Chapter 138: Field Preparations

The following morning, Ricky returned to the six-story Williams Trading Co. building in White Plains.

​The ground-floor loading bay was already humming with activity. Caleb and Eli were directing half a dozen men as they unloaded wooden crates and sacks of grain from heavy flatbed wagons that had arrived from the Greenwich rail yards. As Ricky walked past the open bay doors, the men paused to offer respectful nods, murmuring, "Morning, boss," and "Good day, Mr. Stevenson." Ricky nodded back, keeping his cap pulled low over his forehead.

​He made a quick pass through the upper floors to inspect the setup. The second floor storage bays were now neatly partitioned—one broad room held stacked crates of tinned meat, flour, and spices, while the adjoining room housed dark glass bottles and timber casks of whiskey and ale. Further down the hall, the large private lounge remained set aside for the crew to rest between shifts.

​The third and fourth floors, which had no immediate commercial use, had been cleared out and outfitted with folding iron cots and wool blankets to serve as temporary living quarters for the unmarried men who had moved up from Manhattan. Up on the fifth floor, half a dozen newly hired clerks were already seated at oak writing desks, busily organizing ledger books under Evelyn’s sharp supervision.

​Ricky climbed the final flight of stairs to the executive floor and knocked on the door of the main front office.

​"Come in," Jimmy’s voice called out.

​Ricky pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room was spacious, but instead of a single executive desk in the center, four identical oak desks had been placed in a neat square arrangement facing one another. Three of them were empty, while Jimmy sat at the fourth, reviewing a stack of delivery receipts.

​Ricky looked around the room, amused. "I thought you and your brothers were each taking your own private offices down the hall?"

​Jimmy leaned back in his leather chair, tossing his pen onto the blotter. "Well, I got to thinking about it last night, boss. If Michael, Sean, Patrick, and I are running all over this floor trying to consult each other every time a wagon breaks down or a shipment is late, we’ll waste half the morning walking corridors. Putting all four desks in one room means we can talk through supply problems the second they happen."

​"That’s practical thinking, Jimmy," Ricky said, nodding in approval. "Communication is half the battle in a wholesale business. How’s the initial feedback from the local White Plains shopkeepers?"

​Jimmy grimaced slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. "A bit stiff, to be honest. A few of our route drivers went out to the main market street this morning to pitch our wholesale prices. The shop owners are skeptical. They see high-grade goods offered ten percent below the usual rates and figure there’s gotta be a catch—like the grain is spoiled or the whiskey is watered down."

​"That’s completely normal," Ricky said smoothly. "In Greenwich, those merchants knew us for months now. Up here, we’re new faces with fresh paint on our wagons. It takes time to cultivate trust from scratch. Just keep the deliveries prompt and the quality consistent, and the shopkeepers will come around."

​"I’m not sweating it," Jimmy agreed. "It’s a damn sight better than Greenwich anyway. At least up here we don’t have the Dusters standing on every corner watching who buys from us."

​"That’s the truth," Ricky noted. "How are the rest of the boys holding up?"

​"Good," Jimmy said, before pausing as if remembering something. "Oh—Frank asked me to bring something up with you, boss. He wants to know if you’d be willing to back him on a new venture. He wants to open a proper public saloon in the town center."

​Ricky raised an eyebrow. "Frank asked you to speak for him?"

​Jimmy grinned sheepishly. "Frank said he doesn’t have the ’business tongue’ to pitch a formal deal to you, boss. I think he was just nervous you’d turn him down if he came up here in his work boots and asked himself."

​Ricky let out a short laugh, shaking his head. "Tell Frank he doesn’t need to tip-toe around me. I was planning on setting up a saloon line in White Plains anyway. The best way to build a reliable local information network is through a busy taproom. It grounds our presence in town."

​"So you’re giving him the green light?" Jimmy asked.

​"Tell him that if he finds a solid building to lease near the center of town, I’ll have Evelyn handle the legal registration and licenses," Ricky said. "He can hire five to ten of our boys to work the bar, handle the cellar stock, and keep order if any trouble-making drunkards try to start a brawl."

