The Hollow Bar
NOTE: I was reading about US financial institutions buying into the current bullish market on gold. As they buy, these US companies are moving said rare mineral out of Europe and across the pond. So, I wondered, could Chat GPT tell me a story on the topic?
The gold was moving tonight.
A shipment of bullion, discreetly labeled as "machinery components," was en route from Dubai to Zurich, set to disappear into offshore accounts and private vaults. A dozen bars, each worth nearly a quarter million, all packed into an unassuming steel crate on a private cargo jet.
But Jonas and his crew weren’t letting it get there.
They had bribed a handler at the Zurich customs office, arranged for a delay, and secured a six-minute window where the shipment would be unguarded in a secured hangar. Just enough time to slip in, swap the crate with an identical one filled with tungsten-core counterfeits, and vanish before anyone noticed.
A perfect switch.
It went off without a hitch. The security logs showed no breach, the handlers saw nothing unusual, and the flight crew loaded the fake bars without a second glance. By the time the real gold was safely in Jonas’s possession, the original buyers would be none the wiser—until it was far too late.
Jonas allowed himself a rare smile as he ran a hand over one of the bars in their safe house, the cool weight of success settling into his bones. They had done it.
Then his phone buzzed.
A text from unknown: "You stole the wrong gold."
His stomach twisted. He checked the sender. No name. No reply option.
Before he could show the others, the door burst open. Three men in tactical gear swept in, weapons raised, silent as shadows.
Jonas barely had time to draw his gun before he was shoved to the floor.
A fourth man entered, dressed in an immaculate suit, adjusting his cufflinks as he surveyed the gold. He had the kind of face that belonged on finance magazine covers—wealthy, untouchable.
"You stole something that wasn't yours to take," the man said calmly.
Jonas gritted his teeth. "That’s usually how stealing works."
The man crouched beside him, tapping one of the bars. "This wasn’t just gold. It was marked gold."
Jonas's blood ran cold.
"You thought you were taking some cartel’s stash? No, no, no. This gold—"our gold—was tracked. Special isotope tagging. Even if you melted it down, we’d find it."
Jonas's mind raced. He had spent years vetting jobs, ensuring clean getaways. But this? He’d never even heard of isotope tracking.
The man leaned in. "Now, we have a problem. You have something we need back." His voice was almost friendly. "And you’re going to steal it again for us."
Jonas swallowed hard.
They hadn’t just stolen gold.
They had stolen bait.
And now, they were part of a job they never saw coming.
