Nick!’
I wasn’t listening. I reached the end of the alleyway and ran into a totally different world.
In front of me was a minor road that ran the length of the office buildings and, on the other side of it, a grass bank that went downhill to the main drag. Beyond that lay car parks and the malls. Traffic noise drowned out Kelly’s cries. The flow of vehicles was fast in both directions, despite the wet road. Most had their headlights dipped and their wipers on intermittent. I stopped.
We must have looked a sight, a man with a shoeless child on his back, puffing and panting down the grass slope, the child moaning as her head banged on the back of his. I climbed the railings at the side of the main drag and now we were playing chicken with the Washington traffic. Cars sounded their horns or braked sharply to avoid us. It seemed my new name was fuck, nut or jerk. I didn’t acknowledge anybody, even the ones who saved our lives by braking, I just kept on running.
Kelly was screaming. The traffic scared her as much as the running. All her young life she’d probably been warned about playing near the road, and here she was on a grown-up’s back, cars and trucks swerving all around her.
Crossing the railings at the far side, I, too, was starting to flap. Kelly was slowing me down, without a doubt, and I still had quite a distance to run to get to safety. I ducked and weaved through the car park, using the height of pick-ups and people-carriers to block us from their view.
At the far right of the mall was CompUSA, a computer superstore, and that was where I headed. There’s always a good chance that a large store on a corner site will have more than one entrance. I’d expect there to be one on the other side, maybe at the rear, so even if they saw me going in they’d have problems.
I knew the store would be hard for them to deal with because I’d had to do this sort of thing myself in Northern Ireland. If a player went into the shopping centre, we would send only one bloke in with him, then rush to seal up all the exits. It was hard enough when we knew a target, let alone having to find and identify him. If he was doing anti-surveillance drills, he could go up in a lift, leave by one exit, go back in through another and up two floors, down in a lift one floor, then wander out into a car park and he’s gone. If these boys were switched on, they’d start sealing the exits as soon as they saw where I’d gone. I had to be quick.
We went in through wide automatic doors. It was like a mega DIY store, with aisles and aisles of office equipment, computers and software packages. I went past the checkout counters without taking a trolley, still with Kelly on my back. The place was packed. I was standing there drenched with sweat, chest heaving up and down as I fought for breath, and Kelly was crying. People started looking at us.
Kelly moaned, ‘I want to get down now!’
‘No, let’s just get out of here.’
I took a look behind and I could see two boys coming across the car park. In their suits, they looked very much like plain-clothes police and they were running purposefully towards the store; they’d be heading to block off the exits. I had to put in some angles, had to get that confusion going.
I ran down a couple of aisles crammed with CD-ROM games, turned right and ran along the exterior wall, looking for an exit. Fuck it, there wasn’t one. The warehouse seemed to be one big sealed unit. I couldn’t go back out the way I’d come in, but if I didn’t find another exit I was going to spend the rest of the day running around the shop in circles.
One of the young assistants looked at me, turned away and went trotting down the aisle, obviously looking for the manager or security guard. Seconds later, two men in shirtsleeves with name badges started to approach us. ‘Yes, excuse me? Can we help you?’ All very polite, but in fact meaning, ‘What the fuck are you doing in our store?’
There was no time
I wasn’t listening. I reached the end of the alleyway and ran into a totally different world.
In front of me was a minor road that ran the length of the office buildings and, on the other side of it, a grass bank that went downhill to the main drag. Beyond that lay car parks and the malls. Traffic noise drowned out Kelly’s cries. The flow of vehicles was fast in both directions, despite the wet road. Most had their headlights dipped and their wipers on intermittent. I stopped.
We must have looked a sight, a man with a shoeless child on his back, puffing and panting down the grass slope, the child moaning as her head banged on the back of his. I climbed the railings at the side of the main drag and now we were playing chicken with the Washington traffic. Cars sounded their horns or braked sharply to avoid us. It seemed my new name was fuck, nut or jerk. I didn’t acknowledge anybody, even the ones who saved our lives by braking, I just kept on running.
Kelly was screaming. The traffic scared her as much as the running. All her young life she’d probably been warned about playing near the road, and here she was on a grown-up’s back, cars and trucks swerving all around her.
Crossing the railings at the far side, I, too, was starting to flap. Kelly was slowing me down, without a doubt, and I still had quite a distance to run to get to safety. I ducked and weaved through the car park, using the height of pick-ups and people-carriers to block us from their view.
At the far right of the mall was CompUSA, a computer superstore, and that was where I headed. There’s always a good chance that a large store on a corner site will have more than one entrance. I’d expect there to be one on the other side, maybe at the rear, so even if they saw me going in they’d have problems.
I knew the store would be hard for them to deal with because I’d had to do this sort of thing myself in Northern Ireland. If a player went into the shopping centre, we would send only one bloke in with him, then rush to seal up all the exits. It was hard enough when we knew a target, let alone having to find and identify him. If he was doing anti-surveillance drills, he could go up in a lift, leave by one exit, go back in through another and up two floors, down in a lift one floor, then wander out into a car park and he’s gone. If these boys were switched on, they’d start sealing the exits as soon as they saw where I’d gone. I had to be quick.
We went in through wide automatic doors. It was like a mega DIY store, with aisles and aisles of office equipment, computers and software packages. I went past the checkout counters without taking a trolley, still with Kelly on my back. The place was packed. I was standing there drenched with sweat, chest heaving up and down as I fought for breath, and Kelly was crying. People started looking at us.
Kelly moaned, ‘I want to get down now!’
‘No, let’s just get out of here.’
I took a look behind and I could see two boys coming across the car park. In their suits, they looked very much like plain-clothes police and they were running purposefully towards the store; they’d be heading to block off the exits. I had to put in some angles, had to get that confusion going.
I ran down a couple of aisles crammed with CD-ROM games, turned right and ran along the exterior wall, looking for an exit. Fuck it, there wasn’t one. The warehouse seemed to be one big sealed unit. I couldn’t go back out the way I’d come in, but if I didn’t find another exit I was going to spend the rest of the day running around the shop in circles.
One of the young assistants looked at me, turned away and went trotting down the aisle, obviously looking for the manager or security guard. Seconds later, two men in shirtsleeves with name badges started to approach us. ‘Yes, excuse me? Can we help you?’ All very polite, but in fact meaning, ‘What the fuck are you doing in our store?’
There was no time
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