Rebecca's lips tightened. "Dan-listen to me! They are coming-now. Get off the telephone-now. See to the town! We will hold them off here as long as possible. Do not make any attempt to rescue us until you have defeated the Croats in the town!"
With a motion as decisive as her voice, she placed the telephone back on its cradle. Immediately, she turned to Jeff.
"The most dangerous place will be the gymnasium. We will not be able to keep the Croats out of the ground floor of the building for very long. The buses will slow them down, and make a mass charge impossible, but-"
Jeff nodded. "They'll smash in the windows to the cafeteria, first thing. There's enough space between the buses and the wall to move single file. Once they're in the cafeteria, all bets are off."
He glanced at the large vestibule beyond the administration office. The door to the cafeteria led directly into it. From there, the enemy would be able to reach the gymnasium as well as the administration center itself. To reach the classrooms on the second floor, they would have to use the stairwells. Jeff could hear the clattering sound of desks and cabinets being moved into place, blocking those access routes. The obstructions could be removed, but there were enough sidearms-and the two rifles in the hands of James and Julie-to make that a bloody business for cavalrymen trying to force their way up a flight of stairs.
But there was no way to block the gymnasium, beyond locking the heavy doors. The doors and locks were solidly built, true. Impossible to break through simply with shoulders or boots. But the Croats would smash them in soon enough. There were simply too many ways they could improvise a battering ram.
Jeff grimaced ruefully. He had provided them with battering rams himself, he realized, by knocking down the pillars supporting the weather awning. He drove the thought aside. The fog of war, Clausewitz called it. The friction of a battlefield, where actions produced unintended consequences.
"Will do," he announced firmly. He hefted the shotgun. "This is the best weapon for that area, once they break in."
He gave Rebecca a stern look. "You're going upstairs. Now."
She nodded. "Yes. I had thought to remain here, where we have communications-"
"No way, Rebecca! Once they break through, this office is a death trap!"
Ed and Len Trout charged in. Both of them were holding pistols. "They're coming!" shouted Piazza. "From the north, over the ridge. One of the kids just spotted them."
"Hundreds of 'em," growled Trout. "Over a thousand, probably."
Ed marched forward and took Rebecca by the arm. "Let's go. You're going upstairs, young lady-this second!"
Unresisting, Rebecca allowed herself to be led away. Her eyes remained on Jeff. Soft, dark, gleaming with sorrow and apology. She had condemned him to death, and knew it.
He gave her a cheerful grin. Made the attempt, anyway.
"Relax, Becky! It'll be okay." He propped the butt of the shotgun on his hip and tried to assume his best Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western imitation. The good, the bad and the ugly-all rolled into one. With spectacles.
Rebecca's eyes teared. "Hidalgo, true and pure," she blessed him.
Once they left the office, Piazza gently handed Rebecca over to Trout.
"Get her upstairs, Len. I'll stay with Jeff and the kids in the gymnasium."
"No."
Ed was startled. He stared up at the tall, balding figure of the school's former vice-principal. Trout was glaring down at him.
"I'm the principal of this school now, Ed, not you." He jerked his head toward the stairs. "Upstairs. Becky and the teachers will need you up there."
Jeff was emerging from the office. Trout started walking toward him. Over his shoulder, repeated in words of iron: "Upstairs, Mr. Piazza."
Ed stared at him, his mouth half open. Rebecca placed her hands on his shoulders, turned him, and started moving him toward the stairs.
"Come along, Edward." She managed a little smile. "We are in a school, you know. We dare not disobey the principal."
Piazza's mouth was still open when Jeff and Len Trout entered the gymnasium. A moment later, hearing the heavy locks sliding into place, he closed his lips. "Jesus Christ," he whispered. "I've known Len Trout for twenty years."
The sentence was like an epitaph.
"We'll give the bastards another Matewan," Dan snarled. "With cherries on top."
He pointed to the bridge over Buffalo Creek. The bridge was now blocked off by one of the school buses which served the town as its public transportation. "Get the recruits over there, Gretchen. You stay with them, you hear? As long as you're there, they won't lose heart."
Gretchen nodded and started bellowing orders. A few seconds later, her 9mm gripped in her hand, she was leading the young Germans who were being trained as new police officers onto the bridge. There were eighteen of them, four of whom were female. All of them were armed with shotguns and revolvers and, like Dan and Gretchen, were wearing bullet-proof vests.
The bridge and the three-way intersection next to it was the center of Grantville. The intersection formed something in the way of a small plaza. The buildings on all sides were two and three stories tall. People were still pouring into those buildings from all the houses and trailers on the north side. Many of the men and some of the women were carrying rifles and other firearms.
Fortunately, Rebecca's warning had come in time to evacuate the part of town directly in the path of the oncoming Croats. It had also enabled the police force to organize the citizens into an impromptu militia. True, most of the able-bodied men and women were with the army in Eisenach or Suhl, but there were still plenty of people who could use a gun-especially firing from within buildings. Rebecca's plan still grated Dan Frost's soul, but he had bowed to the logic of it.
The police chief turned to Fred Jordan, one of his deputies. Before he even asked, Fred was answering. "They're all in place, Dan." Jordan swept his outstretched hand in a half-circle, indicating the buildings lining the intersection. "Got deputies in every one. They'll organize the other people with guns. Biggest problem we're having is keeping the hotheads from charging right off to the school."
Dan nodded. He studied the intersection for a few seconds. "Good enough. All we need is something to draw their attention and suck 'em into the ambush."
He was already marching toward the intersection before he finished speaking. For a moment, Fred was rooted in place. Then, realizing what the chief intended, he started hurrying after him.
Hearing his steps, Dan turned around. "Get out of here, Fred," he said quietly. "Take position in one of the buildings. We don't need two people for this."
Fred started to squawk a protest, but Dan waved him down impatiently. "Do as I tell you, dammit!" His face twisted into a wry grin. "As long as this town seems bound and determined to make me Wyatt Earp, I may as well do it up right."
Lowering the radio, Mike's face was ashen. "Oh, Christ. We've been suckered."
Frank Jackson, Harry Lefferts and Alex Mackay were gathered around him. Frank turned his head and glared at the Spanish prisoners being herded into a makeshift "prison camp." The camp was nothing more than a large stretch of farmland below the Wartburg's hill. The prisoners were held in place not by fences but by the crude expedient of guns pointing directly at them. Even the guns did not surround them completely. The area to the west of the prisoners was bare and open. But the three catapults were standing by, ready to lob hellfire into their midst in case of any trouble.