It was three in the morning, pitch black outside and four traitors rode in the back of a carriage. Only about two blocks from their first location, Anson, head of the operation, sat on the bench clearing his throat and checking his clothing to make sure everything was exactly what it was supposed to be. When that was done, he gave out the final instructions. “Gentlemen, we have about twenty-one hours to get this thing done. That leaves us a lot of buffer time, but don’t take it for granted as we only have about an hour before people start to notice.” Looking at everyone as they readied themselves, Anson eyed each of them up, making sure they looked into his eyes and properly understood their instructions.
When they got to their first location, Anson told the driver to be in the dead drop in fifteen minutes, and as the group hid their duffel bags inside of their all-black outfits, they synchronized their state-of-the-art watches, threw their imported crossbows on their backs, took a couple of deep breaths, and left the back of the carriage. They moved slowly so as not to creak the wooden floor of the carriage. Anson was the first to leave, and when he stepped onto the ground, could only see about ten meters in front of him and hear the ticks from his watch. The three other group members left the carriage and as it pulled away, made their way to their destination. Walking in a single file line with Baldwyn, who was the group’s tallest, in front with Anson second. Baldwyn looked all around, dotting his eyes from building to building. Anson did the same, checking if anyone was watching but was unable to spot a living soul. However, the thought of a man peering his eyes out a window wouldn’t leave his mind.
Walking around piles of mud and feces, the stench filled the air. Anson wanted to cover his nose but resisted, and soon they reached their first location: Sovan Triad Local Chapter Number Three. A guard stood at the front of the ordinary wood-lined building. Kicking some pebbles around, the man wasn’t at attention or particularly mindful of his surroundings. However, he immediately recognized Baldwyn and let the man in. So far, so good, Anson reassured himself as the guard lazily checked their fake identification papers. Entering one by one, they found themselves in a run-down building with a staircase and people talking on the second floor. The first floor almost completely pitch black as no sign of life or light was visible. The only indication of activity came from under the door latch leading to the second floor. Making sure the door was closed behind them, the group pulled the duffel bags from inside their leather and cloth clothing, took the stuffed black masks out, and put them on.
Taking out their crossbows, Anson led the group up the stairs, trying not to make any noise as everyone put one foot in front of another at a snail’s pace. The voices of the people on the second floor quietly bled through the building as the sound of Anson’s watch and his breathing consumed his mind. Trying his best, Anson convinced himself that the people on the second floor couldn’t hear them. Holding back their leg muscles from putting too much pressure on the wooden steps, they eventually reached the top of the stairs and reached the door with a light peering underneath. Anson looked back at the group, lined up neatly, and put up his fingers and counted down from five. As he counted down, he saw Baldwyn grab his crossbow as if his life depended on it. Behind him was Cyril, who was the group’s youngest, shaking with the his crossbow in his hands.
Along with his fingers, Anson counted down mentally, and as the time neared, reached for the door handle as all other noise disappeared. Slowly turning the knob, he counted down the final seconds. Three, two, one…
Bursting through the door, Anson saw five Sovan Triad members playing a card game on a rotten table. Without hesitation, Anson shot one of them in the shoulder, with Baldwyn and the rest of the group following behind. As the other three members hit their marks, Anson charged the last member of the group and pinned him to the ground with a pocketknife. Luckily, he was unarmed, and the five Sovan Triad members were soon tied to a corner, muted with fabric in their mouths, and bonded with rope obtained from Cyril’s bag.
Anson took a deep breath and tried assessing the situation, but there wasn’t much time for that. All he could process was what he already knew beforehand, which was that they were in an office and the assets were somewhere in the floorboards. Stomping on each board, the group tried listening for a hollow sound, as dust flew upward when their feet stomped, but couldn’t feel anything after a minute. Of course, the last group member, Deo, couldn’t help himself and tried demanding an answer from the group.
“Where is it?!” Deo demanded.
