“But if he was ruined — bankrupt — then how did they finance this thing?”
“Inkman could have bankrolled this with bottle returns. Biowarfare hasn’t changed much since the Romans used dead dogs to foul their enemy’s water supply. Only the methods of delivery have matured. The cost of a controlled multiple-casualty attack on a one square kilometer area using conventional weapons is about two thousand dollars. With nukes, you drop to around eight hundred dollars. Chemical weapons, about six hundred dollars. But biological weapons? About one hundred, one fifty.”
Dr. Rosen said, “Look — they seem reasonable. What if we throw ourselves on their mercy? They don’t want us here, and we don’t want to be here. They let the others go.”
Terry said, “These are psychos. We should wait, shouldn’t we? The FBI knows we’re here now. They’ll find a way to get us out. They have to.”
In the corner, Darla sank down the dark wall paneling to sit the floor, gripping her stomach.
“We could hide here,” said Rita, looking around.
Fern nodded. “There’s a kitchen. We have a fire.”
“Fire makes smoke,” said Rebecca. “We might as well dial nine one one. We can’t just hide here and wait this thing out. The prisoners could hold the FBI off for months like this — months. Do you realize?”
“She’s right,” said Kells. “We need to keep moving. Tonight.”
Rebecca nodded at having found an unlikely ally. “We have to escape. There is no other way.”
“Not escape,” contradicted Kells. “The snow is three feet deep in places and still falling. With the short days, there’s no way we could cross the mountains or walk through the trees in the dark. Even with skis for everyone. The cons have sealed off the town and sealed us in. We can’t go backward or forward.”
Rebecca was staring at him. “Then, what?”
“We make a stand here in town. We fight.”
Dr. Rosen said, “Fight?”
Terry dropped his arms and walked away.
Mia was crying silently, Robert was holding her hand.
Rebecca was shaking her head. “We can’t provoke them like that,” said Rebecca. “The FBI said—”
“The FBI said, Wait to be captured. They said, Better eleven dead than eleven thousand.”
The others were shocked. Hearing it put so bluntly chilled Rebecca.
Terry said, “That’s not true.”
“You’re in finance, Terry,” said Kells. “You crunch the numbers.” He looked to the rest. Rebecca could feel Kells’s pull on the group’s orbit, like a finger nudging a gyroscope off course. “Right now Trait and his men think the town is evacuated. So, long as we keep moving, we’ve got the snow to shield and the long winter nights. Sitting here and waiting will only get us killed.”
“Killed?” said Dr. Rosen. “And going out and fighting them won’t?”
“Not if we do it right. Not if they don’t know we’re here.”
“You were wrong,” Dr. Rosen said. “You were wrong about running. If they had caught us at the inn, we would all be home now.”
Kells said, “I wasn’t wrong. You think the hostages were well-treated? These men escaped from cages. What about your girlfriend?”
Kells nodded at Darla sitting against the wall. She just stared at the floor, but public acknowledgment of the affair chastened Dr. Rosen.
Rebecca was tired and scared. “Just say the word. Rape. Just say it.”
“That would be just the beginning.”
“You think only women? Don’t pretend it couldn’t be any one of you.”
Terry said, “Jesus Christ!”
Kells said, “All the more reason to keep moving. Fighting these escaped convicts is the only way.”
Rebecca said, “Won’t they assume the attacks, or whatever you’re proposing, are coming from outside? They’ll drop the ricin on those towns.”
Kells was growing impatient. “Those towns are already lost. The mechanism has already been set in motion. No matter how it happens, Trait’s going to be forced to do those towns someday. Otherwise, if he’s allowed to profit from this threat, you’re going to see these situations popping up all over. No one can get in his way right now except us.”
“Are you kidding?” said Terry, laughing fearfully. “Do we look like fighters to you?”
“You look like people with a simple choice: Fight or die.”
Bert said, “How many killers are left out there? What do we think? Twenty-five? Thirty?”
“Assume more. But even forty, even forty-five, that’s still a four-to-one ratio. Favorable odds when surprise is on your side.”
“But these aren’t just men,” Rebecca reminded him. “These aren’t just convicts. These are the worst of the worst.”
“They are just men. But they are also the establishment now. They are the law in this town, and we are the criminals. It’s a lot easier to create chaos than it is to prevent it.”
“That sounds good in theory,” said Bert, looking interestedly at Kells. “But they have all the weapons. We have yours and Fern’s turn-of-the-century rifle. We’re outgunned. How do you propose to get more?”
Kells looked to Fern. “They couldn’t have collected all the guns. Not here in Vermont. You’ve got hunters, farmers, sportsmen. Let’s use their unfamiliarity with the town to our advantage. Give me someplace the cons wouldn’t have looked, or couldn’t have found.”
Fern tried to think but could not concentrate.
Coe looked up then, his face bright. “What about Marshall Polk?”
Fern looked to him, more shocked than chagrined. “Marshall Polk?” she said.
Kells said, “Who is Marshall Polk?”
“A crazy man,” said Coe. “Lives in the mountains.”
“A recluse,” said Fern, “an old kook. A former selectman and town postmaster until he started fighting the prison plans. He was always kind of wacky with his theories, but something went wrong in his mind. Maybe just age. It ended up with him seceding from town. He lives in a shack somewhere in the northeast mountains.”
“He declared war on Gilchrist,” Coe said. “He’s a one-man militia.”
“Barbershop talk,” scoffed Fern. “Marshall never actually did anything.”
Kells directed his question at Coe. “You know where he lives?”
“Cold Hollow, on the ridge somewhere over the old asbestos mine. I know it pretty good.”
“Think he’s still there?”
“Don’t know. But maybe he left behind some guns.”
Fern said, “That’s a day’s walk.”
Kells was still looking at the kid. Coe was thinking. “We could take the sleds,” he said.
“What sleds?”
“The snowmobiles. The greens crew here has some. A couple of them came out to chase us off the fairways a few weeks ago.”
“You know how to ride?”
Coe’s confidence was growing under Kells’s examination. “Me and my buds, we carve up the old asbestos mine all the time.”
“This is what we need,” said Kells, pointing Coe out to the others. “Someone resourceful, someone who knows the town, who notices things. How long?”
“To get there? Two hours, maybe? Depends on the sleds. And two hours back.”
Fern said to Kells, “Wait. He’s only seventeen.”
Kells asked if anyone else could operate a snowmobile. No one else volunteered.
“It’s settled,” said Kells, looking at Fern. “I wouldn’t take him if it didn’t mean our survival.” He turned to Coe. “You and I will go together?”