Jack Kilborn & Ann Voss Peterson & J. A. Konrath

by Flee - a Thriller

  But my tank still had a bit of hope in it. And where there’s hope, there’s always a way.

  “Here’s how it will work,” I said, staring at Hammett. “You let Fleming go and throw me your gun, and I’ll throw you the phone. Or I chuck it out the window. Am I bluffing, Hammett? Do you see anything on my face that indicates I’m lying?”

  Hammett narrowed her eyes. “She’s telling the truth.”

  “I will drop it, Victor. And you can spend a few months combing the entire block looking for it. That is, if someone doesn’t pick it up and take it home.”

  “Do it,” Hammett said.

  Scowling, Victor released Fleming, then tossed his gun my way. It didn’t reach me, coming to rest on the carpet two meters from my feet.

  True to my word, I tossed him the phone.

  Hard.

  Real fucking hard.

  Victor did what anyone would have done. He ducked.

  Hammett and I both went for the gun at the same time. She reached it first, but I was ready with a punt to the head. She bunched up, and I connected with her shoulder, then drove an elbow down on the back of her neck.

  “Broken!” Victor yelled. “The phone is broken!”

  It was broken because that was the trac phone Fleming had given me. The transceiver was still in my backpack. As Hammett ate the ground, I got a hand around the sling of the MP9, tugging as hard as I could even as she grasped the butt of the weapon. I saw Fleming crawling toward us on her elbows, her face a stone mask of determination, and then Victor was on me, hands around my throat, his eyes bulging with rage.

  He tugged me off of Hammett, and pushed me back, back, toward the broken window.

  Gunfire, behind Victor. Five or six shots.

  Oh… no…

  Although I was getting strangled and about to be thrown off the building, I strained to see what happened, blinking away the encroaching darkness.

  No… no…

  Hammett was standing over Fleming, the barrel of the MP9 smoking, Fleming still trying to slink away, leaving a thick streak of blood across the floor.

  “Don’t drop her, you idiot!” Hammett called. “The transceiver is in her backpack!”

  Victor reached one hand down for the bag, and I raked my fingernails across his eyes, then tried to kick him in the crotch. He pushed me back further. My feet were hanging in open air. I was going over the side of the building.

  He released my throat and I fell off the 95th floor and into open space.

  I had a moment of pure, animal terror, rivaling drowning, then I jerked to a stop and slammed into the side of the building. Pain yanked through my bad shoulder. My elbow was hooked around one of my rucksack’s straps, and Victor held the other.

  Legs kicking, feet scrambling to find purchase, I reached for Victor with my free hand, stretching to grab his arm or shirt. He swatted my attempt away and tugged down the zipper.

  The stun gun began to slip out of the opening, then tumbled toward me.

  I reached for it…

  …missed.

  Victor dug around. He pulled his hand out, the transceiver clutched in his fist. He gazed down at me, his eyes glinting.

  “See you at the bottom.”

  Then he let go of the strap.

  • • •

  It was over.

  Fleming was unarmed and outnumbered, and even if she’d had healthy legs before they certainly weren’t healthy now. She hadn’t smeared liquid body armor on the backs of her legs, since they were already protected by her chair, and Hammett had shot them full of holes. Then Fleming had watched Chandler—poor, dear, heroic Chandler—fall out the window and felt something inside of her die.

  “Hello, Fleming,” Hammett said, gazing down at her. “Apparently you survived that fall in Milan. My my my, how pathetic your life must be.”

  Hammett nudged Fleming’s legs, and she set her jaw to avoid crying out.

  “Don’t worry,” Hammett said. “We’re not going to kill you yet. We have one more use for you first.” She turned to look at Victor, who had walked over.

  “It wasn’t working out between me and Chandler,” he said. “So I had to drop her.”

  Victor eyed the MP9 dubiously, but Hammett was wiping it down with her shirttails, then tossed it off to the side. “We carry her down in the elevator. If the police stop us, we’re taking a wounded woman to an ambulance.”

  “What if she talks?” Victor asked.

  “She won’t talk,” Hammett said.

