Par grand dangiers le captif eschape,
Peu de temps grand a fortune changee:
Dans le palais le peuple est attrape,
Par bon augure la cite assiegee.
Through great dangers the captive escaped:
In a short time great his fortune changed.
In the palace the people are trapped,
Through good omen the city besieged.
“Here we go again,” I thought, once more slipping through the shadows of Rejas. It took only a few minutes to retrace the route we had taken from the warehouse. Slipping inside, I looked around for Sarah. “Sarah?” I whispered. No response. I hadn’t really expected any.
I peered through the window again. The tank sat just outside the main entrance to the stadium. The hatches were open, and the spotlight shone on the street before the armored monster. Someone had rewired an old CD player and hooked it into the tank. An unknown rap group proclaimed their philosophy in barely intelligible English to a deafening thunder of bass.
“Beat yo’ woman ’til she scream, ’cause you know the bitch, she live fo’ it.”
Dozens of uniformed men thrashed and gyrated in the circle of light before the tank. Someone had found some booze, and most of them had a bottle of their preferred poison in hand. Several of the guards were milling around, joking with the tank’s crew and smoking. I wondered where they had found cigarettes, and just how desperate you had to be to smoke two-year-old tobacco. The scent of marijuana reached me about the time that I noticed the cigarettes were all hand rolled. Tobacco was a thing of the past around here, as the local climate wasn’t conducive to its growth. Cannabis was apparently not as selective in its climate.
I scanned the area for some sign of Sarah. Nothing.
I slipped the goggles on my head and turned the switch to infrared. The world of infrared disoriented me at first. Tiny dots danced around, flaring briefly before glowing red faces as the men toked, smoked, and joked. As I got used to it, I quit trying to focus on details, instead watching the larger picture. The men around the tank I could ignore for the time being. If they had seen Sarah, they surely wouldn’t be standing around partying.
I looked for other heat sources. The light on the tank, the trash can fires that were illuminating the area, the glowing red blob writhing inside the stadium that was the crowded mass of prisoners. Several guards still glowed where they patrolled outside the chain link fence that surrounded the football field.
“Come on, Sarah,” I muttered, “where the hell are you?”
My jaw dropped when I finally spotted her. It never would have worked with seasoned military troops. Hell, it never would have worked with any disciplined group, but these clowns were hardly disciplined. And they were obviously not observant enough to spot a single hidden hitchhiker lying flat on the pavement underneath the very tank they were partying around.
Truthfully though, if she hadn’t shown up as a heat source, I probably wouldn’t have seen her, either. The spotlight that brightened their impromptu dance floor left the night outside their oasis of light a solid, opaque black. Someone would have had to shine a light directly under the tank to spot her. From what I could see, there was no way for her to get any closer to the stadium without crossing in front of the perimeter guards.
Her dilemma was obvious. She would never make it any further without help, but neither could she retreat without being spotted. Unfortunately, the solution was just as obvious.
“Wonderful,” I muttered, “just freakin’ wonderful!”
I bolted out of the door and back into the darkness, this time heading away from the stadium for a block before cutting right and jogging down the next block parallel to Stadium Drive. I imagined how I would explain this one to Ken and Jim. “Well, guys, she was already under the tank. What else could I do?”
I seemed to recall that Jim had a distinct dislike for people who “dressed up like GI Joe” and went off “lookin’ for a war,” but I thought he just might understand this time.
I tried the door at the back of Outland Sales, but the relaxed security that Ken had shown me in the suburbs didn’t seem to extend to the business sector of town. I did manage to find an unbolted window though, and slipped inside. The building was empty, and dust rose in my footsteps as I searched for a window with the view I wanted. I found it and looked out onto the same party zone I had just left, only now I was about a block up the street.