​"I’ll pass the word to him right away," Jimmy said, pulling a blank pad toward him. "That means I’ll need to redo our wagon rosters anyway. Running ten heavy wagons with forty men on local White Plains routes is far too much for our current volume."

​Ricky leaned against the desk. "Is John back at the camp in Pound Ridge?"

​"Yeah," Jimmy nodded. "John, Frank, Phill, and James McClain are up at the farm with about sixty of the boys. Caleb and Eli insisted on staying here to manage the rail depot inventory. John took the three Mack trucks up north early this morning to clear the grounds, but he should be coming back down shortly to haul up the rest of the rations."

​"Good," Ricky said. "I’ll wait for John to get here and ride back up with him."

​An hour later, the deep rumble of a heavy combustion engine echoed through the rear alleyway. John Caldwell backed a broad Mack motor truck up to the loading bay platform, hopping down from the running board alongside three young crewmen.

​Ricky stepped out onto the wooden platform as John approached.

​"John," Ricky called out.

​John wiped his brow with a working cap and grinned. "Boss. Good to see you on your feet." He turned to the three crewmen behind him. "Alright, boys, grab the hand trucks and start loading the salt pork and flour barrels off the supply list."

​The young men nodded and immediately set to work hauling heavy crates into the bed of the truck. Ricky stepped down off the platform, grabbed a two-hundred-pound barrel of flour by its iron hoops, and swung it effortlessly onto the truck bed with one fluid motion.

​John stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening in sheer disbelief as he watched Ricky lift the massive barrel as if it were a bag of feathers, barely even shifting his stance.

​"Good God," John muttered, staring at him. "You didn’t even strain a shoulder."

​Ricky gave a subtle, calm smile, keeping his high physical attributes to himself. "I’ve been keeping up on my exercises, John."

​He leaned against the wooden tailgate as the rest of the supplies were loaded. "How is the basic training site coming along up at Pound Ridge?"

​"Just finished it all this morning boss," John said, leaning against the truck frame. "We got the perimeter fences set, the obstacle walls built, and the running paths cleared through the timber. But the boys were asking if we can start live shooting drills. Some of them were wondering if we have enough brass to spare, or if spending ammunition on targets is too rich for our blood."

​"Tell them to burn through as many rounds as it takes," Ricky said firmly. "I don’t mind the cost of lead and powder. I want every single man in that camp capable of hitting a silver dollar at fifty paces under pressure."

​"Understood, boss," John said. "We’ll set up the timber ranges this afternoon."

​"I’m riding back up with you," Ricky added, swinging himself up into the high passenger seat of the truck cab. "I want to see the grounds firsthand."

​John climbed into the driver’s seat, pulled the iron handbrake back, and engaged the heavy transmission. The Mack truck lurched forward out of the alley, turning north onto the main dirt highway.

​The three young crewmen sat in the open rear flatbed, holding onto the wooden side rails as the truck rattled along the unpaved road. The autumn wind blew cool and crisp through the open cab windows as they passed the outer orchards of Armonk, heading steadily toward the Connecticut border.

​John kept his eyes on the narrow dirt track ahead, wrestling slightly with the heavy steering wheel as the tires bounced over dry ruts. "So, Jimmy mentioned back at the building that you’re planning on changing up the camp schedule?"

​"We are," Ricky said, looking out at the passing line of yellowing trees. "Starting this week, I’m integrating advanced field operator training sessions every Friday and Saturday."

​John glanced sideways at him, curious. "If you don’t mind me asking, boss... do we already have specific targets in mind back in the city?"

​"We have a few," Ricky answered in a quiet, measured voice. "But these sessions aren’t just about gunplay or street brawling. We aren’t going in to simply shoot up a block and run. We’re going to track where their dirty money flows, find out every high-ranking official protecting them, and sweep the entire foundation out from under them before they even know they’re under attack."

