Free Fall

by Christa Roberts

  “Bluebird. Can you read me?” Graham's voice back in L.A. crackled through her earpiece.

  “Copy that,” Sydney said, responding to the code name Sloane had asked her to adopt on her missions going forward. “I'm measuring back seven feet from the opening. Go over the dimensions again.” She listened as Graham repeated the coordinates to her.

  With a steady hand, Sydney positioned the tape measure up the wall, marking off each measurement with her thick orange pencil. When she'd completed the calculations, which took her to a spot precisely at eye level, she took a chisel out of her other pocket and began to chip away at a section of damp rock. According to the calculations, the papers should be . . . there! A large section of rock tumbled to the ground as the flinty crag crumbled to dust beneath her fingers. A small carved-out compartment lay a few inches from her face.

  And there, where they had been concealed for over forty years, was a tightly wrapped thick sheath of papers. They were slightly damp and smelled mildewy, but for the most part, they looked fine. It was weird to think that the last person to see them was a man who had died almost fifty years before.

  Sydney enjoyed finding things that had been preserved by someone in the past. It was like uncovering a buried treasure, a remnant from another era. Sometimes it felt a bit like invading someone's personal life. . . . She remembered going through her mother's jewelry box after she died, gingerly lifting out necklaces and brooches, knowing that her mother had never imagined she wouldn't come back to her bedroom and wear the beautiful ruby earrings and delicate filigree necklaces once more.

  But this isn't anything like that, Sydney thought, carefully removing the papers from their hiding place. Sanderling had hidden his notes because he knew the Russians wanted to use what he had learned about the power of the falls for something he didn't believe in.

  “Your notes are safe with me, Mr. Sanderling,” Sydney said as she slid them into a waterproof binder.

  Sydney kicked the piece of rock that had been covering the hiding place to the side. Then she went back out to the small viewing platform and gazed out at the falls. Just one more look, she told herself, understanding how a brilliant man like Carl Sanderling could have become so fascinated with this natural wonder. There was something about the falls that was so powerful, so majestic—

  Footsteps echoed down the tunnel. Perfect timing, she thought, hoping that no one tripped over the piece of rock. Explaining why I was gouging out a national Canadian treasure to some tourists from Buffalo isn't on my to-do list today.

  But the person who spoke wasn't a tourist.

  “It's over, Stephanie,” came the controlled voice of Paul Riley. Sydney kept her head down, her face shielded by her baseball cap and poncho hood. “And seeing you here, doing—Well, this confirms it. I'm sorry it has to be this way.”

  “So am I,” Sydney said, gritting her teeth. “Unhh!” Her roundhouse kick knocked a startled Paul off his feet.

  In a flash, he was back up. His Topsiders, jeans, and rain poncho gave him the look of a college student, but his body language told her he probably knew a thing or two about martial arts.

  She jumped back, readying her stance. She didn't need to look around to know that there was nowhere to go. The route back to the top was blocked. Behind her was the small observation deck overlooking the thundering water of Niagara.

  In front of her was a traitorous combat-trained agent, ready to kill.

  “Think about what you're doing!” she warned, wondering if there was any way she could diffuse the situation. She went to pull off her wig, but before she could do it, Paul yanked her arm hard, sending her to the ground. She leaped up before he could stop her, kicking him deep in the ribs. He spun around, barely fazed.

  Sydney was a good, strong fighter, but after several minutes of intense sparring, she knew she was outmatched. With his size and experience, Paul was better and stronger. If only she could get to the elevator, she'd have a fighting chance. Because here on the small platform, she had two opponents: Paul and the churning water that surrounded them.

  “Bluebird! Bluebird!” Graham's distraught voice buzzed in her ear. “Are you all right?”

  But there was nothing anyone back at SD-6 could do for her now. She was on her own.

  Suddenly she felt Paul's fist punch her in the stomach. She gasped, momentarily incapacitated. “No!” Sydney screamed a second later as Paul used his trump card to twist her left arm behind her, pinning it to her back.

