The Coffin Dancer (33 page)

“No!” Rhyme cried. “No!”

But the system couldn’t understand his loud, frantic voice and with a silent flash the message came up,
Do you really want to shut off your computer?

“No,” he whispered desperately.

For a moment nothing happened, but the system didn’t shut down. A message popped up.
What would you like to do now?

“Thom!” he shouted. “Somebody ... please. Mel!”

But the door was closed; there was no response from downstairs.

Rhyme’s left ring finger twitched dramatically. At one time he’d had a mechanical ECU controller and he could use his one working finger to dial the phone. The computer system had replaced that and he now
had
to use the dictation program to call the safe house and tell them that the Dancer was on his way there, dressed as a fireman or rescue worker.

“Command mode,” he said into the microphone. Fighting to stay calm.

I did not understand what you just said. Please try again.

Where was the Dancer now? Was he inside already? Was he just about to shoot Percey Clay or Brit Hale?

Or Amelia Sachs?

“Thom! Mel!”

I did not understand ...

Why wasn’t I thinking better?

“Command mode,” he said breathlessly, trying to master the panic.

The command mode message box popped up. The cursor arrow sat at the top of the screen and, a continent away, at the bottom, was the communications program icon.

“Cursor down,” he gasped.

Nothing happened.

“Cursor down,” he called, louder.

The message came back:
I did not understand what you just said. Please try again.

“Oh, goddamn ...”

I did not understand ...

Softer, forcing himself to speak in a normal tone, he said, “Cursor down.”

The glowing white arrow began its leisurely trip down the screen.

We’ve still got time, he told himself. And it wasn’t as though the people in the safe house were unprotected or unarmed.

“Cursor left,” he gasped.

I did not understand ...

“Oh, come on!”

I
did not understand
...

“Cursor up ... cursor left.”

The cursor moved like a snail over the screen until it came to the icon.

Calm, calm ...

“Cursor stop. Double click.”

Dutifully, an icon of a walkie-talkie popped up on the screen.

He pictured the faceless Dancer moving up behind Percey Clay with a knife or garrote.

In as calm a voice as he could muster he ordered the cursor to the set-frequency box.

It seated itself perfectly.

“Four,” Rhyme said, pronouncing the word so very carefully.

A
4
popped up into the box. Then he said, “Eight.”

The letter
A
appeared in the second box.

Lord in heaven!

“Delete left.”

I
did not understand ...

No, no!

He thought he heard footsteps. “Hello?” he cried. “Is someone there? Thom? Mel?”

No answer except from his friend the computer, which placidly offered its contrarian response once again.

“Eight,” he said slowly.

The number appeared. His next attempt, “Three,” popped into the box without a problem.

“Point.”

The word
point
appeared.

Goddamn!

“Delete left.” Then, “Decimal.”

The period popped up.

“Four.”

One space left. Remember, It’s
zero
not
oh.
Sweat streaming down his face, he added the final number of the Secure Ops frequency without a glitch.

The radio clicked on.

Yes!

But before he could transmit, static clattered harshly and, with a frozen heart, he heard a man’s frantic voice crying, “Ten-thirteen, need assistance, federal protection location six.”

The safe house.

He recognized the voice as Roland Bell’s. “Two down and ... Oh, Jesus, he’s still here. He’s got us, he’s hit us! We need—”

There were two gunshots. Then another. A dozen. A huge firefight. It sounded like Macy’s fireworks on the Fourth of July.

“We need—”

The transmission ended.

“Percey!” Rhyme cried. “Percey ...”

On the screen came the message in simple type:
I
did not understand what you just said. Please try again.

A nightmare.

Stephen Kall, in ski mask and wearing the bulky fireman’s coat, lay pinned down in the corridor of the safe house, behind the body of one of the two U.S. marshals he’d just killed.

Another shot, closer, digging a piece out of the floor near his head. Fired by the detective with the thinning brown hair—the one he’d seen in the window of the safe house that morning. He crouched in a doorway, presenting a fair target, but Stephen couldn’t get a clean shot at him. The detective held automatic pistols in both his hands and was an excellent shot.

