by Chewy Walrus
I
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 3, 1995:
The palace of King Fahd stood boldly in the center of the capital city on that cold Saudi Arabian night. Standing atop a dune a few hundred kilometers away, Grissom Montag raised a pricey pair of binoculars to his eyes and let out a low whistle.
He saw the king's palace crawling with all sorts of armed military personnel. The military had been set up since after the Gulf War; it was Fahd's greatest achievement. Still, Grissom knew that getting past them would be a necessity. It almost made the adventurer shiver... almost.
Reaching a three-fingered hand into his pack, Montag pulled out a tall paper tube and unrolled it, revealing blueprints for the palace as well as the spots where the guards would be. Scrawled along the side in the man's own garbled hen-scratch were notes on the guards' standard rotation time.
Then, rummaging around in his pack for a few more seconds, he pulled out two documents and a photograph. Montag skimmed the first document quickly, merely to refresh his memory on what it was exactly that Emir Zayed of the United Arab Emirates had wanted him to swipe. The second document Grissom familiarized himself with now was a page torn from a magazine, and it was dealing in large part with his target. The photograph, taken by a photographer under Zayed's employ, was a clearer shot of Grissom Montag's target: a large L'tl Tse Oto diamond.
Grissom smiled as he beheld the thing. The magazine article he'd found had said that the diamond itself, before it was cut, weighed over seven thousand karats, making it the largest diamond in the world, even larger than South Africa's Cullinan. Now, it weighed only two thousand karats, and the emir of Abu Dhabi wanted it.
Luckily for Montag, a diamond of that size weighed little more than two pounds.
Grissom shoved the loose papers back in his pack and scratched his five o'clock shadow as he got to his feet. Then, he stuck his middle finger in his mouth and held it up in the air. A little breeze, but nothing that would interfere too much. That was good.
Kneeling down on the desert sand, Montag pulled up a large handful of sand and felt the grains slide through his fingers. Smiling to himself, Montag removed his khaki shirt and hunting cap and laid them immediately next to his pack. Now, dressed only in a pair of khaki shorts and some worn hiking boots, Montag stooped to the ground and began to work.
Sand began to fly into the air and land in neatly arranged piles as Grissom's three-fingered hands tore through the desert terrain. In less than an hour, he'd be underneath the royal palace in Riyadh, and no later than twenty minutes later, he'd be out of the building, the L'tl Tse Oto in his hands, and one step closer to his retirement.
And, as he worked, Grissom L. Montag, also known as the Sandcrawler, smiled.
II
A three-fingered hand wiped a thick wall of sweat from Grissom Montag's forehead, leaving behind the sand that now clung to his hands from crawling beneath the desert. He could very easily dig a hole large enough to walk through, but that never seemed to occur to him until he was already nearing the end of his trek. After all, he did have a moniker to uphold, and no one could ever say that Grissom Montag didn't live up to his name.
He'd traveled a little less than two hundred miles on his knees, which wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing in the world to do. It was also very time consuming, but Montag knew that he had all the time in the world to reach his goal. The Emir was a patient man, for the most part.
However, Grissom knew that he needn't sweat Zayed's wrath. He was the most dependable mercenary in the world -- his operating price alone proved that. The bounty placed on his head was just some more added evidence. And the fact that he'd never been caught, the greatest evidence of all.
Montag had been a magician and an illusionist all through high school and college. His roommate at Oxford called him "Montag the Magnificent," and with good reason. He'd once made a man's shirt disappear right off his back, then reappear a full minute later.
What his classmates -- and even most of his current employers -- didn't know was that Griss, as his friends called him, was a metahuman. His ability was a bit like teleportation, but with a twist. He could only transport non-living solid matter. He learned that lesson when trying to displace some water at a swim meet in high school. However, he excelled at sleight-of-hand and coin tricks, largely because he could, quite literally, make an object switch hands with nothing more than a thought. Large objects, like cars and phone booths, required a great deal of preparation and concentration; hell, they still did. Mountains, not to mention sand dunes, were out of the question entirely.
Which meant that Montag had to hollow out this dune with his mind, bit by bit. And still it didn't deter him, even down to the last mile.
A snap sounded in the hollowed-out sand-hole as Grissom's face lit up suddenly as the glow stick he'd pulled from his pocket illuminated the small cave he'd dug. His eyes suddenly widened as he patted down his pockets.
"Damn..." he whispered to himself, remembering having shoved the palace map in his pack and leaving it out on the dune. Then, as if from nowhere, a smile sneaked across his lips. He then closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and held out his right hand, palm up.
