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"It went slick as snails on glass." says Al, " I caught him driving down his own mansion driveway, and just lifted up a drive wheel until the driver got over his panic.. I'm riding with him, and working on convincing him now that if he plays ball, he'll live.
"He's no hero." announces Al, "Just a power broker wannabe who happened to back the right horse, for once. We should have no trouble on this end."
Chin and I skydive in.
The rally building is big and flat-roofed. It's surrounded by hectares of lighted parking, and it's already a beehive of activity. The fixings for a Ka-sharma burning are already in place just off the parking lot in front of the main entrance. Trying to get across the parking area is the first of our challenges. Once we get across, we will climb a wall, and burrow in to the building from somewhere on the roof. Once inside, we'll hide in the rafters until the time is ripe.
We watch for a few minutes, and notice that big trucks are pulling up to the rear area. These trucks are coming in on a different road than the main crowd. We hide in the bush where that road is both dark, and has some sort of pothole that knocks the trucks around as they go through it. We hop quietly on top of one of the trucks as it crashes through that pothole. The crashing masks our landing on the top.
The truck backs up to a loading dock. Even with camo running, we're not going to be hard to spot from above. But for a minute, or so, no one is looking our way, and at one point in that minute everyone is inside something -- loading, unloading, checking, whatever. We jump from the truck to a light fixture, and from the light fixture to the roof.
There are workers on the far side of the roof -- the front side -- lots of them. They may be hanging a banner of some sort, or setting up some camera equipment. Near us we see a door on a largish "shed-looking" structure on top of the roof. It's likely air conditioning.
The door is unlocked, not good. That means someone is using it, so we have to move on quickly. Inside it's noisy -- big fans and motors are running. It's also filled with a fair number of niches between big machines. That's good, the noise and the niches can provide cover.
We find the stairs down and at the bottom a heavy door in a heavy wall. I suspect this whole section is somewhat isolated from the rest of the building to deaden noise, carry the load of the heavy equipment, and to reduce fire hazard. The door is open, and, to our relief, there's a catwalk outside! We now have access to the main hall ceiling.
From here we split up and scout about the main hall. The ceiling girders are like a giant jungle gym for us. It's easy to move about, but we shake down a little dust each time we do. If we "frolic" up here, someone will finally notice, so our scouting is mostly looking, and not much moving. And, just as I suspected, the catwalk to the air conditioning room does have people hurry down it every few minutes. It was good we got off that trail in a hurry.
"I've spotted him." says Chin. "He's up near the podium directing people."
"Confirmed." I say. "Al, how long before Mr. Smalet makes his call?"
"ETA is five minutes. He's calling now."
"Where are you?"
"I'm sitting next to him. This car has dark windows. No one can see in. I'll
literally grab Haslet when he gets close, and we will drive off. This is going
to be very slick, Ole buddy."
"Don't get cocky." I warn.
"I'm not. I'm admiring great artistry when I see it."
We wait five minutes. For youngsters like Johanne, this is hard. For us oldsters, it's part of the routine. We see someone who looks like a page boy hustle up to Haslet. He gets a sour look on his face, makes some parting remarks to those around him, then heads for the front door.
"Looking good from here." I say, "He got a message, and he's headed for the front door. Chin, you're backup on this."
"Got it." she replies, and she flits her way to near the main entrance as Haslet walks out.
"We see him." says Al. "Smalet is doing good.... He's waving him over.... I GOT HIM!"
"That was sooo slick! I just grabbed him by the wrist and hair and pulled him in. We are underway, folks, with two birds in hand!"
"Collar them, and get them out of Dodge!" I say, with relief.
"What about you and Chin?"
"Activate a secondary extraction. This is going so well, I don't want to lose our momentum. I think I can do a "Kull performance" that will "defang" this group, starting tonight."
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