"We are not taking time to repaint the damned thing." I growled. I didn't like the idea either, but this truck is what we had. To go into battle with. "Besides, the hamsters won't know who Barney is, they may think he's a fierce predator." Even I didn't believe that one.

"Oh for Christ's sake." Susie was exasperated. "You idiot men are afraid to ride around in a truck that says 'Softie' on it? Get over yourselves. I'll drive the damned thing. Joe, what's the plan?"

"GO GO GO!" I shouted along with Stan, as we jumped in to sprawl on the floor of the ice cream truck. Susie didn't need to be told twice, she hit the gas as we were still in the air. Stan would have slid right out the back of the truck if Deb hadn't gotten hold of his shirt collar. Tom kicked Stan's feet inside and slammed the back doors shut, just as the truck bounced over a big pothole, and Tom landed on his ass on top of the Ruhar soldier. The hamster grunted, which told us it was still alive, I hadn't been completely sure of that when we grabbed it.

Looking back, it was a stupid plan, and we got lucky. I'd noticed the hamsters went through the alley between the diner building and the hardware store next to it. While the rest of us were off gathering supplies, Diego had watched and confirmed the hamster patrols went through that alley regularly, looking in windows and knocking open doors to look inside. They were doing that all over town, I chose the diner because there was a short dirt road that led from the river right to the back of the diner, the road went through woods and had good cover most of the way. We'd had a lot of rain from a nor'easter the week before, so the river was almost at Spring flood stage, and was really roaring as it went over the rocks and under the bridge, it made enough noise to cover the sound of the truck backing up behind the diner. Dynamite was placed inside the diner, up against the brick outside wall, we blew it up as the hamster soldiers got halfway down the alley.