Sweetness in the Dark

by W. B. Martin

  But even with no electrical grid, people’s cars and portable radios still worked. It was more of a party atmosphere as everyone made do until the lights came back on. The population boom nine months later attested to the entertainment choices most were doing in the dark.

  This time was different. When all the electronics died, the darkness brought fear and violence. America had changed significantly since the 1980s, and not for the better.

  Gangs quickly established themselves as they raided the stores for food. Gun battles ensued as rival gangs shot it out for territory in the dying city. The citizens that could leave, quickly packed up anything that rolled and headed out of the city.

  Unfortunately for them, the more rural areas anticipated the crush of people and set up defensive positions to stem the tide. With limited food for themselves, the Northeast quickly turned into anarchy. The death toll was staggering.

  As New Yorkers pressed north, people in Connecticut fought to stop them. As Connecticut ran out of food, the flow headed further north into Massachusetts and then Vermont. When the hoard finally hit northern New England, it ran into a well-organized resistance.

  Locals in the far north were well armed and fought hard for their survival. The concept of America was gone. Even a concept of fellow New Englanders was crushed in the melee.

  Now people thought of themselves in terms of their local towns. Tribal politics ruled supreme as each locale fought to stay alive. Upstate New York and western Pennsylvania fought similar battles against the urban invaders. Everyone knew that with very limited food, rural areas could not absorb more mouths to feed.

  The refugees would die of starvation, if not by depredation. Roving gangs worked over the crowds of desperate people until they too ran out of food. Soon quiet prevailed in the formally urban areas of the eastern United States. The few remaining survivors had stayed out of the death zone and had enough stored resources to make it.

  Johnny Chang was one of those resourceful thugs. As a leader of a Chinese gang before P-Day, he was smart enough to pull his troops together and gather supplies as soon as the lights went out. Then he moved his forces down onto lower Manhattan.

  With water on three sides, he set up a defensive line across the island of Manhattan. Anyone caught behind these lines was quickly eliminated, unless they were useful.

  The last four months had been hard work, but he had accomplished the greatest score anyone in the world would ever see. He just had to make good the escape to enjoy his booty. He would be able to afford the finest in female companionship. He just had to maintain his position and wait. And waiting was what he was doing.

  “Any word yet?” he asked.

  “None, Johnny. It’s like they disappeared out there. They were due today,” the radio man said.

  “Keep trying. I’ll go down to Battery Park and see if anything is happening.”

  The park at the end of Manhattan was a quick three block walk from his headquarters. He half jogged over to his guards that had binoculars out watching the harbor.

  “Anything?” Johnny asked.

  “Nothing. Let me check Batman?” his lieutenant said. He picked up the field phone and cranked the lever. He spoke into the receiver. “Batman. Johnny’s here. Anything?”

  “All’s quiet,” Batman answered. Johnny looked up at the derelict high-rise on the water’s edge. He had his troops string telephone wire up to the top floor and Batman was one of the lookouts.

  Johnny turned to leave in frustration. Just then the phone rang and his guard picked it up. Then he handed it to Johnny.

  “Johnny, Batman. I just spotted a ship on the horizon. It’s making for the Verrazano Bridge.”

  It had arrived. Soon his troubles would be over. No more running this gang of nitwits and wondering where the next meal would come from. That’s all they were concerned about. Basic animal desires.

  And violence too. He worked hard to keep rival cliques in the gang from tearing into each other, especially once the female opportunities dried up. They had gotten more and more violent since then. But that would be all over soon. Time to get things in gear, he thought.

  He jogged back to headquarters to tell his other lieutenants to get ready. Things were about to get busy as four months of hard work was about to pay off.

  Jogging back to the park, he could see the freighter now. It came up the harbor with its crew working the ship. Without any tugs to assist them, the freighter would have to dock on its own.

  Johnny jogged over to the west side where the first dock on the Hudson River awaited their charge.

  “Everything ready?” Johnny asked his dock lieutenant.

