A chill passed along his spine; it had nothing to do with the cold or
the wind.
Pretending that he had seen nothing, he finished hammering the piton in
place. Then he slid away from the edge, stood up. 'We can't go down
here,' he told Connie.
She looked puzzled. 'Why not?'
'Bollinger is below us.'
'What?'
'At a window. Waiting to shoot u as we go past him.'
Her gray eyes were wide. 'But why didn't he come here to get us?'
'Maybe he thought we'd already started down. Or maybe he thought we'd
run out of his reach along this r at least you setback the moment he
came into an office on this floor.
'What now?'
'I'm thinking.'
'I'm scared.'
'Don't be.'
'Can't help it.'
Her eyebrows were crusted with snow, as was the: fringe of fur lining
that escaped her hood. He held her, The wind moaned incessantly.
He said, 'This is a corner building.'
'Does that matter?'
'It faces on another street besides Lexington.'
'So?'
'So we follow the setback,' he said excitedly. 'Turn the corner on the
setback.'
'And climb down the other face, the one that overlooks the side street?'
'You've got it. That's no harder to climb than this wall.
'And Bollinger can only ee Lexington Avenue from his window,' she said.
'That's right.'
'Brilliant.'
'Let's do it.'
'Sooner or later he'll figure out what we've done.'
'Later.'
'It had better be.'
'Sure. He'll wait right where he is for a few minutest expecting to
pick us off. Then he'll waste time checking this entire floor.'
'And the stairwells.'
,And the elevator shafts. We might get most of the way down before he
finds us.'
,Okay,' she said. She unhooked her safety tether from the window post.
At the open window on the thirty-first floor, Frank Bollinger waited.
Apparently they were preparing the rope which they would hook to the
piton that Harris had, just pounded into place.
He looked forward to shooting the woman as she came past him on the
line. The image excited him. He would enjoy blowing her away into the
night.
When that happened, Harris would be stunned, emotionally destroyed,
unable to think fast, unable to protect himself. Then Bollinger could
