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?"
"Good point."
"And while we've been beating up on Ridgeway," chimed in Tarvey, "he apparently had plenty of manpower beforehand to lock down the southern edge of the city. After Jefferson Plaza, those units are going to be feeling a pinch pretty soon. If nothing else, the True Sons posted over on the west end of the Mall are going to be indirectly helping us by keeping the Outcasts' attention."
"I wouldn't invest a whole lot of hope on that, Ricky," cautioned Kelso. "You're right that Ridgeway's logistical pipeline to those units has been constricted, but they're not completely cut off. As long as a squad is able to hump the payload over on their backs, Ridgeway can keep his western forces supplied. It'll just be slower and more open to interception."
"By us or by other factions," said Bundmeister tartly. "And somehow, I can't see the Outcasts particularly turning their noses up at supplies Ridgeway originated."
Gregory smiled ruefully. "Well, if the game was easy, anybody could play."
A chime came from several watches at once. "Peacemaker, this is White House Actual. Do you read me?"
"Loud and clear, Manny," said Gregory crisply. "What's new and interesting?"
"Hot tip from one of our informants in the Hyenas. Apparently, one of the mid-level Council members, guy named Roach, has suddenly started feeling very antsy about an acquisition of his. Something he supposedly obtained from Air Force One."
Ryckmen felt himself going pale. "Manny, Lobo here. Please, for the love of God, tell me the Hyenas don't have the football."
"Oh hell no!" said Ortega quickly. Ryckmen breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "We've had that with us here since Mendez died. I've been sleeping with it underneath my feet this whole time. Nobody is going to be launching any nukes on my watch." There was a brief pause. "Come to think of it, the fact we had the football secured was one of the reasons Ellis tried to come into D.C. a couple months ago."
"But if they don't have the football, what could they have that's got them feeling so spooked?" asked Gregory.
"That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question. And it's one which I don't have an answer for. But whatever it is, Roach is feeling like he wants to get it stashed somewhere more secure than his current location."
"Which is?"
"The National Bond Bank. He's trying to get an escort put together to haul this MacGuffin over to the Arena for safekeeping. A very substantial escort."
Bundmeister shook her head in confusion. "He thinks one of the biggest and most fortified banks in the nation isn't secure enough to hold this thing?" she asked, trying to make sense of the situation.
"Be kind to the man, Bunny," said Tarvey with a wintry smile. "Might be he's had a little too much spice and it's made him a tad paranoid."
"Do we know how well he's coming along with that escort?" asked Gregory.
"Not yet. Right now, a lot of the Hyenas seem to be tied up in skirmishes with Odessa's people, so there's not a lot of manpower available. That could change, of course, but I don't see Odessa just dropping the matter."
Ryckmen stroked his chin with the ball of his thumb. "Manny, get word to Odessa. See if she can keep those mutts tied up till late tonight. Midnight, if at all possible."
"What're you thinking?" asked Ortega slowly.
"I'm thinking that, in the movies, all the really great bank heists happen at night," Ryckmen said with a wolfish smile.
* * *
National Bond Bank, Downtown West Sector
0028 EST
It perhaps said something unhealthy about Ricky Tarvey's psyche that he enjoyed putting on black greasepaint and dark clothes. Moving around in the darkness, particularly against an enemy position, was one of many things SEALs did as part of their job descriptions. But Tarvey clearly enjoyed that particular activity. Ryckmen and Bundmeister were perfectly comfortable with it, and Gregory had learned to accept it as part of his work. Only Tarvey seemed to relish it. The only reason he wasn't grinning ear to ear seemed to be the fact his teeth would stand out.
"You're having way too much fun, squid," subvocalized Ryckmen.
"It's like when I went squirrel hunting at night as a kid. Now that was fun." Tarvey paused as he pressed up against a column inside the bank, glancing back at Ryckmen, subvocalizing just as cleanly. "You didn't like working at night in Kandahar?"
"It had its charms, but I never really liked it all that much. I count six hostiles."
"Seven," murmured Bundmeister. "Back corner at the base of the stairs."
"Eight," said Gregory, his subvocalization still a little rough. "Left back corner."
"All right. On my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark."
