Rockford intercepted me in the lobby as I headed to the firing range. “CT Domino, I need a word.”
I gave him a look that said, “not you too!” I didn’t want a word. I didn’t even want a syllable. “Later. I’m late to shooting practice.”
“Your dedication to the craft is admirable.” He took my arm. “But shooting practice can wait.” He steered me toward his office. “I have someone in my office who wants to speak with you.”
Turns out the someone was just FSC’s lawyer wanting me to sign a statement releasing FSC from any liability for the driving range accident earlier in the week. I put him off by saying I’d have to speak with my lawyer first. I know I’d said I wouldn’t sue. But, hey, if they were worried about me developing delayed whiplash or something, maybe I should be, too.
Little did FSC know that my little crash was the least of their worries. If I was right, they were looking at being the site of a second homicide.
Interview complete, I nearly collided with Rockford as I rushed out his office door. The thought had crossed my mind that with everyone in class, now was the perfect opportunity to burgle Pussy’s room and get that gun. Unfortunately, Rockford had other ideas. He escorted me directly to the range in stony silence.
I arrived in time to feel relief that Max was still among the living. I considered jumping Torq about my camera. Yeah, I was a little peeved about the whole deal, not to mention suspicious. On the innocent side, he could have taken it as part of camp, but considering our relationship, he might have told me. Anyway, I thought better of mentioning it—too many big ears around.
After firing a few rounds, Torq and Fry led us to a small three-story building on the campus away from the main barracks and training center for our rappelling class.
“Where have you been?” Emma hissed at me as we trailed behind our trainers.
“Unavoidably detained,” I said.
We assembled in front of the building, standing in the scorching desert heat. Of all the days to forget my water bottle. Almost immediately I felt a trickle of sweat drip down my back and had to resist the urge to squirm. Torq was instructing, with Fry and Rockford assisting.
“April 30, 1980,” Torq said as he stood before us, “six armed Iranian terrorists took over the Iranian embassy in London’s Princes Gate, holding twenty-six hostages captive and threatening to explode the building. British SAS forces rappelled from the roof to a second-story balcony and stormed the building, killing all but one terrorist, who was later captured. During the rescue, two hostages were wounded and one killed. The operation was regarded a success and became a textbook assault studied by Special Forces the world over.
“Only one small glitch during the mission—one of the SAS soldiers became entangled in his rope. This small error forced the SAS soldiers to abandon their plan to detonate a frame charge. They had to use sledgehammers to enter the building.”
Torq walked down the row of us, staring us down, pausing in front of me and looking every bit as scary as he had the first day of camp, no sign of our intimacy on his face. “Never forget Murphy’s Law. If anything can go wrong, it will. Particularly during an intense, high-pressure mission.”
I looked past Torq, focusing on the window behind him, trying not to be intimidated or give away my doubts about him, trying to be every bit as unreadable as he was.
“You never know when a rescue will require you to know how to rappel, which is why I’m going to teach you how to do it today.” He continued staring at me. To avoid that penetrating look of his, I stared into space and tried to think calming, happy thoughts about crazy things, like balanced accounts and cool, air-conditioned bank lobbies.
Torq pointed up to the top. Ten heads lifted to follow where he pointed, all of us shielding our eyes against the sun. Just looking up gave me vertigo. My fear of heights made rappelling my biggest nightmare, right up there with bungee jumping. I felt all the classic symptoms of panic—rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, trembling hands, the irrational desire to run like crazy from the building …
“We’ll be rappelling from the roof just like the Brits did.” Torq paused once more to look at me. “Dom? Are you all right?”
I nodded mutely.
“Sure?” He studied me closely, looking concerned.
“Fine,” I croaked, wondering just how scared I looked.
“Okay, then.” He didn’t sound convinced. “Everyone follow me. The adventure begins up top.”
When I didn’t move, Max took me by the arm, chatting sociably as he propelled me along with the group behind Torq. I was full of foreboding, but Max seemed blissfully unaware of impending danger.
