and egg carton on the ground and placed two elastic bands around my wrist.
'It's magic, watch me!'
She nodded, probably still trying to work out how I'd stopped the remote from operating the TV 'You ready, Kelly?'
'Ready.'
'Let's go!'
I climbed up slowly, trying hard to give the least possible weight and movement for Kelly to handle.
Once up, and about an arm's length from one side of the detector, I got my wrist resting on my chest so that I had a good firm support. I turned the egg carton so that its long edge was horizontal to the ground. Then gently, gently, I moved it about six inches below the motion detector, but not going any farther than its front. Once there, I rested my back against the wall and my wrists on my chest. I'd have to stay like that for about fifteen minutes.
I was waiting for the egg carton to move up against the face of the motion detector, the movement so imperceptible that the detector simply wouldn't register it otherwise, it would have triggered every time a spider walked across its face. I just hoped Kelly wouldn't give up. I'd find out soon.
Now and again I looked down and winked at her.
'Good, this, isn't it?' She looked back at me with a big smile or so I assumed, because all I could see was an inside-out coat, a hood, and a cloud of breath.
As we both waited for the minute hand to become vertical, all of a sudden there was a single waa! of a dying police siren.
Shit! Shit!
It was on the road on the other side of the building. It couldn't have anything to do with us. Otherwise why just one unit, and why use the siren anyway?
I couldn't move. If I did, it would trip the device and what for? I hadn't even seen a flashlight yet.
'Nick, Nick, did you hear that?'
'It's OK, Kelly. Just keep on pushing. It's OK, I can hear them.'
What could I do? I told myself to stay calm and think.
A shout echoed around the parking lot. It had come from Ball Street, but a bit of a distance away. Other voices joined in. An argument had broken out. I couldn't make out what was being said, but there were car doors being slammed and words exchanged, then the sound of a car starting up. All I could think of was that someone had parked while I fetched Kelly. Possibly one of the couples I'd seen from Pat's car-they'd been busy getting the windows steamed up and had got caught by the police. It sounded plausible; I just made myself believe it.
The egg carton was close to vertical. I held my breath. This wasn't a science; we had a fifty-fifty chance of success, no more. If it spotted us, we'd have to get the fuck out of there PDQ and take our chances.
At last the box obscured the detector. No lights came on.
With my teeth, I pulled the two thin elastic bands off my wrist; I got the first one over the top of the egg carton and around the motion detector, then pulled the back of it tight, twisted it, and wound around another loop of the band. I put the other band around to make it even tighter. The motion detector was defeated.
I slipped the clock off the box and put it in one of the deep pockets at the front of my coveralls. I clambered down and rubbed Kelly's shoulders.
'Good work!'
She gave me a huge smile, still not too sure what it was all about--but hey, this was what Daddy did. The next thing to attack was the alarms, which would mean neutralizing the telephone lines. One of Pat's presents was a disruption device--a black box of computer technology about eight inches by six; coming out of it were six different-colored cables with crocodile grips at the end, a combination of which I'd attach to the telephone line. When the intruder alarm inside the building was tripped, a signal should, in theory, be sent to the monitor station or the police; however, it wouldn't get there because the disruption device would have engaged all the lines.
I got close to Kelly's ear and said, 'You can help me even more now.' I put the clock back into the bag, and walked past the fire exit doors to the bank of utility boxes.
From the bag I pulled out another item from Pat's shopping list, a six-foot square of thick blackout material, the sort photographers use.
I winked at Kelly.
'More magic,' I said, 'and I'll need you to tell me if it works.' I was talking in a very low tone; at night, whispering can sometimes be heard as far away as normal speech. I came right up to her ear again and said, 'We've got to be really quiet, OK? If you want to talk to me, just tap me on the shoulder, and then I'll look at you, and you can talk in my ear. Do you understand?'
She spoke into my ear.
'Yes.'
'That's great, because that's what spies do.' I put on my rubber gloves.
She stood there with an earnest expression on her face but looking quite stupid with her coat inside out and the hood up.
I said, 'I also want you to tap me on the shoulder if you see any of the light coming out, OK?'
'Yeah.'
'Even if there's only a little bit of light coming from me, tap me on the shoulder. OK?'
'Yeah.'
I went over to the bank of utilities, put the material over my shoulders, turned on the Maglite with a red filter, and got to work. I'd used disruption devices many times. I worked with the flashlight in my mouth, and was soon dribbling. I attached the clips to the telephone line in a variety of combinations; as they bit in, a row of lights came on. The aim was to get all six red lights up; when that happened, the lines were engaged.
Ten minutes was all it took.
I rested the box in between the electric and gas meters. I only hoped there wasn't an audio alarm as well as a telephone warning. I doubted it somehow, seeing as the budget had stretched to only one external detector.
I took off the blanket, wrapped it in a bundle, and handed it to Kelly.
'You've got to hold that for me because I'm going to need it again in a minute. It's fun, this, isn't it?'
'Yes. But I'm cold.'
'We'll be inside in a minute and it'll be all nice and warm. Don't you worry about that.'
I stopped, looked, listened, then moved over to the door.
The next thing was gaining entry.
The Americans are into pin tumbler locks in a big way.
There are three main ways to defeat them. The first, and easiest, is just to get a duplicate key. The second is called hard keying. You get a titanium key the size of the lock, and the key has a bolt head that you whack with a hammer; the titanium key pushes in and gouges out all the soft steel. You then fit a special bar onto the bolt head pull down, and it rips out the whole of the cylinder. Hard keying was no good for me tonight because I wanted to go in and come out without any body knowing. I'd have to use the third option.
A lock-pick gun is a metal lock-picking device that looks like a small pistol. It has both straight and offset pick options to accommodate different locks and key ways The 'trigger' of the gun is spring-loaded; you squeeze it rapidly, and this trigger movement causes the pick to snap upward within the lock and transfers the striking force to the pins that work the lock mechanism. When the pins are properly aligned, you use a separate tension wrench to turn the lock cylinder. Bad news for people with pin tumblers, but a lock-pick gun can open most of them in less than a minute.
With the blanket over me I turned on the Maglite and put it in my mouth. I inserted the tension wrench into the bottom of the keyway opposite the pins and applied light pressure counterclockwise, in the direction I expected the lock to turn.
I then inserted the pick that protruded from the front of me lock-pick gun. Once the gun and tension wrench were in place, I started squeezing the trigger rapidly. I gave it five shots but the lock didn't open, so I increased the tension adjustment and tried again. I could hear it go clink, clink, clink as I squeezed; again I turned the tension adjustment so that the needle would strike the pins with just enough force. One by one I heard the pins drop, and eventually the tumbler turned. I held the small tension wrench in the lock and pulled the door to take the pressure off the lock itself, because I didn't want to have too much torque on the wrench and bust it, leaving the telltale bit