  Fleming saw Hammett’s boot come down, and then everything went blessedly black.

  “You shouldn’t fear the inevitable,” The Instructor said. “And it is inevitable that one day you’ll die.”

  For the second time that day I was falling off a building into open air. But the Hancock Center was a lot taller than my apartment, and I was in much better shape earlier.

  Panic making it impossible to breathe, I hugged the rucksack to my chest like a teddy bear. Cold wind beat my face, my body. My fall felt slow, painfully slow, each fraction of a second stretching out into hellish, terrifying infinity. Tears streamed from my eyes and I saw nothing but a swirling mosaic of darkness and light.

  Then something skimmed past my leg.

  I didn’t think, just grabbed it.

  Fire seared my palm.

  A cable! A goddamn life line!

  The window washers.

  An image flashed through my mind, earlier in the day, searching for a place to hide the phone, noticing the cables outside the restaurant windows, the ones that lowered the window washers’ suspended scaffold.

  I couldn’t hold on—I was falling too fast—but I felt the cable or rope or whatever it was still whizzing by, still near. Thoughts blasted through my brain like machine gun fire:

  Can’t grab the scaffold—can’t hold on—hit it square and I’m dead—thrust an arm through the rucksack strap—push it tight over my shoulder—one shot, just one shot at this—might rip my arm out of the socket—gotta try—scaffold rushing up at me—the whole city beneath my feet—dizzying height—stretching—reaching out with the other strap—timing it just right—even with the scaffold—streaking past—looping the strap around the corner winch bracket—

  A force ripped through my arm, my shoulder, my back, my neck. For a moment, all I felt was excruciating pain.

  When my brain kicked back in, I realized I had stopped. Motes swam in front of me in the darkness, and I struggled to assess what had happened.

  I hung on the side, one handle of the rucksack caught on a bracket at the base of the platform. The force of my fall had unseated the scaffold, and it listed sharply to one side, hanging from the safety cable. The wind and reverberation thrashed it against the side of the building.

  I gripped the rucksack strap with every bit of strength I had left. It took a few seconds for my heart to catch up and feel as if it was part of my body again. It took longer for the scaffold’s bucking motion to slow to a dangerous sway.

  Then the rest caught up to me as well.

  Disbelief. Amazement. Exhilaration.

  Terror. Panic.

  Anger.

  Loss. Sadness.

  Pain.

  Too many kinds of pain.

  Wind whipped around me, over me, through me, twisting me left and right. The back of my eyes hurt like they’d been wrung out, and tears froze to ice on my cheeks. I no longer had the strength to sob, but my breath hitched painfully anyway, in my throat, in my chest, in my gut, as if it would never stop.

  Fleming was gone, almost as soon as I’d found her. I could picture her body, crumpled on the floor of the restaurant, life draining from the holes Hammett had punched into her. She’d be dead soon, if she wasn’t already. Just an anguished, lifeless face, staring into nothingness.

  Like Kaufmann.

  Kaufmann… Fleming…

  Oh, God.

  Maybe it didn’t matter. Hammett had the phone. It was only a matter of time before she used it.

 
Maybe soon, the world would cease to exist.

  Maybe Kaufmann and Fleming had just escaped first.

  Maybe I should let go of the strap and let everything fall away. Simple. Final.

  Against all common sense, I chanced a look down.

  Tiny pinpricks of light unfolded below me, as cold and far away as the stars. I should feel panic, dizziness, the moment of weightlessness before the roller coaster plunges.

  Instead, I felt nothing. I felt dead.

  Over the wind’s shriek, I heard the sound of canvas tearing, and I dropped several inches lower.

  The rucksack.

  I craned my neck, aching from the abrupt stop. My backpack had a tear in it. As I watched, the rip extended, making my heart leap up out of my throat. I thought I’d run out of adrenaline hours ago, but fear grabbed me, full body, and shook the living hell out of me.

  If I feared death that much, I obviously wasn’t ready to call it quits. At least not yet.

