Jeffery Deaver - The Coffin Dancer

Percey laughed. She called out, “On airliners, they try to keep you from realizing you’re flying. Movies, food, small windows. Where’s the fun? What’s the point?”

“I can see a point or two,” he said, chewing his Wrigley’s with energetic teeth. He closed the curtain.

Percey’s eyes were on the taxiway, checking left and right, always vigilant. To Brad she said, “I’ll do the briefing now. Okay?”

“Yes’m.”

“This’ll be a rolling takeoff with flaps set to fifteen degrees,” Percey said. “I’ll advance the throttles. You call airspeed, eighty knots, cross-check, V one, rotate, V two, and positive rate. I’ll command gear up and you raise it. Got that?”

“Airspeed, eighty, V one, rotate, V two, positive rate. Gear.”

“Good. You’ll monitor all instruments and the annunciator panel. Now, if we get a red panel light or there’s an engine malfunction before V one, sing out ‘Abort’ loud and clear and I’ll make a go/no-go decision. If there’s a malfunction at or after V one, we will continue the takeoff and we’ll treat the situation as an in-flight emergency. We will continue on heading and you’ll request VFR clearance for an immediate return to the airport. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Good. Let’s do some flying… You ready, Roland?”

“ I’m ready. Hope you are. Don’t drop your candy.”

Percey laughed again. Their housekeeper in Richmond had used that expression. It meant, don’t screw up.

She wobbled the throttles a little closer to the firewall. The engines gave a grinding sound and the Learjet sped forward. They continued to the hold position, where the killer had placed the bomb on Ed’s plane. She looked out the window and saw two cops standing guard.

“Lear Niner Five Foxtrot Bravo ,” Ground Control called through the radio, “proceed to and hold short of runway five left.”

“ Foxtrot Bravo. Hold short of zero five left.”

She steered onto the taxiway.

The Lear was a ground hugger, yet whenever Percey Clay sat in the left-hand seat, whether in the air or on the ground, she felt that she was a mile high. It was a powerful place to be. All the decisions would be hers, followed unquestioningly. All the responsibility was on her shoulders. She was the captain.

Eyes scanning the instruments.

“Flaps fifteen, fifteen, green,” she said, repeating the degree setting.

Doubling the redundancy, Brad said, “Flaps fifteen, fifteen, green.”

ATC called, “Lear Niner Five Foxtrot Bravo , turn into position. Cleared for takeoff, runway five left.”

“Five left, Foxtrot Bravo. Cleared for takeoff.”

Brad concluded the takeoff checklist. “Pressurization, normal. Temperature select is in auto. Transponder and exterior lights on. Ignition, pitot heat, and strobes, your side.”

Percey checked those controls, said, “Ignition, pitot heat, and strobes on.”

She turned the Lear onto the runway, straightened the nosewheel, and lined up with centerline. She glanced at the compass. “All heading indicators check zero five. Runway five L. I’m setting power.”

She pushed the throttles forward. They began racing down the middle of the concrete strip. She felt his hand grip the throttles just below hers.

“Power set.” Then Brad called, “Airspeed alive,” as the airspeed indicators jumped off the peg and started to move upward, twenty knots, forty knots…

The throttles nearly to the fire wall, the plane shot forward. She heard a “wayl…” from Roland Bell and repressed a smile.

Fifty knots, sixty knots, seventy…

“Eighty knots,” Brad called out, “cross-check.”

“Check,” she called after a glance at the airspeed indicator.

“V one,” Brad sang out. “Rotate.”

Percey removed her right hand from the throttles and took the yoke. Wobbly until now, the plastic control suddenly grew firm with air resistance. She eased back, rotating the Lear upward to the standard seven-and-a-half-degree incline. The engines continued to roar smoothly and so she pulled back slightly more, increasing the climb to ten degrees.

“Positive rate,” Brad called.

“Gear up. Flaps up. Yaw damp on.”

Through the headphone came the voice of ATC. “Lear Niner Five Foxtrot Bravo , turn left heading two eight oh. Contact departure control.”

“Two eight oh, Niner Five Foxtrot Bravo. Thank you, sir.”

“Good evening.”

Tugging the yoke a bit more, eleven degrees, twelve, fourteen… Leaving the power settings at takeoff level, higher than normal, for a few minutes. Hearing the sweet grind of the turbofans behind her, the slipstream.

And in this sleek silver needle, Percey Clay felt herself flying into the heart of the sky, leaving behind the cumbersome, the heavy, the painful. Leaving behind Ed’s death and Brit’s, leaving behind even that terrible man, the devil, the Coffin Dancer. All of the hurt, all of the uncertainty, all of the ugliness were trapped far below her, and she was free. It seemed unfair that she should escape these stifling burdens so easily, but that was the fact of it. For the Percey Clay who sat in the left-hand seat of Lear N695FB was not Percey Clay the short girl with the squat face, or Percey Clay the girl whose only sex appeal was the lure of Daddy’s chopped-tobacco money. It wasn’t Per-ceee Pug, Percey the Mug, Percey the Troll, the awkward brunette struggling with the ill-fitting gloves at her cotillion, on the arm of her mortified cousin, surrounded by willowy blondes who nodded at her with pleasant smiles and stored up the sight for a gossip fest later.

That wasn’t the real Percey Clay.

This was.

Another gasp from Roland Bell. He must have peeked through the window curtain during their alarming bank.

“Mamaroneck departure, Lear Niner Five Foxtrot Bravo with you out of two thousand.”

“Evening, Five Foxtrot Bravo. Climb and maintain six thousand.”

And then they began the mundane tasks of setting nav com for the VOR frequencies that would guide them to Chicago as straight as a samurai’s arrow.

At six thousand feet they broke through the cloud cover into a sky that was as spectacular as any sunset Percey had ever seen. Not really an outdoor person, she never grew tired of the sight of beautiful skies. Percey allowed herself a single sentimental thought – that it would have been a very good thing if Ed’s last sight had been as beautiful as this.

At twenty-one thousand feet she said, “Your aircraft.”

Brad responded, “Got it.”

“Coffee?”

“Love some.”

She stepped into the back of the plane, poured three cups, took one to Brad, and then sat down next to Roland Bell, who took the cup in shaking hands.

“How you doing?” she asked.

“It’s not like I get airsick. It’s just I get” – his face folded – “well, nervous as a…” There were probably a thousand good Tarheel similes to choose from, but for once his southern talk failed him. “Just nervous,” he concluded.

“Take a look,” she said, pointing out the cockpit window.

He eased forward in the seat and looked out the windshield. She watched his craggy face blossom in surprise as they stared into the maw of the sunset.

Bell whistled. “Well, now. Lookit that… Say, that was a real rush, takeoff.”

“She’s a sweet bird. You ever hear of Brooke Knapp?”

“Don’t believe so.”

“Businesswoman in California. Set an around-the-world speed record in a Lear thirty-five A – what we’re in right now. Took her a hair over fifty hours. I’m going to break that someday.”

“I don’t doubt you are.” Calmer now. Eyes on the controls. “Looks awful complicated.”