The Coffin Dancer (34 page)

Stephen had stripped off the fireman’s uniform and was dressed again as a late-blooming college student. He’d recovered the Model 40 from under the water tank, where he’d hidden it that morning. The weapon was loaded and locked. The sling was around his arm and he was ready to murder.

At the moment it wasn’t the Wife he was after.

And it wasn’t Jodie, the little faggot Judas.

He was looking for Lincoln the Worm. The man who’d out-thought him once again.

Who was he? Which of them?

Cringey.

Lincoln ... Prince of Worms.

Where are you? Are you right in front of me now? In that crowd standing around the smoking building?

Was he that large lump of a cop, sweating like a hog?

The tall, thin Negro in the green suit? He looked familiar. Where had Stephen seen him before?

An unmarked car streaked up and several men in suits climbed out.

Maybe Lincoln was one of
them.

The red-haired policewoman stepped outside. She was wearing latex gloves. Crime Scene, are you? Well, I treat my casings and slugs, darling, he said to her silently as the reticles of the telescope picked out a pretty target on her neck. And you’ll have to fly to Singapore before you pick up a lead to my gun.

He figured he had time to fire just one shot and then be driven into the alley by the fusillade that would follow.

Who are you?

Lincoln? Lincoln?

But he had no clue.

Then the front door swung open and Jodie appeared, stepping out the door uneasily. He looked around, squinted, shrank back against the building.

You ...

The electric sizzle again. Even at this distance.

Stephen easily moved the reticles onto his chest.

Go ahead, Soldier, fire your weapon. He’s a logical target; he can identify you.

Sir, I am adjusting for tracking and windage.

Stephen upped the poundage on his trigger.

Jodie ...

He betrayed you, Soldier. Take ... him ... out.

Sir, yes, sir. He is ice cold. He is dead meat. Sir, vultures are already hovering.

Soldier, the USMC sniper’s manual dictates that you increase poundage on the trigger of your Model 40 imperceptibly so that you are not aware of the exact moment your weapon will discharge. Is that correct, Soldier?

Sir, yes, sir.

Then why the fuck aren’t you doing it?

He squeezed harder.

Slowly, slowly ...

But the gun wasn’t firing. He lifted the sights to Jodie’s head. And as it happened, Jodie’s eyes, which had been scanning the rooftops, saw him.

He’d waited too long.

Shoot, Soldier. Shoot!

A whisper of a pause ...

Then he jerked the trigger like a boy on the .22 rifle range at summer camp.

Just as Jodie leapt out of the way, pushing the cops with him aside.

How the fuck d’you miss that shot, Soldier? Repeat fire!

Sir, yes, sir!

He got off two more rounds but Jodie and everyone else was under cover or crawling fast along the sidewalk and street.

And then the return fire began. First a dozen guns, then a dozen more. Mostly pistols but some H&Ks too, spewing the bullets so fast they sounded like un-muffled car engines.

Bullets were striking the elevator tower behind him, showering him with bits of brick and concrete and lead and sharp, craggy copper jackets from the slugs, cutting his forearms and the backs of his hands.

Stephen fell backward, covering his face with his hands. He felt the cuts and saw tiny drops of his blood fall on the tar paper roof.

Why did I wait? Why? I could have shot him and been gone.

Why?

The sound of a helicopter speeding toward the building. More sirens.

Evacuate, Soldier! Evacuate!

He glanced down to see Jodie scrambling to safety behind a car. Stephen threw the Model 40 into the case, slung the backpack over his shoulder, and slid down the fire escape into the alley.

The second tragedy.

Percey Clay had changed her clothes and stepped into the corridor, slumped against the strong figure of Roland Bell. He put his arm around her.

The second of three. It hadn’t been their mechanic quitting or problems with the charter. It had been the death of her dear friend.

Oh, Brit ...

Imagining him, eyes wide, mouth open in a soundless shout, charge toward the terrible man. Trying to stop him, appalled that someone would actually be trying to kill him, to kill Percey. More indignant and betrayed than scared. Your life was so precise, she thought to him. Even your risks were calculated. The inverted flight at fifty feet, the tailspins, the skydiving. To spectators, it looked impossible. But you knew what you were doing and if you thought about the chance of an early death, you believed it would be from a bum linkage or a clogged fuel line or some careless student who intruded into your airspace.