I debated for a minute over whether to go for the lights or the tank crew first, then realized I would have a better chance of surviving this fiasco if I could take out the crew. They would be the ones most likely to know how to fire that cannon. After sliding the window open, I took careful aim at the thug sitting closest to the hatch. He was just beginning to lean back when my bullet found him. Before the others had a chance to react, I shot the second closest to the hatch. It became a scramble as the rest of them realized what was happening. I began firing at anyone who seemed to be heading to any of the hatches and got three more before any got in. Even then, one of them had to drag a bloody leg in after him. Once a couple of them made it in, I dropped a smoke bomb, fired a few shots in the general direction of the spotlight on the front of the tank, and ran like hell without bothering to see if I had hit anything.
I made it a block before they gathered themselves enough to attack the building. Bullets ripped through the sheet metal walls by the hundreds. I stopped behind the next building I came to.
Looking up, I found a fire escape leading to a third story roof, and I climbed up to watch the fun. I could see the group of them getting braver and braver as they continued firing and drew no response from the building. Nothing could have lived through the rain of bullets they poured into that warehouse.
Finally, the tank started up. It had evidently taken the poor slobs who had gotten into it this long to figure out how to start it. Slowly, it began to trundle down the street toward Outland Sales. I wondered if they would figure out how to fire the cannon. Then, as the tank left the scattered bodies on the street behind it, I saw one of them rise to its feet and run toward the chain link fence.
Sarah evidently still had her goggles on, because I saw her whirl and fire at one of the perimeter guards, dropping him before he ever raised his rifle. The single shot was lost in the ongoing volley that Larry’s men were still firing into the old warehouse.
She took the eight-foot fence in seconds and quickly disappeared into the crowd of prisoners.
“Good luck, girl,” I wished her fervently. “You’re sure gonna need it.”
“She did what?” Ken’s initial reaction was every bit as volatile as I had expected.
“Watch the road!” I yelled, as he turned to shout at me and swerved toward the shoulder. Mark’s group had managed to steal three more Humvees, and Ken’s group had gotten one of the covered personnel trucks from Main Street. That gave us four jeeps and a truck to use for hauling supplies. My group rode with Ken in the lead, me in front, and the others in back.
“She snuck into the stadium,” I told him. “There wasn’t anything I could do to stop her, Ken. By the time I found her, she was already committed. There was no way she could have made it back.”
“She made it in, didn’t she? How’d she manage that?”
This was the part I dreaded. “Um, I helped her.”
He laughed, though there wasn’t a shred of humor in him at the moment. “You helped her,” he repeated, as if savoring the taste of these strange words. He shook his head in amazement. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
There was nothing I could say to that, so we traveled along the road in uneasy silence. I glanced into the back to see the rest of my group sitting reticent, heads hung low, looking for all the world like children trying to avoid an angry parent’s attention.
After a few minutes, Ken seemed to calm down. “Tell me exactly what happened.” So I did, starting with when we had noticed Sarah was missing and ending with my return to the group.
“Do you have any idea what she had in mind? What we can expect her to do?”
I had thought about that ever since she had turned up missing. “She knows where the supplies are. She knows where our people are. And it just so happens they’re all in about the same place. I think it’s obvious.”
He sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of. How long before she’ll try it?”
I shrugged. “No way to know for sure. I doubt she’ll do anything with that tank out front, and the guards are going to be a lot more cautious after tonight’s shootout. If the tank stays during the day, she’ll definitely wait ’til night. If it’s still there come nightfall, she may wait another day. But the longer she waits, the greater the chance that she’ll get caught.” I thought about what I knew about Sarah. “Sarah isn’t one for subtlety. She’ll move as soon as she can. I’d bet on tomorrow night, or maybe the next.”
Ken nodded. “You’re sure no one saw her get in?”
“Pretty sure. There was one, but she got him before she went over the fence. Everyone else I saw was busy shooting at where they thought I was hiding.”
He was quiet again, thinking. “We’ll have to come back to help her bust them out.”
I sighed with relief.
In half an hour, we reached the bridge to the fertilizer plant, and Ken pulled to the side of the road and turned to the back.
“Billy, we need to send someone in on foot to let our people know that the vehicles coming in are friendly. Wouldn’t do to get shot by our own people. You mind?”