A few seconds passed. Nothing. Then, from literally thin air, a small folded piece of paper lay flat on his open palm. Montag opened his eyes and grinned like the Cheshire Cat as he unfolded the map, holding his glow stick in his teeth.
Just as he thought: a few more feet of sand sideways and about ten feet up, and he'd be inside the belly of King Fahd's palace vault, the resting place of the L'tl Tse Oto diamond.
"One more heist, Montag," Grissom mentioned to himself. "Then, you can retire like a king. Heaven knows you've earned it."
Then, the well-built man closed his eyes as the sand directly by his head began to redeposit itself by his feet.
III
Grissom Montag's face contorted into a bizarre smile as he scraped his hands across the bottom of a flooring tile, his six fingers fitting into every last groove. This was a piece of the floor in King Fahd's palace vault. He closed his eyes slowly, as if savoring what it was that he was readying himself to do.
Twenty seconds passed. Two fresh beads of sweat rolled down the side of Grissom's face, joining the now-tepid pools of sweat that already lined his features. After about thirty seconds, Grissom felt the pressure from lightly pressing on the tile vanish quickly.
He was in.
Smiling to himself, he pulled a small can of Binaca from his pocket. Spraying a bit into his mouth, he popped his hand out of the tile and, little by little, began spraying the breath freshener into the air around him. Then, peering out of the hole he'd dug, Grissom's eyes scanned the room, his eyes tracking the now-visible lasers that crisscrossed the vault. Any normal burglar would never be able to dodge them all without being caught, but Montag was no normal burglar.
Springing straight into the air, Montag turned a triple lutz before arcing into a dive, which took his form down toward the center of the room. His right foot carefully slipped forward, his toes carefully halting his descent on a pedestal in the vault's exact middle. Carefully bringing his left foot to further balance himself, Grissom made careful note of his prize -- the L'tl Tse Oto diamond, encased under a box of glass.
Emir Zayed would be most pleased to see this, most assuredly. Grissom's grin widened as he saw it, the three fingers of his right hand rubbing each other greedily.
Licking the three fingers, he plunged them into a compartment on his belt and returned with a small glass cutter. With deft, skilled hands, Grissom cut a circle slightly bigger than the diamond, then, with a small suction dart taken from a child's toy gun, removed the small piece of glass from its place on the box.
Grinning happily, Montag's hand sank into the box. He could feel the cool grooves of the diamond across his fingers and knew that it was the job of his life.
Pocketing the diamond, Grissom Montag, also known as "the Sandcrawler," pulled a small pouch of sand and placed it where the diamond had been. It was his calling card, after all, the thing that made him the most wanted and most respected mercenary in the world.
Taking a quick glance behind him, Griss Montag sprang from the pedestal, somersaulting through the three-dimensional grid of lasers that seemed to almost hit him at every turn. Landing safely in his hole, Grissom closed his eyes as the flooring tile replaced itself, as if it had never gone. Then Grissom, full of excitement at a job well done, turned and scurried off on his hands and knees through the tunnel of his own creation.
IV
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, later that day:
Grissom Montag looked out onto the still waters of the Persian Gulf from the balcony of his living quarters at the palace in Abu Dhabi. Upon hearing that the diamond had been retrieved, Zayed had offered Griss his best room (aside from his own suite, naturally) and set up a meeting time for later that evening. Since then, Griss merely stood, watching the waters of the Gulf.
In his left hand he held a cigarette, which he'd occasionally take a drag off of. Griss really didn't like to smoke, to be completely honest. It was something he'd picked up on a job to Antarctica retrieving some old fossils from a U.S. archeological dig for a museum in Beijing. It kept him warm then, but it became a tradition to smoke one at the end of a job.
And Griss was a man who honored tradition.
In his right hand, Griss palmed his find: the L'tl Tse Oto diamond. Rolling it in his palm, Montag stopped looking at the sea for a moment to study it. Sliding his three fingers across the diamond's many facets and faces, Grissom couldn't help but smile. This truly was a perfect diamond. And at two thousand karats, it was the largest cut diamond in existence.
Still, Griss was making a killing off of this retrieval, so there was no use stealing it, especially if he wanted to retire afterward.
Since Griss studied archaeology and history at Oxford University, he'd always been interested in finding things. However, realizing the limited openings in the archaeology business, Montag went into something more profitable: bounty hunting. And, while the money was good, Griss' heart just wasn't in it.
