Fortune

by Craig W. Turner

  And it did. They watched from up above at midnight when the police cordoned off areas of Times Square for the lines to begin, and by 1 a.m. helicopters were on the news showing lines of people extending around, through, and beyond Times Square, the longest ended up stretching up 7th Avenue and along the edge of Central Park as far as 70th Street. That was one of six lines.

  “This is going to be absolute bedlam,” Jeff had said, lying on his bed with the pillow and his head propped up against the headboard.

  Erica, lying in the same position on her own bed, also unable to get to sleep, had said, “But it’s really the only way to go if they want to get all of the cash in the country off the streets in a matter of days. Remember that there are tens of thousands of these collections around the country. These people chose to come here because of the party. They knew what they were getting into.”

  That had pretty much been the evening, the two of them laying on their separate beds watching 24-hour news in the dark. Sleep was a pipe dream, and around two they agreed they needed to turn off the television for a more serious attempt.

  Erica last remembered the clock on the television saying 2:14 a.m. before she fell asleep. She had no idea when Jeff had dozed off, though she did hear him give a half-snore at one point. With what they’d been through in the last 48 hours, it was amazing they both hadn’t fallen asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows. But who knew what day or time it was relative to when they’d started?

  Their morning had been all about preparation. Jeff had left early and done his best to walk across the Square to the area where they expected the truck to be. When he returned, he reported the scaffold was in place and that 43rd Street to the east, like a number of other streets, had been blocked off to ensure that trucks had room to leave the crowd. Second-guessing themselves, they tossed around the idea of trying to catch the truck along its route – away from the crowd at a stoplight, perhaps – but both of them were concerned about dragging some unsuspecting guard in the truck with them. Plus, there would be more security as the truck moved through the streets of the city. With the truck still in place, they’d have a better chance of timing it so that it would be full of money and devoid of people.

  The government reps would not begin physically collecting money until 10 a.m., which was about ten minutes from when they reached the crowd, but the trucks were already in place at their various locations, strategically positioned to best facilitate the flow of people. Jeff and Erica had seen on the news how the process would work: special counters had been created that could not only discern between bills of different denominations, but could weed out counterfeits and count at an incredible speed. “Like they hadn’t been planning this for a while,” Erica had said. A person cashing in would place their thumb onto a biometrics pad on the machine, which would spit out their personal information for them to verify, then the counter would automatically deposit their cash. Each person was given a transaction receipt breaking down the exact number of bills and coins that had gone into the machine, and any disputes were to be handled at satellite treasury offices in the coming weeks – though it was insinuated that challenges were not likely to win. People were advised to separate their cash into denominations and photograph it prior to putting it into the machine. The process per person, start-to-finish, would take about 45 seconds – give or take a few seconds for people who took longer to verify their information. Of course, if the biometrics information was wrong, those people had bigger problems to deal with.

  They’d said on the news that there would be approximately 60 stations in Times Square for people to deposit their cash. The news channel estimated that, mathematically speaking, that set-up could take care of roughly 115,000 people in 24 hours. From Erica’s perspective, that was probably a third of the crowd.

  The cash collected would be put into security bags which, once full, would be stuffed into the truck. Watching this happen, Erica and Jeff would be able to get a reasonable gauge as to when the truck would be as full as possible. Once a truck was full, it would take its escape route away from the crowd down one of several guarded escape routes, and would quickly be replaced with another.

  At least most of the trucks would.

  As they navigated the crowd, Erica’s biggest concern was getting separated from Jeff. While her partner had been casing the area in the morning, she’d been preparing the time device. She’d programmed the coordinates to land them about 14 hours after they’d left their present time – about 2 a.m. The device was in her pocket, and it was her responsibility to ignite it at the appropriate time – that being when her hand, Jeff’s hand, and the truck full of cash were in contact with it.

  She’d come to agree that it was more important to return to the present quietly than to make sure she got her flight. She would head back to California the following morning, charging the fare to the project. And while she hadn’t told Jeff yet, she justified that what she’d been through the past couple of days entitled her to a private jet. She would need that.

  The jump from the scaffold to the top of the truck frightened her. Not that she couldn’t make the jump – though it wasn’t a hop down, it was a real leap. But that moment provided the greatest opportunity for them to be separated. They had a split second to get things in order before the automatic rifles the cadre of guards was carrying would be pointed in their direction. It was an incredibly risky maneuver, and if somebody had asked her, she wasn’t quite sure she could explain how it was going to work.

  In addition, she was carrying Abby’s tablet over her shoulder, though she kept it under her coat to minimize its movement. She was sad for leaving their fancy clothes behind in the room, but they’d agreed it would be too much to carry, laughing at themselves for considering it.