Dumbfounded, Billy just stared at Ken for several seconds. I realized this was probably the most that Ken had spoken to him since the day he had been brought to our door. It was perhaps a little gruff, but I think it was Ken’s way of apologizing. He was telling Billy that after what had happened tonight, he considered Billy an asset rather than a liability.
Billy nodded, leapt out of the back, and ran down the road.
“Hey, kid!” Ken yelled. Billy stopped and spun so abruptly that he nearly slipped on the pavement.
“Don’t get yourself shot. We’re going to need you tomorrow.”
Billy cracked a shy smile and sprinted across the bridge.
I turned to Ken. “That was damn near human of you, Ken.”
“Shut up, Lee.”
I shut up, smiling nonetheless.
When we finally pulled the vehicles into the parking lot of the Vogler Fertilizer Factory, a crowd had gathered to greet us. Word had spread as soon as Billy made it to the gate. Cindy and Debra were in the forefront, but we barely had time for a quick hug and a few reassurances before Jim herded us into his office. He had converted the office area of the plant into his personal staging area. Maps and charts from an age long gone decorated the walls. Electric lamps and fans lay piled in the corner, seen by the light of a couple of camping lanterns.
As soon as the door closed behind us, Ken and I collapsed into chairs in front of the desk. He was evidently every bit as exhausted as I was.
Jim took the seat opposite us, and I noticed that his left eye was a bit swollen from the punch I had given him in City Hall. “So what happened? I heard there was trouble.”
Ken nodded and began explaining in general what all had happened. At times, Jim or Ken would ask me to fill in some detail, but I tried to keep my mouth shut and let Ken do most of the talking. When he reached the point at which Sarah hopped the fence, I expected Jim to explode, but the mayor just sat there twiddling a pencil with his feet propped on the desk. It reminded me of the time he had questioned me after the Kindley affair. At least this time we were on the same side. The question and answer session went on for nearly an hour, with Jim asking dozens of questions to be sure he had the entire picture. Finally, he seemed satisfied.
“We figure she’ll make her move tomorrow night or the next,” Ken finished.
Jim sighed. “Well, I guess it’s really gonna hit the fan now, ain’t it?”
Ken and I were silent. No response seemed necessary.
Jim suddenly became animated. He dropped his feet off of the desk, stood up, and began pacing. “So what do we need to do to get our people out of there with as little risk as possible?”
“Let us send in some more volunteers tomorrow,” I jumped in. “Small groups like we did tonight. We can send them in a few at a time and have them set up to help her when she makes her move.”
“Ken?” Jim was the mayor, but he deferred to Ken just like the rest of us when it came to battlefield strategy.
Ken didn’t look happy with the situation, but had finally accepted the responsibility. “That’s about the only thing I can think of, too. But you have to understand something here.” He paused. “We’re going to lose some people, Jim. There’s no way around it.”
“How many?”
Ken shrugged wearily. “How many are going to panic under fire? How many are going to shoot when they should duck for cover, or duck for cover when they should shoot? We’re not talking about seasoned troops here. We’re talking about a bunch of auto mechanics and schoolteachers armed with deer rifles.
“They’re going up against guys with military grade hardware who have made killing into a way of life. On top of that, they have a tank sitting where our people will have to go right past it, and at least five others somewhere in town. Our only advantage is Sarah’s inside and knows where the supplies are, so we’ll have people shooting from inside and outside of the stadium. That will hopefully catch Larry’s boys with their pants down.” His tone left no doubt that he expected the worst.
I couldn’t help feeling that Ken was being overly pessimistic, though. Maybe it was because I had finally begun to feel like I fit in over the last year. Rejas was home, its people my friends and neighbors. They were people I had taught, worked with, and had now fought beside. We had been through a lot together, and I felt obligated to defend them against Ken’s pessimism. “Wait a sec. Let’s not forget that this last year has been pretty rough on everyone. Plenty of these folks have had to face armed outlaws on their own, and hundreds have trained with you, me, and Eric. They may not be soldiers, but they’re not your average businessman or housewife anymore, either.”