​John shifted gears as the truck climbed a mild incline. "What’s our timeline for moving on them?"

​"I’m not rushing this," Ricky said. "We give the boys three solid months of conditioning and tradecraft. Once they’re ready, we execute."

​"Who are we stepping up against this time, boss? Knox’s remnants?"

​Ricky’s expression hardened, his gaze fixing on the horizon. "A handful of high-end saloon operators and political ward bosses in Midtown. They run illegal prostitution parlors—which is standard corruption for Tammany—but word is that these specific bastards deal in children. Immigrant kids and tenement orphans, ten to sixteen years old."

​John’s hands tightened on the iron steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned bone-white. He stared straight ahead at the dirt road, his face rigid with disgust. "By God... is that true?"

​"I’m verifying the paper files through Callahan and the police commissioner’s office first," Ricky said, his tone chillingly calm. "If the files confirm it, we eradicate every single person involved."

​John took a deep breath, his jaw clenched. "You won’t hear a single complaint from me or the boys, boss. Just say the word, and we’ll burn those dens to the ground. I’ll talk to Arthur tonight about clearing the schedule, but we may need you to assist on the advanced tactical classes."

​Ricky reached inside his heavy wool overcoat and pulled out a thick, leather-bound book with gold-embossed lettering on the dark cover: FIELD OPERATOR ADVANCED TRAINING MANUAL.

​He rested the manual on his knee and flipped through the thick, cream-colored pages as the truck rumbled forward.

​"This is the curriculum we’re using," Ricky explained, tracing his finger down the opening Chapter. "Phase One covers Identity Building and Cover Operations. Identity is purely paper and perception. The boys will learn how to forge transit passes, employer references, and bank drafts, right down to aging paper using black tea and sunlight exposure."

​John listened intently, keeping the truck steady along the winding dirt lane.

​"They’ll also learn social chameleon mechanics—how to switch their posture, vocabulary, and accents to pass seamlessly whether they’re standing in a low-end waterfront dive or an upper-class hotel lobby in Midtown," Ricky continued. "We’ll teach them physical disguises without relying on more modern tricks—using simple shoe inserts to alter their walking gait, subtle dental pads to shift their jawline, and basic hair dyes."

​"Sounds like proper intelligence work," John remarked, impressed.

​"It gets deeper," Ricky said, turning to the second Chapter. "Phase Two is Information Gathering and Tradecraft. We profile targets using MICE—Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego. The boys will learn how to extract critical details out of politicians and clerks during casual tavern conversations without the target ever realizing they’re being interrogated. We’ll establish physical dead drops in city alleys, practice seamless handoffs on crowded train platforms, and run ’dry cleaning’ routes through horse-drawn traffic to break any police tail."

​Ricky flipped to the third section. "Phase Three is Infiltration and Interception. Mechanical lockpicking—bypassing lever-tumblers and Yale pin-locks, taking wax impressions of keys, and filing duplicates. Wiretapping overhead telegraph lines to intercept messages, opening sealed mail using steam without damaging the wax seals, and picking combination safes by ear and feel."

​John let out a low whistle. "You’re turning our street runners into a full-blown intelligence unit."

​"That’s the only way we survive against Tammany Hall," Ricky said, turning to the final Chapter. "And Phase Four is Combat and Survival. Close-quarters combatives—low boxing, gutter fighting, and Bartitsu walking-cane defense. Silent garroting, chemical sedatives, and fast-draw proficiency using concealable pocket sidearms like the Colt 1908 Hammerless. Along with hotwiring automobile engines for high-speed escapes."

​Ricky closed the manual with a soft snap and placed it back inside his coat.

​John glanced over at him, his face filled with quiet, profound respect. "When we’re done with these boys, Ricky... Frank Knox and his precinct sergeants won’t even know what hit them."

​"That’s the plan, John," Ricky said, looking out at the wooden gates of the Pound Ridge farm appearing through the trees ahead. "That’s the plan."