Cover Of Night

"Cut the phone and power lines," said Goss. "That takes care of phones, computers, and satellite e-mail."

"What if one of them has a satellite phone? You considered that?"

"Satellite phones aren’t real common," replied Goss, "but just in case one of those yahoos does have one, we’ll need to know.

Should be easy enough to find out in a place that small. Likewise, it’ll be easy to spot any vehicles new enough to have OnStar or something like it."

"OnStar won’t work out there," "league said. "No cell phone service. You’re safe on that."

That was good; the situation was already complicated enough.

Since there were only two chairs, they dragged the table over to the bed. Toxtel sat on the bed, while Goss and Teague took the chairs, i hey spent an hour leaning over the map, with league pointing out topographical details.

"I’ll have to reconnoiter, make sure the land lies the way I think it does, but I think this is a doable plan," Teague finally said. "Trail Stop is a dead end for the utility lines, the phone company and power company might not know service has been interrupted – and even if they do, taking out that bridge means they won’t be able to do anything about it. So we put up ‘bridge out’ signs here" – he pointed to where the road to Trail Stop joined the large road – "and block the road with construction sawhorses, and we should be good. This won’t take forever, probably just a day or so. Put enough pressure on that woman and she’ll cave. Hell, the rest of them there may throw her to the wolves; you never know. You said she’s got a kid?"

"Toys were lying around. Never saw one, though."

"Could be in school. So we make sure the kid is at home, start this dance late in the afternoon or on Saturday. People tend not to risk their kids. After you get what you want, you gotta disappear fast. My men and I can slow them down, but at some point I’ll have to pull out and fade into the woodwork, too. If you aren’t gone by then, that’s your ass on the line."

"Understood," said Toxtel. Then he frowned. "If the bridge is out, how will we get what we came for?"

"The creek can be forded at other places. What we have to do is keep people from crossing at those places until we want them to. Now, let’s talk money."

When league left the motel room an hour later he had his money, and he was both satisfied and so amused it was all he could do to keep from laughing in their faces. Toxtel’s plan was one of the most idiotic things he’d ever heard in his life, but if Toxtel wanted to pay him a small fortune for making this Rube Goldberg farce work, he was glad to take the man’s money.

The plan was workable, with a lot of trouble and expense. It was also unnecessarily complicated. If it had been left up to Teague, he would have taken two men with him and gone in on foot about two am; the woman would give up whatever it was she had or her kid would die. Simple. Instead, Toxtel had dreamed up this elaborate scheme to hold the entire community hostage.

Toxtel and Goss must have gone in there and had their asses handed to them. Teague had no doubt those two were bad men to cross, but they were out of their element. They were probably used to being the only ones with weapons; out here, everyone and his grandmother had a weapon. Now, wounded ego and hurt pride had come into play and clouded their judgment, which was never good.

On the other hand, making this work would be a challenge, and Teague dearly loved a challenge. There was so much to consider, so many pieces that had to fall into place, that he’d have to be at the top of his game. Maybe Toxtel and Goss weren’t the only ones who’d let pride sway their decisions. The difference between them was, Teague recognized the element of pride in his motivation, and would allow for it. His biggest motive, though, was greed: he liked the numbers they’d been talking.

He was familiar with the Trail Stop area. The land surrounding it was rugged, almost impassable. In places the jagged mountains were almost vertical, with sheer rock faces and treacherous ravines. On the other side, the river blocked the way, and it was a bitch of a river. He didn’t know of anyone, even white-water rafters, who put a raft in this far upriver. Trail Stop existed only because it had been needed by miners who excavated for gold in the mountains in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, leaving the place riddled with abandoned mines. That jut of land between the river and the mountains was the only reasonably flat piece of land for miles, so that was where a general store to serve the miners had been based. The general store was still there, the miners were long gone, and other than the handful of people who didn’t have better sense than to live there, the only people ever there were tourists, hunters, or rock climbers.

Hmm. Rock climbers. That was something else to add to his list: he had to make certain there were no visiting rock climbers staying in the bed-and-breakfast, because they could conceivably offer a way out that he couldn’t block. He didn’t think so, because even if someone scaled the rock faces of the mountains to the northeast, they were still miles and miles of nigged territory away from help, but he preferred to cover all possibilities.

The way he saw it, his biggest problem would come from Joshua Creed. There weren’t many people Teague respected, but Creed topped the list. The former Marine major had a cabin in the Trail Stop area, so it stood to reason he’d get some of his supplies there rather than drive thirty miles to another store. If anyone could throw a monkey wrench into the works, it would be Creed.

There were two options: bottle Creed up with the others inside the contained area and take the risk he would not only organize them but somehow mount a counteraction, or seal off the area with Creed outside it and hope the pretense of working on the bridge would fool him. Teague figured he’d have to be on his toes to manage Creed if he was with the others, but at least Teague would know where he was. If Creed wasn’t in Trail Stop, then Teague had no way of keeping tabs on him – and Creed could well take it into his head to see what he could see.