Comic Book Hero Chapter 11

Okay, I first met Dieter about twenty years ago, on the set of a martial arts movie in L.A. I was right out of school and just starting out in the business, working for another FX outfit called Magic Shots, Inc. They’re long gone now. Dieter had been working for about a year scratching a living as a stunt man, but this was his first chance as a choreographer. It was a lousy little picture, went straight to video, but it was also the first big break for both of us. I guess it was just natural for us to start hanging out together and get to be friends.

Dieter knew that I was new to the west coast and didn’t have any friends or family, so I used to spend weekends out at his place. It was just him and Holly, who was about six at the time, and Dieters’ mother, Frieda. She was this tough old battleaxe, with a Bavarian accent that always made her sound like an extra on ‘Hogan’s Heroes’, and one of the scariest people I’d ever met. In all the years I knew her; I think I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I ever saw her smile. But you know, I also never saw her do a mean or spiteful thing to anybody, and she was always finding excuses to sit people down and stuff them with her good German cooking. She’s been dead now about eight years, and I still miss her.

Holly, now, she was a handful. A real tomboy, she hated dresses, dolls, tea parties, acting proper or being quiet. Drove her grandmother crazy. She adored Dieter, wanted to be just like him, and kept trying to duplicate his stunts. She was totally fearless, too. She’d jump out of windows, climb cliffs, swing on ropes, and do the most heart stopping things on a bicycle you’ve ever seen. And all this before she was ten years old! But it was one day when she was nine that finally did it. Holly got a hold of a clothesline and tried repelling off a three story building, slipped and broke her arm. Two days later she was back on that building, cast and all, still trying to repel with that damned clothesline! Dieter went out that same week and bought his first dojo, and never did stunt work again.

We didn’t stop working together, though. Dieter was still one of the best fight choreographers in the business, and when he opened that first dojo in L.A. he became a sort of ‘fight trainer to the stars’. And once he got a couple of teachers, he was able to take a few weeks off and go out on location two or three times a year, so we still saw a lot of each other, even when I moved my operation up here to Sacramento. I know he misses the stunt work, but leaving it got Holly interested in the martial arts instead of jumping off bridges, so he figures it’s worth it.

Holly took to the arts like a champ, just like any other sport she ever tried. She got her black belt by the time she was twelve, and started teaching classes for kids at the dojo after school. I guess she decided she really liked it, because she got her teaching degree in college, and then moved to San Diego where she taught Junior High. She was great at it, too, but then one day one of her students tried to proposition her after class. The little punk was only fifteen! She turned him down, and he tried to force himself on her. She broke his nose and I think two of his ribs.

Okay, so the kid was a punk and had a criminal record as long as your arm, and the cops took Holly’s word about what happened and booked the little shit. But when a teacher sends a student to the emergency room, no matter what the circumstances, the Board of Education suspends them pending their own investigation. So Holly went home and sat on her butt for two weeks, waiting to go back to work.

Now Holly had been living with this guy for about six months, I dunno, I think he was a musician or something. And one day she comes home early and finds him in bed with her best friend. Between that and the suspension, I guess Holly had had enough, so she starts screaming and yelling at the two of them, but mostly tearing a piece of hide off of her boyfriend. He finally gets pissed and slaps her, so she lets loose and breaks his nose, and also kicks him in the ‘nads so hard, he’s still walking funny. Then she throws him and the girl out the door like a couple of bags of trash. And she kept their clothes, too.

Anyway, like I said, Holly had had enough. As soon as her suspension was over, she quit her job and moved back in with Dieter. She ran one of his dojos in LA for a while, and then they moved up here about six months ago to start the new place in San Francisco.

Dieter, before I met him… listen, this isn’t easy. Dieter told me this in the strictest of confidence. I kind of feel like I’m betraying his trust by telling you guys. And the only reason I am is I think if he knew what this was all about he’d tell you himself.

It was about a year ago, and Dieter and I were on location in Australia. We were supposed to wrap things up that day and hop the company jet back to the states, but the weather wasn’t co-operating. A hurricane had moved in, and all flights were canceled, and it was going to be at least another thirty-six hours before we could get out. We had nothing else to do, so we ended up in the hotel bar, getting smashed.

