The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,54

anchor Katsaris had rigged, he straddled the rope, looping it around his left buttock and across his hip, up across his chest and around his head to his right shoulder, and then over and down his back to his left hand. The rope was now configured in an S around his upper body. He would guide with his right hand, regulate speed with his left. Clasping the rope palm up, he could move it off his back to increase speed, and winch it around his hip to slow down. His nylon clothing would provide some protection from rope burns. Still, he was under no illusions. He had body-rappelled once before, in a training exercise; it would be extremely painful.

"Does that really work?" Katsaris asked skeptically.

"Sure it does," Janson said. "I've done it before." And he had hoped he would never have to do it again.

Several buzz-saw-like bursts of gunfire pelted the cliff like a hailstorm of lead. The rock at their feet exploded, only inches away; fragments stung Janson's face. There was no time.

"I'm stuck!" Donna Hedderman's wailing voice, perhaps thirty feet down the cliff.

"We'll be right there," Janson called to her, as he and Katsaris eased off the overhang. Bending at the waist, the two men kept their legs perpendicular to the sheer surface, "walking down" where it was possible. For Janson, the descent was excruciating; the nylon shell was strong but supplied no cushioning as the cord bit into his flesh. The only way to lessen the pressure was to increase the demands on his already aching muscles.

"Help me!" The woman's quavering voice echoed against the sheer rock.

A third of the way down, they found her and saw what had happened. Her long, matted hair had become entangled in the figure-eight rappel device. It was a hazard they should have anticipated. Katsaris took out a knife and, propelling himself sideways with his feet, approached her. She let out an earsplitting scream. With one slice, her entangled hair was free. But there was more of it, and it could happen again. Katsaris released his brake hand and activated his autoblock, a piece of webbing that now wrapped around his rope and arrested further descent.

"Hold still," he said. Inching farther toward her, he grabbed handfuls of her hair and sliced them off, ignoring her loud squawks of protest. As coiffure it was inelegant; as a safety precaution it was a thing of beauty.

Janson worked hard to keep up with the others, gritting his teeth as the stresses moved along the cord. At one moment, it tightened around his chest like a python, constricting his breath; at the next, it was digging into his gluteus muscles. Body-rappelling was natural, he supposed, in the way that natural childbirth was. The agony was what made it real. His hands were overstrained; yet if he let go of the rope, there would be nothing between him and the rocks below.

He had to hold on just a little longer. He had to keep reminding himself that at the base of the cliff, the other team members would be waiting for them, in the ultralightweight rigid inflatable boat that had been stowed on the BA609. They would be rested and ready. Janson and the others would be safe in their hands. If only they could reach them.

Clear like water, cool like ice.

Seconds ticked by like hours. He could hear the sounds of the aquatic team as they untrussed Peter Novak and bundled him into the boat.

This race would go to the swift. If there was any doubt where they had gone, the cable anchors would tell the sentries everything they needed to know. And if those anchors were sliced in the next few minutes, three people would plunge to their death. The darkness and fog were their only allies, time their greatest enemy.

The only hope of survival lay in speed - to get off the ropes and into the boat as fast as possible.

How much time had passed? Forty seconds? Fifty? Sixty?

Just when his muscles had reached the point of total depletion, Janson felt hands reaching up to grab him, and finally he let go of a lifeline that had turned into an instrument of torture. As he took his seat in the flat-bottomed watercraft, he looked around him. There were six of them. Novak. Hedderman. Katsaris. Andressen. Honwana. Hennessy would be piloting the BA609, taking second shift.

The motor whined as the rigid inflatable boat - a Sea Force 490 - shot off from the rocks,