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 farther…
I could see into the ninety-fifth floor, the interior restaurant caked with broken glass and bits of exploded tables, carpet, and floorboards.
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 was perpendicular 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 ninety-fifth 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 visitors’ 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 had 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 back 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 slowly 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, Cory, 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.
How could everything have gone to hell so quickly?
When I was a girl, I was happy. Whatever doubts I harbored about my assigned parents’ real names, I couldn’t doubt that they’d loved me. I’d felt it every day. Now standing at their grave, I longed to be close to them once again. I longed to lie down on the leaf-strewn grass beneath their headstone and cry myself to sleep.
“Hi, Mom. Hey, Dad. I know I don’t visit you guys too often. But I think of you, a lot. I learned…I just learned…that you aren’t my real parents. That’s OK, though. You’ll always be my parents to me.”
A coyote howled in the distance. Mournful. Lonely. Thunder rumbled, a storm moving in. I reached over and brushed a stray leaf from the tombstone.
“I screwed up. Big-time. People have died. And more people are going to, before this is over.” I stared up into the dark, black night, eyes glassy, trying to find the words.
“Part of me just wants to give up. I hurt…I hurt so bad right now. But I need to make this right. It’s stupid, but do you remember when you were teaching me how to ride a bike? I was seven years old, and I kept falling off, and I skinned my knee and was crying and wanted to quit and Mom, you kept telling me, ‘As long as you keep trying, honey, you won’t fail.’ And Dad, you smiled and put a bandage on me and said, ‘Stiff upper lip, soldier. Failure is not an option.’ ”
The tears were coming freely now, and I didn’t brush them away.
“So I’m gonna keep trying, Mom. Dad. I’m gonna try my damnedest.”
I turned and started for the cemetery garage only a few gravesites away. It held a garden tractor for mowing the grass, a backhoe, and garden tools for trimming and digging. The door was locked, but the simple side-hung windows easily lifted from their tracks. I grabbed the top frame and swung myself in feet first, gritting my teeth at the pain seizing my…well, every part of my whole damn body.
The tiny structure smelled of dried grass, dead flowers, and gasoline. I located the tool rack, selected a shovel, and
let myself out the door. Once back beside my parents’ grave, I finally swiped at tears winding down my cheeks. Then I shoved the blade into the earth. Sweat slicked my skin as I cut through sod and scooped out shovelful after shovelful of black dirt. The sharp stab of pain in my chest grew into an all-encompassing ache, a pain I couldn’t escape, and I no longer even tried.
Three feet down, my shovel hit something hard. I kept working, uncovering the large fiberglass box, digging out the edges to expose the whole thing, then stepping down into the hole. I lifted off the lid.
The red fabric was still inside, untouched from when I’d buried it originally. I pulled it all out, and then lifted the small Evinrude boat motor free.
My upper lip was stiff. Failure was not an option.
“I’ve done my best to train you,” The Instructor said. “The rest is on your shoulders. You can either sink or swim.”
Fleming didn’t have to open her eyes to know she was on some kind of boat. Either that, or death felt like the rolling toss of waves, accompanied by a lilting sickness in her belly.
The anchor she was handcuffed to was another clue, as was the distinctive smell of a large body of fresh water, she’d guess Lake Michigan.
A boat, then. Death will have to wait.
She managed to force her lids open, only to be rewarded with claustrophobic darkness. Fleming felt around with her free hand, the one the Russian had mangled. Each bump made her gasp. The pain was bad, but she’d had worse. She kept probing.
It turned out she was in a small enclosure, probably a pantry or closet. The anchor was a modern one, maybe half a meter high. Fleming gave it a shove with her shoulder, figured it weighed about forty pounds.
In her condition, it may as well have been four hundred.
Using her unbroken thumb, she gingerly prodded at her legs. They were bandaged, but only to control the bleeding. The wounds were open, some slugs still lodged in her flesh. They obviously didn’t intend for her to live long enough to heal.
The last she remembered, she’d been in the restaurant at the top of the Hancock building. Hammett was shooting her, kicking her. And the Russian, Victor…
Victor had thrown Chandler from the window.
Fleming closed her eyes once more. That image was burned onto her retinas and ten times worse than any physical pain. Chandler had been everything to Fleming these last years. Unable to be in the field after her accident, she’d lived through Chandler. She’d gotten to know her sister better than she’d known anyone.
Fleming loved her.
And now she was gone.
Fleming let the tears come, not even trying to check their flow. But even in her anguish, she held on to a certainty. If she was the one who’d died, Chandler would never let those responsible walk away.
And neither will I.
Fleming had wanted another chance in the field, and she’d gotten it. Now it was up to her to make Hammett and her Russian stooge pay.
You’re an operative. Use your training.
She continued her exploration of the space. One of the sides of the enclosure moved—the door…and it wasn’t locked.
Oh, so I’m so harmless you don’t even have to lock me in?
Big mistake.
Big fucking mistake.
Victor reclines in a white leather swivel chair at the helm, one hand on the wheel, and navigates the Sea Ray 610 Sundancer across the expansive darkness of Lake Michigan. The water is choppy, the pickup in wind and rumble in the distance signaling a storm. Suddenly he’s glad to have the nineteen-meter yacht, even if it is too big for his current needs.
Of course, when he arranged for it, he assumed he’d be traveling with six more men. Such a waste, dying so badly.
That’s what they get for being incompetent.
