9 – CHAPTER NINE – 1.276^9

For some minutes, they sat next to each other in harmonious silence, backs and heads leaning against the wall, before Charlie spoke up suddenly, "I just thought it'd be our last chance."

"I can't hold it against you if your hope was slipping a bit." Don's voice sounded no less hollow than his brother's.

"Do you have a plan?"

Don shook his head. Charlie sensed the movement beside him, and wondered how Don was able to do this. He, on his part, had such a headache due to lack of fluids, he couldn't even think about moving unnecessarily.

His voice sounded as calm as in the previous conversation and stayed free of reproach. "So, why didn't you even listen to my plan?"

"Your plan? Was your plan going on after us being burnt to a crisp?"

Charlie gave him a look that was hard to read. "Of course. Who do you think I am?"

"Well… a mathematician," Don hedged. In deference to their just repaired friendship he renounced on describing to his brother his image of a typical mathematician in crisis situations. Instead, he asked further questions: "So what was your plan?"

Charlie looked at him uncertainly. "You gonna listen to me this time? From the beginning till the end?"

"Sure. I'm not aiming to do anything better today, anyway."

Charlie grinned. It did good to grin again and look at a grinning face in return.

"Okay," Charlie began, stood up, and started pacing the room in front of the board – no stop, in front of the wall. Don instinctively sat a bit straighter. Just like school, was his last thought before he concentrated hard on Charlie's explanation. "First the premises. We're in a closed room –"

"You don't say," the words escaped Don, but Charlie simply shrugged after a brief laugh.

"However, the room isn't sealed off, otherwise we'd have a problem. There are chinks everywhere. Therefore, the air circulates in here. Since I know where the air comes in – namely for the most part from this grill and of course from the window up there – I can figure out how a fire would behave in here. More to the point: I already have figured it out. So, we light the blaze here," he pointed to an imaginary line, approximately one yard off from the wall covered with his calculations, "and I hop up and down behind it as a decoy and scream 'Fire, fire!' –"

"You've gone off your head!" Don jumped in when he was sure he had understood Charlie's words properly.

"It's part of my plan."

"But unfortunately your plan doesn't give you much chance of surviving! Why don't I go behind the fire?"

Charlie frowned. "I thought you considered my plan crazy?"

"I do. But someone who has the misfortune of designing such an idiotic plan doesn't have to suffer the consequences on top of that."

Charlie shook his head. "And you insist that I'm the one tired of life… It can't be, though, Don. I've got another role for you."

"So we'll swap!"

Charlie was slowly losing patience. "Don, come on! I don't want to hop around behind the fire 'cause I'm some guy who likes it hot, or 'cause I desperately want to be the hero, but because our chances will be much higher this way! What do you think? Which of us can beat up a man more easily, me or you?"

Don was silent, and Charlie took it as his answer. "You see! You need to stand over there in the dark corner behind the skylight opposite this wall." He pointed to the left, to Don's right. "When the kidnappers look inside, they'll see the fire – but they won't be able to douse it, because it's in a dead corner from the skylight. So one of them's going to have to come down. Doing that, he won't think he has to take care of us, for he'll assume that we're both behind the flames. Where else could we be? And he won't notice either, that behind the flames, there's only one of us because there'll be a lot of smoke. And according to my calculations, the smoke will be thick enough. So you're gonna be able to floor him from behind quite easily. Then we're gonna tie him up with the rope, it's – yes, over there in the corner!"

Charlie had become more and more agitated during his explanation and Don had struggled to remain calm. And one of them had to keep cool. For despite Charlie's calculations – they really would have to be very lucky for it to work. The risk was so high…

"And what should we do," Don started thoughtfully, "if two kidnappers come down at once? Or all three of them?"

"Well, then you'll have to fire them up a bit…"

It wasn't until Don laughed that Charlie realized the double meaning in his words, and he too couldn't resist a forced grin. "That wasn't what I meant… But if you manage to knock the first one out, we can use him as a hostage."

"Yeah… if I manage…"

"Come on, Don, I know that you can do it!" Charlie cautiously touched his sore upper lip. "I really do."

Don put his head in his hands. He seldom had heard a plan where so many things could go wrong. But did they have another choice? No, probably not, as long as they didn't want to wait for their death. "Okay," Don said. "Let's give these guys a taste of hell."

They went over the details once more until they were sure that they really had everything clear in their heads. Charlie just wanted prepare his place away from the straw when Don held him back. "Don, what's up?" Charlie asked, and he would have been annoyed if he hadn't actually been exhausted due to his calculations and explanations. "We've finished this – I'm going to go behind the fire in any case. And the danger isn't even nearly as great as you think."

"Yeah, I know that, but wouldn't it be wiser to be sure that there's really someone in the house to put the fire out?"

Caught! Charlie opened his mouth without being able to get out a single word, and flushed slightly. He hadn't thought about this one. An uncomfortable thought crept into his mind: maybe they'd missed another important detail? They had no time, though, to examine their plan from all sides. They had to act before the kidnappers realized that the FBI wouldn't let the prisoners free. For then, their kidnappers would quickly come to the conclusion that their hostages were worthless…

Don's voice brought Charlie back into the here and now. "Who's above?"

"What?"

Don sighed. "You with me again? In case you didn't hear me, I said that we should look through the window to see if the minibus is still there."

"Oh. Yeah. Good idea."

