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where they’d drilled the hole, because they hadn’t brought
it with—
    The hole. Ash stared up at the bright circle cut into the cavern’s ceiling. Then her eyes traced down the climbing ropes to the carabiners hanging in a pool of light near the floor.
    Could she climb one of them? All the way to the top, barehanded, quick, silent, without Harvey noticing and shooting her down?
    There was only one way to find out. As a plan, it sure beat pretending to be a rock until the snipers came back.
    Ash rose to her feet, hoping the camouflage dirt was still stuck to her face. As long as Harvey didn’t point his torch directly at her, she would look like nothing more than softly
shifting darkness.
    She started to creep towards the carabiners, step by silent step.
    She could see Harvey pacing parallel to the far wall, quickly and methodically. Methodical was good for her – predictable, easy to evade. Quick was bad; Ash wanted to be as far up that
rope as possible by the time he worked his way in towards the centre. She changed her trajectory slightly to keep the block of stone that had fallen from the ceiling between him and her.
    As she walked, she slowly unzipped her suit, wincing at the clinking of each tooth in the zip. She tucked the box inside its folds and zipped it back up so the wood was pressed against her
belly. It wasn’t too comfortable, but she’d need both hands free to climb the rope.
    She was almost there now. The carabiner dangled a couple of metres in front of her. Ash had no harness, but it wouldn’t have been very useful. Abseiling only works in one direction: down.
Just the same, Ash clipped the carabiner onto her belt. At least if she fell, she would stop just above the ground – before Harvey saw her and shot her to bits.
    Which is the worse way to die? she wondered. A broken neck or a bullet in the brain?
    Now wasn’t the time to think about it. She gripped the rope above her head, wrapped it around her hand twice, and pulled. The rope burned her knuckles, but held. She wound it around her
other hand a little higher, and lifted herself up.
    Only now did she realize how tough this was going to be.
    Ash thought of herself as very fit. She cycled to school every day, and played no-rules soccer at lunchtimes. On Saturdays she’d jog to the pool, lifting rubber-coated three-kilogram hand
weights as she ran, uncomfortably aware of how middle-aged they made her look. When she got to the pool, she’d swim a kilometre before jogging home. Exercise helped her think.
    But now she was in a situation where her strong legs were useless. Worse than useless, because they weighed her down – muscle is eighteen per cent heavier than fat. Ash weighed almost
sixty kilograms, which was much more than her hand weights. A lot to lift with just her arms.
    She let go with one hand, reached higher, ignoring the burning of her triceps. Grabbed again, pulled again. You can do this, she told herself.
    She’d learned that she could do amazing things when her life depended on it. The fastest she’d ever run was when a sociopathic hit man, Michael Peachey, had been aiming a gun at her
back. Maybe, she thought, athletes would break more world records at the Olympics if they were being chased by tigers, or something. Someone should suggest it to the committee.
    Grip, pull. Grip, pull. She was seven metres up now. Less than a third of the way.
    The trick, she knew, was not to think about the aching muscles. Pain was not the same as injury – injury was physical, pain was mental. It could be controlled by focusing on other things.
Like the gunman below. Like being silent so he didn’t spot her.
    She could feel the blood draining into her feet, making them swollen and heavy. She gritted her teeth, willing her legs to be lighter.
    Ten metres up. Almost halfway. Five-elevenths, maybe. But it was only going to get harder from—
    Click . Ash knew that sound. A safety catch.
    She looked down.
    Harvey was staring up at her,