  Keeping perfectly still, not moving my neck, I peered over at the building, hoping to see a window with a bunch of people staring and pointing.

  Instead, the window was black, reflecting a mirror image of a terrified woman whose life was hanging by a thread.

  Far away, I heard a car honk. I glanced down again, seeing the traffic beneath my feet. Too small to even look like toys. The wind kicked up, making me sway.

  Another tearing sound.

  Another small drop.

  Another notch of sheer fucking terror.

  Moving slowly, deliberately, I eased my free arm up over my head. I could barely touch the platform, but not enough to get a grip on it.

  Instead, I cinched my fingers around the strap, and carefully removed it from around my armpit.

  Which is when the tablet PC fell out of the tear in the bag.

  Not stopping to think, my other hand lashed out, pinching the corner of the PC before it dropped out of range. If I were to live through this, I needed the tablet to find Hammett.

  I took a deep, cold breath, let it out slow, then did a one-armed pull-up on the strap, grateful I could rely on my good arm. Setting the PC onto the platform, I grabbed the bracket the strap was hooked over. It was freezing metal with a sharp edge, but it would hold me. I released the strap with my other hand, gripped the platform, and did a slow, painful chin-up.

  On the platform was a locked metal box for cleaning supplies, an automatic winch system, and a dual rope, which I guessed was for the Bosun’s chair—a pulley system that carried workers to and from the platform.

  I let my body down again, moving carefully, and lifted my right leg up to get a heel onto the platform.

  Then the wind hit.

  A freezing updraft, actually lifting me away from the platform. I lost my right-hand grip, and clung to the bracket with four fingers of my left hand.

  Three fingers…

  The wind wouldn’t let up.

  Oh, sweet Jesus…

  Two fingers…

  Then, finally, when I couldn’t hold on any longer, the wind died down—

  —causing me to swing toward the building—

  —pulling my fingers off the platform.

  For a crazy millisecond I hung in the air like a trapeze artist between partners.

  A whimper escaped my mouth, and I frantically scrambled for a handhold on something, anything, catching the torn hole in the rucksack.

  My fist closed around the canvas, increasing the rip, making the hole larger, the rucksack tearing down the middle. I was sure it would pull right in half, but at a double-sewn seam, the tearing stopped.

  I dangled, one-handed, above ninety-four floors of open space, unable to catch my breath. Then I clasped my other hand around the rucksack, and waited for another fierce wind to assault me.

  The wind didn’t come. But something dark and heavy slipped out of the hole—oh hell no, the smoke grenade—and smacked me right between the eyes.

  It hit hard enough to bring out more stars than there already were. My grip slipped, my hands burning down a length of strap to the very end. For a long moment I twisted in one direction, and my dizzy head spun in the other. My fingers cramped, begging for relief, and it almost seemed like a good idea just to let go and be done with it.

  Then the impact-confusion passed, chased away by a jolt of adrenaline, reminding me a lot like waking up suddenly when you realized you were late and had overslept.

  Hand over hand, I inched my way up the backpack, eyeing the hole, anticipating the moment the rucksack would totally give out and send me sailing down to the pavement.

  But the moment never happened, and once again I gripped the platform and eased up my right heel.

  A minute later, I was lying on my back, chest heaving, the cold air freezing the sweat on my body. Something midway between a laugh and a sob breached my lips, and I stared up the side of the building, up into the night sky, feeling a deep-core sense of relief that I’d never experienced before.

  Then I set my eyes on the ropes.

  Thin rope was impossible to ascend without proper equipment, such as a Bosun’s chair. But the dual ropes might be thick enough for me to make the climb.

  I let my heart rate return to a manageable level, then I sat up and squinted into the darkness above me. Eight meters, maybe less, to the ninety-fifth floor and the broken window.

  After the day I’d had, piece of cake.

  I stood up on the platform, legs shaky, feeling very much like I was riding a surfboard. The ropes were each ten millimeters thick with braided nylon sheaths. I stretched my sore hands up over my head and sandwiched the ropes together, letting them hold my body weight. Then I clamped my legs around the dual rope and began to inchworm up.