  “Everything is in place. The tide is good and there’s no wind. Should be a piece of cake,” the dock operator answered. Johnny wasn’t sure where this Chinese gang member learned the ways of docking a ship, but it didn’t matter. Just get that ship tied up and the goods could flow.

  The freighter slowly approached the dock and started its swing into position. As the bow came close to the end of the dock, a small line cascaded down from the big ship. The crew on the dock grabbed it and pulled. A larger line soon appeared and ran down the side of the ship.

  Very slowly the ship inched forward into place. A stern line soon appeared and another dock crew pulled that one down and threw it over the bollard. With the bow and stern tied off, the freighter settled up against the dock.

  The ship’s crew lowered the gangway down onto the dock. Johnny sprinted up the side of the ship and was met at the top by an Asian man. He spoke in Chinese.

  “Are you Mr. Chang?” the man with a heavy Mandarin accent asked.

  Johnny was taken back. He knew some Chinese from his parents speaking it at home, but he hadn’t bothered with it much since leaving home. This was America and English worked fine. The only time he spoke Chinese now was to give orders in Chinese to his gang so others wouldn’t understand.

  “Ah, yes. Are you Mr. Wong?” Johnny said in Chinese. His hesitations were noticeable to the other man.

  The other man switched to English. “It appears you have been too long in America. I can switch to English if that would make it easier?”

  Johnny was relieved, but he realized that where he was headed he would need to improve his Chinese. But hell, good-looking babes understood the language of money, he thought.

  “English is good,” Johnny said. “Any trouble coming in? We picked up your radio, but then it went dead.”

  “No trouble. It’s just this piece of junk that they hired. It’s amazing this ship made it across from Panama. You’d think they’d get a more reliable freighter considering what we’re picking up,” the Chinese man said.

  Johnny agreed. He studied the man in front of him. Something was off about him. Johnny couldn’t put his finger on it, but this Chinese man didn’t quite set right with him. Johnny chalked it up to thug recognition. He was very perceptive at recognizing fellow thugs, and this guy didn’t come across as a thug.

  Oh well, maybe the Chinese sent out one of their big mucky wonks, he thought. Considering the value of the cargo, that would make sense.

  “So, shall we go inspect our load?” the man asked.

  “Right away, sir,” Johnny answered. He decided he’d better improve his manners if this was ‘Mr. Big’.

  The two of them walked down the gangway and onto the dock. Johnny headed east the few blocks to headquarters. Walking into the massive building, the Chinese man stopped and looked up.

  “Federal Reserve Bank of New York,” he read aloud. “That has a nice ring.”

  Inside, they walked by four well-armed guards and took the stairway down the six flights to the gold vault. The small green corridor leading up to the vault door was in shambles. Debris lay everywhere.

  Johnny and the man walked by two more armed guards who snapped to attention like they’d seen in the movies. The Chinese man smiled at the ineptness of the guards attempt at a military bearing.

  But the man stopped smiling when
he saw the hole that had been jackhammered through the vault wall. A twenty-foot-long tunnel about four feet high had been chiseled into the concrete and steel. The man stopped and just stared.

  “Took us four months of jackhammers and cutting torches to get through this sucker. Had to scrounge up the compressor and a generator to get it done. But take a look at this,” Johnny said and led the man into the vault.

  The Chinese man looked dumbstruck. Johnny smiled at the man’s shock at seeing billions of dollars in bullion staring him in the face.

  “Check this out. When I did a tour of this place before it went in the crapper, just this stack was worth $800 million. Just this one stack. Man, there must be forty or fifty stacks just like it in here,” Johnny said.

  “These doors all have a country listed on them. What’s that?” the Chinese man asked.

  “Well, they told me that each country had a separate holding vault in the main vault. So if say Germany had to pay France, they would call up the bank and they simply moved the German gold out of one vault and placed it in France’s vault.”

  “Amazing. And now it’s all ours,” the Chinese man said.

  “You’re right there, Mr. Wong,” Johnny said.

