She glanced into the pan. Although she knew there must be more than a quart of stew in there already, the thick brown liquid barely seemed to cover the bottom of the pan. Commercial kitchens like this always proved a daunting prospect to the security officer. Everything was built on an enormous scale, as if you’d somehow stumbled into a giant’s kitchen. The four cans of Mrs. Blackwell’s Canned Mulligan Stew had been in the ready-use pantry. She could see she was going to need more to feed the forty-odd hostages, but she didn’t know how many or where to find them. “Ralph!” she called across the room to where the chef was just searing the first of the chicken breasts on a stainless steel griddle. He glanced up at her. She jerked a thumb at the four empty cans on the bench in front of her. “How many of these will I need?” she said. He pursed his lips in thought for a moment. “Maybe ten, twelve more,” he told her and, as she glanced around the kitchen to see where she might find them, he forestalled her next question.
