The Coffin Dancer

under cover of night, through sewers and basements and over rooftops, in full urban camouflage; Rhyme was convinced that the Dancer was surveilling his target.
    “He won’t be sleeping tonight,” Rhyme had said.
    “You sure he’s going in this way, Linc?” Sellitto’d asked uncertainly.
    Sure? he thought testily. Who can be sure about anything with the Coffin Dancer?
    His deadliest weapon is deception . . .
    Rhyme said wryly, “Ninety-two point seven percent sure.”
    Sellitto snorted a sour laugh.
    It was then that the doorbell rang. A moment later a stocky, middle-aged man Rhyme didn’t recognize appeared in the doorway of the living room.
    The sigh from Dellray suggested trouble brewing. Sellitto knew the man too, it seemed, and nodded cautiously.
    He identified himself as Reginald Eliopolos, assistantU.S. attorney in the Southern District. Rhyme recalled he was the prosecutor handling the Phillip Hansen case.
    “You’re Lincoln Rhyme? Hear good things about you. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” He started forward, automatically offering his hand. Then he realized that the extended arm was wasted on Rhyme, so he simply pointed it toward Dellray, who shook it reluctantly. Eliopolos’s cheerful “Fred, good to see you” meant just the opposite and Rhyme wondered what was the source of the cold fusion between them.
    The attorney ignored Sellitto and Mel Cooper. Thom instinctively sensed what was what and didn’t offer the visitor coffee.
    “Uh-huh, uh-huh. Hear you’ve got quite an operation together. Not checking too much with the boys upstairs, but, hell, I know all about improvising. Sometimes you just can’t spend time waiting for signatures in triplicate.” Eliopolos walked up to a compound ’scope, peered through the eyepiece. “Uh-huh,” he said, though what he might be seeing was a mystery to Rhyme since the stage light was off.
    “Maybe—” Rhyme began.
    “The chase? Cut to the chase?” Eliopolos swung around. “Sure. Here it is. There’s an armored van at the Federal Building downtown. I want the witnesses in the Hansen case in it within the hour. Percey Clay and Brit Hale. They’ll be taken to the Shoreham federal protective reserve, on Long Island. They’ll be kept there until their grand jury testimony late on Monday. Period. End of chase. How’s that?”
    “You think that’s a wise idea?”
    “Uh-huh, we do. We think it’s wiser than using them as bait for some kind of personal vendetta by the NYPD.”
    Sellitto sighed.
    Dellray said, “Open your eyes little bit here, Reggie. You’re not exactly out of the loop. Do I see a joint operation? Do I see a task-forced operation?”
    “And a good thing too,” Eliopolos said absently. His full attention was on Rhyme. “Tell me, did you really think that nobody downtown would remember that this was the perp killed your techs five years ago?”
    Well, uh-huh , Rhyme had hoped that nobody would remember. And now that somebody had, he and the team were swimming in the soup pot.
    “But, hey, hey,” the attorney said with jolly cheer, “I don’t want a turf war. Do I want that? Why would I want that? What I want is Phillip Hansen. What everybody wants is Hansen. Remember? He’s the big fish.”
    As a matter of fact Rhyme had largely forgotten about Phillip Hansen and now that he’d been reminded he understood exactly what Eliopolos was doing. And the insight troubled him a great deal.
    Rhyme snuck around Eliopolos like a coyote. “You’ve got yourself some good agents out there, do you,” he asked innocently, “who’ll protect the witnesses?”
    “At Shoreham?” the attorney responded uncertainly. “Well, you bet we do. Uh-huh.”
    “You’ve briefed them about security? About how dangerous the Dancer is?” Innocent as a babe.
    A pause. “I’ve briefed them.”
    “And what exactly are their orders?”
    “Orders?” Eliopolos asked lamely. He wasn’t a stupid man. He knew that he’d been caught.
    Rhyme laughed. He glanced at Sellitto and Dellray. “See, our U.S. attorney friend here has three witnesses he hopes can nail Hansen.”
    “Three?”
    “Percey, Hale . . . and the Dancer himself,” Rhyme scoffed. “He wants to capture him so he’ll turn evidence.” He looked at Eliopolos. “So you’re using Percey as bait too.”
    “Only,” Dellray chuckled, “he’s putting her in a Havaheart trap. Got it, got it.”
    “You’re thinking,” Rhyme said, “that your case against Hansen’s not so good,