  “Well, I assume you have worked out the best way to move it to the ship?”

  “We’re ready. It’s going to be a lot of hard work, but I think we’ve got a system down.”

  Johnny’s system involved a generator to run the elevator to take the gold up to street level. Then the gold would be moved by hand out the front door to two old trucks they had found that still ran. The trucks would deposit the gold on the dock and the crane on the ship would hoist it aboard and lower it into the hold.

  * * *

  Three days of hard work completed the move. Mr. Wong had pulled out some refreshments from the ship’s supplies that made the gang work harder. They had grown tired of the same old diet and Mr. Wong knew how to put on a spread.

  Johnny had insisted that he place four of his men on the ship as guards. Mr. Wong had made no protest. Johnny felt more at ease with the Chinese man. Letting him protect his goods was critical to Johnny, no matter what. There was little honor or trust between thieves.

  And this score was too big to trust to anyone. In fact, on the third day, Johnny asked for his stateroom on the ship. He wanted to stay close to the gold.

  At last Mr. Wong informed Johnny that it was time to bring in his men so they could sail. A collapsing perimeter was worked out, in that Johnny’s thugs would move step by step to the freighter.

  * * *

  “OK, bring in the next four,” Mr. Wong told Johnny as four men climbed the gangway onto the ship. They had been at it since early morning. Four men at a time would move toward the ship and the remaining men would move to new buildings closer to the dock.

  “This will take all day, Wong. Can’t we speed it up and get out of here?”

  “No, we need to maintain security around the dock or any rival gang that got wind of our operation will move in,” Mr. Wong said.

  Johnny considered that and he had to agree. Word had leaked out that the Federal Reserve Bank’s gold vault had been breached. His territory had been probed repeatedly since. It was only a matter of time before the other gangs in the area reached an alliance and attacked. He couldn’t get out of New York City fast enough.

  “Alright. I’ll go down onto the dock myself and make sure we continue doing this right. No funny business, though, while I’m off the ship Wong. I go where the gold goes.”

  “Everything is safe. You have more men on board than I do now. The balance of power is in your hands. Let’s just finish up and get out of here,” Wong said.

  Johnny couldn’t agree more. He sprinted down the gangway and pulled his two top lieutenants in to meet. The perimeter was now confined to three blocks surrounding the ship. The last movement would have to be strictly coordinated.

  A noise behind him caught his attention. Turning he saw black smoke bellow from the freighters stack. He began to panic, thinking the ship was leaving. He looked up at the flying bridge and saw Mr. Wong standing there waving. He motioned to Johnny that the ship had to work up its engines and they would be ready to leave in thirty minutes.

  Good. Let’s go, Johnny thought. He checked with his team that the final plan was well understood. The last two men would stay on the dock to release the lines to free the ship. They were to then sprint to the gangway before the ship drifted down the harbor. It was explained that if they missed the ship, they would be left behind.

  Soon the ship was ready. Mr. Wong gave Johnny the thumbs up to start the final moves. Johnny tapped his lieutenants on the shoulder and walked quickly to the gangway. As he climbed the long stairs up to the main deck he was caught by four men sprinting.

  Johnny looked down and could see four more men running across the dock. All held weapons of one sort. As he reached the top of the gangway, the guard acknowledged his arrival.

  The guard barked, “Four more to show to their staterooms.”

  A Chinese man in sailor’s clothes came out from around the corner and bowed to the four men to follow him. His job was to show the ‘landlubbers’ the quickest way through the maze of corridors that made up the living quarters of the freighter.

  Johnny watched them walk down a covered companionway, turn and disappear. He made a mental note to check on his men. He had been so busy watching the gold loading from the bridge that he had overlooked his leadership duties. A leader of a pack of thugs had to keep them under control - the ‘Alpha’ dog theory of life, he recalled from somewhere.

  “Everything is ready. The two hands to handle the lines are set. Pull everybody in,” Wong ordered.

