A movement on the other side of the HQ distracted West. He pointed at two men walking slowly along the path. Perhaps the watch was about to change, in which case our time here was up. We gathered the ropes together and retreated, putting the hangman’s tree between us and the newcomers. Our people were off the track behind a screen of bushes. Cassidy, Rutherford and Ryder were busy transferring the spare weapons to the backpacks that contained drysacks, which would make them buoyant and easier to handle in the water.
‘Jesus, Vin,’ Rutherford whispered. ‘Is that you? What stinks?’
‘Been a while since I fossed,’ I said. Moving on quickly, if only to distract myself from the ghastly smell, I added, ‘We’ve got around sixty feet of rope.’ I looked Cassidy up and down. He had maybe twenty pounds on me, and in other circumstances would have been the natural choice to help someone like Boink rope down, but as this was my plan — and, as plans went, it wasn’t one of my better ones — I felt I should be the one who anchored the big lug.
West had almost finished tying the rope ends together. When he was done, I took an end of the rope, wound it around my thigh and then looped it around one shoulder. I got the other end and looped it twice around Boink’s midriff and tied it off.
‘I’ll go first and scout a path down,’ said Rutherford.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but keep one eye on us.’ If Boink lost his footing and I couldn’t hold him, I didn’t want the guy’s subsequent roll down the hill cleaning up the Brit. ‘Who’s going after us?’
‘I’ll take care of everyone else,’ said Cassidy. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate.’
A distant cry of alarm silenced the frogs, and the night stillness came alive with urgent distant voices. I doubted Colonel Makenga’s men would look for us where we were temporarily hunkered down; not straight away, at least. But time was running out.
I looked at each of our civilians and Ryder in turn. ‘All right, people, we can do this. The way down’s going to be tricky. Make sure of your footing before you put your weight on it. When the going gets steep, you might find it more comfortable going down backward. If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask.’
Leila, Ayesha and Ryder all nodded gravely.
LeDuc translated for our prisoner.
‘Let’s go,’ I said when he’d finished.
Rutherford led the way. He criss-crossed the edge of the dropaway, going back and forth a couple of times, before making a decision on the best way down. Nimbly, he slid down onto a ledge five feet below, turned and motioned for Boink to follow.
‘Take your time,’ I told him. We both knew I meant hurry the fuck up.
Without protest, Boink got down on his hands and knees and wriggled further out as I took the weight on the rope.
‘Easy,’ I cautioned as he disappeared over the edge a little faster than I had anticipated. Two seconds later, the rope snapped taut. And suddenly the world became a rolling, tumbling spin cycle as I was yanked over the edge and pulled down the steepening incline, my fall interrupted by impacts with bushes, rocks and mud outcrops. I went into a ball and rolled faster, out of control and tangled in the rope, smashing into solid objects. And suddenly the collisions stopped and I was falling upside down through clear air. I was going to fall to my death unless something—
A powerful force grabbed my ankle, gave me a vicious flick and almost pulled my leg out of my hip socket as I came to a near-instant stop, hanging upside down. I bounced and swung pendulum-like, the rope wound around my lower leg and ankle, and the blood rushing to my head. The arc I was dangling on carried me into the sheer rock wall, and I bashed my right shoulder against it as small rocks and gravel pulled down from the fall rained over me, filling my mouth and nostrils and hitting my neck and chin. I closed my eyes and did my best to shield my head. Once the worst of this had passed, I relaxed a little and wondered what to do next. At least nothing felt broken.
Somewhere above, Boink had obviously come to a stop while I’d continued falling and now I was hanging in space over the water, joined to him by the hangman’s rope. I looked down but couldn’t see anything below. There was no moon and no stars. The only color was black and there was nothing discernible in this inverted shapeless world of darkness.
No vibration or movement was coming down the rope. That told me Boink wasn’t moving. At my end, things weren’t much better. The rope wrapped around my ankle presented its own problem. I checked the scabbard on my thigh. I’d lost the Ka-bar somewhere on the way down, which meant I had nothing with which to cut the rope. I had to get my foot untangled somehow, but to achieve that, I had to take the pressure off that knot. Swinging upward, I grabbed the rope just above my ankle, and tried to heave myself up. I got nowhere. Who the hell was I kidding? There was no way I could pull off a Cirque du Soleil stunt like that.
A gray shape flew past, falling fast, falling silent. Another followed, screaming. I knew that scream: Leila. A line of sparkles crackled up in the sky. Muzzle flashes. Shit, the rebels had us pegged. Another shape dropped through the air not far away. An instant later, the rock face above me exploded into flying chips as the soldiers fired at the next jumper, leading its descent, trying to hit it. The line of semi-automatic fire raced down the wall toward me. Jesus, I was a sitting duck. Worse — I was a hanging one. Stone chips flew and fzzed past me, some ripping through the fabric of my battle uniform and cutting up my skin. From the downward march of the sparks against the rock wall, I could see that the rain of lead was coming toward me. It was going to saw off my foot. Something punched into the rope, viciously shaking my leg. And then I was free-falling, accelerating into the black void, upside down, head first — the wrong way.
Animals
I smashed into something hard, which gave way beneath me. Sudden cold made me want to gag for breath, and my nose and throat filled with water as the back of my neck ploughed into the rock bottom of the lake floor. I fought the panic brought on by cold and disorientation and stopped moving until natural buoyancy told me which way was up. Turning, my feet found the rocks and I pushed off, lungs burning as two torpedoes shot into the water beside me, dragging me down again.
Thrusting off the bottom a second time, I came to the surface choking and coughing, and Cassidy bobbed up beside me with Boink’s head cradled in the crook of his arm, rescue-style. I reached down to my ankle, untangled the rope. I coughed and snorted the cold water out of my nostrils. ‘You need help?’ I asked Cassidy as he struck out for the bank, shimmering a ghostly white in the moonlight.
‘I got this,’ he said. ‘Look for the others.’
I scoped the surface of the lake. Lucky random shots fired from the ridge speared into the water here and there, pulling up small gray geysers edged with phosphorescence. I hoped Uncle Sugar hadn’t sweetened the deal with Makenga by handing out night vision scopes to his people.
My feet felt the gently sloping bottom. Pebbles gave way to a soft ooze. I waded in as close to the water’s edge as I could, then pulled myself up onto the bank, the mud sucking and gurgling at my hands, knees and feet. On the shore, several meters beyond the mud, I could dimly make out tall elephant grass. All except Cassidy and Boink had dragged themselves out of the water and onto the bank and were lying there, exhausted. I let myself fall beside the backpacks, the rifles and submachine guns still lashed to them.