He looked up at the roof. “This is going to be fun. Did I ever tell you I’m a rock climber?”
Thank heaven for that, I thought. Hopefully he knew how to arrest a fall.
Max began babbling on about the joy of heights and the fun of rappelling, along with all manner of possible mishaps and how to combat against them, stuff I really needed to hear.
“I think I’m going to have to miss this session. Would you believe I have a prior appointment?” I smiled weakly and unconvincingly at Max, who still had my elbow. Damn, I’d really meant to ditch rappelling. “Why don’t you join me? We’ll go back to the barracks and play some paintball or something. Sound good to you?” Sounded better to me than plunging to my death.
Recognizing my attempt at a Get Smart line, Max laughed.
“Stop with the stories, Max. You’re scaring her!” Emma, who was walking on the other side of me shot me a sympathetic look while simultaneously throwing Max a warning elbow.
Max gave her a startled look. “What? What did I say? Did I say something?”
Fry came alongside us. “Rappelling’s a piece of cake, just a little old stroll down a building. Y’all aren’t afraid of heights, are you, Domino?”
When I didn’t answer, Fry gave me a teasing grin. “You’ll get over it. One successful rappel and y’all will be dying to do it again.”
Dying—that was exactly what I was afraid of. The only thing that kept me going was that I had to look out for Max.
Once we’d all assembled on the roof, Torq explained the rappelling process to the group and showed us the synthetic rope we’d be using, examining all equipment for defects and wear as he spoke. Fry gave them a perfunctory second check when Torq was done. I guess after the exploded-car incident they were going for redundancy in the equipment-checking department.
The heat made everything shimmery and wavy. I was parched. I really could’ve used a drink of water …or something stronger. I didn’t have a lick of spit left in my body. Emma had drained her water bottle already or I would have asked her for a sip. To top that off, I felt panicky and dizzy. I told myself to get a grip, trying to remember those inoculation exercises and implement something to screw up my courage.
Torq strode over to two sturdy air-conditioning units that were whirling away at full force. “These will be our anchor points. Two of us will be going down at a time—one CT and one instructor. I’ll wrap each rappelling anchor around the anchor point several times and secure it with a sturdy knot.”
He made a show of carefully wrapping and knotting the anchor. He appeared expert at what he was doing.
“See these loops?” Torq pointed to the rappelling anchor. “These will be secured to the jump line with carabiners. Two or three ought to be enough to hold any CT’s weight.” He then attached the carabiners.
He stood and held up a figure-eight-type device with one hole bigger than the other. “This is a rappelling device.” He took a length of looped jump line and pushed it through the larger hole, then wrapped the loop around the outside of the smaller circle. One length of the rope extended to the anchor line. He held up the other. “You’ll use this line to rappel.”
He held up another harness. “You’ll all be wearing one of these climbing harnesses for safety.”
To divert my small mind from the great big scary ledge at hand, I let myself a
dmire him, indulging in rooftop fantasies of the sort Playgirl might be interested in.
I was startled out of my admiring reverie by Torq barking a name. “Max! Front and center. You’re up first. I’ll be going down with you.”
“No!” I reacted instinctively. Max couldn’t go down until someone else had checked the gear and made sure it was safe. Damn! I had to pick now to go heroic.
Every last CT had turned to stare at me.
“I’ll go.”
Pussy sneered. Emma looked stunned. Max looked like he wanted to clobber me. No doubt he was drooling with anticipation at the thought of rappelling. This was probably the highlight of his vacation and now I was horning in and begging to go first. He’d thank me when I’d saved his life. Shoot! Wrong thing to think, ‘cause saving his life probably meant taking a fall meant for him myself.
“I bet those British SAS guys were gentlemanly enough to let the ladies go first. I’ve been dying to … go rappelling.” I rushed my words before I lost my courage, crossed my arms, and looked around the group for a validation.
I got a sneer from Bishop and a snide grin from Ethan. Rockford had finally found the break-in evidence we’d planted in their rooms and grilled them mercilessly. Word was, neither cracked. Which won them everyone else’s admiration, backfiring our quest for revenge.