  When I reached the halfway point, I almost began to laugh at how easy this was.

  Then the wind kicked up again.

  I crossed my knees, locking them together, holding on for dear life as the gust blew me sideways until I was on a forty-five degree angle to the ground, staring down at the tiny traffic on the street below. I was terrified, for sure, but the truly frightening moment happened when the wind died down.

  That’s when I began to swing.

  I saw it coming before it happened, and could only watch helplessly as momentum kicked in and I picked up speed, heading right for the Hancock building.

  I hit one of the reinforced windows so hard it felt like it knocked out my fillings. The impact was brutal, making my entire left side go momentarily numb. Then I began to twirl uncontrollably, faster and faster, until I couldn’t hold my position any longer. I began to slide down the rope, my hands and thighs burning until I had to let go.

  Then I was unattached to anything, plummeting toward the ground.

  I landed on the scaffolding platform, right on my butt, an instant pain shooting from my coccyx up to the base of my neck.

  For a moment I just lay there and soaked in the fact that I was still alive. Waiting for my orientation to return, I stared up at the swaying ropes.

  Piece of cake, my ass.

  I carefully stood up, and before I let my brain talk me out of it, I again began to ascend the ropes. I moved faster than before, trying to get to the broken window before another gust blew me off the building.

  Halfway up, the wind began to challenge me once again. I kept climbing, upping my pace, gritting my teeth as the building gale slapped me around.

  A little further…

  I could see into the 95th floor, the interior restaurant caked with broken glass and bits of exploded tables, carpet and floor boards.

  Almost there… almost there…

  The wind died down again, and I began to swing toward the building. But this time, I was heading straight for the opening.

  At least, that’s what it looked like until I got close enough to realize I was about half a meter short.

  Sticking out my feet like I was rappelling, I braced myself for impact.

  Before I hit, my body turned. First sideways, then one hundred
eighty degrees.

  I was going to smack into the side of the building backward.

  If I live through this, I swear I’ll never set foot into a building higher than three stories.

  Once the rope went vertical to the ground, I released it. Then I twisted my body in the air, momentum carrying me toward the opening, stretching out as far as I could—

  —and catching the edge of the window frame.

  Buoyed by the amazement of surviving, I quickly chinned up, threw a heel over, and pulled myself onto the 95th floor.

  Hammett and Victor were gone.

  And so was Fleming.

  I set my chin and headed for the fire exit, knowing what I had to do.

  It was time to visit my parents.

  “There’s a time to mourn,” The Instructor said, “and a time to fight.”

  I stopped at gas station near the Indiana border and bought a bottle of Advil, some caffeine pills, and a black t-shirt to replace the torn top I had on. I also had a rip in my jeans—Hammett’s jeans—but bottoms were harder to come by.

  When I arrived at my destination, I parked the Humvee in the empty visitor’s lot. As expected, the cemetery was closed. But the wrought iron fence was easy to climb, especially compared to everything else I’d been through tonight. My individual pains had all conspired to combine, and my entire body throbbed. But I knew it was going to get worse.

  I let my feet carry me along the path I’d taken many times. The tombstones were hard to read in the darkness, but I didn’t need to see the names. I remembered the location. The names were probably fake anyway, if what The Instructor told me about my early upbringing was factual. Hard to tell. It seemed nothing I had learned to count on in my life was true.

  Well, almost nothing.

  I wound through large family monuments and small, humble benches, the feeble glow from the backside of the neighboring strip mall my only light. A cornfield stretched on the other side of the rural cemetery, dried stalks rattling in the wind, the blades of a wind turbine turning eerily slow against the dark, lonely sky.

  I found the gray marble stone I was searching for. For a moment, I could only stand and stare, my chest aching, experiencing a pain deeper than the agony caused by anything else that had happened today. I’d relied on a handful of people in my life, and I had none left. Not my dear Kaufmann, not that psycho prick, Cody, not my sister, Fleming. I imagined what Hammett and Victor were doing to her, if she was even still alive. I also imagined what Hammett would do with a damn cell phone that could blow up the world.