Lobo Malo

Chapter 14 - The Bank Job

The White House
0843 EST

"Morning, Lowell," said Gregory, coming over and shaking Ryckmen's hand firmly. "You and Bunny get decompressed sufficiently?"

"Maybe not as much as either of us would like, but enough to function," Ryckmen said ruefully. "You and Ricky doing OK?"

"Ricky's been having a ball. Me, I'm good. That first night after was kinda bad. But the nightmares haven't come back yet, so I supposed that's a reasonably good sign."

"Very good sign," nodded Ryckmen. "So, where do we go from here?"

"We go west, young man," Gregory replied with a grin. "We're going over to the Campus, have a talk with Henry Hayes. I've never met the man, and from what Kelso has been saying, he's feeling kind of neglected."

"Hard to blame him. We've been so tied up on the east side of town that any settlement over on the west side probably really has been neglected."

"Manny's alluded to increased activity from the Outcasts while we've been tangling with Ridgeway's stormtroopers. I suspect our little fracas at the Plaza will be having some ripple effects on True Sons forces on the west side. What they'll do, however, is anybody's guess."

A grim look stole over Ryckmen's face. "Unless they're eating a bullet from their sidearms, the only thing I'm interested in knowing about the True Sons is where they are."

Gregory nodded slowly. He cocked his head as he noticed a rather different rifle in the carrying loop than the SVD Ryckmen had been carrying since their showdown with Coyote. "New rifle?"

Ryckmen's face lit up a little. "Yeah. One of Odessa's people stumbled over it, brought it back. It's another Model 700. Not quite like the one I had, but I had time to zero it in. Give me a few weeks with it and she'll play like a Stradivarius."

This brought a smile to Gregory's face and he lightly punched Ryckmen's shoulder. "Ricky's waiting at the northwest gate for us."

"Then let's get back to pounding the pavement."

* * *

The Campus
1032 EST

It was far less crowded outside the cargo container serving as the Campus' command center than it had been inside. Team Peacemaker, Alani Kelso, and Henry Hayes had just finished their meeting. Hayes struck Gregory as a very blue collar sort of person, and not one for whom leadership was a comfortable fit. If he'd been in a union before Black Friday, Hayes wouldn't have been the union president. Possibly a shop steward, and even then he'd have been a very quiet sort of representative. Put him on a building project, and Hayes would have been a comforting and reassuring presence. But running one of the two largest settlements in the city wasn't quite the same as framing a house. Gregory couldn't precise blame Hayes for feeling like the Division and the JTF had forgotten him and his settlement, but at least part of the man's outrage and frustration felt deeply unjustified.

Now, the team sat close to the entrance with Kelso, consulting a map. "Looks like the Outcasts have been getting a lot more frisky," said Ryckmen as he tapped a finger on trouble spots Hayes had marked out. "Makes sense. By pruning back the Hyenas and the True Sons, the Outcasts have had the chance to make hay."

"But they haven't expanded into the areas where the others had more influence," Gregory pointed out. "This map tracks pretty well with what Manny had identified before the blackout. The DCD research center near the Ellipse seems to be all the further east they've been interested in going."

"Probably because that's their forward base, Peace," said Ryckmen quietly. "You got a worm's eye view of things right after the blackout. Knowing what you do now, where else would you go that would provide such a convenient launching point for an attack to seize the White House?"