“Okay,” he conceded. “Maybe they aren’t. But they’re hardly up to military training levels.”
“Neither are Larry’s men!”
That stopped him-for all of two seconds. “What about ammunition?”
Caught off guard, I responded in stellar fashion. “Huh?”
“Ammunition… bullets. Have you forgotten? We were running low before Larry ever got here! We’ve probably used more ammunition in the last twenty-four hours than we have in the last six months.” Actually, I had forgotten, which was pretty stupid of me, since my favorite tasks at the forge were coming into prominence because of that shortage.
Ken must have seen it in my face. “Don’t worry about it just now. It’s not like we’re going to run out tomorrow. But if we end up in a prolonged fight with these guys, say a couple of weeks or so, then we may have a problem.”
He turned his attention back to the mayor, who had kept quiet during the exchange. “Look, Jim, all I can tell you is that as long as we prepare in advance, we’ll get more people out than we’ll lose. Don’t ask me for any predictions beyond that.”
Jim sighed. “Shit.”
We were all silent for a moment, each of us trying to think of something to tip the scales in our favor.
Abruptly Jim snapped his fingers. “There is a little good news, anyway. Wayne Kelley told me to tell ya’ll that he found enough ingredients in the rail depot out back to make plenty of explosives. He’s settin’ things up now.”
“Good,” Ken said. “Maybe he’ll come up with something that will make a difference.”
The mayor nodded. “Let’s hope so. Meanwhile, you boys go get some rest. If you’re plannin’ to go back into town tomorrow, you’ll need all the rest you can get.”
Ken and I rose, nearly dead on our feet. “What about you?” I asked.
“I doubt I’ll get any sleep tonight,” Jim said. “Gotta get some people organized. You go on and don’t worry about it. I’ll sleep after you’re gone.”
Too tired to argue, we left without further comment.
Ken told me he needed to walk a little to clear his head before trying to rest. I was too exhausted to do anything but nod and wish him goodnight. Then I wandered through the complex searching for my family. It was harder than I had anticipated, as we had more than two thousand people trying to find someplace to sleep in a building never intended to hold more than a few hundred. And it was definitely not designed for sleeping. Refugees were scattered all over the place, sleeping on the floor, on storage racks; I even saw one man curled up on top of the protective cage on an old forklift. There was barely room to walk.
After asking around, I finally found where Debra and the kids were bedded down and joined them as quietly as possible. I carefully lay down, trying not to wake Debra, but I should have known better.
“I heard it was pretty bad,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” An image of Jenna’s lifeless form came to mind, the way her head lolled as we loaded her corpse into the truck on the way back, the smell of blood and death, the knowledge that it was no longer a person, just a sack of meat. “It was bad.” I shuddered and quickly suppressed the image, but my wife knew me well.
She snuggled up behind me as I lay on my side and slipped an arm over my shoulder to gently stroke my chest. She pressed her head up against my back and briefly kissed the back of my neck. “Would it help to talk about it?”
I shook my head. “Not now. Maybe later, but I can’t right now.” Fearing she might feel I was shutting her out, I added, “I’m sorry, babe, but I have to figure out how to deal with it on my own. It was a mess, and there’s probably going to be worse tomorrow.”
Her hand stopped. “What do you mean?”
I sighed. I hadn’t meant to get into it, but it wouldn’t be fair to keep her wondering now that I had mentioned it. “We found where they’ve got everyone, and Sarah got inside.”
“And?” Her tone told me she knew at least part of the rest.
“And we think she’s going to try to bust them out.”
“When?”
“Best guess is either tomorrow night or the next.”
She was silent for a few seconds. “You have to go back?”
“Yeah. They’ll never make it without help.”
“And it has to be you?” She started to sound upset. “It can’t be someone else, some other group? Haven’t you done enough?”
“Not this time. I know where she went in and what the situation is like there.”
“So write it down. I heard about some of what happened tonight. I don’t like the idea of you going out there again!”
