Adrenaline (8 page)

“Well, that would be a shame. And I certainly realized this might happen, given your ego. But I thought that you and Steve might cross-pollinate, so to speak. The company would be all the better for it. Frankly, you would, too.”

“The company is going to fail under Dern. You realize that, don’t you?”

“I realize no such thing. His division has done remarkably well, better than your own.”

“It’s
grown,
yes, but it hasn’t brought in a fraction of the total revenue,” Geoff snapped. He waved back Jansten’s response, and was pleased to see the old man keep his mouth shut. Geoff had no intention of quibbling on that level. “Steve is a nice guy, but you’ve got a company full of sharks. And he’s going to make them soft. He’ll turn Jansten Enterprises into some sort of matrix system, make sure everyone is happy and nothing gets done.”

“I’m looking at what he’s accomplished already,” Jansten said in that infuriatingly mild tone. “And I’m looking at what you’ve accomplished. Admittedly, it’s a tough choice. My plan, at this point, is to make the recommendation to the board as I described. I had dinner last night with McGarrity, and he agreed to go along.”

At this point.
Geoff smiled to himself as he looked back up at the wall.
McGarrity would go along.
An opening left. And if Geoff was hearing the code of corporate language correctly, McGarrity was agreeing only under pressure. Geoff had done more than a few favors for that old bastard, including sending two teenage hookers to his room one night out in San Francisco. He was sure McGarrity would pop back into line once Jansten let him.

Geoff said, “You know that fat boy I’ve got working for me?”

“You mean Harrison?”

“That’s right. What do you think of him?”

Jansten lifted his eyebrows at the change of topic, but answered. “I don’t know. Sort of a kissass.”

“Would you expect him to go beyond a day’s work?”

“Not much.”

“How about risk? Would he be willing to risk it all?”

“Not that I’ve seen,” Jansten said, tiredly. “What’s your point?”

Geoff pointed to the ledge. Harrison was now visible climbing up the rockface alone. There was no top rope. No one was belaying him from below.

He was free-climbing a rockface far beyond his skill. Even at that distance, they could see that he was terrified.

“What the hell …” Jansten said. “Did you put him up to this?”

Harrison’s wife, Geena, approached them. She moved stiffly, looking up at the wall, then back at Jansten and Geoff. “What’s going on?” she said, looking up at her husband and then back at them. She was struggling to be polite, trying to keep calm. “Michael!” she called out to Harrison. “Cut it out, honey, come on down.” She moved closer to the fall line, and glanced back again at Geoff and Jansten.

When her attention returned to Harrison, Jansten said, quietly, “What the hell did you promise him?”

“My old job,” Geoff said. “If there is any of the man I once worked for left inside of you, he’ll recognize that Dern could never bring himself to push Harrison that hard. If there’s any of you left in there, you’ll recognize that you and this company have succeeded because you’ve hired people like me who can make losers like him succeed. And that’s your legacy whether you like it or not. And that’s why I should have the top job, whether you like it or not.”

Jansten looked over at Geoff coolly, then back to Harrison. “All right, let’s see how he does.”

Geoff grinned. “I knew you were still in there.”

Help him!” Geena cried. She turned back to Geoff and Jansten. “He’ll listen to you, and you know he can’t climb that.”

“He may surprise you,” Geoff said. “Besides, it was his choice.”

She put her hand to her mouth, trying to restrain herself. Then her emotions broke through. “Like hell. He told me what you said in that bar. Like hell.”

Others were coming at that point. Keiler, Jacobs, Barnaby, Urlich, Nickerson, and Lane showed up, their wives trailing them. Geoff didn’t know any of the men all that well, but Harrison himself had confirmed that not one of them would take a piss without consulting the others about their read on Jansten’s opinion. So Geoff didn’t expect any real challenge as long as Jansten was sitting there quietly beside him.

