The Hostaged Island

"Forget your plan, you low-life," Lyons muttered. "Tonight you die."

Blancanales glanced at his watch, looked at the sun. "We've got four hours until dusk. We need to circle around the town, check out the Outlaws' perimeter, find their outposts and sentries..."

"These bikers are such losers," Lyons said. "If they've even got outposts around the town, I'll be surprised."

Gadgets gri

Lyons touched the wound across his ribs. "Ooo ah... I am self-criticized!"

"Hurt much?" Blancanales asked.

"Yeah."

"The numbing from shock is wearing off. That rib isn't broken but I'd say all the cartilage between your ribs on that side is separated. Like shatter lines in glass. But you played football — it'll feel like a blind-side elbow attack, except ten times worse. I have some painkillers."

"Forget the dope."

"Carl, you're going to hurt."

"I'll get through it. What good will I be if I'm doped up? The pain will motivate me to close down this horror show. Let's go find those outposts."

Descending the mountain's firebreaks and trails on their captured motorcycles, Lyons fell back, unable to keep up with Blancanales and Gadgets. Every bump, every lurch of the handlebars made his face go tight with pain. A few hundred yards short of the highway, Gadgets pulled behind a screen of manzanita and sage where they could not possibly be seen. He raised his hand to stop the others.

"Change in plans. If Lyons can't keep up on a motorcycle, how's he going to do it when we're ru

"I can do it," Lyons insisted, his face tight. Despite the exertion of the motocrossing, he tried to hold his upper body motionless, taking shallow breaths.

"Lyons, you are hard core. But you're also walking wounded. What do you two say we just ride our bikes down the highway and cruise through town? Make like bikers on patrol?"

Now Lyons was smiling. "Taking a long chance, wizard."

"Like you said, they're losers. A gang of psycho losers. I think we can slip in and slip out..."

"With luck," Blancanales nodded. "But we'll need helmets. I want to cover these, too." He glanced down at the black nylon of his battle-suit's pants. He unfolded his map and pointed out the dotted line of a fire road. "This becomes a paved road a mile out of town. It comes down to that block that's burning. In all the smoke, maybe we could get what we need. Without any trouble. Maybe..." Blancanales held his silenced Beretta to chamber a round.

They followed Stage Road only a quarter mile, then turned off onto the Indian Trail service road. The heavy motorcycles were able to follow the twisting trail, powerfully, and they climbed the steep hills with gusts of noisy energy.

At the Country Club, the fire road became a paved, gently graded asphalt lane lined by rows of eucalyptus trees. Bougainvillea and oleander bloomed on the roadside.

They switched off their engines and coasted through the cool afternoon shadows. Only the whirring of their spoked wheels would betray them.

Soon, smoke obscured the sky. Only a few hundred yards farther on, homes were burning. The sound of shotgun blasts stopped them. Pulling over, Biancanales and Gadgets hotfooted it around a turn in the road, leaving Lyons with the motorcycles.

Two Outlaws braced their weapons on the bricks of a low wall, firing at a man ru

"We flushed a Mexican out of the stables," he grunted. "Get with it and put out some firepower. That funky little beaner ain't go

Biancanales brought up the Beretta. "Yes he is."

14

As Roger Davis watched Crescent Street for Outlaws, Glen Shepard and Chris Davis wheeled the motorcycles of the recently deceased bikers into the hotel. They continued with the bikes through the hotel to the linen storage and sorting room. They hid the motorcycles under dirty towels and sheets, then went back to the lobby.

"You know how to ride one of those things?" Glen asked Chris.

"Oh, yeah. Roger has a Honda dirt-bike. You think we could just ride out to the hills? Hide out up there?"

"Only if you teach me how."

"We could get a car."

Glen called to Roger. The young man left the front door and followed Glen and his cousin up the stairs. "You two want to go into the hills until this is over?"

"Whatever you think is safe, Mr. Shepard," Roger answered.

"No, it's not what I think. It's what we think. You stay here, you're in danger. You try to make it to the hills, you're in danger. If you two got on those Harleys, you could be in the hills in two or three minutes. My wife and I, we'd have to get a car. And I don't think driving through town in a car would be smart."

"You've done great so far," Roger assured him.

"We've done great so far," Glen corrected him. "Without you two — in the attic and in that backyard — A

They laughed, almost relaxed. In the hotel room, A

"Those Outlaws just then," A

"They see you?" Glen asked. He went to the window and looked to the south. Three bikers had passed the ferry boat docks and were heading toward the southern end of the island.

"No, they didn't see me. They didn't even look up. They were too busy looking left and right. What do we do now?"

"You want to go to the hills? Or you want to stay here? The boys could take those motorcycles, but we'd have to chance a car."

"And that means we'd have to chance driving through the Outlaws. And that means we'd have to chance a gunfight, right? Forget it. I want to go to sleep. I mean I feel like a zombie. I don't have any iron in my blood and all night I've been chased around by psychopaths. The doctor told me to rest, to stay in bed until the baby is born. We're safe enough here. This'll all be over pretty soon..."

"And if it isn't?" Glen asked.

"If it's still going on tomorrow, if the police haven't come, then we'll talk about the hills. Now, I want to sleep. Find me a safe place to sleep and I'll be a very happy woman."

"Okay, we stay. A

Chris looked to Roger. "I'll stay here if..."

"Sure," Roger said. "But what do we do if the Outlaws look for us?"

"This hotel has three floors. We're higher than most of the other places on Crescent. We could block the stairwells and jam the elevator. If they tried to burn the hotel, we could drop down on the roof of the restaurant and make a run for it."

"Sure, Glen," A

"Well, any Outlaw who tries to come up the stairs, we kill. If they try to burn the hotel, we shoot them. We'll be up on the roof. We'll have the advantage."

"And we've got guns just like they do," Chris added. "We won't surrender like those two old people. We could hit anything on the street. Be snipers."

Motorcycles passed on the street again. Automatically, they reached for their weapons. Shotgun in hand, Glen looked at the teenagers and saw how their hands closed around the M-14 and the autoloading shotgun.