The great aviation writer Ernest K. Gann wrote that fate was a hunter. Percey’d always thought he meant nature or circumstance—the fickle elements, the faulty mechanisms that conspire to send airplanes hurtling into the ground. But fate was more complicated than that. Fate was as complicated as the human mind. As complicated as evil.

Tragedies come in threes ... And what would the last one be? Her death? The Company’s? Someone else’s?

Huddling against Roland Bell, she shivered with anger at the coincidence of it all. Thinking back several weeks: she and Ed and Hale, groggy from lack of sleep, standing in the glare of the hangar lights around Learjet
Charlie Juliet
, hoping desperately they’d win the U.S. Medical contract, shivering in the damp night as they tried to figure out how best to outfit the jet for the job.

Late, a misty night. The airport deserted and dark. Like the final scene in
Casablanca.

Hearing the squeal of brakes and glancing outside.

The man lugging the huge duffle bags out of the car on the tarmac, flinging them inside, and firing up the Beechcraft. The distinctive whine of a piston engine starting.

She remembered Ed saying, incredulous, “What’s he doing? The airport’s closed.”

Fate.

That they happened to be there that night.

That Phillip Hansen had chosen that exact moment to get rid of his damaging evidence.

That Hansen was a man who would kill to keep that flight a secret.

Fate ...

Then she jumped—at a knocking on the door of the safe house.

Two men stood there. Bell recognized them. They were from the NYPD Witness Protection Division. “We’re here to transport you to the Shoreham facility on Long Island, Mrs. Clay.”

“No, no,” she said. “There’s a mistake. I have to go to Mamaroneck Airport.”

“Percey,” Roland Bell said.

“I
have
to.”

“I don’t know about that, ma’am,” one of the officers said. “We’ve got orders to take you to Shoreham and keep you in protective confinement until a grand jury appearance on Monday.”

“No, no, no. Call Lincoln Rhyme. He knows about it.”

“Well ...” One of the officers looked to the other.

“Please,” she said, “call him. He’ll tell you.”

“Actually, Mrs. Clay, it was Lincoln Rhyme who ordered you moved. If you’ll come with us, please. Don’t you worry. We’ll take good care of you, ma’am.”

chapter twenty-seven

Hour 28 of 45

“It’s not pleasant,” Thom told Amelia Sachs.

From behind the bedroom door she heard, “I want that bottle and I want it now.”

“What’s going on?”

The handsome young man grimaced. “Oh, he can be such a prick sometimes. He got one of the patrol officers to pour him some scotch. For the pain, he said. He said he’s got a prescription for single malt. Can you believe it? Oh, he’s insufferable when he drinks.”

A howl of rage from his room.

Sachs knew the only reason he wasn’t throwing things was that he couldn’t.

She reached for the doorknob.

“You might want to wait a little,” Thom warned.

“We can’t wait.”

“Goddamnit!”
Rhyme snarled. “I want that fucking bottle!”

She opened the door. Thom whispered, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Inside, Sachs paused in the doorway. Rhyme was a sight. His hair was disheveled, there was spittle on his chin, and his eyes were red.

The Macallan bottle was on the floor. He must have tried to grab it with his teeth and knocked it over.

He noticed Sachs but all he said was a brisk “Pick it up.”

“We’ve got work to do, Rhyme.”

“Pick. Up. That. Bottle.”

She did. And placed it on the shelf.

He raged, “You know what I mean! I want a drink!”

“You’ve had more than enough, sounds like.”

“Pour some whiskey in my goddamn glass. Thom! Get the hell in here ... Coward.”

“Rhyme,” she snapped, “we’ve got evidence to look at.”

“Hell with the evidence.”

“How much did you drink?”

“The Dancer got inside, didn’t he? Fox in the henhouse. Fox in the henhouse.”

“I’ve got a vacuum filter full of trace, I’ve got a slug, I’ve got samples of his blood ...”

“Blood? Well, that’s fair. He’s got plenty of ours.”

She snapped back, “You oughta be like a kid on his birthday, all the evidence I’ve got. Quit feeling sorry for yourself, and let’s get to work.”

He didn’t respond. As she looked at him she saw his bleary eyes focus past her on the doorway. She turned. There was Percey Clay.

Immediately, Rhyme’s eyes dropped to the floor. He fell silent.

Sure, Sachs thought. Doesn’t want to misbehave in front of his new love.

She walked into the room, looked at the mess that was Lincoln Rhyme.