  Now, though, with only a few minutes left before the lines started moving, Jeff led her slowly through the crowd. It was tough going, especially because there was a fair amount of normal tourist traffic in addition to the lines. Stores and restaurants offered “cash specials” for those wanting to hand over their paper money for the last time legally, and the Times Square atmosphere was half New Year’s Eve party, half Tiananmen Square. The mood of the crowd could’ve gone either way. She was happy they’d be leaving soon, and had to think that when she actually caught up to this present time in what she was thinking of as her ‘real time life,’ this would be the last place she’d want to be.

  With no vehicle or pedestrian traffic allowed down 43rd, they finally emerged from the crowd on 42nd and started around the block. While they were walking, they heard a siren that denoted the beginning of the collection drive, and a deafening roar went up from the crowd. Instinctively, they sped up their pace as though it would only take minutes for the first truck to be filled. They wanted that first truck. They’d discussed it, and felt the element of surprise would be there just that once as the process was being completed for the first time, and that might buy them an extra second or two.

  After a short walk, they ducked into a building that Jeff had scouted would lead through to 43rd and would deposit them almost exactly across the street from the scaffold. He’d seen guards at either end of the 43rd Street block, but no security in the middle at all, with enough entry foyers and bus shelters for them to find cover while crossing the street. In reality, there wasn’t much reason for the guards to suspect that someone was going to be attacking one of the trucks in the middle of the crowd and with an arsenal of security weapons at-the-ready. There was nowhere to go. At least not from their ignorant-to-what-was-possible perspective.

  A few moments later, they were through the building. Jeff poked his head out into the street. “It’s completely empty,” he said, and slipped out the door. Erica did the same, looking up and down the street herself.

  To her left, she could see the front of the armored car, with a glimpse of the barricaded crowd behind it. To the right, she could make out a guard on each side of the road, weapon drawn and awaiting any disturbance. They were lookin
g in the opposite direction.

  “Why do I feel like we could walk right up and get in the car?” she asked. It was her nervous attempt at breaking the tension.

  “It’s probably safer for us to go on the assumption it won’t be that easy.” For a lab geek, she thought he was pretty cool in the situation. Something she hadn’t expected. Maybe punching out Garvey had changed him.

  Perhaps to prove himself, Jeff grabbed her by the hand and darted across the street, disappearing into a bus shelter. The dark glass would keep them hidden from a distance, even if someone did happen to look their way. They were about thirty feet from the scaffold, which was, like most New York scaffolds, papered with playbills and advertisements for upstart bands and second-tier comedy clubs. There was no ladder, but Jeff had tested it the night before and felt that he could hoist Erica up, then jump and pull himself up to the first landing. She hoped he was right.

  “No time like the present,” he said, and once again pulled her by the hand. They inched along the side of the building until they were at the base of the scaffold, which was near the entryway for a deli that was fortunately closed for the big event. “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded and he interlocked his fingers to create a step for her. She stepped into it and they simultaneously lifted until she could grab the bar. She’d advised him that she wasn’t the strongest climber, but a surge of adrenaline helped her to pull herself up. A moment later, Jeff tossed his computer bag up to her before leaping and grabbing the rung holding up the scaffold, but he slipped and landed back on his feet. He ducked back into the entryway. Taking his cue, she sidled up against the second-floor window behind her to stay out of sight.

  Having attracted no attention, he made another run at it and was this time able to grab hold. She tried to pull his arms and didn’t have the strength, but he pushed his foot off of the adjoining pole to provide enough leverage to pull himself up. Once he did, they leaned against the building. Her heart was already pounding overbearingly, though they’d only completed the first step.

  “Alright,” Jeff said, out of breath himself. “We won’t be able to get too close to the truck without someone seeing us - especially people in the crowd. So it’s going to be a matter of running and timing.”

  “Great,” she said, handing him back his bag. He slung it over his shoulder.

  “You have the time device, so I’m going to have to get to you. I’m going to run interference.”

  “What do you mean, ‘run interference’?”

  “I’m going to go first. I’ll be the one to attract attention. What I need you to do is follow me, make sure you get on top of that truck and position the device on it.”

  “You’re going to be up there with me, aren’t you?” Was he going a different direction now?

  “That’s my plan. But I want to make sure that you don’t deviate from this plan regardless of what happens to me.”

  “You mean go without you?”

  Now, he turned to her and laughed. “Well, no, I hope not,” he said. “If anything happens and I can’t physically get to you, I need to somehow get my ass into that truck before you pull the trigger.”

  “Ah.”

  “But if you try to improvise and I don’t know what you’re doing, that might be for naught. See what I’m saying?”

  She nodded, instinctively pulling the device from her pocket and grasping it tightly in her hand. “Alright, I’m ready,” she said.

  Before she could react, Jeff leaned down and kissed her on the lips.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The kiss wasn’t pre-meditated. It just felt right at the time.

  Jeff thought he needed a little boost of testosterone for this project, and it seemed there was no better stimulus than the support and encouragement of an attractive woman. When he pulled away from her lips a moment later, he was immediately as surprised that he’d done it as she probably was.

