew what they would say.
He knew what was coming for him.
Behind him, the Crown Prince was carried into an armored truck as sirens wailed across the Pacific States, the city plunging into full lockdown. A wall of Japanese armor encircled the plaza as troops flooded every street, every alley, every rooftop.
San Francisco had just become a cage.
And Jack was inside it.