The Coffin Dancer

than any other of his aids, made him feel differently about himself. For years he’d been resigned to never leading a life that approached normal. Yet with this machine and software he did feel normal.
    He rolled his head in a circle and let it ease back into the pillow.
    Waiting. Trying not to think of the debacle with Sachs last night.
    Motion nearby. The falcon strutted into view. Rhyme saw a flash of white breast, then the bird turned his blue-gray back to Rhyme and looked out over Central Park. It was the male. The tiercel, he remembered Percey Clay telling him. Smaller and less ruthless than the female. He remembered somethingelse about peregrines. They’d come back from the dead. Not too many years ago the entire population in eastern North America grew sterile from chemical pesticides and the birds nearly became extinct. Only through captive breeding efforts and control of pesticides had the creatures thrived.
    Back from the dead . . .
    The radio clattered. It was Amelia Sachs calling in. She sounded tense as she told him that everything was set up at the safe house.
    “We’re all on the top floor with Jodie,” she said. “Wait . . . Here’s the truck.”
    An armored 4 × 4 with mirrored windows, filled with four officers from the tactical team, was being used as the bait. It would be followed by a single unmarked van, containing—apparently—two plumbing supply contractors. In fact they were 32-E troopers in street clothes. In the back of the van were four others.
    “The decoys’re downstairs. Okay . . . okay.”
    They were using two officers from Haumann’s unit for decoys.
    Sachs said, “Here they go.”
    Rhyme was pretty sure that given the Dancer’s new plans, he wouldn’t try a sniper shot from the street. Still, he found himself holding his breath.
    “On the run . . . ”
    A click as the radio went dead.
    Another click. Static. Sellitto broadcast, “They made it. Looks good. Starting to drive. The tail cars’re ready.”
    “All right,” Rhyme said. “Jodie’s there?”
    “Right here. In the safe house with us.”
    “Tell him to make the call.”
    “Okay, Linc. Here we go.”
    The radio clicked off.
    Waiting.
    To see if this time the Dancer had faltered. To see if this time Rhyme had out-thought the cold brilliance of the man’s mind.
    Waiting.

    Stephen’s cell phone brayed. He flipped it open.
    “’Lo.”
    “Hi. It’s me. It’s—”
    “I know,” Stephen said. “Don’t use names.”
    “Right, sure.” Jodie sounded nervous as a cornered ’coon. A pause, then the little man said, “Well, I’m here.”
    “Good. You got that Negro to help you?”
    “Uhm, yeah. He’s here.”
    “And where are you? Exactly?”
    “Across the street from that town house. Man, there’re a lot of cops. But nobody’s paying any attention to me. There’s a van just pulled up a minute ago. One of those four-by-fours. A big one. A Yukon. It’s blue and it’s easy to spot.” In his discomfort he was rambling. “It’s really, really neat. It has mirrored windows.”
    “That means they’re bulletproof.”
    “Oh. Really. It’s neat how you know all this stuff.”
    You’re going to die, Stephen said to him silently.
    “This man and a woman just ran out of the alley with, like, ten cops. I’m sure it’s them.”
    “Not decoys?”
    “Well, they didn’t look like cops and they were looking pretty freaked out. Are you on Lexington?”
    “Yeah.”
    “In a car?” Jodie asked.
    “Of course in a car,” Stephen said. “I stole some little shit Jap thing. I’m going to follow them. Then wait till they get to some deserted area and do it.”
    “How?”
    “How what?”
    “How’re you going to do it? Like a grenade or a machine gun?”
    Stephen thought, Wouldn’t you like to know?
    He said, “I’m not sure. It depends.”
    “You see ’em?” Jodie asked, sounding uncomfortable.
    “I see them,” Stephen said. “I’m behind them. I’m pulling into traffic now.”
    “A Jap car, huh?” Jodie said. “Like a Toyota or something?”
    Why, you little asshole traitor, Stephen thought bitterly, stung deeply by the betrayal even though he’d known it was probably inevitable.
    Stephen was in fact watching the Yukon and backup vans speed past him. He wasn’t, however, in any Japanese car, shitty or otherwise. He wasn’t in any car at all. Wearing the fireman’s uniform he’d just stolen, he was standing on the street corner exactly one hundred feet from the