The Man.

It was past midnight when the man stood up from his hiding place in the thick bushes which grew at the bottom of the mansion’s tall surrounding walls, like a skirting board in the room of a house.

The man pulled back his sleeve and checked the time out of habit, looked up at the top of the wall, ducked down into the bush, and then stood up again with a length of rope, coiled up to reduce its size when traveling, and with a claw attached to one end.

The man stepped out from the hedged plant and turned to face the wall. He held the coiled section of the rope in one hand, and the end of the rope with the claw in the other. He began to swing the rope, faster and faster until suddenly he freed rope, and it sailed up, cutting through the crisp night sky. It finally came to rest in the middle of the walkway on top of the walls where the guards patrolled.

The man began to reel the cord back with his hands; the claw at its resting place was dragged across the pathway and up the low wall (which was in place to ensure that the guards didn’t plummet to their deaths when patrolling). When the claw reached the top of the small wall, it got caught on the corner. The man below felt this, and pulled the rope taught to check to see if the claw had got a firm hold on whatever it was caught upon.

Once he was satisfied that it was indeed secure, he used the line to scale the wall.

He did all of these things very quickly, and with the air of one who knew exactly what they were doing, and had done it countless times before.

He jumped down at the top, and landed catlike on the pathway. He glanced left and then right, checking the position of the guards. He clocked one of the three a short distance to his right, walking away from where he was kneeling.

The man sprang up, like a jack in a box does, with a sudden burst of energy, and ran quickly and silently toward the guard; who continued to walk, blissfully unaware of the man’s approach behind him.

When he was close to to the guard, the man ducked his head down, and thrust his shoulder forward, bracing himself for the impending impact.

He took the guard completely by surprise - who flew through the air for a considerable distance and landed on the ground head first.

The sentry had only enough time to prop his dazed body up against the wall, when he noticed a giant of man towering above him. The giant stamped the guards hand (which was reaching to his gun), to the floor.

Before the guard could let out a scream, a gloved hand covered his mouth, and didn’t move and inch, even when the he pushed with all the strength contained within his free arm.

Now it was the giant of a man’s turn to make use of his free arm, he reached round to the back of the sentinel’s head, grasping firmly, he pulled with that arm, and pushed with the arm preventing his prey from shouting for help. This caused the head to rotate, and it rotated far beyond its normal range of movement, and soon the neck of the guard snapped with a dull cracking noise.

The large man did this--as with the wall climbing--very quickly and fluently, as if in a pre rehearsed action. He then picked up the dead guard’s body and dropped it into the bushes, far below from where he was standing.

He dispatched the remaining two guards with the same mechanical efficiency as he had done with the first. The second of them bit his hand so hard that blood ran freely through the glove, but not so much as a flicker of pain flashed across the colossal man’s hand.

The huge man, after killing the third sentry, rifled through his uniform, and retrieved a set of thick iron keys attached to a thick iron ring.

The killer then ran down a nearby set of stairs, which lead down to a sturdy oak door, the door opened with a long moan which echoed down the long spiral staircase which lay ahead.

The man ran swiftly down the steps, making little effort to be quiet (though years of practice had made his every move as quiet as his last). He opened the door at the bottom, and peered out onto the beautiful gardens of the mansion.

Tall thin trees lined the gravel path, which lead from the enormous wooden entry gates, all the way up to the large car park, on which, several luxury cars slept under the starry night sky.

A large smooth lake was situated in front of where the man stood, and the full moon was reflected in perfect likeness to its life counterpart.

A perfectly manicured carpet of grass (which luscious green in the eye of the sun, was black under the moon’s gaze), covered the ground beneath his feet, it was soft and spongy, and the mornings dew was just beginning to form on the tips of the blades.

The scene was the very picture of beauty, but the man silently cursed the cloudless sky; with its moon bright enough to leave shadows on the ground, for the man had much ground to cover and therefore would have preferred the veil of darkness.

He quickly calculated the risk, and decided that, as he had killed all the guards, it would be safe for him to run straight over to the house, which lay in the center of the square.

He ran, with perfect sprinters stance, over to one the side walls of the Edwardian masterpiece.

Experience had taught him that on a building this size, there would always be one window left open by mistake, and experience had taught him well, as he soon spotted a window left ajar.

He climbed through it, entering the house.

Once his eyes had adjusted to the new level of darkness, he found himself in a large room, filled with shelves, full of books. He knew straight away that he was in the library, and having studied the house’s floor plans prior to embarking on his mission, he also knew exactly where to go next, in order to complete his task.

He slung his rucksack off from his back, and reached inside.

For such a large house, containing so many valuable panting and sculptures, this one was unusual in that it lacked an alarm. The man guessed that this was due to the house being patrolled by three armed men, and that the occupants of the house trusted the men more than any computer system.

However, though the house lacked an electronic method of alarm, it was not totally deficient in the way of security features; a large resident Alsatian patrolled the inside of the mansion and would definitely not take kindly to a strange intruder in his premises. And that was why the man reached into his bag – to pull out a huge slab of steak, laced with enough tranquilizers to knock out a horse.

He opened the library’s door and threw the succulent steak out into the hallway, it landed with a satisfying thud.

He waited for the dog to come by and inspect the site from which the thud had resonated. He waited then a little longer for the second thud, that of a large dog collapsing.

He made his way up to the master bedroom, on his way passing famous paintings and ancient sculptures.

He didn’t make much of an attempt to avoid creaky floorboards, a house of this size always makes noises, groaning floorboards are the norm, and nothing to wake up over.

He reached the correct door and teased it open. Inside he found an extravagant, king-sized-four-postered bed, on which two sleeping figures lay, their chests rising and falling in tandem.

His orders were to kill the man without waking his wife, so that she awoke in the morning and discovered her dead husband next to her.

The killer thought this a little odd, but orders were orders, and money was money, so he hadn’t argued or questioned.

He wanted to shoot the man straight off, but the splatter of blood which would ensue would undoubtedly wake the wife, and if that happened, then the assassin wouldn’t be able to collect his money.

He took a mirror down from the wall, and carefully propped it up with pillows from the bottom of the bed, between the two partners.

The man then took out a pistol, silenced.

He placed the gun on the man’s forehead, and waited for the cold metal to rouse the man from his dreams (another order from above). When the man opened his tired eyes, and a look of shock appeared on his face, the assassin squeezed the trigger, just before the man’s terror could spread beyond his eyes, to his mouth.

He replaced the mirror, and put a pillow in the way of the blood, which was creeping over towards the man’s wife. Who was for now, still unaware of her husbands death, as her chest rose, and fell at the same rate as before.

As he was walking down the main staircase, he noticed a glass cabinet, on the wall, near to the front door. Inside were the keys to the luxury cars, out in front of the house.

The assassin racked his brains, and remembered nothing about stealing when he was being briefed.

He chose the key with the most exotic sounding name, and exited the house.