“It went slick as snails on glass,” says Al. “ I caught him being driven down his own mansion driveway and just lifted up a drive wheel until the chauffeur got over his panic. I’m riding with him now, convincing him that if he plays ball he’ll live.
“He’s no hero, 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, surrounded by hectares of lighted parking, and already a beehive of activity. The fixings for another Ka-sharma burning are already in place just off the parking lot in front of the main entrance. Getting across the parking area is our first challenge, then we’ll climb a wall, burrow into the building from somewhere on the roof, and hide in the rafters until the time is ripe.
We watch for a few minutes. Big trucks are pulling up to the rear area, coming in on a different road than the main crowd. We hide in the bush where that road is 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 loudly through.
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 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-like structure on top of the roof, 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 running and filled with a fair number of niches between big machines. That’s good; the noise and the niches provide cover.
We find the stairs down. At the bottom is 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 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 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 around 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’s 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 our Mr. Smallet 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 Harris when he gets close and we’ll drive off with both our primaries. 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 Gunther and Johann this would be hard. For us oldsters it’s part of the routine. We see someone who looks like a page boy hustle up to Harris. 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 flits her way to near the main entrance as Harris walks out.
“We see him,” says Al. “Smallet 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’re 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.”