And indeed, after Keiler took in the situation, Harrison’s climb and teary-eyed wife, he smoothed his black mustache, looked at Jansten, looked at his compatriots, and said, “Didn’t know Harrison had it in him.”

Dern was rappelling down the rockface behind them. Lisa was already down.

“What’s going on?” one of the guides called from the top of Dern’s rise. “What’s that guy doing?”

Jansten smiled at the guide calmly, but didn’t answer.

The guide turned, apparently speaking to his partner behind him. “One of these idiots is trying to free-climb a five-eight. Get your ass over there, see if you can hike up the back way and get him a top rope.”

Dern was already down before the guide finished yelling. He and Lisa hurried over, coiling their rope. Dern stepped around Keiler and said directly to Geoff, “This is your guy. Does he know what he’s gotten himself into?”

“We’ll see.”

Geena grasped Dern’s arm. “They must have made him some offer. Believe me, he wouldn’t do this on his own.”

Dern looked at Geoff, who smiled back blandly.
Let’s hear the speech,
Geoff thought.

Just then, Harrison slipped. He scrambled frantically, trying to regain his footing.

He did, but when he looked down afterward it was obvious he was wild-eyed with fear. He was over a hundred feet up from the ground.

“Belay me,” Dern said to his wife.

He started up the rockface immediately. He trailed a rope and Lisa moved quickly, setting several chocks between boulders and crevices at the base. She hooked herself into these and then put his line through a figure-eight on her harness. Steve set his first chock just as he got past the ledge and continued climbing straight up.

Geoff watched Lisa quietly, noticing the skill with which she moved. He couldn’t imagine Kelly being of any help in such a situation, and he had to admire Lisa a bit. But that didn’t change the fact that the Derns were intruding in his plans. Geoff didn’t mind all of the hysteria: Harrison’s crying wife was perfect. But this competence on the part of Dern and his wife was a pain in the ass.

Geoff saw Harrison was moving again. Geoff wasn’t surprised. He had Harrison’s abilities—and ambitions—figured within inches. The man would make it to the top, hard as it was. Geoff felt a calm excitement inside. His point and his future would be proven by a man far weaker than he.

If Dern didn’t fuck it all up, that was. Dern was moving up the rockface with a dexterity and assurance that Geoff knew would rival his own.

The first guide came running up to take over the belay from Lisa. He called Geoff and several of the other executives over. Jansten hitched himself up on a rock and said, quietly, “Go on, Geoff.”

The guide was a big kid with a wispy beard. “Steve is looking good, and I hope to hell he can get this line onto Harrison. If he does fall, both of them are going—so we’re talking upwards of four hundred pounds dropping on one line. Who knows if the protection will hold? But if it does, I’m going to need some help.”

Harrison cried out again. Geoff stood back from the belaying line and pulled out his binoculars. He ignored the guide who was yelling, “I need you back on this rope, mister.”

Harrison’s legs were visibly trembling.

Above him was the final obstacle, a subtle out swelling of rock that required a layback to pull it off. Tough stuff for a newcomer. But even where Geoff was standing, he could see a small crevice within a foot of Harrison’s right hand. A solid grip there. Geoff could see the moves, easily enough. Nothing that would have given Geoff a moment’s pause—or even Harrison if he were well rested, and five feet from the ground—but from the way Harrison’s legs were jiggling, the way his head was turning frantically one way and the next, Geoff could see he was just about played out.

Geoff sighed. He hadn’t planned on being a coach, but maybe when all was said and done it would help his cause. After all, Steve was certainly making himself look the hero, climbing after the guy.

Geoff stepped back further from the rock and cupped his hands to his face. “Harrison, listen to me.
Calm down.
You’re almost done. Just above you to the right is a great handhold. Man, you could spend the afternoon on that grip. You’ve got to put your right foot forward, catch that little nub and trust the grip you’ve got on the right. Put your left palm down against the rock and
climb.”

Harrison seemed to be listening. His head stopped that foolish swiveling, in any case. He started moving up the rockface again.

