Under the Dome

'Duh,' Rose said, and made a face.They all laughed.

'Lucky us,' Rommie said. T got: a great selection of Halloween masks at the store.'

'Maybe I'll be the Little Mermaid,'Jackie said, a little wistfully. She realized everyone was looking at her, and blushed. 'Whatever. In any: case, we'll need guns. I have an extra at home—a Beretta. Do youi have something, Rommie?'

'I put away some rifles and shotguns in the store safe. Got at lease one wit' a scope. I won't say I saw this comin, but I saw somethin comin.'

Joe spoke up. 'You'll also need a getaway vehicle. And not your van, Rommie, because everyone knows it.'

'I got an idea about that,' Ernie said. 'Let's take a vehicle from Jim Rennie's used car lot. He's got half a dozen high-mileage phone company vans he picked up last spring. They're out in the back. Using one of his'd be, whatdoyacallit, poetic justice.'

'And exactly how you gonna get the key?' Rommie asked.'Break into his office at the showroom?'

'If the one we pick doesn't have an electronic ignition, I can hotwire it,' Ernie said. Fixing Joe with a frowning glance, he added: 'I'd prefer you didn't tell my granddaughter that, young man.'

Joe did a lip-zipping pantomime that made them all laugh again.

'The special town meeting is scheduled to start at seven tomorrow night,'Jackie said. 'If we go into the PD around eight—'

'We can do better than that,' Linda said. 'If I have to go to the damn meeting, I might as well do some good. I'll wear a dress with big pockets and carry my police radio—the extra that's still in my personal vehicle. You two be in the van, ready to go.'

Tension was creeping into the room; they all felt it. This was starting to be real.

'At the loadin dock behind my store,' Rommie said.'Out of sight.'

'Once Rennie really gets going on his speech,' Linda said, 'I'll give you a triple break on the radio. That's your signal to roll.'

'How many police will there be at the station?' Lissa asked.

'I might be able to find out from Stacey Moggin,' Jackie said. 'There won't be many, though. Why would there be? So far as Big Jim knows, there are no real Friends of Barbie—just the straw men he's set up.'

'He'll also want to make sure his tender ass is well protected,' Julia said.

There was some laughter at this, but Joe's mother looked deeply troubled.'There'll be some at the police station no matter what. What are you going to do if they resist you?'

'They won't,' Jackie said. 'We'll have them locked in their own cells before they know what's happening.'

'But if they do?'

'Then we'll try not to kill them.' Linda's voice was calm, but her eyes were those of a creature who has screwed its courage up in some final desperate effort to save itself. 'There's probably going to be killing anyway if the Dome stays up much longer. The execution of Barbie and my husband in War Memorial Plaza will only be the start of it.'

'Let's say you get them out,' Julia said. 'Where will you take them? Here?'

'No way,' Piper said, and touched her still-swollen mouth. 'I'm already on Rennie's shit list. Not to mention that guy who's now his personal bodyguard. Thibodeau. My dog bit him.'

'Anywhere near the center of town's not a great idea,' Rose said. 'They could do a house-to-house. God knows they've got enough cops.'

'Plus all the people wearing the blue armbands,' Rommie added.

'What about one of the summer cabins out at Chester Pond?' Julia asked.

'Possible,' Ernie said, 'but they could think of that, too.'] 'It still might be the best bet,' Lissa said.

'Mr Burpee?' Joe asked. "Have you got any more of that lead roll?'

'Sure, tons. And make it Rommie.'

'If Mr Calvert can steal a van tomorrow, could you sneak it behind your store and put a bunch of precut pieces of lead roll in the: back? Ones big enough to cover the windows?'

'I guess so…'

Joe looked at Jackie. 'And could you get hold of this Colonel Cok, if you had to?'

'Yes.' Jackie and Julia answered together, then looked at each other in surprise.

Light was dawning on Rommie's face. ^You're thinking about the old McCoy place, aren't you? Up on Black Ridge. Where the box is.'

'Yeah. It might be a bad idea, but if we all had to run… if we were all up there… we could defend the box. I know that sounds crazy, since it's the thing causing all the problems, but we can't let Rennie get it.'

'I hope it don't come to refighting the Alamo in an apple orchard,' Rommie said, 'but I see your point.'

'There's something else we could do, too,' Joe said. 'It's a little risky, and it might not work, but…'

'Spill it,' Julia said. She was looking at Joe McClatchey with a kind of bemused awe.

'Well… is the Geiger counter still in your van, Rommie?'

'I t'ink so, yeah.'

'Maybe someone could put it back in the fallout shelter where it came from.' Joe turned to Jackie and Linda. 'Could either of you geti in there? I mean, I know you got fired.'