Arthur Kirkland was a notorious English spy. Stealing, recording, and blackmailing anyone to get to the top. He had many enemies naturally, it was near to impossible to not make at least one enemy in this profession, let alone many when you're this good at your job.
He was out on another case, steal the documents of a future business crisis for a major industry. The owner of this rival company, a frenchmen man named Francis Bonnefoy, often hired Arthur for undercover missions to steal the secrets of other companies. If this company got shut down, he would lose major part of his income. He knew other people would be on this case, but he didn't know any of them, so none of them seemed like a threat to his success in this case.
When he got there he parked a block away, so it won't be suspicious to see a random black car parked in front of the building that was naturally empty at this time of night and a mysterious man in a black suit getting out of it. He snuck in through the door on the roof, no cameras up there as far as he could tell, not many of the buildings like this do. He found the directions to the office where the documents were from the piece of paper Francis gave him. It was an easy find, and even easier to pick the lock, not very good security here. He began to rummage through the desk drawers, passing many similar looking documents to get to the one he needed to find. He finally found it in a locked drawer down toward the bottom of the desk. He stood back up after resealing the drawer when he saw a figure in the door.
The mysterious figure started towards him, Arthur back up as much as he could, but knocked into the bookshelf behind. This must have been another spy, everyone else was gone and the owner was away on a business trip until Saturday.
When the figure came closer Arthur instantly recognized him. "Alfred! What are you doing here?" He whined. Alfred F Jones was the first person to ever beat him in a case. It was years ago and neither of them have forgotten about it. He hadn't seen or heard much of him since last winter, but many said he was now out of business for whatever reason.
"Exactly what you think I'm here for." Alfred smirked and slipped the papers out of Arthur's hand, who was still shocked by the appearance of the previously retired spy.
Alfred slipped fake papers he had brought for an occasion like this into to his front pocket, knowing that that would be the first place Arthur would try to pickpocket them. He slid the real document into his inside pocket of his suit. "Thanks for the easy access, I didn't have to unlock any doors after you came in. I thought I told you to be more quiet with your entrances, you don't want the whole block to hear you?" He joked. He knew Arthur couldn't stand it whenever Alfred use to critique him. "Oh, and thanks for the papers too." He winked and disappeared around the corner.
It took Arthur a few seconds to finally get out of his shock. He followed after Alfred. "I thought you quit?" He asked catching back up to Alfred.
"How could I quit? It's too fun watching you fail." He went to his car, keys in his hand. He turned toward Arthur with a smirk on his face.
"Well I think it's more fun to watch you fail, personally." Arthur gently reached his hand into Alfred's pocket, wrapping his fingers around the papers. "Hopefully I won't see you again." Arthur gave a two fingered salute to Alfred and waved the papers in the other hand. He opened the documents to study his handy work. He stopped dead in his tracks when he realized the papers were a fake. "What the hell is this?" He yelled, stomping back up to Alfred.
"The papers, obviously." Alfred said, putting on a confused facade.
"Where are the real ones?" He threw the fakes on the ground and put both hands on either side of Alfred to prevent him from leaving.
"You have them. You won, fair and square." He opened the door and slammed it shut. He started the car and rolled down the window. "See ya later dude!" And with that he sped off.
"What the bloody hell was that?" He whispered to himself. He had gotten beaten by Alfred once again. And even worse he had to explain it to Francis.
Once he got back to Francis's house he went over what he was going to say in his head. None of the scenarios played out the way he wanted them to, so he just decided to tell him the truth.
"What do you mean someone stole it from you? You had it in your possession? You should have just left right after you got it you idiot!" Francis had been yelling at him like this for over a half an hour. He knew he deserved it, he failed him on one of his most important cases.
"Listen, we don't even know what he's going to do with it. He could destroy it, so it won't hurt anyone." He tried to reason with him once more.
"Who would destroy that, that has everything that could destroy my company in a single second. It's easy blackmail me to get me to do whatever they want, these documents could destroy every legacy I've ever built." He paused and took a deep. "You have to steal it back from him." He said in the most serious voice he had ever heard the Frenchmen use.
"How am I suppose to find him? He's probably the best spy out there, he knows every trick there is. I can't beat him!"
"Do it or I'll ruin your whole career with a single phone call. How much dirt do I have on you!" He whispered innocently, yet there was a twinge of undeniable sass in his voice.
He sighed. "It will be hard, but I guess I have no other choice." He felt completely defeated by both Francis and Alfred. There was no easy way out of this, it would probably be the hardest case he had yet.
"I'm glad you see it my way." And he turned out of the room, leaving him to regret ever meeting that imbecile of an American.
Finding him would be a tad bit tricky, but getting the papers out of him would most definitely be a challenge, he would just have to out wit Alfred. Everyone thought he was dumb at first and easily fooled due to his loud and obnoxious behavior, but Arthur knew different. Alfred used the foolish behavior to make his enemy believe he was an easy opponent to beat, then at the last minute bring out his mass intellect and cleverness to leave the enemy completely dumb founded, and wonder how they ever got beaten by him. Arthur was clever too, and caught on to Alfred's antics quickly, but still found himself out played by the American.
He figured out that he would have to get Alfred out of his spy like mentality and earn his complete trust. Even though he was smart, Alfred was a sucker for damsel in distress, so Arthur knew what card he had to play. Now all he needed to know was where his current location is.
He had one idea where Alfred might be right now. He knew that Alfred couldn't resist a good drink after a victory, no matter how small.
It was all falling into place.