At least that’s what I believed at that time. And if it had been you, and you were in the same situation, you would have thought the same thing. I guarantee it. Thanks, Confucius.

I had just put Mighty Chair in gear when Hack came rushing back into the locker room. “There’s two suits out front looking for you. Jake told them he hadn’t seen you come in.” Jake was the manager of the gym; he didn’t know I was there. The man who’d opened the door for me was in the shower, loudly singing Dylan off-key, a feat in itself. “Want me to do anything?”

There is a moment in every classic monster film in which a character rushes into the lab to inform the protagonist, “It’s reached the edge of the city!” This was my official it’s-reached-the-edge-of-the-city moment. I was surprisingly calm. I guess I’d been preparing for this for longer than I’d thought. “Stall ’em for a few minutes if you can.” I needed to get to the rear door and skedaddle.

“I’ll try.” He was gone.

Seconds later I heard him in the hallway, asking loudly, “Can I help you guys?”

So much for the rear door. I looked around the locker room, trying to figure out WWBD? (What would Bourne do?) There was only one place to hide. I went for it.

I had just closed the door when I heard Hack’s voice booming through the locker room, “See, I told you guys he wasn’t in here. It’s pretty hard to miss a big guy in a wheelchair. If he shows up, you want me to give him a message?”

“Thank you, but we’re just going to look around.” It was impossible to miss the derision in Dickie’s voice. I heard the metallic clank of lockers being opened and slammed shut. Could they possibly be that stupid? Did they really think I was hiding in a locker? But then they came into the bathroom.

“Well, well, well,” Agent Richard Corbin said with satisfaction from his position on the tiled floor. “What do we have here? It appears that someone is back in a handicapped stall. I wonder who that might be.” Then in a sarcastic twang he singsonged, “Oh, Mr. Stone, come out, come out, we know where you are.” Then he rattled the locked stall door. He pulled it several times as if it might suddenly spring open. “Open up, Stone,” he ordered. “You’re not going anywhere.”

I could see his shoes under the door. He stood there in silence for a few seconds, obviously trying to figure out what to do. His partner, Francis Russell, said to Hack, “Thank you. We’ll take it from here.”

Well, they didn’t want any witnesses. “I’ll be right outside,” Hack said. I didn’t know if that was intended to be a warning to the agents or a message to me. I heard the door brushing closed. Corbin cleared his throat. Then in his most officious voice he said to the closed bathroom stall door, “Roland Stone, we have an order from the Department of Homeland Security to take you into protective custody. Resisting a lawful order is a felony and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. You will be entitled to all of the protections granted under these regulations.” He jiggled the door again. “C’mon, Stone, this only has one ending. Open the damn door.”