He was not alone in the garden. Decades of training and practice, along with the trials that followed him like the scars hidden beneath his many masks had made him truly a shadow. He watched that old man, a jacket folded over his own hands which rested on an eagle-headed cane as he remained hidden and watchful. Time was as cruel as war, and though the Shadow did not need the cane, most others there were of such a state. He was not one to mourn for loss, but he had heard of a great pilot who had survived the wars, and a name which he had traced back to that fateful night. A night not long before he began to understand the true lengths to which he had to go to fight evil.

"I beg your pardon, and hope that you don't mind sharing the view, Colonel." He spoke in German, a far more practiced and clean accent with a slight wistfulness as he came to stop a respectful distance from Von Hammer, so as to not sneak up on him too much with his silent approach.