Perfection.<br/><br/>Perfection demands balance.<br/><br/>Emotions mean pain. Pain means imperfection. Perfection demands balance. No emotion, no pain.<br/><br/>Hamish was perfectly balanced on one hand in the middle of his room. His feet in the air were evenly spaced apart while his left hand curled to rest behind his back. Sweat dripped from his bald head from the exertion but never once did his arm waver. Hamish was purging the emotions through pain. He had stretched and worked his body harder than he had in years, calling on fuzzy memories of training he had received somewhere.<br/><br/>The pain shooting through his body was exquisite, cleansing, sweetly repairing the seams of his soul that had been ripped open as of late.<br/><br/>Perfection.<br/><br/>After Hamish had completed his exercises and had cleaned himself, he redressed in his night grays. There was work to be done and morning still several hours away. He had worked since he came back concocting a plan but would wait until morning to put it into action. Tonight, he would watch and work.<br/><br/>He flipped through the pile of photographs again, searing all of the images into his brain. He did not need to do this as he could have described each face by now to render the clearest of verbal pictures. But perfection demands many things. Time, practice, patience, and most importantly balance. The pain had re calibrated his inner demons to be the very model of efficiency at his trained talents.<br/><br/>Hamish opened the case which held his rifle and quickly checked the action of the meticulously kept tool. Satisfied the rifle was in peak condition, Hamish went out into the early morning where stillness reigned and ruled. He was less than a shadow on a breeze, his feet leaving only the barest of prints in the snow. Light avoided him like a deep recess of a forgotten corner while shadows embraced him. Hamish existed here for as long as his often spotty memory could take him. This was home.<br/><br/>In the darkness of even the brightest day, Hamish was perfection. At night, on the streets where vile occurrences, and even viler intentions had sapped the very energy of any lingering spark of hope, Hamish was a god. This was his home. This was his terrain. This was the temple of his kind and others of his kind prayed to the talents of one such as him.<br/><br/>Hamish glided through the night without sound or thought. He was on pure instinct now, the role of the hunter firmly planted in his being again. He breezed through several street patrols, pushing himself to get ever closer without being seen. The challenge was almost nonexistent for him though. These men were tired, bored, cold, and filled with the idea they were safe on these streets. Hamish knew he could probably kill a vast majority of the city watch before anyone even figured out something was wrong.  His mind calculated a higher than 85% chance he could kill every one of them before an alarm was raised.<br/><br/>It was not hubris that brought these thoughts to bear. Hamish had no real grasp on how good he was and along with all the other emotions raging to break free, his ego was bottled up as well. Perfection allowed no room for such trivial things as personal congratulations.<br/><br/>A short while later, Hamish was atop the roof of an apartment building about 800 yards from the front of Isolde’s building, looking through his scope at her front door. Hamish was perfectly still as he watched from his perch. Hamish was there when the door opened and out walked the blonde man. Next to him was a woman whose features were difficult to make out from this distance, and two other officers, a German and one Fabiano Grazzienneli.<br/><br/>Fabiano had not gotten where he was with his good looks and brains. He was a Nazi to his core, his beliefs firmly entrenched in the ideas of the superior race, even though he did not fit the profile. But like most of the officers in the Nazi regime, Fabiano had ridden the coattails of death to get where he was now, and Hamish had been the tool he used to carve his path of silent ascension. Then Fabiano had refused to pay his bill.<br/><br/>He was low on the list but a target nonetheless.<br/><br/>Balance.<br/><br/>Perfection.<br/><br/>Hamish watched as the blonde man walked Fabiano into the alley way, then exited without him. The blonde man got into a car and drove away. Hamish glided down the fire escape of the apartment building losing site of the alleyway. He wraithed his way through the alleys and was about half way there when he was hit with a pulse of warmth; a bomb of holy heat that sent him to his knees, clutching his chest at the screaming of what felt like a chorus of voices inside of him. The heat did not hurt but the mass of confusion that shredded the barriers he built, left him sobbing in the cold, dark alley.<br/><br/>It only by the merest thread of extreme mental discipline that held him to sanity as a flood of memories and dreams careened through his mind. Places that seemed somehow familiar and foreign all at once, faces he somehow knew he had killed but did not remember the terms flew at him faster than his mind could focus and hold the image. He was moving through a British encampment, silently slitting the throat of a group of soldiers dressed in revolutionary uniforms one fraction of a second then he was a viper in the trenches of World War I the next.<br/>Time warped, expanded and shrunk at the same instant, his mind nearly snapped at the pressure. He could not stop the tears that fled his eyes but he managed not to scream. His instinctual training went into overdrive, keeping him silent and alone as a score of demons tried to claw their way out as the unexplained heat drove them forward.<br/><br/>Then it ended. As abruptly as the demons had been awakened, they instantly went quiet. Again it was instinct that picked Hamish up and sent him scurrying up the tallest building he could find. He found himself on the roof in a flash and threw himself onto the ledge that afforded even more shadows for him. He was about 400 yards from the alleyway, and peeked over the small wall just in time to see the young Italian officer being taken into a church by the tall woman.<br/><br/>Hamish sank to the ground and went about regaining control of himself. Breathing in deep breaths and ensuring the exhale came out even slower. It was only then he realized the tears, and was able to put a name to this newest sensation.<br/><br/>Hamish was scared.<br/><br/>Because of his fear, the Italian officer must die. Hamish attached the silencer to his rifle, and settled his mind enough that his face went coldly slack again. With slow deliberate movements, Hamish set himself away from the roof ledge but his scope centered on the door of the church.<br/><br/>He breathed slowly and became one with the shadows again.<br/><br/>Balance.<br/><br/>Perfection.<br/><br/>***************************************************<br/><br/>There is an eerie, if peaceful, silence to the dawn. It is almost impossible for it to sneak up on even the dullest of people for it brings with it a cacophony of noise. Morning birds, early risers, and a general hum of movement and motion that may as well be a screaming train to one who is attuned to the night.<br/><br/>Hamish slowly lowered his rifle. The dawn brought other more important duties for Hamish other than the Italian officer. Hamish knew there would be other chances at him, there always were. Hamish considered for a moment that he felt nothing about this. There was no anger or disappointment, it simply was the way of it. Whatever had laid him low earlier had passed but he would add it to the list of things that had happened in the last few weeks. There was still the whispers in his gut that told him something much bigger was happening and he might miss it if he didn't keep to his plans.<br/><br/>Hamish felt the pocket of his inner jacket where there rested a letter, written the night before. As Hamish made his way back through the streets, he did not head for the hotel. His first stop was the clinic where he slipped the envelope into the mail slot. Then he headed for the other end of town to prepare for what he hoped would come later. Maybe there would be some answers.