The Liar's Lullaby

by Meg Gardiner

  The credenza was a single piece of ornately carved wood, undoubtedly from some endangered old-growth forest. Its feet were three inches thick. The whole thing probably weighed two hundred pounds. Jo tied off the cable on the credenza’s feet and threw the spool out the window. It unfurled and disappeared over the ledge, the cable hitting the side of the building with a sound like a dull whip.

  She waved to Lewicki. “Come here.”

  He crawled over. She whipped the cable around his back. Then she had him spread his hands and grab the cable at two points.

  “Put your feet against the wall under the window. Lean back and anchor the cable.”

  If the feet of the credenza ripped off under the strain of carrying her weight and the cable came free, he would have to stop her from plummeting.

  “What are you going to do?” he said.

  She tested the flexibility of the cable. She hoped she was right about it.

  “Body rappel.”

  She said it without any spit in her mouth. She’d never body rappelled on a real pitch. She’d done it at the climbing gym, a few meters off the mats. Almost nobody did it anymore, because they now used what she would have given her front teeth for, a harness, a belay device, and a ’biner. And nobody, even in the days of classic Alpinism, had rappelled with CATV cable.

  “It’ll go. I think.” She breathed. “I can climb it. If I get over the ledge and rappel about six feet, I can chimney down the window casement below.”

  Lewicki inched over to the window. “You’ll fall.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  Her guardian angel shot her a salute and said, Good luck with that, honey. You’re on your own.

  Behind her at the door came kicking, grunting, boots hitting the wood. “Give him to us, fuckers, or you’re the first to face the patriots’ firing squad.”

  Jo eyed Lewicki. “You ever body rappel in the army?”

  “It’s been twenty years, but yeah.”

  “Good.” She squeezed his arm. “Please don’t let go.”

  “I won’t.” He looked dead serious.

  The gunshot echoed through the room. It pounded the conference table and wood flew everywhere. Lewicki flinched.

  “Hurry,” he said.

  Jo took off her shoes and scrambled onto the windowsill. The wind caught her. The blue sky and shining canyon walls of the city should have exhilarated her. This should have been a safe climber’s naughty dream: the chance to scale an urban monolith. But she’d never felt so vulnerable. Inside the conference room, Lewicki braced his legs against the wall beneath the window and leaned back, ready to take her weight.

  Jo called to Dana Jean. “Watch what I do. You’re next.”

  “Okay.” Dana Jean’s face crumpled. “No.”

  Jo’s stomach cramped, but Dana Jean didn’t know how to rappel and this was no time to learn. “Buckle your belt around your waist and the cable. We’ll figure a way to lower you while you hold on.” To Lewicki, she said, “Don’t put her on the cable until I tell you I’m safe and can anchor her.”

  Jo wriggled under the open sash window and stood up on the narrow ledge. Delicately she turned to face the window and conference room. She slid her feet apart and jammed them against either side of the window casement to brace herself.

  She was straddling the cable where it hung out the window. She picked it up and held it so it ran between her legs. She reached behind her, grabbed the cable, slung it around her right hip, brought it up across her chest diagonally, and tossed it over her left shoulder. It draped over her back. She reached behind her with her right hand—now her brake hand—and grabbed the dangling part. She held it near her hip.

  The friction created by the S-shaped rappel configuration would allow her to control the pace of her descent with one hand. She’d done it before. She’d do it now.

  She inched back. Inside, Waymire and Lewicki stared at her. Her palms were sweaty.

  “Now,” she said.

  Lewicki braced.

  She leaned back, putting her weight on the cable. It tightened and held. She leaned back farther, and farther, and inched her feet back and over the edge.

  Holy living Christ.

  She’d never felt heights, and the smooth blankness of a stone face, as pure vacancy before. Her legs locked and wouldn’t move. She shut her eyes.

  I have to do this. If I go back in there, I’ll die from a gunshot blast to the head. And so will all of them.

  Her right hand squeaked against the black rubberized casing of the cable. She began inching her feet down the wall. Leaned back farther. Bent her legs a little from the hips. The cable bit into her butt, her chest, her shoulder. Her palm.