He was about to pull the eye and mouth covers off to get an answer, but Anson stopped him. “We don’t have time to interrogate them. We’ll find it soon.”
And right after that, Cyril called out to the group. Rushing over to see what he found, the group ripped a floorboard out, and instead of seeing old wooden support beams, they saw neatly organized piles of Lake Republic shares. There were 20,000 of them in all and were grouped in 20 bundles. Each with neatly organized writing on the face of it, indicating the denomination of shares each bill contained boldly front and center, along with authentication signatures, statements, and dates verifying the legitimacy of each share. After a brief moment of appreciation of the generational wealth that was in front of them, the group opened up their duffel bags and threw them in the shares as fast as they could. “Why didn’t the Chairman make them bigger denominations?” Cyril complained.
“Probably to stop people like us from having an easier time,” Anson responded.
When they got the last shares, they closed the duffel bag and made their way back to the door. However, as they were about to leave, Deo called out to Anson while pointing a knife at five tied-up Sovan Triad members. “One of them is going to report us.”
“Absolutely not,” responded Anson.
“If you did, I would kill you,” Baldwyn added.
Everyone fell silent as Anson, Deo, and Cyril turned to Baldwyn. Anson wanted to yell at him for talking, while Deo looked like he had a more fatal solution on his mind but concerned that something else might go wrong, Anson signaled Deo to calm down.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Taking another deep breath, he tried to figure out how this would affect the rest of the operation. Tapping his fingers on his cheek, then brushing his hands through his fine dark hair, Anson figured out a short-term solution, and signaled Cyril to tie Baldwyn up as they went back downstairs, but before they did, Deo took the broken floorboard with him. Taking a duffel bag from Baldwyn, Anson now had one bag on each shoulder while carrying a crossbow and knife. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable setup, but this whole situation wasn’t pleasant either.
After they got downstairs, but before they opened the door, Anson faced Baldwyn again and took off his comrade’s mask. “What part of don’t talk, did you not understand? You better hope that no one in there recognized that voice.” Spit flew out of his mouth as he said this.
“I haven’t been part of the Sovan Triad in a year. I doubt they are going to recognize me.” Baldwyn reassured. “It’s not like I have a special voice or something. Besides, did you just want me to let Deo suggest killing those guys?”
“I’m in charge!” Anson said as loudly as he could without the outside guard hearing. “Let me do my job, okay?” Baldwyn nodded and remained silent. “Okay, let’s do this,” Anson continued as he handed Cyril his crossbow. Holding a knife to Baldwyn’s throat, Anson opened the door and ran through. The guard immediately noticed what was happening, and with Anson pretending that Baldwyn was his hostage, demanded that the guard step away. The guard tried to assess the situation, but his head was flying left to right and he stumbled over his words. Anson tilted Baldwyn’s face upward so the guard would see the knife clearly but not Baldwyn’s face but only his neck. As the guard was lured away from the door, Deo approached the guard from behind and hit him in the head with the broken floorboard, instantly knocking him out. The man fell to his knees and a plop sound echoed as the man crashed into the mud. Everyone jumped back a little as a little mud flew toward them.
Letting go of Baldwyn, Anson handed him his duffel bag and mask back, retrieved his crossbow from Cyril, and the four of them all went into a series of alleyways to the predetermined dead drop. The alleyways were about as nice as one would expect. Entering them, Anson dotted his eyes around as anyone could pop around the corner and attack them. Yes, it was quite a low risk, but with the shares in hand, and the little to no visibility in the alleyway, the possibility wouldn't leave his mind. Checking his watch, there were about five minutes left until their self-imposed deadline, which was the perfect amount of time, as when they reached the dead drop, they took the duffel bags off their shoulders and threw them into the predetermined location. It was an abandoned building in the nearby area that had a marked broken window for them to throw the bags into. Though, it took them longer than expected to find it as there were many broken windows in the alleys. A man was scheduled to pick them up approximately seven minutes from now, load them into a fake feces carriage, and deliver them back to the Mercenary Triad headquarters before the guard woke up or the tied-up Sovans escaped and reported what happened.
