“Nobody can climb a rope a hundred feet in the air.”
“I can.”
“Well, sir, you’re civilian, aren’t you?”
Sachs said, “He’s deputized.”
Though there was no procedure for conferring that status in the NYPD handbook, the fire department chief either didn’t know this or decided if there was any time to circumvent procedure it was now.
She continued, “Get him what he needs.”
“Give me oxygen, a mask and two Sterlings. And gloves with wrist straps, and boots. Size thirteen if you have them.”
The radio clattered. “Chief, water’s not doing shit. It’s flowing down the stairs on both sides; the fire’s in the core. We can’t reach it.”
“Roger.” Then to Spencer, “Okay, we’ll get what you need.” He ordered two of his men to do so.
Spencer said, “Can you call him?”
Sachs did and handed over the phone, on speaker.
“Yes?” Coughing, hard breathing.
“Officer, this is Lyle Spencer. We’re going to fire a tie line to you, then you’re going to drag a climbing rope up. What can you secure it to?”
“There’s a...” Fierce coughing. “A radiator under the window.”
“Good. I’ll get back to you.” He handed the phone to Sachs.
A flash of white on the street as a large van turned the corner. It was Lincoln Rhyme’s Sprinter — his disabled-accessible vehicle. It parked and a side door opened and an elevator lowered Rhyme and his chair to the sidewalk. He rolled away from the van, which curled its accessory up. Thom drove off to find a parking space out of the way of the official vehicles.
Rhyme approached. The chief nodded.
He said to Sachs, “When I heard, I had to come. How is he?”
Sachs briefed him, and together the somber couple watched Spencer get ready for the climb.
The security man said, “Call Ron. Speaker.”
She did.
“It’s Lyle, Officer. Stand back from the window. Grab the yellow projectile that’s coming up. Then pull up the climbing line.”
Spencer pulled his suit jacket and tie off and dumped them on the ground, kicked his shoes off and pulled on the boots, then gloves. As he was fitted with an oxygen tank, he nodded to a firewoman who held the line gun in a ladder basket about forty feet in the air. The first shot missed by a yard or so. She compensated and the second zipped through the empty window.
Immediately the thin yellow line began snaking through the window, taking with it the much thicker climbing rope.
Spencer borrowed a knife and cut a length of rope from another coil. About ten feet. He tied this around his chest, letting the tail dangle. He called toward Sachs’s phone, still open. “How you doing, Officer?”
“Hanging in there.”
The coughing was fiercer.
“What I need you to do is tie the thicker rope to the radiator.”
She heard Pulaski say, “Look, mister, you’re not going to try to—”
“Quit talking, son. Save that air. See you in a minute. Oh, and by the way, when you tie the rope to the radiator, keep in mind: really fucking tight.”
50
Lyle Spencer ran up the ladder to the roof of the one-story building.
There, holding the climbing line, he looked up.
The rope rose straight to the twelve-inch ledge outside Pulaski’s window. He shook it, like a battle rope, and the sine curve headed upward, dissipating about forty feet up.
Get to it, sailor.
Spencer leapt into the air, two feet or so, and gripped the rope. He did a pull-up, then lifted his legs and gripped the rope between the top of his left foot and bottom of his right — the classic S-hook climbing technique.
He then straightened his legs and rose a yard or so up the rope.
Lift... grip... straighten.
Only one hundred feet to go.
Well, one hundred and change.
Breathe. Exhale.
Now, only ninety.
And change.
Lift... grip... straighten.
Already his arms were feeling sore but no muscle was screaming.
“Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate,” the chief called over a loudspeaker.
At this the trucks blared their intersection horns three times, which was the universal signal to get the hell out. Always done, in addition to the transmission, in case of a radio malfunction or a particularly loud conflagration.
Well, guess that meant his opinion was that the building was about to come down.
Nothing to do about it now, except climb.
Lift... grip... straighten.
Eighty feet wasn’t so far. Less than a third of the length of a football field.
Seventy feet.
Sixty feet.
Have to say, Trudes, it is pretty damn far.
Fifty.
Jesus, Lord, the hurt.
Lift... grip... straighten.
“I don’t know, Dad.” The girl’s voice is uneasy.
“Come on, hons, you can do it,” Spencer says to her.
They’re fifty feet off the ground, he and twelve-year-old Trudie, blond and slim and ponytailed. They are rising at about the same pace upward.
“I don’t know,” she gasps.
“One step, one grip at a time,” he encourages.
“I got it,” the girl says and lunges for another rock above her head.
And she falls, gasping and calling out.
The spotters, who have her well under control, slow her descent and she does a rather stately abseil to the floor, which is covered in green padding.
“You good?” he calls, looking down.
“I’m good.”
Up ten more feet and Spencer rings the sixty-foot bell and descends. The soft surface always struck him as pointless since if you hit anything except marshmallow at more than thirty miles an hour, you can say goodbye to a lot of portions of your body.
“Want to head home?” he asks his daughter.
“No, kinda want to try it again.”
That’s my girl, he thinks, but doesn’t dare say. Instead, he nods to the wall. “Beauty before brains.”
Lift... grip... straighten.
Spencer looked up at the twelfth-floor ledge.
How far?
Thirty-five feet.
Lift... grip... straighten.
Twenty-five.
His record in the SEALs was one hundred and fifty feet. But, okay, that was a few years ago.
Gasping. How much more could his arm muscles — and his back — take?
Fifteen.
He looked up.
Now, ten feet.
Lift... grip... straighten.
Now six, five, three.
Finally he was at the ledge.
“Hey,” he shouted.
Jesus, was the officer passed out? That would be a high-magnitude complication.
“Hey!”
Ron Pulaski’s face appeared in the window. Eyes streaming, he was coughing. His face was a mask of resignation, fear and bewilderment.
Gasping, breathing hard. “Listen. I’m going to throw this rope to you. I need you to catch it. So dust off those outfield skills. All right?”
“Sure.”
Spencer took the tail of the rope tied around his chest. His feet were twisted around the climbing rope into a good S-shaped pinch and his left hand gripped it hard.
“I’m going to need you to pull me over the sill. Pull like a son of a bitch. Get on your back under the window, bend your legs and then straighten them. I’ll help with the main rope.”
“Maybe I should tie it around me.”
Spencer nearly laughed. “You don’t want to do that, son. Here it comes.”
“I’m ready.”
Spencer stared at his hand, inches in front of him and thought, Come on, Mr. Right, do your stuff! Which was a softball field joke between Trudie and himself.