Autumn (Four Seasons Book 1)

by Robert Sullivan

  Jared glanced down at the message and his face whitened. The National Guard was on its way. He did not have time to waste trying figure out if they knew they were robbing the Federal Reserve; his time was up.

  The last of the gold was being loaded onto a dolly, but Jared shouted, “Leave it! We’re out of time.” The soldiers obliged, but took the time to take one bar each that they would carry up manually. Jared allowed it; it was hard to pass up an opportunity to take something that was worth half a million dollars when it only weighed a couple dozen pounds, albeit a dense couple dozen pounds. They rushed out of the vault, only pausing long enough for Jared to throw a fragmentation grenade back into the vault. He reasoned that if he could not take the gold, he could at least try to damage it.

  The other Black Hand soldiers were mostly free from taking gold and obliged when Jared told them that they were done. Soon, all of Jared’s soldiers were out of the building and into the trucks.

  Jared did not know exactly how much gold they had taken, but whatever the amount, he was glad that he had gotten the SUVs they were in were reinforced to take on the extra weight of the gold. Once he saw all of his forces were into the vehicles, he shouted, “To the rendezvous point! NOW!”

  The driver obliged and streaked off to the north, while all of the other vehicles scattered. They were going to drive in all directions through the city before they converged on a garage at different times. The garage had been built into the backside of the restaurant the Black Hand operated in Midtown, so Jared could store the gold in one of the rooms in his secret basement. No one except the other Black Hand knew it was there so he reasoned it would be safe to keep it there.

  The SUV screamed northwards, not giving any regard to their speed. The city around him had grinded to a halt; there was no one driving the streets and they were no people walking the sidewalks. The lack of people was unnerving to Jared. If the National Guard got into the city and time and saw that they were the only people driving around, it was raise suspicions. Even with the reinforcing, the SUV was sagging dangerously and it would be obvious that it was carrying something very heavy.

  As they made their way into Midtown, smoke began to fill the air. This eased Jared’s tensions somewhat; it would be difficult for them to be spotted with the reduced visibility. Soon they had pulled around to the backside of the restaurant where the garage was located and were safely inside. Jared leaned back into his seat and breathed a heavy sigh of relief; his truck was at least safe.

  The soldiers got out of the vehicle and started taking the gold down to the designated room. Jared joined them; it took his mind off of worrying about the status of the other trucks. Soon, the gold had been unloaded and was standing in a neat pile in the room. Jared stayed in the room as the other soldiers milled around, waiting for more work to be done.

  Within minutes, another truck had arrived and there was more gold ready to be unloaded. Jared rushed up to the driver and asked, “Were you seen?”

  “No, we weren’t,” the driver said as he got out of the truck. “No one could see anything through the damn smoke.”

  Jared was beginning to regain his abrasive persona as his nerves from robbing the vault and transporting the gold began to settle. “Good. Get to work on unloading the gold. I’ve got a call to make.”

  The driver nodded as Jared went back down into the basement. He was not going to make a call, but he did have to contact some people. As he continued to calm down, he had decided he wanted a status report from the other borough commanders as to the extent of the attacks in their specific locations. He sent a message to all five of them to be ready for a video conference call that evening. Normally he would make them travel to him, but with the National Guard moving in to enforce the curfew, it would be too risky.

  All five of them responded affirmatively to the set time. Jared left the room and saw Juanita, staring at the gold in shock. “Where did you get all that?” she asked in quiet amazement.

  “We took it,” Jared said simply. He had not been shy about what he told her in the past and he saw no reason to start now.

  Juanita did not reply, probably sensing that pushing further might be dangerous. Jared left her to it and went back to the garage to await the arrival of the remaining trucks.

  Over the next hour, the remaining trucks trickled in. Occasionally, Jared looked outside to see if they were being watched, but being so close to the park the streets were empty of people and the smoke was too dense for anyone to see where the trucks were going. Once the final truck made it into the garage, Jared closed the door and put a hard lock on it; no one was getting in without blowing it up first.

  The soldiers had been told they would be spending the night at the facility before being allowed to go back home the next day in small groups so as to not raise suspicion. Knowing it would be a long night otherwise and that they had earned it, someone had suggested to Jared that they stuffed the basement with alcohol and other amenities to reward them for the successful heist. Jared had obliged, though he had refused to pay for it himself, suggesting instead that they steal it.

  The last of the gold had been loaded up and tucked away in the designated room. Jared had instructed that once this had been done that the room be locked and guarded at all times. He had the code for the door lock himself so only he would be able to get into it when the time came to flood the black market with the ill-gotten gold, or ransom it if the original owners were desperate enough.

  Jared locked the door and turned to see the soldiers had gathered around him, waiting for their next instruction. He looked at them and said, “Do whatever the fuck you want.”

  The soldiers cheered at this release and immediately went after the alcohol that had been placed in the storage room for their convenience. Jared left them to it; his conference call would be starting soon. On top of that he had not had alcohol in years, having had a bad experience with being drunk and swearing off from it after that.