Emma had scoffed at this. “They were innocent. How could they crack, those idiots?” She’d shaken her head in disgust. “They made a big scene at breakfast about taking revenge out on whoever’d framed them.” She’d rolled her eyes. “Like those two are capable of figuring out that we did it and thinking up a decent revenge scheme.”
Emma gently took my arm. “Domino, sweetie, I think Max had his heart set on being first up. Why don’t you let him show us how it’s done?”
“No.” I shook my head and appealed to Torq. “I have a phobia, a real fear of heights. If I don’t go first, I’m just gonna chicken out.” I took a deep breath. “Right now, it’s taking every ounce of courage I have to fight off my panic and not just turn tail and leave this roof.” I was also trembling so hard my knees were practically knocking. “If I don’t do this now, I’m never going to be able to face and conquer this fear.”
I squared my jaw and stepped forward, trying to remember every conquering-phobia article I’d read. Trying real hard not to think about someone tampering with the equipment or shoving Max off the roof as I rappelled down. “Please.”
Torq’s expression softened and I thought I saw a micro expression of admiration cross his face as he clapped me on the shoulder and tossed a harness over my head. “You’re right, CT. Facing your fears is the only way to conquer them.” He began buckling me into the harness.
He roughly tightened my harness straps. I winced as he tugged the last one tight.
“These have to be tight.” There was a sympathetic edge to his words.
“Um, Torq"—I leaned into him and whispered in his ear—"this rappelling isn’t a good idea. Remember what I said about someone trying to kill Max?” I gave my harness a little tug. “This is it. This is how they’re going to do it. What if someone’s tampered with his rope? He’ll fall to his death.” I gave Torq a look pleading with him to believe me.
“No one is trying to kill Max.”
I held his gaze. “I just switched places with him.”
He shook his head in that way that said I was crazy and sighed. “I’ll prove my point. We’ll switch ropes. Will that make you happy?”
“No,” I hissed back. “What if you fall?”
He didn’t listen. Over my protests, he switched ropes and locked my harness to the rappelling device with another carabiner before climbing into his own harness. He tossed me a pair of heavy-duty gloves. “Put these on. Then rear back and pull to make sure the anchor can bear your weight.” He demonstrated.
I let out a sigh of relief that his rope appeared to be fine and gave the rearing-back thing a go. The rope held and I felt a miniscule amount of calm return. The equipment seemed okay. Me, I was a mess—parched and out of water, and my sweat was evaporating off my body as fast as I produced it.
“Listen up, everybody,” Torq said, “this is important. Rappelling down a building is a cinch. A sissy could do it.” He shot me a challenging look, trying to incense me out of my fear.
“You place one hand on either side of the rappelling device like this. Facing the building, brace your feet on the surface and walk down the surface using small, backward leaps, just like Batman, pushing out and away as you loosen your grip on the downward side of the rappelling device. Keep that image in mind and you’ll do fine.” Torq looked me straight in the eye.
“Only make short hops. This is important. If you slide too far, too fast, friction will heat up the rope hot enough to burn your hands or, worse yet, melt the line, causing it to snap.” He shot me an encouraging grin. “You have short legs, Dom. Short hops ought to be no problem for you.” He looked around the group. “Any questions?”
I raised a shaky hand. “Yeah. How do we stop?”
Torq laughed like I was joking, but I was completely serious. “Clamp down tightly on the down side of the rappelling device.” He clapped his gloved hands together. “Okay, enough chitchat. It’s off to the wall.”
I stood rooted in place, thinking, uh-uh, no way, never, never. Torq grabbed my arm and dragged me to the edge, where he attached a security line between himself and me. “You can do this, Dom.”
Fry trailed after us while the rest of the group offered their own encouragement and I focused on positive thoughts. I could see way off to the White Tank Mountains and felt a hint of a breeze. A trace of clouds was beginning to form around the mountaintops.
