Zach entered the restaurant and nodded at the manager. The manager glanced at him briefly then waved him off, allowing him to go downstairs. The rest of his platoon followed and soon they found themselves in the atrium. Zach led the way across the atrium and into the gathering space for the Black Hand. The previous shift noticed them walking in and got up to leave.
“Is there anything I should be aware of before you go?” Zach asked the leader.
The leader spat in the corner. “Nope. The boss was in here earlier, but he’s gone for the evening. It’s just you and shiny metal over there,” he said, pointing at the room with the gold.
“Good. Have a nice night,” Zach said.
“A nice drunk night,” the man grumbled. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
His platoon followed him out, leaving Zach alone with his platoon and the gold. They were due to stay there until midnight, which gave them plenty of time to transport the gold. The first thing they had to do, however, was put the security camera on a loop. They had not found where the cameras fed into, so they could not simply erase the footage from that day. They would simply have to trick whoever was watching on the other end that they were doing nothing by feeding it into a loop.
Zach nodded at his tech operator, who had stayed in the camera’s blind spot the entire time. There would be no need for whoever was operating the camera to be suspicious of the techie, whose name was Amanda, if he did not know she was there at all. She slid under the camera where the wires connecting it were located and cracked open a laptop.
“How long will it take?” Zach asked, not facing the camera so it looked like he was talking to the other guards. They had been instructed to look at him and not at Amanda to maintain the illusion that there was no tech person there at all. To the camera operator, it would just look like Zach was barking orders to his men.
“It will only take a couple of minutes. I need you all to get in position though and stay there so I can record a loop,” she explained, hotwiring the camera to her laptop.
The platoon obliged, following Zach’s instructions by taking up guard positions as they had the previous three times they had been down here. Once they were in position, Amanda hacked the camera and began the loop. She verified that it was working by looping every ten seconds before saying, “You’re clear, Captain.”
“Good. Let’s go ahead and breach the door now,” Zach said, pointing at the room that held the gold.
Two of the men moved towards the door, along with the techie. The door had a combination lock, which they would attempt to hack first. If that did not work, they would simply breach the door by breaking the hinges. Zach hoped that it would not come to that, however; it would undoubtedly create loud sounds that someone upstairs might think to investigate.
Though they had six hours left in their shift and much of that time was to be devoted to actually carrying whatever gold they could out of the vault. It was prudent that they breach the door in as short a time as possible. Amanda quickly determined the numbers that were used the most and went about trying combinations with those numbers trying to breach the door.
Within five minutes, Amanda had stumbled upon the correct code and the door lay open. Zach peered inside and confirmed that the gold was in there. He turned and looked at his platoon and said, “Take it up to the trucks.”
On previous guard shifts, Zach had gotten a good look at the fleet of trucks in the garage and determined which ones they would take the gold in. The keys were nearby and Zach had palmed them on the way down to their current shift. He gave the keys out to some of his platoon to go unlock the cars, then followed the rest of the platoon into the vault.
The gold bars were heavy, heavier even than Zach had anticipated. He realized it would slow them down, but then he noticed some carts on the side of the vault, apparently for transporting the gold out at some point. He made a wry smile; it was being transported, but earlier than the Black Hand had anticipated.
“Take those carts. We’re only taking one hundred bars,” Zach said.
“Why so few?” his adjutant David asked.
“Greg thinks that will be enough to get the Black Hand to tear itself apart,” Zach replied. “Apparently their leader is very unstable or some crap.”
“Do you think it will work?” David asked.
“I don’t know,” Zach replied shortly. “We can hope though. If not, we’ve robbed them of quite a bit of capital.”
“Right,” David said, picking up a bar. “Holy shit, this is heavy.”
“It’s dense,” Zach said. “Put it on the cart.”
“Yes, sir.”
The platoon worked about getting the requisite gold onto the carts and up into the waiting trucks. As of yet, no one else had come down to the gathering place to see what they were doing. Even though nothing official had been set that Zach was aware of, something might come up unexpectedly and they would be caught. They would have to fight their way out and that was not something he wanted to do in the slightest.
Utilizing the carts worked out better than Zach had thought. Within two hours, they had taken the amount of gold he had set out to take. As tempting as it was to take more of the gold, he knew that they would be overburdened if they tried. He shut the vault and gathered the platoon around him. Looking at his watch, he saw that they still had three hours left on their guard shift, but he had no desire to finish it in case someone came around and found the gold to be gone.
“We’re out of here in two,” Zach said. The platoon obliged, heading up the stairs to the garage. Within minutes, they were out on the street, heading for the rendezvous point that Greg had laid out.
Later that night, Zach had arrived in front of the Federal Reserve bank, where Greg was waiting on the front steps with the new bank president. Bob had worked tirelessly over the past two weeks trying to court friends in the local government as their vigilante activities would probably draw the ire of the authorities. When that had failed, they had turned to the reviled Fed and promised them a show of good faith to show that they had good intentions.
