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Shortly after noon, the colony arrives in Eloy. With a mixture of pride and apprehension, you watch as Pecos Pete’s tow truck leads the convoy of fifteen vehicles along the main street, and brings them to a halt in a line outside the entrance to the town’s municipal park. Kate waves at you from a window of the DC1 school bus and quickly you leave your roadster to meet her and the other colonists.
Aunt Betty-Ann offers you some excellent food, which she has prepared especially for the journey, and while you and Kate are enjoying an unexpected meal together, Mike Gorgas, leader of the Tucson contingent, climbs aboard the bus to speak with you. The colony has decided that the idea of creating a diversion to draw the Outlaws away from the freeway intersection is the best chance they have of reaching Interstate 8 intact. He wants you and Rickenbacker to set fires in the suburbs of Arizona City that are big enough to draw the clansmen away. Macy and Langdon will watch the clan encampment, and as soon as they are sure that the plan is working, they will fire a distress flare. That will be the convoy’s signal to move. It will also be your signal to get out of Arizona City as fast as you can. As soon as you are away, you are to head for the town of Gila Bend and rejoin the convoy there around sunset.
After your meal, you say goodbye to Kate and try to assuage her fears by promising that you will take good care of yourself. The other members of the DC1 contingent wish you good luck, including your old friend Cutter Jacks, who wishes he could come with you. He assures you that, were it not for the bullet he caught in his arm when the convoy made the Slaughter Mountain run, you would have a hard job stopping him.
Having said your farewells, you return to your roadster to find Rickenbacker loading two large jerry cans into the trunk. They are filled with the gasolene you will need to set the fires. You help him strap them down, and then both of you climb into the roadster and set off for Arizona City.
