Fish & Chips (Cut & Run 3)

Ty gave a wordless shout as his legs and one arm swung free from the wall. The rope landed with an anticlimactic thud several yards away from where Zane stood. Thirty feet above, Ty dangled from the outcropping by one hand, body twisting as if buffeted by the ocean breeze.

“Throw down another rope,” Zane demanded of Manny, who was on a two-way radio, waving at someone at the top of the wall.

“Inflatable cushion? Anything?” Frustrated beyond belief, Zane moved to try to stay where Ty could see him, close enough that he might be able to do… something. His heart was in his throat and blood was rushing in his ears. It was one thing to be in trouble and stay calm. It was another to be stuck watching it, helpless.

Ty hung there motionless for an eternity. He didn"t kick his feet in a panic or even try to reach for an extra handhold with his free hand.

The only things keeping him from falling to the doom he"d joked about not ten minutes before were five white-knuckled fingers.

He looked down at Zane as everyone on the platform scrambled.

“That sucked, man,” Ty called down in a frustratingly calm voice.

There was a jitter of nervous laughter and gasps from the watching crowd.

Zane shaded his eyes as he looked up at his partner and swallowed hard before answering. “Will you quit showing off!” he yelled, trying to play off the fear buzzing in the air around them.

“Don"t panic, sir!” Manny called up, sounding frantic himself.

Losing a wealthy passenger in a freak climbing wall accident probably wouldn"t look good on him or the cruise line. Neither would the blood smear.

Ty twisted and reached out slowly for the wall. He was hanging from the very tip of the outcropping, possibly the worst place for him to have been stranded. He couldn"t get his feet under him for purchase until he moved. And moving would be hard with only one hand. On the plus side, if he"d been anywhere else on the wall, he probably would have fallen when the rope did.

Ty gripped another hold, and Zane saw the muscles in his shoulders and back bunch as he tried to pull himself further up. When his hand slipped away from the wall again, Zane heard a very un-British curse drift down.

Zane clamped down on the urge to yell at Ty, instead turning to Manny. “Is there anyone up top to drop a secure line?”

“They"re working on it, sir,” Manny said shakily, holding up the two-way.

Zane grabbed it out of his hand and pressed the talk button as he returned his attention to Ty. “Who"s up there?” he snapped. But there was no answer. The attendants who had been up there when Ty started the climb were gone, hopefully in search of another rope.

Above, Ty had regained his hold on the wall with both hands and was merely hanging limp. “It"s this damn ring,” he called down. “My fingers,” he continued, not actually finishing any of the sentences he started as he looked up and around him. It was harder to hear what he said when he looked up, but when he looked back down the people below could hear him say, “The pessimist says, „It can"t get any worse!" And the optimist replies, „Oh yes it can!"”

The crowd tittered nervously, not sure whether to laugh.

Ty released one hand and made a swipe for a handhold further away, but he missed and swayed precariously before securing himself to the original one again.

“Jokes. He"s cracking jokes,” Zane said under his breath, deciding that once Ty had both feet on the ground he was going to smack him.

Hard. Right after he kissed him unconscious.

Ty had sense enough to remain quiet after that as he continued struggling to find a way up or down, left or right. He made several more failed attempts at swinging himself around the edge of the narrow outcropping, during the last of which he lost his grip with both hands and very nearly plummeted the thirty or so feet to the platform. He slid several inches, scrabbling at the wall with both hands: a split-second of honest-to-God free fall. Zane thought his heart was going to stop on the spot before Ty was able to catch another hold and stop himself.

Ty didn"t shout or scream or even curse, which to Zane meant either Ty truly was beginning to panic or his fatigued muscles were about to give out and he was expending all his energy on holding on.

Either way, they had to get him down.

The fall, however, proved fortuitous. Now farther below the outcropping with his good hand in a different position, Ty had more options. As two men at the top of the wall finally came to the edge with a new rope and shouted down frantically, Ty was able to pull himself over, slide his toes onto something solid, and press close to the wall. He practically sagged in relief as he rested his arms.

The attendants tossed two new ropes down, both ends landing a few feet away from where Zane stood. Manny rushed to grab one end and attach it to the belay device on his own harness, the other to another staffer, who shouted wordlessly up once they were both hooked up. One of the attendants above swung over the edge, slowly making his way down toward Ty with the other end of the new rope.

Despite the relief of this imminent rescue, the man was still a good fifteen feet above Ty, and his progress down was slow. There was a ripple of gasps and murmurs as Ty began to slowly climb up toward the man who was descending.

“No, sir! Stay where you are!” one of the staffers called out.

“Calm down, kid,” Ty called back in annoyance as he continued to climb slowly. It was obvious to Zane"s eyes that Ty was tired and being far more careful than he had been when attached to the ropes. He was going slowly but making the same pace as the man attempting the difficult descent.

“Hey, Lone Star!” Ty called down again.

Zane snorted and rubbed his hand over his face. “What?” he yelled back.

“A rope walks into a bar,” Ty announced. He paused dramatically as he struggled with finding a foothold. Then he went on, his voice strained with the physical effort. “Orders a beer. Bartender tells him,

„We don"t serve ropes in here." So the rope leaves the bar and goes outside, asks a guy passing to fray him at both ends and tie him in a knot. The guy does what the rope asks, and then the rope goes back inside and orders a beer. The bartender looks at him and asks, „Aren"t you that rope that was just in here?" And the rope says, „I"m a frayed knot!"”

Another ripple of nervous laughter and a smattering of clapping met his words. The crowd had grown considerably larger since news of possible death and dismemberment had spread.

Zane stared up at Ty, at a loss for a long moment. Then he called out, “How long have you been saving that one?” He knew his voice was bordering on strident, but Zane didn"t care. He was mad, upset, and scared, dammit! And all Ty could do was tell jokes!