Heavy curtains at the Ritz blocked the morning sun. The room smelled of lavender calming incense.
Yoshino Ayako and Isokawa Reiko were still fast asleep behind a shut door. Last night's socializing had wiped them out.
Satsuki was already dressed.
She stood in front of the entryway's full-length mirror, adjusting the collar of her trench coat. The sharp black Burberry looked lethal and cold next to Paris's lazy beige palette.
"Is everything arranged?" Satsuki asked softly.
Fujita Tsuyoshi waited outside the door, holding a slim black leather briefcase.
"Yes, Miss. We've notified the school," Fujita said, keeping his voice low.
"The reason we gave was 'urgent asset matters at the Saionji Family's German branch requiring a guardian's signature.' The Dean of Students hesitated, but he didn't stop us. For Miss Yoshino and the others, I left a note saying we had private family business and would meet them in London in two days."
"Good."
Satsuki put on her sunglasses, hiding the fatigue in her eyes. She opened the door and stepped out. The hallway carpet swallowed her footsteps.
She didn't glance back at the gentle dreamland where the others still slept.
For Ayako and Reiko, this was a carefree school trip. For Satsuki, Paris was just a layover—a glittering ball meant to distract everyone else.
The ball was over. It was time for the hunter to move.
Two hours later.
Charles de Gaulle Airport, private apron.
The Gulfstream G4's engines finished warming up, their low roar distorting the air at the end of the runway with heat waves.
Satsuki walked up the airbridge.
The cabin door sealed shut, closing out Parisian romance and the city's showy restlessness.
"Destination: West Berlin, Tempelhof Airport," the captain's voice came over the intercom.
The plane taxied, accelerated, and climbed into the clouds.
At thirty thousand feet, Satsuki looked out the window. The cloud layers below shifted from soft white to a heavy, oppressive lead gray.
That was the color of the North German Plain.
It was also the color of the Cold War's front line.
Dusk.
West Berlin, Tempelhof Airport.
Once an architectural marvel of Nazi Germany, it was now the throat of an Allied-controlled island.
The massive curved terminal spread like a steel eagle, its wings looking down on every arrival.
The cabin door opened.
A completely different kind of air rushed in.
Gone was the scent of chestnut flowers from the Seine. In its place was the coarse, acidic bite of burning lignite, old engine oil, and dry, dusty grit.
Fine coal ash drifted through the sky.
Satsuki pulled her trench coat tighter and descended the airbridge.
The wind was strong. It whipped her hair into a mess.
On the apron, several U.S. C-130 transport planes sat quietly, their huge propellers stark against the twilight. Searchlights swept the gray sky. Every so often, a jet fighter cracked the sound barrier somewhere overhead.
This was an island surrounded by a red ocean.
A powder keg that could set off World War III at any moment.
A black Mercedes W126 with West German plates waited on the tarmac. The car was immaculate, but it looked out of place against the grim backdrop.
Standing by the car was a balding middle-aged man in a dark gray suit.
Hans von Schneider.
He looked to be in his fifties, his posture ramrod straight to the point of stiffness. His suit was expensive, but the cuffs showed faint wear. Deep nasolabial lines marked his typically Germanic face, and his eyes carried that mix of aristocratic pride and genteel poverty unique to the old nobility.
When he saw Satsuki, Hans stubbed out his cigarette, straightened his tie, and stepped forward.
"Miss Saionji, welcome to Berlin."
His German was precise and stiff. He gave a slight bow—etiquette perfect, warmth nonexistent.
To him, this Eastern girl was probably just another clueless Japanese nouveau riche. He'd seen plenty lately: yen-rich buyers snapping up designer bags and castles across Europe, trying to paper over cultural insecurity with money.
"The car is ready," Hans said, opening the door with mechanical precision. "Your suite at the Hotel Kempinski is confirmed. Would you prefer to rest first, or take a walk on the Ku'damm? The shops are still open."
Satsuki stopped.
She removed her sunglasses. Her black eyes swept over Hans's rigid face, then past him to the gray scar that cut the city in two.
"We're not going to the hotel," Satsuki said, her voice half-lost to the wind.
"And we're not going shopping."
She slid into the back seat. The leather smelled reassuring.
"Take me to Potsdamer Platz."
Hans froze, his hand still on the door.
"Where? Potsdamer Platz?"
He thought he'd misheard.
"Miss, that area… isn't exactly a tourist spot. There's nothing there but ruins and rabbits."
"Drive," Satsuki said. No explanation.
Hans frowned, shut the door, and circled to the driver's seat. He glanced at her in the rearview mirror and started the engine.
The Mercedes left the airport and merged into West Berlin's Friday-evening traffic.
Outside, the city put on a morbid, almost hysterical display of prosperity.
Along the Ku'damm, neon blazed. Giant billboards flashed sexy blondes and Marlboro Cowboys—capitalism's shop window.
Punk kids with neon Mohawks crowded the sidewalks in leather jackets strung with chains. They clutched bottles of Berliner Kindl, kissing and laughing in the street, flipping off passing police cars.
Heavy metal blasted from music stores. David Bowie's voice mixed with the sweet smell of marijuana in the air.
Everyone here was celebrating.
A hysterical celebration.
Because no one knew if Soviet tanks would be rolling down this street by morning.
If the future was uncertain, they'd spend the present into oblivion.
"A bunch of lunatics," Hans muttered, rolling up his window.
The car moved past the bright district. The surroundings grew bleak. Lights thinned. The road turned rough and uneven.
