Autumn (Four Seasons Book 1)

by Robert Sullivan

  Jared got up to look outside at the rain again. It was creating a brooding mood for him and melancholy was beginning to set in. He needed to get out and do something soon, hopefully something that would end the Conspiracy.

  The phone on the other side of the room suddenly began to ring. Jared went over to it and saw that Vincent was calling. He answered it with an eager, “Hello?”

  “Jared, we have something on the investigation. Do you want me to come there or do you want to meet me out here?” Vincent said quickly.

  Jared looked at the rain again. Despite being cooped up in the apartment, he had no desire to go out in the deluge. “Come here with what you have,” he replied.

  It took two hours for Vincent to reach his apartment, which did not help Jared’s temper. When he did enter the room, Jared shouted, “What the hell took you so long?!”

  “Traffic,” Vincent said simply. He turned back and shouted, “Get in here!”

  Jared was perplexed as a short, balding man walked in. Before Vincent could say anything, the man said, “My name is Stan Finch. I’m a private detective your firm hired to identify some people.”

  “My firm? Do you know who I am?” Jared said indignantly.

  “I don’t really care as long as I get paid,” Stan said. “Anyway, if I may, I have some things to show you,”

  Stan held up his laptop and Jared let him into the apartment to get set up. As Stan was getting settled, he said, “It took a while to get a lead on the people who were in that warehouse you stashed Hensen in. I, uh, had to use some persuasion tactics to get some people to talk that would have otherwise been unwilling to talk.”

  Jared raised his eyebrows, intrigued. “What did you have to do?”

  “I have my ways,” Stan said. “The less I say, the less I incriminate myself.”

  Jared nodded, suitably impressed. Stan finished getting his laptop ready and said, “Okay, here we go.”

  A picture of a large man was on the laptop screen. The man raised a gun and struck the camera with the butt of his gun, at which point the feed went dark. “That man is named Zach Gates. A former Marine, he apparently has his own fighting force that works in tandem with the Army. To the best of my knowledge, he’s working with the Continentals as the head of its…well, militia I believe,” Stan explained.

  “So if he is the head of their militia, if we take him out then the…wait, what did you call them?” Jared asked, distracted.

  “The Continentals,” Stan said. “They aren’t calling themselves the Conspiracy anymore apparently.”

  Jared could not miss the symbolism in the name change. “I want them destroyed. Will taking out this Gates bastard do it?”

  “I don’t believe so,” Stan said. “From what my sources told me, there is an entire leadership council for the Continentals. Zach isn’t even the leader of the whole thing, he’s just on the leading committee is all.”

  “Damn it!” Jared shouted. “How soon can you find out who is in this council?!”

  “I need more names,” Stan said. “I need another way to get to the council, because even if we capture or kill Zach Gates, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to get to the rest of their leaders through him. In my experience, military types are extremely resistant to my kind of interrogation. It’s a glaring problem, I know, but I make do.”

  Jared thought for a moment, but said, “Hang on a sec, I think I know who I can ask.”

  Jared went to the other room and pulled out his phone. For what he wanted to find out, he would not be able to contact the Globalist Master. As dangerous as it was, he would have to ask Liam Hensen for any information.

  The call connected after a couple of rings. “You better have a damned good reason to be calling me,” Liam said. “I’m about to start a rally.”

  “Good for you, I just need to know if you know of anyone related to the Continentals?” Jared said quickly.

  “The what?” Liam said impatiently.

  “The Conspiracy. They apparently changed their name,” Jared replied.

  Liam sighed. “I probably should have mentioned this sooner. I ran into someone when I was in town for the Fourth. He apparently used to be part of the Conspiracy before it was hijacked from him and he left. The man’s name was Bob Pates. He can probably help you. But you’ll need to be careful; he told me that the…Continentals…are getting secret help from the Fed.”

  Jared was stunned at this knowledge, but he recovered and said, “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll talk to you again after the election.”

  “Yeah, I’ll probably need you to do something for me…no matter the result,” Liam said, hanging up.

  Jared walked back into the room and said, “I’ve got a name for you to look up. Bob Pates. Apparently, he used to be a part of the Continentals. He might have information on them we could use.”

  Stan nodded. “I’ll need to get back to you on that one. It’s a big city so this may take some time.”

  “I want to get this done before the election,” Jared said.

  “Why then?” Stan asked.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Jared said. “I’m going to double whatever you are being paid. Since you are heavily involved in the Black Hand, I figure you can use an extra incentive in case you get cold feet.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Stan said. “As long as you let me continue to use my preferred interrogation tactics, I’ll be content.”

  “I encourage you to keep up that kind of activity,” Jared said. “I need that information as quickly as possible.”

  “Relax, the election is thirteen weeks away,” Stan said, packing up his equipment. “That’s more than enough time for me to do what I need to do.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The Bait

  The cooler air had retreated back to the north as August continued and the humid heat had returned. New Yorkers had tried to retreat to the beaches along the coast as a way to cool down, but were disappointed as an offshore hurricane had created dangerous rip currents on the coast. After an incident where a teenager had been swept out to sea, the Coast Guard shut down the beaches until the storm churning off shore moved away.

