The Coffin Dancer

sink rate of twenty-three . . . They could cover a little over eighty miles before they touched down. Maybe more if the headwinds were kind.
    Brad, with the help of a calculator and fast fingers, came up with the same conclusion. “Be close, though.”
    God don’t give out certain.
    She said, “Chicago Center. Lear Foxtrot Bravo requesting immediate clearance to five five thousand feet.”
    Sometimes you play the odds.
    “Uh, say again, Foxtrot Bravo.”
    “We need to go high. Five five thousand feet.”
    The ATC controller’s voice intruded: “ Foxtrot Bravo , you’re a Lear three five, is that correct?”
    “Roger.”
    “Maximum operating ceiling is forty-five thousand feet.”
    “That’s affirmative, but we need to go higher.”
    “Your seals’ve been checked lately?”
    Pressure seals. Doors and windows. What kept the aircraft from exploding.
    “They’re fine,” she said, neglecting to mention that Foxtrot Bravo had been shot full of holes and jerry-rigged back together just that afternoon.
    ATC answered, “Roger, you’re cleared to five five thousand feet, Foxtrot Bravo.”
    And Percey said something that few, if any, Lear pilots had ever said, “Roger, out of ten for fifty-five thousand.”
    Percey commanded, “Power to eighty-eight percent. Call out rate of climb and altitude at forty, fifty, and fifty-five thousand.”
    “Roger,” Brad said placidly.
    She rotated the plane and it began to rise.
    They sailed upward.
    All the stars of evening . . .
    Ten minutes later Brad called out, “Five five thousand.”
    They leveled off. It seemed to Percey that she could actually hear the groaning of the aircraft’s seams. She recalled her high-altitude physiology. Ifthe window Ron had replaced were to blow out or any pressure seal burst—if it didn’t tear the aircraft apart—hypoxia would knock them out in about five seconds. Even if they were wearing masks, the pressure difference would make their blood boil.
    “Go to oxygen. Increase cabin pressure to ten thousand feet.”
    “Pressure to ten thousand,” he said. This at least would relieve some of the terrible pressure on the fragile hull.
    “Good idea,” Brad said. “How’d you think of that?”
    Monkey skills . . .
    “Dunno,” she responded. “Let’s cut power in number two. Throttle closed, autothrottle disengaged.”
    “Closed, disengaged,” Brad echoed.
    “Fuel pumps off, ignition off.”
    “Pumps off, ignition off.”
    She felt the slight swerve as their left side thrust vanished. Percey compensated for the yaw with a slight adjustment to the rudder trim tabs. It didn’t take much. Because the jets were mounted on the rear of the fuselage and not on the wings, losing one power plant didn’t affect the stability of the aircraft much.
    Brad asked, “What do we do now?”
    “I’m having a cup of coffee,” Percey said, climbing out of her seat like a tomboy jumping from a tree house. “Hey, Roland, how d’you like yours again?”

    For a torturous forty minutes there was silence in Rhyme’s room. No one’s phone rang. No faxes came in. No computer voices reported, “You’ve got mail.”
    Then, at last, Dellray’s phone brayed. He nodded as he spoke, but Rhyme could see the news wasn’t good. He clicked the phone off.
    “Cumberland?”
    Dellray nodded. “But it’s a bust. Kall hasn’t been there for years. Oh, the locals’re still talking about the time the boy tied his stepdaddy up ’n’ let the worms get him. Sorta a legend. But no family left in the area. And nobody knows nuthin’. Or’s willing to say.”
    It was then that Sellitto’s phone chirped. The detective unfolded it and said, “Yeah?”
    A lead, Rhyme prayed, please let it be a lead. He looked at the cop’s doughy, stoic face. He flipped the phone closed.
    “That was Roland Bell,” he said. “He just wanted us to know. They’re outa gas.”

 . . . Chapter Thirty-four
    Hour 38 of 45
    T hree different warning buzzers went off simultaneously.
    Low fuel, low oil pressure, low engine temperature.
    Percey tried adjusting the attitude of the aircraft slightly to see if she could trick some fuel into the lines, but the tanks were bone dry.
    With a faint clatter, number one engine quit coughing and went silent.
    And the cockpit went completely dark. Black as a closet.
    Oh, no . . .
    She couldn’t see a single instrument, a single control lever or knob. The only thing that kept her from slipping into blind-flight vertigo was