Kafka

Kafka
Personal
Affiliation	Mercenary
Career
Profession	Assassin

Kafka was the identity of multiple assassins active from at least the 3050s into the late Dark Age Era.

History

Kafka was responsible for dozens of high-profile murders, although it was theorized that their actual number of kills was much higher than what was publicly known.

Pinpointing the exact start of Kafka's career is impossible, but the first mention of the name was in 3052 when the CEO of a civilian aircraft manufacturer engaged in a bitter merger with another such company died in a "car crash". Records released decades later indicate that the car was more accurately blown to pieces by an armored vehicle that was later destroyed, the driver leaving no traces of DNA and no evidence behind save a first-edition copy of Franz Kafka's Betrachtung possibly left behind in error. One of the investigators opted to call the suspect "Kafka" in response and the name stuck, the investigation buried as the company merger went through in suspiciously quick time, netting billions to stock holders.

This assassination reflected Kafka's specific target market in the following years, not being employed by criminal enterprises but instead among the Inner Sphere's corporations and wealthiest people, an open secret that if you were rich enough and needed somebody gone, you hired Kafka, reprints of the works of Franz Kafka frequently being left as a calling card.

The name known only among law enforcement circles, the public became aware of Kafka following the death of Pat Thine on Solaris VII in 3059. A bookie managing one of the largest gambling syndicates on the Game world, Thine was arrested after hiring someone to kill the Solaris Police Department investigator in charge of the criminal investigation against him, admitting during questioning to hiring an assassin who called himself Kafka.

Though his lawyers tried to have the confession thrown out due to be allegedly acquired under duress, Pat Thine died in police custody the same day, his mouth sewn shut and his sizable bank accounts drained down to just thirteen C-bills. How Kafka achieved this task without detection remains unknown.

With his name in the public domain, when the news of Morgan Hasek-Davion's death broke in January 3060, numerous tabloid rumors claimed Kafka was behind the deed, at least until February 3060 when Alexa Mat, then chief financial officer of Yori 'Mech Works was assassinated by a Minolta 9000 Advanced Sniper System, the rifle left behind after the deed was done sitting next to a first-edition copy of Das Schloss.

In 3146 Kafka was a family of assassins, composed of the family's mother and her children Nîla, Scott, and the thirteen-year-old boy Dimitri. Dimitri was responsible for the assassination of an unnamed man on Mirage, dropping a copy of Franz Kafka's Vor dem Gesetz on the corpse. The family—minus Scott—then moved on to Kirbyville, where Dimitri poisoned Clan Snow Raven's Star Colonel Markus Cooper. In the aftermath, the family themselves were tracked by assassins hired by an unknown party. They were saved by Scott, who learned of the contract on his family in time to come to their rescue.

Bibliography

• Flying Kites (short story)
• Shrapnel Issue 2
• XTRO: Most Wanted