  “Hold me.”

  “I got you,” Lewicki said. His voice was breathless with effort.

  Trust, she said. If the cable failed, or Lewicki failed, she’d only experience a single second of fear. And a single second to repent her sins before she hit the concrete.

  The window ledge was hard. Her feet scraped on the stone. She leaned back, beyond forty-five degrees, and lowered herself completely over the edge.

  She was hanging off the side of the building.

  Just breathe. She pushed off and let the cable slide through her palm. Slipped down. Her feet swung back against the building. She pushed off again and let out more cable. Bounced down six inches. A foot. Two feet.

  The stone was polished granite and too smooth against her feet. Above her the cable squeezed tight against the window ledge, as if pressed against the blade of a knife. Overhead, clouds fled across the blue sky, almost screaming in the wind. Her hair whipped into her eyes and mouth.

  Dana Jean yelled, “Jo, they’re coming. Go.”

  The cable was stretched so tight that it looked attenuated. She pointed her toes down, seeking. Seeking—and found the top of the window casement below her.

  From above, the cable went slack. She dropped abruptly, loose in the air. Two feet, three . . . Oh God, had the cable come loose? Christ—

  She jerked to a stop. The cable bit into her flesh. Her feet lost their purchase on the wall and she slapped against the building.

  “Jesus,” she gasped.

  She scrambled to get her feet flat against the wall again. “Hang on to the cable. Please.” Please God Jesus Mother Mary please.

  Above, a blast echoed. Dana Jean screamed and began sobbing. Jo looked up. Lewicki was leaning out the window, staring down at her.

  Behind her, a window in a building across the street screeched open. “Christ, lady, what are you doing?”

  ON SACRAMENTO STREET, Chennault approached the Blue Eagle Security armored car. He opened the door. The keys were in the ignition.

  The Doppler pounding of sirens grew higher pitched. Down at the corner, two black-and-white SFPD units swerved into sight, lights booming.

  Above him, a man shouted what sounded like a warning. Chennault looked up.

  “Lady, what the hell?”

  Five stories up, a man was leaning out a window, waving and pointing across the street. Chennault turned toward the Waymire & Fong building.

  A grunt escaped him. High up the Waymire building, rappelling down the side like a crazy spider on a piece of string, was Jo Beckett.

  He might have been punched in the diaphragm. She was clearly in desperate straits. But just as clearly, Keyes and Ivory had not finished things inside. The situation was out of control.

  Chennault scanned the scene on the street. A black Suburban was parked at the curb, but without police escort. No, the police were all screaming this way, right now.

  The president wasn’t here. If he was, the street would have been crawling with men wearing earpieces and dark glasses, carrying shotguns.

  Keyes and Ivory had attacked somebody else.

  For a second, Chennault felt his plan dissolving into sand. Then he thought: No. This was an opportunity. It was risky, but he was past the point of caution now.

  The police cars pulled up. He walked toward th
em.

  THE CABLE STRETCHED with a rubbery sound. Jo’s sticky palm stuck to it. She gaped at Lewicki. Why had he let go of the cable?

  Across the street, the man shouted, “Holy crap, haul her back in!”

  Lewicki’s eyes were wide. “I thought you’d fallen.”

  Speechless, near panic, she sped up her descent. Her knees cleared the top of the fourth- floor window casement. Then her hips, her waist, her chest. She inched down, hearing the cable begin to whine. What was she trusting her life to, coaxial cable, or fiber? Glass? Sand? She pushed off with her feet once again and let the cable slide through her hand, humming and squeaking. She slid down far enough to get her entire body inside the window casement.

  She wedged herself into the casement and turned sideways. Feet against one side, back against the other. Now that she was so close to safety, she began to hyperventilate. She held her breath. She chimneyed down, inch by inch, and set her feet on the narrow fourth-floor windowsill.

  “I’m on the sill,” she yelled. “But I’m not inside yet.”

  The window was locked. Inside was an open-plan office. Desks, potted ferns. In the distance, people huddled around a copier.

  She pounded on the glass. “Help. Let me in.”

