A Short Story: A Parcel of Rogues by Frank Sonderborg (Part 3)

The Conclusion to A Parcel of Rogues and the quest to steal the Yamashita Golden Horde.


Images courtsey of Pixabay

A Parcel of Rogues by Frank Sonderborg (Part 3)

I got Dragan’s team to pile the bodies in the middle of the inverted pentagram, which was revealed when the gold was moved.
Thought, Rocky the greased unhinged Raccoon can be their next offer to the Goat of Mendes.
A sacrificial Racketeer Raccoon, why not?
And smiled at this.

“What about the rest of them in the Pickering warehouse. And the gold?” asked Dragan.

“Dump them. The gold goes where it was going. That was always the deal.”

“So who’s the sneaky bastard now,” he said.

“The Vatican always gets what it wants. He was a liability so had to go.”

“And they get paid for it as well. Sounds like a sweet deal to me,” said Dragan.

“Yep, the Nailed God Maestros come out on top, yet again, it seems. Let’s pack up and get out of here.”

I could have told you then Dragan, nobody got what they wanted except, ‘The Moriarity.’

What the Nailed God Maestros had got, was a dead Raccoon and 85 tonnes of gold covered Tungsten.

Fool’s Gold.
A rose by any other name should smell as sickly sweet.
But doesn’t.

And the Families who also wanted Rocky Raccoon removed.
They had also got their 85 tonnes of Fools Gold.

A month earlier, the real gold horde was switched from the Stamford warehouse it was in.
Even before I started any negotiations with El Pappa.

The target all the time was Cardinal Giuseppe Valentino Spaggiari.
The Hinge.
Mr talking Rocky Raccoon.
Out of control, he was next in line to be the Black Pope.
Which would have put him as the defacto head of the Church of the Nailed God.

Not a great career prospect for some rising stars in the Vatican.
A hard man to smoke out of his protected orbit.
But gold and the fever it brings will do that.

My fee was half the stolen gold.
But I would not trust that collection of long con artists, as far as I could throw a Papal paper knife.
So I played my own long con.
Which is why I need to disappear over the ‘Falls,’ one more time.
I returned to my University in Durham to pack and plan my disappearance.
But events took a turn and they came for me quicker than I anticipated.
Perhaps they found out about the Tungsten, or possibly it was the inevitable contract on my head as I reached my past sale date.

Or just like Rocky Raccoon, someone somewhere feared me.

The Moriarty cannot retire.
The Moriarty has to be retired.
With a sharp blade between the shoulder blades.

The meeting hall in my Durham residence was intended for lecturers and professors to discuss important topics concerning the University.

I had made, shall we say adjustments to the room to satisfy my unusual requirements.
This was deemed necessary due to the string of hired assassins that turned up on a regular basis to eliminate me.
I had been trained in the Sula Dark Arts in the far North of Korea.
With my Asian looks I blended in to that thin grey populous.
Perhaps I was Korean.
I often wondered what my American family knew about my past.
Possibly nothing. Possibly everything.

The Rechenbeckers where part of the Family. Part of the organization that had enslaved me all those years.
To replace the fallen idol that was, ‘The Moriarity.’

