I made it as far as the other end of the alley before she caught up with me, tackling me from behind and sending me sprawling. I couldn’t move very fast, not with my hurt foot and the weight of my pack. I went down in a hard face-plant and skidded, grinding my cheek into the grimy asphalt. “Jesus,” she said. “You’re a goddamned idiot. You didn’t believe that, did you?” My heart thudded in my chest. She was on top of me and slowly she let me up. “Do I need to cuff you, Marcus?” I got to my feet. I hurt all over. I wanted to die. “Come on,” she said. “It’s not far now.” ‘It’ turned out to be a moving van on a Nob Hill side-street, a sixteen-wheeler the size of one of the ubiquitous DHS trucks that still turned up on San Francisco’s street corners, bristling with antennas. This one, though, said “Three Guys and a Truck Moving” on the side, and the three guys were very much in evidence, trekking
253 · LITTLE BROTHER
“Stop right there, chickie,” he said. “I saw you get him away. I saw it all — ” She took another step forward and snatched the phone out of his hand, reaching behind her with her other hand and bringing it out holding a wallet open. “DHS, dick-head,” she said. “I’m DHS. I’ve been running this twerp back to his masters to see where he went. I was doing that. Now you’ve blown it. We have a name for that. We call it ‘Obstruction of National Security.’ You’re about to hear that phrase a lot more often.” Charles took a step backward, his hands held up in front of him. He’d gone even paler under his makeup. “What? No! I mean — I didn’t know! I was trying to help!” “The last thing we need is a bunch of high school Junior G-men ‘helping,’ buddy. You can tell it to the judge.” He moved back again, but Masha was fast. She grabbed his wrist and twisted him into the same judo hold she’d had me in back at Civic Center. Her hand dipped back to her pockets and came out holding a strip of plastic, a handcuff strip, which she quickly wound around his wrists. That was the last thing I saw as I took off running.