Page 87 of No Time Off

“What crowd?” Paul asked.

“A crowd we anticipate forming in public spots, including the television station, in the next hour or so,” I explained. “We don’t need a lot of people, although that would be nice. Just enough to make the police uneasy.”

“The social media blast,” Petra said, quickly grasping where we were going with this. “You’re counting on a protest, a crowd, or a distraction of some kind after my video is broadcast.”

“Yes,” Slash confirmed. “But not only. We can’t rely on a crowd to perform on our timeline. We need to create our own diversion as well. No one knows where your seven o’clock announcement will be coming from. I believe Maivia and the Chinese will be expecting another social media video. They won’t have a big presence at the station until after you start broadcasting live. That’s when they’ll rush to intercept you.”

“Good,” she said resolutely. “I’m counting on it.”

Paul stood behind Manny, staring at Manny’s phone. “You know, there’s something about that policeman on the left that seems familiar. Manny, zoom in on him, would you, mate?”

Manny did as he was asked, then handed Paul his phone.

“That policeman on the left, I know him,” Paul said. “He’s just a kid—Aolani Kekola. He went to school with my daughter. He’s barely eighteen. I didn’t know he joined the police force.”

Manny passed around his phone as we all studied the photo. “His posture speaks volumes,” Slash said. “He clearly hasn’t been a police officer for long. He probably doesn’t know much beyond his orders to stand there and only allow authorized news staff inside the building.”

“Well, no matter what we do, we’re not going to hurt anyone,” the prime minister said firmly. “Certainly not a teenager. In whatever manner we carry this out, we do it peacefully.”

We all nodded in agreement, and Manny got his phone back and pocketed it.

“The idea here is simple—as agreed, we don’t charge in guns out or blazing,” Manny said. “If the crowd isn’t large enough, we create just enough of a distraction to break up the police’s focus. That gives us a window for us to slip in behind them unnoticed.”

“Are there any other doors we can go in if one of the staff from inside opened it for us?” I asked.

Manny shook his head. “No. There are only two other doors, one on the side of the building and one in the back. Both have been chained shut. You might be able to open them far enough to hand something out, but a person wouldn’t fit.”

“Has it always been like that?” I asked. “That’s seems like a fire hazard to me.”

“Nope, you can thank Maivia and the Chinese for that one,” Manny said.

Rangi blew out a breath. “So, once we’re inside, we’re trapped?”

“I’m afraid so unless you have some bolt cutters,” Manny said.

Slash spoke, his voice measured. “We’ll have to go in through the front. It’s like Manny said, we don’t need mass chaos, but we need that distraction, whether it’s organic from the crowd or instigated by us. But we won’t have to time to waste, so the distraction must happen almost immediately after our arrival.”

There was a brief silence, the weight of our deadline hanging over us.

“What do you have in mind for a distraction?” I asked Slash.

“Something subtle,” Slash replied. “Perhaps a fight—verbal. Something heated but not dangerous.”

Paul gave a crooked smile. “That’s easy enough to do. We just trash talk a rugby team and be obnoxious enough about it to make it look like we’re about to tear into each other. A few shouted insults and a little shoving should pull the police’s attention and bring them over to us.”

“But don’t let it get out of hand,” Manny warned. “We don’t want a full-on riot.”

“Be cognizant of that,” Rangi agreed. “We just need to get the police to do their job—break up the fight. And while they’re focused on that, the rest of us will slip inside.”

“No worries, mates,” Paul said. “We’ve got this.”

The prime minister looked at each of us in turn, assessing our expressions, her mind already working ahead. “Okay, what happens once we’re inside?”

“We have to move fast,” Slash explained. “We don’t linger. Once the police are distracted, we secure the station from the inside.”

“The prime minister will be immediately recognized by the television staff,” Rangi protested.

“I’m counting on it,” Slash said. “She’ll have a chance to speak to them personally before the broadcast, explaining what has happened. We need the staff to be on her side, to support her and give her the space and platform she needs to tell the population what’s really happening.”

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