Dieter was pretty depressed, I can’t ever remember seeing him so down. After about his third bourbon, he told me that two days from then was the twentieth anniversary of his wife’s death. He and Holly had planned on having a little memorial service together, and now he was going to miss it. I was pretty curious, see, because Dieter had never spoken before about how his wife had died. In fact, he’d always avoided the subject. I’d learned long before not to ask any questions, but I could tell he finally wanted to talk about it, so I just shut up and let the bourbon do its thing.

After another couple of shots, Dieter told me. Do you guys know what the Grenzschutzgruppe 9 is? GSG-9? Okay, they’re the German government’s counter terrorist unit; it’s their version of our Delta Force. As a matter of fact, Delta and GSG-9 often train together. They’re the toughest, best trained, and most effective CT unit in all of Europe, and Dieter was one of their top members back in the seventies and early eighties.

GSG-9 was formed in 1973, just six months after the Munich Olympics disaster. You guys are too young to remember what that was like, how scary it was for the whole world, or how much it changed everything. I think, for most of us at least, that’s when the age of terrorism really began.

There wasn’t any security worth mentioning at the Olympic village. Seems the government was pretty concerned about their image, they didn’t want the public to get the impression that Germany was still a ‘police state’. So one morning five members of the Palestinian terrorist cell Black September, dressed in workout suits and carrying gym bags full of weapons and grenades, climbed over a six foot chain link fence and strolled into the area where the Israeli athletes were housed. A lot of people saw them, but nobody thought a thing about another bunch of foreign jocks out for a morning workout.

They killed the wrestling coach and one of his wrestlers right away, and took nine athletes hostage. They made the usual demands, release all Palestinian prisoners everywhere, helicopters to take them to the airfield, a plane to take them home, etcetera, etcetera, we all know the drill by now. The Germans turned the whole thing over to the army, who set up a team of snipers at the airfield, but somewhere along the line somebody screwed up. It turns out there weren’t five terrorists, there were eleven. The army hadn’t brought near enough snipers to handle it. But instead of backing off, some idiot with more gold braid than brains ordered them to fire. And when the shooting was done, eight terrorists and all the hostages were dead. It was a massacre.

The world press crucified the German government, and the German people were both horrified and embarrassed at the incompetence of their so-called leaders. Political careers crashed and burned, and heads were rolling like bowling balls on league night. Their outraged successors swore that Germany would never be caught like that again, and so the GSG-9 was formed. And Dieter was one of the first to sign up.

He was just a kid at the time, about twenty-one or so I think, but he was one of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the Federal Border Police Force. That’s were they recruited their people from, you know, the cops. After the way they botched the Munich disaster, nobody was going to let the army run the group. They poured millions into the project, training these guys, and like I said they became the best there is. They’re now considered the role model for CT teams all over the world.

Anyway, Dieter met and married a girl named Giselle, and then Holly was born a year later, only then she was called Hilda. Dieter loved them both more than life itself, and they were all pretty happy for about five years. And then some terrorists found out where Dieter lived, and they threw a shopping bag full of grenades through the front window of his house.

Dieter wasn’t at home and Holly, thank god, was playing out in the back yard. The blast picked her up and threw her twenty feet into a wooden fence, but she wasn’t seriously hurt. Her Mom, though… well, at least she didn’t have time to feel anything.

But Dieter lost it. You see, because of reprisals the names and addresses of all GSG-9 members are considered top secret, but every now and then a terrorist cell bribes or coerces some government flunky to give one up, and that’s what happened in Dieter’s case. Remember, Dieter was a cop before he joined the group, so when he took some compassionate leave and tried to find the traitor that sold him out, he knew how to conduct a proper investigation. Two months later he corners the guy in an apartment house in Bonne, and the guy ends up with a broken back just above the shoulders. Total quadriplegic, dead from the neck down. Hopefully the bastard’s still in an institute somewhere, hooked up to a bunch of machines and getting the drool wiped off his mouth by an ugly nurse with clammy hands.

Dieter claimed the guy fell down a stairway while trying to escape, but nobody believed him. They let him resign quietly, and arranged a sort of witness relocation thing for him and Holly with our government, which is how he ended up in L.A. with a new name. The terrorist cell that killed his wife is long gone, and nobody really cares or even remembers about him and Holly, so if they wanted to they could probably go back to Germany and even use their own names again. But Dieter says there’s nothing there for them anymore.

