You damn well do it, Altair.
Thanks, mama, thanks.
She edged higher with one heel and a knee. The gun swung over farther against her back. The sprained finger shot fire and she lost her vision for a moment, sucked wind as she hung in the old position again.
Won't work. O Lord, I can't hold on, my arms are going to go.
She crept closer to the balcony. Banged her head against the boards where thinner supports were nailed in afterthought.
She transferred one grip to a brace-board. It seemed solid. She risked the lame hand, hooked that elbow around the board, sucked more air and let go the timber with her feet.
Strained arms wrenched under her whole weight. She pulled and pulled and got the other elbow hooked around a brace. Higher, then. She snatched another hold with the right forearm and got a knee onto a board while the gun dragged at the back of her sweater and the damn pry-bar caught on a board.
Another push upward. A nail creaked. She got the second foot on a brace, hooked her left foot up onto the timber again and climbed and inched with her whole mid-section arched up and trembling over nothing.
And a cascade of objects left her pocket and thunked and splashed into water down below.
Oh, damn, damn, no, Rahman, that ain't it either, don't you move—
She hung there gasping. A last flurry of changed handholds and elbow-hooks, one small brace to the next, and she ended up with her head higher than her feet this time and one foot in agony, wedged in the vee of two brace-boards.
She stood on it, grabbed the corner-brace of the balcony and found the next footing. The whole rail wobbled when she touched it. She set her foot carefully sideways on the rim of the balcony outside the rail, used the rail for balance with her weight square-down on it, and snatched a hold with her good hand on the chain that anchored the balcony from the main building face.
O God.
Her knees wobbled worse than the rail. Her legs wanted to go out from under her. She swung a leg over the rail and onto solid planking, clung to the chain with arms gone almost limp and dragged the other leg over the shaky railing. A row of shutters showed light along the balcony, a door shed a little glow from the bottom out onto weathered boards. The whole balcony had a precarious, twisted look, tilted toward the canal, slung by chains from the roof overhang. Wind whistled round the corner. And the cloud-mass showed above Amparo roof, closer and ominous with lightnings.
She leaned out from the corner. The end of the skip was visible. Still there. She gulped air and fished the gun around under the sweater until she could pull the sweater loose by main force and get the gun out. Her hands trembled with fatigue; she needed both to support the weight of the pistol. Her brain reeled this way and that in blind panic.
Door, fool! Try the door.
She edged back on the rickety balcony to the brick of the face, clenched the gun in both hands and padded over to the door, put an ear to the paint-peeling wood and heard male voices. Heard a sound then that sounded like something else. It turned into a moan that sent ice through her nerves.
Damn 'em, damn 'em. Her heart spasmed. Her hands shook as she gripped the gun in the right and tried the latch ever so softly.
Locked.
But they're here. They're damn well in there, the Sword and all, with that fancy boat down to the dock. That ain't nothing Megary owns. You got a chance. Think, Jones, get your brain to work and shake the trembles out, who's going to save him else?
Careful steps, one and another down the balcony that girded Megary's topmost level.
Creak.
She recovered her pulsebeat and made the next step, walked closer to the brick, where the boards were firmer underfoot, as far as the first shuttered window and a crack that let light out.
Men inside. Moving figures in that little sliver of vision the crack afforded. A body passed right in front of the window and she ducked down a moment, holding her breath.
Then a voice shrilled out on the canal below the balcony: "Who you be? Who you be?"
God, it's Muggin!
Steps crossed the room inside. "Leave that alone," somebody said, somebody with a hightown voice, "Don't show a light."
"It's just some canaler ruckus—" Another. While her heart beat and beat against her ribs.
From below: "What you doing sneaking round here? Ain't up to no good, I seen you, Ali! I seen you too, Tommy-boy! Where you get that there skip?"
More steps. A door opened and shut somewhere to the right in the room.
O Lord, if they're coming out here—Where's that wall end? O if I'd holed them boats down there first, if I'd drained them tanks-She looked frantically for a hiding-spot. There was none, Even the door itself opened inward. She clutched the gun and aimed toward the door, hands shaking.
Quiet from below then. The slap of water.
More quiet.
It's gone askew, it's all gone askew, Rahman ain't going to get that back door open now, I got no help coming, I should've done for them boats. O Lord, maybe Rahman c'n do something. Maybe he'll think of it.
What can he do? He's got Muggin.
Water splashed, the gentle sound of a pole at work through the thunder of wind and loose shingles.
"Well, I'm sorry!" Muggin's voice drifted up.
She put her ear to the shutter. The voices inside came fainter now.
"—find out. —Megary will see to it. —harbor. —aren't going to get anything—"
Thunder muttered from the clouds, nearer than it had been.
Where is he, dammit, is Mondragon even in there? I daren't look, man's probably looking out that crack, I'll go eyeball to eyeball with 'im if I go in front of that shutter.
"—forget it," someone said. "—storm moving in—out there—tide—"
"—through the harbor—"
Another voice.
"—damned—"
A sudden outcry, quickly muffled. A groan.
She clenched her hand on the gun.
"Yo!" came from far below. And there was hammering, fist on distant door. "It's Ali, dammit, let me in! I got news—"
"—What's that?" From inside.
"Damn. What are they doing out there?" From near the door.
"You'd better go down and see."
A door opened and slammed. The hammering kept up at the freight-door.
O Lord and Glory, Rahman's give me the best he can.
She ducked under the first window, headed for the next and straightened up slowly, drawing her knife left-handed. She spotted the latch, shadow across the slit, put her eye to the crack to be sure. Big vault of a room, plaster walls, a door, scant furniture. Three men moving about. She shifted her vantage, got sight of a brick wall, of—
—Mondragon slumped there on the floor, just lying. One of the others kicked him in the gut and he curled tighter to protect himself, blond head tucked in chained arms.
She swallowed hard. Sucked several breaths like preparing for a deep dive. Think. Think, Jones. Get the blood moving. Her hand sweated on the gunbutt and her eye went on scanning, cold now, quick and all-inclusive, while thunder muttered up in the clouds.
Man by those shutters. And a bright brass lock and bolt on that shut door.
She slipped the thin knife into the shutter-slit, lifted, caught the wood with the knife-tip and pulled it outward.
Damn 'em.
She flung the shutter open on dirty glass and a shut window, opened fire right through it, and the first man dropped on the second shot. The second man ran for the door and the third, uptown-dressed, dived for cover behind a couch.
She dropped him, shot at the second and leaned through the shattered window for a shot at the fourth. Winged him. He spun with the shot and she shot again. Man-two got the door open and made it out as she raked glass from the window and threw a leg in, winced at a cut and hopped to both feet inside. She stumbled once, found her balance on one foot and ran.