The Third Antichrist by Mario Reading Read Free Book Online

his throat. ‘Can’t you find anywhere to hammer one of the tyre irons in? To use it like a chisel?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Can you jump, then? Upwards, I mean.’
    ‘No. I’d make it about halfway, then I’d fall back into the cenote and drown. Or as good as. The face is angled.’
    There was a brief moment of silence. ‘What are you going to do, then?’
    ‘I don’t know. It didn’t look this smooth when I checked it out from down below. I can’t believe that rock can change its character like that. This has to have been manmade.’
    Nawal drifted into sight below him. ‘Can you weight the end of the tow rope and swing it up and over?’
    ‘Maybe. But what’s it got to latch onto? There’s no wall or anything. We were up there only yesterday. Although it seems about three years ago. You’ve all seen what it looks like on the top. Just an area of flat terrain with a few loose rocks.’
    ‘You can’t be sure of that. We weren’t looking at it in that way when we were up there.’
    Abi sighed. ‘You’ve got a point.’
    ‘So what have we got to lose?’
    Nawal swam closer in towards the cliff. Her face was earnest. She looked as if she was about to address a science class. ‘If you were to put the extinguisher through the gap in the car jack, Abi, and then screw it down tight, you’d have a pretty effective counterweight. Then you could ram the tyre irons through the jack to give it a sort of porcupine effect. Like one of those wartime mines they blew ships up with. That way it might snag on something.’
    ‘What if it snags on something, and when I start climbing up, it un-snags?’
    No one answered.
    ‘Okay then. I’m going to do what Nawal suggests. I can’t squat up here for much longer or I’ll cramp up and take the big dive.’
    Abi unhitched the jack from the tow rope. He screwed the jack open to its fullest extent, and then eased the extinguisher through the middle of the pyramid. When he was satisfied with the fit, he screwed the jack down onto the extinguisher so that metal bit into metal.
    ‘Now tie the tow rope onto the jack again before you lever in the tyre irons. Just in case. Wouldn’t do to drop it.’
    ‘Thanks, Nawal. Did anyone ever tell you what a fearful pedant you are?’
    ‘Next, you jam the tyre irons through from either end. If you jam them crosswise through the jack mechanism, they should lock into place.’
    ‘Okay. Hold your horses. I’m doing it.’
    ‘Has it worked?’
    ‘Yes. It’s worked. But I doubt it’ll stand a hard knock. If this thing lands wrong, it will simply loosen up and collapse on us.’
    ‘That’s a risk we have to take.’
    ‘ We have to take? We? It’s me who’s taking the fucking risk, not you.’
    ‘So you don’t think we’re risking anything, do you? You think we’re all floating down here thinking, well, that’s great – Abi’s holding all our lives in his hands. But it’s okay. We’re easy with that. In the meantime, while he’s busy trying to save us, let’s all go for a doggy paddle to pass the time.’
    Abi puffed out his cheeks. ‘Okay. I’m sorry I said that. It was out of line. But I’m feeling a tiny bit pressured up here. If this thing doesn’t work out, I’m not going to sit up here and conduct an autopsy on it. I’m going to dive back into the cenote. Capish? ’
    Abi tied one end of the tow rope loosely around his waist. Then he let the jack dangle down below him. Slowly, steadily, he extended the tow rope until he had maybe twenty feet of line swinging, like a pendulum, in a tight arc to the cliff face. The further he swung it, though, the more the rope began to swing him.
    Abi soon realized that he would need to take action pronto if he wasn’t to launch himself like a rocket off the ledge, with the rope, the jack, and the extinguisher acting as a convenient sheet anchor for when he struck the water and went under.
    On the third swing he twisted his arms up and over in order to give the tow rope a modicum of