  Jared disappeared into the room with the gigantic video screen with which he would conduct the conference call. He sat down and kicked his legs up on a table that sat in front of the TV and began scrolling the Internet to find stories about his attack. He cracked a smile looking at the headlines; the media was having a field day with the scale of the carnage his people had launched on the stricken, hapless city. Politicians were already blaming everything they could, from the Task Force to the emergency services for breaking down to the governor for not calling the National Guard sooner. There was no mention of the robbery yet.

  Jared felt a buzz in his pocket from the special messenger. He pulled out the phone, eager to see what praise his mysterious boss would heap on him for pulling off the biggest crime spree in the history of the city. It was surprisingly short though, saying, “You have exceeded expectations. You have permission to begin expanding around the country. Good luck.”

  There was no more to the message than that, leaving Jared feeling vaguely disappointed. It was a start to be sure, but he would not be able to do anything in New York with the National Guard in town at the moment. Expanding to the rest of that nation will at least give him some leg room to get away from the box he was trapped in.

  The video screen turned on at that moment, driving Jared from his reverie. The five borough leaders came online, letting Jared distract himself from the mild disappointment he was feeling.

  Not wanting to waste time, Jared pointed at Julia and said, “You, start.”

  Julia sighed and said, “We caused massive property damage throughout Queens. Some of my more, uh, aggressive block commanders apparently took it upon themselves to execute random people though.”

  “Were these people targeted for a specific reason?” Jared asked.

  “Not from what my subordinates and I could tell,” Julia explained.

  Jared scratched an itch on the back of his neck. “I don’t give technically give a fuck about the people they already killed, but there are not to be any executions for the time being. Not whil
e the fucking city is occupied.”

  “I will tell them,” Julia said, visibly relieved.

  “Ethan, I already know what you did,” Jared said, moving down the line.

  “The news report said I may have killed over a thousand people,” Ethan said smugly.

  “And I stole billions of dollars worth of gold,” Jared cut across him. “Shut up for now,”

  Ethan looked crestfallen, but did not speak again. The next borough commander up was a grizzled looking man named John Baxter. His command was over Staten Island, which had fewer people to terrorize, but also a large area to conceal Black Hand activities, given it was the least densely populated borough. John was known to be very selective about his targets and Jared knew that anything he would tell him about, it was for a good reason.

  “What have you been up to, Baxter?” Jared said. He was one of the few people not intimidated by John’s harsh appearance. To his credit, John was also one of the few people Jared could not scare into submission either.

  “I damaged the ingress and egress points onto the island,” John said shortly.

  “Speak something those of us who weren’t in the military can understand,” Jared barked.

  “I attacked and destroyed the ferry ports on the island,” John replied tonelessly. “I also damaged the bridges by tearing up the asphalt on them to the point that they can’t be driven on.”

  “That’s it?” Jared demanded.

  “I cut off the borough almost entirely from the outside world. The National Guard won’t be able to get here until the damage I caused is repaired and during that time, I have free rein to kill, rob, and pillage as I please,” John said harshly.

  Jared understood why John had targeted the ferries and bridges now. He nodded curtly and moved on to the next borough commander, Timothy Armstrong. “What’s your excuse?” Jared demanded.

  “I didn’t do anything like that, but I did cause millions in property damage and specifically targeted emergency services vehicles to cripple them in this part of the city,” Timothy explained. “My body count wasn’t that high.”

  “Whatever,” Jared said. The last borough commander, Janice Hahn of Brooklyn was next.

  Janice sensed she was up and said, “I didn’t go for property like everyone else did here, unless we were stealing it. I went after people. There were a lot of beatings, a few murders, things of that nature.”

  “To each their own,” Jared said. “Now it’s my turn to talk.”

  The borough commanders looked interested as Jared explained. “We stole several hundred bars of gold from the Federal Reserve, along with taking the lives of dozens of guards in and out of the bank. We also killed the bank president. At the current value of four thousand dollars an ounce, the gold we have taken is worth well over a billion dollars, though I need to have it counted to get an exact number.”

  “The plan for the gold is to do one of two things, either sell it back to whatever country put it there like a dumbass, or sell on the black market to fund our operations. Either way, I’ll mark up the price on the gold by a literal fuckton. We will come out of this very, very rich. With that money, I aim to expand beyond the city.”

  “I have been in contact with some people that will help us with that. Once everything is finalized, we’ll start moving out of the city. For now though, keep everyone quiet. We cannot risk capture now that the city is under a military occupation. John, you can do as you please until the travel is reestablished into Staten Island,” Jared added.

  “I’ll make sure you are rewarded with some of the money from the gold sales as it comes in, for a job well done,” Jared said. The borough commanders were surprised; Jared had not been known to reward people before.

  “Are you okay?” Julia asked.

  Jared looked at her and said, “I’m fucking tired. It’s been a long ass day. This is a one-time offer, so you better take it while you can. I’m not going to be doing it again.”

