He’d made a really good living for more than fifteen years.
Unlike regular members of the workforce, his hours were short and the pay was excellent. He was, of course, a criminal. His modus operandi was one that involved him collecting mail. He never actually knew who he worked for. He didn’t need to know who the Postmaster General was. It was called a blind drop. He would receive his job orders, contracts if you like, in a plain envelope. Inside, just a single piece of paper with a few typed words; the sum on offer, a name, an address, and the action to be taken. This was never spelt out, but a single letter code was used, everything from ‘r’ for ‘rough up’ to ‘k’ for ‘kill’. The whole thing was pretty foolproof. Even the postmaster who received the jobs, only passed them on without knowing their contents.
The location of the blind drop was in an old wooden box with a hinged lid, on a shelf in a rundown shed, in the back garden of a deserted property, set back from the road, along a country lane. Only one envelope at a time. He checked it out weekly. It was just like picking up the mail. In a way he was an old-fashioned kind of guy. After any job, large or small, he’d go home and make himself a nice cup of tea.
On this particular occasion, he entered the shed and found the envelope. A cold shiver ran up his spine when he read it. He was looking at his own name and address, with a ‘k’. He had known all his working life that something like this was always a possibility.
He drove back to his flat, burned the envelope and its contents, picked up his large stash of foreign currency, along with his false passport, took a short bus ride to the airport, caught the first available flight, landed at Brunei International Airport, and took a twenty minute taxi ride to his villa.
As soon as he arrived, he went in and put the kettle on.