come down here and show me how to do it right.”
“No need to get hostile,” Shawn said.
“I’m dangling a million feet in the air by one hand with a mass killer on my ankle and I can’t hold on,” Gus said. “If that isn’t a reason to get hostile, I don’t know what it.”
“How about when you’ve TiVoed Law amp; Order, but the show runs a minute past the hour and gets cut off, so you never get to hear the pithy phrase that ironically sums up everything you’ve just seen?” Shawn said while getting down on his knees and reaching his hand out to Gus.
“My God,” Jade called from below. “Do you two ever shut up?”
Shawn ignored her and said to Gus, “Say, would it be insulting your sense of initiative if I suggested you might want to reach up and take my hand?”
Gus tried. His arm flailed and his fingers brushed Shawn’s hand.
“Grab his hand, you idiot!” Jade called.
Gus took a deep breath and pulled with every bit of strength in his body. He stretched out his hand, slashed through the air with it. .. and made contact. Shawn’s fingers wrapped around his wrist.
“This works much better without the taser,” Shawn called down to Jade. “You might want to take notes for next time.”
Shawn closed his free hand around Gus’, then began to pull. For a moment, Gus felt himself moving slowly upwards. Then the movement stopped.
Then they started to slide back down.
“You’re going the wrong way!” Gus shouted.
“I’m slipping!” Shawn shouted back. “You’re too heavy.”
Gus tried again to kick his ankle free. Jade only held tighter.
“What about Gwendolyn and Balowsky?” Gus said. “Can they help?”
“I’ll be sure to ask them if they happen by,” Shawn said.
Gus and Jade dropped another inch before Shawn managed to stop himself from sliding.
“Jade,” Gus pleaded. “You have to let go. We’re all going to die if you don’t.”
“Seems to me I have a tiny chance of surviving if I hold on, and none if I let go,” Jade said.
“Surviving so you can get the death penalty,” Gus said. “Isn’t it better to let go nobly?”
“Possibly,” Jade said. “But it’s even better if I live and get away.”
Gus felt one of her hands release his ankle. Before he could kick the other one away, she reached up and grabbed his calf. Then she let go of his ankle and used that hand to clutch his belt.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
“She’s climbing up your back,” Shawn said. “I think she’s going to use us as a ladder and once she’s up top, kick us both over the edge. You’ve got to do something!”
“Like what?”
Jade was grabbing Gus’ collar now, and the shirt pulled tight against his throat. He gasped for breath.
“I don’t know,” Shawn said. “Maybe you could let her know how well this worked out for Ricardo Montalban at the end of The Wrath of Khan ?”
Gus could see Shawn’s lips moving, but he couldn’t hear the words. “What did you say?” Now he could barely hear his own words.
Jade’s hand was on Gus’ head now and pressing down. He couldn’t see up anymore, but he knew she’d reach Shawn’s arm quickly, and then she’d be at the top-and they’d be at the bottom.
“I said The Wrath of Kahn, ” Shawn bellowed.
Gus still couldn’t hear him.
“Kaaaaaahhhhhn!”
It was no use. Gus still couldn’t hear Shawn over the pounding sound that filled his ears. The pulsing, pounding, blasting sound, and the pulsating whooshes of air that were threatening to slam him into the cliff.
Jade’s feet were on his shoulders now, and Gus could raise his head to look for see the source of the noise.
It was Henry Spencer, and he was reaching out a hand to Gus.
This was it, Gus thought. The final hallucination before he died. Then a strong arm reached out and grabbed him and pulled him away from the cliff’s edge.
Away from the cliff’s edge and into the hovering helicopter.
Chapter Fifty-Six
The trees towered over them, and the last glint of the setting sun burned orange before it disappeared behind the mountains. Gus leaned back against a huge oak and let out a happy sigh.
“This is the life,” he said.
“See?” Shawn said. “How long have I been telling you there’s nothing to fear about being in the wilderness?”
Shawn got up from his lawn chair and grabbed another hot dog off the hibachi, slapping it inside a bun already liberally smeared with condiments-including ketchup.
“As long as there are no psychotic lawyers chasing you.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be happening anytime soon,” Shawn said. “Unless you define soon as sometime longer than forty-to-life.”
That was the term the DA had offered Jade in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table, and she had accepted. Her only demand was that they find her a maximum-security prison where she’d be allowed to wear at least some small amount of green.
Gus was astonished the prosecutors were willing to give her that much. Once they started digging, they discovered she’d been smuggling tech secrets out of the country for years. Arnold Svaco was actually the third mole she’d had at JPL, although he was by far her favorite. Passing the information through his schoolteacher cousin made it that much harder to connect Jade to any crime.
She might have kept up her espionage for years if it hadn’t been for Archie Kane’s protectiveness towards Rushton. Once he started investigating, Jade knew he’d never stop. And when Ellen Svaco called her at the firm, in a panic, to say she was being followed, Jade realized Archie was about to unmask her. So she stopped him. First she killed both Svacos to make sure they couldn’t inform on her; then she dealt with Archie.
Still, she couldn’t know how much Archie had told anyone else. She needed to disappear. A company retreat gone disastrously wrong seemed like a good way to make that happen. And since Rushton’s retreats were famous for their difficulty and unpleasantness, no one would have any reason to suspect he wasn’t responsible. She’d kill all the lawyers and slip away in a car she’d arranged to have left in a parking lot at the base of the mountain. Maybe a body or two would be recovered over the years, but there would never be a reason for anyone to assume hers hadn’t been eaten by scavengers.
“So I was thinking, Rushton let us keep the backpacks, why not use them?” Shawn said. “You and me, a quick trip to the top of some mountain?”
“Did you have a mountain in mind?” Gus said warily.
“Normally I’d suggest the mountain of fries at BurgerZone,” Shawn said. “But something’s come up and it seems like a good time to get far out of town.”
“When?”
“Now. Run!”
Shawn jumped to his feet, but before he could get away there was a rustle from behind the tree.
“Not so fast.” Henry had come into his backyard with another tray of hot dogs for the grill.
“I’d love one, but I’m stuffed,” Shawn said. “Besides, Gus is desperate to get up the mountain before the season ends.”
“What season?” Henry said.
“Um, mountain season?” Shawn said. “Okay, fine. Let’s have it.”
“Let’s have what?” Henry said.
