A Short Story: A Parcel of Rogues by Frank Sonderborg (Part 2)

The continuing story of, "The Moriarty" and his quest to steal the Yamashita Golden Horde: Enjoy

Images courtsey of Pixabay

A Parcel of Rogues by Frank Sonderborg (Part 2)

Dragan it has to be you reading this. If not, so be it and they have stiffed you as well.
The Vatican wanted their share of the loot.
The Company of J had been kept out of the big horde share out.
I approached them to do a deal.
You don’t hang around over 2000 years running the long con without having an edge.
Their sharpest edge was a tower in the Vatican.
Called, ‘The Tower of the Winds.’
Built by Ottavinao Nonni or Il Mascarino, and a place to which mere mortals are never admitted.
In the Hall of the Meridian.
In rooms lined with miles of shelves.
There are thousands of forbidden books. This is one of the many Vatican secrets.
A forbidden alternative archive of the world.

Not since the lost fabled, ‘Library of Alexandria,’ has a library been collected and continues to be collected with volumes of the world’s deepest foulest secrets.
Books that would crash governments.
Books that would crash religions.
Including the guardians of this poisoned nest of scribbled letters.
Here are the accounts of the trial of the Knights Templar in 1308;
a threatening degree from Kuyuk Khan, demanding that Pope Innocent IV travel to Asia to, ‘tender service and pay homage;
a letter from Lucretia Borgia to Pope Alexander VI;
Papal Bulls excommunicating Martin Luther; correspondence between the Henry VIII and Clement VII; and letters between Michelangelo and Paul III.
There are also letters from Abraham Lincoln, Mary Queen of Scots, St Bernadette.

The list was endless. Here is the full history of Mithraism and how a small backward religion based on the glorification of sex, managed to hijack a major Roman religion and take over the world.
And here too, is proof positive, that Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter by trade, married his Mary Magdalene and had a big happy family.
Maybe he was just a naughty boy, after all.

Ever since Napoleon had the whole Vatican library transported to Paris.
There have been wild rumours of a lost library hidden in France with copies of all the great works and correspondence.
But how long would it have taken to copy this vast illicit library.
A lifetime. Three lifetimes. A hundred lifetimes.

I searched, like many others, for any sign of this French version, of a modern, ‘Library of Alexandria.’
The library was returned to the Vatican in 1817. But missing some very important volumes.
What these books where and why Napoleon kept them has never been revealed.
We were left with more questions than answers.

But in the end I had to approach El Papa on bended knee and put my proposal.
Amongst all the papers in, ‘The Tower of the Winds.’
Is the architectural plans and updated designs for all of the great cities of the world.
I was only interested in one, London.

There was a Cardinal, let’s call him Spaggiari.
Yes, Cardinal Giuseppe Valentino Spaggiari, sounds enough like a greased slick con man.
He was the main man.
The Latin for Cardinal is cardinālis, ‘pertaining to a hinge.’
The deal would have to be done with the biggest swinger in town.
The main greased hinge, Spaggiari.
I would get what I wanted and he would get his bag of silver for the Vatican.
Well, in this case it was a bag of gold.
A very large bag of liberated Philippino, deep trenched, entombed deadmans gold.
Cardinal Giuseppe Valentino Spaggiari was head of S.I.V. Or to give it its full name, Servizio Informazioni Del Vaticano.
The Vatican Secret Service, run exclusively by the Societas Iesu, otherwise known by their legend, ‘The Jesuits.’
So not a man or organization to be messed with.

Spaggiari sat and looked at me with a cool icy interest.
As if I was an insect on the end of his Goldfinger laser beam.

“You expect me to what? Tell you what I want it for.”

“I expect you to tell me everything my friend. I know who you are and who you represent. Scoundrel’s, thieving pagan motherfucker’s, every last one of those bastardo’s.”

“Now! Now! Cardinal Spaggiari take it easy. Scoundrels, thieving pagan motherfucker’s every last one I could agree with. But bastardo’s is a bit tame. Even for a twisted corrupted perverted sword of the Jesuits like yourself.”

Luckily he found this amusing and laughed.