  Looking up in surprise, two men rushed to the window and opened it. “What the hell?”

  Jo climbed in and hopped down from the sill. “Call the police.”

  They simply gaped. She realized nobody was panicking. People were at their desks. The air-conditioning was on and the ceiling was solid concrete. They couldn’t hear anything from upstairs.

  “Gun attack at Waymire and Fong,” she said.

  A man said, “You’re serious?”

  “No, I always rappel down the sides of buildings in a black suit for the freaking hell of it. Call the goddamned cops.”

  The men flinched. Then they all heard, through the open window, the wail of sirens.

  “People are trapped upstairs. We have to help them get down like I did.”

  Jo still had the cable wound around her body in the rappelling configuration. Her shaking right hand had cramped around it. She couldn’t let go.

  From above came Dana Jean’s voice, on the edge of frenzy. “I’m coming, Jo, hang on to the rope. Oh God. Hang on to it.”

  Jo turned. Outside the window the cable swung against the glass.

  “No, don’t—wait!” Jo shouted. “Lewicki, no, the cable’s not anchored.”

  An instant later Dana Jean plummeted past the window, buckled to the cable by her belt, hanging on like Tarzan.

  Oh, shit.

  The cable went rigid. The tension caught Jo, with the cable still wrapped around her, and jerked her toward the window. Automatically, out of reflex, she held tight.

  She slammed against the window. Dana Jean jerked to a halt in midair, screaming like a factory whistle.

  Twelve feet below the window, Dana Jean hung like a banana. Only her belt was holding her up on the cable. What the hell had she tried to do, cinch the belt over the cable and Batman down the side of the building, hand over fist? With one end of the cable secured to the credenza in the conference room above and the other end wrapped around Jo, Dana Jean had fallen like a sack of beans and wrenched to a stop. Spinning, she flailed, her face red and suffused with terror.

  Her weight pinned Jo against the window. And if Jo undid the body rappel and let go, the cable would fly out the window and dump Dana Jean loose. She’d fall.

  Breathlessly, Jo called to the men in the office. “Help me.”

  56

  ON SACRAMENTO STREET, COPS PULLED UP IN BLACK-AND-WHITES. Several rushed into the Waymire building. One blocked traffic. Another began clearing people from the street. He waved at Chennault Another began clearing people from the street. He waved at Chennault and pointed at the Blue Eagle Security armored car.

  “Move your vehicle, sir.”

  Chennault pointed at the Waymire offices. “Officer, look.”

  Between the third and fourth floor, a young woman hung like a rag doll tied with the pull cord for a window shade.

  “It’s a terror attack,” Chennault said. “She’s trying to escape.”

  The cop reached for his radio.

  Chennault pointed emphatically. “There’s one of the terrorists.”

  Clearly visible at the fourth- floor window was Jo Beckett. Her dark hair flew around her head in the wind. She was hauling on the rope that held the young woman.

  “She’s trying to kill her,” Chennault said. “Do something.”

  The cop spoke urgently into his radio. Then he turned again to Chennault. “Have you seen anything else?”

  He pointed at Beckett. “Saw that woman waiting for the elevator when I was coming out of the building. She had an accomplice. A man. Tall guy, Latino.”

  The cop stared up at Beckett. “Thanks. Now get out of here. It isn’t safe.”

  Chennault nodded. As the cop jogged across the street, he climbed into the cab of the armored car. Of course they’d believed him. He was inherently credible—a member of the security community. He started the big engine and pulled out.

  PINNED AGAINST THE fourth-floor window by Dana Jean’s hanging weight, Jo gripped the cable with all her might.

  “Jesus, help,” she yelled. “Pull her up.”

  The men from the office reached around Jo, leaned out the window, and grabbed the cable. They pulled. Dana Jean hit the building, still screaming. She scrabbled like a rat, grabbed the ledge of the third-floor windowsill below them, and pulled herself onto it.

  “Take the back end of the cable and anchor it,” Jo said. “Let me get loose.”

  That had been a freaking close call. Dana Jean should never have jumped. Lewicki should have stopped her. Angry words rolled toward Jo’s lips, but before she could speak, a gunshot overhead shattered the conference room window. One of the men in the office with her turned and ran.

