The Coffin Dancer

by Jeffery Deaver

  "The grand jury might not indict him, no matter what we say," Percey'd pointed out. "Then there's no point in killing us."

  "It doesn't matter. Once the Dancer's been hired to kill someone he doesn't stop until they're dead. Besides, the prosecutors'll go after Hansen for killing your husband and you'll be a witness in that case too. Hansen needs you gone."

  "I think I see where you're heading."

  He'd cocked an eyebrow.

  "Worm on a hook," she'd said.

  His eyes had crinkled and he'd laughed. "Well, I'm not going to parade you around in public, just put you into a safe house here in town. Fully guarded. State-of-the-art security. But we'll dig in and keep you there. The Dancer'll surface and we'll stop him, once and for all. It's a crazy idea, but I don't think we have much choice."

  Another tipple of the scotch. It wasn't bad. For a product not bottled in Kentucky. "Crazy?" she'd repeated. "Let me ask you a question. You have your role models, Detective? Somebody you admire?"

  "Sure. Criminalists. August Vollmer, Edmond Locard."

  "Do you know Beryl Markham?"

  "No."

  "Aviatrix in the thirties and forties. She--not Amelia Earheart--was an idol of mine. She led a very dashing life. British upper class. The Out of Africa crowd. She was the first person--not first woman, the first person--to fly solo across the Atlantic the hard way, east to west. Lindbergh used tailwinds." She'd laughed. "Everybody thought she was crazy. Newspapers were running editorials begging her not to try the flight. She did, of course."

  "And made it?"

  "Crash-landed short of the airport, but, yeah, she made it. Well, I don't know if that was brave or crazy. Sometimes I don't think there's any difference."

  Rhyme'd continued, "You'll be pretty safe, but you won't be completely safe."

  "Let me tell you something. You know that spooky name? That you call the killer?"

  "The Dancer."

  "The Coffin Dancer. Well, there's a phrase we use in flying jets. The 'coffin corner.' "

  "What's that?"

  "It's the margin between the speed your plane stalls at and the speed it starts to break apart from Mach turbulence--when you approach the speed of sound. At sea level you've got a couple hundred miles per hour to play with, but at fifty or sixty thousand feet, your stall speed's maybe five hundred knots per hour and your Mach buffet's about five forty. You don't stay within that forty-knots-per-hour margin, you turn the coffin corner and you've had it. Any planes that fly that high have to have autopilots to keep the speed inside the margin. Well, I'll just say that I fly that high all the time and I hardly ever use an autopilot. Completely safe isn't a concept I'm familiar with."

  "Then you'll do it."

  But Percey hadn't answered right away. She'd scrutinized him for a moment. "There's more to this, isn't there?"

  "More?" Rhyme had asked, but the innocence in his voice had been a thin patina.

  "I read the Times Metro section. You cops don't go all out like this for just any murder. What'd Hansen do? He killed a couple of soldiers, and my husband, but you're after him like he's Al Capone."

  "I don't give a damn about Hansen," quiet Lincoln Rhyme had said, sitting in his motorized throne, with a body that didn't move and eyes that flickered like dark flames, exactly like the eyes of her hawk. She hadn't told Rhyme that she, like him, would never name a hunting bird, that she'd called the haggard merely "the falcon."

  Rhyme had continued. "I want to get the Dancer. He's killed cops, including two who worked for me. I'm going to get him."

  Still, she'd sensed there was more. But she hadn't pushed it. "You'll have to ask Brit too."

  "Of course."

  Finally, she'd said, "All right, I'll do it."

  "Thank you. I--"

  "But," she interrupted.

  "What?"

  "There's a condition."

  "What's that?" Rhyme lifted an eyebrow and Percey had been struck by this thought: once you overlooked his damaged body you saw what a handsome man he was. And, yes, yes, realizing that, she felt her old enemy--the familiar cringe of being in the presence of a good-looking man. Hey, Troll Face, Pug Face, Troll, Trollie, Frog Girl, gotta date for Saturday night? Betcha don't . . .

  Percey'd said, "That I fly the U.S. Medical charter tomorrow night."

  "Oh, I don't think that would be a very good idea."

