She had never been here without Gant. Driving into the town she maneuvered the streets as if she'd never left, feeling his absence. At last she turned due west toward the foothills and the little house that had been one of only two places in the world to offer Neeley safety and comfort.
She parked in front of the house and sat still for a moment, staring at the small stone and wood cottage. Then she woke Hannah up and got out of the truck. Her road partner was quiet, as if sensing the emotion and respecting Neeley’s memories.
After unlocking the door, Neeley pushed the front door of the house open with her boot. Her arms were laden with gear and she was beginning to think she would end up carrying this stuff all over the country. Hannah approved of the house but seemed more excited at the thought of a shower. Neeley wondered if the basement tenant was in. She decided to give him a try while Hannah went into the bathroom.
Neeley went around the back of the house and knocked on the sliding glass door that was the basement access. She looked around the quiet backyard and admired how well kept it was. She noticed that the spring perennials were beginning to bloom.
The professor didn't seem surprised by her sudden appearance. He offered condolences about Gant's death and explained that Gant had written him a few months ago telling him he was very sick and saying the Neeley would probably be coming soon. Gant had also included a letter for her.
Neeley felt herself growing dizzy. She grabbed the envelope, issued a quick thanks and hurried back around the house. She could hear the water running from Hannah's shower stop as she sat down and stared at the envelope. It took her several moments to muster the energy to open it.
"You all right?" Hannah had a towel wrapped around her.
Neeley reluctantly looked up from the letter in her hand. "What?"
“Hey," Hannah said, looking closer, "you look terrible. What's wrong?"
"Gant left a letter downstairs." Neeley was in a daze, fingering the edges of the paper. She showed it to Hannah.
Hannah began gathering her clothes. "I don't know about this Gant guy," she said. "Pardon me for saying, but any allusion to him seems to bring you down."
Neeley looked at the single sheet of paper from Gant's letter. Her eyes burned for a moment at the sight of the familiar writing. She read it to herself and tears slowly escaped her blinking eyes.
"Well?" Hannah asked.
Neeley shook her head and stuffed the paper in her breast pocket. "It just says that I made him very happy and that he loved me. Says to remember the rules."
Hannah was already dressed and tying her shoelaces. "What rules?"
Neeley shot her a weary look. "Oh, just a bunch of rules to live by."
Hannah got up and moved toward the bathroom. "So, nothing about a tape? I don't get it. If this guy loved you so much, why didn't he just give you this tape that the Cellar seems willing to kill you for?"
Neeley watched her disappear into the bathroom. "Actually, Hannah, I think he told me where it was before he died."
Hannah's head popped out from behind the door. "When were you going to let me in on this?"
Neeley was silent as she went to one of the bedroom closets.
“Well?” Hannah demanded. “Are we going to start working together? Combining our brain power?”
"Rule number seven. One man who thinks can beat ten men who don't."
"Rule number seven is Shaw," Hannah said. “And it doesn’t apply here, because I can think.”
Neeley paused with the door open. "What?"
"Gant’s rule seven is a paraphrase of George Bernard Shaw. I read it." Hannah noticed Neeley's dismayed look. "Hey, cheer up. So far it seems to be the only thing we both know. That means something right?"
Neeley started pulling gear out of its neatly packed recesses.
Hannah came over to help. "What are you doing now?"
"We're going to find the tape."
Hannah stepped toward the pile of ropes and slings. "What's this for?"
"It looks like we're going on a little climb."
Hannah shook her head. "Wait a minute. What do you mean we? I can barely climb out of bed. Speaking of which, shouldn't you be tired? You mean like climb a mountain?"
Neeley kept pulling gear from shelves and stacking it neatly around Hannah's feet. "A rock, Hannah. We're going to climb a rock."
Hannah stared at the ropes and belts and helmets piled around her feet. "This is a stupid question I know, but why couldn't he hide the tape here in this closet with all this stuff?"
Neeley's look was what Hannah expected. Neeley grabbed one of Hannah's hands. "You're going to have to cut off these nails." Her thumb rubbed the surface of Hannah's long perfectly shaped red nail.
