Jeffery Deaver - The Coffin Dancer

The belabored aide appeared at the door a moment later. “In the laundry room, that’s where.”

“Forget laundry. We need a time chart. Write, write…”

“Write what , Lincoln?”

“On that chalkboard, right there. The big one.” Rhyme looked at Sellitto. “When’s the grand jury convening?”

“Nine on Monday.”

“The prosecutor’ll want them there a couple hours early – the van’ll pick ’em up between six and seven.” He looked at the wall clock. It was now 10a.m. Saturday.

“We’ve got exactly forty-five hours. Thom, write, ‘Hour one of forty-five.’ ”

The aide hesitated.

“Write!”

He did.

Rhyme glanced at the others in the room. He saw their eyes flickering uncertainly among them, a skeptical frown on Sachs’s face. Her hand rose to her scalp and she scratched absently.

“Think I’m being melodramatic?” he asked finally. “Think we don’t need a reminder?”

No one spoke for a moment. Finally Sellitto said, “Well, Linc, I mean, it’s not like anything’s going to happen by then.”

“Oh, yes, something’s going to happen,” Rhyme said, eyes on the male falcon as the muscular bird launched himself effortlessly into the air over Central Park. “By seven o’clock on Monday morning, either we’ll’ve nailed the Dancer or both our witnesses’ll be dead. There’re no other options.”

The dense silence was broken by the chirp of Banks’s cell phone. He listened for a minute, then looked up. “Here’s something,” he said.

“What?” Rhyme asked.

“Those uniforms guarding Mrs. Clay and the other witness? Britton Hale?”

“What about them?”

“They’re at her town house. One of ‘em just called in. Seems Mrs. Clay says there was a black van she’d never seen before parked on the block outside the house for the last couple days. Out-of-state plates.”

“She get the tag? Or state?”

“No,” Banks responded. “She said it was gone for a while last night after her husband left for the airport.”

Sellitto stared at him.

Rhyme’s head eased forward. “And?”

“She said it was back this morning for a little while. It’s gone now. She was -”

“Oh, Jesus,” Rhyme whispered.

“What?” Banks asked.

“Central!” the criminalist shouted. “Get on the horn to Central. Now!”

Ataxi pulled up in front of the Wife’s town house.

An elderly woman got out and walked unsteadily to the door.

Stephen watching, vigilant.

Soldier, is this an easy shot?

Sir, a shooter never thinks of a shot as easy. Every shot requires maximum concentration and effort. But, sir, I can make this shot and inflict lethal wounds, sir. I can turn my targets into jelly, sir.

The woman climbed up the stairs and disappeared into the lobby. A moment later Stephen saw her appear in the Wife’s living room. There was a flash of white cloth – the Wife’s blouse again. The two of them hugged. Another figure stepped into the room. A man. A cop? He turned around. No, it was the Friend.

Both targets, Stephen thought excitedly, only thirty yards away.

The older woman – mother or mother-in-law – remained in front of the Wife as they talked, heads down.

Stephen’s beloved Model 40 was in the van. But he wouldn’t need the sniper rifle for this shot, only the long-barrel Beretta. It was a wonderful gun. Old, battered, and functional. Unlike many mercenaries and pros, Stephen didn’t make a fetish out of his weapons. If a rock was the best way to kill a particular victim, he’d use a rock.

He assessed his target, measuring angles of incidence, the window’s potential distortion and deflection. The old woman stepped away from the Wife and stood directly in front of the glass.

Soldier, what is your strategy?

He’d shoot through the window and hit the elderly woman high. She’d fall. The Wife would instinctively step forward toward her and bend over her, presenting a fair target. The Friend would run into the room too and would profile just fine.

And what about the cops?

A slight risk. But uniformed patrolmen were modest shots at best and had probably never been fired on in the line of duty. They’d be sure to panic.

The lobby was still empty.

Stephen pulled back the slide to cock the weapon and give himself the better control of squeezing the trigger in the gun’s single-action mode. He pushed the door open and blocked it with his foot, looked up and down the street.

No one.

Breathe, soldier. Breathe, breathe, breathe…

He lowered the gun to his palm, the butt resting heavy in his gloved hand. He began applying imperceptible pressure to the trigger.

Breathe, breathe.

He stared at the old woman, and forgot completely about squeezing, forgot about aiming, forgot about the money he was making, forgot everything in the universe. He simply held the gun steady as a rock in his supple, relaxed hands and waited for the weapon to fire itself.

Hour 1 of 45

THE ELDERLY WOMAN WIPING TEARS, the Wife standing behind her, arms crossed.

They were dead, they were -

Soldier!

Stephen froze. Relaxed his trigger finger.

Lights!

Flashing lights, silently zooming along the street. The turret lights on a police cruiser. Then two more cars, then a dozen, and an Emergency Services van bounding over the potholes. Converging on the Wife’s town house from both ends of the street.

Safety your weapon, Soldier.

Stephen lowered the gun, stepped back into the dim lobby.

Police ran from the cars like spilt water. They spread out along the sidewalk, gazing outward and up at the rooftops. They flung open the doors to the Wife’s town house, shattering the glass and pushing inside.

The five ESU officers, in full tactical gear, deployed along the curb, covering exactly the spots that ought to be covered, eyes vigilant, fingers curled loosely on the black triggers of their black guns. Patrol officers might be glorified traffic cops but there were no better soldiers than New York ’s ESU. The Wife and the Friend had disappeared, probably flung to the floor. The old lady too.

More cars, filling the street and pulling up onto the sidewalks.

Stephen Kall, feeling cringey. Wormy. Sweat dotted his palms and he flexed his fist so the glove would soak it up.

Evacuate, Soldier…

With a screwdriver he pried open the lock to the main door and pushed inside, walking fast but not running, head down, making for the service entrance that led to the alley. No one saw him and he slipped outside. Was soon on Lexington Avenue, walking south through the crowds toward the underground garage where he’d parked the van.

Looking ahead.

Sir, trouble here, sir.

More cops.

They’d closed down Lexington Avenue about three blocks south and were setting up a perimeter around the town house, stopping cars, looking over pedestrians, moving door to door, shining their long flashlights into parked cars. Stephen saw two cops, hands twitching on the butts of their Glocks, ask one man to step out of his car while they searched under a pile of blankets in the backseat. What troubled Stephen was that the man was white and about Stephen’s age.

The building where he’d parked the van was within the search perimeter. He couldn’t drive out without being stopped. The line of cops moved closer. He walked back to the garage and pulled open the van door. Quickly he changed clothes – ditching the contractor outfit and dressing in blue jeans, work shoes (no telltale tread marks), a black T-shirt, a dark green windbreaker (no lettering of any kind), and a baseball cap (free of team insignia). The backpack contained his laptop, several cellular phones, his small-arms weapons, and ammunition from the van. He got more bullets, his binoculars, the night vision ’scope, tools, several packages of explosives, and various detonators. Stephen put the supplies in the large backpack.