The Pawn pbf-1

by Steven James

  86

  “No!” I howled.

  I listened for the sickening crunch of metal on rock or the roaring screech of the vehicle tumbling down the cliff, but it didn’t come.

  I leaned forward but couldn’t see much. I scrambled a few meters down the cliff, toed out onto a ledge using stray roots for handholds, bent over, and then I saw them. The ambulance was caught in the branches of a towering fir tree that jutted out about twenty meters farther down the cliff. Beyond the tree, the gorge dropped off a hundred meters straight down into the valley carved by a hopeless Cherokee girl’s tears.

  “Tessa!”

  “Patrick,” she called. “Help me, Patrick!”

  Something powerful and deep stirred within me. Something bright and wild and right. Nothing else matters. You have to save her.

  “Throw down a rope,” yelled the Illusionist.

  “He’s hurt, Patrick. His leg!”

  “Shut up!” And then a smacking sound and a feeble cry.

  “Keep your hands off her!” Fire rose inside of me. The beast of anger roared, broke loose, ran wild.

  Even though the snow had let up a little, I couldn’t scramble down the cliff to help her-it was too steep and icy for anyone to free climb. No time to drive around looking for help.

  “Drop a rope,” Sevren yelled. “You have gear in your car. I saw it when you were at Abrams’s house.”

  I tried to think. Everything was becoming fuzzy again. “She comes up first,” I yelled.

  Laughter, dark and vicious. “I go first, or I start to play with her while I wait.” I thought of what he’d done to the other women before killing them. “I have a knife,” he said. “I’m good with a knife.”

  “Help me!”

  “All right!” I heaved myself up and over the ledge. “Don’t touch her. I’m getting a rope!”

  I hurried to the car and pulled out my climbing gear. His voice found me. It was calmer now, full of dark desire. I imagined him eyeing Tessa as he spoke: “Hurry, Patrick. I’m not a patient man.”

  A river of emotion churned through me. Anger. Fear. Love. Hatred. I had no idea which would win. Somewhere behind me I heard the tree creak and a branch snap off and crash into the gorge.

  Hurry!

  I took off my gun and laid it on the hood, pulled on my harness, grabbed some webbing, and scanned the area for something to tie into. Some kind of an anchor. Anything. There were no trees close by. I had to hurry.

  The only thing available was the guardrail, but a long section of it lay crumpled from the ambulance’s impact. No other choice. I tied the webbing around a section of the railing that still appeared to be intact, threw a carabiner through it, and clipped the rope into that. It was dicey, but it would hold our body weight. At least I hoped it would. No time to wonder. Just time to trust.

  I pushed the pack with my other rope and the rest of my gear out of the way, and then attached a couple of prussiks and ascenders to my harness’s gear loops.

  “Hurry!” Sevren yelled. “Or I start giving her lessons. Drop a rope and some ascenders.”

  I wasn’t about to back down. Tessa was the only reason I was willing to help him, and he knew it. If he killed her, there was nothing to motivate me. “I’m coming down for her, Sevren. Or you get nothing.”

  A short silence and then a blinding shriek that sliced all the way through me. “Patrick!” It was a cry of acute pain and final terror. “I just cut her, Patrick. Cut her good. The brachial artery, right there on the inside of the arm. Oh, it looks deep. It’s spurting. Based on my medical training, I’d say she has about four minutes before she bleeds out. I’m pretty good at estimating time of death. Trust me.”

  Dear God, please. No, no, no.

  Tears of white-hot anger blurred my eyes. “Press your hand against it, Tessa,” I yelled. “Listen to me! You have to stop the bleeding!”

  Hurry, hurry, no time.

  No time.

  I grabbed two extra harnesses and clipped them to my harness. Then I sprinted toward the edge of the cliff and launched myself away from the ridge and into the gorge. The rope sailed through my brake hand. I was on the brink of losing control and freefalling into the valley when I managed to catch myself, and control my descent. I tapped my feet off the rock face, hopped over a rocky overhang, and zoomed headfirst toward the ambulance.