Finally, the Mercedes stopped at a deathly quiet ruin.
"We're here," Hans said, pointing ahead with resignation and distaste.
"This is the Potsdamer Platz you asked for."
Forty years ago, this had been Europe's busiest intersection—the heart of Berlin, the pride of Prussia.
Now it was the end of the world.
A four-meter concrete wall loomed ahead, brutally slicing off the horizon. The wall was layered with red, black, and yellow graffiti, like infected wounds across the city's skin.
Barbed wire lined the top. In the distance, searchlights from East German watchtowers swept back and forth.
And on this side—the West Berlin side—was a wasteland of weeds.
A dead zone. Too close to the wall for any commercial use. Even the homeless avoided it. Only a few wild rabbits darted between abandoned tram tracks. Discarded shipping containers lay scattered in the grass.
"Miss Saionji, see?" Hans turned, trying to talk sense into his willful client.
"There's nothing here. This land belongs to Daimler-Benz and a few bankrupt families, but it's been abandoned for thirty years. As long as that wall stands, this place is worthless. People won't even dump trash here. It's too far."
Satsuki opened the door and stepped out.
Her heels crunched on gravel and broken rubble.
The wind was strong. Her trench coat snapped loudly.
She walked up to the wall.
A huge piece of English graffiti was sprayed across it: Change Your Life.
Satsuki reached out.
She didn't touch the bright paint. She pressed her palm to the rough, cold concrete.
A chill ran up her fingertips.
She looked up at the gloomy sky beyond the wall.
That was East Berlin.
Lifeless over there. But this wall… it was already brittle.
"Hans," Satsuki said without turning around.
"This land. I want it."
Hans had just stepped out of the car. At her words, he stumbled and nearly fell into a pile of broken brick.
"Wh-what?"
"This land." Satsuki turned, her back to the Berlin Wall that everyone else thought was eternal, and pointed at the weed-choked wasteland at her feet. "From the base of this wall, all the way to the edge of the Tiergarten over there."
She drew a huge circle in the empty air with her hand.
"All of it."
Hans's jaw dropped. He stared at her like she'd lost her mind.
"All of it?! That's at least sixty thousand square meters! And—"
He jabbed a finger at the wall behind him, his voice going shrill.
"This is a dead end! What are you going to do with it? Grow potatoes? Even if you did, the soil's full of World War II shrapnel!"
To him, this wasn't just stupid. It was throwing money into the Spree.
Satsuki didn't react to his panic.
She picked up a broken brick from the ground and tossed it lightly in her hand.
"Mr. von Schneider."
"Y-yes…" Hans answered on reflex. The von helped him recover a shred of noble dignity.
"Do you hear that?"
"Hear… hear what?" Hans looked around, confused. "Punk rock? Or the American planes?"
"No."
Satsuki hurled the brick at the high wall.
Crack!
It shattered, leaving a tiny white scar on the graffiti.
"It's the sound of bricks coming loose."
She brushed dust from her hands. A knowing smile curved her mouth, one Hans couldn't read.
"This wall is already brittle."
Hans stared at her, thinking the logic was insane.
Brittle?
This was the Iron Curtain. The pivot of nuclear balance. The line where two superpowers stared each other down. How could it just… fall?
On one side: the rising hegemon, America. On the other: the immovable red giant, the Soviet Union. He couldn't picture either side backing down.
"Miss Saionji, I think you may misunderstand geopolitics…" Hans tried to reason, to save his client's wallet. "This wall will stand for at least fifty years. Maybe a hundred."
"No buts."
Satsuki cut him off.
She pulled a checkbook from her trench coat. A UBS cashier's check.
She laid the check on the dust-covered hood and uncapped her dark blue Montblanc.
"What's the current price?"
"Since nobody wants it, Daimler's asking around three hundred marks per square meter. The family plots might be cheaper," Hans said automatically.
Satsuki wrote a number.
The pen scratched across the paper.
Rip.
She tore off the check and handed it to him.
"I'll pay five hundred marks."
"Tell the landowners I'm paying cash. Daimler or Prussian nobles—I don't care. If they sign, the money is theirs."
"One condition: I want every deed on my desk tomorrow morning."
Hans took the check.
His eyes dropped to the number.
It was a fortune. Enough for a prime apartment building on the Ku'damm, or a small Bavarian castle.
His Adam's apple bobbed.
As a fallen noble, he might look down on new money, but he couldn't refuse it. Especially not money this foolish, this generous, this irrational.
In front of that check, his threadbare Prussian pride evaporated.
"…As you wish."
Hans slipped the check into his inner pocket. His tone turned markedly more respectful.
"Since you insist. I imagine the owners will be thrilled to dump this mud on you. I'll handle it immediately."
"Then do it."
Satsuki didn't spare the wasteland another glance.
She got back in the car and closed the door.
"Let's go. Find somewhere to eat near Checkpoint Charlie."
"Tomorrow morning, we're going to the other side of the wall."
The Mercedes started, turned around, and drove away from this forgotten corner of the world.
Night had fallen completely.
West Berlin's neon flared to life. Heavy metal rumbled in the distance.
In the rearview mirror, the wall still stood—silent, a massive scar splitting the world in two. Searchlights crawled along the top, grim and menacing.
The headlights swept across the concrete.
The Change Your Life graffiti flashed past in the dark.
Satsuki leaned back against the seat, watching the streets roll by.
Wind howled through the barbed wire, blending with the distant footsteps of East German patrols.