"There is, a couple of pickups and an old truck. They're parked around the back of the council hall where Baz can keep an eye on them. We'll have to try for one of the pickups, though how we do that without getting our heads blown off I don't know." Nick added reflectively, "And I've grown attached to mine."
"We need something to divert their attention," Ruth said. "A fire; anything to keep them occupied."
Chase nodded, but he was thinking of their other problem. Stealing the pickup would be easy compared with getting Dan out. He looked at his watch. "Whatever we decide it'll have to be quick," he said. "Baz wants us off the settlement by sundown, which gives us four hours. We'll have to start making preparations right now. How soon could you be ready to leave?" he asked Nick.
Nick surveyed the room and sighed. "Well, there's not a lot we can take with us. About two hours, I'd say, to get our personal stuff and supplies for the trip together. Jen?" His wife nodded her agreement.
"Have you got a gun?"
"Two rifles. Jo's a crack shot. Better than me."
"Four weapons," Chase said. He kneaded the bruise on his ribs. "If they're unprepared for us that might be enough."
"How are you going to do it?" Ruth asked, her eyes liquid and dark beneath the swathe of white bandage. "We can't start a gunfight with Cheryl in the middle of it, and she's in no shape to be moved quickly."
"Cheryl won't be there and neither will you." Chase stared into space, thinking it through. "The three of us will leave in the jeep before sundown, exactly as Baz wants us to do. That should relax him and set his mind at rest--if that's conceivable. We'll find a quiet spot somewhere off the road where you and Cheryl can wait in the jeep while I double-back on foot. Then Nick and I will get Dan out, take the pickup, and rendezvous with Jen and Jo down by the lake." He looked at the others.
After a moment's silence Nick said, "The first part sounds simple-- the three of you leaving in the jeep. It's the rest of it that worries me. Baz has Dan under guard night and day, and there's probably someone watching the pickup too. If shooting starts we're outnumbered twenty to one."
Chase gave a wan smile. "Baz already made that point and I haven't forgotten it. As Ruth says, we need some kind of a diversion to draw them away from the council hall. Do you know which room they're holding Dan in?"
"He was in the library stock room," Jen said, "if they haven't moved him."
"Let's hope they haven't. Has it got windows?"
Jen nodded. "I used to help out in the library. It's a corner room with two windows."
"How many doors?"
"Just one. I'll draw you a plan." She clenched both fists.
"What is it?"
"Next door to the stock room there's a small kitchen with a trapdoor into the loft. If you could get into the loft from outside you could get in without being seen. Maybe they're not even guarding the stock room, just the main door."
"Can we get into the loft from outside?" Chase asked Nick.
"I don't know. There's an outhouse, a kind of lean-to shed at one end, so we can get onto the roof quite easily."
"Okay, that's a possibility we'll have to keep in mind." Chase paced up and down the small room.
Jo appeared at the door and said apprehensively, "Ruth, Cheryl's having trouble breathing and there's that stuff on her lips. Can you come?"
Chase turned anxiously, but Ruth held her hand up, moving quickly to the door. "It's all right, I'll see to her. You've got enough to be thinking about." She followed Jo out.
"Would a fire do it, do you think?" Jen asked, hugging her knees and looking from Chase to her husband and back again.
"It might," Chase said, racking his brains. "But it would have to be something that threatened Baz personally, his house, his drugs--"
Nick thumped his palm. "Christ, Gav, that's it! The dispensary! If that went up, they'd beat the flames out with their bare hands!"
"That would do it all right," Chase agreed, "but we'd be hurting everyone else in the community, too, destroying drugs that innocent people need." He tugged fretfully at his beard. "No, we can't do that, Nick. It could cause their death."
"It's life or death for us, too," Nick said. "Every man for himself."
Chase looked away, his face drawn and tight. "That's why the world's in a fucking awful mess right now. The biggest grab the most. What's yours is mine and what's mine's me own. Old Lancashire saying."
"I remember you and your bloody conscience at Halley Bay," Nick said, shaking his head wryly. "While the rest of us were wallowing in lurid sex fantasies, you were worrying about the dissolution of carbon dioxide in seawater. How about some coffee?" he said to Jen.
"Yes, all right. Do you want something to eat?"
"Not for me. Gav?"
Chase shook his head. Jen went through to the kitchen and Nick took a bottle and glasses from a cupboard. "Genuine and original Oregon brandy," he said, pouring out four measures. "Made from apple cores and caribou droppings. This stuff puts hair on your chest and everywhere else as well."