  “Tessa, I’m coming. Hold your hand against the cut!”

  87

  A moment later I arrived at the ambulance and locked off, so I could hang in place. I stepped gingerly onto the hood, trying to use my weight to steady the vehicle. It was tilted but still horizontal enough for me to stand on the hood. Only then did I realize I’d left my gun sitting on the roof of my car at the top of the cliff.

  The windshield stared at me like a giant splintered eye. A web of spidery cracks withered across it, emanating from the place on the driver’s side where Sevren’s head had smashed into it. He stared through the glass at me like a snake eyeing a mouse on the other side of the aquarium. A smear of blood oozed down his forehead, making his face look wild, primal. Beside him I saw Tessa, pale, crying softly, her left arm awash in blood. Her right hand pressing against the wound.

  “Give me a harness,” said Sevren.

  “I’m taking her up.”

  “OK, let’s discuss it then.” He looked at his watch and then at Tessa’s arm. “A couple minutes from now, it won’t really matter, will it?”

  Anger boiling. Boiling.

  “All right. All right.”

  Tessa groaned softly.

  I cursed him in my heart, but I didn’t say anything for fear he might hurt Tessa worse. I lowered myself toward the driver’s door. The impact from the fall had jarred it open, and it swung loose on broken hinges. I handed him a harness, and he started pulling it on. His face wrenched in pain as he did. Tessa said his leg is hurt. I saw a bloody scissors on the floor of the cab and a crimson stain spreading across his pants leg.

  Good for you, Tessa.

  She was squeezing her arm, stopping the flow of blood.

  “Hang in there,” I told her. “It’s going to be OK.” She nodded. She looked so fragile. So broken. “I love you,” I said. “I love you, Tessa Ellis.”

  He clipped in. “All right. Hand me the ascenders.”

  I did.

  Think, Pat. Think!

  At that point we were both attached to the rope, but I was above him, balancing on the hood, locking off the rope with my right hand. He wouldn’t be able to ascend until I got out of the way. “Now,” he whispered, and seemed to be weaker from the effort of struggling with his leg. “Get out of the way and then unclip.”

  C’mon, Pat. Think. Do something.

  Then he added, “Toss that other harness, or I’ll sit here for a while.”

  “You have to let me take her-”

  Tessa moaned and slumped back against the door.

  “You’re killing her,” he said softly. “It won’t be long now.”

  I dropped the other harness into the gorge. Now I had no way to take Tessa up the rope. I had no idea what to do; she was bleeding to death within reach of me, yet I was powerless to help her.

  I slid onto the hood and unclipped. The storm had picked up again, and the metal was slippery with snow. I was staring through the cracked windshield, just inches away from my daughter, watching her die. I heard a weak cry and then she said, “I love you, Patrick.” Then her eyes rolled back. She went unconscious.

  “No!”

  Sevren laughed as he eased out the door. “Looks like you were too slow once again, Dr. Bowers.”

  88

  “I’m coming for you,” I said to him. “Wherever you go, I’ll find you.” I was getting dizzy again. The world was spinning. Sounds were eating into colors. The drugs. Oh no. Not now. The scent of a thousand snowflakes overwhelmed me. If only I hadn’t left my gun on the car.

  “So, then.” A smile slithered across his face. “A rematch.”

  He slid one of t
he ascenders up the rope.

  Nausea swarmed over me.

  “I think I’ll pay Agent Jiang a visit tonight…” he said.

  Everything was a blur. You can’t let him get up that cliff.

  “I have a couple lessons I’d like to share with her.”

  Get him closer.

  I whispered to him.

  He stopped. “What?” he said.

  He loves to control others. Lien-hua said he has to be in control. I said it again, softly, ever so softly. Then I smiled and laughed at him.

  He leaned toward me. “What did you say?”

  I was struggling for breath. I felt myself slipping toward the edge of the hood. Toward the edge of the world. I reached back behind me for something to hold onto. Nothing. But instead of thinking about how I was going to die, all I could think of was how I’d let Tessa down. Let Christie down.