  Her feet scrambled on the wet slate floor, trying to gain a foothold. Paul shoved her backward, and her body pressed against the cold, hard railing. Does he wonder why it's me instead of Stephanie? she wondered as her eyes caught his. She recognized the look on his face, and it scared her. It was the same look she had worn when she had been kicking some serious enemy butt on a mission. A look of pumped-up adrenaline, fueled by the heat of the fight.

  Except she wasn't the enemy. Or maybe I am, she thought as he shoved her again and her head snapped back, her baseball cap plunging into the water and foam splashing her face. While Paul was a traitor to the United States, Sydney believed in everything the CIA stood for—and she'd made that very clear during their training. I'm just one more obstacle in his way.

  Only several feet separated them from the roaring water below. People came to this spot for a safe thrill and amazing view, to feel the mist on their faces and get as close to Niagara Falls as they could without being in real danger.

  Not to die.

  With the roar of the falls and Graham's nervous outburst ringing in her ears, Sydney struggled, her poncho making squeaking noises as it chafed against the railing. She tried every defense tactic she could think of, but Paul was too quick. He blocked her attempt to knee him in the groin and left no part of himself open to attack.

  After several seconds of intense struggle, Paul reached his left hand around Sydney's throat, his fingers squeezing hard. He's going to strangle me! Sydney thought in a panic as her eyes blinked out rapid tears. The sound of the water was deafening. Blood rushed to Sydney's head as her neck fell farther back, her long blond hair dangling over the water.

  She tried to reach up and peel his fingers off, but she was losing strength—and hope—fast. I can't die like this! she thought as hysteria swept over her. If she was able to get away, she could dive into the water, but that was almost a certain death. No swimmer, no matter how strong, could survive under such powerful pressure.

  Sydney gulped for air as her attacker wrapped both of his hands more tightly around her neck, shaking her. He pushed her against the slick wet railing, and it groaned with their weight. A half-formed sob came out as Sydney realized she had only a handful of seconds of air left. Soon she would be unconscious.

  Then he'll toss me like a doll into the rapids. . . .

  “Hey. Hey!” Someone was screaming at them. At first Sydney thought it was someone behind her, swimming in the water, but that was impossible. Her vision blurred as she made out a figure standing on the wet platform above them, wildly waving its arms. Stephanie, Sydney thought thickly as her friend pulled her hooded raincoat down, revealing herself. “Let Sydney go!” she shrieked to Paul over the thrashing torrent of water. “I'm the one you want!”

  Paul turned a wild eye to Sydney, as if truly seeing who she was for the first time. For a moment she thought he was going to kill her anyway. Then she was sucking in air as his fingers loosened their grip on her neck and he stumbled away, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth. Choking, she slumped against the water-slicked railing, gasping for breath, the sound of Paul's footsteps racing back to the elevator pounding in her skull.

  14

  AS SOON AS SHE had regained her breath, Sydney raced for the elevator, counting the seconds until the doors opened and she could scramble inside. When it deposited her on the upper level, Sydney burst out, looking wildly around her for a sign of Stephanie or Paul. Taking in the confused faces of tourists lining the outside walkway, she jogged by them, her sne
akers squishing water as she ran.

  Up ahead, there was a mini-commotion going on. “He almost knocked me down!” a woman with frizzy red hair and a bright blue tube top was loudly complaining to her bewildered husband. His pudgy stature showed that he was in no condition to do anything about this.

  “Which way did he go?” Sydney blurted out, certain that the woman could only be talking about Paul.

  “Down there,” the woman huffed, pointing a red painted fingernail at a figure running toward the Maid of the Mist entrance. “You give him a piece of my mind! Creep.”

  Sydney ran down the sidewalk, quickly paid the admission fee, then flew down the ramp that led to the departure area, bumping into a few people herself. A bank of elevators took visitors down to the base of the falls, and Sydney jostled to be in the front, ignoring the annoyed stares of the tourists around her.