  Julia nodded, which led Jared to say, “That’s it for now. I won’t call you to travel for the time being, so if I need to contact you, I’ll either call you or have you all do a video conference again. Now fuck off.”

  The screen went blank as Jared ended the conversation. He left the room and went to where he would be staying the night. He crossed the common area, where a depraved celebration was already starting. He stopped for a moment when he realized that something else was amiss about the scene. It took him a moment before he realized that his secretary was missing.

  “Where the fuck is Juanita?” Jared shouted over the din.

  No one replied. Jared, now thoroughly irate, thundered, “WHERE THE FUCK IS JUANITA?!!?”

  Chapter Eight

  Fallout

  Greg just stared at his computer screen. It was all had been doing since he had gotten to work an hour ago. Even a day after it happened, numb shock was all he could feel. The only other time he had felt like this was the day that Veronica had disappeared. Even though she had been close to his heart, the city he grew up made up a huge part of his identity. Greg could not believe his city had been so wounded.

  The office around him was silent as the grave. Most of his coworkers had not made it in, due to travel around the city being crippled by the damage of the attacks. Some, including Patrick, were missing in action. Those who had made it in were not talking or doing much of anything except watching the news or staring blankly into space. Many had silent tears rolling down their faces.

  Greg wondered if they felt guilt for letting this happen. He could not bring himself to fully blame them; as the size and scale of the attacks were beyond anything that could be properly imagined. Not many of them had been born yet when the September 11th attacks had occurred, so even they knew full way the harm done to New York on that day, they did not fully appreciate the pain of seeing their city suffer until now.

  There had not yet been a call for a press briefing to try to explain away this one yet. Even if there was, Greg knew what he was going to say. He would apologize to the city and the country for letting them down in such a grievous way. He would do his best to make amends, even though he knew there was no way he along could make up for the harm that had been wrought.

  Ashley suddenly appeared at his cubicle and asked, “Do you want something to eat?” She knew it was no good to ask if he was okay.

  Greg nodded glumly as the news had switched to a video of former President Barack Obama releasing a statement lambasting the agency for failing to do its job. He followed Ashley to the lounge area for the entire building that had a series of restaurants. Even the few people that were out here were subdued and two of the restaurants were not open because of the staff being unable to make it.

  Ashley got them both some sandwiches and they sat down in the far corner of the common dining area. The news was on in here too, either showing videos of the attacks as they occurred, reactions to it by random politicians, or how the cleanup effort was already underway. Greg did not look at them though; there was nothing new that he had not already seen since the attacks climaxed yesterday with the nearly total destruction of Central Park.

  As they were finishing their food, one of the news channels suddenly broke in with a new report: “This is breaking news, but we can now confirm that the Federal Reserve bank was robbed yesterday. There is not yet official confirmation that the robbery was in conjunction with the attack in Central Park, but officials say that it is likely that the park attack was a distraction for the robbery. We now go live to the Federal Reserve where Jillian Ryan is on the scene.”

  Even for the shock of the past 24 hours, this was simply too much, as Greg shouted, “Are you fucking serious?!”

  Nobody paid him any mind; they were thinking the same thing. The reporter appeared on screen in front of the Federal Reserve bank, where the entrance was sealed off by police barricades. The reporter started speaking, “We are told that the robbers ambushed the guards on surrounding buildings and then infiltrated the bank and vault, killing
or seriously injuring anyone they could find. Officials aren’t saying how much gold they took, only that it was a substantial amount. Now we have been told that there will be press briefing on the issue quote, ‘at an appropriate time’ because with everything else that has gone on in the city, there is too much for the city to handle right now.”

  Greg let his head fall in his hands. It was simply too much for him to handle. He knew that he and his fellow conspirators were going to try to stop these attackers, but this was beyond anything that they could have reasonably imagined.

  “What do we do now?” Ashley said, her voice quavering.

  Greg did not reply immediately. The only thing he could feel was numb. There was no room for any other thought or reaction to the latest revelation. Slowly though, a new feeling began to set in. His eyes burned as he said in a low voice, “We make the fuckers pay.”

  Ashley looked at him and said, “How though? This is too huge.”

  “I don’t know. But we can’t let this continue,” Greg continued, his voice hardening with every syllable.

  Ashley could sense the change in his voice and found it strengthening her as well. “What are you thinking?”

  Greg wiped his eyes and said, “First we clean out the rats in house.”

  Later that afternoon, Greg was back at his workstation, composing an email to send to Bob and the other conspirators. There was no way he would be able to get out to Hoboken to have another meeting anytime soon because of the curfew, but there were other ways that they could talk. He had resolved, however, to take a more active hand in the organization and he was writing to everyone to get that process started.

  Nobody paid any attention to what he was doing. When the news that the Federal Reserve had been robbed broke, many had left for the day, simply overwhelmed by it all. The only people that Greg knew to be here were Ashley, Charles, Christine, and the agency director Emma Drexel. The first three would be a part of his plan and the last was busy answering a series of angry phone calls from federal agents across all corners of the government. She would be too distracted to notice what he was up to.