Just in time. He had spent ten years rotting away behind bars to spend the next who knows how long rotting away as a free man. The Depression had not been kind to Philadelphia, but Ramsey wasn't ready to jump into a bread line just yet. He had things to do.

His greatest mission began the very second he was released. He had gone over the plot's intricacies time and time again, not only for Plan A, but for Plans B through Z and then some. It was so familiar to him now, that as he began putting his plan to work, he couldn't help but feel as though he were in a dream.

His Army buddy met him at the prison gates.

"'Ey, Buttercup! Long time, pal!" he shouted as Ramsey approached, sorting through his reclaimed possessions. And then: "Christ, you look like shit."

Ramsey smirked. Jones always said that he looked like shit, and it was mostly true. "How's it going, Jonesy?"

"Better than you!" came the response in the vet's jovial cadence.

The two men made their way to the car and got inside, sitting in silence until the prison was just a sillhouete on the horizon. Ramsey spoke first and got right down to business.

"Look, Jonesy, I gotta say I appreciate you coming out here and getting me, but I've got another favor to ask you." He paused to read his friend's reaction, but the man kept his attention on the road. Ramsey continued, "You're still close with Lesko and Boroughs, right?"

Jones nodded that he was. "Yeah, last I checked they're still on with the War Office, doin' materiel production or movement or something. Anyway, I saw 'em over Christmas. Lesko's got himself a whole family now--not sure if you knew that--but they're all doin' great. Those kids look just like the guy. I said to Mary, 'Those poor kids!' Y'know, 'cause they look just like him." He laughed at his own joke and glanced over at Ramsey in the passenger seat.

"That's fantastic, Jonesy" he muttered, absent-mindedly, a smile slowly forming on the ex-con's face.

Another moment passed before Jones spoke. "So anyway, why d'you ask?"

The response was immediate and unwavering. "I'm going to need some explosives."

The fun of explosives is twofold. Obviously, there's the detonation itself with the noise and the damage and the chaos, loss of life, yadda, yadda, yadda. Less apparent, though, is all the fun that goes into the bomb's creation. Properly constructed, a bomb is a form of art just like any other. Building an explosive device, after all, takes a bit of ingenuity and a hell of a lot of daring. This is especially true when working with what may as well be military surplus from the Spanish-American War.

Ramsey was irritated. Yeah, Jones had done what he had asked and hit up some old cronies for the explosive, but dynamite? It wasn't as if he expected plastique or that new RDX jazz he kept hearing about, but what ever happened to good ol' TNT? It didn't matter he supposed. He was strapped for cash and would have to make do.

The dynamite had been delivered in person by a nervous-looking kid of fourteen or fifteen. No doubt the boy knew the contents of the box he carried and was scared out of his skull. Ramsey wondered to what extent he was aware of how sensitive time had made the compound. By the way the delivery boy caringly placed the box atop a pillow and backed away, he may as well have been a leading chemist. Then again, it didn't take much upstairs to know it's best to avoid that shit. Ramsey reflected on this and, in a brief moment of clarity, wondered what that said of his own sanity.

There would be time for that school of thought later. Now, it was time to get down to work. He pried open the box using as much caution as possible considering there's prying involved and glanced inside. Crystals. There had to be crystals. If he survived this, he thought, he was going to kill Lesko and all of his goddamned look-alike offspring. He took a deep breath and put on his gloves.

The bomb in its final state was not what he had envisioned. It was crude, incredibly volatile, and, he felt, wasn't truly representative of himself as an artist. How much could one really do with dynamite anyway? It would get the job done though. There'd be time for more finesse on the next go 'round.

Before he left his apartment, he asked the telephone operator to connect him with Matthew Jones of 11th Street South. When his friend picked up the line, Ramsey said just one thing: "If I die, I'm haunting your ass."

