Jeffery Deaver - The Coffin Dancer

The tension gripped his jaw.

“How do you think we should handle it, Lincoln?” Sellitto asked.

This was tactical, not evidentiary. Rhyme looked at Dellray, who tugged his unlit cigarette out from behind his ear and smelled it for a moment. He finally said, “Have the mutt make the call and try to get whatever dope he can from the Dancer. We’ll set up a decoy car, send the Dancer after it. Have it full of our folks. Stop it fast, sandwich him in with a couple unmarkeds, and take him down.”

Rhyme nodded reluctantly. He knew how dangerous a tactical assault on a city street would be. “Can we get him out of midtown?”

“We could lead him over to the East River,” Sellitto suggested. “There’s plenty of room there for a takedown. Some of those old parking lots. We could make it look like we’re transferring them to another van. Doin’ a round-robin.”

They agreed this would be the least dangerous approach.

Sellitto nodded toward Jodie, whispered, “He’s diming the Coffin Dancer… what’re we gonna give him? Gotta be good to make it worth his while.”

“Waive conspiracy and aiding and abetting,” Rhyme said. “Give him some money.”

“Fuck,” said Dellray, though he was known for his generosity with the undercover CIs who worked for him. But finally he nodded. “Hokay, hokay. We’ll split the bill. Depending on how greedy the rodent is.”

Sellitto called him over.

“All right, here’s the deal. You help us, you make the call like he wanted and we get him, then we’ll drop all charges and get you some reward money.”

“How much?” Jodie asked.

“Yo, mutt, you’re not in any way, shape, or form to negotiate here.”

“I need money for a drug rehab program. I need another ten thousand. Is there any way?”

Sellitto looked at Dellray. “What’s your snitch fund look like?”

“We could go there,” the agent said, “if you do halvsies. Yeah.”

“Really?” Jodie repressed a smile. “Then I’ll do whatever you want.”

Rhyme, Sellitto, and Dellray hashed out a plan. They’d set up a command post on the top floor of the safe house, where Jodie would be with the cell phone. Percey and Brit would be on the main floor, with troopers protecting them. Jodie would call the Dancer and tell him that the couple had just gotten into a van and were leaving. The van would move slowly through traffic to a deserted parking lot on the East Side. The Dancer’d follow. They’d take him in the lot.

All right, let’s put it together, Sellitto said.

“Wait,” Rhyme ordered. They stopped and looked at him. “We’re forgetting the most important part of all.”

“Which is?”

“Amelia searched the scene at the subway. I want to analyze what she found. It might tell us how he’s coming at us.”

“We know how he’s coming at us, Linc,” Sellitto said, nodding at Jodie.

“Humor an old crip, will you? Now, Sachs, let’s see what we’ve got.”

The Worm.

Stephen was moving through alleys, riding on buses, dodging the cops he saw and the Worm he couldn’t see.

The Worm, watching him through every window on every street. The Worm, getting closer and closer.

He thought about the Wife and the Friend, he thought about the job, about how many bullets he had left, about whether the targets would be wearing body armor, what range he would shoot from, whether this time he should use a suppressor or not.

But these were automatic thoughts. He didn’t control them any more than he controlled his breathing or heartbeat or the speed of the blood coursing through his body.

What his conscious thoughts were consumed with was Jodie.

What was there about him that was so fascinating?

Stephen couldn’t say for certain. Maybe it was the way he lived by himself and didn’t seem to be lonely. Maybe the way he carried that little self-help book around with him and truly wanted to crawl out of the hole he was in. Or the way he hadn’t balked when Stephen told him to stand in the doorway and risk getting shot.

Stephen felt funny. He -

You feel what, Soldier?

Sir, I -

Funny, Soldier? What the fuck does “funny” mean? You going soft on me?

No sir, I am not.

It wasn’t too late to change the plans. There were still alternatives. Plenty of alternatives.

Thinking about Jodie. About what he’d said to Stephen. Hell, maybe they could get coffee after the job was over.

They could go to Starbucks. It would be like when he was talking to Sheila, only this would be real. And he wouldn’t have to drink that pissy little tea but he’d have real coffee, double strong like the kind Stephen’s mother made in the morning for his stepfather, water at a rolling boil for exactly sixty seconds, exactly two and three-quarters level tablespoons per cup, not a single black ground spilled anywhere.

And was fishing or hunting totally out of the question?

Or the campfire…

He could tell Jodie to abort the mission. He could take the Wife and the Friend on his own.

Abort, Soldier? What’re you talking about?

Sir, nothing, sir. I am considering all eventualities regarding the assault, as I have been instructed, sir.

Stephen climbed off the bus and slipped into the alley behind the fire station on Lexington. He rested the book bag behind a Dumpster, slipped his knife from the sheath under his jacket.

Jodie. Joe D…

He pictured the thin arms again, the way the man had looked at him.

I’m glad I met you too, partner.

Then Stephen shivered suddenly. Like the time in Bosnia when he’d had to jump into a stream to avoid being caught by guerrillas. The month was March and the water just above freezing.

He closed his eyes and pressed up against the brick wall, smelled the wet stone.

Jodie was -

Soldier, what the fuck is going on there?

Sir, I -

What?

Sir, uhm…

Spit it out. Now, Soldier!

Sir, I have ascertained that the enemy was trying psychological warfare. His attempts have proved unsuccessful, sir. I am ready to proceed as planned.

Very good, Soldier. But watch your fucking step.

And Stephen realized, as he opened the back door to the firehouse and slipped inside, that there’d be no changing the plans now. This was a perfect setup and he couldn’t waste it, particularly when there was a chance not only of killing the Wife and the Friend but of killing Lincoln the Worm and the redheaded woman cop too.

Stephen glanced at his watch. Jodie would be in position in fifteen minutes. He’d call Stephen’s phone. Stephen would answer and hear the man’s high-pitched voice one last time.

And he’d push the transmit button that would detonate the twelve ounces of RDX in Jodie’s cell phone.

Delegate… isolate… eliminate.

He really had no choice.

Besides, he thought, what would we ever have to talk about? What would we ever have to do after we’d finished our coffee?

Hour 26 of 45

WAITING.

Rhyme was now alone in his bed upstairs, listening into the Special Ops frequency. He was dead tired. It was noon on Sunday and he’d had virtually no sleep. And he was exhausted from the most arduous effort of all – of trying to out-think the Dancer. It was taking its toll on his body.

Cooper was downstairs in the lab, running tests to confirm Rhyme’s conclusions about the Dancer’s latest tactic. Everyone else was at the safe house, Amelia Sachs too. Once Rhyme, Sellitto, and Dellray had decided how to counter what they believed would be the Dancer’s next effort to kill Percey Clay and Brit Hale, Thom had checked Rhyme’s blood pressure and asserted his virtual parental authority and ordered his boss into bed, no arguments, reasonable or otherwise, accepted. They’d ridden up in the elevator, Rhyme oddly silent, uneasy, wondering if he’d guessed right again.