Hannah looked at her hands as if seeing them for the first time. “They're fiberglass. Do you have any idea what these cost?"
"Hannah, get them off. Do you have any idea what it feels like to rip your nail out at the root?"
Hannah picked up one of the harnesses from the floor, looking at it. “I don’t care about the fingernails, Neeley. It was just an observation. You’ve got to calm down. This has not been easy and I’ve done my best so far.”
Neeley sat down with an exhausted look on her face. "I'm sorry. I know I've been hard on you. I feel like I'm all alone and I'm not up to this. Can you understand that? Gant was always there and now he's not."
Hannah dropped the harness. "I'm hungry and tired." She rubbed a hand across her face. “My husband got shot the other night. I know he ran out on me and left me in a bad place, but we spent a lot of years together and some of those were decent years. At least no one was trying to kill me all the time. That’s looking pretty good right now.
“In the past couple of days I’ve been stabbed, shot at and crashed a plane. Geez, what else?” Hannah looked at Neeley. “I try to be observant and pick strange things to talk about sometimes to protect myself, OK? Because I don’t want to feel what I’m supposed to feel about the real shit in my life. At least that’s what my shrink said once.”
Neeley nodded. "I understand. Let's get this stuff together and we'll eat, OK? Then get some sleep. I know this has been hard but we have to keep pushing. We have to find that tape Hannah, or we're dead. We climb first thing in the morning. You'll do fine. I promise. We'll take turns standing watch tonight."
Hannah focused on one part. "Eat?"
"Yes."
"Great," Hannah pulled herself and the look was back in her eyes. "I can fall off a cliff for breakfast tomorrow. That's how they'll find me. Splattered on a rock with nubby fingernails."
**************
Racine wanted to congratulate himself. His instinct had been to fly to Boulder, wade in and blow the bitches off the face of the planet. But the rational part of him knew that would not have been acceptable to Nero and much as he hated the old bastard, he knew he couldn’t afford to make him an outright enemy—not yet at least.
The whispers were out that Nero’s reign was coming to an end. You’d think the old fart’s lungs would have given in like his throat had. Some said Bailey would take his place, but Racine couldn’t see Bailey sitting in that room day after day reading reports and thinking. Bailey was an action man. From what Racine had heard, Bailey was the son of some Brit that had gone into France with Nero during the last Great War. Bailey was ex-SAS, Special Air Service, who’d cut his teeth doing the nasty stuff in Ireland and somehow crossed the pond to work for Nero. Bailey did grant that the SAS were some hard-ass dudes, so he gave Bailey some space.
Racine took the elevator from the second floor to the first and went to the bar. He ordered some food and looked around. A sparse crowd of losers was his summation. A bleached blond two stools down gave him a quick once over.
A stewardess, Racine figured. Or an office manager who had to fuck her boss to keep her job. Sliding into middle age and not happy at all about it. Just perfect for what he needed tonight. He turned to her and smiled.
***************
Neeley stood on the small deck in the back of the house and looked up at the stars. She remembered being in this exact same spot with Gant. She heard Hannah come out.
“Memories?” Hannah asked.
Neeley nodded.
“Good ones?”
“I don’t know now.” Neeley tensed, waiting for Hannah to probe with more questions but there was only silence. They stood silent, staring at the stars.
***************
“Do you have something to drink?”
Racine shut the door, bolted it and slid the chain on. If he concentrated he could make her look like the blonde, Masterson’s wife. She turned toward him, a quizzical look on her face as she heard the chain rattle.
“What are you—“
Racine hit her with his the knife edge of his right hand directly across her throat. Not full power, just enough to smash her larynx and keep her from saying another Goddamned word.
She staggered back.
Racine followed the first hit with an open palm strike to her solar plexus while his other hand pulled a slim, double-edged commando knife from behind his back.
His third strike was the knife.
Within minutes Racine was splattered in blood.
He was not satisfied.
Hannah stared up at the top of the rock wall and shook her head. "You've got be kidding. That's straight up. I couldn't get up that if it had stairs."
