Cover Name:      HANNES
Full Name:       Johannes Mikhail Holtz
Date of Birth:   16th July 1943
Place of Birth:  Kattowitz, Germany (Now Katowice, Poland)
Physical Description:
At 180cm tall, Hannes is above average in height but not that high.  There are many men taller than him in his homeland.  His eyes are of a smokey blue, perhaps tending toward grey and his hair is perhaps more 'fair' than blond, a light brown perhaps.  His hair is starting to grow out but there are still hints of a side parting even though his hair is beginning to grow a little too long for such bourgeois notions.  He was, until recently, clean shaven but he apparently decided to change his appearance a week or so ago, and now has stubble, which is approaching the slow metamorphosis into a thin and straggly beard.

He is just as comfortable wearing chinos, a dark blue suit, or ratty looking jeans and he owns an extensive wardrobe even though none of his clothes could be considered in any way, flashy.  He always wears men's black brogues on his feet, never cowboy boots nor sneakers. Similarly he carries a duffel bag everywhere.

Personality:
Unlike a certain notorious journalist of his acquaintance, Hannes does indeed talk about the weather, about the latest celebrity gossip, in fact about whatever his conversational partners want to discuss.  He is friendly, outgoing and extremely patient, and yet, there is something about him, something hidden, as if behind the garrulous image of the raconteur, there is a shy person hiding behind the mask.  He is interested in everything, becoming something of a polymath as a result, but he is not, at least he seems not, to be an expert at anything with the possible exception of the differences in the prices of various commodities in different countries in Europe.

Everyone who knows him, knows him as Hannes but whether he is German, Dutch, Danish or even Russian, nobody is sure.

Languages spoken:  German (native - Hamburg dialect), Polish (near native),
                   Dutch, Danish and Russian (Fluent), English and French (broken)

Nationality:       West German

Background
All Hannes remembers of the second world war is moving, always moving.  He would have been moving always westward had he understood such a conceppt when he was a toddler.  Mile after mile, house after house, his family moved westward, faster than the approaching red army who had (in his father's opinion) nothing but horror in store for German people.  The war ended just about as soon as Hannes and the Holtz family reached the Hanse Stadt (Hamburg).

Growing up in Hamburg, he found himself in what to a child like Hannes could be considered paradise, even though the city had suffered some extreme damage by the hands of the Royal Airforce.  To Hannes, the bombsites, and shattered buildings were wonderful places for playing hide and seek or for getting up to mischief.

At school,he learned to get along with others but also in the process developed a wide fascination about life and what makes people tick.  He took his Arbitur in 1961 and went on to study Economics, Philosophy and Russian at the University of Münster but dropped out early in his third year and began a new career, buying and things cheap in one place and then selling them more expensively elsewhere.  (An example might be, buying leather boots in Poland and selling them in England, where he could buy American Comics, which would fetch a fortune in Russia).

He has of course, served a year's national service in the Bundeswehr since this could no longer be deferred after he left university.  He kept his nose clean and his head down and while he vaguely knows how to handle a gun and to drive a jeep, he was never an expert at anything with the possible exception of poker.

He was approached recently by CS-14 who had watched the pattern of his movements.  He is sceptical at first.

Hannes Has:
Average Strength (D12)
Below Average agility (D20)
Pretty good Health (D10)
Dropped out in third year of university but is always learning (D8)
Below Average Sanity (D20)
Very Strong Powers of Perception (D6)
Impressive Luck (D8)

Hannes is:
Not bad at hiding (d12)
A skilled investigator (d10)
An amateur mountaineer (d20)
A respected raconteur (d10)
An expert smuggler (d8)
A notorious flirt (d8)
A good listener (d10)
Someone who did his national service (d20)

Hannes speaks:
German like a native of Hamburg (d6)
Polish almost like a native of Silesia (d8)
Dutch like a radio announcer (d12)
Danish like a Swedish comedian (d12)
Russian like a professional interpreter (d10)
English as though he learned it from watching B movies (d20)
French like a deaf man who learned from books (d20)