Stephen crawled forward another yard, toward one of the open doorways.

Panicked, cringey, coated with worms ...

He fired again and the brown-haired detective ducked back into the room, called something on his radio, but came right back, firing coolly.

Wearing the fireman’s long, black coat—the same as thirty or forty other men and women in front of the safe house—Stephen had blown open the alley door with a cutting charge and run inside, expecting to find the interior a fiery shambles and the Wife and Friend—as well as half the other people inside—blown to pieces or badly wounded. But Lincoln the Worm had fooled him again. He’d figured out that the phone was booby-trapped. The only thing they hadn’t expected was that he’d hit the safe house again; they believed he was going for a transport hit. Still, when he burst inside he was met by the frantic fire from the two marshals. But they’d been stunned by the cutting charge and he’d managed to kill them.

Then the brown-haired detective charged around the corner firing both-handed, skimming two off Stephen’s vest, while Stephen himself danced one round off the detective’s and they fell backward simultaneously. More shooting, more near misses. The cop was almost as good a shot as he was.

A minute at the most. He had no more time than that.

He felt so wormy he wanted to cry ... He’d thought his plan out as best he could. He couldn’t get any smarter than he’d been and Lincoln the Worm had
still
out-thought him. Was this him? The balding detective with the two guns?

Another volley from Stephen’s gun. And ... damn ... the brown-haired detective dove right into it, kept coming forward. Every other cop in the world would’ve run for cover. But not him. He struggled another two feet forward, then three. Stephen reloaded, fired again, crawling about the same distance toward the door of his target’s room.

You disappear into the ground, boy. You can make yourself invisible, you want to.

I want to, sir. I want to be invisible ...

Another yard, almost to the doorway.

“This’s Roland Bell again!” the cop shouted into his microphone. “We need backup immediately!”

Bell.
Stephen noted the name. So he’s not Lincoln the Worm.

The cop reloaded and continued to fire. A dozen shots, two dozen ... Stephen could only admire his technique. This Bell would keep track of how many shots he’d fired from each gun and alternate reloading so he was never without a loaded weapon.

The cop parked a slug in the wall an inch from Stephen’s face, and Stephen returned a shot that landed just as close.

Crawling forward another two feet.

Bell glanced up and saw that Stephen had finally made it to the doorway of the darkened bedroom. Their eyes locked and, mock soldier though he was, Stephen Kall had seen enough combat to know that the string of rationality within this cop had snapped and he’d become the most dangerous thing there was—a skillful soldier with no regard for his own safety. Bell rose to his feet and started forward, firing from both guns.

That’s why they used .45s in the Pacific Theater, boy. Big slugs to stop those crazy little Japs. When they came at you they didn’t care about getting killed; they just didn’t want to get stopped.

Stephen lowered his head, tossed the one-second-delay flash bang at Bell, and closed his eyes. The grenade detonated with an astonishingly loud explosion. He heard the cop cry out and saw him stumble to his knees, hands over his face.

Stephen had guessed that because of the guards and Bell’s furious effort to stop him, either the Wife or the Friend was in this room. Stephen had also guessed that whoever it was would be hiding in the closet or under the bed.

He was wrong.

As he glanced into the doorway he saw the figure come charging at him, holding a lamp as a weapon and uttering a wail of fear and anger.

Five fast shots from Stephen’s gun. Head and chest hits, well grouped. The body spun around fast and flew backward to the floor.

Good job, Soldier.

Then more footsteps on the floor coming down the stairs. A woman’s voice. And more voices too. No time to finish Bell, no time to look for the other target.

Evacuate. ...

He ran to the back door and stuck his head outside, shouting for more firemen.

A half dozen of them ran up cautiously.

Stephen nodded them inside. “Gas line just blew. I’d get everybody out. Now!”

And he disappeared into the alley, then stepped into the street, dodging the Mack and Seagrave fire trucks, the ambulances, the police cars.

Shaken, yes.

