The Coffin Dancer

company. That’s me.”
    “What do you mean, narrow margin?”
    “Everything’s planned out to the nth degree. We’re going with minimum fuel. I can’t have a pilot wasting time making go-arounds because he’s blown the approach or declaring alternates because of minimum conditions.” She’d paused, then added, “I am not letting my company go down the tubes.”
    Percey’d said this with an intensity that matched his, but she’d been surprised when he nodded. “All right,” Rhyme had said. “I’ll agree.”
    “Then we have a deal.” She’d instinctively reached forward to shake his hand but caught herself.
    He’d laughed. “I stick to solely verbal agreements these days.” They’d sipped the scotch to seal the bargain.
    Now, six-thirty on Saturday morning, she rested her head against the glass of the safe house. There was so much to do. Getting Foxtrot Bravo repaired. Preparing the nav log and the flight plan—which alone would take hours. But still, despite her uneasiness, despite her sorrow about Ed, she felt that indescribable sense of pleasure; she’d be flying tonight.
    “Hey,” a friendly voice drawled.
    She turned to see Roland Bell in the doorway.
    “Morning,” she said.
    He walked forward quickly. “You have those curtains open you better be keepin’ low as a bedbaby.” He tugged the drapes shut.
    “Oh. I heard Detective Rhyme was springing some trap. Guaranteed to catch him.”
    “Well, word is Lincoln Rhyme is all the time right. But I wouldn’t trust this particular killer behind a dime. You sleep decent?”
    “No,” she said. “You?”
    “I dozed a couple hours back,” Bell said, peering with sharp eyes out through the curtain. “But I don’t need much sleep. Wake up full of git most days. Havin’ youngsters does that to you. Now, just you keep that curtain closed. Remember, this is NewYork City, and think what’d happen to my career if you got yourself winged by some gangsta shootin’ stray bullets in the air. I’d have the dry grins for a week, that happened. Now how about some coffee?”

    Here were a dozen punchy clouds reflected in the windows of the old town house early this Sunday morning.
    Here was a hint of rain.
    Here was the Wife standing in a bathrobe at the window, her white face surrounded by dark curly hair mussed from just waking.
    And here was Stephen Kall, one block away from the Justice Department’s safe house on Thirty-fifth Street, blending into the shadows beneath a water tower on the top of an old apartment building, watching her through his Leica binoculars, the reflection of the clouds swimming across her thin body.
    He knew that the glass would be bulletproof and would certainly deflect the first shot. He could place another round within four seconds, but she’d stumble backward in reaction to the shattering glass even if she didn’t realize she was being fired at. The odds were he couldn’t inflict a mortal wound.
    Sir, I will stick to my original plan, sir.
    A man appeared beside her and the curtain fell back. Then his face peered through the crack, eyes scanning the rooftops where a sniper would logically be positioned. He looked efficient and dangerous. Stephen memorized his appearance.
    Then he ducked behind the facade of the building before he was seen.
    The police trick—he guessed it was Lincoln the Worm’s idea—about moving the Wife and the Friend into the police precinct building on the West Side hadn’t fooled him for more than ten minutes. After listening to the Wife and Ron over the tapped line, he’d simply run a renegade software program—a remote star-69—he’d downloaded from the warez newsgroup on the Internet. It returned a 212 phone number. Manhattan.
    What he’d done next was a long shot.
    But how are victories won, Soldier?
    By considering every possibility, however improbable, sir.
    He’d logged on to the Net and a moment later had typed the phone number into a reverse phone book, which gave you the address and name of the subscriber. It didn’t work with unlisted numbers and Stephen was certain that no one in the federal government would be so stupid as to use a listed number for a safe house.
    He was wrong.
    The name James L. Johnson, 258 East 35th Street popped onto the screen.
    Impossible . . .
    He’d then called the Manhattan Federal Building and asked to speak to Mr. Johnson. “That’d be James Johnson.”
    “Hold please, I’ll put you through.”
    “Excuse me,” Stephen had