So the man swore that, after his biggest heist, he'd hang up his mercenary surname for good. And this was one hell of a grab.
Taking a final drag from his cigarette, Grissom flicked it to the ground and crushed it under the toe of his boot, grinding the ashes into the balcony floor.
A slight knock turned Griss' attention from where the Gulf to a small Arabic man behind him, one of Zayed's many servants.
"The Emir will see you now."
V
"You have the diamond then, Mr. Montag?"
Grissom Montag smiled as he tossed the L'tl Tse Oto diamond into the air, catching it with the same hand. Emir Zayed looked a bit horror-striken but was none the worse for wear. Grissom knew what this diamond meant to Zayed; he just liked to toy with the Emir's affections.
"This what you wanted?" Grissom replied casually, rolling the gem in his three-fingered hand.
"Indeed," Zayed replied, looking a bit flustered. He straightened his robe and cleared his throat. Grissom also noticed that his eyes seemed to roam around the room, taking special care of where all of his armed guards were stationed. Fortunately, Griss had already taken note of these positions when he walked in. As such, he could be assured of their positions while still remaining inconspicuous.
"May I?" Zayed said, holding out his hand. Grissom held his position and smiled broadly.
"May you... what?" he said, winking obnoxiously and leaning his head in a bit.
"May I see my prize?" Zayed asked, rolling his eyes a bit.
"Certainly," Grissom said, making no motion to move at all. "As soon as I get my money."
"Yes, yes... of course," the Emir snapped his fingers as two men, each carrying a black briefcase, stepped out from beside Zayed's throne. Walking up to Grissom, the two men placed their suitcases on the ground, opening them as Grissom stooped low to look at their contents.
"Fifty million U.S. dollars, I believe, was the agreed-upon price?" Zayed asked, never taking his eyes off the diamond.
"Sure was," Grissom said, trying not to look impressed at the blasphemous amount of money he was getting paid.
"Would you like to count it?" one of the briefcase men asked.
"No..." Griss said, smirking. "No, that... that looks like it's about enough."
"And now," Zayed said, a touch of impatience in his voice, "may I see my diamond?"
"Sure thing, Your Emir-ness," Grissom said. The second of the briefcase men extended his hand to act as a middle man. Grissom, however, had better plans.
"Think fast, Zayed!" Before anyone could stop him, Grissom tossed the diamond into the air, sending it straight for Zayed. The Emir grasped at the diamond clumsily as it slipped past his fingers and landed with a slight WHIFF! on his lap.
"I have killed men for less," Zayed said, glaring at Grissom, his face becoming a little red.
"Yes, but I'm betting those men never gave you a diamond like that, did they, Zayed?" Grissom said, closing his two briefcases.
"No..." Zayed said, picking up his diamond. "No, I don't suppose so..."
"Well, Your Emir-ship, if that concludes our business, I guess I'll be out of your hair," Montag said, picking up his briefcases and heading for the door.
"Just a moment, Mr. Montag!" the Emir called out, causing Griss to glance over his left shoulder at the enthroned Emir.
"Yeah?"
"I have another job for you," Zayed said, smiling.
"Sorry, Zayed," Grissom said, turning back toward the door. "I'm officially retired."
"Guards," Zayed said. As Grissom approached the door, he heard rifle clicks sounding from all sides. He turned to see every armed guard in the throne room aiming a gun at him.
"I can... make it worth your while, Montag," Zayed said, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had just threatened the man's life.
"Look, Zayed," Grissom said, turning around. "It's not about the money this time. It's a... personal reason."
"Very well," Zayed said, looking directly into Grissom's eyes. "I am afraid that I cannot allow you to leave alive."
Without hesitation, Grissom leapt into the air, tossing his briefcases at the two guards nearest him, sending them to the ground. With the greatest of ease, he began to cartwheel across the room, dodging the gunfire from Zayed's guards. Ducking behind a pillar, he pulled three throwing knives from his belt and tossed them behind the pillar without looking. Three THUDS! later, and Griss was crawling up the pillar.
Reaching the top of the pillar, Grissom pulled out a small gas canister from his belt, pulled the pin with his teeth, and tossed it into the center of the room. As Montag's homemade peppered tear and knockout gas filled the room, Griss pulled a small gas mask from his pack and pulled it over his face.
Leaping into the center of the room, Grissom recovered his briefcases and nodded to Zayed, who sat bloodshot, bleary-eyed and unconscious on his throne.
"Nice doin' business with you," Montag mumbled through his gas mask as he left Zayed's throne room and went about his life.
The End