Altitude Rush

Altitude Rush is a short story written by Matthew Reilly, released online and available to read on his website.

Synopsis

In the early hours of the morning, on the 100th floor of New York's Empire State Building, a masked intruder steals a small glass case from a Federal Reserve office's desk. Knowing that a response team will arrive in four minutes, the intruder, nicknamed "Robin Hood", destroys the glass window and leaps out of the office and onto a flying fox cable set up by his companion, "Little John". As soon as Robin Hood arrives on the top of Horwicks Tower, Little John reports that SEAL teams from the George Washington are due to arrive in two-and-a-half minutes, which is less time than they had anticipated. As the pair are due to take part in exercises with the SEALs in a week, they are keen to avoid getting caught. Once Little John gives Robin Hood a pair of handheld suction cups for emergency use, the two thieves prepare to cross their next flying fox.

The reason for their unusual form of escape is due to the nature of the glass case containing the document Robin Hood has stolen. Made out of Lexan glass, a Grauss pressure case will ordinarily destroy its contents with hydrofluoric acid if moved too far from its resting place; however, being equipped with an altitude sensor, this case is set to destroy the documents within if it moves higher than 1000 feet or lower than ten feet. And while the owner of this document - which was written in 1941 and has the potential to be used against the owner's country - has never considered the possibility that a potential thief would not try to escape the way the thieves are, the case's second failsafe requires that it be returned within 25 minutes to its place in the office. In essence, this means Robin Hood and Little John have a short window of opportunity to get to a high-pressure lock-release valve and open the case to retrieve the document inside, and the nearest one is 16 blocks away.

Thanks to the flying foxes Little John has set up in advance, the thieves are able to make it to 40th Street before turning east due to the small height of the New York Public Library. But as they get ready to cross to the HSBC Building, the pair notice a trio of Navy SH-60B Seahawk helicopters flying their way. As the troops in the choppers fire upon them, cutting Hood and Little John off from their next flying fox, the thieves instead head for the building's stairwell and begin racing down. One chopper unloads a dozen SEALs to pursue them while the other two choppers hold positions around the building.

Robin Hood and Little John remove some of their gear, and while the latter complains that the response team has arrived too fast, the thieves quickly improvise a new way to return to their planned escape route via Grand Central. Halting at the building's second floor, Hood breaks a window leading onto an awning, from which the pair jump onto a passing bus's roof. The thieves proceed to jump across multiple moving buses, scarcely maintaining a height of 12 feet, until they reach another awning on the corner of Maddison Avenue and Fifth Street, from which they break into the adjacent building. Needing a way to get across Park Avenue, and out of flying foxes, Robin Hood notices that the Seahawk observing their new building is the one that unloaded its troops, and comes up with a radical new plan.

Moving a window washer's platform into place parallel to the chopper, Hood and Little John wait for the chopper to hover up to the roof's level. Once it does, the thieves run and jump from the washer's platform, into the Seahawk's open troop hold and jump out the other side, using their suction cups to arrest their fall on the next building's glass windows. From there, the thieves shoot apart the windows and enter the building, rushing to reach the pedestrian bridge leading to Grand Central. SEAL troops land on and fire on the bridge from both sides, but the thieves avoid the gunfire and enter Grand Central, racing to a utility stairwell, knowing that they only have eight minutes left.

On the roof, Hood looks over to the top of the Chrysler Building, which he knows is the only building enough for them to complete the final leg of their journey. Luckily, Little John has prepared in advance the cable of a crane on the adjacent tower, which is still under construction. The Seahawks rain fire down on the construction site as the thieves use a gantry elevator to climb up the crane, and then use the cable for a spectacular swing over Lexington Avenue. Where their upward arc ends at the Chrysler Building, the thieves break through the window and use the elevator to reach the 75th floor, from which they can see their final destination to the east.

From there, the thieves use stunt parachutes to quickly traverse the space of the blocks below, and while this attracts the attention of the pursuing choppers, Robin Hood and Little John land on their target: the UN Building, which the Seahawks daren't approach. The thieves alter their attire to allow themselves to blend in with the various bureaucrats, meaning that no one can figure out which country’s high-pressure release valve they proceed to so that they can open the mysterious Grauss case, and obtain the old letter within, which contains an unsent proposition for an alliance between the U.S. and Germany from President Franklin Roosevelt to Adolf Hitler.

Two days later, the U.S. President holds a press conference to announce new trade deals for Australian meat to be imported into the United States, as well as the ceasing of aggressive tactics towards the European economy, which will benefit many countries that are tied to the Euro, including Australia. When asked if the sudden new policies have something to do with a recent meeting at the UN with Australian diplomats, the President denies this and points out the improved relations between the U.S. and Australia, which will soon be holding exercises between U.S. SEALs and Australian SAS troops...

Characters

• "Robin Hood"
• "Little John"

Trivia

• During an interview with a Facebook fanpage in late 2021, Reilly mentioned that he has written a full-length screenplay for Altitude Rush, which he described as "kick-ass".