Okay, when it comes to fighting, Dieter knows more ways to kill you than Doctor Kevorkian. Even after he opened his own dojo he kept studying, new styles, new techniques. He even went to Israel for four months to study with the guy who created Krav Maga, which is the fighting system the Israeli armed forces uses. And last year he went to Japan to get his fifth dan black belt in judo.

Dieter is also a recognized expert in most hand weapons, which is what makes him such a great fight choreographer. Anything you can shoot, stab, throw, or hit with, Dieter knows how to use it. And he can teach others how to use them, too.

As far as trusting Dieter with ‘the secret’… Yeah, I think you can, in fact I’d bet my life on it. You saved his life, remember, but more importantly you protected Holly when he couldn’t. He said he owes you, and he meant it. After what happened to Giselle he doesn’t blindly trust any authority, if he ever did, so as long as you’re not doing anything he can’t live with, he’ll die before he tells the cops a thing.

Just don’t bring Holly into this. If you get her into anything dangerous, Dieter will rip your head off and use it as a soccer ball.

*****

“Dieter, the mats are all put away, and we racked the last of the equipment. Abe and I are going home now. You sure you’re gonna be alright?” asked Tim Rondell, one of Dieter’s instructors. Tim was a tall black man of about thirty-five, with a cavernously deep voice that echoed out of a fifty-four inch chest. He more than filled the door to Dieter’s office. His arms and neck were equally huge, and in the tight red t-shirt he had changed into it was easy to believe that he could bend horseshoes with his bare hands. Dieter had seen him do the trick more than once.

“Thank you for your concern, Tim, but I will be fine. I am going to stay just long enough to finish this months billing, and then I will go home. Do not worry about me, my friend, I can take care of myself.”

Tim grinned, nodding in acknowledgement. He knew his concern was somewhat ludicrous. Even though he was younger and outweighed his German employer by almost forty pounds, they both knew he wouldn’t last three minutes in the ring against Dieter. Besides, after what happened a month ago in the parking lot, no one in their right mind would even think about challenging the tall blond man who spoke so softly. Ten drug crazed bikers with guns against Dieter and his bare hands. Kee-rist, what a fight that must have been!

“Okay, sensei, you’re the boss. Abe and I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that he left, and a few minutes later Dieter heard the back door to the parking lot open and close and the sound of Tim’s key turning in the lock. By the time the two men’s car started up, Dieter was already deep into a Quicken spreadsheet, the hum of his office computer and the click of the keys his only companions.

His mind, though, stubbornly refused to focus on the bookkeeping problems before him. It kept wandering, going down paths that he had already traveled much in the last five weeks, seemingly unable to keep out of the rut that he had worn in his conscious. He heard the echoes of the fear and hopelessness he had felt that night, and the pain he had endured the long days afterward in the hospital, the sore ribs that still hadn’t healed, and the slight blurriness in his left eye that the doctors worried might be permanent. These would pass, he knew that from a lifetimes’ experience with violence, leaving only fading scars on both his flesh and his soul. Reminders that would occasionally twinge when something brought the memories back to light. The sensations were familiar, the cross a man bore when he decides to fight, and he relegated them to the back of his conscience without a second thought.

But what kept reappearing in his mind were visions of the dark man, the mysterious hooded figure that had appeared out of nowhere, to save both him and his beloved Hilda. It was not the fight that he saw, for in fact he hadn’t seen the dark man at all during that time. He had been invisible, the effect of his actions apparent and undeniable, but his figure never seen, a shadow flitting in the night. But from the time he appeared on the chief hoodlum’s car to draw fire from Dieter’s daughter, to the time he disappeared back into the shadows from which he came, was a matter of some three or four minutes, no more. And yet those four minutes wound through Dieter’s mind like some bizarre tape loop, repeating itself over and over to the point of obsession.

Dieter sighed, surrendering. He closed down his computer and sat back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. It was no use, and the paperwork would still be there tomorrow. He might as well go—

A sound, echoing softly from the gymnasium.

Dieter froze, his ears seeming to prick up like a feral animal’s. The sound had been faint, even magnified by the echo chamber of the gym, coming through the open door of his office. If his computer had still been on, or if his instincts hadn’t been sharpened by recent events, he would never have noticed it. Or having noticed, recognized it for what it was, the opening of one of the gymnasium windows.

Most men would have hesitated, doubted themselves and the testimony of their senses. But Dieter Reisbach was too much the consummate warrior to doubt. He knew what he had heard, knew that it could only mean an intruder in the building. Silently, Dieter slid open a drawer in his desk, and removed the nickel plated .38 revolver from its depths.

