Rick Boyer - Billingsgate Shoal

I grabbed an oil drum and placed it underneath the ladder and set it down quietly. Tired as I was I knew that a quick start spelled all the difference. In less than three seconds I was on the drum, then in contact with the rung, then climbing. I think that after about five seconds I was past the second row of windows, and heading for the third story. Please God… please give me one more minute-forty-five seconds-I almost stopped and fell back down the vertical cage when I heard the popping and grinding of the old wall coming apart. Silence. Then another short burst. Schilling was scouring out the far reaches of the old brick court, using the machine pistol as a water hose. He spat another burst, and I heard the deep timpani boom of metal. He'd hit the dumpster and some of the oil drums. With luck he'd also knocked over my stepping stone, the drum I'd placed underneath the ladder. But I climbed as fast as my cast let me. The ground, what was faintly visible of it, seemed a long way down.

"Adams!" '

Fourth floor. I thought. Please God please… just twenty more seconds.

I climbed by feel; it allowed me to go faster. I was panting hard now but keeping my mouth wide open. I looked down. Oh Christ. Christ Almighty: a light.

There it was, a pale yellow pencil beam snaking around on the asphalt far below. I heard the sound of an oil drum kicked over, and then a curse.

"Adams! Adams, you're dead!"

I could see the rooftop now against the pale gray sky. I could see the big tiles that lined the top of the brickwork. I looked down, the light was now snaking around the corner of the yard, right beneath me. Good God, don't point it up. Don't point it up-

Ten more feet. My body ached in every muscle. Eight feet. Seven. I think during the last three seconds of my climb my body slowed a wee bit, thinking the goal was reached.

And the next second I was flooded with light, just as I'd been in the old barn when climbing on another ladder. I didn't stop. I redoubled the effort and the pain. I thought I heard a grunt or bellow come from far, far below me. I had grabbed the smooth, slick tiling on top of the brickwork when the wall around me burst apart in a shattering roar. Bits of mortar and brick stung my face and eyes. I kicked my feet desperately, spastically, climbing up, like getting out of a swimming pool. As I fell over the tile I felt a monstrous kick on my heel, and then a deep burning.

I lay on the tar and gravel of the flat factory roof and breathed deeply for a few seconds, then crept to the edge. I could see without even leaning over that the light beam was shining up the ladderway. But at this height the beam was pretty faint. There wasn't much he could see from down there. I glanced around. If there was no way off the roof I would have to wait at the edge in hopes of jumping or hitting him as he neared the top. If he followed me, which I doubted. On the other hand, if there was any safe way off the roof, I was eager to take it. The light was off now. I hobbled over about twelve feet to the left of the ladder and peeped over. I didn't want to show my head near it. Jesus, it was a long way down.

Nothing. No visible motion. No sound. I scooted back as fast as the pain would let me, and reached out and down and felt the metal sides of the ladder. I grabbed and held. If he was waiting below and saw my arm, he could take it off with a quick burst. But I risked it; I had to know if he was on the ladder. Nothing. No vibration whatsoever.

Then where was he?

That made me nervous. Very. Because I knew Schilling knew the place well. He had to. If there was another way to the roof, he probably knew about it. Was there another ladder, fire escape, ramp, elevator… anything that would allow him to reach a far edge or corner of the big wide roof and come at me from behind?

I kept my fist wrapped around the steel, and turned and swept my eyes around the flat expanse of gray gravel, growing ever lighter as dawn came. A very big roof indeed. To think there was only one approach to its summit was foolishness. There had to be another. Where?

If I left my spot to roam about, would Schilling then come I up the ladder? If I stayed, would he come up another way? Was he in fact doing that very thing right now?

What if I went back down the ladder?

You've got to be kidding, Adams.

I decided on a test. I pawed the rooftop until I had a small handful of gravel. I held the tiny stones in the exact center of the round cage and let three or four of them fall. After what seemed an eternity, I heard the faint bong of the oil drum. Schilling wasn't on the ladder. This meant, if nothing else, that this approach was safe for at least the time it would take him to make the climb, which was about ninety seconds, maybe more, since he'd been clipped by a slug. I had to risk a brief walk around.

I tried to stand and fell down again. I grabbed at my heel. The rubber sole of the Topsider was blown away, but my heel was intact. The slug had hit me obliquely but obviously caused some internal trauma. Perhaps a broken bone. Certainly a horrendous bruise. I hobbled about until something hit me square in the chest. I lowered my arm to chop at it. It was one of those iron steam pipes, snaking over the roof about four feet high set on concrete supports. I ducked under it, then quickly turned back. If that thing snaked down the side of the building, I was for sliding down it, even though it meant there was a big chance of losing my grip and splattering all over the asphalt six' stories below.

But I was in bad, bad shape; Two gimpy arms (the steam pipe chop had just decommissioned the right one), a shot up heel, busted nuts and guts, not to mention an extraordinary case of general fatigue.

But I needed off that bloody roof.

The pipe wound to the edge, and across a roadway to another roof. Shit. Twenty feet of horizontal, six-inch cast-iron pipe almost eighty feet up.

But if I could get across it I'd be safe. I thought of straddling it, letting my legs hang down both sides while I pumped along the length of it with my arms.

My damaged groin winced at the thought…

And then I noticed something else. I saw some big shiny cables and glass insulators right down next to the pipe. High voltage. Sitting there on the steel I would be connected to a natural ground. One stray swipe with arm or leg and I was gone, fried like a squirrel careless enough to skip the wrong way on a utility pole. I didn't like the look of the high-voltage wires at all.

So I returned to the ladder. I thought I saw a flash of light in the center of the steel cage. I approached the edge cautiously and peered over. The light beam climbed up at me. I drew back my head. Seconds later I heard the mean buzz of bullets in front of me, not two feet from my head, right where my face had been seconds earlier. Unlike a high-velocity rifle bullet, the. 45 slug is a snail amongst hares. The average commercial jetliner can fly faster than this speeding bullet. It kills because it weighs as much as a golf ball and is almost as big… It never breaks the sound barrier, and so does not produce the tell tale crack, the sonic boom that warns the quarry that it is being shot at.

I grabbed the ladder top. It thrummed and trembled. The fish was on the line.

I had company.

There was no choice now. I had to either find another way down or risk the pipe and the electric wires. I swung my head over the side two feet to the left of the ladderway, then moved it slowly to the side of the cage, with only my eyes peeping over the edge. I could see a vague glimmering down there. Far, far away. I grabbed the ladder top again. The vibration didn't feel any stronger. Then l noticed a pattern to the vibrations, a regular heartbeat of motion through the vertical steel. It was fairly slow. Schilling was indeed wounded-otherwise a man with his strength and vigor could dash up the rungs as fast as or faster than I had done.