The floor of the hall was replaced with specialized wooden boarding.
Based on the old Nightingale singing floor, used by Shoguns in old Japan.
Let’s just say, unless you knew where to walk, it sang a lot.
The long wooden table that could seat twelve was also a source of weapons if needed.
Nothing as vulgar as a gun.
Throwing knives would suffice.
The windows had automatic blinds that could block all light entering the room.
Inducing a total blackness.
I had a fireplace exit.
But I preferred to deal direct with the string of bumbling hit men sent to silence me.
It was a distracting moment in time from my studies and lectures.
An entertainment for me.
After the successful elimination of Cardinal Spaggiari,
I knew the Jesuits would send someone to scratch the itch I had now become.
I had an inbuilt sixth sense for impending danger and headed for the hall.
As soon as my spidery web started tingling.
Entering the hall I went immediately to the windows and closed the wooden slats.
The dark was not my enemy. It was my home.
I had trained extensively in cold wet darkened caves.
I knew every spot in this room.
I could see as well as a Wi-Fi wave travelling through the ether.
I admit it had become an enjoyable dangerous game to me. I loved these trials.
Pitting my life against the best assassin’s money could buy in a Bowie duel.
The Vatican, if it was the Vatican, had caverns full of golden denarius.
So whoever they sent would be an expensive specialist in the dark arts.
Jim Bowie of the famed Bowie knife, had started the tradition of knife fighting in a darkened room.
I had just taken it to a new level.
The assassins sent, would try and get close to poison or knife me.
Here in the Bowie Hall of darkness they would meet their doom.
I crouched and closed my eyes.
Covering them with a black water soaked bandana. Now I was at one with the dark.
I could hear the sweep of air currents flowing along the floor.
The broken symmetry as it met resistance, moving around the chairs and table legs.
Then movement as the floor creaked and sang to the left of the table.
And sighed as a foot moved upon it.
The foot movement was ballerina light, feathering, again, looking to reduce the sound.
I could feel it touching the floor.
I could feel it through the floor.
Testing its weight. Then nothing as the sound disappeared. I moved to the end of the table.
Walking on solid boards.
But to a trained ear I would still be making a disturbance in the ether.
The air parted as a dart was thrown from a position to my right.
I easily avoided the dart and listened as it chunked into the wall behind me.
I tapped the table which generated a series of noise all around the room.
And retrieved my throwing knives.
And was well away when the next batch of darts arrived.
I headed towards the sound on my right.
Was there two assassins in the room with me?

I moved silently and quickly to the middle of the room.
I knew they would stay with backs to the wall until they could pinpoint me.
Putting two in a dark room with me was a bad judgement call.
All the doors were locked and the room was sealed, but yet here we were.
So their entrance and exit would be through the fireplace.
I concentrated on my breathing.
Slowing it to virtually nothing. Listening for a sound, any sound.
To my left I could hear a slight imperfection in the air. It was gliding towards me.
I embraced the dark and flicked my throwing knife at the oncoming whisper of sound.
I could feel the slight tremor to my right on the table as a long blade came down on my exposed neck.
I dropped flat, spun backwards then up and on to the table.
The sound of a dying man filled the room.

As my throwing knife punched into an exposed throat.
Under cover of this sound I struck at the second man standing on the table.
But he was gone in a move of great stealth.
I dropped flat on the table and listen again.
The dying gurgling sound just filled the room.
This game was nearly over.
The table trembled again as ghost like footsteps sped towards me.
I crashed into a moving body hands upraised with a swinging sword.
We fell to the ground.
Entwined like lovers. I could smell the faint sweet fresh smell of mimosa.
I smashed him twice in the head as he twisted and turned, like a coiled spring.
Sword fallen he spewed some toxic liquid into my eyes as we grappled.
It burned my face skin like a fire in hell.
A game changer if my eyes had not been covered, protected.
I head butted him in the nose and tried to stab him with my remaining knife.
But he rolled free, uncoiled and was gone.
I rolled back onto the table and moved towards the windows, pulling the bandana away.
I slammed one of the wall panels and the slats opened and the moonlight streamed into the spacious hall.
It was empty.
Both assassins were gone.
One I knew was dead. The other had taken him away.
Impressed by their sense of comradeship, as much as by their speed and skill, I was relieved to be still alive.
That was close. Skin of my teeth sprung to mind.
The fee would be raised again, this I knew.
So I packed my bags and left Durham that very night.

Dragan my friend. If you live. If they let you live. Maybe we will met again.
Perhaps on a sandy beach you will come walking and find me fixing a colourful fishing boat.
Then again, I will leave that dream for the movies.
I will take my horde and disappear.
Into the tribal lands?
Who knows?
That Parcel of Rogues will search, but they will never find me.
I was trained to well.
After all Dragan, I was the chosen, the selected, ‘The Moriarty.’

image courtsey of @reneenouveau