  "It's a deal breaker," she'd said, recalling a phrase Ron and Ed had used occasionally.

  "Why do you have to fly?"

  "Hudson Air needs this contract. Desperately. It's a narrow-margin flight and we need the best pilot in the company. That's me."

  "What do you mean, narrow margin?"

  "Everything's planned out to the nth degree. We're going with minimum fuel. I can't have a pilot wasting time making go-arounds because he's blown the approach or declaring alternates because of minimum conditions." She'd paused, then added, "I am not letting my company go down the tubes."

  Percey'd said this with an intensity that matched his, but she'd been surprised when he nodded. "All right," Rhyme had said. "I'll agree."

  "Then we have a deal." She'd instinctively reached forward to shake his hand but caught herself.

  He'd laughed. "I stick to solely verbal agreements these days." They'd sipped the scotch to seal the bargain.

  Now, six-thirty on Saturday morning, she rested her head against the glass of the safe house. There was so much to do. Getting Foxtrot Bravo repaired. Preparing the nav log and the flight plan--which alone would take hours. But still, despite her uneasiness, despite her sorrow about Ed, she felt that indescribable sense of pleasure; she'd be flying tonight.

  "Hey," a friendly voice drawled.

  She turned to see Roland Bell in the doorway.

  "Morning," she said.

  He walked forward quickly. "You have those curtains open you better be keepin' low as a bedbaby." He tugged the drapes shut.

  "Oh. I heard Detective Rhyme was springing some trap. Guaranteed to catch him."

  "Well, word is Lincoln Rhyme is all the time right. But I wouldn't trust this particular killer behind a dime. You sleep decent?"

  "No," she said. "You?"

  "I dozed a couple hours back," Bell said, peering with sharp eyes out through the curtain. "But I don't need much sleep. Wake up full of git most days. Havin' youngsters does that to you. Now, just you keep that curtain closed. Remember, this is New York City, and think what'd happen to my career if you got yourself winged by some gangsta shootin' stray bullets in the air. I'd have the dry grins for a week, that happened. Now how about some coffee?"

  Here were a dozen punchy clouds reflected in the windows of the old town house early this Sunday morning.

  Here was a hint of rain.

  Here was the Wife standing in a bathrobe at the window, her white face surrounded by dark curly hair mussed from just waking.

  And here was Stephen Kall, one block away from the Justice Department's safe house on Thirty-fifth Street, blending into the shadows beneath a water tower on the top of an old apartment building, watching her through his Leica binoculars, the reflection of the clouds swimming across her thin body.

  He knew that the glass would be bulletproof and would certainly deflect the first shot. He could place another round within four seconds, but she'd stumble backward in reaction to the shattering glass even if she didn't realize she was being fired at. The odds were he couldn't inflict a mortal wound.

  Sir, I will stick to my original plan, sir.

  A man appeared beside her and the curtain fell back. Then his face peered through the crack, eyes scanning the rooftops where a sniper would logically be positioned. He looked efficient and dangerous. Stephen memorized his appearance.

  Then he ducked behind the facade of the building before he was seen.

  The police trick--he guessed it was Lincoln the Worm's idea--about moving the Wife and the Friend into the police precinct building on the West Side hadn't fooled him for more than ten minutes.
After listening to the Wife and Ron over the tapped line, he'd simply run a renegade software program--a remote star-69--he'd downloaded from the warez newsgroup on the Internet. It returned a 212 phone number. Manhattan.

  What he'd done next was a long shot.

  But how are victories won, Soldier?

  By considering every possibility, however improbable, sir.

  He'd logged on to the Net and a moment later had typed the phone number into a reverse phone book, which gave you the address and name of the subscriber. It didn't work with unlisted numbers and Stephen was certain that no one in the federal government would be so stupid as to use a listed number for a safe house.

  He was wrong.

  The name James L. Johnson, 258 East 35th Street popped onto the screen.

  Impossible . . .

  He'd then called the Manhattan Federal Building and asked to speak to Mr. Johnson. "That'd be James Johnson."

  "Hold please, I'll put you through."

  "Excuse me," Stephen had interrupted. "What department is he in again?"

  "That'd be the Justice Department. Facilities Management Office."

