Part 10 — The Tide of Memories
The icy canal water enveloped him like a black shroud.
The cold was so extreme it seemed to freeze the oxygen in his lungs instantly. Elias—or Viktor—sank deep into the muddy bottom. The dark, murky water forced its way into his nose and mouth. The reflex to breathe kicked in, but his mind fought it desperately.
In the freezing depths, his heartbeat slowed down. And in this threshold between life and death, the two identities finally merged into one.
He was no longer just Viktor Kroll, the ice-cold criminal. He was no longer just Elias Vermeer, the timid accountant. He was the synthesis of two lives. A man who had known the deepest abysses of evil, but through his years with Anna had learned the precious dignity of empathy. Anna's experiment hadn't failed. It had worked—not by erasing Viktor, but by giving him a soul.
I must not die, he thought. Not for myself. But to save Julian. From himself.
With one final, desperate exertion, he kicked off from the muddy floor of the canal. His wet clothes felt heavy as lead, his muscles cramped from the cold, but the survival instinct of a man bearing two lives propelled him upward.
His head broke the surface beneath an old wooden pier, two hundred meters downstream from the bridge. He gasped greedily for air, his hands slapping against the slippery wooden pilings as he hauled himself out of the water millimeter by millimeter.
Coughing and spitting, he lay on the damp planks of the pier. Blood from the wound on his temple mixed with the river water. His glasses were gone, but his vision of the world had become strangely sharp. The serum had heightened his senses; the cognitive brilliance of the mastermind Viktor Kroll was fully intact, combined with the emotional clarity of Elias.
He stood up slowly. He had to act. Julian had the box, but the box was empty. The contents—the serum—were circulating in Elias's bloodstream. But Julian knew the network still existed. He would try to reach Viktor Kroll's old safehouses in Rotterdam or Amsterdam to crack the accounts with the help of remaining loyalists.
Elias knew exactly where Julian would go. Because he had built those safehouses thirty years ago himself.
Two hours later.
Inside a derelict warehouse in the industrial port of Rotterdam. Rain whipped against the rusted corrugated metal walls. Inside the vast, dark hall, a single powerful halogen lamp burned above a massive steel table.
Julian stood at the table. Beside him stood three burly men in dark coats—former mercenaries from the old Kroll network whom Julian had recruited with the promise of unimaginable wealth. On the table lay the opened grey box.
“There was nothing else inside?!” one of the mercenaries, a heavy-set man with a shaved head named Branko, snapped at Julian. “We broke you out of the grid and distracted the cops, kid! You said the passwords to the Liechtenstein accounts were in this box!”
“The passwords were in the serum!” Julian yelled desperately. He searched the box again and again, turning the metal inside out. “My father injected himself with the serum! But he's dead! He fell into the canal!”
Branko grabbed Julian by the collar and lifted him effortlessly off the ground. His eyes glinted dangerously. “So you fed us fairy tales? Your old man is dead and the money is gone?”
“No! Wait! Stop!” Julian screamed, terror written across his face. “There is a backup system! In my mother's files, there was mention of a central server at the headquarters in The Hague...”
“There is no backup system, Julian.”
The voice echoed from the deep darkness at the far end of the warehouse.
The three mercenaries and Julian froze. Branko slowly released his grip on Julian. All turned toward the boundary of shadow.
A man stepped out of the darkness into the yellow glare of the halogen lamp.
He was soaked to the bone. Dried blood stained the wound on his temple. His clothes were torn, yet he walked upright with a fluid, intimidating grace. The weapon he held in his right hand—a heavy police pistol he had acquired from an officer at the station—rested as steadily in his grip as if it were an extension of his arm.
Julian's eyes widened. “You... you're alive?!”
Branko reached for his own weapon, but before he could raise the barrel, a loud crack echoed.
A bullet struck with surgical precision right through Branko's right palm. The weapon clattered to the floor, Branko screamed in agony and dropped to his knees.
The other two mercenaries stood petrified in horror. They recognized the cold precision of that shot. It was the legend himself.
“Viktor...”, one of the mercenaries whispered, his face turning pale. “Mr. Kroll... it really is you...”
“Drop your weapons. Now,” the man said in a voice like frozen steel.
The two men didn't hesitate for a second. They threw their handguns onto the concrete floor and stepped back with raised hands. They knew the stories about Viktor Kroll. You didn't negotiate with him. You obeyed.
Julian stared at the man. He saw the scar on his forehead, the ice-cold eyes, the absolute ruthlessness of his demeanor.
“You... you're completely Viktor Kroll now,” Julian stammered, tears of terror filling his eyes. “Elias is dead...”
The man walked up to the table. He looked at the grey box, then looked Julian straight in the eye. And for a tiny moment, the icy gaze softened. An infinite sadness emerged within it.
“Elias is not dead, Julian,” he said softly. “Elias is the soul that Viktor lacked. And because of that soul, I am here. Not to kill you. But to finish what your mother started.”
Elias raised his weapon and aimed at the halogen lamp above the table.
With a single shot, the light went out. The hall plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
A metallic sound echoed, followed by a dull thud and Julian's scream.
