“Sure we can.”
“The ropes aren’t long enough.”
“You’ll rappel just five floors at a time. Brace yourself on a window
ledge. Then let go of the rappelling line with your right hand-”
“Brace myself on a two-inch sill?”
“It can be done. Don’t forget, you’ll still be holding onto the line
with your left hand.”
“Meanwhile, what will my right hand be doing?”
“Smashing in both panes of the window.”
“And then?”
THEFmm oFFEm “First, attach your safety tether to the window.
Second, snap another carabiner to the center post. As soon as that’s
done, you take your weight off the main line and then-”
“Tug on it,” Connie said, “pull apart the overhead knot like you did
just a minute ago.”
“I’ll show you how.”
“I catch the line as it falls?”
“Yes.”
“And tie it to the carabiner that I’ve linked to the window post.”
“That’s right.”
Her legs were cold. She stamped her feet on the ledge. “I guess then I
unhook my safety line and rappel down five more floors.”
“And brace yourself in another window and repeat the entire routine.
We’ll go all the way to the streetbut only five stories at a time.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“You’ll manage better than you think. I’ll show you how to use a seat
rappel.”
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how to tie one of those knots that can be jerked loose
from below.”
“It isn’t difficult. I’ll show you.”
He untied the main fine from the carabiner in front of him.
She leaned close to him and bent over the rope that he held in both
hands. The world-famous glow of Manhattan’s millions of bright lights
was screened by the storm. Below, the rimed pavement of the street
reflected the light from the many street lamps; but that illumination
scarcely affected the purple shadows twenty-three floors above.
Nevertheless, if she squinted, she could see what Graham was doing.
In a few minutes, she learned how to attach the rope to the anchor point
so that it could be retrieved. She tied it several times to make sure
she would not forget how it was done.
Next, Graham looped a sling around her hips and through her crotch. He
joined the three end-points of the rope with yet another carabiner.
“Now, about this rappelling,” she said as she gripped the main line. She
manufactured a smile that he probably did not see, and she tried not to
sound terrified.
Taking another snap link from the accessory strap at his waist, Graham
said, “First, I’ve got to link the main line to the sling. Then I’ll
show you how you should stand to begin the rappel. I’ll explain-” He
was interrupted by the muffled report of a gun: whump!
Connie looked up.
Bollinger wasn’t above them.
She wondered if she actually had heard a gun or whether the noise might
have been produced by the wind.
Then she heard it again: whump! There was no doubt. A shot. Two
shots. Very close. Inside the building. Somewhere on the twenty-third
floor.
Frank Bollinger pushed open the broken door, went into the office,
switched on the lights. He stepped around the receptionist’s desk,
around a typewriter stand and a Xerox copier. He hurried toward the
windows that overlooked the side street.
When the lights came on behind the windows on both sides of them, Graham
unhooked his safety tether from the piton and told Connie to unhook her
own five-foot line.
There was a noise at the window on their right as Bollinger pushed up
the rusty latch.
“Follow me,” Graham said.
He was perspiring again. His face was slick with sweat. Under the
hood, his moist scalp itched.
He turned away from Connie, from the window that Bollinger was about to
open, turned to his left, toward Lexington Avenue. Without benefit of a
safety line, he walked the narrow edge i Instead of sidling along it. He
kept his right hand on the granite for what little sense of security it
gave him. He had to place each foot directly in front of the other, as
if he were on a tightrope, for the ledge was not wide enough to allow