The tall German flicked off the light over his desk and slid to the floor in a crouch. As silently as a snake, he made his way out of the office and into the locker room, to press up against the wall beside the doorway into the gym. He paused to listen, but heard nothing from the cavernous room, except perhaps the faint sounds of traffic from the streets. Which he knew could only be heard if a window really was open. Cautiously, he peaked around the corner and into the area beyond.

The old school gym was not completely dark, either Tim or Abe had been thoughtful enough to leave the spotlight over center court on. It shone down, a bright circle of white that pierced the darkness like a spike, but left murky gray shadows everywhere else. Dieter scanned those shadows with trained eyes, but saw nothing. But the lack of a visible presence did not make him feel any less vigilant, as he gripped the pistol tightly, and slid silently through the door.

Dieter stood in the darkest of shadows, a part of them, waiting. He pondered his options. Next to him were the light switches, he could switch them all on at once and temporarily blind the intruder, and gain an instant advantage over him. But if the intruder knew he was here, and knew the layout of this room, he could very well be expecting just such a move. If so, a weapon could be pointed at the light switch this very second, just waiting for the first flash of the overhead lighting. Dieter crouched, considering.

A flash of movement appeared in the spotlight, an object that struck the floor in the circle of light with the resounding, echoing claa-ack! of wood on wood. Dieter stayed where he was, not looking at the light, instead scanning the darkness with his eyes and the barrel of the gun. Too well trained to be distracted by a thrown object.

“Thanks for the loan. I thought I’d return this.”

Dieter blinked, felt an electric shock shoot down his spine. The voice had come from across the room, high up, the speaker probably sitting on top of one of the folded up bleachers. He still could not see him but he knew who it was, recognized the voice with an iron certainty. With that same certainty he finally looked at the circle of light in the center of the court, and knew what he would find. The tumbling object he had half glimpsed lay there, the hooked rattan cane that had disappeared on that night the dark man had saved them.

Dieter started to rise, but the voice from the shadows still had yet another shock to hand him. “And you can holster that Airweight if you want, Mr. Reisbach. I’m not your enemy.”

Shock, Dieter decided, was too mild a description for what he felt. It was much more like stunned! The voice had just correctly identified the pistol in his hands, a five shot Airweight Bodyguard. With the shrouded hammer it had a distinct outline, easily recognizable to anyone familiar with handguns, which the dark man obviously was. But it was also obvious that his mysterious visitor could also see in the dark, and must therefore have some sort of night vision equipment. In the one sentence he had told Dieter a lot and, he did not doubt, told it to him on purpose.

Dieter finished standing, took the pistol that was now just an uncomfortable weight in his hand, shoved it into his belt at the small of his back. He reached for the light switches, cautioned, “Watch your eyes,” and turned on the overhead lights.

Light as bright as full day flooded the huge room, making both of its inhabitants blink. Dieter scanned the area, quickly found the figure that had haunted his dreams for so many weeks, sitting on the top of one of the collapsed bleachers to his left. For long moments he could only stare, a whirlwind of emotions roaring through his mind, tightening his chest, but by an enormous effort of will not reaching his face.

The figure stood, as if knowing it was under inspection, waited silently. He looked much as Dieter had remembered, a masked and hooded image in shades of gray and black, somber and inscrutable. He saw now details that had probably escaped him in the darkened parking lot, but also knew of a certainty that some things were new. The hooded shirt was longer, hanging down below the groin, and split over the hips, a style he recognized from modern body armor. But still recognizable as a common sweatshirt, right down to the belly pocket in front. The hood itself looked larger, fuller, and the black masked face that peered out of it now did so from behind a pair of goggles. As Dieter watched, the figure slowly raised the goggles to its forehead, exposing gray eyes that peered out from the slit face of the mask.

But the most obvious new detail was the bandoleer. It was black, stretching from left shoulder to right hip, made, he thought, from a military pistol belt. Black nylon pouches of varying sizes hung from the belt, and a small black leather band with snaps hung from its lower end and attached to the belt around the pants thru the slit at the bottom of the shirt. A very efficient way to carry equipment, Dieter knew, especially if the dark man traveled the way he had come to suspect.

Dieter nodded, as if coming to a decision about his mysterious guest. And that was how he chose to treat the man, the one who had saved both him and his daughter. As a guest.