They were along the north wall of Eldorado Canyon. The wall was practically vertical in most places, with cracks and crevices interspersed among the smooth rock. The crest of the face was over two hundred feet above their heads. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the temperature was an unseasonable 55 degrees. In Boulder, at over a mile in altitude, the sun made all the difference as far as temperature went.
"What did you say it was called again?" Hannah asked.
"The route we're going to follow is called Thin Air," Neeley said.
"Great name." Hannah looked about. "Isn't there an easier way?"
"No." Neeley finished arranging her climbing rack and tried for the tenth time to reassure Hannah. "You can do this. It's mostly your leg muscles that do the climbing, not your arms. Remember, you have to push away from the rock. Your tendency is going to be to cling close to the wall, but that changes your gravity vector and will make you slide off. You have to push away, putting your vector into the rock."
Hannah stared at her as is she was speaking Swahili.
Neeley slapped the rope and her rack. "Besides, we have the rope and I'll be putting protection in the whole way up."
"And from what you said, I'll be taking the protection out," Hannah argued.
Neeley shook her head. "The climb is longer than the rope. You'll be freeing the rope so we can make it to the top." She tapped the assortment of gear on her rack. "My protection is what will hold the rope if one of us falls."
Hannah reached over to Neeley's rack and lifted one of the small metal nuts that were on a loop of thin metal cable. "
This
is supposed to hold me if I fall?"
"It's rated for ten thousand pounds vertical stress," Neeley said.
“What if we both fall?”
Neeley looked at Hannah. “You think we weigh that much?”
“Very funny smart ass.”
“Only one of us moves at a time. The other is on belay.”
"Why can't I just watch you?" Hannah asked. "I'll take pictures. Or we can just let that guy go up and we can both watch him."
Hannah was pointing at a young man who had just started a route forty feet to the right. He was hard and supple. All his muscles were taut as he went from one hold to the next. His climbing shorts were brightly colored and his hair was long and thick and hanging loose. His only equipment was a chalk bag tied around his waist.
"How come he doesn't have all this gear?" Hannah asked.
"He's doing what's called free climbing." Neeley admired his technique for a moment. He looked like one of the dozens of young climbers who made Boulder their home and lived only to climb. Besides him, it appeared they had this part of the canyon to themselves, prime climbing season being a few months away. He’d arrived shortly after they had, parking a beat-up pick up not far from their truck.
Neeley knew that Hannah was right about the difficulty of this route. She doubted that the man was going to be able to free climb to the top. Only a fool would do that. He was ‘bouldering’, going up thirty or forty feet, then coming back down. To go higher on this route, appropriately labeled "Thin Air" and rated 5.10 in the guide book, required at least two climbers and the safety gear. Neeley had the safety gear, but glancing at Hannah, her helmet precariously perched on her blond hair, Neeley knew she didn't have the two climbers. She granted that Hannah had done very well in the plane yesterday but this was a very different venue.
Neeley cupped her hands to her mouth. “Hey, want to make some money?” she shouted.
The climber turned and looked down, two fingers of one hand curled around a tiny bump on the rock face. “How much?”
“Three hundred.”
Neeley was amazed how quickly he retraced his path down.
The young man stuck out his hand. "I'm Mitch."
Neeley took it, feeling the powerful grip. "I'm Sue." She pointed at Hannah. "That's Sara."
Mitch smiled. "Sue and Sara. How interesting."
Neeley pulled a sling off her rack and handed it to him. He looped it over his shoulder. She then split her rack, giving him some of the pieces he would need.
Mitch looked up. "Thin Air?"
Neeley nodded. "All the way. I need you to bring up the rear and give Sara a hand. She's kind of new at this." Neeley slapped Hannah on the shoulder. "Just do as I told you.”
Neeley turned toward the rock and reached up, her fingers curling around a small ledge. She slid one of her feet up, feeling through the thin toes of the climbing shoes and she was on her way.
