The van, a retired plumbing vehicle that smelled permanently of rust and shattered dreams, was parked across from a scene of absolute suburban carnage. Balloons, garish and swollen, bobbed against the windows of the split-level house. The air thrummed with the high-pitched shrieks of children and the relentless, thumping bassline of a song about a family of sharks. Inside the van, Molly adjusted the focus on her binoculars. “Target is saturated. Hostile forces are distracted by the sugar deployment and auditory assault.” Bill, wedged into the passenger seat, lowered a half-eaten tube of salt-and-vinegar crisps. “You mean the kids are hyper from cake and bad music?” “Precisely. The asset cache is located in the primary social chamber. That’s the living room, Bill. We’ve got a ten-minute window after the candle ceremony and before the professional entertainer arrives.” Molly’s finger traced a line on a crudely drawn map of the house, which was actually the back of a pizza menu. Bill peered at it, his brow furrowed in concentration. The relentless sensory assault from outside was making the van’s thin metal walls vibrate. A small boy, face smeared with blue icing, ran screaming across the lawn, pursued by a girl wielding a foam noodle. It was pure chaos. “I don’t like it, Mol,” Bill said, wiping grease from his chin with the back of his hand. “The intel was incomplete.” “The intel is a Facebook invitation from the birthday boy’s mother. It’s rock solid. What’s the problem?” “The problem,” Bill said, pointing a crisp-dusted finger through the windscreen, “is him.” Molly followed his gaze. A man was climbing out of a comically small car. He wore a rainbow-striped suit, a spinning bow tie, and a floppy hat with a daisy attached. He was pulling a unicycle from the backseat. “That’s the entertainer. Boffo the Clown. He’s a non-factor. A diversion.” “A non-factor? Look at the size of his shoes, Molly. That’s an unnatural size for a foot. He could conceal anything in there. Look at his eyes. He’s seen things.” Molly sighed, a long, weary exhalation that fogged up her side of the windscreen. “He’s a party clown, Bill. His job is to make balloon animals and fall over.” “That’s his cover. He’ll have situational awareness. Nobody who juggles for a living is ever truly relaxed. He’ll spot us for sure.” Bill crunched another crisp, the sound like a gunshot in the tense silence of the van. Outside, Boffo the Clown honked a horn, and the children descended upon him in a squealing, joyful mob. “Fine,” Molly snapped, lowering the binoculars. “We adjust. We use the clown.” “To do what? Create a diversion? He *is* a diversion!” “No,” Molly said, a slow, wicked grin spreading across her face. “We’re going to frame him.”