“Welcome to the Reisbach Academy of the Martial Arts. And thank you for the return of my cane, but as you can see, I no longer have need of it. As it is, my friend, I suspect that you have gotten much more use out of it than I did.”

A stiffness seemed to go out of the figure on the bleacher, as if he had been unsure of the reception he would receive. He nodded, said, “It’s come in handy a couple of times. I didn’t mean to take it; I guess I was just caught up in the moment. You might find it has a few more nicks and scratches.”

Dieter felt a smile twitch at his lips. “I think I saw you put a few of them on there myself. It was an impressive display. And thank you, sincerely, for what you did for us. You saved our lives.”

The dark man nodded, a simple acknowledgement of fact. He seemed to be considering something, came to a decision. “You said something to me that night. You said that you owed me. Do you still feel that way?”

It was Dieter’s turn to nod. “Of course. If you are asking if we told the police about you, the answer is no. And they did not believe the stories those hoodlums told either, about being attacked by ‘an army of ninjas’. Your secret is still safe, my friend.”

“I know. I have my own sources in the department. And I’ve been watching this place for the past three nights, so I know they haven’t got you under surveillance. What I need to know is will you help me with something? It’s not dangerous, it’s not illegal, and I don’t think you would consider it morally wrong. And I can’t tell you who I am, or where I come from, so you would have to trust me. But what I would tell you could be enough to get me killed, so I guess I would be taking a lot on faith, too.”

Dieter looked at him, considering. He owed this man, it was true, but he was not going to blindly sign over his soul to anyone. “Just what is it you want me to do?” he asked. But the answer was totally unexpected.

“I want you to teach me how to fight.”

“You…you want me…to teach you how to fight?” Dieter asked, surprised. And then, wryly, “Considering our respective records, Mr. Dark, I would think that it would be the other way around. Perhaps it is you who should be teaching me. After all, it was I who ended on the ground, bleeding like a stuck pig.”

“Dammit!” the figure snapped, “I was lucky, we both know that. And I saw what you did, before I stepped in. Even with your bad leg, you were damned good.”

“But you were better. Or at least more effective. And there is no way that one man takes down ten by luck alone.”

“Well…I had an edge. An advantage.”

“You can fly.”

The dark man stiffened, obviously startled by Dieter’s revelation. Dieter smiled, pleased at this new turn of events. He had felt at a disadvantage since this meeting had begun, had felt unbalanced talking to this man whose face he had never seen. It felt good to regain some control of the conversation.

For a long time the dark man stared at him, eyes as gray as thunder clouds searching those the blue of a Nordic glacier. Dieter wondered if he would deny it, but hoped in his heart that the stranger would be wise enough not to.

He got his wish, when the masked man gave a quick nod, and answered, “Yeah. Okay then.”

And then almost as fast as the thought itself, the dark man had leaped into the air, although Dieter was sure he hadn’t so much as bent his knees. He soared across the room, impossibly high, impossibly far. He twisted, somersaulted twice, and ended up ten feet in front of Dieter, and hovering five feet off the ground.

Dieter gasped, and despite himself he took a step backwards. He had known, or at least thought he had known, what to expect. Had been confident enough in his hypothesis to actually speak it aloud to the masked mans’ face. But he now knew that he hadn’t really believed, not deep down in his belly, that this mysterious being could actually—Gott in Himmel!—fly!

For an uncounted long time Dieter stared at his guest, until finally he took a deep breath and stepped forward, nodding at the apparition hovering before him. Visibly, he gathered himself before he spoke.

“And so, Mr. Dark. What would you have of me?”

“Well first off, Mr. Reisbach, would you mind telling me how you knew about the flying bit? I was pretty sure nobody saw me off the ground that night.”

“And nobody did, my friend. I did not see you at all before you called from the hood of that car. But I saw you move when you stepped down and came over to us, and again when you ran off into the night. I have spent all of my life in the presence of athletes, Mr. Dark. I know better than most how the human body moves, and what it is capable of doing. And it is not possible for it to do the things I saw you do.”

“Ah huh. You’re saying I was so good, that you could tell just by watching me run a hundred yards at night?”

Dieter snorted. “You moved like a hippopotamus on roller skates. Whatever else you are, you are definitely not an athlete. And yet you stepped off of that car, and when your foot next hit the ground you were over five meters away. And again, when you ran off into the night, you moved as if you were weightless. I know what I saw that night, my friend, and it was an impossibility.

