Press Release

Snap!

The silenced rubber bullet knocked over the second security guard. He slithered down the wall. 

Rudoff smiled with pleasure, but not as much pleasure as he wished. 

“Sentries taken out,” he whispered into his comm. “It seems the bullets are good enough to get the job done. Breach the door!”

Rudoff’s elite team infiltrated Piero Ricolini’s sprawling estate at its weakest point. 

Rudoff stalked past the two prone guards. His team was using high-end rubber bullets, even more advanced than prison and riot police used. These had slightly hardened tips that were designed to completely incapacitate the target. Rubber bullets were effective, but they weren’t Rudoff’s first choice. An unconscious enemy was a loose end. And he hated loose ends. Loose ends always came back to bite you in the ass. Besides, rubber bullets made it feel like a game. He liked pitting himself against another human with life on the line. Kill or be killed. But rubber bullets weren’t life and death. 

It was their current employer who had insisted on the bullets. Rudoff thought it was a strange request. Their employer didn’t mind stealing, but apparently having a little blood on their hands was too much. That was one of the biggest differences since he had left the military for mercenary work. He no longer got to kill on every mission. He might have to think twice before he took any more contracts that had such disappointing parameters.

Still, this job was lucrative. Very lucrative. Their employer had serious money and didn’t mind spending it to get the results they wanted. The contract payout was more than enough to persuade him to do the job the way their employer asked. Steal a few paintings, don’t kill anyone, drop the paintings off at an empty warehouse. Easy. His team could do it in their sleep.

He had thought it was a lot to pay for stealing a few paintings though. Until he got here to the location and saw the security. It was a private estate that was fortified like an army base. He had done a lot of prep work, but nothing he had found on Piero Ricolini, the owner of the estate, had suggested he needed defenses like this. An art collector with an army? His team could still handle it, but a few warning bells had chimed somewhere in the back of his brain. These were no ordinary paintings if they were so well protected. And who was Ricolini that he needed so much security?

Rudoff scanned the area. Then he was the last of his team to slip into the estate. His men were waiting inside, their guns aimed at every doorway and possible entry into the room. One gloved hand motioned his team forward. They swept through the mansion with calculated precision, the laser sights on their guns falling on furniture, walls and doors. They had done this a hundred times. It was clockwork; pick a few locks, disarm the security systems, take out the security guards, steal the objective. 

This time the objective was a few apparently priceless paintings. Rudoff didn’t know a lot about who painted what or how much this or that painting was worth. Hans was the guy on his team who was good with those details. When the contract had come in, Hans had just raised his eyebrows when the paintings had come up on the computer. Rudoff had liked that look. It meant the job was worth it. He had never had a contract for more than one painting, but it was no problem. One, two or three. They could handle it.

Pffft!

He stepped over another unconscious security guard and sauntered further into the house.

His earpiece crackled. “Boss, you’re gonna want to see this!”

That couldn’t be good. He stepped into a hallway and walked toward a dimly lit gallery with high end Italian furniture and a beautiful oriental rug the size of a dance floor that must have cost a fortune. When he entered the gallery, he bit back a curse. The picture frames were exactly where they were supposed to be according to the blueprints, with the exception of one slightly misaligned frame, like someone had bumped it while cleaning. But there was nothing inside the frames. The paintings were gone.

Someone had beaten them here.

In a split second, Rudoff calculated the situation. The danger was high. Had they been set up? Maybe they were the fall guys for the real theft? He held his breath and listened for alarms, sirens, running feet, anything that would clue him in. Nothing. 

No, the theft had to have just happened. The empty frames wouldn’t have just been left on the wall by the owner. The insurance adjusters would have been called. The police. No, the theft was fresh and that meant the thief might still be around. The misaligned frame suggested the thief had been interrupted just as he was finishing up. He hadn’t had time to straighten it up.

Rudoff’s muscles tightened in anticipation of a fight and he discreetly scanned the area. The objective had shifted slightly. He hefted his assault rifle, ready for action. Be careful and cautious. Rudoff motioned for his team to spread out and search. If they were lucky…

He crept around a corner into an adjacent hall covered in shadows. That was when something heavy and painful fell sharply on his back. His night goggles went flying and he fell to one knee. Then a foot caught him in the chin, just right, and he felt his head snap back with a painful crack. He fell with a giant crash onto an antique lamp resting on a side table. Something sharp poked through the Tyvec on his body armor and pierced his lower back. His back arched in a painful reflex. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a black clad figure disappearing down the hall, three long painter’s tubes slung across his back.

The thief! With the paintings.

Rudoff lay there in the broken remains of the lamp and table, trying to catch his breath as his team came sprinting up. It was too late to chase after the thief. The estate’s security team had to have been alerted to the sound. Maybe they had already called the police. His team didn’t have time to try and chase down the thief if they wanted to get out undetected. 

One of his men offered a hand to help him to his feet. He ignored the hand and the pain in his back and rose on his own. 

“Clean that up fast,” he said, pointing at a few drops of his blood on the floor. He yanked a piece of glass out of his back.   

Rudoff didn’t like failure. He didn’t like not completing a contract. In fact, he had never failed to complete a contract as a mercenary. His team was the best. They always finished the job.  He ground his teeth together. Now was not the time to foolhardily chase after the thief. No, now was the time to regroup and alter the plan. Even though he had failed at the first objective, the job wasn’t done. There were more paintings to steal. 

And now there was another thief to catch.

The glass shard in Rudoff’s hand crunched into pieces as his fist closed tightly around it. He had too much pride to let this little event go. He would find the thief and finish this job.