instead, he pushed from the wall again, swung backward, dropped two feet
along the line, swooped back to the wall. And again: just a foot or
eighteen inches this time. Little mincing steps. A cautious dance of
fear along the face of the building.
Out, down, in; out, down, in; out, down, in ...
The terror had not evaporated. It was in him yet, bubbling, thick as
stew. A cancer that had fed upon him and grown for years was not likely
to vanish through natural remission in a few minutes. However, he was
no longer overwhelmed by fear, incapacitated by it. He could see ahead
to a day when he might be cured of it; and that was a fine vision.
When he finally dared to look down, he saw that he was so near the ledge
that he no longer needed to rappel. He let go of the rope and dropped
the last few feet.
Connie pressed close to him. She had to shout to be heard above the
wind. "You did it!"
" I did it!"
"You've beaten it."
"so far."
"Maybe this is far enough."
"What?"
She pointed to the window beside them. "What if we break in here?"
"Why should we?"
"It's somebody's office. We could hide in it."
"What about Bollinger?"
She raised her voice a notch to compensate for a new gust of wind.
"Sooner or later, he'll go to your office."
"So?"
"He'll see the window. Carabiners and ropes."
"I know."
"He'll think we went all the way to the street."
"Maybe he will. I doubt it. "Even if he doesn't think that, he won't
know where we stopped. He can't blast open every door in the building,
looking for us."
The wind whooshed between them, rebounded from the building, rocked them
as if they were toy figures.
it wailed: a banshee.
Snowflakes sliced into Graham's eyes. They were so fine and cold that
they affected him almost as grains of salt would have done. He squeezed
his eyes shut, trying to force out the sudden pain. He had some
success; but the pain was replaced by a copious flow of tears that
temporarily blinded him.
They pressed their foreheads together, trying to get closer so they
wouldn't have to yell at each other.
"We can hide until people come to work," she said.
"Tomorrow's Saturday."
"Some people will work. The custodial crews, at least.
"The city will be paralyzed by morning," he said.
"This is a blizzard! No one will go to work."
"Then we hide until Monday."
"What about water? Food?"
"A big office will have water coolers. Coffee and sodavending machines.
Maybe even a candy and cracker vendor."
"Until Monday?"
"if we have to."
"That's a long time."
She jerked one hand to the void at her left side. "And that's a long
climb!"
"Agreed."
"Come on," she said impatiently. "Let's smash in the window."
Bollinger stepped over the fallen liquor cabinet and looked around
Harris's office.
Nothing out of the ordinary. No sjgn of the prey.
Where in the name of God were they?
He was turning to leave when the green velvet drapes billowed out from
the wall.
He brought up the Walther PPK, almost opened fire.
Before he could squeeze off the first shot, the drapes fell back against
the wall. Nobody could be hiding behind them; there wasn't enough room
for that.
He went to one end of the drapes and found the draw cords. The green
velvet folded back on itself with a soft hiss.
As soon as the middle window was revealed, he saw that something was
wrong with it. He went to it and opened the tall, rectangular panes.
The wind rushed in at him, fluttered his unbuttoned collar, mussed his
hair, moaned to him. Hard-driven flakes of snow peppered his face.
e saw t e carabiners on the center post, and the ropes leading from
them.
He leaned out of the window, looked down the side of the building.
"I'll be damned!" he said.
Graham was trying to unhook the hammer from the accessory strap on his
safety harness, but he was hampered by his heavy gloves. Without the
gloves, it would have been an easy chore, but he didn't want to take
them off out here for fear they would slip away from him and disappear
over the edge. If something went wrong and they were forced to continue
the climb, he would need gloves desperately.
Above him, the wind made a strange sound. Whump! A loud, blunt noise.
Like a muffled crack of thunder.
He finally got the hammer off the strap.
Whump!
Connie grabbed his arm. "Bollinger!"
At first he didn't know what she meant. He looked up only because she
did.
Thirty feet above them, Bollinger was leaning out of the window.
To Connie, Graham said, "Stand against the wall!"
She didn't move. She seemed stunned. This was the first time ' she had
ever looked frightened.
"Don't make a target of yourself!" he shouted.
She pressed her back to the building.
'Untie yourself from the safety line," he said.
overhead, a tongue of flame licked out of the pistol's muzzle: whump!
Graham swung the hammer, struck the window.
Glass exploded inward.
Frantically, unable to forget the vision of himself being shot in the
back, he smashed the stubborn, jagged shards that clung to the frame.
Whump!
The sharp sound of a ricochet made Graham jump.
The bullet skipped off the stone inches from his face.
He was sweating again.
Bollinger shouted something.
The wind tore his words apart, transformed them into meaningless sounds.
Graham didn't look up. He kept working at the spiked edges of the
window.
Whump!
"Go." he shouted as he shattered the last dangerous piece of glass.
Connie scrambled over the windowsill, disappeared into the dark office.
He slipped the safety line knot at his harness.
Whump!
The shot was so close that he cried out involuntarily. The slug plucked
at the sleeve of his parka. He was unbalanced by the surprise, and for
an instant he thought he would fall off the ledge.
Whump!
Whump!
He plunged forward, through the broken window, expecting to be stopped
at the last second by a bullet in the spine.
In the unlighted office on the thirty-eighth floor, the glass crunched
under their feet.
Connie said, "How could he miss us?"
As he patted the sweat from his face with the palm of his glove, Graham
said, "Wind's near gale force. Could have deflected the bullets
slightly."
"In just thirty feet?"
"Maybe. Besides, he was firing from a bad angle. Leaning out the
window, shooting down and in. Light was bad. Wind was in his face.
He'd have been damned lucky if he'd hit us."
"We can't stay here as we planned," she said. "Of course not. He knows
which floor we're on. He's probably running for the elevator right
now."
"We go back out?"
"I sure don't want to.
"He'll keep popping up along the way, trying to shoot us off the side of
the building."
"Do we have a choice?"
"None," she said. "Ready to climb?"
"As I'll ever be."
"You've done well."
"I'm not all the way down yet."
"You'll make it."
"Are you the clairvoyant now?"
"You'll make it. Because you aren't afraid anymore."
"Who? Me?"
"You."
"I'm scared to death."
"Not like you once were. Not that bad. Anyway, there's good reason to
be afraid right now. It's a healthy fear you've got this time."
"Oh, yeah. I'm brimming with healthy fear."
"I was right."
"About what?"
"You're the man I've always wanted."
"Then you haven't wanted much."
In spite of what he said, she detected pleasure in his voice. He didn't