The underground concierge

“Do you have sun Tzu’s art of war for sale?” a customer asked Doug at his bookshop. Nobody would have believed that someone with the history he has would be selling books now. “He answered no” to the customer. Someone just came in an hour ago and grabbed the last one. This made him a little concerned as this was the third person who came into the shop and asked for that book. As normally it wouldn’t draw concern but the three men and the guy who bought the book had on the same boots which was weird. Doug had another business he ran downstairs of his book store after hours. After the shop closed he went downstairs and grabbed a small bag. A man knocked on a steel door that was in a dark corner of the room and asked did he have the goods and he handed Doug about a thousand dollars and Doug handed him the bag. This business was much more profitable than the book store as it also was secretive only known to a few people. Before he started running a book store in a small town he had a much faster, progressive life. In his old life Doug was spy/sniper who worked for an organization who lived off grid and worked on ways to killing people who were major threats to the safety of the country. It all started when he was 16 and he was trying to sneak into clubs as he was always attracted to a fast-paced lifestyle but also liked being a ghost and not be seen as much. He got caught one time so he decided to start making his own fake i.d. and using the internet he found a way to make them as pristine as possible so they would pass as real and he also made a passport as he decided to make various identities of himself on the i.d. as a way to not get caught. One particular night on his 21^st birthday he was at a party and he was using one of his fake identities and one of the bouncers let him in after noticing that it wasn’t valid. During the party the shift changed and the bouncer located him by the DJ booth and asked to talk someplace a little quieter so they went to the bathroom where the music wasn’t as loud and he asked how Doug was able to make the fake look so real. They kept talking and the bouncer convinced Doug that he could make a lot of money making these and that he knew the perfect place they could go that would be discreet enough where they would not get caught. They exchanged numbers and Doug continued to party and the bouncer left. The next day Doug got a call from a number he didn’t recognize. Last night after they exchanged numbers Doug didn’t click the save button like he thought so the number wasn’t programmed. He answered and asked who the caller was and he told him Steve, the bouncer from last night. He left his room while he took the call someone he met last night was lying in the bed and he didn’t want to wake them. They discussed details of the business they were about to start and how they could keep it secret. Steve had a cousin who owned a storage unit that he wasn’t using. They would meet at the storage unit and using a list of names from one of his little cousins who went to the local high school. So, they both weren’t standing on the moral high ground getting fake id’s for kids. The plan was that Steve’s little cousin would get a list of names from school and the kids would give him the money, then he would put it all in an envelope and put it in the mailbox at the storage unit. Then Steve would get the package and meet Doug at the unit. Next, they would open the unit and go inside and get their equipment together and start making the identification documents. Once they were finished they would take their share of the money and enclose the documents in the package then they take the envelope and drop it off at Steve’s little cousins’ mailbox and he would then get it and deliver it to the kids at school and it was profitable until one day after months of success Steve’s little cousins parents discovered the package after they returned home early and checked the mailbox. They waited for their son to get home and ask what was with the package of money. When he got home they were waiting at the kitchen table and asked about the package. He told them it was from kids at school and that he had a side business, he didn’t tell them everything but he told them enough so that they wouldn’t send him to boot camp. They grounded him and he was able to get the kids their copies but wasn’t able to be apart of the business anymore. After their long talk his dad came in and asked if he could get him a meeting with the person who made the id’s as he had an offer for him. The next day after school he set up a meeting with his father and Doug. Steve wasn’t a part of the meeting because their partnership came to an end and he was basically a middle man. Doug and the boy’s father discussed something he had never thought about before and that was making false documentation on a larger scale. They talked about making passports and about wealthy men who would pay for those things and would spend a lot of money for it. This took his business to a new level because he was learning ways to do more and it opened up a door towards more money. After a couple months Doug and the kid’s father whose name was Martin had made close to a quarter million. One day Doug was headed to the place where they usually met to conduct business and the radio was playing and it was giving information on a person who was found dead at an address not too far from where they met and he became a little skeptical so he decided to coast by the scene and when he was passing by he saw a body covered in blood with a dozen bullet holes in it and he noticed the watch, shoes, and suit his buddy Martin usually wears. He kept going and immediately got a thought that their safe haven was compromised and that whoever killed Martin was looking for him, so he went home and packed clothes and other documents he needed and left the country. While he was in Barcelona he found a library that was hiring and applied for work under a different name. The librarian knew him as Bob. After 2 years a guy came in the store and asked about a book by the name of Sun Tzu’s art of war. After that 3 more people came in within the hour to purchase that book. After he went downstairs to where he was staying he continued a side hustle he had in selling fake ids. After his final sell he reminisced about his time working for the government as a sniper/spy. He would incorporate himself into a business and try to become close to his target and whenever he learned their trade secrets by getting close he was called to kill them as they were considered a threat to national security but after a while he started to realize he was being lied to so he left the industry. Whenever he saw Martin laid out on the street lifeless he assumed someone was trying to get close to him. After thinking about his past life Doug heard a knock on his door and he was taken aback a bit because he wasn’t expecting anybody. He didn’t say anything he just quietly walked over to a grate and lifted it up inside was a stashed bag of money and case of guns. He put the bag down and put some guns inside it and rigged explosives by the door because the knocking got harder as someone was trying to bust it down. He then screwed on a silencer to one of his guns and patiently waited to see what the person or persons on the other side of the door would do. Also, down there was a tunnel that led to the middle of the town that not many people realized were there because they were very old and people forgot about it. The battering ram continued to hit the door and eventually it broke through and the explosives went off. There were about 20 soldiers on the other side of the door and 10 were blown away and while the smoke was dissipating he started picking them off with a holographic sight on an assault rifle. When he picked off the last soldier he felt a knife stab him in the back. While he was focused on those guys some other guys came from upstairs and ambushed him from behind. He preceded to hand to hand combat and eventually beat down the 5 guys who ambushed him. After he got up after the last fight he was breathing heavily and he heard cars coming down the road. He picked up some things and jumped down the grate and took the tunnel to the middle of town. After coming out of the tunnel he hot wired a car and drove to a house outside of town. The house was owned by the librarian that hired him. He knocked on the door bloody and bruised and when she came to the door she opened it frantically and asked what happened to him and why he was there. He went in the house and asked if he could shower and wash up. She gave him rags and towels and he showered. While he was in the shower she took a call and while she was talking he finished up and when he was walking down the stairs he heard parts of the conversation and from what he heard she helped sell him out. She hung up and when she turned around a gun was in her face. He told her to talk and tell him everything. They only had five minutes to talk because the Calvary was on the way. She explained that two weeks ago a man came into the library and asked about him and told her that he was wanted for multiple murders in different countries. She didn’t know they would destroy the building and cause so much damage and quite frankly she really didn’t think they would send such excessive force to kill someone as she thought they were just going to arrest him. He had less than a minute to figure out what to do so being that he never goes anywhere without having an escape plan he had stashed a few body doubles inside the house awhile back and he went and got them and placed them upward so they would look like real people and he placed bullets in the microwave and on the stove inside a pot and poured gasoline inside the house and left a trail outside the back door and whenever the Calvary arrived the microwave went off and they started shooting inside the house and from the outside they saw two figures standing across from each other and they fired on them and they fell over and at that moment the flame had been trailing inside the house and it caught onto some fabric and flames went up and everything started burning and a smile came onto the leader of the units face as he saw that the house was burning down