“I don’t give a fuck. You call the boss and tell him you were too chicken to look for snoopers.”
I slid my hand inside my jacket for the Smith & Wesson. A flashlight beam, industrial strength, pierced the gloom of the storage room. Footsteps approached, retreated, stirring the dust, making my nose tingle unbearably. I held my breath, my eyes tearing. I kept back the sneeze, but the movement rocked me back on my heels; my hand with the gun grazed the side of the metal plane.
The flashlight beam poked a long finger at me. The skin on my cheeks tingled and the hair stood on my arms. I watched the floor, waiting for the feet to declare the line of attack. They came from the left. I darted out to the right, into the loading area.
I was blinded at first by the brightness of the light and couldn’t make out anything. The sound was loud enough out here to drown the shouts of the men behind me. I skidded around the Paragon spool and almost bumped into two more men. They were steadying a second reel at the edge of the platform and didn’t look up, intent on fitting a sling around it. As I danced about the deck, figuring the layout, I noticed the label on the reel: copper wire.
INDUSTRIAL GRADE.
“Stop her, damn you!”
The men who’d flushed me were bearing down on me. The two in front finished strapping their load and gave a signal to a crane operator on the other side of the room. They turned slowly, surprised, not believing anyone had really been in the back room.
“Now, just a minute there,” one of them said calmly.
A hand grabbed at my jacket from behind. I kicked reflexively, gaining a second to wrench myself free, and brandished the Smith & Wesson at the two in front of me. One of them reached out an arm as a man behind me grabbed me again. “Now, honey, let’s have that gun and. stop playing games.”
I fired in front of me and the two men jumped aside. A half turn and another hard kick backed off the one snatching at my jacket.
The spool was about four feet from the edge of the platform. I jammed the gun into my jacket pocket and leapt. My hands, wet with sweat, slipped on the steel-and-canvas strips of the sling. I scissor-kicked violently, too much so. My legs swung back behind me, arcing my back into a bow. I made myself relax; let my legs sweep forward, waiting for gravity to draw them up. At the height of the swing I hooked a knee over the rod threading the spool.
My thighs were shaking. I ignored their weak complaining and pulled myself upright, my wet hands trembling as I gripped the slings. I couldn’t see behind me, couldn’t tell what my four pals were doing. I didn’t think they had guns, at least not up on the platform with them.
I couldn’t jump down—the floor was thirty feet below me. I looked at the gantry above me. If I could climb the crane cable faster than they could wind it up, I might shinny up and crawl along the tracks to the wall. I was trembling so violently right now I didn’t think I could manage the gymnastics.
The control booth was on the ground, on the far end of the room from the docks. When I got down I’d have to outrun the man in the booth. And the two men gaping at me from one of the open bays. They both looked big enough to be the Hulk who’d chased me on my first trip here.
The spool was swaying slightly from my jump. Suddenly it began swinging violently. The crane operator was grinning dementedly. I clutched the canvas stripping. As the arc grew wider nausea rose up in my gut. We were moving toward the side of the building. It was an old gantry system and could only manage about five miles an hour, slow enough, for me to figure out their plan: they were going to swing the load around and smash me into the wall.
The two hulks from the loading bays were looking up. The sound didn’t carry, but from their body language I guessed they were laughing pretty hard.
When we got to the wall the crane operator gave one tentative tap to set the load in motion sideways. We swung out from the wall and started back with greater force. Just before we hit I wrenched one hand free from the canvas sling and scrabbled at the wall behind me. I clutched at metal and jumped free from the load. For a terrifying second my left hand closed on air. Dark spots swam in front of me and I grabbed blindly at the wall. An instant after my feet connected with a girder, the copper spool slammed against the building.