Greg saw Zach and the rest of the trucks pull up and breathed a sigh of relief. “What was that about?” the bank president asked.
“What we went through to show we don’t mean any harm was very, very dangerous,” Greg explained, ushering him over to the truck that Zach had gotten out of. “Did you have any trouble?”
“No. But if they want the rest of it, they need to move quickly before they realize what happened and try to move the rest of it,” Zach explained.
“Move what?” the bank president demanded, coming forward.
Zach reached back into the truck, pulled out one of the gold bars, and handed it to the president. His mouth fell open in shock at the sight of the precious metal and asked, “Is this...?”
“It is,” Greg replied. “Only one hundred bars of it.”
“Why…why didn’t you just tell us where it was?” the bank president asked.
“How many tips have you gotten that turned out to be bogus?” Greg asked. “This was to show that we knew what we were doing.”
“Where’s the rest?” the president demanded.
“In Midtown, under the Central Park Bar and Grill,” Greg explained.
The bank president nodded. “We need to move and take the rest now. You are right, they may try to move it once they realize that you took it. Do you mind if you stay and help secure what you’ve already taken?”
“We don’t mind,” Greg said, nodding at Zach. The lieutenant started ordering his platoon to start moving the gold into the Federal Reserve.
The bank president pulled out his phone and made a quick call. “We know where the gold is. We need to move now to secure it,” he said.
“Greg, are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Zach asked him.
“We couldn’t keep the gold ourselves,” Greg explained. “Giving it back to the Fed was the only thing I could think of that we could do.”
“Yeah, b
ut this is the Fed we are talking about,” Zach protested. “Are you sure they will let us operate without some kind of interference? Or even let us work at all?”
“We only need them to leave us alone long enough for the Black Hand to tear itself apart,” Greg replied smugly.
Later that evening, Greg was back at his apartment with the other Conspiracy leaders to revel in their success. There was a party type atmosphere as his guests were all jovial and loose with the help of alcohol. Zach had been invited to the party as well and was standing in the corner with David and Eric.
Greg went over to join them, eager to hear the finer details of the heist. Zach was already explaining the finer points that he had not been able to tell Greg earlier. “There wasn’t anyone down there with us the entire team we were in there robbing them. I mean, I guess they thought the camera would be good enough, but it was an old system from what Amanda tells me. I guess they concentrated so much on attacking, they didn’t focus on protecting their home.”
“Much to our advantage,” Greg said.
“Yes,” Zach replied. “Do you think this relationship with the Fed will work out?”
Greg sighed. “I’m not sure. But we weren’t getting anywhere with the local government and since the overall aim of the Black Hand is to expand anyway, it’s probably for the best that we get in with the national government.”
“I hope you know what you are doing,” Zach said.
“We do. But we’d appreciate your help if you were to stay on,” Greg replied.
“I think I will,” Zach replied, nodding and lifting his drink. “There’s real promise here.”
Greg turned to Eric. “Do you think the Black Hand will retaliate?”
“Probably,” Eric said darkly. “I can’t imagine they’ll take losing all that capital lying down.”
Eric suddenly pulled his phone out of his pocket, noticing that it was buzzing. He looked confused at the message and said, “I’m to report in immediately at the Staten Island ferry.”
“Does it say why?” Greg asked.
“No,” Eric said. “Wait, no here is another message. Oh, man, Greg your idea worked.”
“How?” Greg asked, confused.
Eric put his phone in his pocket and sighed. “One of the borough leaders has apparently committed treason and we’re to put his whole outfit down.”
Chapter Fifteen
Fracture
Jared walked into the restaurant and made his way downstairs to the gathering space. He had left some paperwork regarding the expansion plans in his office down there and wished to review them before activating the plans later that month. He was humming a song idly to himself when he got into the gathering space and saw that it was abandoned.
The gathering space was supposed to have a guard in it at all times, leading Jared to become quickly infuriated. “Where the fuck are the guards?!” he roared to no one in particular.
His outrage was replaced with a secondary emotion: fear. His subconscious seemed to realize what was going on even if he had not fully realized it. He ran over to the vault and punched the code in to open the door. Jared shoved the door open and saw that the gold was still there. He breathed a sigh of relief until he got a closer look at the gold. There was less of it than there should have been; a good fifth of it was missing.
Whoever the guards had been on the previous shift had pilfered some of the gold. Jared reasoned that they had taken what they could and left early. He rushed up to the garage as quickly as he could and saw that several of the trucks were missing and that the door was wide open as well. Through the open door, he could hear the wail of sirens picking up in all directions. He knew what they were converging on the gold, now that it had been found.
Jared had no other choice. He ran around to the other side of the building where he had parked his car and tore away from the restaurant. He had only gone two blocks when he saw the SWAT trucks turn the corner and make a beeline for the building. They did not impede him, however, and Jared took advantage of this to go back to his apartment.