  “What was that?” she asked, in a tone that was neither defensive nor appreciative. Almost as though the kiss was just something that happened during her day – a funny story for later.

  Still, he smiled. He tried to make it a warm, romantic smile, but it probably came across as a maniacal grin. “I needed some encouragement,” he said.

  “Okay.” She looked past him down the street. “So when do we do this?”

  Had the kiss not fazed her, or maybe it just wasn’t the time? Or maybe there really wasn’t a chance of this going anywhere, despite the excitement that surrounded them and the connection he felt they had. He thought about the evening before, about their conversations, though this really wasn’t the time. Could her insistence that he turn the time device in to the government folks really put that big of a wedge in between them? His male ego – particularly at a time when he needed as much male ego as possible - wouldn’t let him believe that she just wasn’t into him. She’d touched his arm and talked about canceling her flight. There had to be more to her reticence.

  But if his interpretation that she was thinking it just wasn’t the time was on target, she was right. He turned his attention back to the armored car, now about a football field’s length away. For that moment, the noise of the crowd had been non-existent in his ears, but now it was back in full force, and it was clearly having an effect on his thought process. Beyond the truck, he could see the backs of guards facing away from him, but the area surrounding and behind the truck was still empty of people.

  “I want to see some motion around the truck that would suggest it’s filling up,” he said to her, still looking down the street.

  “Like people getting ready to hop in and drive away? Won’t that be cutting it close?”

  “I think that’s our window of opportunity, though.”

  “Well, should we be closer then?”

  He tried to gauge how close they could get without being noticed, and saw a small alcove about a third of the way down, tucked in between two ornate windows. Without speaking, he inched down the wall, knowing she would follow. After a minute or so, he ducked into the alcove, Erica immediately behind him.

  “Okay,” he said. “This is home base.”

  He watched the truck closely from their new vantage point. The guards hadn’t moved – they appeared to have been instructed to stay put in front of the truck to absolutely nix any thoughts of a surge. They were almost robotic in their sentry positions, but with the street behind them clear, there wasn’t much chance of any aggression from behind. Besides, there were only two ways for a would-be thief to escape – into the crowd or down a narrow street. Neither was a viable option in their limited three-dimensional world.

  Over the next several minutes, the waiting game slowed down his heart rate. Which he really didn’t want to happen because he felt adrenaline would be important. He tried to focus on what he needed to do, hoping that it would cause some consternation for him that he could then translate into enthusiasm. It didn’t immediately, so he looked over at Erica. “I hate waiting,” he said.

  “You have a time machine. You shouldn’t ever have to wait for anything.”

  “That’s clever,” he said.

  He’d grown accustomed to the crowd noise by that point; it was just a loud din that surrounded them. That was important because of the way he thought about things. He didn’t like a lot of distraction – he wasn’t one of those people that listened to music while he was working. He needed quiet. Truth be told, even though he was antsy it was probably better that they’d had to wait so that he could desensitize himself to the noise. It would allow him to think clearly.

  “Look,” Erica said. He turned to see her pointing toward the far end of the block, where another armored car was backing onto the street, guided by one of the guards. “They must be getting ready to make a switch.”

  Jeff calculated. It had been about twenty minutes. Could the first truck be full already? He turned back to the truck parked at the mouth of the street near 6th Avenue. No action yet. “Maybe they’re just getting ready to m
ake sure it happens seamlessly,” he said.

  But no sooner had he said that than he started to see a commotion around the first truck. Two of the guards walked to the front of the truck. One of them appeared to be on a walkie-talkie type device, and waved down the street toward the other guards, who seemed to be way too far away to see him. Instinctively, Jeff pressed himself back against the wall, reaching over in front of Erica to encourage her to do the same. Though they were sufficiently hidden unless someone walked directly in front of them, it seemed more secure.

  As if by script, one of the guards walked up the left side of the car and opened the driver’s side door. His partner, the waver, returned to the rear of the truck to finish up the load. To their right, the other armored car slowly backed down 43rd.

  “This is it,” Jeff said. “Are you ready?” The thump was back in his chest.

  He heard her start to say something, but then he decided that they only had a moment to take advantage of the situation. It was the waving that tipped him off. Why did the guy need to both wave and talk on the radio? With the first truck of the morning, they would not have their procedures perfected. It was the best chance of there being holes in the security. And they most certainly would not be expecting an ambush.

  He started to run along the scaffold.

  His footsteps pounded heavily on the wooden platform, so loudly that he didn’t know if Erica was following behind him. About halfway to the truck he realized that if she wasn’t behind him, he was cooked, so he looked over his shoulder to see. She was, though she wasn’t keeping his pace, trailing about thirty or forty feet behind. It was okay, though. He wanted to make sure any attention they got was on him.