  His leg is hurt.

  My fingertips found the ridged outline of the windshield, and I curled them around the thin lip of metal, willing every pull-up I’d ever done into the tips of my fingers.

  I whispered once again. He leaned close and sneered. “You’re pathetic. Begging like a little baby. I expected more out of you. Good-bye, Patrick Bowers.”

  Yes, he was close enough.

  This time I didn’t whisper: “Checkmate!” With one motion I twisted my body toward him, swiveling my leg and smashing my boot full force into the wound on his leg. His scream was bright and searing and very satisfying. It was a good, solid, bone-crunching kick that even Lien-hua would have been proud of. I’d hit him with his brake hand loose on the rope, and he hobbled backward, teetered on the edge of the hood for a moment, and then spun off into the valley. I heard the rope sailing through his Figure-8 and waited to hear him rip off the end of the line and plummet to his death, but somehow he was able to grab the searing rope in his palms.

  “Bowers!” he screamed. His voice was thick with hatred. He barely sounded human anymore. “You’re mine!”

  He’ll be back in a minute.

  You have to save Tessa now.

  89

  I clenched the ridge of the windshield, my feet hanging over the edge of the hood. My shoulder was exploding in pain, but I somehow managed to pull myself up. As I did, the wound in my shoulder ripped open, and the pain cruised up my neck and blistered apart inside my head. I felt warm blood oozing from the wound, drenching the back of my shirt. I tried to ignore the blast of pain but almost blacked out.

  The ambulance was slipping, everything was slipping. I needed something to tie into, quick, before we went down. I felt along the icy rock face beside me. It was cluttered with fissures and cracks. I needed something to jam into one. Anything that would hold my weight.

  And I only had one thing with me. My flashlight.

  I pulled it out and pounded at it with one of the carabiners, smashing its precision-machined high-strength aluminum alloy case into a slim crack.

  Using one of the prussiks, I flipped a lark’s head knot around it. Clipped in and then smacked my hand against the windshield. I had to wake her up. “Tessa!” I smacked it again. Nothing. “Please! Wake up!”

  I eased closer, saw her chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. She was still alive, thank God. The ambulance tilted beneath me. Below us I could hear Sevren enraged into madness calling out my name, making his way up the rope with the catch and click of the ascenders. Catch and click. Ascending the rope. Catch and click. Getting closer by the second.

  Tessa! You have to wake up!

  I reached through the open window and grabbed her shoulder. Shook her. “Tessa!”

  Her eyes fluttered open then closed.

  “Wake up!”

  I whipped off my belt and as gently as possible, tucked it around her arm above the cut artery and then cinched it tight. A crude tourniquet. She might lose the arm, but at least the tourniquet should keep her alive.

  Then I whispered a prayer to the God I wasn’t even sure was listening. I begged the heavens to hear me, a guy who had no right to expect any divine favors. Please. Please, she doesn’t deserve to die. You took Christie, don’t take her. Please let her live. I don’t care about me, just let her live.

  I shook her. I loved her. “Tessa!”

  Snow fell past us, all around us. She blinked and looked up, confused. Behind her I saw the back doors of the ambulance burst open.

  Sevren.

  The cluttered contents of the ambulance spilled out all around him. He put his good leg on the bumper.

  Tessa’s lips formed words that were faint, barely audible: “Help me.”

  I hooked my hand under her right armpit. As I did, I noticed the rope had flipped over the body of the ambulance and was now jammed in the crack between the open back doors. Sevren was on the bumper, bouncing it with his leg. The ambulance began to rock. “Stop,” I yelled to him. “The rope. It’s caught!”

  Tessa looked down at her bleeding arm. “My arm,” she whispered. Her voice was soft, fragile, that of a child. She’s a little girl, and I’m her daddy.

  Sevren jumped on the bumper again, and the ambulance tilted one final time. I clutched Tessa’s good arm. I’ll never let go… I’ll never let go…

  We were moving, moving. I slid down to the end of the prussik. My anchor held. My trusty flashlight.