Torq swung over the roof ledge, pulling me with my tether closer to the edge than I liked, and offered me his hand while Fry offered to help me over the edge. I hesitated.
“Come on, Domino, you can do it. You want to be a good spy, don’t you?” Torq’s voice was gentle and coaxing. “Face your fear, CT.”
Steeling myself, I peered cautiously over the edge, feeling slightly dizzy at the thought of going over. Don’t look down, I told myself. I gave a nervous laugh. “I’d rather be a good spy back in the air-conditioned comfort of the main office. A desk job at Langley is sounding pretty good about now.”
Fry was right behind me. “Y’all don’t really want to be a paper-pusher back at HQ. Besides, those guys at Langley do it all, don’t they, Torq?” Fry winked. “Let me help y’all. Ready?”
Resigned to my fate, I nodded and squeezed my eyes shut, took Torq’s hand, and allowed Fry to help me climb over the edge as I positioned my hands around the rappelling device and clamped my feet against the wall, ready to plunge to my death at any second.
“You’re doing great,” Torq said.
“Liar.”
Torq ignored me and grinned. “On three, we take a little baby hop.” Torq adjusted his hand position. “One, two, three.”
I said my prayers, took a deep breath … and hopped. Fortunately, not to my death. The rope held. I was still positioned against the building like Catwoman. Life was good.
“Excellent,” Torq said, smiling at me like a dad teaching his toddler to walk.
I opened my eyes and smiled shakily back, thinking Max owed Torq and me big, big time for being his official line testers.
“Good.” Torq returned my grin. “Okay, again. A little bigger hop this time.”
“Isn’t once enough?” I had a death grip on my line again.
“I don’t think so, babe. We’ve still got a whole building to scale.”
I nodded, but I didn’t like it.
“Again on three,” he said encouragingly. “One, two, three!”
I cautiously loosened my grip and semi-fearlessly took a tiny hop, sliding smoothly. I clamped to stop. But instead of slowing, my jump line slid through the rappelling device as if it were greased. Something was wrong. I clamped with all my might and started to panic, grabbing at the line with my g
loved hands, feeling the heat through the fabric. As the jump line ran through my fingers, I screamed.
Chapter Nineteen
I clamped down, but the rope continued its slide through my fingers.
Torq cursed. “Clamp down. Clamp down, damn it!”
“I am! I’m clamping, but it won’t stop!” I felt myself becoming overwhelmed with fear and light-headedness. My hands stopped working right. I could no longer clench a fist and I felt weak.
Beside me, Torq scurried down his own rope, trying to keep pace with me, but losing ground fast.
The rope beneath my fingers was giving off heat like a backyard barbecue grill, complete with visible heat waves.
“Clamp! Damn it! Clamp!” Torq tried to reach out to grab my line. His voice became tinny and far away. My ears rang and I saw spots in my vision.
I watched beneath my feet as the ground raced up to meet me. My mouth felt as dry and rough as steel wool. The ringing in my ears grew louder, drowning out Torq’s voice.
I heard a snap and screamed as my jump line broke and I began a free fall. How had someone managed to tamper with the line? How!
Above me, Torq braced himself and grabbed the security line connecting us, trying to arrest my fall and keep himself from dropping with me or being pulled loose from the building.
My field of vision dimmed and closed in smaller and smaller as the length of security rope reached maximum extension. It caught and I bounced bungee-jumper-like, twisting my back and neck like a whiplash victim. For just a second, I hung there as limp as an abandoned puppet as Torq rappelled toward me, lowering me gently as he came.
“Just hang on, Domino. Hang on. We’re going to get you down safely.”
Rockford, Fry, and a crowd of CTs had gathered at the top of the building, leaning over to see what had precipitated my scream.
“Don’t worry,” Max yelled to me from the top of the building. “Hang in there. You’re going to make it.”
I looked up at him and opened my mouth to yell at him, mother hen-like, to get back from the edge. I’d just risked my life to save his. No way did I want him giving a desperate murderer the perfect opportunity to “help” him over the ledge. But no sound came out.
Spy Candy Page 21
