“You mean safety gear?”
“I mean cheating. Faking. But that’s not going to happen now. No more gear hauling your ass up the mountain for you. The Clash of the Titans is now officially a free-climb event.”
“But the others—” Jaz cut herself off. If Roman had tampered with her stuff, he could have found a way to sabotage the other climbers’ gear as well. Was he trying to get people killed, or had he figured the climbers would catch on in time?
“There can be only one champion,” Roman continued. “And soon, there’ll be no question as to who that really is. Whose face belongs on the posters and billboards and endorsement checks.”
“Fair point.” Moving as unconsciously as she could, Jaz unzipped the side pocket of her pack where the emergency radio was stored. She needed to keep him talking. Keep him distracted. “So how do you want to go about this now?” she asked, her fingers seeking the cool plastic—and meeting only cloth.
“Looking for this?” Roman pulled the radio from his pack.
Jaz lunged for it.
Roman held the radio up out of her reach, like an older brother toying with a younger sibling.
Jaz kicked his knee.
Roman turned just in time to take the brunt of the kick on his thigh, his face contorting into something vicious. Something not altogether sane. Lifting his hand, the man slapped Jaz across the face hard enough to knock her into the rock wall.
Pain exploded along Jaz’s temple, a bit of blood dripping down the side of her face. She licked her lips, tasting blood as her mind raced. She was still anchored into the stone, the safety line keeping her from falling to her death also constricting her movements. Not that the two-foot-wide ledge had much room to begin with. She couldn’t run away from him. That meant she needed him to go away from her.
“You win.” Jaz lifted her hands in surrender. “You’re right. I’m too much of a coward to climb without gear. I’m not like you. I forfeit. You can go ahead. Summit and take the victory that belongs to you by rights.”
“Don’t patronize me. You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” Roman slapped Jaz again, bringing her to her knees. “You think I’m going to just leave you to rappel down to all those judges whose cocks you’ve blown? To fuck them into a new arrangement while I climb?”
Jaz’s pulse raced, terror drowning out the pain in her cheek. “What do you want, then? Just tell me what you want.”
“What do I want?” he parroted, bits of saliva spraying from the sides of his mouth. “How about fairness with a side of justice? How about an even playing field? How about no little bitch fucking her way into my hard-earned job?” With a growl, Roman grabbed the front of Jaz’s harness and lifted her off her feet until they were eye level. Before Jaz could react, he threw her off the cliff.
Jaz gasped as her body went airborne, managing to stick her legs out in front of her a moment before the safety line went taut—thus avoiding slamming face-first into the stone. Now hanging parallel to the ground, Jaz stared up at Roman, who crouched on the ledge above her.
“See?” Roman said in a tone that was absurdly conversational. “Climbing comes down to skill. And I’m afraid that—besides morals—is the thing you’re lacking.” Taking out a knife, Roman made a small slice in the rope keeping Jaz from falling into the abyss below, severing the line a quarter of the way through.
39
Liam
Liam sat with his legs hanging out the side of the helicopter, studying the mountain through a set of binoculars while the propeller whirled noisily. He remembered the terrain from when he’d been out here with Jaz, but the view from the skies was nothing like that from the ground. He touched his headset, talking to the pilot. “Can you take us around again, Kurt?”
“Yes, sir.”
The chopper banked, Obsidian’s well-trained pilot keeping them far enough from the action to avoid attracting undue attention and interfering with the competition. Though Lucius’s information about Roman Robillard being Jaz’s climbing partner checked out, everyone on the ground reported no predeparture problems. At Liam’s insistence—and more than a little arm bending—the judges even agreed to do a test of the emergency radios with all climbing pairs. When all climbers checked in with an all’s well, Liam had no choice but to bite his tongue and leave. At least far enough to get out of sight.
Liam pressed the binoculars back to his eyes, finally catching sight of small figures moving along the side of the cliff. Just five pairs at first, then details. A blond climber in neon-orange scampering up the westmost course. Then the small, nimble competitor whose name escaped Liam. Then—Jaz. Liam released a sigh of relief as he watched the woman he loved pull herself safely onto a wide ledge and extend her hand to help Roman up beside her. Despite their history, Jaz looked at ease with her climbing partner. She also looked beautiful and athletic and at the top of her game, the wind whipping her long hair into a wildness that matched her spirit.
Maybe Lucius was wrong about Roman’s intentions. Or maybe the colonel had simply been playing on Liam’s fears. Either way, Jaz was fine and would no doubt skin Liam alive if she ever learned of his presence here. He reached up to the mic again. “Let’s pull back. No need to ruin anyone’s concentration with a chopper flying around.” He was already starting to lower the binoculars when Roman’s face filled the viewport, a menacing presence almost palpable in the magnifier’s image. Liam’s hand stilled. There was something strange behind Roman’s eyes, something that looked to be utterly without emotion. Like a Rottweiler who was ready to go for the jugular.
And then he did.
Liam called for Kurt to reverse course back to the mountain just as Roman threw a canteen at Jaz’s head. In the bustle of activity that followed, Liam could only watch as Roman pulled back his arm and struck Jaz so hard that she bounced against the stone.
“Jaz!” Liam shouted, though he knew the distance and propeller noise would swallow the sound.
“Sir?” the pilot’s voice sounded in the microphone.
With an effort of will, Liam reined in the fear that Roman’s strike sent coursing through his blood. Reaching into his training, he shrugged on the professionalism that SEALs had disciplined into him, his heartbeat slowing to fall in line with the clear, detached mind a ready state required. “Confrontation within climbing team Charlie,” he reported back to the pilot. “Call it into base camp and bring me close enough for extraction.”
“Reporting confrontation in climbing team Charlie,” the pilot echoed immediately, the sound of the engines shifting as the chopper sought better air. “Coming in.”
As the pilot brought them closer, Liam attached a rappel line to his harness. By the time he could see unaided, Jaz was already hanging off the side of the cliff. Roman crouched next to her. Taking something out of his pocket.
Jaz’s rope jerked.
Jaz screamed.
“He’s cutting her safety line,” Liam informed the pilot through the open mic. “Get to within arm’s reach.”
“Negative, sir. The propeller will hit the stone.” A pause. “There is a platform twenty feet above I can drop you on.”