“You be careful,” I told her. “Both of you,” I added, giving Summer a knowing glance.
She nodded and followed her mother inside.
Moments later Jamie and Buddie joined us.
“We got shooed off,” Jamie said. “Had to play dumb.”
“We know. We heard,” I replied, and then Kiki and I told what we had discovered. We decided then to head back to Jamie and my room to hatch out a plan somewhere less public. After some discussion, we decided we needed help. That is where Will and Dusty came in. After briefing them on the full story, and watching their jaws drop, we convinced them to help. An hour later, we were ready. It was already getting late so we knew we had to hurry.
“All I get to do is yell ‘fire?’ That’s no fun,” Will said. “Let me blow something up.”
“Maybe next time,” I replied with a laugh.
We kept it light, but all of us knew that if anyone was caught, there would be hell to pay.
Though Dusty still seemed unclear as to why we were destroying property, he agreed to come along to cover Buddie. His eyes were wide as he’d listened to Jamie tell how they’d tried to take me out and kidnap the girls, but I could see he still was not sure what to think. I didn’t blame him.
Jamie headed out to set the shed on fire while Dusty and Buddie, Buddie’s bow in tow, headed to the side of the building closest to the antenna. Lucky for us, there was a stand of trees on the antenna end of the hotel. From there, Buddie could make a shot. He’d secured a metal line to one of his arrows and had a small winch he was going to use as a make-shift pulley to bring the antenna down.
“I only get one shot,” Buddie said as he showed us his creation.
“I’m not worried. You’ll be accurate,” I smiled encouragingly.
Kiki and I headed to the employee stairwell again. To our luck, no one was around. We jotted down the same hallway to our hiding spot in the laundry room without detection.
Then, we waited. After awhile we heard yelling. Will.
Static on the walkie blared. “Front desk, what’s all that noise?” we heard a man ask.
“The god damned shed is on fire,” someone replied through static.
“Fuck,” I heard the man swear.
“Better get on it. She’ll be up soon,” a woman replied.
A moment later we saw a man storm down the hallway.
“Complication,” I whispered to Kiki and motioned for her to stay hidden.
I slid out of the room and snuck a look into the office. The woman we had seen earlier was sitting there looking at some papers. Her back was toward me. There was only one option. Moving quickly, I rushed the room, grabbed the woman by the back of the head and slammed her head on the desk. Knocked unconscious, she fell to the floor.
I motioned Kiki. We ran into the radio room.
“Let me cut power,” Kiki said and then, with a knife and screwdriver in hand, Kiki slid under the table. A moment later, the lights on the radio went dim. She then started pulling wires and breaking something that sounded like glass. She slid back out from under the table and looked the radio over. She grinned. “Kill the antenna,” she told me.
Unsheathing the shashka, I cut the wire. Kiki then pulled a couple of small electrical components out of the radio, sticking them in her pocket, and smiled at me. “Done,” she said.
“That was easy,” I answered.
Just then, we heard a loud crashing sound coming from outside. There was a tug on the wire running through the window. Moments later, the wire zipped away.
“Let’s go,” I whispered.
We ran down the hallway toward the employee stairwell. When we opened it, however, we heard noise coming up from below. We closed the door and headed down the hall in the other direction but voices rose coming toward us.
“Try the doors,” I whispered to her, but they were all locked.
At the last moment, I spotted the dumbwaiter in the wall. I grabbed Kiki. If either Kiki or I had weighed a pound more, we would not have fit into the commercial sized dumbwaiter. I pulled the door closed. At once we could feel we were dropping.
“Our weigh is pulling us down,” Kiki whispered.
The dumbwaiter lowered us gently to the first floor. I pushed open the door just enough to look out. We were in the kitchen adjacent to the ballroom. A number of people, including the odd looking hotel staff, were moving around preparing dishes.
I motioned to Kiki. There was a serving cart near us.
“You get under,” she whispered and then pointed to a chef’s jacket lying on top of the cart. “I’ll push.”
Moving quickly, we slid out of the waiter. Pushing the curtains on the cart aside, I hid under the cart. Kiki ducked low, pulled the jacket on, and then stood up and began to roll the cart from the room. I heard her set dishes on top.
We were near the exit when I saw feet approach Kiki.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a man asked her.
“Step off. I need to take this upstairs. Now.”
“For what?”