Crime never pays. That’s what most are taught, and for amateurs it is usually true. But for a professional assassin like Tobias Nielsen, crime was a daily job, and he was quite good at it. Like most people, he was not born a criminal. He had a family, kids, great job as an assistant manager at a local 4 star hotel in Versailles, France. That is, until the company was bought out and he was replaced. After that his wife left him, and much to their protest, taking the kids with her, and leaving him with a few hundred dollars and his Ford pickup truck. He had started his business from virtually nothing, only finding out he was good at killing after he was offered to do a small task in exchange for a large sum of money by a rich friend of a friend who he barely knew. That task was this: eliminate a man named Gary Feagin who had insulted him earlier at a yacht party.

          Desperate for money, he accepted the task. With the small amount of money he already had, he went out and bought an expensive suit, and a suitcase, a silenced gun was provided by his employer. That night he went over to a party on the man’s boat, gaining entry as his employer’s assistant, who had been invited to the party. At about 1:30AM when everyone had had their drinks and were enjoying the party, Tobias took Gary aside claiming he had a very lucrative business proposition. Gary was intrigued, and after some small talk invited him to the back of his yacht, his private quarters.

          Tobias was surprised at himself at how efficiently he completed his task, pulling out his gun from the suitcase once they were alone, and without hesitation firing a single bullet into the man’s head, catching him before he fell to the ground, and quietly laying him on the ground. The entire event was done in a few seconds and he then left the room smiling the fake smile which he was so used to making from his hotel job. He then signaled to his employer that it was time to leave the party, and excusing themselves along with a convenient group of people leaving the party as well.

          Throwing the gun overboard and crossing the bridge between yacht and dock, he looked back at what he had done only minutes ago. Not finding any remorse for his actions, he decided that he could definitely make a living this way.

Mathias Grunwald, a young policeman fresh from training, was on his way to a relatively peaceful neighborhood for his rounds when he heard a car going down the road. When he looked, he saw that it was moving at a very high speed, and taking out his speed gun, he pointed it at the car. It read 137mph.

He radioed the station his location and the speeding car’s direction and description, and with that, started the pursuit. A little while later he heard the wailing police sirens of his fellow police officers and with backup, started to close in on the car.

Then all the police officer’s on the pursuit were given orders to open fire on the car. Preferably for the wheels, but casualties would not be scorned, as the car’s description and direction matched the suspect of a bank robbery that had just been reported.

The officers started firing, and the car started to lose some of them as they had just entered an area with lots of trees. Going through miles and miles of twists and turns, the young officer kept on their tails and eventually it was only him and the bank robbers. Then once the road cleared up one of the criminals shoved himself halfway out the window, and started firing a submachine gun at Mathias.

His windshield spider webbed, he could not see a thing, so kicking the windshield out, and he too pulled out the pistol out of the firearm locker and started firing it at the man holding the submachine gun. After a few shots, the pistol found its mark and wounded the man in the chest. But holding the gun with one hand and the wheel with the other, he did not have the control to turn at an unseen bend in the road, and ended up skidding to the side of the road and crashing to a halt.

As the getaway car sped off, the man with the SMG lost consciousness, and the driver was forced to drop him off at a hospital before getting to the safe house, but by the time he got into the operation room, he was already dead. He was later identified as Thomas Eckert, a suspected murderer, but never proven guilty in court.

The officer, shocked from the whole situation, never mentioned shooting the man, and only said that his car slid into the side of the road and they got away.

Word of Thomas’s death quickly reached Tobias, for Thomas was a very close and person friend, they had gone to collage together. He understood what had happened. One of the police officers had shot his friend. Tobias knew what he had to do. He was to track down Thomas’s killer and avenge his death.

Tobias had many connections in very high and official places, for he was a mercenary and many government people had enemies who he had personally seen to. The first step was to find out the name of the hospital and where it was located. A call to a friend of the chief of police told him that the man was dropped off at a hospital named Clinique du d’Aumont, and that’s where he decided to start.

Since he lived in the same city, a short drive to the hospital proved to be worth it, and after interrogating some of the clerks he understood that the man was dropped off by another man who quickly sped away before they got a name. He was already stuck with his investigation, before he got any real evidence. Then he thought to himself, one of them must have seen what the car looked like, so he asked the men who brought Thomas in and they told him the man was driving a new black Renault Wind, but could not catch the whole license plate, just the first 3 letters, QDH. He was now getting somewhere.

Driving home, he called a man that he knew who could trace this car down to its owner and after some time he agreed to tell Tobias the information. The owner’s name was Dale Shuman who lived at 37 Rue du Parc de Clagny.

          Soon Tobias was at Dale’s front door. “Good evening Mr. Shuman, I was hoping I might have a word with you”

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“My name is irrelevant, but I have matters to discuss with you about Thomas Eckert. Don’t worry, I’m not from the police, or you would already be in cuffs on your way to the station.”

Giving it some thought, not as if he had a choice, he agreed to invite Tobias in. Dale was asked by Thomas to assist him in a very lucrative assignment, and he agreed as long as they split the money evenly, which is what they would have done, if not for this unforeseen event. Dale re told the story of what happened that night, and told him that it was a very young officer who had killed him, but could not go more into detail, as he was driving and struggling madly to stay on the road.

This information gave him a new insight on who his target is. The officer was young, so he must be a new recruit. He called his friend who knew the chief of police, and asked for the names of the officers who were on the case, saying that he was going to do some private detective work to find out who the criminals were and after a lengthy conversation with him, he finally managed to get the information from him, and then told Tobias his findings.

Tobias went from house to house, scoping out its residents looking for the young officer and after a few houses he found it. He patiently waited inside his car until night, thinking his plan through.

It was almost 1 AM by the time he thought he was ready. He stepped outside his car and walked towards the house while putting on some latex gloves. The front door was obviously going to be locked, so he went around to the side of the house. Thankfully the man did not own a dog to alert him of an intruder. After trying the back door which was locked, he decided to try the windows. All of them were closed except for one, a window just above a table in the kitchen. He slowly slit it open and tried to climb through. He did not fit. So he decided he would have to remove the window. Jamming his knife into the outside of the window, he dug into the enamel surrounding the metal frame from both sides, and after an hour of heavy work he finally managed to carefully remove the window from the house and climbed inside.

Tobias was wrong. The man did own a dog, but not a very big one. It was a small terrier, but still could be very loud if needed to be. It started growling at him, so he had to think fast. Not showing any signs of harm, he removed a shoe, and took off his sock, then flashing it in front of the dog a few times, he threw it to a side as it chased after it.

Tobias crept forward. He checked each room in the house, all were empty except for one, the one that Mathias was sleeping in. it occurred to him that the man had a family, as his house showed signs of children living in it. He saw children’s shoes next to the door, a room with a racecar bed and sheets, and a small playroom with many toys in it which was in a very large mess. None of this bothered Tobias. He crept into the room in which Mathias was sleeping. He took off his other shoe, and took of his other sock and stretched it out. He then put a rolled up rag into it at the middle, so there would be a large lump on it. In a very quick motion he lifted the man’s head, wrapped the sock around his head, covering his mouth with the lump in the sock. He pulled out his knife and stabbed the man through the heart. There was no noise, no evidence, and no witnesses. He took his shoes and socks back, and remembering to put the window back in its place, he left.

As Tobias drove home that night, he felt satisfied; his vengeance fulfilled, and without any remorse for his actions, enjoyed the wonderful night drive in Versailles.

The End.