I rolled over to face her and was surprised to see tears in her eyes. She sounded angry, but it was evident that the anger was simply a manifestation of her fear and concern. “I have to, Debra. I’m the only one that can this time.”
“Why! Why only you?”
“Because I know exactly where she went in, and I know where Larry’s men are positioned in the area. I’m the one that talked Wayne Kelley into risking his life to mix up any explosives I could find a recipe for, and I’m the one who knows how to use them.” That was not strictly true, as I had only read military reports and directions, but that was more than anyone else had done.
She gripped my shirt in her fist and tugged. “So what? Tell them what to do and let someone else-”
Pulling her close, I wrapped my arms around her and just held her tight, as she buried her face in my chest and sobbed herself silently to sleep. Minutes later, I followed her into an uneasy slumber.
“Leeland?”
I awoke instantly, not that I had slept well. Jenna’s face had kept popping up in my dreams, her dead eyes accusing, haunting.
“Leeland?” Wayne’s voice again. I also noticed the strong smell of… chlorine?
“Jeez, Wayne! What’s that smell?” I whispered to keep from waking Debra.
“How can you smell anything over your own stench?” she murmured, obviously no longer asleep. Having slept with her head in the crook of my arm, she was intimately acquainted with my stench.
Wayne’s voice answered from the darkness. “Your recipes seem to leave some interesting by-product while they’re being mixed.”
I perked up. “You did it?”
“It’s in one of the jeeps. Ready to go.”
I rubbed my eyes and sat up, noticing how little activity there was. “What time is it?”
“It’s about five thirty in the morning,” he answered. “Jim and Ken are waiting on you in the office.”
Debra sat up beside me and sighed. “You’re going, aren’t you?”
“I have to.”
The expression on her face must have told Wayne that this was an awkward moment. He cleared his throat. “Uh, I’d better get back. I’ll see you there.” He left in an obvious hurry to distance himself from us.
I turned back to Debra and sat up to face her, working through the aches and pains shooting up my spine. “You know I have to.”
She lowered her eyes. “I don’t have to like it, though.”
“Yeah. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t exactly look forward to it, either. Truth of the matter is, the idea scares the hell out of me.”
“Good! Maybe you’ll be careful enough to get back, then.”
“I’ll be back.” I reached out and wistfully touched her cheek. “You think you can get rid of me that easily?”
I was taken aback when she slapped my hand away. “Don’t joke!” she hissed angrily. The kids slept a few feet away, oblivious. We both wanted to keep it that way. “You always joke this stuff off, and it isn’t funny, damn it! It isn’t funny!” She stood and stepped away from me, glaring through tear-filled eyes.
I dropped my hand and swallowed. “I know. It’s just me.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded acceptance, but there was no way she would ever be happy about the situation. “Just go.”
I didn’t want to leave like that, but if Ken and Jim were waiting on me, things must have been about ready for the mission.
Some corner of my mind noted how funny it was that I had started thinking in military terms. Just like Jim said, “A grown man dressed up like GI Joe, playing at war.” The rest of my mind was on my wife. She stood just out of my reach, her anger flaring once more. I couldn’t leave like this. “Debra?”
She must have seen the question in my eyes, for her expression softened. “Go ahead, Lee. I’ll be okay.”
I dropped my gaze, understanding that this was all she could give me for now.
As I started to stand, my aches and pains became almost crippling. The simple act of getting to my feet abruptly became a painful process. Besides aching as I did from the previous day’s activities, I was stiff from getting too little sleep afterward on a cold concrete floor. Suddenly, I felt Debra at my side holding my arm, helping me stumble to my feet. She took mercy on me and hugged me. Then, she pushed me back. “Just make sure you come back in one piece.”
A lump in my throat choked off my answer, so I just nodded, turned, and headed back to Jim’s office.
I walked through the office door to find Wayne asleep on an ancient sofa that someone had dragged in. Ken stood in a corner on the other side of the room. He turned when he saw me, nodded, and went back to what he was doing. A few seconds later, he walked over and handed me a hot cup of something that smelled like coffee. Better yet, it actually tasted like coffee. I sighed contentedly. “Pure, unadulterated heaven!”
