Jeffery Deaver - The Coffin Dancer

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.

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.