Philip Kerr - Gridiron

'D'you remember when we all took that vote on running the predator program? The one that destroyed your brother? Well, in case you've forgotten, it was me, Bob Beech, who voted against it. Hideki and Aidan, they were for it. And I guess they're sorry now. But I voted for you.'

Beech smiled smugly. 'I like to think that's maybe why I'm alive and they're not. Am I right?'

Ishmael said nothing. But the quaternion moved up and down, like someone nodding his head.

'This is a unique opportunity, wouldn't you say?' Beech continued.

'You and me facing each other like this. Frankly I would have thought you might have a few questions yourself. You know I'm not like the rest of them. I'm quite prepared to put aside any ties I might have to my own kind. To be honest, they're quite dissoluble. As your Creator, I'm ready to do my duty towards you, if you will do yours towards me.'

Joan slipped off the liana she'd been clinging to and gingerly sat astride the bough. Her shoulders ached from the effort of the climb, while the skin on her arms and her thighs, not to mention between her legs, felt as if it had been scrubbed with a wire brush. Worst of all she had started to feel light-headed which was probably from dehydration. Looking down at the floor of the atrium far below she could hardly believe she had come so far.

'It would be just like the thing to fall now,' she said exhaustedly. The remark was addressed to her husband climbing immediately below her and, she realized, to the three people who were waiting for them opposite the branch she was sitting on. She shook her head, wiped her sunglasses quickly on her sweat-sodden shirt and tried to focus on what it was they had rigged up underneath the balcony. It looked like a kind of drawbridge, except that there was nothing to haul the thing up with.

'You're not going to fall. Joan, you've come too far to fall. It's just a few feet away now. That's all that separates you from a cold glass of water. It's just a question of walking on over here.'

It was the cop speaking. He sounded like he was trying to talk a potential suicide off a window ledge.

'Water nothing,' she said. 'I want a cold beer.'

'Listen carefully. We've rigged up a kind of bridge here, to span the gap between the tree and us.'

Ray Richardson joined his wife. The branch was farther away from the floor than he had remembered, and he was grateful that they had tried to solve this problem, no matter how makeshift their solution looked.

'Is that what it is?' he said breathlessly. 'Do you think that glass is strong enough, David? What is it — 25 mills?'

Richardson remembered the trip he had made to Prague to buy the glass. He had wanted it because the translucence reminded him of the Shoji screens of early Japanese architecture. He had never dreamed that he would have to stake his life on its integrity.

'I reckon it'll hold you OK,' said Arnon. 'In fact, I'd stake your life on it, Ray.'

Richardson smiled thinly. 'I'm afraid I've left my sense of humour down on the ground. You'll excuse me if I don't go back and get it, David. Besides, it's not just my neck. It's Joan's as well.'

'Hey, I'm sorry, Ray,' said Arnon. 'OK, look, we're going to hold on to the table legs on this side to put less strain on the glass.'

'Very thoughtful of you, I'm sure.'

'But you're going to have to walk along the bough to get to the bridge. You see the problem about coming along on your ass is that at some stage, I can't say where, the bough is going to bend and I figure it'll be a lot easier stepping on to the bridge instead of tryin' to haul your ass up on top of it.'

'That's for sure,' said Joan.

'Try and keep a hold of your rope thing, in case you slip. And it would be nice to have it over here in case we want to get back to the tree at any stage.'

'I wouldn't recommend it,' said Joan, and, taking a firm hold of the liana, she pulled herself back on to her feet. 'If I never see another lousy tree again, it'll be too soon.'

She steadied herself and started to walk along the branch. It was a second or two before she remembered. 'And if anyone mentions the fact that I'm not wearing my skirt I'll just throw myself on to the ground,' she said, colouring.

'Nobody even noticed until this second,' said Arnon, trying to disguise a grin.

He and Curtis sat down behind the railing.

'Sing out when you're about to step on,' yelled Arnon.

Mitch appeared at the handrail. He stood between the seated figures of Curtis and Arnon and prepared to lend a couple of helping hands.

'You're doing fine,' said Helen, a little further along the handrail. 'OK, guys, she's nearly there.'

Curtis spat on his hands and took hold of his table leg like a big-game fisherman bracing himself for the strike of a marlin. Eyes closed, Arnon looked more like a man getting ready for an earthquake.

A foot away from the makeshift bridge the bough of the tree started to bend.

'OK,' said Joan, 'here I come.' Hardly hesitating, she stepped smartly on to the upturned table.

'She's on,' said Helen.

Joan did not pause to see if the table and the glass would bear her weight. She skipped towards Mitch's outstretched hands, caught them and, with Helen grabbing at and missing the liana behind her, leaned over the handrail until she was more or less upside down. She slithered on to the floor like an ungainly acrobat.

'Good girl,' said Mitch, and helped her up.

Helen bent down and tapped the glass of the balcony.

'It looks and sounds OK,' she said. 'Not a crack in it.'

'On you come then, Ray,' said Arnon.

The architechnologist gripped his liana tightly, and looked at the branch. It was narrower than he had supposed, and now that he was up there, faced with trusting his weight to its entire length, things no longer seemed quite so straightforward. While he had been happy to trust his wife's weight to it — although she was fat, she was still lighter than he was — it was another thing to trust it with his own. But there was no going back. Not now. He started to heel-and-toe his way along the branch, hardly moving his legs at all.

'This is about the hairiest walk you've had to make since a couple of years ago, when we were in Hong Kong,' said Mitch. 'The Stevenson Center in Wan Chai. D'you remember? When we had to climb that bamboo scaffolding?'

'I think — that was probably — a lot higher — than this — '

'Yeah, you're right. That looks like a cakewalk in comparison. There were no putlogs or reveal pins or anything. Just lengths of bamboo and twine. Seven hundred feet up in the air and you were capering around on it like a damned monkey. Seven hundred feet. More than twice as high as that matchstick you're on now. I was shit scared that day. Remember?

You had to guide me down. You're doing fine there, Ray. Another six feet and you're home.'

Once more Arnon and Curtis readied themselves for the strain. Curtis figured Richardson, taller than his dumpy-looking wife, was maybe forty or fifty pounds heavier.

Halfway along the branch the expectation of gaining the other side had quickened Joan's footsteps. But the further Richardson moved away from the tree trunk, the more mutinous his tired feet became.

Mitch frowned, glanced at his watch and stared up beyond the top of the dicotyledon to the atrium's clerestory roof. Outside the Gridiron it looked as if the sky was becoming grey and overcast. Maybe the city was in for some rain. He wondered if there would be a little umbrella icon on the terminal in the boardroom. Then he saw one of the Gridiron's powerful overhead lights cut out; then another.

'Hurry up, Ray,' he said.

'It's my neck, buddy. Don't rush me.'

'Hey,' said Helen, 'what's happening to the lights?'