Ramsey had given a lot of thought about the bomb's target during his stay at Eastern State. He wanted maximum impact and, for ego's sake, a bit of a show. Really, half the fun is in the spectacle, and if his calculations were correct, this explosion would mark the impact scale somewhere between a fireworks display and the Mont Blanc going kaboom. He didn't want to miss that.

The only unanticipated variable was the unstable dynamite. This, he thought, was why he was so good at the gig. He had to think creatively or, as they said in the AEF, "adjust fire." The bomb could not be moved without extreme caution, but it did have to be moved. He went with the obvious solution: hollowing out a portion of angel food and plopping the whole thing inside. No one would question the careful step of a baker as he delivered the five-tiered dessert to a surprised police lieutenant. Oh yes, Operation Trojan Cake was a go.

He had set the bomb to detonate six hours after it was buried in icing, so he now had just under one hour to put it in place and clear the building. He tossed a handful of flour onto his costume, grabbed his keys and the cake, and made his way downtown.

The police station was located a mile from his apartment in the once-bustling center of Philadelphia. What had played host to a thriving, vibrant population in the twenties had been replaced by soup kitchens and employment offices. The town's spirit had all but disappeared and Moore was playing exorcist. Sure, Roosevelt did what he could, but it wasn't near enough. In Ramsey's mind, the entire city stunk of corruption. It needed an overhaul. This was his chance to be Robin Hood.

He approached the building's main entrance with confidence and stepped into the lobby. A bank of telephones were ringing over the din of the office. Uniformed and non-uniformed personnel swarmed between rows of desks. A mother frantically chased her son as he weaved between chairs and around columns. Ramsey ignored all of this and continued straight to the reception desk.

A lady in her forties practiced her posture as she fed a sheet of paper into a typewriter. She looked up from her work and to the cake, smiling. "What can I do for ya?" she sang sweetly.

Ramsey cleared his throat. "Got a cake here for a Daniels. He in?"

She looked perplexed. "Daniels? I don't think we..." She trailed off and began flipping through a directory. Looking up, "You mean Davids perhaps?"

"Oh, geez. I really can't remember." He waited, feigning a struggle for remembrance. "My boss'll kill me if I don't deliver this to the right guy. You mind if I make a quick call?"

She nodded and suggested he place the cake on a nearby table. He put the cake down and thanked the receptionist. "I'll be right back! Don't go eatin' it or anything!"

The woman laughed, waving him out. Not five minutes later, a loud blast shook the city.

So that was that.

Over the next few months, Ramsey targeted additional police stations, cars, courthouses, and prisons. It didn't occur to him that was he was doing made him a criminal. On the contrary, he felt that what he was doing was right. He was fighting for a cause. He was a goddamned victim, alright?

Jones couldn't supply him with explosives indefinitely, so he was forced to construct a labratory in his apartment where he created his own brand. Money soon became an issue. He didn't have the funding to both continue his mission and to eat. Food took precedence. He rationed himself to one meal a day, but he was still bleeding cash. He needed to find work, but so did everyone else in the city and felons weren't especially prized among employers.

He poured over the classifieds in The Inquirer. Sadly, he noticed there were no openings available for anything related to demolition and he wasn't qualified to do anything else. Still, he sent out copies of his resumé and was rejected time after time. It wasn't until he was flipping through the newspaper one morning that he had an idea.

The headline read, "Cartel creates coffee cover?" in big, bold print. He was drawn to the alliteration like a flame to a main charge (given the correct attachment of a fuse and detonator of course). Ramsey skimmed the article excitedly and then sat down at his kitchen table to read it properly. Organized crime in Philadelphia! How the hell had he missed that? Certainly the guys over at the so-called Caribou Cartel could use a man of his particular skill set.

The more he considered it, the more he liked it. This was it, he thought. This would be his calling.

Ramsey grabbed his hat and headed for South Street.

Champ noticed buttercup limping after exitting the Prison Gates.

While, Bubba sure did a number on you he thinks to his self.