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Everyone agreed that without Mary going up the pole and performing her death-defying aerial feats, the team would have had a difficult time coming up with a winning strategy.
She was the lynch pin.
That look in her eyes as he made the hasty, running the ropes around her waist and legs, making double, triple sure that they were secure. “I’ve got you.” She’d licked her lips and nodded.
She believed that.
Believed in him with her life.
It was crazy what she did to him in the moment that he reached for her and pulled her into his arms, tight against his body, as he clasped them together. He’d felt her trust as he tied off the line—her escape from the inferno and his.
Focused as he was on keeping her ride slow and steady as he walked them down the wall, he was still aware of what was happening in his body.
As Halo talked it through with Max up in their room when getting himself cleaned up and changed before the team meeting, the best way he could describe it to his dog was that he was like a baby chick hatching. The shell cracked, and he’d been bewildered and confused as he stretched out in the new sensations he felt when he was near Mary.
Max had smiled at him as Halo said that. But he got it. Max had fallen in love with Mary, too.
Only problem was that Halo had no idea how to find her again.
Halo was hoping that as he sat with his team—spooning up the rich cream of mushroom soup and chomping on his sausage sandwich—that someone along the way knew who she was and would post her name and a social media link.
But so far, none of the social media posts that Nutsbe had been playing through this hotwash gave them any more information about her identity.
“I’m sure it felt like you were on the side of that building forever,” Nutsbe said. “But you were up and down pretty fast,” Nutsbe pressed a button on his computer, bringing up a timeline. “I have information about the delay in the rescue vehicles getting in.” Nutsbe used a laser pointer to underline the arrival times of the various rescue teams. “The ambulance was there pretty fast. It was the firetruck with the ladders that was problematic. I called to find out. The fire house is blocks away and should have been there with a three-to-five-minute response time. Unfortunately, the crew was already in the field dealing with an industrial spill. Dispatch brought in a crew from further away. It’s important to remember that while this is the capital of Estonia and a third of its citizens live here, it’s still a relatively small city. About the size of Richmond, Virginia.” He named the capital city of the state just south of Washington, D.C.
“Nutsbe, I’d like you to map out various issues that might come into play,” Titus said. “We know from your arrival this morning that there’s ongoing street repair.”
“Wilco,” Nutsbe said. “Now, I’ve culled through social media posts, and I have some bystander videos of the incident.”
Reel by reel, they assessed technique, opportunities that were used to their best advantage, mistakes, and near misses. Every time Mary was in the frame, Halo was impressed by her sheer determination. And a sense that she was both winging it and that she had real training under her belt.
Pole dancing, though. It confounded him. There had to be a story there, and it had to extend beyond his personal framing of that sport. Past-framing—he’d evolved.
“Ready for the next one?” Nutsbe asked as he queued up another bystander video that had been posted on social media. Different angles meant different opportunities to assess. “I’m calling this one All Hail Queen Mary.”
Here, someone had focused on the first moments when the team decided to scale from window to window.
Mary sprinted onto the scene, plopped onto the pavement, wrestled out of her pants and shoes, and was inch worming up the pole.
Halo wondered why she’d taken her clothes off.
As she climbed, Max stretched as far out as he could without breaking his sit-stay and dragged her clothes back piece by piece. Then, he’d laid across them, protecting Mary’s things.
Halo hadn’t taught Max that trick.
“And this one I’m calling, Hey, You Forgot Something.” Nutsbe moved to the next video. “Before I play this, I’m going to say that I was focused on the team getting off the wall. But at this point, Mary was part of the team. She is clearly shaken, maybe in shock. I should have had my eyes on her. I should have tried to corral her—something. She shouldn’t have been left to wander half-naked and possibly injured down the street like that. I’ll work on protocols for future events and run them by the team. All I can say is that I’m very grateful that Max did what he did.” Nutsbe tapped the play button, and there was Titus pulling Mary from the last windowsill into his arms. He carried her over the broken shards of glass and set her down on the road in front of a paramedic.
“Hold there,” Titus said, and Nutsbe hit stop. “I agree with your assessment, Nutsbe. She was a team member at this point, and it was up to us to make sure that the whole team was safe. I will say that there might have been a language barrier that the rescue worker couldn’t understand her. She might have declined aid, as she has the right to do. But shock is shock. Someone should have been supporting Mary at this point. Go ahead and press play again.”
Mary was waving off help, turning, and staggering down the street. People reached out to her, spoke to her, and she brushed them off as she walked in the cool rainwater that filled the gutters.
The video moved away from Mary and toward Halo and the others as they were still getting off the wall. The lens panned to the right, where Max was gathering Mary’s things into his mouth, dropping them, processing them, then wrapping the clothing items together, biting into the bundle, and trotting off after Mary. Granted, he’d dragged the pants under him, and a sock was left behind, but he was still able to get his snoot to the ground and trail along after her.
Halo hadn’t taught Max to do that series of tricks, either.
As soon as Halo put his feet on the ground, he’d looked over to check on Max only to find his dog was gone. Even though Max had been put in a down-stay, he was highly intelligent. Halo figured that Max had moved to a place that was close but safe. He needed to find Max, then he needed to find the warrior goddess and assure himself that she hadn’t been injured while performing the wildest lifesaving mission he’d ever experienced.
When Halo sent out a “Here to me” whistle, a woman leaned around a shop door frame, pointing down the road. “Dog go that way with woman’s clothes.”