  I tightened my grip, and Tessa snaked up through the open window as the ambulance spit her out and slid away from us and into the gorge. As it did, it met Sevren Adkins’s body, jerking him into the slit between the doors. Pinning him. Crushing him. His piercing cries told me how tightly his body was wedged in place. The entire weight of the vehicle was crunching down on him.

  Tessa and I swung into the cliff. “Patrick!” She was dangling over nothingness, and I was holding her.

  “I’ve got you, Tessa,” I yelled. “I’m not letting go. I promise!” But the ambulance was still moving.

  How? The rope tied to the guardrail should have held it in place.

  Oh. The guardrail.

  “Against the cliff!” I yelled. I hoisted Tessa up into my arms and embraced her as the twisted chunk of metal that used to be a guardrail rushed past us on its way to the bottom of the gorge. A long narrow scream cut through the valley. Sevren’s cry seemed to stain the day, a dark scar blacker than midnight arcing up toward us from his descent into hell. It lasted longer than I thought it would and then ended with a sickening crunch as the ambulance sandwiched his body against the boulders at the base of the cliff.

  I hugged Tessa close. “It’s OK now. He’s gone. You’re safe.” And in that moment, I was neither angry nor afraid. Somehow, somewhere, I found a fragment of hope that I could hold onto, buried deep beneath the months of rage. A new anchor.

  Chaos is evidence of human beings.

  Hope is evidence of God.

  High above me I heard the unmistakable gruff voice of Ralph. “Pat!”

  They’d found us. The mic patch!

  “Tessa’s hurt,” I yelled. “Hurry!”

  I heard the clink of carabiners as someone pulled out the rest of my climbing gear and got ready to throw down another rope.

  I was starting to get dizzy again.

  “Hold on,” I said. She clung to me, and I took my last prussik, tied it into a quick field harness around her waist, and clipped her into the anchor.

  “Patrick?” she whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Where did you learn all this rock climbing stuff?”

  “Something called experience.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said with a faint smile. “I’ve heard of that.”

  “Now,” I murmured, “I need to say good-bye.”

  “Good-bye? Why?”

  “I think I’m about to pass out.”

  “Really?”

  And before I could answer, I did.

  90

  22 hours later

  I heard voices all around me speaking in hushed tones, respectful tones, and for a moment I wondered if I was dead.

&
nbsp; “Looks like he’s coming out of it,” said a voice from somewhere nearby. A husky voice. “’Bout time.”

  When I opened my eyes and saw Ralph’s massive form next to me, I mumbled, “If I’m dead and this is heaven, what are you doing here?” I mumbled.

  “Who ever said we’re in heaven?”

  I blinked my eyes and then squinched them shut, overwhelmed by the sharp white glare of the room. I grimaced. “We better not be in a hospital. I hate hospitals.”

  “At least this time, no one’s dying,” said Tessa.

  I turned. She sat beside the window, her face outlined by daylight. She might have been an angel sitting there-a beautiful black-haired angel wearing a T-shirt with a cobra slithering through the eye socket of a human skull.

  It was a beautiful sight, slightly twisted and macabre, but adorable nonetheless.

  “I knew you’d wake up.” It was Ralph again. “I told the docs not to worry.” Then he added proudly, “While you were asleep I made it past the crypt.”

  “Beheaded the ogre, huh?”

  “Yup. Fast and clean.”

  “I showed him how,” added Tessa.

  “Well, that’s nice,” I said in a fatherly sort of way. I noticed that Tessa’s arm was thickly bandaged in the place the Illusionist had cut her. She didn’t seem to be in too much pain, maybe the cut wasn’t as deep as I thought. I’d ask her about it in a minute.

  I rubbed my head. “So, how long have I been out?”

  “A whole day,” said Ralph. “I guess you really needed your beauty sleep.”

  “Wow, I guess I did.”

  “They gave you some pretty nasty stuff, Pat.” I looked toward the voice. Lien-hua was the third and last visitor in the room. She was seated in the corner in one of the prerequisite ugly chairs.