Hell Is Too Crowded - Jack Higgins [13]
A gate clanged down in the hall and he held his breath and waited. The duty officer passed through the pool of light and stopped at his desk. He made an entry in the night book and then continued to A Block on the far side. He opened the gate, locked it behind him, and disappeared.
Brady lost no more time. The sling went round the beam and then his waist. He snapped the spring links together, leaned well back, bracing himself against the sling, and started to climb.
It was really no worse than some of the construction jobs he had worked on, he told himself. That bridge in Venezuela, for instance, high in the Sierras, with the winds blowing men from their perches like flies every week, had been infinitely more dangerous. The only difference was that he'd been paid for doing that--well paid.
He conquered an insane desire to laugh and looked down. The patch of light had receded, had grown infinitely smaller. It was as if the prison itself was falling away from him and he took a deep breath and moved on.
On several occasions he had to unhook his crude safety belt as he came to cross girders, but it was only as he moved towards the edge of the dome itself that he experienced any real difficulty.
The beams curved round, hugging the wall for the last ten feet or so, and there was only an inch or two behind them where he might push one end of the sling. That he would fail to attempt it never really entered his head. He looked down from his perch on a cross beam, down to that tiny patch of light below, and then forced one end of the sling behind the beam and snapped the links into position.
The first couple of feet weren't too bad, but as the cupola started to curve, his body inclined outwards. He forced his feet hard against the beam and leaned his weight against the sling. Inch by painful inch he moved up until his body was seemingly arched out in a bow and he knew that if he dropped back his head the merest fraction, he would be able to look straight down at that light below. Once, his foot slipped and the sling creaked ominously. His bowels turned to water. He braced his feet desperately, moved another six inches in one try, and reached up and over the ledge.
His fingers groped about desperately and finally fastened over a ridge of metal. He hung there, delicately balancing himself with one hand, and with the other, carefully unhooked the sling.
Just as deliberately, he secured it about his waist. His body started to swing outwards. He reached up with the other hand, doubled his grip on the ridge of metal, and heaved himself up on to the ledge.
He lay there for a moment, breathing deeply, his hands shaking a little. There was enough room only for his body squeezed against the curved glass panes. The ventilating window was on the other side and he started to crawl cautiously round.
The ledge was thick with the dust of the years and it drifted down into the gloom, filling his nostrils, making him want to sneeze badly.
The window was closed. He tried to push it open, but it refused to budge and he took out his wire cutters and severed the wire line which curved round the cupola down to the hall below. He held on to the severed ends and doubled them carefully over the metal catch, and then he pushed the window open and crawled out on to the ledge outside.
The view was magnificent and the lights of Manningham gleamed through the curtain of rain. A train passed along the track, its whistle echoing through the night and he breathed in the freshness and was filled with a fierce delight.
The fall pipe was the original Victorian one, square and sturdy and nailed against the wall as firmly as if the builders had intended it to serve the life of the building.
He went backwards over the edge without