The rock exploded like a small grenade, spraying my face and eyes with stone splinters. The pain was excruciating. Blinded, I staggered back, tripped and fell on my side. I reached out for support and felt my arm slip over the cliff edge. For a split second, I thought that was it-my body balanced right at the midpoint, undecided on which direction to roll, until I kicked my leg back and swung myself away from the edge. I still couldn’t see well; I could taste the blood seeping over my upper lip. I rubbed my eyes and blinked like mad, knowing it was now or never for my opponent. About every two seconds, I managed to get a half-glimpse of my surroundings before the blood blocked my vision again. I began backing up as rapidly as I dared, keeping one hand on the wall next to me, hoping to get to the shelter of the other platform before the shooter made his move.
I never made it. In one brief clear-eyed second, I saw his figure duck around the corner, carrying his rifle. I heard its blast just as the back of my head collided with the upright ladder behind me. My head exploded with bright light-a blinding, numbing starburst almost matched by the sudden stab of pain in my left side. I knew I was falling, but not in which direction; nor did I know how to counteract it. My arms and legs didn’t respond. I felt almost as if I was falling through water. Only the abrupt contact of my nose to the dusty granite shelf told me I’d fallen on my face. I lay there, motionless, trying to sort out the numbness, the pain, and the dizziness that engulfed me. I heard the other man’s footsteps move around the ladder and disappear to the opposite “escape” platform, out of reach from the State Police. I moved my fingers, trying to feel for my gun. It was gone. I heard him coming back and lay still. He seemed to hesitate, and then began to climb awkwardly to the second ledge, with something clanking and banging against the side of the ladder. I thought, hell; he’s got the pry bar-he’s going to leave me stranded. I rolled onto my back and looked up. My eyes still hurt, and I had to squint, but I could see. He was carrying his rifle, of course, not the pry bar-he no longer gave a damn about me. I got to my hands and knees, and then unsteadily to my feet, pulling myself up with the ladder rungs. I hung there for a few seconds, shaking off the nausea. Even without looking up, I knew he’d reached the next level-the ladder had stopped quivering under his weight. It angered me that he was getting away, it angered me that I still didn’t know who he was, and it angered me to think I’d messed up, that %248 somehow things shouldn’t have turned out this way. I swung myself around to the front of the ladder and began to climb.
The pain in my side brought me to an abrupt halt. I looked down at a broad red swatch that was leaking down my pants leg. His bullet must have hit me just above the belt line. I pressed it with my hand-it hurt, but it wasn’t unbearable, not like the pain in my head, which still gave everything a slightly pink tinge. I continued climbing, slowly, but steadily, hand over hand, foot over foot.
I could hear more shots above me, and several from across the way. We were no longer so close together, and the others could now feel free to try picking him off. But they didn’t have rifles. It didn’t mean their bullets couldn’t reach this far, but any accuracy was reduced to pure luck. By the time I reached the second ledge, he was almost to the top of the first, where the last ladder lay flat. I just hoped to God he was too preoccupied to look down.
I put my hands on the rungs to start climbing again, but then stopped, my head swimming so badly I had to close my eyes. I could feel my heartbeat through my temples, which felt like they must be ready to burst. With my eyes still closed, I began going up. I was beginning to lose the sensation of the wood under my hands, and the toes of my feet caught under the rungs instead of placing themselves confidently on top.
I realized I probably couldn’t make it to the top. No matter, I’d get the son of a bitch. The firing was pretty constant now, more from their side than from his. He, I could tell from the sounds, was struggling to put the last ladder in place. I opened my eyes and concentrated on what I was doing, movement by movement, ignoring that my vision seemed to be closing down from the outside in, and that everything was sounding farther and farther away. I got to the top of ledge number one. He was almost out of the pit.
I grabbed hold of his ladder and shook it. “Stop.” He froze suddenly, clutching the rails, and looked down. For a split second, everything stopped as we stared at each other. With the humming in my head and the increasing dizziness, I halfwondered if I was hallucinating, going back in time and reviewing the faces of the recent dead. For, above me, his eyes narrowed with malice, was Ed Sylvester’s bearded face-Julie’s cherished Fox, back from the grave, and here to kill me as he had Bruce Wingate before me. Idiotically, the only thought that crossed my mind was irritation at having been so stupid-we had all relied on Sarris’s information in determining the burned man’s identity. I was suddenly aware of the silence around us again, we were too %249 close together for them to risk shooting. In my dogged pursuit, I’d been too successfuclass="underline" I’d made of myself the perfect target. Sylvester began to fool with his rifle, bringing it around to bear on me.
I ducked under the ladder and put my back flat against the rock.
My hands were on the underside of the rungs. I heard the rifle’s bolt action snap into place, and the tinkling of a brass cartridge at my feet. All he had to do now was aim and I was dead. With a sudden, convulsive effort, I put all my remaining strength into pushing against the ladder. It trembled and jumped under my hands as Sylvester began to scramble, trying to reach the top. I felt the ladder begin to give, slowly at first, then with more conviction. I looked up and saw sky appear between the wall and the ladder’s top.
Sylvester dropped his rifle, which sailed by me on the way down, and grabbed for the cable I’d rigged earlier. For a moment, we froze there, the ladder angled away from the wall, Sylvester hanging onto the cable, me pushing for all I was worth.
Then, as had happened to me before, the steel line began to slip between his gloved hands. Farther and farther, in gradual slow motion, the ladder tilted into the void. Sylvester began to slip along the cable like a bead along a thread. The ladder twisted away and peeled off to the side; Sylvester continued on his arc out toward the middle of the pit. His gloves were hissing along the cable, smoking with the friction, leaving little plumes than hung in the air. At the end of the forty feet, man and cable separated in sudden, abrupt silence. I watched him spinning, spread-eagled, until he vanished in a geyser of viscous green water. The scream came from elsewhere far below, thin and high-pitched. My vision reduced to a pinhole, I swung my head to look near the edge of the water near the pit’s opening to the east. There was a girl there-half an inch tall from this distance, poised at the escape gap-on her knees with her hands over her face.
I slid down the wall into a sitting position and passed out.
The nurse paused, the paper cup still touching my lips. I followed her gaze to my hospital room door. Greta was standing there, a scowl on her face.
%250 “Hey there, Greta,” Buster spoke from the corner, where he’d enthroned himself in the room’s only armchair, surrounded by magazines.
She ignored him, and the nurse who squeezed past her on the way out. My God, you look like you been hit by a truck.” She shook her head and eyed me with gentle scorn. “I thought you were supposed to be the SA’s guy-a paper pusher.” I raised the one eyebrow that wasn’t bandaged.
“Dumb luckwrong place at the wrong time.” Greta looked across to Buster finally. “So what did he do to himself”’ “He was shot in the side, damaged his right eye, and suffered a concussion. No permanent damage.”