Because of the uncertainty about what exactly was being kept in the bank, and the desire to keep the Hyenas in the dark as long as possible, it stood to reason that some preparation would be needed, and a certain uniformity of equipment would be to the good. A call placed to Charles Douglas, the former CEO of Douglas & Harding turned range officer at the White House, met with an enthusiastic reception and a few judicious modifications. By early evening, a supply group had made their way over to the Campus bearing gifts. Three MP5N submachineguns, equipped with suppressors and extended magazines, were unloaded along with a thousand rounds of subsonic ammunition. Suppressors for Team Peacemaker's sidearms had also been brought over, and they'd eaten supper while snapping subsonic rounds into magazines. Hayes hadn't been thrilled, at first, but he'd relented when Ryckmen explained those weapons would be turned over to the Campus once their current operation was completed.
A suppressed weapon is not truly silent. With standard ball ammo, it's certainly less loud than it would be without a suppressor. With subsonic ammo, it's even more quiet, with the only discernable sound being the action of the weapon cycling as it fires. Even then, there's still some noise. The problem for the Hyenas standing around the lobby of the National Bond Bank was that it wasn't enough noise to make them as alert as they should have been. Within five seconds, Team Peacemaker had dropped their eight targets without anybody raising an alarm. They moved silently up a dead escalator, Tarvey on point, as they scanned ahead. All of them were wearing AR-enhanced shooting glasses, and Tarvey's ISAC node was configured for a targeting pulse. All of them carried their preferred secondary weapons, but their use was strictly forbidden until it was obvious the Hyenas were aware of their presence.
The night simply couldn't have been better. Partially overcast, moonless, and with dead streetlights on either side of the building, the team might as well have been invisible. Moving through an office section, Tarvey's pulse reached out, marking fresh targets for the agents. They glided along the floor, suppressed three round bursts drilling into hostile skulls with nary a peep, catching each target almost completely unaware. With the room cleared, they moved up a stairwell and into another office area. Four hostiles stood along a frosted glass wall, faintly silhouetted.
"Must be some thick glass behind them," subvocalized Tarvey.
"And somebody's got a light on on the other side," chimed in Bundmeister.
Ryckmen grunted softly. "I'm not feeling lucky enough to crawl up on them and shiv them. Take the shot. We'll deal with what happens."
The agents each tagged a target, then pulled the trigger. A dozen 9mm subsonic rounds whipped through the Hyenas and carried on through the glass wall. The noise from the glass cracking was apparently enough to get the attention of the reinforcements on the other side. More Hyenas came from the adjoining room and started to spread out, including one holding a riot shield with a slit cut into it near the top. Ryckmen waited for the right moment, then sent a burst through the slit, dropping the shield bearer first. The other Hyenas stopped in surprise, giving Team Peacemaker easy shots.
Ryckmen reached down and checked the shield bearer's body, coming up with a scrap of paper which had a numeric sequence written on it. The paper was wrapped around an alloy key with a microchip clearly embedded in the handle. "Passcode of some sort," he murmured as he stuffed it into a pocket. "Let's check around here, see if we can find anything more."
Taking a few minutes, Gregory found a false panel in the next office over, withdrawing another key, this one with a paper tag dangling off it. "Don't know where this goes, but could be useful."
"So where do we go now?" asked Bundmeister. "Think we're at a dead end."
Tarvey scrutinized two sets of elevator doors. "Those shafts might lead somewhere."
"Let's pry them open, then." Ryckmen dug his fingertips in between the elevator doors, slowly forcing them apart as Tarvey did the same on the other doors. Taking a fifty foot length of rope, Ryckmen tied a loop at one end and reached up blindly, finding an improvised eye hole big enough to slip the bitter end through and secure the rope in place. Tarvey repeated the procedure on the other shaft, then all four agents made their way down using quick ascenders, stopping some forty feet down.
Ryckmen looked up the shaft, then did some quick math. "Basement level. Probably where the safe deposit boxes and the main vault are located."
"So we're probably close to Roach's little package," murmured Gregory. "Hope he was dumb enough to leave it out where we can see it. I'd hate to have to try and open every safe deposit box in here."