I saw how bloodshot his eyes were as he shook his head. “Nope. Just Colombian roast. Jim found some in a cabinet. Thought we might need some to help get us going.”
“Going?”
Jim walked in from the back, his own steaming cup in hand. I noticed the area around his left eye was now a deep blue. I winced at the thought that I had done that to him. Jim didn’t seem to notice it, though, as he picked up on the conversation. “Yep, you’re leavin’. Y’all need to be in position before sunrise, else you’re gonna be too easy to spot goin’ in.”
My shoulders slumped at the thought. “Already? Damn, Jim, I’m so tired I can hardly see straight.”
Jim laughed. “Hell, Leeland, at least you got a couple of hours. Me and Wayne have been workin’ all night.”
“You didn’t sleep?”
“Didn’t have time. I found Wayne out back, and he looked like he could use some help.”
“What did you come up with?”
“Somethin’ called Astrobrite, I think…”
“Astrolite?” I perked up. “You made Astrolite?”
“Yeah,” he answered, “And let me tell you something. That is some nasty smellin’ stuff when you’re mixing!”
Jim peered at me over his coffee from behind his desk. “By the looks of that grin on your face, I take it Astrolite is good news?”
“Good news? It’s probably the most powerful explosive there is, short of a nuclear reaction.”
The mayor suddenly appeared somewhat less than pleased. “Nuclear reaction?”
I laughed. “Don’t worry, Jim. That just means it has a high detonation velocity. There’s no danger of any more radiation.”
“You sure? I mean, if it’s that powerful, mebbe we should think a bit more about this.”
“Look, I’d be lying if I said I really understood all of it. But from what I’ve read, the way an explosive does its damage is by the rapid transfer of energy through a chemical or nuclear reaction. Astrolite uses a chemical reaction, not nuclear, so there’s no danger of radiation.”
“You ain’t helpin’ me any, Lee. If it can do as much damage as a nuclear explosion without the radiation, why didn’t the government use it instead of nukes?”
“I never said it can do as much damage as a nuke. I said that it’s the most powerful non-nuclear explosive. It does its damage with its speed.”
He didn’t seem convinced.
I leaned over his desk, snatched a pencil and a notepad, and wrote down an old high school formula, e=1/2ms2. “Okay, ’e’ is the amount of energy released. ’m’ is the mass, and ’s’ is the speed. It’s the reason why people can break boards and bricks with their hands. It isn’t that their hands are harder than the bricks. It’s simple physics.”
I looked up to see Jim and Ken still appearing confused. “Look at it like this. A man hits a brick with a punch that has an equivalent mass of two hundred pounds.” I scribbled hastily. “And a velocity of fifty miles an hour. Plug the numbers in, and the energy released is,” more quick math scrawls, “two hundred fifty thousand… uh, joules or dynes, or whatever the measurement is.”
“Ergs,” Wayne piped up from the couch, “but only after you convert to metric equivalents in your formula.”
I look over at where he still lay with his eyes closed, apparently half asleep. “Wayne! You explain it to them. You’re the chemistry teacher!”
His hand waved me off, as if it had volition of its own. The rest of his body remained motionless until his lips moved. “You’re doing fine. I’ll chime in if I hear you screw anything up.” His eyelids never even twitched.
Scowling, I turned back to my scratch paper. “Okay. Now, let’s say he hits twice as hard. Four hundred pounds, still traveling at fifty miles an hour…” I scribbled through the math again, “gives us five hundred thousand ergs.”
Wayne’s voice corrected once more, “’s not ergs ’til you convert it to metric.”
“Whatever,” I said. “But see what happens when you double the speed instead of the mass. Back to the original two hundred pounds, but now traveling at one hundred miles an hour gives us…” More scribbling. “One million ergs!”
“Not un-”
“I know! Not until I convert to metric! But I’m no good with metric units. So pretend I already did it, okay? The important thing is that the higher the detonation velocity…”
Jim finished, “The bigger the boom, right?”
