dangerous stuff.”
“Radioactive material is potentially deadly,” he said. “But by itself it doesn’t kill or disable instantly, like a bullet or a knife. If we threatened the guards with a chunk of radioactive rock, they would just shoot us.”
“What else have you got? Chemicals?”
“I have some solvents, a couple of acids—”
“That’s it.” She leaned toward him. “Throw acid on someone and you could certainly disable them.”
“But they have to get close enough for you to be sure you don’t miss,” he said. “You might take out one guard that way, but not both of them.”
She mulled over this problem. “I could create a distraction. Something they would both have to respond to. You could douse them with acid and we could make a run for it.”
He didn’t automatically dismiss the plan, which she considered a positive sign. “What kind of distraction?”
“I don’t know. It would have to be something that would bring them inside. What about a fire? Or a minor explosion in the lab?”
“I tried that the second week I was here. One of them stuck his head in and told me if I burned the place down with me in it, I would save them all a lot of trouble. I ruined my only sweater putting out the blaze.”
“I could scream rape.”
He shook his head. “From what I’ve seen of this bunch, they’d either want to watch or participate.”
She cringed. “Right. Bad idea.” She rubbed a finger under the collar. “If I told them something was wrong with this, they would probably want to keep their distance.” She looked around the cabin. “What do they care about in here?”
“Nothing,” he said. “The only time they set foot inside is to bring food, and then one of them keeps his gun on me while the other one sets the bags on the table. The whole process takes about three minutes.”
“So you’ve been practically living in solitary confinement.” No wonder he was depressed.
“I would rather be by myself than have anything to do with people like them,” he said. “Killers who justify what they do with a pretense of saving the country from itself.”
“So we’ll have to make our move when they bring the food,” she said. “When do they usually bring it?”
“Midafternoon. I thought they were making a delivery when they brought you.”
“Do they come every day?”
“No. Three or four times a week.”
“Next time they come we won’t make our move, but we’ll watch and see if we can spot any weak points. Have you ever seen any other women up here?”
“Never.”
“I’ve seen a few hanging around Duane’s compound—a few wives and girlfriends of the men who follow him. Maybe a few of the women are followers, too. But there’s never any female muscle. That runs counter to all those old-fashioned values they like to espouse.”
“What are you getting at?” he asked.
“These guys aren’t around women a lot,” she said. “They don’t know how to handle them.”
“They don’t have any problem killing women,” he said, and she wondered if he was thinking of his dead wife.
Her stomach knotted. “I don’t intend to let them kill me if I can help it. But I was thinking if I got a little hysterical it might throw them off balance long enough for you to douse them with the acid.”
“That’s a lot of ifs.”
“The alternative is sitting here and waiting to be blown up. I would rather take the risk.”
“And what happens after that?” he asked. “After we get outside? I don’t even know where we are. Do you?”
“No. But there is a road leading up here, and if we head down the mountain and keep walking, we’re bound to eventually reach a house or a highway or someone who can help us.” She angled her body toward him. “We can gather supplies to take with us—food and water and blankets. When we get to a phone we can call your brother the FBI agent.”
“The guards will come after us. It won’t be as simple as walking away from here.”
“If we disable both guards on duty, we’ll have a head start. I’ll admit it won’t be easy, but if we don’t at least try it, we’ll die for sure.”
He let out a long breath. “You’re right.” His eyes met hers, a strength in them she hadn’t seen before. “We’ll do it.”
* * *
ERIN’S DETERMINATION TO escape kindled a fire in Mark. He felt like a man awakening after a long sleep, dormant emotions coming to life once more. Last night’s erotic dream was just one more sign of his reawakening. When he had first come to the cabin, he had fought, but weeks of isolation and torture and no success from his efforts had left him listless and numb. The sight of the beautiful woman sentenced to death by the bomb around her throat hit him like an injection of adrenaline.
“I did an inventory of the lab equipment and supplies,” he told Erin as they ate lunch—the last of the sandwich fixings—that afternoon. She had spent the morning looking out the windows, not speaking. Maybe the direness of their situation was sinking in.
“How do you replenish your supplies?” she asked. She lifted the top slice of bread on her turkey sandwich and frowned at the grayish meat inside.
“I make a list and give it to the guard who delivers the food.” Mark bit into his own sandwich. After his first weeks here he had learned to eat when food was offered, since he could never be sure when the next meal would arrive. “I’m pretty well stocked right now, but I need more nitric acid. I use it to process the plutonium.” Any chemist would recognize this as a gross oversimplification of what he did, but the guards didn’t strike him as chemistry majors.
“So you think they’ll bring more food this afternoon?” she asked.
“I hope so. We need more food since there are two of us now.”
“It must be pretty boring for the guards,” she said. “I’ve been watching them all morning and they just walk around the cabin all day. What do they do when it snows, or at night?”
“There’s someone on guard all the time,” he said. “Sometimes they build a fire in winter, and they have a trailer parked nearby, where they can take turns warming up.”
He could almost read her thoughts. She was thinking if they could get out of here at a time when only one guard was outside, they would have a better chance of getting away.
“They keep the doors locked from the outside,” he reminded her.
She nodded, still thoughtful.
The