"Wouldn't worry too much about that, Peace," said Bundmeister with a snort. "The Hyenas have likely opened them all by this point out of pure boredom."
The team moved down the corridors, heading for the main vault. The MP5s coughed as the sentries outside the vault's massive door were cut down in an eyeblink, completely unaware of the intruders. Ryckmen took the key he'd found and slipped into a slot above a key pad, then entered the code on the paper. As the vault door began to swing open, ISAC chimed in their earpieces. "Hostile communications intercepted."
"Roach, you stupid bastard!" snarled a woman's voice. A moment after that, alarms began to go off. "Are you hearing the alarms?! Do you know you have the Division breaking into the vault?!"
"Whoops," muttered Ryckmen.
"Camera, in the corner," Gregory sighed, seeing the small red LED aimed at him and the rest of the team. "Didn't even see it."
"We were going to get noticed sooner or later," said Tarvey far more philsophically than he felt.
"It's cool," replied a man, presumably Roach. "We moved the President a few hours ago. Figured our escort would be showing up in the morning, so I got him in position. I'll send some guys down to take care of the Division."
The four agents looked at each other in shock. "Did he say what I think he just said?" asked Bundmeister.
"Certainly did, Bunny," confirmed Gregory, his own disbelief evident.
"Wonder about it later," Ryckmen growled. "We're going to have company here pretty soon. Let's see if we can't find a nice defensible spot and give them a proper welcome." Moving into the vault, Gregory saw a room with barred gates off to one side, a sleeping bag present in one corner. He went over to the gates, using the key he'd found and punched in the code on the paper tag hanging from it. The gates swung open and Gregory went in, digging around the sleeping area briefly before his fingers closed on a small metal disc. Bringing it out, he examined it closely.
"Found something," Gregory said as he stepped out of the room. "Presidential challenge coin. Waller's name on it. Must've been something he gave to Ellis prior to Black Friday. Unless you can think of a reason why a Hyena might have something like this."
"Not right off the top of my head," grunted Ryckmen as he fiddled with a keypad. Sliding cylindrical doors opened, leading into a climate controlled bunker, clearly used to store various art treasures from private collections and items which were simply too big for a typical safe deposit box. "Inside. This is a perfect funnel." The team moved through the doors, two of them each taking one of the doors. Gregory glanced around, noticing the office overlooking the vault storage chamber. He pulled out an auto turret and set it on the floor next to Bundmeister.
"Hope we won't need that, but in case they get here before I'm done..."
"Go," Bundmeister said curtly. "We'll be fine."
Gregory bounded up to the office and found a computer, powered on and unlocked. Scanning quickly, Gregory typed in a command to close off the vault and kill the camera feeds around the building. A countdown began in one corner of the screen. Bolting out of the office, Gregory went to rejoin the others, gunfire erupting before he was even halfway there.
As Ryckmen had predicted, the doorways proved to be excellent fatal funnels, forcing the Hyenas to stack up as they attempted to enter the storage chamber. Between them, Team Peacemaker killed over two dozen Hyenas in less than thirty seconds. Even one of the more heavily armored gang members couldn't survive the firepower of four Division agents and an auto turret for more than a few seconds. "Ammo check," called Ryckmen once the shooting had finished.
"I'm down to a magazine and about a third," said Tarvey. "Guess I'm swapping over to the rifle."
Bundmeister checked her load bearing harness. "Two mags."
"You guys have been getting all the shots before me," complained Gregory with a crooked smile. "Three full mags and just a little ways into a fourth. What about you, Lobo?"
"Two mags, almost dry on this one," Ryckmen replied, affectionately smacking the SMG's forearm. He removed the magazine from his weapon, cleared the chamber, and handed it to Tarvey. "Empty this one out, add the rounds to your short mag, and snag one from Peace."
"Warning," chimed ISAC flatly, "lockdown procedure initiated."
"That can't be good," growled Bundmeister. A moment later, the sound of heavy steel bolts engaging echoed from the vault door.
"Peace," began Ryckmen, trying to keep his tone as even as possible, "are we trapped in the vault?"
Before Gregory could respond, Tarvey grinned. "Nahhhh. You didn't think I'd come to a bank heist without at least a little demo on me, now did you?"