It might have worked, too. Jett could have reached the top and been safe. We still had a lot to learn about her. She said, “Uh-uh. I stay with you two.”
Hondo looked at her, then used his finger to move a strand of hair from her face.
I said, “Enough flirting. Get ready to run up them and over the top.”
Hondo’s eyebrows went up. “That’s your plan?”
Jett said, “I’m ready. See you two on the other side.”
I said, “See, Jett likes it.” I could tell we weren’t going to make it. Nobody can scale a moving mass of clanging, roiling metal some twelve feet high. Nobody.
I took a deep breath and got in a running stance. The metal waves continued to close. Eight feet of space left, then seven, six, five…
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and glanced at the brick wall. A thick electrical cable dropped down and hung in a U, swinging back and forth. Hondo and Jett saw it at the same time and we looked at the top of the building. Magilla’s head appeared.
Hondo drew his pistol, but I bear hugged him and yelled, “No!”
Magilla bellowed, “Grab it!”
“He’s okay,” I said in Hondo’s ear and released him. Hondo didn’t question me and he pushed Jett to the cable.
I looked at the approaching metal walls and saw one of us might make it, but not two, and definitely not three.
“Go ahead, Jett,” I said.
Magilla’s voice rumbled again, “All of you! Grab the cable!”
All of us?
“All of you grab the cable! Now!”
I winced as a corner of one dumpster wacked into my ankle. We had no more time. Hondo pulled me to the wall and said, “Grab it!”
I did, but knew that I would let go the second it looked like Magilla couldn’t lift us all free. Better two saved than none. I didn’t look at Hondo because I knew he could read my thoughts. I also knew I couldn’t hesitate because Hondo would think the same thing, and I had to be faster than him. I had to let go first.
“Hold on!” Magilla yelled. He had the cable looped over his shoulder and down his back and around his waist, like a mountaineer uses his rope to lift or lower his partners. He put his feet against the inside of the parapet and we felt the cable tighten, then Magilla did movements like squats and used his legs, back and arms in the pull. He used the friction of the cable around his body to milk the line shorter and shorter with each effort.
The metal dumpsters were so close that Hondo put his feet against them and pushed a couple to the side so we could slip by as we felt ourselves rise with every incredible, powerful pull.
The dumpsters met below our feet and ground to a halt in a tangled mass of green metal and trash and Shamu, and then suddenly we were at the roof parapet and over it onto the safety of gravel and tar.
Magilla pointed over his shoulder with a thumb the size of a cucumber and said, “Ladder’s at the back of the building. Let’s go.”
I looked where he pointed and saw the ladder extending a foot above the parapet. I heard an engine start up somewhere below there, and then the boom lift’s bucket rose above the edge of the roof and stopped. A large piece of steel plate balanced in the bucket. I said, “What the-“
A man peeked around one side of the plate, grabbed the ladder and pushed it off the roof, then he leveled a pistol at us.
“Gun!” I yelled.
Magilla jumped in front of Jett as the man fired and I heard the bullet whap into something. I drew, but was slower than Hondo, who fired so fast it sounded like one rolling sound. I fired with him and our bullets clanged off the steel plate. Magilla began shooting too, with a .44 magnum that looked like a kid’s toy in his hand.
The man behind the plate had a partner who started shooting from the other side. I shifted my aim and put three rounds right at the edge of the metal and made him duck behind it.
Hondo reloaded and fired another clip in about half a second, then started on his third clip. I looked around for another escape, but there was no way off our roof except jumping. I ran toward the next alley and building, hoping to get a better angle for a shot. I fired again and drove one guy yelping behind cover as bullet fragments hit his gun hand. The alley between the next building and us was maybe twenty feet wide. A long aluminum ladder lay on the far roof. I couldn’t jump it, so I turned back to the shooters.
That’s when Magilla moved. And I mean moved. He charged them, shooting as he ran. I fired to keep the men down, and so did Hondo.
The bucket was maybe fifteen feet from the edge of the building and I guess those men thought that would keep them safe. But they didn’t reckon with Magilla Sykes.