With the Mission: Impossible theme playing in my head, I skitter across the street, just a passing shadow flitting beneath the hazy glow of street lights.
Slithering through the shadowy drainage ditch, I work my way slowly to the along the row until I come to first shiny behemoth and slip under it. The misty, foggy night obscures the sound of the ratchet as I work with an almost mechanical efficiency, perfected through years of practice. A single bolt clatters to the ground and I quickly scoop it up and slip it into the bag tied around my waist.
I roll quietly from my position under the first Hummer the next one in the row. A few more quick twists of the wrench and another bolt joins the first in my little pouch.
As I drop the bolt on the fourth oilpan, I hear something. I look the side and see a pair of soft black leather boots moving across the pavement a couple of spaces away, coming towards me.
I roll farther under the vehicle, for the first time grateful that this hulking monstrosity is so wide and so tall.
I watch the boots come around the Hummer next to me and I know they don't belong to a security guard. Too small. The leather is soft and supple, the soles thin and flexible. They glide along the ground almost silently, with the practiced grace of a dancer.
I watch them slide up next to the Hummer that conceals me and I hear a slight clicking and then a pop as the lock on the drivers side releases. The door opens briefly and I hear the staccato click of wire cutters severing a connection.
The door closes again and the boots start to slip away noiselessly around the back of the Hummer and on to the next one -- my previous victim.
I realize that I am crossing paths with a fellow saboteur and I am intrigued.
I lay there, watching another figure move with practiced precision. Another lock pops. Another door opens. Another wire clipped. The door shuts again. The entire event takes less than 20 seconds.
I roll back across the pavement, under the cover of my previous victim and watch the figure work back along the row.
As the door on the last Hummer closes, the boots vanish into the into the drainage ditch. A few moments later a shadow flashes across the dimly lit road. A small, lithe figure slips over the low wall surrounding the cemetery on the other side of the road.
I decide I have to know who this kindred spirit is. I slither back to the ditch and slip back down the ditch and across the street. I hop the wall and drop to my stomach, straining to see the where the figure went.
I see another shadow pass across the face of a marble statue and slowly work my way through the tombstones and monuments. Being watched by the spirits of father, mothers, daughters and sons, I pursue this figure as silently as possible.
Finally, near the other side of the cemetery and beneath the spreading boughs of a birch tree, I catch up with the solitary figure.
I creep slowly up behind the mysterious figure and am just about to clap a hand over the mouth, when the figure whirls quickly, catches my wrist and pirouettes silently.
Suddenly, I find my arm twisted behind my back and a voice whispers in my ear, "Why are you following me?"
"I saw what you were doing to the Hummers and I wanted to know who you were," I say meekly, hoping to encourage my captor to loosen his or her grip slightly.
"You don't need to know who I am," the voice hisses at me.
I turn away, wrenching my arm free and turn. Kicking out a leg, I sweep my opponent's feet, knocking the figure from a crouching position to prone.
I quickly straddle the figure and pin his or her wrists. It's then that I see the face, almost hidden beneath the hood of an oversized black garment. It looks almost like a chemise with a hood -- loose and billowy, but gathered at the wrists. For a moment I am impressed by the chosen vesture and how it obscures the distinctive outline of the body -- and effective camouflage.
"Ms. F... F... F..." I stammer.
You cut me off, "Quiet. And get off me!" you tell me in a loud whisper.
I slump to the ground against the tree, dumbfounded. Here is my admired teacher, a respected member of the academic community out fomenting civic unrest.
I pull my black hood off and smooth my hair, trying to get my mind around this apparent dichotomy.
You pull yourself up to a sitting position, wrapping your arms around your knees.
"Well, hello, Austin," you whisper. "I should have expected this from you. I knew you were one of those discomfited elitists. I just didn't know you were willing to take action."
"I have to admit, I'm kind of proud of you," you say with a lilt in your voice.
"Can we go somewhere and talk?" I ask haltingly. "My truck is parked about a mile from here."
"Lead the way," you say, resuming your crouch.
Slipping from shadow to shadow, the two of us move silently through the night, reaching a large drainage channel, I slip down the side and start to lead you to the darkened tunnel beneath the streets.
"You don't mind rats, do you?" I ask with a sly grin and a raised eyebrow.
You shudder and scowl at me. "Are you serious?"
"Nah. The alligators got most of them," I tell you, clicking on a flashlight, and walk off through the tunnel.
As we walk, we talk in hushed whispers. You ask me what I was doing.
"Well, I take the drain plugs out of the oil pans," I tell you, rattling the pack around my waist, "and replace them with little foam plugs, like earplugs. They fit really well and the no one notices they are gone until the Hummer is miles away. Once the engine and the oil heat up enough, it melts the foam, the oil drains out and the engine seizes up. It's ruined."
I hear you giggle malevolently behind me.
"What, pray tell, were YOU doing, oh pillar of the community," I ask.
"Well, I did some research," you begin "and found that the Hummers have sensors that monitor the tires to make sure they don't go flat and will inflate them if they start to lose pressure."
"So you were disabling the sensors? Why?"
"Well, it's not just the sensors," you explain. "I found out that if the circuit is interrupted, the sensor thinks the tire has gone flat and will try to inflate it. It will keep inflating the tires until it can't force any more air in and it will ruin the compressor and probably the tires too. And those tires cost about $300 a piece,"
"Ooooh. You're evil," I say with a smirk. "No worse than you," you say with mock indignation.
