had the lightning to help him as he climbed. In its intermittent flashes he was able to glance at the stretch of rock wall immediately above him, checking that brief glimpse against the mental image that he had burned into memory. So far the route was holding up, the holds and cracks coming where he remembered them.
And there were plenty. The fracture pattern had created small shelves and pockets with space to let him grip with his full hand or to plant nearly the entire sole of a foot. In daylight, in good weather, this would have been pure pleasure.
In the dark and the rain, it took all his focus and strength and nerve.
He was about halfway up when the rain slackened. Although the rock was still wet and slick, he was at least able to look up without getting raindrops in his eyes. But the lightning, too, was slackening. The squall was moving away and losing intensity. The pulses of light were weaker and further apart.
Near the top, Favor found a nice ledge. Three or four feet wide, nearly a foot deep. Lovely. He estimated that he was fifteen feet from the top—one more set of moves. He breathed, rested, relaxed. And he kept looking up into the blackness above, waiting for a last beat of lightning that would confirm his memory of the rock above.
He waited.
He waited.
Minutes passed, long enough that he knew there would be no more lightning.
He tried to retrieve the image from the last flash of lightning, the rock face beyond the shelf where he now stood. A pull up to a knob, to a crack, to another knob, across to a long, narrow sill that angled upward, to a last shelf just two or three feet from the top.
He ran through it once more in his mind. Then he moved, drawing himself upward, feet dangling. He hung with his left arm, reached upward to the knob there to the crack there to the second knob there to the angled sill there.
The sill was no deeper than the length of his toes. He crabbed along it until he could go no farther.
He was more than a hundred feet from the bottom, with his calves bearing nearly all his weight as he balanced on the narrow sill.
He craned his neck and looked up. He could see where the wall ended. The edge of the rock face was absolute black against a sky that showed the pale glow of starlight against the clouds. The top was no more than five feet from his fingertips. One more hold was left—the last shelf.
It should have been just overhead. Reach up, grab the shelf, pull up and scramble over the top.
He slid his right hand up the face, as high as he could reach.
No shelf.
He strained upward, lifting on the tips of his toes, calves tensing. His fingertips found just smooth rock.
No shelf.
Once more he looked up, but he could see nothing beyond his up-stretched arm. His fingers dissolved into blackness.
He told himself that the shelf had to be there, inches above his fingertips.
He had to act. His calves were trembling. There was no alternate route, no going back. He had just the featureless black between his fingertips and the top of the cliff, and the memory of a shelf that had to be there.
Or not.
He relaxed the tension in his calves, then launched himself upward.
His toes left the sill as he leaped. He lost all contact with the wall. For an instant, he hung in space, twelve stories above the rubble pile and the ocean, right hand reaching into the darkness as he arrived at the peak of his thrust.
He slapped at the wall. His fingertips found the shelf.
He grabbed. Held. His left hand shot up and grasped the shelf.
Without a pause, Favor pulled hard against the shelf, rising up, going hand over hand as he rose above the lip and vaulted over the top.
He landed silently, in a crouch, ready to react to sound or movement. But he saw nothing, and the only sound was the muted drone of the generator down toward his left.
He knew from the aerial photos that he was at the top of a slope, in an area of sparse brush and grass and coconut trees and banana trees. Straight ahead, at the bottom of the slope, was the helicopter landing pad, and beyond that the edge of the island and the dock. To his right, downslope, was the main group of three buildings.