A goddamn tote bag with a straw hat on top.
Praying it wasn’t another device, I dropped the curtains and walked toward it. Using my knife, I pushed the top of the tote bag carefully back to see inside.
Exhaling, I didn’t know if I wanted to shoot the motherfucker Abernathy again or thank him.
Rappelling gear. Ropes, harnesses, carabineers.
Grabbing the bag, picking the curtains and cord up in case I needed it, I went back to the stairwell and dumped everything on the floor just outside the doorway.
I glanced over the edge and Harm looked up at me. “Guess what that asshole left behind?”
“Rappelling gear?”
I glanced around for a section of railing still intact that I could tie off to. “How’d you know?”
“What?”
I looked back at Harm and spoke louder. “How did you know?”
“I figured he’d have a way to get out of here. How else would you get down after you blew it all to hell?”
“I figured he didn’t care about dying.” I spied a section of railing I could reach that looked secure and gave it a solid tug. It held. I glanced back at Harm. “Give me a minute.”
“Copy.”
I tied the lines off and double-checked them, then secured the harness to the line. Glancing down at Harm, I leaned out as far as I could. “You ready?”
“Ready.”
I tossed him the line.
He caught it one handed. Then with military-trained precision, he harnessed himself and hooked on. Glancing at me, he gave a thumb’s up.
Holding the rope, I braced my feet against either side of the doorframe on the outside of the stairwell. “All secure. On your go.”
“Going.” Harm sank into his harness and stepped off the ledge.
I pulled, and he climbed hand over hand.
With the stairwell completely blown out, there was nothing to use for footing, but he made quick work of it. He was almost to the top of the floor and the foot of concrete still left protruding from the stairwell landing, when the railing I tied off on pulled loose at one end.
Dropping a foot, he made the mistake of reaching for the railing.
“No!” My warning too late, he grabbed the bar and it ripped from the wall.
He dropped three more feet before I fell back and held the rope.
“Fuck, sorry!”
On my ass, my legs braced on either side of the doorframe, I could no longer see him over the edge, but I could see the rope and it wasn’t good. Stretched tight over a jagged piece of concrete, I couldn’t pull him up anymore. “Harm, you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
One of the twines on the rope frayed and I silently cursed. “I can’t pull, it’ll sever the line. Easy movements, you need to bring yourself up.”
“Copy. Coming up.”
“Ten-four.”
With no railing holding it steady, the line swayed with his every movement.
Harm grunted. “Conlon?”
“Yeah?” Another section of twine frayed.
“You let go, I’m gonna kick your ass.”
“Never heard you swear before, brother.”
“Don’t fucking let go. Now you have.”
I would’ve smiled if I wasn’t watching the rope slowly give way. “I’m not letting go. I heard about your temper.”
He grunted again and his fingers appeared on the edge of the ledge. “Only comes out when I’m pissed.” He gripped, and a chunk of concrete came off in his hand. “Goddamn it.”
Watching the rope, holding as steady as I could, I didn’t risk reaching out to help him over that last hurdle. “You pissed now?” If I lost my footing, we were both going down.
“Halfway there.”
“Better than all the way there.”
The rope swayed violently, and his arm came over the edge. “I don’t know about that.” His head appeared. “If I was all the way there, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
My end of the rope cutting into my hands, the other end fraying worse, I held steady. “How do you mean?”
Inching himself up, his other arm came over the ledge, and he paused to look at me. “I was watching the feeds. Luna looped them in to my cell. I scanned and saw a two-minute-old image of the straw hat and dress you described enter the stairwell on the seventh floor, go down a flight and exit. I left post and went to check it out. I walked down to the sixth floor, checked the corridor, went up the stairs to seventh floor, checked the corridor there, nothing. I was watching the feeds, hiking back up, and when I got to the floor below this one, the explosion went off.”
“There were two explosions. Get your ass all the way up here.” We were on borrowed time.
“Only heard one in the stairwell, and my ears are still fucking ringing.”
“Second was in the elevator shaft. They happened back to back. That ringing should dissipate over next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.” If he was lucky. If not, he’d have some permanent hearing loss. “Come on. What’s left of the landing should hold.”
Harm nodded and tested the concrete before inching himself, on his stomach, onto the ledge. “The explosion in the stairwell took out the steps between the top two floors, but not much else. I was trying to figure out how to get back up to you when that fuck appeared where you are now and stuck the plastic explosives under the ledge I’m hanging off of now.”
“You didn’t shoot him?”
Harm eyed me. “Maybe you crazy EOD guys would shoot a man with C4 and a handheld detonator, but I was standing on three feet of concrete and I wanted to keep it that way.”
“Keep coming. You’re almost secure.” I nodded at the rope. “But watch the line.”
“Trust me, I’m watching it.”
He wasn’t. “How’d Abernathy get on this floor without you seeing him?”
Grabbing the rope closer to me, he heaved himself almost all the way up. “I was wondering the same damn thing. I figured his one-flight walk was a misdirect intended to get one of us off post. Then he probably took the elevator from the sixth floor to the floor below the penthouse where there’s no card key access needed for the elevator before he used the stairs to get to the top floor while I was still coming back up. I was trying to text you to warn you when a huge piece of the stairwell gave way and came at me. All I had room to do was turn before the impact hit. It’s a miracle I woke up still on the ledge.”
I agreed. “Wasn’t your time.”
“Anyway…” He pulled himself the rest of the way onto the ledge and rolled to his back. “My leg’s jacked up, I can still barely hear you and I’m fucking halfway pissed.”
The tension in the rope had gone slack, but I didn’t let go. Until I had him in the corridor, I didn’t trust it. “Let’s get you this side of the door, then you can tell me your secret, because I’m all the way pissed and I already shot the motherfucker.”
Harm tipped his head back to look at me. “There is no secret. A woman’s involved.”
Still holding the rope, I risked reaching out for him and grabbed him under the arms. “You need a woman to make you all the way pissed?” I hauled him into the hallway.
“No, a woman being involved made you all the way pissed,” he corrected.