The carriage was exactly where it was supposed to be, and they all entered it with Anson being the last one, making sure they weren’t followed as they escaped. He kept his eyes on one window, thinking he saw some movement but the longer he stared, the greater the possibility of someone else from a different angle, so he let it go and closed the curtain at the back of the carriage. The group took a collective sigh of relief as they took off their masks and made their way to the second Sovan Triad Local Chapter. They gave themselves about an hour to rob the second location, with thirty minutes of that for how long it would take to get there.
In the meantime, as everyone smiled to themselves about how good of a job they did, Anson checked his watch again to make sure everything was still in sync and calmed himself once more. That was supposed to be the easy one, and yet, they already had a complication with Baldwyn.
Eventually, Deo started talking. “Hopefully, these shares are still the same price when this thing is over. I don’t want to own five percent of a useless country.”
“The Lake Republic has too much trade for that to happen,” Cyril reminded.
“And the Libo Sultanate used to control the whole continent. Things go wrong.” Deo shot back. Leaning back into his seat, Deo shook his head while smiling. “I haven’t felt like this since the war.” He fell silent as no one had responded before talking again. “Speaking of which, what did you guys do during the war? I was a cannoneer.”
“You sure we should be talking about that? You know in case it slips out or something?” Anson asked.
“What? Are you a spy or something?” Deo responded, smirking. “Come on! Spit it out. What did you do during the war?”
“Fine,” Anson softly responded as he sat up. “It was also a cannoneer. I assume the war was good for you?”
“I’ll tell you this much. If there is another war, I’ll fight in it for half the wage of any other mercenary.” Deo said.
“Really?” Anson gulped as he stared at Deo’s robust face, contemplating his answer before turning to the others. “Cyril and Baldwyn what did you do?” Anson asked.
“Captain,” Baldwyn responded.
“Well, you do look like one.” Deo commented.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Baldwyn turned to Deo.
“Nothing, it’s just that you look old.” Deo laughed back. Everyone remained silent as Deo laughed to himself. Anson thought it was too early in the morning for such jokes even if he was right. Baldwyn’s face was long and older looking than the rest of the group. He was almost thirty looking compared to the rest of the groups who all looked their age. “What about you, Cyril?” Deo continued. “What did this skinny mercenary do during the war.”
“Treasurer,” softly responded Cyril.
Everyone turned their heads in shock. “How did you get a job as a treasurer?” questioned Deo. “Daddy rich or something and made sure you got a laid-back job?”
“Basically, but I also had a financial education,” he responded.
“Like that matters,” said Deo.
“No matter what, though,” Anson said, trying to shut the conversation down. “I’m sure we are all sick of the waves of the Starved Sea and cannonballs flying at our faces.”
“Maybe, but it was made up by the fact that I got to shoot at Tolmans every day with giant special rocks.” Deo said. “Speaking of which, what’s your deal with letting those Sovans go? Someone might get out early and blow this thing early.”
“Do you just like killing people or what?” Baldwyn interjected. “Because it doesn’t sound like you’ve been in a situation where murder isn’t the best option.”
“What? I’m just being a realist.” Deo justified.
“You sound a lot more enthusiastic than the average realist.” Anson responded. “Besides, Mercenary Commander Eros told us not to kill unless necessary. The last thing we need when we take over is for people to label this as a hostile coup. The cleaner the better. Now, can we relax and focus on the operation? If the boss wanted us to debate our personal views of murder, he would have formed this group earlier. But I suppose, he only wanted us to know each other a couple of days before the operation started. If you want to talk about less important things, do it after the operation.”
“When we all might be dead?” Baldwyn asked.
There was a brief moment of silence before Anson responded. “Just get ready for the next location. This place is bigger than the last.”