  When the elevator opened, she accepted a poncho from a staff member and then was outside once more. She immediately scrutinized the crowd boarding the Maid of the Mist. The boat looked much larger up close. In the few seconds it had taken her to get there, Paul had blended in with the throng of tourists jockeying for a spot on the watercraft. Her eyes scanned the people on the boat's crowded deck. Everyone was wearing the regulation Maid of the Mist blue plastic hooded rain ponchos, making each passenger virtually indistinguishable from another.

  There she is! she thought, elated to see Stephanie's long blond hair whipping in the wind. The Maid of the Mist was just starting to pull away from the dock. Sydney could hear a tinny-sounding audio begin its spiel. If Stephanie had managed to board and strand Paul on land, Sydney could call in for backup. She'd have no problem keeping him contained in this area.

  But it was too late. Sydney's eyes lit on the tall figure of Paul Riley, his hood pushed off his blond head and a determined expression fixed on his lips. She watched in horror as he began cutting his way through the crowd toward Stephanie.

  “Let me through!” Sydney cried to a cluster of tourists who had missed the departure.

  “The line's back there,” a man said angrily, pointing his thumb back toward the snaking line of people.

  “But—” she began helplessly as the Maid of the Mist moved farther into the water. “I have to get on that boat!”

  “Welcome to the Maid of the Mist, one of North America's most famous tourist attractions!” came a perky voice over the boat's loudspeaker. “For your safety, please hold young children by the hand, and please do not hang over the railings. We will be—”

  “You don't understand,” Sydney said to the group at large, her heart thumping wildly. “This is a matter of life and death!”

  The people around her rolled their eyes, then resumed their conversations.

  “There's more than one boat,” a kind-looking woman spoke up, tapping her on the shoulder. “The next one should be here in, oh, ten minutes or so. You'll make that one for sure.”

  Sydney tried to smile, but she was in a panic. There was a good chance that Stephanie would die if she couldn't come up with a way to get on the Maid of the Mist that had just disembarked. Overwhelmed with frustration, she ripped off her poncho and shook it out over the concrete ground. A jumble of Graham's gadgets fell out of its pockets—the leather gloves with the digital camera, the tube of lipstick, and the waterproof laser wristwatch.

  Sydney stood there dripping, staring down helplessly at the gadgets. She was paralyzed with indecision. Every second that passed put Paul another inch closer to harming Stephanie, but Sydney couldn't think straight. How could she help?

  A humming in her ear jolted her back.

  “Graham!” she cried with relief, startling several passers-by with her outburst. For once, the sound of static was a welcome noise. She wasn't completely alone. Graham was a certified genius—maybe he could think of something.

  Sydney took a deep breath. “There's an enemy agent on a boat going toward the base of the falls, and I need to stop him,” she said quickly. “Is there anything I have that can help me?”

  Silence. Then Graham began, “Well, let's see. Okay. Um, well, you know, uh, you have the poncho—”

  “Yes,” Sydney said.

  “It's bulletproof—”

  “Yes!” Sydney said, trying not to let her impatience get the best of her. “Graham, tell me something I don't know!”

  “It would take a stack of three million two thousand dimes to reach the top of the Empire State Building,” Graham said, suppressing a nervous chuckle. “Ha ha. Okay, back to the matter at hand. You, uh, have the digital camera gloves—”

  Sydney fell to her knees and picked them up. She flipped the gloves over, not sure what they could do for her.

  “Well, see, there isn't exactly a camera inside them,” he said as her fingers hurriedly smoothed over the soft thick black leather. “Instead—”

  Wham! Sydney reared back in surprise as her fingers pressed a tiny bump on the inside wristband. A thin black nylon cord sprang out from the palm of the glove, à la the Spider-Man-web gloves she'd played with as a child. The cord had a round black tip that had adhered to the damp pavement, and when she tugged it, it felt strong as steel.

  “The glitch,” she whispered, pushing on the palm of the gloves again. The cord zinged back into its hiding place.

  “How long is the cord?” she asked breathlessly.

