Jonathan Mayers: Origins

Chapter Three

As soon as he stepped out of the car, Jonathan was flanked by two women who he later learnt were maids, dressed in identical black dresses. Without so much as a word, they directed him into the villa. Looking around, Jonathan couldn’t help but be impressed by what he saw. The villa was lavishly decorated, with top quality paintings and ornaments strewn across the building. He couldn’t help but wonder just exactly what the owner of this place had to do to be able to make the money for all of this. He sighed inwardly. Whatever he was, he would be extremely surprised if it was legal.

The room he was brought to was massive, making his room back at home in Palermo look like it belonged in a shack. Just like the rest of the house, the room was painted in a shade of white, although though this shade was significantly less intimidating than the others. The windows provided a magnificent view of the surrounding Barcelona countryside. Despite his previous premonitions, Jonathan felt himself slowly calming down. It couldn’t be too bad, if he was being provided for this well.

He heeded Mammoth Man’s instructions, and went to take a bath in the adjoining bathroom. Like the bedroom, the bathroom was larger than anything he had ever seen. The hot water however, had the effect of snapping Jonathan back to reality. He remembered that he was still unsure about his safety. For all he knew, he could be dead by tomorrow morning. Despite the heat of the water, he shivered. He really didn’t know how he would go about with this. He had a bad feeling about it all, but it was too late now….wasn’t it?

An hour and fifteen minutes later, Jonathan had changed into a black suit that he found in the wardrobe. He felt rather ridiculous; he never really liked wearing suits and all that fancy stuff. He preferred jeans and T-shirts; just because he felt more at ease in them. He thought for a second: where exactly did he pick up that habit? He really wasn’t that sure.

He stepped  outside, and looked around. He was completely lost as to where to go, and he had about 14 minutes before his meeting was scheduled to start. He started to panic… it would be rude to wander around the house, and the kind of people he was dealing with….he was pretty sure they didn’t tolerate rudeness…

“Take a left then go up the stairs. First door to the right.”

Jonathan whipped around. He didn’t even see the person come up behind him, and that in itself was a shock, as it was one of the twins. Jonathan was unable to decipher which one it was, as they were too identical. Was stealth something they learnt at that training facility Sunny was telling him about? What else did they learn over there?

“Uh..yeah…thanks,” he managed to stammer, nodding his head awkwardly and moving on to follow the directions he was given.

Opening the door, Jonathan was gifted with the sight of another vast room ( what was with these people and huge rooms?), which served as a dining room, as it had a table in the center, set for two. One of those two was already seated, and at the sound of the door opening, turned around, smiled, and glanced at his watch.

“ Hmmm….twelve minutes early. Pretty good, if I do say so myself.”

The man had soft voice, with an accent that was really difficult to place; despite his name, the accent wasn’t really German. And though his voice was soft, it radiated power and authority, and Jonathan was left with no doubt that this man was indeed a director of JHF.

“ Uh….hi…good afternoon…sir.”

“ Good afternoon Jonathan. Come now, have a seat.”

Jonathan heeded his command, and pulled out the available seat and sat down.

The man was gazing at him intently. “ Yes, yes…you have grown very well indeed… a spiting image of him, in fact…only your hair color…which it seems you took from your mother, is different.”

“You’re talking about my father?”

“ Well yes of course. I knew your father very well…before of course… you know…we had to terminate him.” Plattenhardt shrugged. “ It was an unpleasant situation. We didn’t want to do it… here at JHF…but it had to be done.”

Jonathan was lost for words. This man was talking about ordering his father to die as if he was discussing the weather.

“So..um…why exactly am I here, Mr.Plattenhardt?”

“ Yes, I was coming to that. Let me first tell you, however, the origins of JHF. We’ve been observing you, ever since we approached Sunil Chandler with the message. It appears that you have a somewhat negative attitude to us, rightfully so…I mean we did kill your parents. But please, let me explain how we came about, and what our purpose is.

JHF stands for “Julian Havertz Foundation,” and we have two branches. One branch is perfectly legal, believe it or not, and deals with banks and finance and all that; not my department, not my problem. However, my branch deals with covert actions, espionage, assassination, trafficking; the things that the police forces around the world would generally frown upon, if it wasn’t for the fact that they receive wonderful payoffs from us. For the Foundation does not apreciate such trivial things as the law getting in our way, as you tell by now.

The Foundation was created, not as a foundation, but as a special bodyguard unit for Julian Havertz, a German banker back in the 1930s. During the rise of Nazi Germany, Havertz realized that syndicate crimes would be…profitable..for lack of a better term. He recruited, and deployed those recruits all over the world at the time. He kept his banking side of the business, which exists today still, but is not nearly as profitable as our side of things.

As of today, we have 2000 operatives all over the globe, each of varying ranks and abilities, and each one capable of performing the tasks we have for them. Some of them, like Sunil, apply for a role in this Foundation, although finding out that it exists is a really difficult chore, to be fair. Others are picked up for their…talents and skills, you could say, and these form a vast majority of our operatives.

As for your father, well, there’s not much to say other than he was in a position where he decided to sell our secrets to several influential governments, such as those of the USA and the United Kingdom. This would have led to our destruction as a group, and JHF could not allow this to happen. As I said before, your father and I were friends, and it hurt me deeply to have to kill him, but the order had to be made. You were left alive because, although many who know of our existence consider us monsters, rightfully so as well, we do have our limits. We do not kill children. If we set off a bomb, and children die, that is different, because it is unavoidable. However, we will not go out of our way to kill a child. That is just not how we operate.”
Jonathan thought back to what Sunny told him before, how leaving him alive was totally against the ethos of JHF.

“ Thanks for the history lesson, I guess. However, that still does not explain why exactly you wanted to see me. I mean, if you wanted a thank you, I could have just written a letter. I didn’t really have to fly all the way here, did I?”

Plattenhardt let out a laugh. It was one of the coldest laughs Jonathan had heard, and it reminded him once again that this man was responsible for the deaths of most likely thousands of people. “ Yes, I suppose I may as well tell you why you are here.” He picked up the spoon set in front of him, and poked his wine glass with it. “ At JHF, we don’t do anything unless it benifits us. We don’t undertake a mission, unless in some way or another it will improve our standing in the short or long term. The killing of your father was a troublesome affair, and we lost quite a few agents on that one. And, in recent times, several of our agents have died in missions around the world, though most of them in Eastern Europe.”

Matheus Plattenhardt looked up at Jonathan, piercing him with his ice cold blue eyes.

“Your purpose is simple. You will join JHF as an agent. This is not a request, it is an order. And I think you will be extremely motivated to do what we tell you, after you see something very shortly.”

Jonathan did not like that last sentence, not one bit