Chapter 38

38

While we waited for our food to arrive, I slipped out of our booth for a recon of The Forge restaurant. It didn't take that long as there wasn't much to recon.

From above, the restaurant would look like a big rectangle with three smaller rectangles at the back of it. The main rectangle was where the dining room and bar were, and the smaller rectangles at the back of it contained a private banquet room on the left, the kitchen behind the bar, and the two restrooms at the back on the right.

I left through the east-facing front door and made a right to the south and walked the perimeter of the place until I came all the way around. I counted eight windows in all. Four on the front and two on each small side. In addition to the front door, there were two more doors, a back one for the kitchen near where I had parked and an emergency exit door in the north side of the building from the dining room.

I walked back behind the restaurant, where there was a small dumpster and some recycling cans, and stood for a moment on the gravel looking at my truck, thinking about things.

No, I don't need to get that hasty, do I?

"Who am I kidding?" I whispered as I hit the electronic fob in my jacket pocket and pulled open the driver's door.

I exited the truck after a minute with a large, heavy canvas kit bag that I had removed from a special hidden compartment in my truck's custom bed. In the kit bag were a variety of things that I had wished I would never have to use on my road trip.

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride," I said under my breath.

I stopped for a moment and looked at the old brick factory behind the restaurant and at the door of the antique place.

I came in closer and flashed my key chain penlight at the door's old lock. It looked like a cinch to kick in. There was an alarm on it no doubt, but if things went down enough where we might have to retreat into it, I knew I probably wouldn't have to worry about that.

When I turned back for the restaurant, I noticed that the back kitchen door was open, so I decided to go for it. The chef inside was a midsize, soft-around-the-middle Hispanic guy of around thirty with a long beard and tats. He didn't look too happy to see me as I brushed by the fry station carrying my large canvas bag.

"Whoa, what the hell? You can't come in this way," he said.

"Oh, I'm sorry, man. My bad. Won't happen again," I said, hurrying behind him back into the restaurant.

I walked past the bar and tossed my heavy bag into the booth with a clunk and sat down next to it. None of the old-timers at the bar seemed to have noticed.

Good , I thought, as I began counting bodies.

Two waitresses and the owner and the chef made four plus the five old-timers and five roughnecks was fourteen. Then I counted four other couples. With us three, that made twenty-five.

Twenty-five people on board the SS Forge , I thought.

What did airline pilots call the passengers again? I suddenly thought, looking out at everyone. Souls.

Twenty-five souls aboard , I thought.

I looked over at the roughnecks again. The guy I had dubbed Papa Bear laughed at something the Brooklyn guy said and took a sip from a mug of beer.

I liked Papa Bear. He seemed smart and reasonable and he had some size on him. Not only that, he was older, which gave him some gravitas. People would listen to him.

If what I thought was about to happen happened, he would be the first person I would try to partner up with.

I looked up as Daisy arrived with the huge platter of wings.

"Here we are," she said with a smile. "Hope everybody is hungry."

"Starving," I said, smiling back.

Which was the exact moment when all the lights went out.