  “I'm going to say nine hundred feet, but it could be eight hundred. Or it could be a thousand,” Graham said into her earpiece. “There were several pairs of these gloves made, and none of them have uniformity in the length of—”

  Sydney didn't need to hear any more. Hope surged through her as she jammed the lipstick and watch into her pocket. She leaped to her feet and dashed to the safety railing that was the closest spot on land to the boat. With lightning speed, she unsnapped the small black band at the top of the right glove, wrapped it around the rail, and fastened it in place. “Let's hope Graham used industrial-strength snaps on these things,” she muttered, giving the glove a test tug.

  “Syd? Did you call me? What are you doing?” Graham asked worriedly. “Sydney, if you're doing what I think you're doing—”

  Sydney crouched down so she was eye level with the railing. The Maid of the Mist bobbed several hundred yards in front of her, its diesel engine churning up water. “Let's cross our fingers for one thousand,” she mumbled as she aimed the tiny opening for the cord at the boat.

  She held her breath as she pushed down on the concealed button. Whizz! The cord shot out and, to her amazement, hit the boat directly above its Maid of the Mist III logo on the bow.

  “Score!” she exhaled excitedly under her breath.

  “No! Don't use them. It's a glitch!” Graham screamed in Sydney's earpiece as she tossed her poncho aside and wiped her sweaty palms on her shorts legs. “They haven't been safety tested!”

  The boat continued to move toward the base of the American Falls, its red and white Canadian flag whipping smartly in the breeze off the stern. If the boat moved too far away, the cord would snap loose. Sydney had to be fast. And she had to be fearless. Don't look down, she ordered herself, remembering Greg's words from their rock-climbing expedition. Whatever you do, don't look down! But she didn't have to see the rushing water to know it was there—the thundering power of the falls was deafening.

  With a gulp, Sydney climbed over the railing and secured herself as best as she could on the cord. Why didn't I think to ask Graham how much weight the cord can hold? she thought, fear swimming in her blood as a small crowd of horrified onlookers gathered onshore and a panicked staff member got on his cell phone. Well, it was too late now. Squeezing her eyes shut, she began to slither down the slick cord feetfirst toward the boat.

  It had only taken a few seconds for the splashing water below to completely soak her. She clung to the cord with both hands, her feet wrapped tightly around the bottom. Moving first her right hand, then her left, Sydney inched her way down its length, moving her torso and legs last. Thankfully the
cord remained taut. Each movement brought her closer to the boat . . . and to the water below.

  You're almost there. You're almost there, Sydney mentally repeated to herself, the mantra helping keep her wits about her as her back hung suspended mere feet away from almost certain death. People had survived this and much worse in a barrel, for heaven's sake. She didn't have one of those, but she was a trained CIA officer. That ought to count for something, right?

  She tried to think of the cord as a rope in gym class. Sure. The only difference was, this rope was slick with sea spray—and letting go meant more than a fall on a padded mat.

  “Unhhh!” Sydney clung for her life as the boat made an unexpected—at least to her—turn, and the cord swung wildly. She blinked quickly, momentarily blinded by the powerful spray. How much farther? she wondered in frustration, trying not to think about the terrifying rapids below.

  Move it, Bristow! she told herself, trying not to cry. If Noah were here, he'd tell her to do her job and do it now. And I'd listen, Sydney thought sternly, the idea of looking pathetic in front of Noah Hicks a fate worse than death. Thinking of him spurred her on, and soon she was able to make out the confused faces of the Maid of the Mist passengers.

  Sydney's arms were shaking with fatigue, and tiny rivulets of blood ran from the palms of her hands from where she gripped the cord. And then, for what seemed like the first time in hours, she heard the sound of another human being.

  Someone on the boat was screaming.

  Stephanie.

  The sound filled her with adrenalized energy, and in a few seconds she was at the edge of the boat. With a final thrust, Sydney hoisted herself on board. She dropped with an unceremonious thud on the wet deck. Seconds later the cord broke off as the boat drifted out of range toward the American Falls.

  I did it! she thought, overwhelmed with the accomplishment. Her legs quivered beneath her. But there was no time for a mental pat on the back.