Paris, November 1937.
The city slept under a thick veil of fog, and gas lamps cast ghostly halos over the wet streets. The footsteps of a postman echoed through the quiet alleys of the 9th arrondissement as he slipped a letter beneath a door marked only with the number: 42.
Inside, a dim hanging lamp lit dusty books, a silent gramophone, and a window that never opened. The man at the table looked up. Tall, with sharp features and deep lines etched into his brow, he wore a worn-out jacket and held a lit cigarette between his fingers. His name was Émile Verhaeren, though he had gone by other names for years.
He rose, took the letter with practiced fingers, and opened it with surgical precision. Inside, a plain sheet of paper. A short message in French, written in nearly anonymous handwriting:
"The bird lands on the 14th. The nest is not safe. Protect the flight. C."
Verhaeren closed his eyes. An unspoken name hung in the silence like the smell of gunpowder after a shot: Kurt Reiner, German chancellor, enemy of the Belgian state—and paradoxically, now his to protect.
On the phonograph, the forgotten record hissed once more and stopped.
Outside, the fog swallowed the postman, and the distant bells of a church rang out three in the morning.
The game had begun.