I put the disk in and started it. The wonderful thing about this particular program was that you had to answer just two questions. There was a wup! sound and the first one came up.
Do you want to proceed with XI 222? (Y)es or (N)o.
I pressed the Y key. Off it went again, whirring and clicking.
A progress bar came up as the machine clicked away. The next stage would take a few minutes.
I looked at the filing cabinet; it was going to be a piece of cake to get into. I went to the bag and retrieved what Pat would have called the "surreptitious entry kit" but which to me was just the pick and rakes wallet. It was a small, black leather case that contained a general assortment of tools designed for the efficient opening of most pin-tumbler, wafer, lever, and double-sided locks. Among the sixty pieces were full, half, and three-quarter rakes; diamond-tip picks and single, double, and half-double ball picks; light, medium, and heavyweight tension wrenches of various lengths and styles; hook-and saw-type broken-key extractors, probes, feeler pick, needle pick, and double-ball rake. Don't leave home without it.
The progress bar was showing it was just halfway through a process, so I started on the filing cabinets with a feeler pick.
It was a standard lock and opened easily. The contents meant nothing to me. They seemed to be spreadsheets and documents with itemized bills and invoices.
I looked at the screen. It was nearly at the end of the progress bar.
The guy who'd produced the sniffer program was a wild-partying, Ecstasy-taking eighteen-year-old whiz kid who was so into body piercing he had half of British Steel hanging out of his face. He had a shaved head--but that was only after we'd been taking the piss out of his close-cropped effort with a star dyed onto the top. The government had been spending hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to develop ways to get into computer programs only to discover, after he had got arrested on some unrelated charge, that this eighteen-year-old had come up with the greatest sniffer program ever written. His weekly unemployment suddenly started looking like a check from the National Lottery.
Wup! The progress bar was complete. Up came a little box that said: Password: SoOSshltime! Full marks to them for originality; normally it was something like a spouse's nickname, a family member's date of birth, or a license plate.
Then up came Do you wish to proceed? (Y)es or (N)o.
Fucking right I did. I hit the Y key and was into the machine.
I went to the bag and I got out the portable backup drive and cables and a handful of high-capacity backup disks.
I went around to the back of the machine and had a good look. I connected the drive cable and plugged it into the socket. I was going to copy everything: operating system, applications, data files, the lot.
I now had to move the mouse. I took a Polaroid but still studied it before moving it.
I selected Full System Backup, and the computer whirred into action, loading information onto the backup disks. I went back to the filing cabinets and had another mooch around, not really knowing what I was looking at, just trying to see if there was anything I recognized.
Wup! The prompt came up, telling me the sniffer software needed another instruction. It had had to work out another password and wanted to know whether to proceed.
I hit they key.
The machines whirred again. I looked at Kelly. She was sitting by the photos but playing a game with an imaginary companion. Just like her dad; give her a job to do and she'd forget it.
"Kelly, I want you to come with me. If that machine asks me a question again, I might not see it--will you look out for it?"
"OK." It wasn't as exciting a job as she'd been hoping for.
As she sat on the floor with her back against the wall, she looked up at me and said, "I have to go to the bathroom."
"Yeah, in a minute, we'll be finished soon." It was exactly as I remembered, as a kid, sitting in the car, adults not taking me seriously: "We'll be there soon. Nick, just around the corner."
She'd be all right. I said, "I'll take you in a minute."
Wup! I pressed the Fkey.
Kelly said again, "I really, really have to go."
I couldn't think of the right words for a seven-year-old. In the end I said, "Do you want to go big toilet or little toilet?"
She looked at me blankly. What could I do? Using the rest room in a place like this is always a big no-no because of the compromise factor from noise and visible remains. What you enter with must come out with you, which was why I'd brought an orange juice bottle to piss into and Saran Wrap for anything else. I couldn't imagine getting Kelly to piss in the bottle while I held the film under her bum. That was one thing her dad could do that she couldn't.
She said, "I wanna go, I wanna go," and started crossing and uncrossing her legs. Then she stood up and was bouncing up and down on the balls other feet.
I said, "OK, we'll go. Come on, come with me."
I didn't need this, but I had to do it. I couldn't have her shitting all over the carpet.
I took hold of her hand. I retrieved the door stops from the outer office door, gently opened it, and checked the corridor.
We moved across the open office, through the glass door, and into the fire-escape corridor. We went into the rest room and turned the light on. Poor girl, she was pulling down her trousers in such a hurry she was fumbling with her buttons. I helped her, but even so, she nearly missed the pot altogether in her rush.
I was wasting time. I had to return to the machine, and she might be there for five minutes or more. Backing away, I said, "Don't move, and don't flush the toilet afterward; I'll do all that for you. I just have to go back one minute and get the computer working. I'll be right back. Remember shhh, be quiet!"
At that particular moment she didn't really care where I went or what I did. She was in her own heaven.
Wup! I left her and quietly ran toward the office. Once I'd got the disk copying again, I'd come back to Kelly, fish the shit out with my hand, and put it in the Saran Wrap. Then I'd keep pushing the toilet brush down the bowl to lower the level of the water by pushing it through the U bend and get some fresh water from the drinking fountain to bring the level back up again.
I got back to the office and pressed the Vkey. Then I went to the bag to fetch the Saran Wrap.
And it was then that I heard her scream.
Fuck!
Instinctively, I pulled out my pistol and stood against the wall. I checked chamber and took the safety catch off with my thumb.
I could feel my heart beating faster as the familiar sensation of cold sweat broke out over my body. My body was getting ready for fight or flight. The screaming was from the area of the fire escape, my only way out. It looked as if I would have to fight. My heart was pumping so hard it was nearly in my mouth. I'd learned long ago that fear is a good thing. If you aren't scared, you're lying or you're mentally unstable. Everyone has fear, but as a professional you use training, experience, and knowledge to block out the emotion and help you overcome the problem.
I was still thinking it out when I heard a longer, more pitiful scream of "Nick! Help me!" The sound went through me like a knife. Images flashed through my mind of her curled up in a fetal position in the hidey-hole, of brushing her hair and playing that stupid video-watching game.
I was by the office door leading out into the corridor.
I heard a man's voice shout: "I've got her! I'll fucking kill her! Think about it. Don't make me do it!"
It was not an American voice. Or Hispanic. Or anything else I might have expected. But I knew it right off: West Belfast.
It sounded as if they were now in the main office. He started to shout more threats at me above Kelly's screams. I couldn't make out every word, and I didn't have to. I got the message.