"More gasoline," Roger said.

"We got to tell Mr. Shepard. Maybe he can think of some way to warn... Keep listening, maybe..."

Chris took the stairs down to the third floor, and he went into one of the rooms. The bed squeaked in the room.

"Mr. Shepard, it's Chris."

Glen Shepard got to his feet wearing only his pants. But he held his sawed-off riot shotgun. Chris saw huge bruises on his ribs and chest.

"Roger and I, we've been listening to the walkie-talkie and watching the street." Chris motioned Glen to follow him. Glen picked up his Outlaws jacket and put it on as they went to the roof.

"We can't believe what we think is happening. They had a roll call on the radio, and hardly anybody answered. This Horse guy keeps calling names, and the bikers say, 'Haven't seen him in hours', 'Don't know where he went,' stuff like that. Then Horse starts screaming about 'payback for the brothers, burn these locals.' He sent his men out for gasoline. That's all they've been doing for hours."

"Gasoline?" Glen asked. "How much gas does a motorcycle use?"

"It's not for the motorcycles."

Roger had the walkie-talkie pressed to his ear. "Listen..."

"Got it drained?" the radio said. "Still coming out. Down to drops now..."

"Put the cap back on. We can't wait all..."

"Mustn't have any water in the line."

"Cap it off! Upstairs, you guys there? Upstairs!"

"Stand-pipe's empty."

"Okay then. A little water in the pipes wouldn't matter, when that gas comes out of the fire hose and the fire sprinklers, a little water won't slow it down a bit. This is going to be one hot ballroom, hot time on the old town tonight..." Laughter.

Roger started to his feet. "Now we know."

"They took a car to the gas station, just kept going back and forth with cans," Chris told Glen Shepard. "They must have hundreds of gallons of it. Hundreds."

Glen nodded. "They said 'fire hose and the fire sprinklers.' They'll need a few gallons, that's for sure."

Chris spoke with panic in his voice. "They've turned the building into a bomb. My mom and dad are in there, Roger's mom, everybody in our family, everybody we know in town, all those people..."

"What can we do, Mr. Shepard?" Roger asked him.

Looking up at the darkening sky, Glen watched the gulls gliding on the wind. High above the dusk-shadowed town, the gulls still flew in sunlight, their wings white against the violet sky. He swept his eyes over the mountains, drinking in the thousand shades of green, brown, blue, the points of yellow wild flowers, the red flowers of hillside homes. What a beautiful island, he thought. He had moved to Catalina because it was a small town set in a desert paradise isolated by the ocean. He had wanted to walk with his children on the island's beaches and mountains, through its desert wilderness and gardens of tropical flowers. Now his child would walk without a father.

"How old are you two?" he asked the Davis cousins.

"Eighteen," Chris answered.

"Sixteen, seventeen next month," Roger told him.

"So you're drafted. I want you to write your parents letters, tell them what happened today, tell them that you loved and respected them, and that there was no one else to help. You had to."

"What're we going to do?" Roger asked.

Across the bay, the Casino's automatic lights came on. The light bathed the white building in brilliance. Chris and Roger saw Glen Shepard staring, turned to see what he watched. Chris spoke first: "We're going over there?"

"We have to. There's nobody else. I'll be back in a few minutes." Then Glen left to say goodbye to his wife.

17

"Voice-graph analysis confirms voice of gang collaborator as that of John Severine, atomic theoretician and suspected Soviet agent. Capture of Severine considered highest priority..."

"But what about the people?" Lyons demanded of the recorded voice. "Didn't you Federals get the message?"

"Sssh!" Gadgets silenced him.

"...Concerning the peril of hostages, consensus here is that coordinated assault must be reserved for last resort. That is, if your team fails. Group here has confidence in your team. Group does not believe helicopters supposedly carrying gold to island but actually bringing airborne assault units would succeed. Solution to peril is infiltration, not external assault. Will stand by for communication."

Only their whispers and the tiny red point of the scanner/auto-recorder's power light revealed Able Team's presence in the lush hillside garden. After slipping from the warehouse under cover of the smoke and confusion, the three men — the older one, mature and mellow in his strength, the blond one, all action and intensity, but graceful, and the youngest, the tousled-haired thinking man, funny and resourceful and also very strong — had commandeered three motorcycles and retreated to the hills above the town as dusk fell. They hid behind a palatial home on the slope of Mount Ada. The terraced garden viewed Avalon, the bay, and the Casino.

They had monitored both the gang's communications and the private conversations of Horse with Severine, and they knew the full horror of the gang leader's intentions.

Though they had defeated the Outlaws at the seaplane terminal, Able Team felt no pride. They realized that Horse would take his revenge on the innocent townspeople and tourists of Avalon.

Lyons addressed his colleagues. "If I have to watch sixteen hundred innocent people die in flames, I tell you, I'm jumping off this hill. I'd rather die than see that gas bomb down there go up."

"Yeah," Gadgets nodded. "That's it. Jump off the hill."

"Hey, man," Lyons snapped back, "I know it's melodramatic, but that's how I feel. This gasoline trick, turning a whole building into a bomb, all those people..."

"Carl, I'm not being sarcastic," Gadgets said quickly. "There's a hang-glider shop in Avalon. I saw it when we were cruising..."

"Wizard! You are a wizard!" Lyons jumped to his feet, then gasped from the pain in his ribs. Clutching at the agony in his chest, he started down to the motorcycles. He looked back to them. "Come on, we got a flight to catch!"

Descending the hotel stairs silently, the Davis cousins heard Mrs. Shepard's voice. They glanced to each other. Chris reached for the fire door's handle, but Roger stopped him. "Let them be alone."

Glen Shepard soon pushed open the fire door, and was startled when he saw the boys there. His shotgun jerked up instinctively. He relaxed when he recognized them. "Ready to go?"

They nodded. "We got everything we need," Chris said as they descended the stairs.

They approached the fire door to the lobby. The hotel's timer-controlled lights were on. Glen gave instructions. "Act like rough-tough Outlaws, walk straight through."

They carried their weapons casually and crossed the bright lobby. Beyond the windows, the streetlights lit Crescent to daylight brilliance. They stepped through the service door and continued to the alley behind the hotel.

In the alley's darkness, Glen spoke to the youths once more: "All you two need to do is drive. Wait for my signal, then drive. We'll need a big truck and a fast car."

"How will you get into the Casino?"

"I'll go up Chimes Tower Road, then cut across the hills. When I'm ready to start down the hill, I'll signal you. You wait fifteen minutes, then drive for the Casino. Fire a few shots out the window to get their attention. They'll shoot at you.

"Two hundred yards from the Casino, wreck the truck so it blocks the road. Hit it with a molotov cocktail, run back to the car and split.

"Go up Marilla to Vieudelou, as if you're taking the road out of town. But turn onto La Mesa and park. Just like one of the neighborhood cars. They won't catch you, and I'll be in the Casino."