Never Go Alone Read online

  NEVER GO ALONE

  Praise for the Jake Rivett Series

  DenisonHatch.com

  Copyright

  Never Go Alone: Title Page

  The First Rule Is...

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  A Note on Reviews

  About the Author

  THE JAKE RIVETT SERIES:

  FLASH CRASH

  NEVER GO ALONE

  ▪

  Praise for the first Jake Rivett thriller, Flash Crash:

  “Dialogue as entertainingly raunchy as that in The Wolf of Wall Street or the Showtime TV series Billions."

  -Kirkus Reviews

  "An absolute bullseye, reinventing the heist thriller for the information age."

  -BestThrillers

  "Theft, murder, betrayal, and computer coding come together in Flash Crash. Deftly going from the rich world of bankers to the dregs of Chinatown, Hatch's pacing ensures there is never a dull moment."

  -IndieReader Approved

  CLICK TO BUY:

  THE RIVETT SERIES ON AMAZON!

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  For more information about Denison Hatch and the Jake Rivett Series:

  DenisonHatch.com

  NEVER GO ALONE is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination and/or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 Denison Hatch

  Published by Lookout Press

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 0-9972812-2-7

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9972812-2-4

  NEVER GO ALONE

  A JAKE RIVETT THRILLER

  by

  Denison Hatch

  THE FIRST RULE IS:

  NEVER GO ALONE.

  ONE

  TWO FEET HAMMERED THE PAVEMENT. With movement as rapid as it was controlled, the explorer’s muscles tensed for what was to come. The target, all twenty stories of unabashedly neo-classical splendor, towered across the street. Infiltrating the building would be easy, but the next step was difficult. And the rest? Brilliant meets impossible.

  The explorer was wearing a small camera on his chest, which captured his viewpoint with slightly shaky but high-definition clarity. A parking post stood ahead—cement poured into a strong iron tube. The man sprinted forward and vaulted onto the post. He maintained his momentum, springing off the top of the post onto an enormous industrial air-conditioning unit. Now eight feet in the air, he had only one stride before his next jump. He sailed through the empty air, arms outstretched, fingers tensing—a twelve-foot-high brick wall ahead. Just reaching the wall, the explorer’s fingers grasped the edge. His right hand couldn’t find traction. His fingernails scraped desperately as he started to fall. But two fingers on his left hand did their job. He hung on, swinging precariously before centering himself and pulling his body up and over the wall.

  The explorer dropped down on the other side. His body contracted into a tight ball as he careened toward the construction gravel below. At the last moment, he rotated and achieved a rolling landing—lessening gravity’s impact. He came to a stop. Breathing heavily, he took a brief respite from the task at hand. His chest heaved as he peered around the construction site that he’d just infiltrated. He knew that a lone security guard sat in a booth on the other side of the block. But he also knew the guard was engrossed in his cell phone, only stopping occasionally to gaze onto an adjoining street. As long as the explorer was quiet, the guard would be none the wiser. The coast was clear. He reached for a mic attached to the side strap of his backpack.

  “All silent. Only one clown in the circus,” the explorer whispered into the microphone. Still out of breath, he reached for his hydration tube and took a long sip of water. Then he rotated and watched as three more compatriots covertly slid over the top of the tall brick wall.

  They each hit the ground in the same rolling manner, limiting trauma with expert precision. The entire crew was clad in dark outdoor technical clothes, breathable shirts, top-of-the-line Gore-Tex pants and trail runners with all reflective surfaces blocked out by black Sharpie. Their faces were covered by bandanas or ski masks. Respirators, climbing gear, knives, and cameras were both hanging from and strapped to their belts and backpacks.

  The crew split in three different directions, acting as lookouts for any errant guard or construction manager onsite in the middle of the night. It was unlikely, but their plans called for extreme caution. That’s what had made them so successful—their secret sauce was not daring; it was preparation. After confirming that the others were in position, the explorer focused on the mission at hand.

  An enormous tower crane stood against the edge of the construction site. Built like a towering T, the machine’s base was a concrete shithouse holding up three hundred feet of crisscrossing steel. The explorer expertly grabbed the side of the crane. Instead of heading for the control booth at the bottom, he simply began to ascend up the latticework that made up the sides—hands followed by legs on an upstream ladder.

  Stopping midway to catch his breath, the man couldn’t help but look down. Vertigo’s tendrils reached out like forbidden fruit. His foot wavered to catch hold of a one-inch bar of the latticework. But he controlled the panic, centered himself, and continued climbing.

