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Shooting our way out was an option, but I didn't like it, for a number of reasons. With the contractors in Cold Spring and again in Montana, the situation had been different. They'd come to the game with violence, their intentions plain; for lack of a better phrase, they'd known what they were getting into. But the idea of shooting some poor S.O.B. cop who was doing his job, that didn't sit well with me. There were a lot of things I already had on my conscience, and many more that I would have to learn to live with. Bringing about the death of a police officer in the line of his duty wasn't going to be one of them.

I said as much to Alena.

"Agreed," she said, then went for her bag, pulling the MacBook from within. "Curtains."

I went to the windows. Our view wasn't bad, given that there wasn't much to it, at least, not yet. It was almost full dark outside now, the overcast sky helping the night's approach, and streetlamps had already come on. I could see the expanse of the parking lot, see the Outback parked where we had left it, and then, across Elk, the lot of the minimall, likewise illuminated. As I watched, the first car arrived, cutting its siren as it pulled in across the street. Red and blue flashed off the sheen of ice on the ground, bounced from the glass of nearby windows.

I closed the curtains, then moved to the bathroom. There was no window, not even a tiny one. I came back to find Alena at the desk, searching the drawers furiously.

"No way out the back," I told her. "Which, I suppose, means no way in, either. And we sure as hell aren't leaving by the front door, not unless we're in custody, at least."

"The Ethernet cable," she told me. "I can't get a wireless signal. There should be a cable in the closet or somewhere."

I snapped back the bifold doors on the closet, came eye-to-eye with a small clear plastic bag dangling from the clothes rod. I didn't bother to unhook it, just tore the bag loose and tossed it to Alena. She freed the cable, plugged it into the cable modem on the desk, and opened the Web browser.

"Do we have a plan?" I asked her.

"I'm working on one. The response-what are we facing?"

I moved past her at the desk, back to the window, and parted the curtains enough to peek out. The lot across the street was filling with emergency vehicles, and as I watched, a SWAT van pulled in to join the others. I wasn't hearing any helicopters, but that didn't mean there weren't going to be any; only that they hadn't arrived on-scene yet.

"SWAT just pulled up," I told her. "I'd guess at ten minutes before they cut the power."

"The news showed the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI."

"They'll have been notified," I agreed. "The Feds will want to run the show, which means they'll put the brakes on the locals, keep them from rushing us, even if they were inclined to do that, which I doubt. How many people in Lynch, you think?"

"Twenty thousand? Perhaps thirty?"

"Not a big SWAT team, then, and probably not a lot of experience on it, either. They'll do it by the book, all the more so because they think we're so damn dangerous. SWAT tactics are universally the same. They evacuate the immediate area, form a perimeter, and then wait. They'll try to negotiate us out, especially if they believe we're in possession of a chemical or biological agent."

"Don't forget the federal response."

"I don't know DHS's reach," I said. "Figure they'll scramble a major unit on us, maybe a Delta Squad, maybe the Hostage Rescue Team out of Quantico. So four hours, maybe five before they can reach us."

"Longer, I'd think. Closer to eight. They have to deploy, then transport, then arrive on site, then redeploy."

"Speaking of which," I said. The SWAT team in the lot outside the Get N Go was scrambling, men with rifles running beneath the lights in several directions at once. I tried to get a count of what I was seeing, and it confirmed what I had suspected. It wasn't a large team. On the basis of that, then, they'd secure the perimeter before trying to convince us to come out. Whatever they had for the breaching team, if they decided to come in and take us by force, I didn't know. Before I pulled back from the window, I caught sight of a news van approaching.

"Local media's arrived."

"Good for them. The SWAT team, did they have night-vision?"

"Couldn't tell."

"We'll need to know," she said.

I considered, then reached for the remote control and showed it to her. She actually grinned.

"Very clever," she told me.

I shoved the remote into my back pocket, moving to look over her shoulder at what she'd been doing with the laptop. Apparently, she'd been Googling Wyoming airports.

"We're going to need an airport," she explained to me. "Preferably an international one."

"The idea being to convince them that we're still here while we're actually on a plane to parts unknown?"

"If we are quick, it will work. They will not breach the room unless provoked or until they have no other choice."

I was at the bureau beneath the television, now, yanking open the drawers. The television was still rambling news, and for the time being, it seemed, wasn't talking about us. That wouldn't last much longer. If the initial story was national, then the addition to it currently playing out in Lynch sure as hell would be, too. I kept searching, and in the lower right-hand drawer found the phone book for Lynch, as well as a copy of Hustler.

"Remind me to have a word with housekeeping," I said.

"What? Why?"

"Never mind." I started flipping through the listings. "Lynch has an airport, the Sweetsprings County Airport."

"International?"

"Are you kidding me?"

She was typing quickly. "If we check in for international flights, we only have to clear security once before arriving at our destination."

"Fine, but we were going to Wilmington."

Alena glanced from the laptop to me, and she actually looked annoyed. "We don't go to the destination. We get on a flight routing to Paris, say, but that requires changing planes somewhere on the East Coast-Dulles would be ideal. Then we simply walk out of the airport, rent a vehicle, proceed from there."

"There's an international airport in Casper," I said, discarding the phone book and taking a look at the ceiling. It wasn't terribly high, just out of my reach. I tried to remember the grade of the roof, how severely it had been raked. "Probably one in Cheyenne, as well."

"Denver is closer," she said. "Here, the local airport has connections to Denver. Also a flight school. That will be useful."

She snapped the laptop closed, then reached around and pulled the cord from the jack. While she did that, I pulled myself up on the dresser, began pushing at the ceiling. It gave with pressure, and as soon as I verified that, I punched at it. My angle on it was bad, and I couldn't get much force behind my blows, and all of the bruises on my torso came back to life when I did it. It took three tries before I broke through with my fist. Debris and dust floated down, coating my arm and face.

"They'll be looking for a man and a woman traveling together," Alena said.

I began tearing a hole in the ceiling. "We're going to have to split up."

"Once we're clear, yes. We will rejoin one another at the hotel in Wilmington, but each of us will have to travel by a different route to get there. The longer we can convince them we are still here, still trapped in this room, the more time we will have to escape, to get further away."