He hurried to the draw cords and pulled the green velvet drapes into
place.
Eventually, Bollinger would come back to this office and would realize
that they had gone out of the window. But Graham wanted to conceal the
evidence of their escape as long as possible.
Stepping behind the drapes, he sidled along to the window. Wind roared
through the open pane and billowed the velvet around him.
He picked up an eleven-yard line that he had cut from another
hundred-foot coil. He tied it to his harness and to the free carabiner
on the window post. There was no one here to belay him as he had done
Ct)nnie, but he had worked out a way to avoid a singleline descent; he
would have a safety tether exactly like Connie's.
He quickly tied a figure-eight knot in one end of the forty-five-foot
line. Leaning out of the window once more, he hooked the double loops
of rope through the carabiner that was linked to the piton. Then he
screwed the sleeve over the gate, locking the snap link. He tossed the
rope into the night and watched to be sure that it hung straight and
unobstructed from the piton. This would be his rappelling line.
He was not adhering strictly to orthodox mountain climbing procedure.
But then this 'mountain' certainly was not orthodox either.
The situation called for flexibility, for a few original methods.
After he had put on his gloves again, he took hold of the thirty-foot
safety line. He wrapped it once around his right wrist and then seized
it tightly with the same hand. Approximately four feet of rope lay
between his hand and the anchor point on the window post. In the first
few seconds after he went through the window, he would be hanging by,
his right arm, four feet under the sill.
He got on his knees on the window ledge, facing the lining of the office
drapes. Slowly, cautiously, reluctantly, he went out of the room
backward, feet first.
just before he overbalanced and slid all the way out, he closed the open
half of the window as far as the carabiners would allow. Then he
dropped four feet.
Memories of Mount Everest burst upon him, clam-A ored for his attention.
He shoved them down, desperately forced them deep into his mind.
He tasted vomit at the back of his mouth. But he swallowed hard,
swallowed repeatedly until his throat was clear. He willed himself not
to be sick, and it worked. At least for the moment.
OL With his left hand he plucked the rappelling line from the face of
the building. Holding that loosely, he reached above his head and
grabbed the safety rope that he already had in his right hand.
Both hands on the shorter line, he raised his knees in a fetal position
and planted his boots against the granite. Pulling hand over hand on
the safety tether, he took three small steps up the sheer wall until he
was balanced against the building at a forty-five-degree angle. The
toes of his boots were jammed into a narrow mortar seam with all the
force he could apply.
Satisfied with his precarious position, he let go of the safety tether
with his left hand.