  A few minutes later, the explorer reached the top of the crane. He pulled himself over the T’s edge and gazed along the hundred-and-fifty-foot-length atop the long horizontal span. Instead of traversing in the direction of the construction site from which he’d originated, the explorer headed the opposite way. Careful with the placement of his feet, he headed towards the side of the crane that extended halfway across the street below. It was a slow process. The latticework consisted of both ninety-degree and diagonal pieces of steel, like a series of bars with a crosshatch pattern strung across it. And between the pieces of the crane’s structure was nothing—a dark void. One misstep, one hesitation, one dash of grease and the explorer would plummet over twenty stories through thin air and become one with the blacktop of the city. It was not a pleasant thought, making the already difficult process deeply nerve-wracking.

  “You will not bust.” The man talked himself through the fear as he reached the far end of the crane. He was now extended as far across the street below as the machinery would take him.

  The explorer gazed down the gleaming city from the Upper West Side, all the way through Midtown and into Chelsea. It was more than a place now, more than a landscape. By this point at
its evolution, Manhattan represented a geospatial-and-social coordinate on the razor’s edge of modernity. It was no longer what the future could be. It was the future itself, right now, happening in front of one’s eyes and reaching the stage of infinite singularity. As the years had gone on, the surfaces of the metropolis had become smooth, the lights perfect, the façades utterly complete. It no longer beckoned for the masses humbly—it repelled them. The construction site the explorer had ascended from would soon consist of glass, marble, and sex. That was all, and that was everything, and if one was rich enough, one could buy it. The new culture didn’t care for culture itself. It did not bow to subtlety of argument or freedom of soul. It only knew money—astronomical levels of money. The only people who could afford to live here would be the progeny of sovereign wealth fund managers, tech moonshot winners, and industrial titans. Nothing was free, for anyone—not even the views.

  Except for our explorer—right now. It was his, alone. He admired the panorama of New York. Yes, there was the mission, but this was deserving of a photograph. He pulled the camera off his chest harness, activated selfie mode, and turned it towards himself. He lined up, framing the background of the city behind him. Click. The camera’s flash erupted. He flipped his hand down, as if to form an upside down V slogan. Click. Another flash—another selfie—his face shrouded by a hood throughout the entire process.

  Having finished memorializing the scene, the man ducked down towards the crane. As he secured something to the crane, he gazed away from the construction site and towards his target.

  A sharp contrast to the modern structures popping up like weeds, the limestone apartment building across the street was built during the turn of the century—the last century, not this. Its hulking body did not undulate as it rose. Instead the building consisted of strong vertical bands that ran up to form elaborate choragic arches and support the pointed top of the roof. Four large penthouse balconies graced each corner of the building, easily visible to the explorer who stood above them on the crane. He breathed deeply, then jumped off the crane into the darkness below.

  Suspended by a climbing rope, the man careened from the top of the crane and over the street, until he was positioned directly above the penthouse balcony of the old building. The pendulum continued, however, and he swung back.

  The second time he was ready. His toes landed lithely on the penthouse’s balcony. He paced towards the enclosed glass greenhouse. One of the small windows of the greenhouse was unlatched, exposing a sliver of access.

  The explorer carefully maneuvered the window open.

  He climbed into the penthouse.

  And the city’s lights twinkled as if nothing had happened at all . . .

  TWO

  JAKE EASTON SAT IN THE shotgun seat of an old Honda Civic, ripping through the West Bronx in the utter dead of night. A heavyset Dominican named Jonny Diaz sat behind him, engrossed in a video compilation of backyard brawls and twerkin’ chicks. Diaz cackled repeatedly, always reaching a high-pitched crescendo with each guffaw. Also in the backseat was a dark-skinned man of unknown ethnic origin. Jake only knew him by his misnomer of a nickname, “Shrek.” Shrek was actually skinny. Almost as thin as Jake himself. And he was always nervous, like a canine lacking socialization. Shrek’s knee bounced up and down and he wiped down his nose obsessively as he gazed out the window at the city’s neon world. The car was driven by their crew’s leader—Hector Trizzo. Mexican-black with tightly curled hair and Polynesian patterns shaved into the sides and back of his hair, the bank job tonight was all part of Hector’s grand plan. But what neither Hector, nor Jon or Shrek knew, was that the man they knew as “Eastie” was actually an undercover NYPD detective named Jake Rivett.

  “You’re gonna let him use that phone, Hec?” Jake inquired, nodding back to Diaz.

  “What are you? My stewardess?” Diaz protested. “I need it to relax, homie. Ask Shrek. I get nervous . . .”

  “I didn’t come here for amateur hour,” Jake shook his head angrily. “And I ain’t about to get picked up ’cause your fat ass has ADHD and can’t stand a minute of silence in his life. Don’t you know how the police operate? It won’t be less than six hours; they’ll be pullin’ data from every tower in a couple-mile radius from the bank.”

  “Oh, and you’re a savant when it comes to the 5-0 just ’cause you sell hot parts outta your apartment all day?” Diaz responded.

  “Chill out,” Hector commanded. “Jonny, turn off your phone. Pull the battery like Jake says.”