  Stephen hung up as the call was being transferred.

  Once he knew the Wife and Friend were in a safe house on Thirty-fifth Street, he'd stolen some official city maps of the block to plan his assault. Then he'd taken his stroll around the Twentieth Precinct building on the West Side and let himself be seen gazing at the gas pump. After that he'd boosted a gas delivery truck and left plenty of evidence behind so that they'd think he'd be using the truck as a giant gas bomb to take out the witnesses at the Twentieth.

  And so here was Stephen Kall now, within small-arms range of the Wife and the Friend.

  Thinking of the job, trying not to think about the obvious parallel: the face in the window, looking for him.

  A little cringey, not too bad. A little wormy.

  The curtain closed. Stephen now examined the safe house again.

  It was a three-story building unattached to adjacent buildings, the alley like a dark moat around the structure. The walls were brownstone--the hardest building material other than granite or marble to tunnel or blast through--and the windows were blocked with bars that looked like old iron but that Stephen knew were really case-hardened steel and would be wired with motion or decibel sensors or both.

  The fire escape was real, but if you looked closely you could see that behind the curtained windows was darkness. Probably sheet steel bolted to the inside frame. He'd found the real fire door--behind a large theatrical poster pasted to the brick. (Why would anyone put up an ad in an alley unless it was to disguise a door?) The alley itself looked like any other in midtown, cobblestone and asphalt, but he could see the glass eyes of security cameras recessed into the walls. Still, there were trash bags and several Dumpsters in the alley that would provide pretty good cover. He could climb into the alley from a window in the office building next door and use the Dumpsters for cover to get to the fire door.

  In fact, there was an open window on the first floor of the office building, a curtain blowing in and out. Whoever was monitoring the security screens would have seen the motion and become used to it. Stephen could drop through the window, six feet to the ground, and then move behind the Dumpster and crawl to the fire door.

  He also knew they wouldn't be expecting him here--he'd heard the reports of an evacuation of all the buildings near the Twentieth Precinct, so they'd really believed that he'd try to get a gas truck bomb close to the station house.

  Evaluate, Soldier.

  Sir, my evaluation is that the enemy is relying on both physical structure and anonymity of the premises for defense. I note the absence of large numbers of tactical personnel and I have concluded that a single-person assault on the premises has a good likelihood of success in eliminating one or both of the targets, sir.

  Despite the confidence, though, he felt momentarily cringey.

  Picturing Lincoln searching for him. Lincoln the Worm. A big lumpy thing, a larva, moist with worm moisture, looking everywhere, seeing through walls, oozing up through cracks.

  Looking through windows . . .

  Crawling up his leg.

  Chewing on his flesh.

  Wash 'em off. Wash them off!

  Wash what off, Soldier? You still harping on those fucking worms?

  Sir, I am . . . Sir, no sir.

  Are you going soft on me, Soldier? Are you feeling like a little pussy schoolgirl?

  Sir, no sir. I am a knife blade, sir. I am pure death. I have a hard-on to kill, sir!

  Breathed deeply. Slowly calmed.

  He hid the guitar case containing the Model 40 on the roof, under a wooden water tower. The rest of the equipment he transferred to a large book bag, and then pulled on a Columbia University windbreaker and his baseball cap.

  He climbed down the fire escape and disappeared into the alley, feeling ashamed, even scared--not of his enemy's bullets but of the piercing hot gaze of Lincoln the Worm, moving closer, easing slowly but relentlessly through the city, looking for him.

  Stephen had planned on an invasive entry, but he didn't have to kill a soul. The office building next to the safe house was empty.

  The lobby was deserted and there were no security cameras inside. The main door was wedged partly open with a rubber doorstop and he saw dollies and furniture pads stacked beside it. It was tempting, but he didn't want to run into any movers or tenants, so he stepped outside again and slipped around the corner, away from the safe house. He eased behind a potted pine tree, which hid him from the sidewalk. With his elbow he broke the narrow window leading into a darkened office--of a psychiatrist, it turned out--and climbed in. He stood completely still for five minutes, pistol in hand. Nothing. He then eased silently out the door and into the first-floor corridor of the building.