Geoff exhaled. Dern was getting too damn close for comfort.

Geena moved beside Geoff. She said, “Keep talking. You got him into this, please help him.”

“He’s doing just fine himself.”

Dern was alongside Harrison now and the tension Geoff had been holding in rein seeped into his belly. The fucking Boy Scout was going to ruin everything. He saw that Dern had a good grip himself with his left hand and was getting ready to snap a carabiner with the rope onto Harrison’s climbing harness. Even if Harrison finished after that, the victory would be Dern’s for making it safe.

Geoff cupped his hands together again. “Harrison—you’ve got somebody trying to steal your thunder—and my offer—right beside you. I want you to do this on your own.”

Harrison’s wife gasped.

“You’re going too far,” Jansten snapped.

Geoff ignored them, focusing instead upon Lisa. She strode over from the base and said, “You listen to me, you son of a bitch. I don’t know what you promised that man, but if he falls, my husband very likely will go down with him. So shut your mouth.”

“Or what?”

She cracked him across the face, shocking no one more than Geoff.

It was a hard blow, leaving a red mark on Geoff’s face.

Everyone went silent.

It took everything Geoff had to restrain himself. Jansten put his hand on Geoff’s wrist and said, “Back away.”

Geoff was flush with the knowledge that had they been alone, he would have killed Lisa Dern. He would have broken her neck. He would have wrapped his arm around her head, grasped her jaw, and twisted until her neck popped. “Keep her away from me,” he said, hoarsely.

“Go on,” Jansten said to Lisa. “Go back and help them with that rope.”

Up above, Harrison’s voice was desperate. “Don’t. Don’t snap it on. I’m going to finish this. I’m going to do it now.”

Geoff wiped his mouth as he watched Lisa go back to the belay line. He closed his eyes briefly, centering himself, and then said to Geena, in a voice loud enough for all of them to hear, “You’re going to like Michael’s new job. He’ll be more than tripling his salary.”

He saw her look back at him, then back up at her husband. He was within reach of the top now. A weak smile crossed her face, and Geoff laughed inwardly.
Already trying to recover from the things she said.

Geoff looked over at Jansten. The old man was looking up at Harrison still, his face unreadable.

And then the old man winced.

Harrison’s wife screamed out, and Geoff looked up to see everything he had worked for fall apart.

Harrison was slipping.

His right foot broke free, and then, trying to recover, he jammed his foot hard against smooth rock and shoved his leg out entirely. He screamed, his words incoherent as he hung from one hand—and then he lost that altogether and began sliding down the rockface.

Dern reached out for him.

“No, Steve!” Lisa cried.

Dern caught him by the harness and tried to pull him close, tried to provide with his own body the purchase Harrison so desperately needed. And for a moment, it seemed he had succeeded. Harrison’s downward slide stopped. He tried to find something in the rock, some support. But in his panic, Harrison succeeded only in kicking Dern’s legs free from the rock.

The two of them began to fall.

Geoff watched the others around him—even Jansten—throw themselves onto the belay line. Above them, Harrison clung to Dern and their combined weight ripped away the first protection point. The two of them fell a good dozen feet before slamming against the wall. They both came away dazed and bloody, Harrison now hanging on to Steve’s legs.

“Let it free, let it free,” the guide was calling to the others as he paid out rope, trying to get Dern and Harrison down as fast as possible. Then the guide’s bottom protection broke free. He and Lisa were hauled away from the others up the face themselves, kicking against rock. They quickly let themselves down and paid out more line.

The last chock broke free just as Dern and Harrison reached the ledge. The two of them slid down the last twenty feet, grabbing for whatever they could. Harrison fought the wall in pure panic; Dern kept his balance and shoved away at the last second so he could roll away from the boulders at the very base.

Harrison wasn’t so successful. Geoff saw him hit a rock, and his ankle twisted flat in a way nature never intended. There was an audible popping noise, like heavy pottery breaking.