The only way the criminal insane and religious fanatics can laugh.
He was not a big man.
Neither was he a man that looked like he indulged to excess.
Wearing a very expensive cream Alexander Amosu outfit.
He reminded me of the talking Raccoon in a popular Space opera movie.
Well-dressed but small, bitter, dangerous.
Then again maybe that talking Raccoon had a soul. This piece of Satan’s spawn had none.
Or if he ever had one, it was sliced and diced and sold to the highest bidder and long gone.

“So, we understand each other. To each his own. Your masters have taught you well.
‘The Moriarty,’ they say is an exceptional man with an exceptional mind.”

“Cardinal Spaggiari, if I was, ‘The Moriarty,’ I would not be here asking. I would be gone, having taken.”

“Also modest and a smart-ass it seems.”

He waved at the volumes of books surrounding him.

“We have it all here. All we need. We can crush your masters like dogs. Iustum, Necar, Reges, Impios.”

I translated,“It is just to exterminate or annihilate impious or heretical Kings, Governments, or Rulers. I suppose they would be worried if they were dogs. Let me look through the papers I need and then we can do business.”

He left me to it then. Waving his arms and ordering one of his many terrified hovering acolytes, to assist me. And spy.
I could not blame them. Having such a monster for a boss.
But they too were being trained in the way of the poisoned blade.
So evoked no pity from me.

I was looking for the old tunnel systems under London.
The gold was coming in through one of them. I would make it leave by another.
London has an extensive set of tunnels running backwards and forward across the Thames.

The Tube was not the only underground transport system in town.
As I went through old plans I came across the newest architectural plans of the Russian Oligarchs. Massive nuke proof bunkers under their ever expanding Kensington Palaces.

I filed them away for another day.
I was taking photos with my tie-pin.
Oh, the wonders of modern miniaturisation.
I looked at and photographed everything I needed, including some stuff I didn’t.
But Cardinal Rocky Raccoon would smell a rat either way.
It was the nature of the beast.

The gold was coming direct into London docks and then, being transported by an underground Royal Mail train system to St James Palace.
Five transport boxes of gold.
At St James Palace, forklifts where ready to unload and stack the horde in the massive basement that lay under the Palace.
From here tunnels went everywhere.
Onwards to Buck House.
Home of the King. Or on to Westminster and Number 10. Home of the political elite.
I just needed to find a good connection.

The Yamashita Horde had taken on a life of its own.
First as an unbelievable legend and then as an object of wanton desire.
Like a great vintage wine or a rare painting.
A fabulous virile stallion.
Even the girl from ipanema beach could not compete with the glitter, the burning fever of the Yamashita Horde.

Yes Dragan, even I, “The Moriarty” was smitten by the Horde.

I wanted it as much as a lusting teenage girl chasing the latest hit from a manufactured boy band.
You know it’s false. Your blood is boiling.
There is no chemical reason to feel this euphoria.
This madness.
But there it is.
And to pull one over Rocky Raccoon and his gang was cold icing on an overloaded cake tray.
What I was undertaking was small fry compared to what the organization was up to.
But still I knew they would get upset.

Any organization that had wiped out most of the indigenous people of North America because they were in the way.
Would not take kindly to an upstart, stealing away the purveyor of lust that was the Yamashita Horde.

Where did I ever get the idea I could be free.
Reading 'Spartacus' perhaps.
Where did that jumped up slave of a slave ever get an idea he could be free.
I had accepted I was a slave.
A trained hamster.
To jump on the spinning wheel at the snapped fingers of my masters.
But like 'Spartacus' it was time to break away.
I had taken my last orders from the Family.
Soon I would be gone. Free.

The gold was coming to London to be transported north, to one of the Families great houses.
It would be the main lead in some arcane ceremony preformed in their Scottish castles.
Not far from St James Palace was a Wine importer. Not involved directly with the Families, but they had been around a long time in London.
And had the usual branch of tunnels running under their warehouse. They also had the transport to move it away, from London.
Gold after all was a heavyweight object.
It was rumoured the King would use the tunnels from Buck House and exit at the Pickerings warehouse of fine wines.
From there he would hit the town to go on the lash and return the same way.
Avoiding the paparazzi and his jealous wife, the Queen.
One of these tunnels I had discovered via my trip to the Vatican, went straight from the Pickering warehouse to the gold stacked and waiting under St James palace.
The plan was a simple, go in and snatch the lot.
Then the gold would be driven to Southampton docks and be shipped out in containers to Italy.

