I cursed him in my heart, but I didn’t say anything for fear he might hurt Tessa worse. I lowered myself toward the driver’s door. The impact from the fall had jarred it open, and it swung loose on broken hinges. I handed him a harness, and he started pulling it on. His face wrenched in pain as he did. Tessa said his leg is hurt. I saw a bloody scissors on the floor of the cab and a crimson stain spreading across his pants leg.
Good for you, Tessa.
She was squeezing her arm, stopping the flow of blood.
“Hang in there,” I told her. “It’s going to be OK.” She nodded. She looked so fragile. So broken. “I love you,” I said. “I love you, Tessa Ellis.”
He clipped in. “All right. Hand me the ascenders.”
I did.
Think, Pat. Think!
At that point we were both attached to the rope, but I was above him, balancing on the hood, locking off the rope with my right hand. He wouldn’t be able to ascend until I got out of the way. “Now,” he whispered, and seemed to be weaker from the effort of struggling with his leg. “Get out of the way and then unclip.”
C’mon, Pat. Think. Do something.
Then he added, “Toss that other harness, or I’ll sit here for a while.”
“You have to let me take her-”
Tessa moaned and slumped back against the door.
“You’re killing her,” he said softly. “It won’t be long now.”
I dropped the other harness into the gorge. Now I had no way to take Tessa up the rope. I had no idea what to do; she was bleeding to death within reach of me, yet I was powerless to help her.
I slid onto the hood and unclipped. The storm had picked up again, and the metal was slippery with snow. I was staring through the cracked windshield, just inches away from my daughter, watching her die. I heard a weak cry and then she said, “I love you, Patrick.” Then her eyes rolled back. She went unconscious.
“No!”
Sevren laughed as he eased out the door. “Looks like you were too slow once again, Dr. Bowers.”
88
“I’m coming for you,” I said to him. “Wherever you go, I’ll find you.” I was getting dizzy again. The world was spinning. Sounds were eating into colors. The drugs. Oh no. Not now. The scent of a thousand snowflakes overwhelmed me. If only I hadn’t left my gun on the car.
“So, then.” A smile slithered across his face. “A rematch.”
He slid one of the ascenders up the rope.
Nausea swarmed over me.
“I think I’ll pay Agent Jiang a visit tonight…” he said.
Everything was a blur. You can’t let him get up that cliff.
“I have a couple lessons I’d like to share with her.”
Get him closer.
I whispered to him.
He stopped. “What?” he said.
He loves to control others. Lien-hua said he has to be in control. I said it again, softly, ever so softly. Then I smiled and laughed at him.
He leaned toward me. “What did you say?”
I was struggling for breath. I felt myself slipping toward the edge of the hood. Toward the edge of the world. I reached back behind me for something to hold onto. Nothing. But instead of thinking about how I was going to die, all I could think of was how I’d let Tessa down. Let Christie down.
His leg is hurt.
My fingertips found the ridged outline of the windshield, and I curled them around the thin lip of metal, willing every pull-up I’d ever done into the tips of my fingers.
I whispered once again. He leaned close and sneered. “You’re pathetic. Begging like a little baby. I expected more out of you. Good-bye, Patrick Bowers.”
Yes, he was close enough.
This time I didn’t whisper: “Checkmate!” With one motion I twisted my body toward him, swiveling my leg and smashing my boot full force into the wound on his leg. His scream was bright and searing and very satisfying. It was a good, solid, bone-crunching kick that even Lien-hua would have been proud of. I’d hit him with his brake hand loose on the rope, and he hobbled backward, teetered on the edge of the hood for a moment, and then spun off into the valley. I heard the rope sailing through his Figure-8 and waited to hear him rip off the end of the line and plummet to his death, but somehow he was able to grab the searing rope in his palms.
“Bowers!” he screamed. His voice was thick with hatred. He barely sounded human anymore. “You’re mine!”
He’ll be back in a minute.
You have to save Tessa now.
89
I clenched the ridge of the windshield, my feet hanging over the edge of the hood. My shoulder was exploding in pain, but I somehow managed to pull myself up. As I did, the wound in my shoulder ripped open, and the pain cruised up my neck and blistered apart inside my head. I felt warm blood oozing from the wound, drenching the back of my shirt. I tried to ignore the blast of pain but almost blacked out.
The ambulance was slipping, everything was slipping. I needed something to tie into, quick, before we went down. I felt along the icy rock face beside me. It was cluttered with fissures and cracks. I needed something to jam into one. Anything that would hold my weight.
And I only had one thing with me. My flashlight.
I pulled it out and pounded at it with one of the carabiners, smashing its precision-machined high-strength aluminum alloy case into a slim crack.
Using one of the prussiks, I flipped a lark’s head knot around it. Clipped in and then smacked my hand against the windshield. I had to wake her up. “Tessa!” I smacked it again. Nothing. “Please! Wake up!”
I eased closer, saw her chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. She was still alive, thank God. The ambulance tilted beneath me. Below us I could hear Sevren enraged into madness calling out my name, making his way up the rope with the catch and click of the ascenders. Catch and click. Ascending the rope. Catch and click. Getting closer by the second.
Tessa! You have to wake up!
I reached through the open window and grabbed her shoulder. Shook her. “Tessa!”
Her eyes fluttered open then closed.
“Wake up!”
I whipped off my belt and as gently as possible, tucked it around her arm above the cut artery and then cinched it tight. A crude tourniquet. She might lose the arm, but at least the tourniquet should keep her alive.
Then I whispered a prayer to the God I wasn’t even sure was listening. I begged the heavens to hear me, a guy who had no right to expect any divine favors. Please. Please, she doesn’t deserve to die. You took Christie, don’t take her. Please let her live. I don’t care about me, just let her live.
I shook her. I loved her. “Tessa!”
Snow fell past us, all around us. She blinked and looked up, confused. Behind her I saw the back doors of the ambulance burst open.
Sevren.