  The cable outside thrashed—somebody was rappelling down. Jo couldn’t see who, but Dana Jean could, and her face was tense but hopeful. It was Lewicki. Jo held on to the cable to anchor him.

  She heard Lewicki’s shoes hit the wall of the building, heard him puff with effort. The cable flailed. His feet came into view.

  Gunfire erupted again, this time in the clear air outside. Dana Jean cringed on the sill. One of the attackers was leaning out the conference room window to fire down at Lewicki.

  The attacker yelled, “Where’s McFarland?”

  It was the man. Jo could barely breathe—Lewicki was absolutely exposed, with no chance to reach the fourth- floor window before being shot.

  But in a remarkably steady voice he cried, “Stop shooting and I’ll tell you.”

  For a moment the air seemed to still. The attacker had paused to consider Lewicki’s words.

  Then voices shouted, desperate. The cable whipped back and forth. Lewicki’s legs scissored and he hit the building. The attacker screamed. A gun dropped past the window.

  And both men swung into view.

  Lewicki had come unwound from the body rappel but was gripping the cable like a bell ringer. The attacker, a muscular man with a flat, terrified face, was hanging by his fingers from Lewicki’s belt.

  Lewicki had pulled the man out the window. He’d tried to pitch him to the ground, but the attacker had managed to claw his hands under Lewicki’s belt. They spun, entwined. Lewicki’s face was desperate. Struggling under the burden of the attacker’s weight, he was slowly sliding down the cable. He fought to get his feet onto the windowsill.

  He locked eyes with Jo. For an instant, the look on his face was shock. Then he seemed to realize that she, and she alone, could pull him onto the sill. Beneath fear and eagerness, unreadable emotion swam in his eyes.

  The attacker was trying to crawl up Lewicki’s back. He looked like a drowning man who pulls the lifeguard under. Jo reached out the window. But before she could grab Lewicki, the attacker’s ferocious momentum swung the cable against the building
. Lewicki’s hands cracked against granite.

  The attacker grabbed Lewicki’s left arm. The sudden addition of weight pulled Lewicki’s left hand off the cable. Lewicki scrambled, but certainty flashed in his eyes. His right hand lost its grip.

  They fell, arms windmilling.

  Dana Jean screamed, “No.”

  Jo’s breath left her like she’d been punched. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Dana Jean shrieked again. The cable vibrated. Jo opened her eyes.

  A woman stood outside the window on the sill in front of her.

  SHE WAS PALE, with a smoker’s worn skin. Her lipstick was the color of ice. In the wind her white hair flew around her head like an electrical storm. She hadn’t rappelled but had simply slid down the cable. She wore a blue uniform shirt and had two guns jammed in her belt. Stenciled on the big one, in front of Jo’s face, were the words DESERTEAGLE.

  “Holy fuck.”

  Jo scrambled free of the body rappel. The woman ducked under the window and jumped off the sill into the office. She drew the Desert Eagle from her belt.

  Jo, the men, even the air in the room, fled.

  Heedless, running like panicked deer, they careered across the office. Two men, acting out of habit, aimed for the elevator. Jo heard the metallic shrick of a slide being racked on a pistol.

  All the hairs on her head jumped to attention. She pinned her eyes on the big red EXIT sign over the fire door. She crashed through it just as she heard a deep gunshot behind her.

  The men screamed. She bolted down the stairs. She didn’t think she could take any more of this. But her legs didn’t pay attention, and kept going.

  The cops were outside. That meant the cops might be in the lobby too. They were four flights down. With every raggedy step she took, they came closer.

  The stairwell door above her slammed open. Her world seemed to flare white. She heard footsteps and phlegmy breathing. She passed the third floor, and the second, heard metal scrape concrete as the shooter knocked the gun against the wall. She thought she was going to pee herself.

  She reached the ground floor, threw open the fire door, and sprinted barefoot along a forty-yard-long hall toward the marble lobby. She heard a police voice shouting information to his colleagues. Thank God, oh thank God.