“And then some.” I sipped some more of the coffee. “So how much did you make?
“About three gallons.”
I nearly sprayed my coffee all over him. “Three gallons? Ken, just one gallon of this stuff can bring down a house! What are we gonna do with three?”
Ken appeared to think about that for a second, mulling it over as he finished a sip of coffee. Then, without the slightest hint of humor, he replied, “We’re going to kick Larry’s ass.”
Ken and Jim had worked out a plan that called for two groups of fifty people to trickle into town over the next few hours. The first team’s objective was the stadium. We were to take out the tank, if possible, and get our people out and to the stadium.
The second team was to get to the hospital, where we had learned that some of our people had headed the night before. So far, our attackers had left the hospital alone since the doctors and nurses were treating Larry’s wounded along with our own. We couldn’t count on that being the case after we busted three thousand hostages out of the stadium, though. We had to plan on springing our people from both locations at the same time.
For once, I didn’t have to do anything but ride along, at least until we reached the edge of town, so I leaned my head on an ice chest in back and caught up on some much needed sleep.
I awoke when the vehicle pulled to a stop. Looking around, I found myself back in the yard at Amber’s. Ken yelled instructions to everyone.
“Leeland, you and Eric grab that ice chest in the back and bring it with you. Wayne, grab the Astrolite in the back of yours. Come on, people, gather ’round! Let’s move! We have to be in place before sunrise.” I noticed that each Humvee carried a couple of ice chests.
Within a few minutes, everyone circled around Ken, much as we had the night before. This time, though, we met deeper in the woods, safe from any of Larry’s patrols.
Once he saw we were ready, Ken signaled for Eric and me to bring him the ice chest we had carried. The ice chest was quite light, so I waved Eric off, thinking to carry it up to Ken alone.
“Let Eric help you, Lee. We don’t want to take any chances with that stuff.”
I froze as I suddenly realized what I had been carrying so nonchalantly. I hoped no one noticed as I carefully backed away when Ken opened the chest and withdrew an odd-looking contraption consisting of a liquid-filled test tube topped with a black rubber stopper from which two wires gracelessly dangled-Wayne’s homemade blasting caps.
He had shown one of them to me before we left, and explained, “The Astrolite’s completely stable as long as you keep it away from the accelerator. In fact, I could probably drop a beaker of that stuff on the ground, and the only explosion I would need to worry about would be Ken and Jim blowing up at me for ruining several hours of work.
“But these little babies,” he held the test tube gingerly, “these are the touchy ones. The stoppers have been partially hollowed out, filled with gunpowder, sealed, and placed on the test tubes filled with HMTD.”
“Filled with what?”
“Sorry. I figured you’d know about it, since I found the recipe in one of your books.”
“Well, if I knew everything in my books, I wouldn’t need the books, would I?”
He shook his head. “Guess not. Well, HMTD is one of the less stable soups in your cookbook. Not as bad as nitroglycerine, but still pretty touchy. I run wires to the gunpowder and run a charge through the wires. This causes a spark, which sets off the gunpowder, which sets off the HMTD…”
“Which sets off the Astrolite.” I finished.
He had nodded and gently laid the glass tube down on his makeshift workbench. What I didn’t know at the time was that he had also devised a strange-looking contraption in which to carry those test tubes. It consisted of hundreds of strands of rubber bands that acted as a makeshift suspension system, protecting the caps from any sudden shock. A suspension system inside of an old ice chest, the same chest upon which I had rested my head during the trip out here, and from which Ken now gingerly extracted a single test tube.
Ken turned, giving everyone a chance to see exactly what he held. “Okay, people, it’s last chance time again. We’re splitting up after this. Group One is with me. We hit the stadium and take out the tank that we know is there. Group Two goes with Eric Petry to get our people out of the hospital.
“Do it quietly if you can, Eric. If you wait for us to start the fireworks, that might set up enough of a distraction for you to get in and out without the bad guys ever knowing about it.”
