Stories

ROULFF THE REAPER
As in the past two weeks, Roulff waited patiently in the car in front of the target’s house.
Regularly he changed the make of car in order not to attract attention, occasionally rental cars, but also from his hidden garage, with different license plates.
At first, he was surprised that the person did not seem to have any protection. After the second day, he discovered the shadow protecting the man. From then on, he not only changed the vehicle, but his appearance was different each time. Sometimes as a workman, as a Manager, disguised by a city authority, always something different.
The target held a high position in law enforcement, Roulff’s mission was liquidation.
Realizing he had to take care of the clandestine bodyguard first, he kept watching. Three days he spent after looking for another shadow, then was sure there was no one else.
Right at the beginning he had spotted the two surveillance cameras, one in front, the other to the side of the target house. As a precaution he always had a baseball cap on, pulled down low on his face, in addition to the pandemic mask. Goggles were added for good measure.
He decided to finish the task next morning.
He told his dear wife at home that he would have to get up very early in the morning, an important customer from overseas needed a report. Roulff was an IT specialist, and in this capacity he consulted with various major clients.
What nobody knew, he was also a contract killer. Nobody knew about it, or so he thought. Until a some time ago, in his secret garage, in an outside compartment, he found a large envelope.
It contained a very large bundle of banknotes, a detailed description and a picture of a new target. Only one word was written:
Liquidation.
He wondered how he had been found out. It had to be important persons that had discovered him during an operation on surveillance cameras. He took it to be even more careful in the future.
Very early in the morning, without waking up his dear wife, he got up and
left the house as quickly as possible through the back door. There he had a high-class mountain bike, with which he cycled to his secret garage in no time at all.
Once there, he entered the code for the bar. A sliding door opened, and he was already in a well-furnished bar. There he pushed a bottle of vodka to the right, a bottle of gin to the left, and then the vodka to the right again. Another door behind the bar opened. But there was only a drinks machine there. He had change with him, he fed the machine with it, stood right in front of it, pressed the button for the drink he loved least (cat’s piss). Together with the vending machine, he whizzed downstairs. It was a hidden elevator.
Once at the bottom, he immediately went behind his apparatus. It was state of the art. The best of the best. He was not only a simple IT specialist, he was also one of the worst hackers there was.
He was a master at drawing suspicion to others.
But now he had other things in mind. He hacked into the system of traffic cameras. It was quite easy. He quickly found the two cameras of his destination.
He didn’t just turn them off, though. That would be noticed quickly.
Rather, he set a timer that would switch to freeze frame for a short time.
The target always left the house at exactly the same time, which was not very reasonable. He activated the timer.
From his evidence locker, he retrieved a bottle of vodka, emptied half of it away. Along with an old tattered raincoat, and other paraphernalia, he set off.
He took the van and parked it not far from his destination, the rest on foot.
The dirty raincoat donned, the mask wide over his nose, his cool baseball cap tilted forward. He looked like a bum. Gloves he already had on.
His recipe for success was never to leave tracks. He looked at his hidden watch, the timer must be active now.
When he arrived, he walked up to the bodyguard’s car, bawling, tapped on the side window. The man waved him away. Roulff then knocked again, whereupon the window was half opened. He had only waited. He threw in a small container with a highly poisonous gas. Within seconds, the guard was eliminated.
After that, he broke the lock of the target’s car, which was parked outside. hid in the back seat.
As soon as the person got in, he finished his task with a knife similar to a sickle-like knife. Unobtrusively, he quietly got out of the car, and quickly through a side alley, back to his car.
Immediately he drove back to the garage. There, in a side room he undressed completely. Everything was thrown into a gas oven, and burned to ashes at a high temperature. He dressed in a suit and tie, and made his way to his office.
There, he manipulated the time on the incoming inspection to a credibly earlier time, and began contacting his clients.
The murders had come to the attention of police circles, who had set up a special unit to investigate. But they were at a loss, found no traces. Due to the procedure, they gave the perpetrator the nickname “The Reaper”.
Roulff received several more orders over the months, which were always very lucrative.
In each case he did it with meticulous precision. No one was able to track him down.
The murders were not only carried out ice-coldly and cleanly, but also planned down to the smallest detail. His credo: plan, execute, clean.
He had a backpack full of cash. It had to be over a million in various hard currencies. He had not yet counted.
At the police station, a second unit had also been put together. It was about another series of murders.
Partly high-ranking personalities were shot in the back of the head.
The ballistics experts then determined that it was a 22 calibre with a silencer on it, since no one ever heard gunshots.
Since the type of weapon was one that was rather atypical for males, a profiler who was consulted drew the conclusion that it could have been a woman for all of these murders. Also the action, from back of the head confirmed his suspicions. But they had no idea of a possible perpetrator. There were never any to be found. They then gave her the nickname “The Ghost”.
At home, Roulff suggested to his dear wife to move somewhere in the south.
It was just too cold for him where they were. She was immediately enthusiastic about his suggestion, but do we have enough money,she asked? He then showed her the backpack, and also explained that he had the money from customers who preferred to pay in cash. She was amazed.
“Aren’t you afraid that the money will be stolen? Maybe better to hide it somewhere”. They then agreed to put it in the washing machine and hang a big cloth over it.
That seemed very safe to them both. No sooner said than done.
“Come on, let’s go for a walk in the park”, she was totally excited by his idea.
“It’s still pretty fresh outside, though, do you really want to”, Roulff asked. “Yes, yes, I’ll put on my gray warm jacket with a hood, and we’ll have a face mask on anyway, it’ll keep us warm”.
They went out the back. She had the hood pulled over her head, the mask in front of her face, and gloves on, because she always froze very quickly to her hands, as she said. In the back was a very large park, no other people for far and wide. No one saw them.
They walked through the park, making many plans of where they might go, she seemed so happy.
After they had walked for a long time, she said. “I have to pee”. Roulff looked around, no restroom far and wide. She then pointed to a larger bush. “Let’s go there, do you have a paper handkerchief”. He gave her one.
There was enough room in the bushes. She put away her side pocket, panties down.
But suddenly up again.
“Someone is coming, turn around and look please”. He did.

The shot from close range into the back of his head, with a 22, equipped with a silencer, he naturally did not notice.