He pulls in a deep breath, double-checks his GPS coordinates, and turns up the state-of-the-art sound system. Rachmaninoff swells through the room. Passionate. Powerful. Russian. And loud enough to rattle the instrument panel.
This is the life.
He still wants to kill Hammett and knows she aims to kill him. As he stares through the windshield and out over the black, undulating water, he imagines how he’ll do it. A knife would be fun, carving her up, bit by bit, until she begs him to end it. He’d like to hear Hammett beg. That would be the ultimate turn-on. And he always had a thing for knives.
Of course, since it’s Hammett he’s plotting to kill, he’ll probably just shoot her. He reflexively checks the Glock on his hip.
Yes, shooting is best. Anything else is too risky. I’ve seen what she can do.
However Victor does it, he’s content to leave her alive for now. Now that they have the transceiver, things are a little more relaxed between them. She did as he told her, bringing her sister along, and for the past hour, she’s been on the phone with his tech team, figuring out how the transceiver works, leaving him to relax and think about what he’ll do next.
He’s a rich man now. He can do whatever he wants.
Hell, maybe he’ll start off by getting laid.
He smiles, liking that idea. The only question is which sister does he have a taste for? Hammett? Or her crippled look-alike belowdecks?
As if on cue, Hammett saunters into the cockpit, clad in silk and leather. She is sexy despite her battered face, or maybe because of it. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes gleaming, and for a moment, he half expects her to start stripping right there. Instead she holds up the transceiver.
He turns down the music.
“I’ve figured out the launch application.” Her tongue flicks out, running across her lower lip. “Let’s nuke a city.”
How much did it cost to put teak flooring in a boat?
Fleming shook her head, hoping to rid herself of inane thoughts. The pain was messing with her mind. She focused on her senses, trying to concentrate.
She was in a cabin, a platform bed to her left, stairs to the right. Classical music came from above deck, Rachmaninoff, no doubt the Russian’s choice, and she could hear the slap of waves against the bow. Fleming also detected a growl of thunder, but no rain. At least not yet. She could smell a hint of it on the air.
Before she went any farther, Fleming had something to do. Something awful. She sucked up her courage, then took a look at her hand.
Oh…boy.
Two of her fingers were bent at crazy, unnatural angles and swollen like overcooked hot dogs. Her thumb, pinky, and ring finger remained unscathed, and if Fleming bit her lower lip to stop from crying out, she could pinch them together like a lobster claw.
But that wouldn’t be enough. For her to have a chance, she needed to have a greater range of motion in her hand.
She started with her index finger. That one appeared to be in slightly better shape. At the second knuckle, it bent backward at almost a ninety-degree angle. Fleming moved her hand to the anchor, gripping the digit tightly, squeezing her eyes shut—
—this is going to be bad—
—and then bent it the right way.
There was a sound like a walnut being cracked, and then the wave of pain hit. She had to turn her head and bite her left biceps to keep from howling. When the worst of it faded, she peeked a teary eye at her middle finger.
Two bends in this one, each in the opposite direction. It looked like a bruised, misshapen Z. Fleming knew the thing to do was pull on it to align the bones, then snap them back into place. But neither of her hands moved.
All pain is temporary. Bad as it gets, I can get through it.
Her body still refused to obey.
Do it. Just do it, goddamnit.
Such a small part of the body, a finger. Yet when she tugged it straight, the entire essence of Fleming’s being was reduced to white-hot agony. Her vision swirled, and then the darkness came in from all sides, making her already-aching head vibrate like a church bell being rung. The little bones inside her middle finger were so shattered it reminded Fleming of a beanbag.
She chanced a look, both hand
s quivering. Her middle finger was more or less back into position, but it still needed a lot of work.
There’s no way I’m touching that again. I’ll make do.
Fleming dragged herself through the closet door, going from teak flooring to thick carpet. She sank into the pile like it was deep sand, fighting the weight of the anchor for every inch. It was slow going, and she needed to be quick. If Hammett or the Russian discovered she’d escaped the closet, there wasn’t much she could do to protect herself, let alone bring the hurt to them.
And she wanted to deliver some hurt.
What Fleming needed was a weapon.
She struggled between the galley and a seating area and stopped at the base of the stairs, straining to catch her breath. The seven small steps loomed above her like Mount Everest. As she sized up the challenge ahead, her gaze rested on the large cabinet seated into the wall. It was marked Emergency.
Gritting her teeth, she plopped the anchor on the first step, then dragged her body up after it. The steps were wood, hard, making her miss the thick pile carpet on the floor. A chrome handrail framed one side, the perfect height if she’d been standing. But as things were, it was as good as worthless.
She mounted the second the same way, then the third and fourth. When she reached the fifth, she could reach the emergency cabinet. Leaning on one hip, she gripped the latch.
The boat rolled hard to the starboard side, almost sending her careening down the steps. She clung to the anchor with her good hand and tried to quiet her stomach before reaching for the box again.
This time she managed to get it open before another heave from the waves. And as she clung, her eyes locked onto a silver blanket, a waterproof radio, and a bright orange, plastic gun.
That would do.
She pulled out the signal gun and loaded a magnesium flare. Fleming had never fired one before, but the mechanism was simple. Point and shoot.
She tucked the gun in her waistband and turned her attention to the remaining two steps. The boat continued to pitch and sway, and the climb seemed to take forever. With each sound, she braced herself, expecting Hammett or Victor to suddenly appear and put a bullet in her, ending it all.
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 22