The Coffin Dancer

There were the approach strobes right in front of her – guiding them forward…

Down, down, down…

Just as they hurtled toward the scaffolding of the lights, Percey shouted, “My aircraft!”

Brad released the yoke.

Percey straightened from the sideslip and brought the nose up. The plane flared beautifully and grabbed air, halting the precipitous descent right over the numbers at the end of the runway.

Grabbed air so well, in fact, that it wouldn’t land.

In the thicker air of the relatively lower atmosphere the speeding plane – lighter without fuel – refused to touch down.

She glimpsed the yellow-green of the emergency vehicles scattered along the side of the runway.

A thousand feet past the numbers, still thirty feet above the concrete.

Then two thousand feet past. Then three thousand.

Hell, fly her into the ground.

Percey eased the stick forward. The plane dipped dramatically and Percey yanked all the way back on the yoke. The silver bird shuddered then settled gently on the concrete. It was the smoothest landing she’d ever made.

“Full brakes!”

She and Brad jammed their feet down on the rudder pedals and they heard the squealing of the pads, the fierce vibrations. Smoke filled the cabin.

They’d used well over half the runway already and were still speeding at a hundred miles an hour.

Grass, she thought, I’ll veer into if I have to. Wreck the undercarriage but I’ll still save the cargo…

Seventy, sixty…

“Fire light, right wheel,” Brad called. Then: “Fire light, nosewheel.”

Fuck it, she thought, and pressed down on the brakes with all her weight.

The Lear began to skid and shudder. She compensated with the nosewheel. More smoke filling the cabin.

Sixty miles per hour, fifty, forty…

“The door,” she called to Bell.

In an instant the detective was up, pushing the door outward; it became a staircase.

The fire trucks were converging on the aircraft.

With a wild groan of the smoking brakes, Lear N695FB skidded to a stop ten feet from the end of the runway.

The first voice to fill the cabin was Bell’s. “Okay, Percey, out! Move.”

“I have to -”

“I’m taking over now!” the detective shouted. “I have to drag you outta here, I’ll do it. Now move!”

Bell hustled her and Brad out the door, then leapt to the concrete himself, led them away from the aircraft. He called to the rescue workers, who’d started shooting foam at the wheel wells, “There’s a bomb on board, could go any minute. In the engine. Don’t get close.” One of his guns was in his hand and he surveyed the crowd of rescue workers circling the plane. At one time Percey would have thought he was being paranoid. No longer.

They paused about a hundred feet from the plane. The Denver Police Bomb Squad truck pulled up. Bell waved it over.

A lanky cowboy of a cop got out of the truck and walked up to Bell. They flashed IDs at each other and Bell explained about the bomb, where they thought it was.

“So,” the Denver cop said, “you’re not sure it’s on board.”

“Nope. Not a hundred percent.”

Though as Percey happened to glance at Foxtrot Bravo – her beautiful silver skin flecked with foam and glistening under the fierce spotlights – there was a deafening bang. Everyone except Bell and Percey hit the ground fast as the rear half of the aircraft disintegrated in a huge flash of orange flame, strewing bits of metal into the air.

“Oh,” Percey gasped, her hand rising to her mouth.

There was no fuel left in the tanks, of course, but the interior of the aircraft – the seats, the wiring, the carpet, the plastic fittings, and the precious cargo-burned furiously as the fire trucks waited a prudent moment then streamed forward, pointlessly shooting more snowy foam on the ruined metallic corpse.

V . Danse Macabre

I looked up to see a dot dropping, becoming an inverted heart, a diving bird. The wind screamed through her bells, making a sound like nothing else on earth as she fell a half mile through the clear autumn air. At the last moment she turned parallel to the chukar’s line of flight and hit it from behind with the solid “thwack” of a large-caliber bullet striking flesh.

A Rage for Falcons,

Stephen Bodio

chapter thirty-five

Hour 42 of 45

IT WAS AFTER 3 A.M., RHYME NOTED. Percey Clay was flying back to the East Coast on an FBI jet and in just a few hours she’d be on her way to the courthouse to get ready for her grand jury appearance.

And Rhyme still had no idea where the Coffin Dancer was, what he was pla

Sellitto’s phone brayed. He listened. His face screwed up. “Jesus. The Dancer just got somebody else. They found another body – ID-proofed – in a tu

“Completely ID-proofed?”

“Did it up right, sounds like. Removed the hands, teeth, jaw, and clothes. White male. Youngish. Late twenties, early thirties.” The detective listened again. “Not a bum,” he reported. “He’s clean, in good shape. Athletic. Hauma

“Okay,” Rhyme said. “Bring him here. I want to go over it myself.”

“The body?”

“Right.”

“Well, okay.”

“So the Dancer’s got a new identity,” Rhyme mused angrily. “What the hell is it? How’s he going to come at us next?”

Rhyme sighed, looked out the window. He said to Dellray, “What safe house’re you going to put them in?”

“I been thinking ’bout that,” the lanky agent said. “Seems to me -”

“Ours,” a new voice said.

They looked at the heavyset man in the doorway.

“Our safe house,” Reggie Eliopolos said. “We’re taking custody.”

“Not unless you’ve got -” Rhyme began.

The prosecutor waved the paper too fast for Rhyme to read it but they all knew the protective custody order would be legit.

“That’s not a good idea,” Rhyme said.

“It’s better than your idea of trying to get our last witness killed any way you can.”

Sachs stepped forward, angrily, but Rhyme shook his head.

“Believe me,” Rhyme said, “the Dancer’ll figure out that you’re going to take them into custody. He’s probably already figured it out. In fact,” he added ominously, “he may be banking on it.”

“He’d have to be a mind reader.”

Rhyme tipped his head. “You’re catching on.”

Eliopolos snickered. He looked around the room, spotted Jodie. “You’re Joseph D’Oforio?”

The little man stared back. “I – yes.”

“You’re coming too.”

“Hey, hold on a minute, they said I’d get my money and I could -”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with rewards. If you’re entitled to it you’ll get it. We’re just going to make sure you’re safe until the grand jury.”

“Grand jury! Nobody said anything about testifying!”

“Well,” Eliopolos said, “you’re a material witness.” A nod toward Rhyme. “He may have been intent on murdering some hit man. We’re making a case against the man who hired him. Which is what most law enforcers do.”

“I’m not going to testify.”

“Then you’re going to do time for contempt. In general population. And I’ll bet you know how safe you’ll be there.”

The little man tried to be angry but was just too scared. His face shriveled. “Oh, Jesus.”

“You’re not going to have enough protection,” Rhyme said to Eliopolos. “We know him. Let us protect them.”

“Oh, and Rhyme?” Eliopolos turned to him. “Because of the incident with the plane, I’m charging you with interference with a criminal investigation.”

“The fuck you are,” Sellitto said.

“The fuck I am,” the round man snapped back. “He could’ve ruined the case, letting her make that flight. I’m having the warrant served Monday. And I’m going to supervise the prosecution myself. He -”