After fifteen feet, Neeley hit a small crack in the rock face. She put a nut in, and then hooked a snap link to the nylon loop attached to the nut. She pushed the rope through the gate in the snap link, then put a second snap link through the rope-nylon juncture, making sure the gate on that one was facing the other way. Then she continued up.
On the ground, Hannah's neck was hurting from looking up and watching Neeley climb. As soon as the second piece of protection was in, Neeley halted and looked down. "I've got belay."
Mitch swept an arm toward the rock. "After you."
Hannah didn't see how she could possibly get two feet off the ground. She put one of her hands on the rope and was ready to give it a tug when Mitch gently put his hand over her hers. "Don't do that. You might pull your friend off the wall. The rope is only for protection, not to climb on."
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Hannah muttered. “The rope is here, why not use it?”
"There with your left hand," Mitch pointed.
Hannah reached up over her head. Mitch kneeled and grabbed her right foot. "Put this here," he said, guiding it. He placed her other foot and suddenly Hannah realized she was off the ground and on the wall. Mitch was right beside her, pointing out new holds. Neeley pulled up the rope, making sure there was very little slack until Hannah was there, right next to her.
"Very good," Neeley said. "Now you wait here."
Mitch did something to Hannah's harness, hooking her into the protection itself, and taking her off the rope. He then belayed as Neeley climbed up.
And that's how they went up. Neeley leading, a spider clinging to the rock, putting in protection every ten or fifteen feet. Then belaying Hannah up to her. Mitch was also hooked in to the rope but he didn't seem to need it. Hannah appreciated him being close to her, hovering right next to her skin, his hands moving her feet and hands to the proper places.
Halfway up, there was a long stretch of bare rock. No cracks, no crevasses and almost vertical. Neeley used everything she had ever learned in climbing to get up the twenty feet to a small ledge. By the time she got there, sweat was pouring down her back and her fingers and forearms were sore from the holds she'd used. She put in two pieces of protection: a bolt into a vertical crack just above the ledge right at her feet and a loop of nylon over a rock spur just above her head. She hooked in to both. Then she slid the rope over the figure 8 in the front of her harness.
"On belay."
Hannah couldn't believe Neeley expected her to traverse the stretch above. As far as she could tell, it was a sheer rock wall.
"Left hand, there," Mitch said, pointing.
Hannah looked in the direction his finger indicated. "There's nothing there."
"There's a small knob," Mitch said.
Hannah looked again and shook her head. "I don't see it."
Mitch edged around her, his body pressing against her. "Here." He took her left hand in his and extended it. Hannah felt something hard pressing against her rear. Probably one of his snap links, she thought.
Her fingers felt the slightest protuberance from the rock. "You've got to be kidding me," she said. "I'm supposed to use that?"
"Try it," Mitch said. "Move your left foot up about eight inches. Push slightly away from the rock and let the rubber toe grip."
Hannah did as she was told and was amazed to find that she could actually move up the eight inches. Slowly, she continued up until she was in the middle of the twenty foot stretch. But at that point, the next hold was just out of her reach. Neeley with her extra height had been able to make it, but for Hannah, her fingers came up an inch and a half short, no matter how she stretched.
"Come on, Hannah," Neeley called out. "You can make it."
Hannah glanced down. Mitch was pulling out the protection from the place they had just left. Then her eyes traveled past him. The ground was suddenly a long way down. She had been so caught up in moving inches she hadn't realized that she was ninety feet off the canyon floor.
"Hannah!" Neeley called out, her voice concerned.
Hannah quickly looked back up. She wanted off this bare stretch. She looked at the small indentation in the rock that she knew was the next hold. Then she moved, pulling her right hand off, left hand extended, pushing up hard with her left leg, her right one dangling in space. And then she was holding nothing but air.
Hannah fell eight feet, then the slack in the rope was gone. She bounced off the rock wall and went down another six feet as the rope did as it was designed and stretched, keeping her from experiencing an instantaneous braking, which was as dangerous as falling. Hannah slowly bounced against the rock wall like a pendulum, almost twenty feet below Neeley. Mitch was to her right and slightly below.
"Hang on," Mitch said.