  Greg had no desire to go to the beach at the moment. It was nearing the time he had designated for the attack on the Black Hand. After two more weekends out training, Zach had given the go ahead for the Continentals to begin planning their assault. Greg had thrown himself into the planning, holding meeting and video conferences with various wings of the Continental Army in hopes that a plan would come together.

  After two weeks of ideas, Greg had little to show for it. The basic idea was to lure the a contingent of Black Hand soldiers into a trap and very publicly defeat them. Ashley was going to broadcast the assault on the Continental network online in hopes that it would go viral and drive recruitment. The problem was the when, where, and how of the plan.

  Greg had called for another meeting of the Continental leaders on a weekend that Zach had given them off from training. He was hoping for new information from the spy ring that would help shed more light on the Black Hand and give him an idea for their trap.

  That morning, Greg was out in Central Park, which was overgrown with new, young trees and fresh grass. There were obvious scars from the brutal attack still visible, but the city had mostly reclaimed the park by that point. A memorial was being built as well, which was a simple statue at the site where the worst of the damage had occurred. The names of the victims, at least the ones that had been identified, would be inscribed on the memorial as well.

  Greg sat down on a bench across from the memorial and looked at it, thinking. It had been some time since he had gotten involved in this fight, but it was the attack on the park and the city in general that had gotten him into the fray the most. It seemed like an eternity ago that he found out that the corruption in the Take Force had gotten Veronica taken away from him and led to the initial growth of the Black Hand.

  Greg suddenly realized that he was not
fighting the Black Hand for the same reasons that he had been when he first set out in January to take revenge on them. It had been months since he had been told that Veronica was dead and that combined with the years he had been without her in the first place, he was almost entirely emotionally detached from that relationship. Revenge was not a good motivator anymore.

  As he sat there, musing on the reasons he was still involved in the fighting, he noticed Bob Pates walking the sidewalk in front of him. Greg hoped that he would not see him, because it would not be a pleasant conversation. Bob, however, did see him and glared at him.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Greg said, hostilely.

  “Are you still butchering my organization?” Bob demanded with equal venom.

  “It hasn’t been your organization since February 1st,” Greg fired back. “We don’t even call it the Conspiracy anymore.”

  “Good,” Bob replied. “I’m ashamed that you were still running around with my name on your militia.”

  “So, I’m told that you still are trying to recruit people for the elections,” Greg said, mocking him.

  “Who told you that?!” Bob demanded, outraged.

  “Never you mind. How’s it going?” Greg asked.

  “Poorly,” Bob said bitterly. “People are too scared to do anything now. That doesn’t mean that your idea is better!”

  “We’ll see,” Greg said. “Now piss off.”

  “Fuck you, Greg,” Bob said, storming away.

  Greg was in a foul mood after the conversation and decided to leave the park. The meeting was not supposed to take place for several more hours, but Greg did not want to be around the park when he knew that Bob was there. He walked to his apartment, ignoring the oppressive heat that was trying to wear him down.

  Upon arrival at his apartment, he noticed that Ashley was not there. She had said something early about going out for a vague reason and would return when the meeting started. Greg did not begrudge her this, as he knew that he would not be a pleasant person to be around at the moment. He plopped down in the living room and idly turned on the TV to a Mets game.

  “What the hell?” Greg said, looking at the score. The Mets had been horrendous for most of the year, but in this game against the Cleveland Indians, they were up by several runs. The shocking score line distracted Greg from his anger at Bob.

  Greg watched the rest of the game, fascinated that the Mets were winning. The game lasted long enough for the meeting to be within the hour, so Greg went about preparing some food for it. He had quite forgotten about Bob as he set about preparing sandwiches and snacks for his fellow Continentals. He was just wrapping up as Ashley walked into the apartment, having long since gotten a key and ceased knocking.

  Ashley held up her nose and said, “That smells good. What did you make?”

  “Just sandwiches,” Greg said.

  “Nice,” Ashley said. “I was just out working on building up the network. We’ve got a few people in every state now at this point as a nucleus to build around later.”

  “Good,” Greg said. “I want you to work with Eric and see if we can’t get some dirt on the Black Hand in those areas.”

  “I already have,” Ashley said brightly. “We’ve got the groundwork laid out, we just need a spark to ignite us as a national movement.”

  “Well, we’re going to talk about that,” Greg said.

  After some time passed, other Conspiracy leaders began to trickle in. They chatted idly about various topics and snacked on the food Jared had prepared. At long last, the rest of the leaders arrived and Greg was finally able to say, “Okay, let’s get this started.”

  “Greg, I need to say my bit first,” Eric said, interrupting him. “They know who Zach is.”

  Zach rolled his eyes. “I’m not surprised.”

  “What do you mean?” Christine asked, frowning.

  “When we went to rescue Liam Hensen, the building was wired from top to bottom with cameras. I smashed one out of annoyance,” Zach said darkly. “I’m willing to bet that they were trying to identify us so they can take us all out at once.”