Don grinned. "So up with you." And a few seconds later, Charlie was looking outside across the yard. Across the empty yard.

"It's gone," he said tonelessly after he'd jumped down.

"Oh," was Don's only comment. That wasn't possible. Somebody really hated them. Now they finally had a plan, but they couldn't use it– at least not for the time being… or could they?

Don thought. "It could also be good that it isn't there anymore."

"Yeah?" Charlie remained sceptical.

"Yeah. There are at least three of these guys. Who says that all three are gone?"

"You're right! We have to find out if there's somebody left in the house!"

"That's what I'm saying. So, do you also have a mathematic formula for this one?"

"No, but an idea." And totally unexpectedly, he started to shout at Don. "I can't stand it any longer! I wanna get out of here, don't you get that?"

Don was nonplussed. "Hey, Charlie… man, calm down," he stammered, but Charlie went on screaming his lungs out.

"Help! Get us out of here! Help! Is there nobody who can hear us!"

"Shut up down there!" they heard a harsh voice call out faintly through the skylight.

Charlie grinned and winked at his big brother. And eventually Don got it. "You can't leave us in here for ever!" Charlie shouted once more to keep up his role.

"Keep your trap shut, or you'll get a bullet in your skull!"

Satisfied, Charlie grinned at his brother. "Convinced now?"

"You should have been an actor."

"And who would've figured out our smoke formation formula? You?"

Don returned the well-meaning gibe. "Who knows, maybe I've also got hidden talents? For example in a dogfight?"

"We'll soon see," Charlie forecasted. "Besides, I also believe that you only have to hit once. It sounds as if the guy's alone in the house. Otherwise, the second one would surely have added his two cents."

They removed the straw from the floor between their future flame wall and the stone wall, and took care that Charlie could find a means of escape at both ends. And then it got serious. Charlie set the blaze.

They waited until the flames were high and the smoke was billowing everywhere. When Charlie finally started coughing, Don thought that it was high time, and he began to shout for his life, "HELP! Help us! Fire!"

Charlie joined in between coughs, "Help! We can't get out of here!"

They heard the kidnapper swear from above. Then the skylight over their heads was opened. "Shit, man, how the hell did you make this mess!" the kidnapper spluttered, aghast.

"Don't ask, help us, quickly! My brother's already unconscious!" Charlie was lying, hoping that his smoke-damaged voice disguised that fact and that his lie would prevent the kidnapper from becoming suspicious if he didn't see or hear anything from Don.

"Damn, I have to let the ladder down for that!" the kidnapper shouted, and it wasn't clear if he was speaking the words to himself, another kidnapper or to his prisoner.

"Then do that, damn it!" This time, Charlie didn't need any acting skills to give his voice a hysterical tone, for the flames were growing hotter and the smoke thicker.

The jerk let the ladder fall into the dungeon with a loud rattle. With a fire extinguisher in his hand, he hurried down the treads.

"Now come on, man!" Charlie shouted, half to distract him, half because he really meant it. The man had barely reached the last tread when Don's fist, hard as iron, hit him at his temple, making him go down with a short groan.

"'Bout time," Charlie croaked and hurried to get away from the flames. While Don extinguished the fire, Charlie trudged towards their former tormentor, coughing and gasping, and tied him with the rope. They were ready at the same instant, and Don immediately leant down to Charlie. "Are you alright?"

"Never felt better," Charlie croaked. "I could really do with a bit of water, though."

"Thank God he brought a fire extinguisher. Otherwise it would probably have been a bit difficult for us to douse the fire," Don briefly reviewed their adventure.

"Then we'd have taken the guy upstairs and left the room to its own devices," Charlie replied hoarsely. "Wouldn't have mattered then if it'd burnt down to the ground."

"When you're right… you're right," Don grinned. He reached out for Charlie's hand who grabbed it thankfully and let himself be lifted by Don.

They left their kidnapper lying on the floor, climbed upstairs and pulled the ladder up behind them. They left the skylight open in case the fire wasn't completely out. In the kitchen, they first bowed over the sink and quenched their longing for water. It wasn't until now that they realized just how hungry they were. When was the last time they'd eaten anything, anyway? To start, however, some slices of dry bread were totally enough for them. After all, there were more important things to do now.

"Don't they have a telephone here or what?" Charlie slammed shut the old cupboards in the kitchen, having searched through the old house.

"Doesn't seem so," Don answered morosely.

All they'd found were some papers relating to the crimes, some tins of stew, bread and a whole stockpile of weapons – hand grenades, heavy machine guns and smaller handguns. This seemed to be some kind of stash. And also a place where they brought prisoners in to be left to die.

"We have to inform the FBI as soon as possible," Don pushed.

"And how, if I may ask? This guy has no cell phone, the minibus must have been driven away by his colleagues, and there's also no other house in the area around us!"

"Then we'll have to walk as far as we'll find one," Don decided firmly. "You always complain that you've never got the time for hiking, don't you?"

Charlie laughed joylessly. That was not the way he had imagined his hiking trip.

"And what are we going to do with this guy here?" he wanted to know, pointing at the tied mobster in their former dungeon.

"We leave him here. It's not that he can go away, and his confederates will also come soon."

"And if not?"

"Then it's his problem. Maybe we'll send someone later to look if he's still alive. Now come on, we should get away from here as soon as possible, before the others come back."

They took some further big gulps from the faucet. Then Don grabbed the papers and Charlie the loaf of bread, and they left the cabin.