"I've got nothing to hang on to," Hannah shot back, her hands desperately searching for a hold.
Up above, Neeley could feel the pull through her harness, going out to the two pieces of protection. She glanced up. "Oh shit," she muttered. The nylon loop had popped up during the fall and was now hanging by just an inch, still caught at the very top of the spur. And that was taking all the weight of Hannah and herself. The nylon strap leading to the lower protection was slack since it was angled down. If the top loop went, Neeley wasn't sure the bottom nut could take the impact. She dug her heels in tighter to the small ledge.
"Come on, Hannah!" she called out.
Hannah shook her head to clear a lock of hair and the helmet slid down over her face. "Great!" her muffled voice came out through the small holes in the helmet. She felt a pair of hands grab her thighs, slowly pulling her to the right. Then the hands slid down her legs until they reached her feet. Mitch placed her feet on some small support and Hannah was no longer hanging.
Neeley breathe a deep sigh of relief. She leaned back against the rock and carefully snapped the slack in the upper nylon loop. It went back down over the spur.
"I'll give you some support with the rope," Neeley said. As Hannah traversed the rest of the bad pitch, Neeley left no slack in the rope. In fact she aided Hannah as much as she could, straining her arms to help pull her partner up. Soon Hannah was at her side and Mitch soon followed.
"I'd like to go down now," Hannah said.
"We're almost there," Neeley reassured her.
"The more we go up," Hannah pointed out, "the further away the ground gets."
"That's the concept," Neeley said and then she began the next pitch.
Before Hannah had completely recovered from her fall, Neeley was in place, beckoning her up. Hannah climbed.
Soon even Hannah could begin to see that they were going to make it. The top was only twenty feet away. Neeley climbed up and then disappeared over the top, the rope trailing her. Hannah followed, Mitch at her side. Then Mitch smiled at her. "Race you to the top." He unhooked from the tail end of the rope.
"You win," Hannah immediately said.
Mitch shot up and was over the top in twenty seconds. It took Hannah that same amount of time to find her next hold.
Finally, as Hannah pulled herself up the last overhang, she could hardly contain her enthusiasm. She slid over onto a rocky ledge, ten feet wide. There was another rock wall in front and the ledge disappeared to the left. To the right the ledge widened and a bunch of large boulders were tumbled there, caught from falling further. Neeley and Mitch were nowhere to be seen. Just the rope, locked in to several anchor points in the rock at the very edge and then disappearing behind the boulders to the right.
Hannah turned and looked back down the way they had come. "This is incredible. Wow, look at the view," she called out. "Hey, where is everybody?" she asked as she turned her attention back to her own altitude.
Hannah dropped her backpack and walked toward the boulders, following the rope. Neeley came from behind the nearest boulder, holding a small waxy packet. "Congrats on the climb, Hannah. Good news, bad news."
"What do you mean?" Hannah asked. "Where's Mitch?"
Neeley nodded. "Oh, the bad news. Mitch is right behind me."
Hannah saw the gun the same moment she saw Mitch appear and the nasty look that covered his face.
"Oh for crying out loud," Hannah muttered. "Where'd you get the gun, Mitch? There's barely enough room in your shorts for your testicles."
Mitch shook his chalk bag. He pointed at the rock wall and walked toward the edge. The maneuver got the sun out of his eyes and gave him a nice target of both the woman against the wall.
"Give me the package and I promise I won't kill you. A shot in the legs should do for now."
Neeley glared at him. "Who are you working for?"
Hannah snorted. "What a stupid question. He's working for the guy who paid him six hundred dollars, of course."
“Racine requires that I acquire the tape and papers. Beyond that, I am free to let you go.”
The gun focused on Neeley's left knee. She held up the package. "All right. It's yours." She tossed the package onto the rocky ground near the edge to Mitch's right.
"Nice try," Mitch said. "Pick it up. Give it to her," he said, gesturing at Hannah, "and she gives it to me."
Neeley stepped forward. She bent down to pick the package up, and then suddenly threw herself forward and off the ledge into space.