Though he had to stop numerous times to get out of the way of incoming police cruisers and Federal vehicles, Jared eventually got back to his apartment building. He stumbled into his block and fell down on the couch.
After a few minutes, his messenger suddenly vibrated. He pulled it out to see his boss had messaged him, saying, “Call me. Now.”
Jared, though still stunned at what had just happened, picked up the messenger and dialed out. Instantaneously, the computerized female voice said, “My sources in the government tell me they found and recovered the gold. What happened?”
“One of the guard shifts that Blake had hired robbed some of the gold and tipped off the authorities I guess,” Jared said listlessly.
“And you let this happen?” the voice demanded.
“I had not vetted the guards Blake was hiring and didn’t verify they wouldn’t steal the gold,” Jared replied.
“Was it this Conspiracy you mentioned on your last message?” the voice asked.
“I don’t know, it might have been. You’re the one with the moles, didn’t they tell you?” Jared asked.
“They told me they had been approached by the Conspiracy, but turned them aside,” the voice replied. “They’ve found friends somewhere in the Fed then.”
“Don’t you have people in the Fed?” Jared demanded.
“Of course I do, but I don’t have them everywhere, Jared. I would remind you to watch your tone,” the voice said.
If it had been a real voice, Jared would have guessed that whoever was using it was furious. “What the fuck are we supposed to do now? We don’t have any resources left in the city.”
“Then move out of the city. Initiate the expansion plan,” the voice said. “Get everyone out of the city for now. New York has served its purpose.”
“What am I to do?” Jared asked.
“Stay in the city and coordinate the expansion. Keep whatever staff you need,” the voice said. “Don’t fuck this up or I’ll reconsider letting you stay in charge.”
This jibe infuriated Jared. “I’m the one who made the Black Hand! Not you! You can’t take what I’ve made!”
“Do what I said Jared or you’ll find out what I can do,” the voice said before the line went dead.
Jared sat up. He fumed for a few minutes before texting the borough leaders to make themselves immediately available for a video conference. Even though Jared no longer had access to the screen in the Black Hand headquarters, but he had a smaller one in his apartment that had been installed recently so he did not have to go out as much.
Within a few minutes, the borough leaders had acknowledged the conference call and were ready to start it. Jared turned on the TV and found all five of them there, looking rather harried.
Jared started to speak, paused, then started again. “I’m…I’m sure you’ve heard what’s happened by now. We’ve lost the gold.”
There was no surprise on the faces of the leaders as Jared continued. “It has been decided that for the time being, New York is no longer a viable place to stay. We’re initiating the expansion protocol now.”
“Who’s we?” John demanded.
“That doesn’t fucking matter you insubordinate prick!” Jared shouted.
“Actually it does,” John replied coldly. “I followed you under the impression that you were in control of the Black Hand. I’m not going to work for some puppet for some puppet master I can’t see.”
Jared glared at John as the latter continued, “You’re not fit to lead anymore. You’ve clearly had some kind of breakdown. I’m not going to take my men off of Staten Island to get spread out all over the fucking country for you. You’re done, Jared.”
John hung up, leaving his screen blank. Jared looked at the other four screens and said, “Is anyone else entertaining thoughts of treason?”
The other four borough leaders shook their heads. “We’re just ready to get out of the city,” Julia said.
“We aren’t leaving yet. I cannot expand our network with this trouble at home,” Jared said furiously. “Gather all of your people. We are going to lay waste to Staten Island.”
Julia sighed. She knew Jared would want to retaliate immediately with no regard to planning the operation or the consequences. “Jared, we can’t just destroy an entire borough of the city.”
“You wanna fucking bet?” Jared demanded.
“Look, I know the military has pulled out most of their people, but there’s still more than enough of them to kick our asses in if we tried to do something like this,” Julia explained.
“Not if they were distracted,” Ethan interjected.
“What do you mean, distracted?” Julia asked.
“The people moving our gold,” Ethan said. “They’re going to be vulnerable. I could attack them and lead the police on a merry chase all over the city.”
Before Julia could protest, Jared pointed at Ethan and said, “Do it. Now. Get the people you used to burn down the park.”
Ethan’s line went dead as there was nothing further to say and time was of the essence. Jared turned to the last three borough leaders and said, “The rest of you, get your people to the tip of the island right now. We need to seize a few ferries for ourselves.”
“Jared, we can’t kill everyone on that island,” Julia said.
“I’m not targeting civilians, but if they get in the way, I’m not going to stop advancing,” Jared said harshly.
“I meant our people on the island,” Julia countered. “If they surrender and turn on John, we should keep them.”
Jared took a deep breath to steady himself before saying, “Fine. We do need as many people as we can for the expansion plans and that won’t work if we lose half of everyone tonight. We need to minimize casualties as much as possible.”
Janice suddenly spoke up, saying, “My people aren’t all armed.”
“Do they know how to use weapons if they were to be given one?” Jared demanded.
Autumn (Four Seasons Book 1) Page 14