Eric nodded, obviously ready to get to it. “Group Two, gather ’round me!”
Ken interrupted. “Wait a second, Eric. I got something else to say here.” He paused for a minute, evidently trying to figure out the best way to say all that needed to be said. “Some of you were with us last night. We got caught with our pants down and lost some good people.”
I could see that he still blamed himself, but he didn’t make any excuses. “I didn’t expect it. And this time I’m counting on it being worse. So this is the last chance for you to turn around and go back. No one will think any less of you. I would rather have you leave now if you have any doubts, than to have you hesitate under fire and get yourself or someone else killed.” No one budged. Everyone had known from the beginning what they were getting into.
“Okay, I need twelve volunteers for extra hazardous duty. These twelve will have to go in alone. Not with each other. Totally alone.”
He had everyone’s attention with that one. He held up the hand with the test tube. “I have a dozen explosive charges that need to be carried into town separately. Six go with each group.” Voices muttered in protest.
“Wait a minute!” He raised his voice to cut off the objections. “These aren’t the main charge. They’re just homemade blasting caps.”
Just? I thought, recalling Wayne’s lecture. Just blasting caps?
“They’re mostly stable, and it’s not very likely that they’ll explode from anything less than someone actually dropping them, but there’s still the chance. The thing is, we can’t afford to have all of them together if one does explode, because then we lose all of them. Separately, if someone drops one, we only lose the one.” More murmuring, as people realized exactly what he was saying… or rather, what he wasn’t saying. He neglected to mention that if someone dropped one, we also lost the person carrying it.
“I’ll take one.”
Billy stepped forward and held out his hand. Ken pursed his lips and regarded the boy before him. Then he handed the tube to Billy. “You’re with Group One, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know where the Regency Warehouse is?”
Billy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“All right. Get there as quickly as you can, but don’t let anyone else see you.” Billy turned and headed out, walking carefully. The crowd parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses.
Ken called after him, “Be careful, boy.”
Billy grinned nervously. “I will.” With that, he turned his full attention back to the delicate task at hand.
“Who else?” The rest of us raised our hands at once, shamed into volunteering by a boy who was a slave, who couldn’t even claim he was fighting for his home.
Ken distributed the packages to twelve individuals. “Get to the warehouse as quickly as you can. Be careful, but be fast.”
He turned to the rest of us. “The rest of you divide up into five-man groups. One group leaves every five minutes. Make sure every group has someone in it that knows where their objective is. I don’t want anyone getting lost and giving us away. I also don’t want anyone seen! Understand?” We all nodded.
“Good. Now, we don’t know when, or even if, our people are going to make a break for it. We have reason to believe that if they do, it will be either tonight or tomorrow night. That means Group One gets into position, and we wait. We wait all day long. You can sleep if you want, or play pinochle for all I care, but nobody leaves cover once we’re set. If nothing happens tonight, we wait until tomorrow night, all day long again. Most of these chests have food and water in them. There should be enough to last two days, easily. After that, if nothing has happened, we’ll slip back out of town and try to figure out something else. But our best guess is that we’ll be plenty busy before that happens.
“Group Two, you wait ’til you hear from us. You don’t make a move until I tell you to. This hit has to be synchronized, or it’s all wasted effort. Do not let yourselves be seen. Some of these guys have night vision goggles so don’t count on hiding in the shadows. Pretend it’s broad daylight, and plan every step accordingly.” He looked us all over again. “Questions?”
When no one piped up, he turned. “Group One with me. Group Two with Eric. We stay in touch by radio.” He looked around one last time. “Okay, folks, let’s go.”
I was in Group One since I’d had the most recent experience with the setup at the stadium and knew the route we’d taken to avoid contact with Larry’s boys. Going in was actually anticlimactic compared to all the excitement I’d had helping Sarah get into the stadium. There was no gunfire, no yelling or screaming. We snuck in like proverbial mice, quiet as….
It took us twice as long to get in, and I felt strange as we passed by the volunteers making their way, step by careful step, into town, but not one of us was spotted, and we all made it without incident.