Page 87 of No Safe Place

“Shit,” he said again. How did I miss?

He left the crane running and climbed down and hurried back out to the road. Doug was standing beside the fallen boom with two other SWAT cops, all of them jawing and looking around like tourists at an attraction.

“Get in that cab there and move this boom out of the way,” Shaw said. “We also need to start a search on both sides of the river. They’re probably already across.”

“How do you know?” Doug said.

“Why would they drop the crane across the road? For kicks and giggles? Stop asking stupid questions. Just get in there and move the crane.”

“How? I look like a construction worker to you?” Doug said.

“Improvise is how. Figure it out. Overcome.”

Shaw climbed over the steel lattice of the crane onto the bridge. He went to the factory side of the bridge and stood looking at the back of the factory and at the water.

The river current was strong enough to throw up white water in the middle of it. No way had they crossed right here, he thought.

He looked north across the bridge up the river where it was open and then south down the river where the bank was covered in trees.

They had gone south under those trees, he decided.

“Where is the next bridge over the river south? Close?” he called into the mic.

“Not really,” Doug told him. “Seven miles.”

“I want a search team in the woods south of the factory,” Shaw called as he headed back toward the dropped boom.

After he climbed over it again, he hopped over the Route 4 guardrail on his right and went down an embankment to the shore of the river beside the factory.

He walked along the back of the burning brick building and saw the open window where they had come out.

Walking south under the trees, he found a deer trail two minutes later. He was just about to head down it when he looked out over the water. The river had a bend here with a clearer view, and he thought he saw something. A mile away or so, there was a building.

He raised his night vision binoculars.

Then detected movement in the middle of the river.

It was a person on a cable.

Shaw dropped to one knee, raised the Barrett to his shoulder and put his right eye to the scope.

76

“Please, Colleen. It’s not as hard as it seems,” I said.

“I don’t know about this,” Colleen said, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “It must be twenty feet to the water. If I don’t die hitting the lip of the falls on the way down. And I can hardly even swim.”

“I’m telling you, Colleen. It absolutely can be done. You’re not going to need to know how to swim,” I said. “Just follow me up the pole and I’ll show you how to do it just like a SEAL.”

Without waiting for an answer, I turned and headed up the pole, happy to hear her scrambling up behind me.

At the top, I grabbed the cable and made my way out on it a few feet.

“Just keep the cable between your legs and bend your right knee. Wrap your right instep around the cable. Let your left leg hang down straight and pull yourself across with your arms like an inchworm.”

I looked back at Colleen. She looked petrified.

“You can do this, Colleen. The weight of your left leg hanging down really balances you. This way, if you get tired, you can take a break.”

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