  “How can they do that if they just know you?” Charles asked.

  “They probably figure they can get to the rest of us through me. Unfortunately for them, I had two months to prepare for this and was way ahead of them,” Zach said grimly. “I’ve already relocated and covered my tracks. Outside of the Continental Army, my name is Derrick London.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through all that trouble,” Greg said.

  “Don’t be, I figured this would happen eventually,” Zach said dismissively. “Is there anything else Eric?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. They just want us looking for you so we could capture you and torture you for information,” Eric said. He looked uncomfortable as he continued, “There’s a new person that’s working for the Black Hand named Stan Finch…he’s demented.”

  “What do you mean?” Christine asked.

  “Apparently, he’s the guy that identified Zach, but the way that he got that information was really fucked up. I saw a picture of someone he interrogated and there was hardly anything left of whoever it was. I had a hard time telling if it was a man or a woman, that’s how much Finch tortured them,” Eric explained, grimacing.

  Zach was unfazed. “If you saw the same shit that I saw in Iran, then you wouldn’t think that was so bad. I’m not afraid.”

  “I suppose that’s the best scenario for this right now,” Greg said glumly.

  “Wait, no it’s not, we can work with this,” Christine said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Zach said.

  “What if the Black Hand somehow found out where you would be and sent people after you?” Christine said. “And upon arriving at your location, we ambushed them?”

  Zach looked surprised. “I mean, I don’t care if I’m used as bait. But you better goddamn well have this trap set up perfectly because it’s going to be my ass on the line.”

  “I don’t think you would actually need to be there,” Greg said excitedly. “I think we can feed the Black Hand a fake location and they’d fall for it.”

  “Hold on, this puts my ass on the line then,” Eric said.

  “What?” Greg asked.

  “If we feed bad information to the Black Hand and they get ambushed on said bad information, you can bet they’ll come hunting for whoever got Black Hand soldiers captured or killed. Doing this will put my spy ring at risk,” Eric explained.

  “We have some time,” Christine replied. “When are we planning to do this in the first place?”

  “I was thinking Labor Day weekend,” Greg said. “It would be a big showy event right at the beginning of the main stretch of the Presidential election. It could get the candidates talking about us and give us free publicity.”

  “So, that’s three weeks from now,” Christine said. “I’m sure we can come up with a way to cover our tracks and make sure the Black Hand doesn’t find out who leaked them this information.”

  Eric nodded, but still looked unsure. “Is there anyone who can help with that?”

  Charles said, “I’ll help. I’ve been looking for something to do recently.”

  “Okay,” Eric said. “But we need to be really, really careful on this.”

  “We will,” Christine said reassuringly. “We need a location though. I don’t think it should be here in the city.”

  “No, an ambush of the Black Hand would likely be too dangerous to try to do in the city,” Greg confirmed. “What do you guys think?”

  “Trenton?” Zach suggested.

  “That’s too on the nose with the symbolism,” Ashley replied. “You have to remember a lot of people dismiss the American Revolution as being out of date and anyone who calls back to it as an example to follow are ‘right wing extremists’.”

  “That’s stupid,” Zach said.

  “I can’t help that,” Ashley said. “We should keep it in this state at least.”

&nb
sp; Charles was looking at his phone. “There’s a town north of here that might work. It’s called Carmel. There’s a wilderness across a lake from the town that we can pretend Zach is training people at and lure the Black Hand into a trap there.”

  Zach looked at him appraisingly and said, “I want to scout out that area before I approve it. I want to make sure that it will be suitable to set up an ambush.”

  “The area I’m talking about is heavily forested so you shouldn’t have much trouble,” Charles said.

  “When do you want to go out there?” Greg asked.

  “If you are insisting on doing this in the next three weeks, then I’m going out there early tomorrow morning. Greg, you should come along. Everyone else can come at your leisure,” Zach said.

  No one else agreed to come though, preferring to stay in the city to work on other Continental business. Greg said, “Okay, Zach and I will go out to Carmel to scout the area. The rest of you, just follow your normal business.”

  “Is it safe for the two of you to go out there by yourself?” Ashley asked.

  “I’m not worried about it,” Zach said. “Two men going upstate isn’t going to attract the same amount of attention like our trips to Lake Champlain might have if the Black Hand had been paying better attention.”

  The next morning dawned in a veil of haze over the Eastern seaboard. Even though it was barely six in the morning, Greg and Zach were already on the road out of the city. Greg had taken some convincing to leave that early and he had not done so without some coffee. He was sipping on it blearily as they moved out of the city and headed for Carmel.

  “How come I haven’t heard of this place before?” Greg asked himself.

  “How often do you get out of the city?” Zach questioned him.

  “Not often enough apparently,” Greg replied.

  “You really need to get out more often, there’s a lot more to the world than the concrete jungle,” Zach said.

  “I’m not going to Iran if that’s what you’re implying,” Greg said darkly.

  “That’s too bad. Tehran’s great this time of year since the Islamic Republic was dumped,” Zach said airily.