Contributed by Nicolas Papaconstantinou on 13/11/08

I’m aware, as I glance around, that I am living the dream. As I sprint down these strange corridors, urgency pricking at my heels as a result of the explosions of light and noise down behind me, I think back to all of the similar scenes that I’ve watched on the big and small screen – the dishevelled action hero at full pelt, panic large on his face, as all hell breaks loose behind him.

It probably started with Cary Grant in “North By Northwest”, haring across a killing field as a biplane chops up the ground just behind him. Later on, it’s Harrison Ford in everything.

The guys who were on the verge of beating the shit out of me are making their own stumbling ways out of the factory. If I listened – and, you know, if there weren’t whizzing and banging nightmares ripping the building up behind me – I could probably hear them careening down corridors nearby, crashing into walls and shelving like I keep doing.

I gasp, out of breath. Pausing for a second, I bend double, hands on my knees – because that’s supposed to help, isn’t it? – and glance back. Just as the lightshow bursts around the corner some way behind me.

I start running again.

I swear to god, this situation is like a microcosm of this whole damn case. My whole damn life, if I think about it.

Because really, aren’t all of us just running down a tunnel with a giant ball of rock rolling after us?

I don’t have a fucking clue where I am – I snuck in through another entrance – but I’m guessing the best way to go is in the opposite direction of the noise and fury behind me. I saw enough of those Public Service ads as a kid to make me innately horrified by the effects of a firework on human skin, so I don’t want to find out what happens if that mess catches up with me.

So when I hit the next junction, I take the corner away from the noises. There’s a solid looking door ahead of me, that looks locked – because the way my day is going, I can make a stab at guesses like that – but also looks like a way out.

Which is just as well, because as I put my heel to the ground and head for it, a catherine wheel whistles past the back of my head, bounces off the wall behind me, and spins out in front of me, almost tripping me up. The lights are catching up to me – the smaller, faster rockets taking that past corner, with their momentum keeping them close to the wall, the smoky streamers of them catching in my lungs as the odd stray overtakes me.

I push on, a burning in my lungs and the bright lights flecking in my eyes, and I’m not thinking about Han Solo or Indiana Jones as I put my shoulder to the door – I’m thinking about what might have happened to John McClane if he hadn’t made it off the top of that tower when the whole thing blew – how long it might take to die from massive burns, and about how sad the kid on that advert looked, with his badly damaged hand from picking up a sparkler.

It turns out that it isn’t actually funny what you think about, when you’re about to die…

But it’s a moot point, because the door splinters in it’s frame under my weight, and I’m out into an empty night. And despite the urge to just stop, I take it a few more yards, and then a few more, before the doorway behind me explodes in it’s own little Fourth of July display. For a second, I feel sad that there’s nobody there to see it – I must look pretty spectacular, framed by all that.

I’m only a couple of streets away when the roof of the place blows – and really, I’d never have imagined that all those little streamers could ever amount to an explosion so huge. I kind of hope everybody got out okay.

Because the real kicker of it is, that lead was a dud. That particular factory boss was clean for the kidnap case that I’m investigating. Unfortunately, that didn’t become apparent till after security caught me snooping. I don’t even want to go into how the fire started.

Some days, you’re Indy. Other days, you’re Clouseau. A day like today, I have to wonder about the choices that got me into this line of work.