At age nineteen, Misha found himself alone and without a future when a car bomb killed his parents and siblings. He gained two things from the experience: a need for survival and an overwhelming thirst for vengeance. Turning for advice and training to his childhood friend and cousin, Louis, Misha became adept and deadly as a clandestine operative. The two young men decided found a third cousin and childhood friend, Vasily in a KGB prison in Poland, freed him and formed a team, calling it Charlemagne.
Louis, the eldest of the three, was the second son of an aristocratic French family and so was trained from an early age to fight to protect his family. While Misha had always been analytical and serious, Louis had a more volatile temperament, often laughing, but quick to anger. He became the team’s expert marksman and technology specialist.
Vasily Sobieski was the son of a famous post-war solo anti-soviet specialist. After his parents were killed when he was four years old, Vasily lived in Austria with Misha’s family. It was Vasily who gave the five-year-old Michael the diminutive name Misha, by which he became known throughout his life. As a teenager, Vasily returned repeatedly to Poland to participate in anti-communist and anti-Soviet activities. As a result, the KGB jailed and tortured him many times.