  The bank branch was a recent addition to the neighborhood—the result of an enormous, nationwide, debt-fueled expansion. It stood out like a sore thumb among the densely packed rows of bodegas, thrift shops, and merchants that populated the rest of the neighborhood. The vertical columns that delineated the bank’s outline along the street consisted of, no doubt, the same color blue from New York to Mississippi to Alaska. Hector hadn’t picked it because of any particular opinion regarding the value—or lack thereof—of the rampant post-recession gentrification that was affecting the city. But the irony was that his decision was informed by the sociological wave nonetheless.

  Hector had explained his targeting philosophy in detail to Jake a few days prior. He refused to go after a local community bank or credit union. The reason for that wasn’t due to the amount of cash available within, or any sense of right and wrong when it came to denigrating his own community. It was because while a local bank might actually give a crap, Hector knew that this big, national bank wouldn’t take the loss personally. The CEO of a credit union actually knew people who lived on these streets. He or she might actually attempt to liaison with the police, hit the streets and locate Hector. But the CEO of their target bank wouldn’t even be told that his ATM was jacked the night before. The heist would just become another consolidated line item. The bank’s blue was decided on Madison Avenue, credit and debit cards printed in Pennsylvania, ads shot in Culver City, and its insurance came from London. As a whole, the entity that they were about to rob was so strewn out across the globe as to be completely disconnected from itself. It was an octopus that couldn’t see its own arms. And although there was a Wells Fargo, a Bank of America, and an M&T Bank all within a twenty-block radius, this was the one. That’s because it had a cash machine that nakedly faced the sidewalk. It wasn’t protected. No card swipe required, nor bulletproof glass to circumvent. One could step right on up to it.

  Hector passed the ATM and parked a block away. All four men pulled masks down across their faces. They stepped out and popped the trunk. Inside were two large pressurized tanks. Similar to scuba tanks in size, one was filled with oxygen and the other with acetylene. Available at most industrial hardware centers, acetylene was a highly flammable gas used most often for industrial welding applications. For example, if one had to ensure that an airplane wing wouldn’t disintegrate mid-flight, acetylene was clutch. But in addition to its utilitarian capabilities, acetylene possessed another fascinating feature: When exposed to pure oxygen, it would spontaneously combust.

  Oxy-acetylene bombings on cash machines began in Europe in the early two thousands. But they were still very rare. The vast majority of the criminal class still preferred the old techniques; stick up a customer afterwards or crowbar the thing open. The first oxy-acetylene bombing on United States soil had occurred six months ago in New Jersey. That’s when Jake Rivett had taken interest. He’d spent the last six months ingratiating himself with Hector’s crew. Now Hector trusted Jake more than he did his best friend, Jonny. Hector was the only criminal in the entire country who was using this method to break into ATMs, and Jake—and by extension the entire police force—were extremely curious who had taught him the tactic. Or had he figured it out himself? Jake hadn’t gotten that far in the investigation yet, but the odds did not point towards Hector’s lone and personal mastery of the subject.

  Jake lifted the oxygen out of Hector’s trunk, and Jonny picked up the heavier acetylene tank. Hector grabbed a bag holding a
series of required accessories. The four of them headed towards the ATM, with Shrek slinking into a shadow to serve as lookout. Jake placed his oxygen tank about fifteen feet away from the machine—to the right. Diaz carefully positioned the acetylene to the left. Hector yanked a screwdriver from his bag. He gently pushed the tool into the cash dispenser slot of the ATM. The plastic slide quickly gave way. Hector jammed a wooden wedge into the slot, permanently holding it open.

  “Gimme the tubes!” Hector called out.

  Jake unwound a clear plastic tube—the diameter of a pencil—from the side of the oxygen tank. Diaz did the same on his side. Careful not to disengage the tubes from the regulators atop the tanks, Jake and Diaz walked towards one another. They converged near the ATM and passed each of their tubes to Hector. Hector wrapped a small rubber band around the tubes then jammed the open ends of the tubes, together, into the cash dispenser’s slot. Hector pulled a quick-acting, gap-filling, expanding foam can from his bag—standard from Home Depot. He stuck the applicator into the dispenser’s slot and injected a few square inches of synthetic material all along the crevice. Within seconds, the foam had expanded to form an airtight barrier, essentially sealing off the inside chassis of the cash machine.

  “All righty, boys. Time for science class to begin. Acetylene first, Jonny.”

  Diaz obliged. He turned a dial on the regulator atop the acetylene tank and yelled, “It on!”

  Hector glanced at his watch, counting down the seconds as pure acetylene began to pump into the inside of the ATM. “Seven . . . Six . . . Five . . .” As Hector ticked down, he slowly stepped away from the ATM vestibule. At “One,” he signaled Jake. Jake turned his own dial, then instantly fell into a crouch, bracing for the epic-ness to come.