It is raining, but I care nothing for it. The leather collar of my coat I lift against the wind. It is for appearances only. Long it has been since I have felt the cold or heat. Little do I feel of the physical, though what I feel of the spirit is sublime.

    The Mark is cold and pains me.

    I am in New York and stand before a window display as the crowds hustle behind me seeking… whatever it is men seek in the rain of a difficult year. My attention has been riveted for some minutes by the grainy moving picture of the new invention called television. The screen is round, small and cuts off the top of the news announcers head.

    This contrivance will amount to nothing.

    However, the small, grey colored man does have my attention. He is describing in some detail the successful taking by Allied troops of a little island in the Pacific Ocean called Iwo Jima. Again and again he shows us a picture that elicits powerful emotions from these Americans.

    It is meaningless.

    The bomb they are building in the New Mexican desert will cause most of these efforts to have been in vain. I do not yet know where they will use it, but use it they shall.

    I know this because I helped build it.

    It was I brought most of those men together and convinced Franklin to activate the project. I even gave them Julius.

    Poor, frightened, brilliant Julius.

    Without Dr. Oppenheimer the curséd thing would never have occurred. Not even Albert could have played the role he did and all of it to create but deterrence. To put such a fear into the collective heart of Japan they would cease all hostilities. To demonstrate they must lay down the sword or die.

    Ah, but they will use it.

    They needn’t, but they will use it. Japan is beaten and will fold without the hideous thing, but they will use it. They will use it and they will change their world and as so many times in the past I am the catalyst. Once more I have stretched my red and guilty hand to aid my brothers and as before and before I will murder them.

    Perhaps the landing in France will have a more positive outcome. Perhaps at last I may save lives rather than take them. Dwight has asked for me again and I will go. He has promised to keep my involvement a secret and I would trust General Eisenhower to keep his word.

    Yes, perhaps that will go better. Dwight needs me and he knows it, for who understands war better than I?

    Who understands violence and horror better than… Cain?