Curious, and pitched to a bolder level by the music, Jim slips off the staircase into the iceplant. Ho, it’s steeper than it looks! But he can hold his footing, and very slowly he descends through the bushy trees. Any noise he is making is overwhelmed by waves below and music above, which has segued from the Firebird to “Siberian Khantru,” brilliant lead guitar piercing the night and leading the supple bass on a madcap ramble. Fantastic. The last knot of trees overhanging the stairway is just above the platform, fine, Jim wiggles his way down through the low branches, slips on iceplant and jerks to a halt jammed down into the fork of two thick branches. Ribs a little compressed. Hmmm. Seems he might be a little stuck, here. On the other hand, he’s just above the platform, and the two figures, seated on the rail looking down at the faint white-on-black tapestry of breaking waves, are just within earshot. Wouldn’t want to be much closer, in fact. Jim gives up struggling to escape, accepts the salt wetness of his perch, concentrates on listening.

Arthur seems to be making a report, although the booming of the surf makes it difficult to hear everything. “What it comes … the campaign has got its own momentum … supply material and give … do a one-night … bigger operation than there really is.”

“Do any of your” krkrkrkrkrkrkrrr asks Raymond.

“… assume, well, whatever. They don’t know anything.”

“So you guess.”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“And you think a concerted action could bring in the people we’re trying to find?”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it? They” krkrkrkrkrkrkrrrr

“Possibly. Possibly.” Raymond jumps down and stalks the deck of the platform nervously, looking right up at the clump of trees that holds Jim. “If that happens, we might have a hard time finding out about it. Being sure.”

Arthur’s back is now to Jim, and Jim can’t hear his voice at all. But he can hear Raymond’s reply:

“That’d be one way to find out, sure. But it would be dangerous, I mean some of you might just disappear.”

Jim feels his throat and stomach take a big swallow. Disappear?

His paranoia quotient soars into the megapynchons, his understanding of his sabotage adventure with Arthur trapdoors out from under him, leaving him hanging like, well, yes, like a man stuck in a tree on the side of a cliff. His ribs begin to complain vociferously. But he definitely doesn’t want to move until Arthur and Raymond leave.