The streets of Copenhagen were fading, as Jan made his way around the alley, looking around as he winced a little in pain, putting the rucksack down as he came around to the small carpark. An old Volvo 240...perfect. Taking out a strip of wickable cloth from his thermal bandit, he wrapped it around his hand and smashed in the rear window, reaching his hand inside and grabbing a hold of the release, firmly taking the catch as he let the door swing open. Getting inside, he put his head under the steering wheel and got to work on the electrics, grabbing a pair of wires and pulling them out from the ignition complex. Hotwiring was rusty to him, but it was something that he still knew the core basics of, and it seemed a little less perverse than carjacking someone. He gave the wires a simple brush, and the car's ignition ticked over, slowly, surely, but then eventually went, as he sat up. Opening the door and dragging the rucksack inside, he moaned, looking at his shoulder. He had to deal with this. He had to also deal with his own look. The beard had to go, the glasses had to go on, and he needed a new set of blood-free clothes. He had no radio, nothing at all. Apart from the Glock, he was clear. He didn't like the idea of having the handgun, but he needed it as the last option he had left, the very last one. Putting his seatbelt on, he pulled out of the parking spot, and began the drive, the drive that took him far from here.

---

Two Years Later

30th December, 2015

Somewhere on Holmön, Sweden

The winter was bitter up here, the frozen Gulf of Bothnia allowing for a bridge to be made between the remote island and the Swedish mainland, and in itself, the island felt bleaker than usual. The Holmöarna islands were for a hardy people, mainly fisheries and people who enjoyed the great outdoors more than most Swedes finding this place home, particularly in this time of year. The pines and conifers were covered in snow, and the huts were mostly left behind, the small village on the north of the island ready for another cold winter. 

Yet on the south, there was a singular hut, a tiny post that Jan had been living in, for two years straight. It had been dilapidated when he first arrived, but things had changed since then. The Pole looked thinned, though still healthy in his appearance, maintaining some sort of vague physical routine. Inside, the hut was barren, bar for a bed, a stove, and a table, filling with news reports. As he walked back in through the door, everything from the prescription glasses he wore to his clean-shaven appearance and his outdoorsman's appearance drew no relation to the person he had been before. That person was dead, Jan thought to himself.

Exhaling, he threw his stuff down by the front entrance, Jan wearing a down jacket and a pair of rugged outdoors trousers, essentials in cold like this. Lobbing off his coat, he sorted through the things he'd bought back from the mainland, a walk across the ice, rather than a ferry. Nothing too out of the ordinary, it was cold but it was not demanding, not after last winter had adapted him. Jan took his flint steel from the tbale and lit the woodburner, throwing it into the small pile of logs he had made, before sitting down on his bed. He reached over and took out the phone, his fourth in a year, just to cycle through any traces or tracks that could ever arise- not that he expected anything. It had been a long time, but one thing still remained. He didn't know how much it emitted, but he knew it was live. The device was in the corner, the lead casing around the metal cylinder, and Jan knew it couldn't go back. Not a chance.

The phone switched on, as he accessed onto the internet, aware that it could easily compromise his position, yet he had to check up on the state of the world. As much as he enjoyed being isolated, he had been watching the world, and wanted to know what was going on. Just to keep up with the state of affairs. Scrolling through, he went onto BBC News, flicking through. He didn't know how much he had changed. His cold thumb flicked through the main page on the smartphone, as he looked on.

"140 Killed in Suicide Attack in Mosul"

"'Ceasefire Broken' in Eastern Ukraine, OECD Reports"

But there was one headline, one that at least seemed to semi-justify something inside of Jan. It wasn't a smile he cracked, it wasn't a frown either. 

"TIAF Forces Surrender to Turkish Government"

That on it's own peaked his interest, as he took a closer look, scrolling through the first body of text on the article.

"The terrorist group, TIAF, has unconditionally surrendered to Turkish forces in the early hours of yesterday morning following heavy fighting, OECD observers report. The group, responsible for the terrorist attack in December 2013 in Copenhagen, was surrounded in it's strongholds in Arafat Province over the last few days by Turkish Special Forces, and reports of dangerous biological material and heavy arms have been reported to have been in their possession.

Since the events of the Christmas Eve attacks in Copenhagen in 2013, NATO and OECD pressure to oust TIAF forces from Turkey's eastern provinces has surged, and Prime Minister David Cameron has called the terrorist group a "dangerous force of radical Islam", with the pledge of British forces along with Italian, German and Danish air strikes in the area securing Turkey's dangerous eastern frontier. The group has long been assumed to be the best trained and most dangerous of Al-Qaeda and IS affiliates, and reports from both US and Russian security services report that the group was intending to create "devastating" terror attacks across Europe prior to last month's offensive. Russian intervention in January in Armenia was said to have uncovered "at least three" sites of chemical weapon development, following a devastating terror attack conducted by TIAF militants in Grozny earlier in December 2013."

Jan looked through, before switching his phone off, throwing it onto the table. He knew it was inevitable, but in some ways, knew that this was all that there was going to be. Sitting up, he looked out across the room, before then getting back up and grabbing his phone. He uttered to himself, trying to remember. It hit him, almost as well as it had a few years ago. Taking his phone back into his cold hands, he dialled. He hoped she was still at the same desk, because Jan had one last thing he wanted to do. He wasn't dying until he gave one last look into Victoria's eyes, and laughed at her. Not till then.