Ahern, Jerry - The Web

snagged in a clump of rocks some fifty feet farther below it and half-obscured now by snow.

Rourke's hands were numb as his fingers played along the glistening iced-over rocks, his shoulder still ached from where he'd hit the road surface, and one desire suddenly obsessed him—to urinate. Rourke's right foot edged down, then his left. The left slipped as loose shale under him, crusted over with ice, broke away from the dirt that had held it. His fingertips dug into the rock surface against which they pressed as his right foot braced against the coated rock against which only the toes now pressed.

"John—I'm coming down," Natalia shouted.

"No—I'll be—" Rourke swung his left leg out, finding a purchase against a gnarled stump of bush growing out of the dirt embankment. "I'm all right."

Rourke edged his right hand down onto a lower ledge of rock, then his left foot, then his left hand, then his right foot. Slowly, methodically, his kidneys screaming at him to let go, he kept moving.

His hands were numbed to the point where he could barely sense the rocks under his fingertips, and his feet were becoming chilled as well. A numbness was setting into his thighs. But the plane was nearer.

He glanced up once; Natalia and Paul, peered down at him, over the edge.

The thought crossed his mind that even if one of the bikes had remained serviceable, how would they ever get it up to the road surface? And the freak storm—when would it end?

The plane was a few yards away from him now, across a wide break in the ground and below the break, a drop of seventy-five feet or more. Rourke settled himself against the rocks, checking his footing, then awkwardly because

of the narrowness of the ledge, swung his left leg around behind him, found a purchase for the left foot, then simultaneously swung his left arm out and around, twisting his body. He moved his feet slightly, firming the position he had, his back now against the rocks and dirt of the embankment. The snow, falling in larger, heavier flakes, covered his shoulders, lingered on his eyelashes-freezing him.

The jump to the opposite side of the break in the ground was only ten or eleven feet. But there was no running room. He would simply hurtle his body off the ledge and that would be it.

He sucked in his breath hard, glancing up one nfiore time; he couldn't see either Natalia or Paul cleariy because of the heaviness of the snowfall.

"Now!" he rasped, pushing himself away from the embankment wilh his hands.

His knees slightly flexed as he half-jumped, half-fell forward, his fingers reaching out. His righl hand, then his left touched the opposite side of the open space, his hands clawing at the dirt and loose rocks there. His hands slipped, his thighs slamming down hard against the surface of the ground, his body starting back down the incline, slipping.

He couldn't dig in his heels—his feet dangled in the air. As he started to slide backward, he spread-eagled his arms, his fingers clawing for a purchase on the ice-coated ground. A rock—he held it, then the rock dislodged and he was slipping again.

His left hand snaked behind him, snatching for the A.G. Russell Black Chrome Sting IA he carried in the little inside waistband holster. His fingers closed stiffly around it as he slipped toward the edge, his left arm swinging around his body in a wide arc. The point of the Sting IA bit deep into the ground, penetrating the ice. His right

hand grasped for the knife handle as well now, both fists bunched around it; his body below the breastbone dangled in midair.

He sucked in his breath, flexing his arm muscles as he tried pulling himself up. There wasn't time; the knife was already slipping from the soft dirt beneath the ice, and his cold-numbed fingers were slipping from the slick steel of the knife's handle.

"No!" Rourke heard the shout come from his lips and for the first time became conscious of it. Summoning all his strength, he drew himself up.

The knife slipped from the dirt; his body lurched forward, onto the ice and snow. He rolled, flattening himself, the knife still clutched in his left fist.

He couldn't see through the snow now to the road thirty feet above, but through the whiteness he heard a voice. "Answer me, John—John!" It was Natalia.

"I'm all right," Rourke shouted back, already starting to edge across the ice.

Two yards from the still intact fuselage, he stood up, slowly edging forward. He started into the plane, but stopped.

His stiff right thumb and first finger worked at his zipper; there was something more important than inspecting (he plane that instant. . . .

He stood inside, shivering with the cold, but at least out of the wind.

Natalia's borrowed motorcycle, a vintage BSA, had been the first of the three, farthest forward in (he fuselage; the other two bikes had hammered against it in the crash. It was twisted, as was the underside of the fuselage where apparently the craft had gouged against a large rock, or one of the supports for the steel guardrail.

But his own jet black Harley-Davidson Low Rider appeared undamaged, as was the bright blue Low Rider he had found for Paul Rubenstein after the younger man's motorcycle had been abandoned to lighten the plane during the Florida evacuation.

With effort, still shivering, he got Rubenstein's bike aside so he could get to his own. The Lowe Alpine Systems Loco Pack was still strapped in place behind the seat. Rourke got to it, opening one of the pockets. There was a red-and-silver Thermos Space Blanket, the kind larger than the original disposable models developed for the astronaut program. The silver reflective side toward him, he wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, leaning heavily against one of the fuselage ribs. Rourke rammed his hands, palms inward, down inside the frnt of his trousers, warming them against his testicles to reduce the numbness o( his fingers so he could move them well enough to work. He stood there, the blanket around him, his hands starting to get back feeling, his eyes flickering from one part of the fuselage to another— the damage.

The plane was a total loss, as he had realized it would be from the first moment he had decided to abandon it, when stopping it on the ice-slicked road surface had proven impossible. It would have been unlikely that the iced and stalled engine could have been successfully repaired in any event. It had been the single-engine landing that had caused the problem with stopping in the first place—not enough power. Aside from Natalia's motorcycle, everything that was important seemed relatively unscathed.

He could move his fingers more now, so he withdrew his hands from inside his pants, then quickly started

going through his things and the packs of Natalia and of Paul Rubenstein.

. . .

A pair of vintage, heavy leather Kombi ski gloves on his hands, a seen-better-days gray woolen crew-neck sweater on over his shirt, Rourke fed out part of the climbing rope from his pack, a rock secured to the free end. "Stand back from the edge up there—got a chunk of rock on the end of this for weight."

"Understand," Paul Rubenstein's voice called back through the snow. Rourke still could not see sufficiently well through the heavily falling snow to view the road surface above him. He started swinging the free end of the rope, the end weighted with the rock, feeding out more and more of the line. He made the toss, then heard the sound of the rock slamming against something metallic—one of the supports for the guardrail? The rope slacked and he started reeling it back in. He would have to try again. . . .

On the fourth try, the weighted end of the rope didn't move. "Paul—look for it!"

For a moment, there was no answer, then Rubenstein's voice responded, "I've got it, John."

Rourke nodded to himself, then shouted, "Secure it to something really sturdy—have Natalia help you!" He waited then. Telling Paul to get Natalia's help was the tactfu! way of handling the fact that Rourke had no idea how well or how poorly the younger man could tie knots. And Rourke very well understood the sort of training Natalia had undergone to become a KGB field agent in the first place—rappelling would have been part of it and she'd make the knot secure if Rubenstein didn't.