  He paused outside the office he believed was the one with the window opening onto the alley--the one with the blowing curtain. Stephen reached for the doorknob.

  But instinct told him to change his plans. He decided to try the basement. He found the stairs and descended into the musty warren of basement rooms.

  Stephen worked his way silently toward the side of the building closest to the safe house and pushed open a steel door. He walked into a dimly lit twenty-by-twenty room filled with boxes and old appliances. He found a head-high window that opened onto the alley.

  It'd be a tight fit. He'd have to remove the glass and the frame. But once he was out he could slip directly behind a pile of trash bags and in a sniper's low crawl make his way to the fire door of the safe house. Much safer than the window upstairs.

  Stephen thought: I've done it.

  He'd fooled them all.

  Fooled Lincoln the Worm! This gave him as much pleasure as killing the two victims would.

  He took a screwdriver from his book bag and began to work the glazier's putty out of the window. The gray wads came away slowly and he was so absorbed in his task that by the time he dropped the screwdriver and got his hand on the butt of his Beretta, the man was on top of him, shoving a pistol into Stephen's neck and telling him in a whisper, "You move an inch and you're dead."

  III

  Craft smanship

  [The falcon] began to fly. To fly: the horrible aerial toad, the silent-feathered owl, the humpbacked aviating Richard III, he made toward me close to the ground. His wings beat with a measured purpose, the two eyes of his low-held head fixed me with a ghoulish concentration.

  The Goshawk,

  T. H. White

  . . . Chapter Nineteen

  Hour 23 of 45

  Short-barrel, probably Colt or Smittie or Dago knockoff, not fired recently. Or oiled.

  I smell rust.

  And what does a rusty gun tell us, Soldier?

  Plenty, sir.

  Stephen Kall lifted his hands.

  The high, unsteady voice said, "Drop your gun over there. And your walkie-talkie."

  Walkie-talkie?

  "Come on,
do it. I'll blow your brains out." The voice crackled with desperation. He sniffled wetly.

  Soldier, do professionals threaten?

  Sir, they do not. This man is an amateur. Should we immobilize him?

  Not yet. He still represents a threat.

  Sir, yessir.

  Stephen dropped his gun on a cardboard box.

  "Where . . . ? Come on, where's your radio?"

  "I don't have a radio," Stephen said.

  "Turn around. And don't try anything."

  Stephen eased around and found himself looking at a skinny man with darting eyes. He was filthy and looked sick. His nose ran and his eyes were an alarming red. His thick brown hair was matted. And he stank. Homeless, probably. A wino, his stepfather would have called him. Or a hophead.

  The old battered snub-nose Colt was thrust forward at Stephen's belly and the hammer was back. It wouldn't take much for the cams to slip, especially if it was old. Stephen smiled a benign smile. He didn't move a muscle. "Look," he said, "I don't want any trouble."

  "Where's your radio?" the man blurted.

  "I don't have a radio."

  The man nervously patted his captive's chest. Stephen could have killed him easily--the man's attention kept wandering. He felt the skittering fingers glide over his body, probing. Finally the man stepped back. "Where's your partner?"

  "Who?"

  "Don't give me any shit. You know."

  Suddenly cringey again. Wormy . . . Something was wrong. "I really don't know what you mean."

  "The cop who was just here."

  "Cop?" Stephen whispered. "In this building?"

  The man's rheumy eyes flickered with uncertainty. "Yeah. Aren't you his partner?"

  Stephen walked to the window and looked out.

  "Hold it. I'll shoot."

  "Point that someplace else," Stephen commanded, glancing over his shoulder. No longer worried about slipping cams. He was beginning to see the extent of his mistake. He felt sick to his stomach.

  The man's voice cracked as he threatened, "Stop. Right there. I fucking mean it."

  "Are they in the alley too?" Stephen asked calmly.

  A moment of confused silence. "You really aren't a cop?"

  "Are they in the alley too?" Stephen repeated firmly.

  The man looked uneasily around the room. "A bunch of them were a while ago. They're the ones put those trash bags there. I don't know 'bout now."

  Stephen stared into the alley. The trash bags . . . They'd been left there to lure me out. False cover.