But satisfied. His job was now two-thirds finished.

Amelia Sachs was the first to respond to the bang of the entry charge and the shouts.

Then Roland Bell’s voice from the first floor: “Backup! Backup! Officer down!”

And gunfire. A dozen sharp cracks, a dozen more.

She didn’t know how the Dancer’d done it and she didn’t care. She wanted only a fair glimpse of target and two seconds to sink half a clip of nine-millimeter hollow-points into him.

The light Glock in her hand, she pushed into the second-floor corridor. Behind her were Sellitto and Dellray and a young uniform, whose credentials under fire she wished she’d taken the time to learn. Jodie cowered on the floor, painfully aware he’d betrayed a very dangerous man who was armed and no more than thirty feet away.

Sachs’s knees screamed as she took the stairs fast, the arthritis again, and she winced as she leapt down the last three steps to the first floor.

In her headset she heard Bell’s repeated request for assistance.

Down the dark corridor, pistol close to the body, where it couldn’t be knocked aside (only TV cops and movie gangstas stick a gun out in front of them phallically before turning corners, or tilt a weapon on its side). Fast glance into each of the rooms she passed, crouching, below chest height, where a muzzle would be pointed.

“I’ll take the front,” Dellray called and vanished down the hallway behind her, his big Sig-Sauer in hand.

“Watch our backs,” Sachs ordered Sellitto and the uniform, caring not a bit about rank.

“Yes’m,” the young man answered. “I’m watching. Our backs.”

Puffing Sellitto was too, his head swiveling back and forth.

Static crinkled in her ear but she heard no voices. She tugged the headset off—no distractions—and continued cautiously down the corridor.

At her feet two U.S. marshals lay dead on the floor.

The smell of chemical explosive was strong and she glanced toward the back door of the safe house. It was steel but he’d blown it open with a powerful cutting charge as if it had been paper.

“Jesus, “ Sellitto said, too professional to bend down over the fallen marshals but too human not to glance in horror at their riddled bodies.

Sachs came to one room, paused at the door. Two of Haumann’s troops entered from the destroyed doorway.

“Cover,” she called and before anyone had a chance to stop her she leapt through the doorway fast.

Glock up, scanning the room.

Nothing.

No cordite smell either. There’d been no shooting here.

Back into the corridor. Heading toward the next doorway.

She pointed to herself and then into the room. The 32-E officers nodded.

Sachs spun around the doorway, ready to fire, the troopers right behind. She froze at the sight of the gun muzzle aimed at her chest.

“Lord,” Roland Bell muttered and lowered his weapon. His hair was mussed and his face was sooty. Two bullets had torn his shirt and streaked over his body armor.

Then her eyes took in the terrible sight on the floor.

“Oh, no ...”

“Building’s clear,” a patrolman called from the corridor. “They saw him leave. He was wearing a fireman’s uniform. He’s gone. Lost in the crowd out front.”

Amelia Sachs, once again a criminalist and not a tactical officer, observed the blood spatter, the astringent scent of gunshot residue, the fallen chair, which might indicate a struggle and therefore would be a logical transfer point for trace evidence. The bullet casings, which she immediately noticed were from a 7.62-millimeter automatic.

She observed too the way the body had fallen, which told her that the victim had been attacking the attacker, apparently with a lamp. There were other stories the crime scene would tell and, for that reason, she knew she should help Percey Clay to her feet and lead her away from the body of her slain friend. But Sachs couldn’t do that. All she could do was watch the small woman with the squat unpretty face cradle Brit Hale’s bloody head, muttering, “Oh, no, oh, no ...”

Her face was a mask, unmoving, untouched by tears.

Finally Sachs nodded to Roland Bell, who slipped his arms around Percey and led her out into the corridor, still vigilant, still clutching his own weapon.

Two hundred and thirty yards from the safe house.

Red and blue lights from the dozens of emergency vehicles flashed and tried to blind him but he was sighting through the Redfield telescope and was oblivious to anything but the reticles. He scanned back and forth over the kill zone.