“These past weeks I have had a great deal of time to think about that fight. Of how you seemed to be everywhere at once, striking time and again, seconds apart. Again, an impossibility.

“But the final impossibility was the lights in the parking lot. You remember them, Mr. Dark. Fifteen meters tall, thirty-five meters apart, and you shattered them before the fight started. You came that night without a weapon, if you had a pistol to shoot out those lights, you would surely have used it on those hoodlums. Which is why you had to make use of my cane, it was the only tool you had available at the time. And the only way you could have broken those lights, and fought as effectively as you did—”

“Was if I could fly. Alright, I understand and I can see your logic, so now maybe you can see mine. I have an edge, a tremendous tactical advantage in a fight, but it’s not enough. I need to maximize my advantage, learn how to fight, and how to fight using my power. I need someone who not only can teach me the martial arts, but who’s good enough to create a whole new way of fighting. A new martial art, for someone who can fly.”

“I… see. And why do you need to learn how to fight? Just what are you planning to do, Mr. Dark?”

The man in the mask sighed, looked away as if gathering his thoughts. He pulled his legs under him and took up a sitting position, tailor fashion, resting his elbows on his knees. He still floated in mid-air, but now his eyes were on a level with Dieter’s, and the look in them was both serious and intent.

“Mr. Reisbach, when I got this power I thought it was just a gift. I knew I couldn’t tell anybody about it, but I could still have more fun than I ever dreamed was possible, and that’s all I thought it was for. I thought I could spend my nights chasing clouds and playing tag with the seagulls. And it’s true, there is no high better than what I can do, and no freedom greater than what I feel when I’m up there.”

He stood up, or at least seemed to take that position, as he still hung in mid air. He seemed possessed of a new energy, an intensity that Dieter seemed to remember from his own youth. He said, “But out there in your parking lot, I found out it was more than just a gift, it was also a responsibility. That night I saved your life, and your daughters’ life, and in an alley not too far from here I saved a little girl from being sold into slavery by a couple of perverts. And since then I’ve helped others, too. I can’t deny it anymore; I have something that can make a difference, a major difference, in peoples’ lives. I can help them in ways that no one else in the whole damned world can.

“It’s not like someone with the talent to be a doctor deciding to waste it teaching tennis instead. There are lots of doctors, and cops and priests and rescue workers. One more or less won’t make that much of a difference. But there’s only one of me, I’m the only person in the world who can do what I do. I figure there’s got to be a reason why I got this gift, and I know it wasn’t just to go chasing seabirds.

“I’m going to keep on helping people, Mr. Reisbach, but to do it effectively I need your help. I need you to train me. And I need you to trust me, and keep my secret. Will you do that?”

Dieter was silent, considering, weighing the man in front of him as much as he was weighing his own decision. He had no doubt that the masked figure was sincere. He truly believed that there was a purpose to his ability, something that he was meant to do with it. A destiny, if you will. He must therefore believe that a higher power than chance existed, and that that power had a special purpose for him in this life, to have so blessed him with this ‘gift’.

Come to think of it, Dieter now believed the same thing himself.

He said, “I believe you, my friend. I think you are sincere, and I think that you truly wish to use your gift to help others. But am I understanding you correctly, are you actually intending to become some sort of…of… comic book hero? One of those spandex wearing creatures that have been so popular in the movies lately?”

“Hey, I’m open to suggestions! If you can see a way for me to help without going public, I’ll be glad to listen. But you don’t have to be a conspiracy nut to know what will happen if the wrong people find out about me. Secret laboratories and autopsy tables, I end up in a dozen different glass jars on a shelf, and the people who did it get the greatest personal weapon since gunpowder.

“I know it sounds laughable, and even hokey, but there it is. I can’t go to the government with this because I can’t trust them, or anybody else, for that matter. The only way I can do some good with this thing is if I keep it a secret, and if that means wearing a mask and keeping to the shadows, well so be it. It protects me, and it protects the people I’m close to. And yeah, I think you already know something about that, Sergeant Gruner.”

Dieters’ head snapped up, shock and anger reflected in his eyes. How could it be? Could he actually know? The man in black nodded somberly.

“Yes, I know. About GSG-9, about your wife. And about how she was killed when someone found out who you were. It’s the main reason I decided to trust you. I thought you’d know more than anybody why I have to keep this a secret.