“Lincoln, what’s going on?” Sellitto had accompanied Percey here, she guessed. He stepped into the room.

“Three dead, Lon. He got three more. Fox in the henhouse.”

“Lincoln,” Sachs blurted. “Stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Wrong thing to say. Rhyme slapped a bewildered gaze on his face. “I’m not embarrassed. Do I look embarrassed? Anyone? Am I embarrassed?
Am I fucking embarrassed?”

“We’ve got—”

“No, we’ve got zip! It’s over with. It’s done. It’s finished. Duck ’n’ cover. We’re heading for the hills. Are you going to join us, Amelia? Suggest you do.”

He finally looked at Percey. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on Long Island.”

“I want to talk to you.”

He said nothing at first, then, “Give me a drink, at least.”

Percey glanced at Sachs and stepped forward to the shelf, poured herself and Rhyme both glasses. Sachs glared at her and she noticed, didn’t respond.

“Here’s a classy lady,” Rhyme said. “I kill her partner and she still shares a drink with me.
You
didn’t do that, Sachs.”

“Oh, Rhyme, you can be such an asshole,” Sachs spat out. “Where’s Mel?”

“Sent him home. Nothing more to do ... We’re bundling her up and shipping her off to Long Island, where she’ll be safe.”

“What?” Sachs asked.

“Doing what we should’ve done at the beginning. Hit me again.”

Percey began to. Sachs said, “He’s had enough.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Rhyme blurted. “She’s mad at me. I don’t do what she wants and so she gets mad.”

Oh, thank you, Rhyme. Let’s air linen in public, why don’t we? She turned her beautiful, cold eyes on him. He didn’t even notice; he was gazing at Percey Clay.

Who said, “You made a deal with me. The next thing I know there’re two agents about to take me off to Long Island. I thought I could trust you.”

“But if you
trust
me, you’ll die.”

“It was a risk,” Percey said. “You told us there was a chance he’d get into the safe house.”

“Sure, but you didn’t know that I figured it out.”

“You ... what?”

Sachs frowned, listened.

Rhyme continued, “I figured out he was going to hit the safe house. I figured out he was in a fireman’s uniform. I fucking figured out he’d use a cutting charge on the back door. I’ll bet it was an Accuracy Systems Five Twenty or Five Twenty-one with an Instadet firing system. Am I right?”

“I—”

“Am I right?”

“A Five Twenty-one,” Sachs said.

“See? I figured all that out. I knew it five minutes before he got in. It’s just that I couldn’t fucking call anyone and tell them! I couldn’t ... pick up ... the fucking phone and tell anybody what was going to happen. And your friend died. Because of me.”

Sachs felt pity for him and it was sour. She was torn apart by his pain, yet she didn’t have a clue what she might say to comfort him.

There was moisture on his chin. Thom stepped forward with a tissue, but he waved the aide away with a furious nod of his handsome jaw. He nodded toward the computer. “Oh, I got cocky. I got to thinking I was pretty normal. Driving around like a race car driver in the Storm Arrow, flipping on lights and changing CDs ... What bullshit!” He closed his eyes and pressed his head back in the pillow.

A sharp laugh, surprising everyone, filled the room.

Percey Clay poured some more scotch into her glass. Then a little more for Rhyme too. “There’s bullshit here, that’s for sure. But it’s only what I’m hearing from you.”

Rhyme opened his eyes, glaring.

Percey laughed again.

“Don’t,” Rhyme warned ambiguously.

“Oh, please,” she muttered dismissingly. “Don’t what?”

Sachs watched Percey’s eyes narrow. “What’re you saying?” Percey began. “That somebody’s dead because of ... technical failure?”

Sachs realized that Rhyme had been expecting her to say something else. He was caught off guard. After a moment he said, “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. If I’d been able to pick up the phone—”

She cut him off. “And, what? That gives you the right to have a goddamn tantrum? To renege on your promises?” She tossed back her liquor and gave an exasperated sigh. “Oh, for God’s sake ... Do you have any idea what I do for a living?”

To her astonishment Sachs saw that Rhyme was calm now. He started to speak but Percey cut him off. “Think about this.” Her drawl was back. “I sit in a little aluminum tube going four hundred knots an hour, six miles above the ground. It’s sixty below zero outside and the winds are a hundred miles an hour. I’m not even talking about lightning, wind shear, and ice. Jesus Christ, I’m only alive
because
of machines.” Another laugh. “How’s that different from you?”