It would have went quite painless if left alone.

I had you Dragan and your team of hooligans to cover my back.
The Pickerings would be unaware their warehouse was being used as a transit point.
Well, until it was all over. And the Family pinned them with red hot nails to a wall.
There was an ancient sliding wall, connecting the Pickering Tunnel to the St James basement.

So room enough to drive the forklifts straight through. As theft goes, it was easy-peasy.

But Rocky Raccoon was not happy with that and he turned up with his black robed Benedictine monk storm troopers.
To cover his investment was his initial statement.
But I knew and expected the lie.

He had arrived as we made our way into the Pickering warehouse.
We had all the codes for entering the vast underground cavern that stretched all along St James Street.
As it was Saturday night, the only one we could run into, would be the King and his entourage as they headed for the bright lights of the West End.
Rocky the unhinged Raccoon was dressed for a get lucky night on the tiles.
A gold threaded, black, very expensive bespoke suit from, ‘*The House of Dormeuil,.’
Tailors, the Vatican had been buying from for a very long time.
His goon squad looked the part of fanatics on a mission for their idol, the Nailed God.

In this case their earthly God was the vicious, but well-dressed Rocky Racoon.
I just had the four Hooligan drivers from Dragan’s team.
There was not much more needed.
They would forklift the gold from the Palace basement to the Pickering warehouse.
Load it on Pickering trucks and drive it to Southampton docks.
Simples.
But the lure of the Yamashita Horde was overwhelming even for a Cardinal with the keys to the secrets of the Vatican.

I rode one of the forklifts down the short tunnel from Pickering warehouse to the Palace. The wall slide across and before us was 6,800 shinning yellow bricks of Yamashita dead man’s fever gold. Stacked on eighty five well-constructed wooden pallets.

Built to take a maximum of 1 tonne of Gold. It would take some time to move the lot. But the forklifts would take the strain.

The Cardinal stood and watched as our team drove it away. There had been no guard on this treasure for the simple reason that no one, would have dared steal from the Families.

Above us the St. James's Detachment of The Queen's Guard mounted guard in Friary Court.
Clarence House was also part of the Palace and home to, ‘The Queen Mother,’ and St. James's Palace also provided an official residence for The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall and the young Princes and heirs to the throne.
Lancaster House, another building in the Palace complex, was used for entertaining VIP visitors.

But all of them were unaware what was taking place just a few feet below ground.

In the caverns of the Palace, they had their own Gods.
Those descendants of the old German, “House of Wettin.”
And they used dead man’s gold in their idol worship, throughout all their Pagan rites.

We could see the marks on the walls from the burning pyres used in these fantastical wild ancient rituals.

No place here, for the Vatican’s much maligned Nailed God of peace.
But even in the Vatican, he was just the Big Casino front for their, Flim-Flam Long Con.
I stood and waited for Rocky Raccoon to make his move.
He was a sly bastard and I expected the double cross.
True to form, his goons pulled their weapons as soon as the last load had gone through the tunnel door.

“I just had to see this place,” was his first words. “Amazing, we are standing in the centre of power in the City of London.”

“Yes,” I said, “One of them. Plenty of rotten nests of power in old London town.”

“I’ll take it from here Moriarty. You will be found here in the centre of their power. Consider it a sacrifice to their old Wettin Gods.”

“Out smarted by a talking Raccoon. How will I ever live it down,” I said. Which confused the hell out of him.
“The deal was a 50/50 split. You’re not going back on the word of a Cardinal of the 'One True Church'.”

He laughed at this. A scowling laugh of disbelieve.

“You English and your idea of fair play. What is that old joke? The French think Life is a Game. The English think Cricket’s a game. My people will have dispatched your drivers and we will take delivery of the gold. Gold that rightfully should have been given to us a long time ago.”

His raised voice ending in the squalling pitch of the insane.

Heavy black robed men came out of the tunnel, as Rocky Raccoon nodded for them to dispose of Moriarty the irritant insect.
I watched his surprised face as he died in a hail of cupro-nickel jacketed bullets.
That tore him and his armour plated goons apart.
Dragan pulled back his Benedictine hood.

“Sneaky bastard wasn’t he.”

“You don’t know the half, Mr D,” I said.

To Be Continued............................