  Johnny stood on the flying bridge and signaled. Soon the final twelve men sprinted for the ship. Two broke off to tend the lines. When the other ten were near the main deck, the dock hands pulled the lines free and instantly sprinted for the ship. The freighter slowly began drifting away from the dock downstream. Jumping the small gap, the last two gang members grabbed the gangway’s hand rail and ran up the steps.

  Mr. Wong signaled the engine room for reverse engines and the ship inched out into the Hudson River. Johnny relaxed. He had done it. He had made the biggest heist in world history.

  The freighter soon passed under the Verrazano Bridge and met the rolling swells of the Atlantic Ocean. Johnny had never been on the ocean before, and today wasn’t a good day to start. As the big ship cleared land, the swells grew and the ship took on a decidedly uneasy rocking.

  “You don’t look to good. First time at sea?” Mr. Wong asked.

  “Yeah, but I’m fine.” Johnny retorted. But he wasn’t fine. His stomach quickly revolted at the motion the ship was experiencing. Johnny decided he’d better save face. He didn’t want to lose it in front of Wong. “But the last three days have just about killed me. Maybe I’ll go catch some sleep.”

  “Good idea,” Mr. Wong said.

  Johnny thought he saw a smile form on Wong’s face as he headed off the bridge. Even the helmsman seemed to have a subtle grin showing. What was that all about? he thought. Sailors making fun of landlubbers.

  Sleep washed over him in his stateroom as soon as he lay down. The strain of pulling off the gold heist coupled with the motion sickness knocked him flat.

  Chapter 28

  Off the Coast of New Jersey

  Johnny Chang woke with a start. He looked around the stateroom and was momentarily confused as to where he was. Then he remembered. Safely out to sea with maybe a trillion dollars in gold underneath him.

  Life was good. He had his gang on board. Over four hundred ruthless well-armed thugs, and they answered to him. He wasn’t sure how many sailors Wong had, but he doubted that he even had a hundred men to operate his ship.

  Yes, life was looking up. He could commandeer the ship anytime he wanted. The hell with China and its dreams of a socialist workers paradise. Johnny looked out for his number one worker. Him. There was no social
ism in his gang. Totalitarianism was the name of the game. And he was the ‘Alpha dog’.

  He stood up on the deck and stretched. He felt like a new man. The sea sickness he had experienced earlier seemed to be gone. Johnny noticed curtains on the side of the stateroom and he pulled them back revealing a porthole.

  Johnny looked out at what he thought would be an open sea. His heart froze at what he saw. Running right beside the freighter was the biggest aircraft carrier he had ever seen. And if that didn’t make him freeze, the cruiser following behind the carrier did.

  He turned and looked forward. He could see the stern of a destroyer with a helicopter landing on its small flight deck. What the hell? he wondered.

  Johnny threw the door open and raced up the stairs headed for the bridge. Mr. Wong better have a good explanation as to why the U.S. Navy was shadowing the ship, he thought.

  As he came through the doorway onto the bridge, four large strong arms grabbed him. He fought to free himself, but before he knew it, he was on the deck and handcuffs were ratcheted onto his wrists. He was searched and his hand gun was removed from the holster in the small of his back.

  He looked up as two large Marines pulled him to his feet. He was flabbergasted. He squirmed to get free as Mr. Wong entered from the flying bridge.

  “Wong, what the ‘f’ is happening?” Johnny screamed.

  Suddenly three more men walked in from outside. Two civilians and one in uniform.

  “Mr. Chang, let me play host here,” the uniform said. “I’m Major Lewis, U.S. Marines at your service. My companions here are the governor of Idaho and his assistant, Dr. Paul Kendall.”

  “What are you doing on my ship?” Johnny asked. “This is international waters and we’re on a foreign flagged ship. Mr. Wong, tell him.”

  “Ah, yes. Mr. Wong,” Major Lewis said. “Well, let me introduce you to David Chin, Ensign, United States Navy.”

  Johnny slumped down as the two Marines fought to keep him standing. Johnny suddenly remembered and perked up a bit.