Horseshoes & Nuclear Weapons by Mike Hatch

Author:Mike Hatch [Hatch, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby

Chapter Thirteen

Nick had gone to the end of the alley and discovered the power panel. He had noted that the wires leading to the crane had been cut in several places. He had also seen both the 110 volt and portable drills with carbide wheels lying on the ground near the base of the crane. A few newspeople had followed him, peering around the construction van at him from the end of the alley. Realizing the only way to the bomb was to climb, he had studied the crane and, like Cap before him, decided to climb over the chain link guard at the bottom of the ladder. The twenty foot climb on the outside of the chain link using only his fingers, thumbs and the toes of his shoes to support his weight had proved far more arduous than it had first appeared.

After resting and massaging his hands and fingers on the first landing platform on the long ladder, he now continued upward. Rain had begun and cold drops swirled around in the freezing wind. He went up steadily rung by rung, the rungs were wet, making the climb more difficult. Nick had always hated the part of his training that had to do with heights, paratrooper training, climbing up and down towers and buildings, hang gliding, and, worst of all, ski jumping. He had gritted his teeth and bore it and completed the required training and retraining over the years. He loved frogman training and wished he was beneath the surface of the sea now in scuba gear instead of climbing a cold, wet crane tower.

As he neared the top the crane swayed back and forth several feet and the ladder shook in the thirty-five mile per hour winds. He had seen that the power lines had been cut on the way up. He climbed onto the machinery deck and made his way along the wet railing. The doors to the electrical house were swinging open in the wind, clanging and banging against the huge metal cabinet. He looked inside and observed the severed wires and the end of a wrench protruding from the motor housing air vent. He grabbed one of the doors to steady himself and walked around to the railing. Above the cab, he looked out along the swaying jib boom. The Sears Tower rose in front of him like a gigantic monolith. Below, the commotion and noises in the streets seemed very far away. The vehicles looked tiny, the people even tinier. It was almost impossible to discern their individual movements.

There was a narrow catwalk that ran the length of the boom and he climbed down onto it. Gripping the rail, he made his way toward the end. The buildings, streets, the whole world out there jerked around increasingly fiercely as he progressed along the swaying boom. One hundred feet out he reached the trolley which supported the hoist cable. Directly below, the van with its white box body and dull red cab swung about as the cables and sheaves creaked.

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