I pulled the draw string from the center of my coat and put it between my teeth. Moving as near to the steel stake support as I could without breaking cover, I then lifted the bag up to shoulder height. Using my shoulders to support its weight, I tied the handles as near to the top of the fence as I could with a quick-release knot, throwing the free end of the string over the top.

Checking that my weapon was secure, I reached up, put my fingers through the chain links, and started to climb. Once on the other side I again stopped, looked, and listened; only then did I climb back up and haul the bag over the fence. I climbed down once more and then got hold of the free end of the string and pulled. The bag came free from the fence, and I took its weight. Then, squatting, I watched and listened again.

Working alone on a job takes a lot of concentration because you can't look and work at the same time, yet both have to be done. So you do one or the other; you either get on with the job or you get on with looking. Try to do both and you'll fuck up.

I stood up, put the bag on my left shoulder, and gently pulled apart the Velcro of the coveralls so that, if necessary, I could get to my weapon. Taking my time, I moved to the left side of the building.

Before I did anything, I had to defeat the motion detector. I was to the left of it, with my back against the wall. Putting the bag in my left hand, I kept my eyes on the detector high above me and started slowly edging toward it. When I got more or less as far as I estimated I could without getting spotted, I bent down and placed the bag by my feet. Everything I did from now on would happen on the near side of the bag.

Security lights that respond to movement make life much harder for people like me, but only if they cover the whole of the building. I found it strange that there was only one detector, rather than two or three overlapping each other to eliminate dead spots. I was expecting, at any moment, to be nailed by one I hadn't noticed. But whoever had installed the security system had obviously worked on the premise that only the lower fire escape door had to be covered and not the approach routes to it.

It was nearly 1 a.m." which left me just over five hours before first light. Time was against me, but I wasn't going to rush. I went the long way around to collect one of the pallets.

I got both hands in between the slats of wood, heaved it up against my chest, and started to walk slowly. The ground still had a top layer of mud, and my shoes squelched as they made contact. I finally reached the wall, placed the pallet against the brickwork on my side of the bag, and went back for the second one.

I wedged the two pallets together, the bottom of the second jammed into the gap about three rungs down from the top of the first to make a ladder. I stopped, looked, and listened. The pallets had been heavy; I heard nothing apart from the sound of my lungs gagging for air through my dry throat.

I climbed up on the first pallet, and that was fine. I got up onto the second pallet and it, too, seemed stable enough. I started to climb. I'd moved just two rungs when the whole structure buckled and collapsed. I hit the ground like a bag of shit, and the two pallets slammed down onto each other with a resounding thud and clatter. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I was lying on my back, with one of the pallets across my legs. No one came running to investigate, no dogs started barking, no lights came on. Nothing but the noise of the traffic and me swallowing hard, trying to moisten my mouth.

Luckily everything had happened on my side of the bag. I lifted the pallet and crawled from under it, quietly cursing.

This was crap. But what else could I have done bought a ladder at the mall and carried it to the target? I moved to the corner of the building, got down on the tips of my toes and fingers, as if I were going to do a push-up, and stuck my head around toward Ball Street.

I was still annoyed with myself. I could spend all night improvising before I even got into a position to attack this motion detector. Maybe a ladder wasn't such a stupid idea; I should have gotten one and somehow tried to drop it off earlier, then pick it up enroute. But it was too late now.

I stood against the wall and reevaluated. I decided to "react as the situation dictated," which was the Firm's favorite get-out clause. It simply meant they didn't know what to do. A bit like me really.

Fuck it, I was going to get Kelly. All she'd have to do was lean against the pallets; she had to be there only for about fifteen minutes and I'd be done. After that she could stay with me or I could drop her back at the hotel. I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

I picked up the bag, retraced the route to the high fence, and, staying on the target side, dumped the bag and coveralls.

Then I followed the fence along, looking for an opening to get to Ball Street. There wasn't time to do the job properly and go back all the way around. I finally found a service alley between two buildings that belonged in some film about the mafia in 1950s New York. It took me down to the road. I turned left and walked briskly to the hotel, no more than two minutes away. It was only then I realized that I didn't have the room key because I'd left it in the trash bag. I'd have to wake Kelly.

I knocked gently at first, then a bit harder. Just when I was starting to sweat, I heard "Hi, Nick." A moment or two later, the door opened.

I gave her a look of concern.

"How did you know it was me? You should have waited until I answered." Then I saw the chair and the drag marks on the carpet. I smiled and gave her a pat on the head.

"You looked through the peephole, didn't you, clever girl? Hey, because you're so clever, I've got a job for you. I really, really need your help. Would you like to help me?"

She looked sleepy.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I'll show you when we get there. Will you come with me?"

"I guess so."

I had a brainstorm.

"Do you want to do what your dad does? Because this is what Daddy does for the good guys.

You can tell him all about it soon."

Her face brightened. She was a happy bunny again.

She had to more or less run to keep up with me. We got to the alley and headed down toward the vacant lot. It was dark; she was less than eager. She started dragging her feet.

"Where are we going, Nick?"

"You want to play spies, don't you?" I said in an excited whisper.

"Imagine you are a Power Ranger and you're going on a secret mission."

We reached the empty lot and took the same route toward the chain-link fence. I held her hand, and she kept pace; I hoped she was getting into it.

We got to the bag. I picked up the coveralls and said, "I've got to put these on because they're special spy coveralls." Her face changed when she saw them. I suddenly realized she must have made the connection with the men who'd come to see Kev.

"Your Daddy wears them, too. You'd better be a spy as well; undo your coat." I turned it inside out and told her to put it back on. She liked that.

I picked up the bag and put it over my shoulder. I pointed.

"Now we'll walk really slowly over there."

When we reached the pallets, I put the bag down in the same place as before.

"OK.?" I asked, giving her a thumbs-up.

"OK. "Thumbs-up.

"See that thing up there? If that sees you, it'll go waawaa and there'll be lights and all sorts, and then we've lost. So you must never go to the other side of that bag, OK?" I pointed.

"OK." We gave each other another thumbs-up.

I repositioned the pallets and showed her what I wanted her to do. I could hear her making little grunts. She had started leaning as I'd shown her and probably thought she had to make noises, doing manual work and all.

I unzipped the bag, pulled out the clock and egg carton, and slipped the minute hand into its Scotch tape sleeve. I gently squeezed the tape onto it; it held nice and firm.

Kelly was still pushing, and I told her to rest. At least she was into it. She was watching me as I put the clock 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 of metal stuck inside. I pulled the door and felt it give.

I opened it a fraction, half-expecting the sound of an alarm. Nothing. I grinned at Kelly, who was right up against the wall with me, very excited. I closed the door again to keep the light in.

"When we get in, you mustn't touch anything un less I tell you, OK?" She nodded.

There's a world outside that is full of mud and shit, and there's a world inside that is clean, and if you don't want to be compromised, you don't combine the two. I took off the coveralls, turned them inside out, and deposited them in the bag.

I then took off my shoes and stuck them into the bag. I put on a pair of running shoes, which meant that not only could I move quickly and silently inside but also I wouldn't be leaving a trail of mud everywhere.