“When you went after the bad guys, you had to wear a mask too. You could never let anyone know who you were, or what you did when you left for work in the morning. You had to, because it was the only way to get the job done. And wearing this mask and playing Batman or whatever, is the only way I can do what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Dieter clenched both his teeth and his fists, the emotions this young fool had suddenly awakened in him threatening to drown his sanity. Anger, grief, loss, all warred in his soul, drowning him, urging him to lash out. Instead he turned away and started to pace, purposely not looking at his tormenter, fighting that urge to smash him with all of his might.

He had thought these emotions were gone, long buried with his beloved Giselle, or at least with Oswald Schmidt, the traitor who had cost her life and sold his honor for thirty pieces of silver. Dieter had avenged her on that pitiable excuse for a man with his bare hands. Or rather Johan Gruner had, the man Dieter had been before he and his daughter had fled here to the United States.

Stabsunteroffizer Johan Gruner, Grenzschutzgruppe 9. Gott, I haven’t even thought that name for years! He had believed Johan was dead too, buried alongside Giselle and Schmidt, but he had been wrong. He had been but sleeping, until the mysterious Mr. Dark had awakened him, and with him all the nightmares he represented. The nightmares, yes, but also the dreams.

Dieter stopped his furious pacing and sighed, still ignoring the black and gray figured that hovered above him. Johan had lost more than just his wife that day, he realized. He had also lost his dream, his pride, the very thing that had given his life not just meaning, but also purpose. He had lost Grenzschutzgruppe 9.

Die Gruppe, as they called themselves, as if there could be only one. They had been the most feared counter-terrorists in all of Europe, heroes of the German people, perhaps the first heroes since the nightmare years of the forties. They had arisen to take on the great evil, and had triumphed time and again. Dark had claimed a kinship to them, saying that they too had fought from behind the security of masks, and his first instinct had been ridiculous! To compare himself and his compatriots to these comic book characters that they now made movies of was laughable, an insult to the memory of those good men.

And yet, had they not worn masks? Were they not the cold eyed warriors who gazed out from knitted black torques, nameless and anonymous, coming in secret and disappearing in the same? And did not his own tragedy serve to highlight the necessity of such secrecy? Dieter Reisbach knew much about the secret workings of governments, more so than was probably good for his soul. He could well believe the danger this man faced, if his secret were ever known. And, he had to admit, it was just as real as his own had been.

Dieter shook himself, as if coming up from a bad dream. The anger had faded, cooled by a coldly faced truth, although the memories still carried fresh life and would for some time. But now at least he could look at the figure anxiously hovering in the center of the gym, and discuss what needed to be said with a clear and calm mind.

“Alright, Mr. Dark, you have made your point. I will train you and I will develop ways for you to use your abilities effectively. But I will not do so blindly! If you want my help, there are two conditions that must be met. These are non-negotiable, and if you cannot abide by them, then you must leave.

“First, if I am to be an accomplice, I will not be an unknowing one. Whatever use you make with my teachings I must know all about it, either before or after the fact. I do not need to know who you are, or even to see your face, it is probably better all around if I don’t. But I will not put a gun in the hands of a child and forsake any responsibility for his actions with it.”

Dieter waited, and slowly the figure nodded. “Okay, as long as I can keep my identity a secret, I can live with that. Although I don’t think I care to be called a child. What’s your other condition?”

“Holly must never know! Not about you, and your flying ability, or about our arrangement. You are setting out on a dangerous path, Mr. Dark, and I do not want that danger to spill over into my daughter’s life. If she were to—”

CRA-AASH!

“POPPA!!”

Dieter and the dark man both spun around, one in a crouch, the other still in mid air. Neither man had heard the side door open, or noticed Dieters’ daughter enter the room. At her feet lay a paper bag of take-out Chinese food and two shattered soft drink bottles, the source of the previous noise. She stood now, her eyes as wide as saucers, one hand out for balance, the other covering her mouth, which gaped wide in shock. A smile of wonder was already beginning to tug at her lips. Dieter stole a quick glance at the flying man, and though he could not see his face Dieter was sure by his posture that Mr. Dark was feeling more than a little embarrassed.

Dieter looked once more at his daughter, who was openly smiling now. Her eyes were beginning to shine with a familiar sparkle that Dieter was all too familiar with. He sighed, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. This was definitely not a good development.